{"id":12352,"date":"2012-11-22T17:04:06","date_gmt":"2012-11-22T17:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/?p=12352"},"modified":"2012-11-22T17:07:25","modified_gmt":"2012-11-22T17:07:25","slug":"miguel-dream-lover-interview-kaleidoscope-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/2012\/11\/22\/miguel-dream-lover-interview-kaleidoscope-album\/","title":{"rendered":"MIGUEL: Dream Lover"},"content":{"rendered":"

Haunting, sparse and soulful, the sounds of Californian crooner Miguel<\/a> are giving contemporary R&B the kick in the backside it’s been waiting for. Read about the making of his new record Kaleidoscope Dream in our magazine feature.<\/p>\n

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\"Miguel<\/a><\/p>\n

When Miguel<\/a> opened for Usher at his recent London show, it was by no means incidental. The R&B legend is the young gun\u2019s mentor, the two of them brought together by music exec \u2013 and one-time Notorious BIG manager \u2013 Mark Pitts. <\/p>\n

\u201cMark was very keen that we become as close creatively as possible,\u201d says Miguel in his LA drawl. \u201cHe wanted to put me in with Usher so he could show me the ropes and give me advice. I was a nobody kid. Usher just trusted Mark, plus he\u2019d already heard some of my music and was a fan.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Miguel ended up co-writing three songs on Usher\u2019s 2010 album Raymond Vs Raymond and supported him on the US-wide OMG tour. Miguel\u2019s contributions to the album were far removed from the will.i.am-produced anthem that gave the tour its name: OMG might have been the danced-up, dumbed-down hit that sold the albums, but it was tracks like the spacey, sexual opener Monstar, the sparse, slo-mo Mars Vs. Venus and the Cali-funk Pro Lover that made it so good when you got it. <\/p>\n

Miguel\u2019s earlier solo 2010 album All I Want Is You was chock-full of the same such eargasmic R&B. Sure Thing had an old-school fuzz and feel, a haunting choral harmony ran through Girl With The Tattoo, Quickie was a cocky call for a swift shag over clashing instrumentals and Hard Way was a hip hop beat softened by the swoon of his voice. It went criminally unnoticed in the UK, but hopefully his new work, Kaleidoscope Dream<\/a>, will make a bigger dent in a 2012 climate where Frank Ocean\u2019s obscuro-R&B has thrived. <\/p>\n