Gallant // Skipping Stones ft. Jhené Aiko

The year doesn’t really start until February, does it? That’s been my thinking over the silence-filled previous month, anyway. And it definitely doesn’t begin until you start receiving tracks as powerful as this new one from Gallant.

Since we last checked in with him, he’s ballooned into a borderline genuine pop star and looks on the cusp of some really special things (all down to our sporadic posting of his tracks, no doubt), yet you’d hardly know it from the almost terminally chilled out ‘Skipping Stones’.

No signs of feeling the weight of expectation here; instead, Gallant is as introspective as ever, wondering about spending Valentine’s day alone over a loping, jazzy beat. His stratospheric falsetto is pretty tough to upstage, but Jhené Aiko comes close by adding silk to what is a pretty perfectly balanced duet. Heart wrenching, soulful stuff – which has by now become business as usual for our Californian cousin.