Rhye has the best post-Valentine’s Day music. It’s moody—for when you’re sad about the state of your love life but also still horny and want to be surrounded by candlelight and expensive things that look pretty. It’s the dark velvet recovery. Led by Toronto-bred, LA-based musician and lead singer Michael Milosh—whose detached and dulcet vocals are easy to fall for—their music is delicate, down-tempo R&B that’s embellished by occasional stringed instruments.
Their Tiny Desk Concert really proves my point about the candlelight thing:
I remember when Rhye came out with their first two singles, “Open” and “The Fall,” they were surrounded in mystery. There were just two videos and no pictures or background information about who was in the band at all. The title and picture of their first album, Woman, and Milosh’s contralto voice led many people to believe that Rhye was led by a female Sade-adjacent singer. Boy, were we wrong! FUNNILY ENOUGH, I was just researching that album and learned that Milosh was married to Zoey 101 star Alexa Nikolas who played Nicole in the first two seasons of the show. She’s the woman on the cover of their album, Woman. Life is weird!
rum•gold, who has a similarly smooth voice he pits over R&B beats and melodies, will open. The Brooklyn-based singer’s music is a less quietly devastating—the production is louder and kind of wonky. Still sad, still sexy. His song “Get Through” best encapsulates this vibe:
Rhye and rum•gold are playing at Neptune on Saturday night.
