NEW YORK'S AISHA BADRU RELEASES NEW SINGLE ''SPLINTERED''

It didn’t take much at all for ROUGH ONLINE to fall deeply in love with the voice of Aisha Badru, whose unique tone and effortlessly emotional singing we could listen to all day long. A cross between Beth Orton and Diana Vickers vocally, the multi-talented music artist’s vocals are quite simply haunting and yet stunningly beautiful and painfully sad on Badru’s new single “Splintered” that Rough have labelled as one of 2018’s best overall songs, which opens with a finger-picked, acoustic guitar arpeggio, reminiscent of the intro to Paddy Casey’s 1999 Folk track “Sweet Suburban Sky.” Come the second bridge, “Splintered” would have used multiple Kicks, Bongos and Toms along with a muted, reverb-effected rhythm guitar, reminiscent of Jeff Buckley’s 90’s Alt-Rock sound, to build-up to its’ final chorus which, if you by this point are not in floods of tears you have not being paying attention to the raw talent, and soft and timid vocal performance of New York’s biggest sensation in years. Even when listening to her Gaelic-influenced technique on lyrics like “we are splintered and we are rotten” you will undoubtedly be teary-eyed, while the music itself takes you on an emotive journey.

“Splintered” is easily comparable to current singers such as Birdy, when she switches form her notable piano playing to an acoustic guitar, Folk sound, and if there’s any justice in the world, a Grammy Award will be heading directly into the hands of Aisha Badru for releasing a masterfully accomplished piece of art, specifically for her singing and song writing skills, that are arguably of a very high standard, evidenced via some of her deep, storytelling yet true-to-life words like “we’re so afraid to be alone, so we hoard our pain and call it home.” Trust ROUGH ONLINE when we say that Badru’s musical gift cannot be ignored and will instantly throw you back to early Heather Nova, specifically the song “Higher Ground” from 1994’s “Oyster” album, and for all the right reasons. Badru deserves a standing ovation for “Splintered,” which is from her new album “Pendulum” available now on download and streaming from all online stores.