Riya & Collette Warren set to drop ‘Two Sides of Everything’ LP

Well-loved vocal starlets of the Drum & Bass scene, Riya and Collette Warren have teamed up to create the stunning vocalist lead LP, ‘Two Sides of Everything’. Both originally hailing from Birmingham the women have been friends for more than a decade, making this a powerfully personal project. This groundbreaking album is the first time two female vocalists have teamed up in the world of 170, and the release enlists some of the scene’s best-known producers from all corners of DNB’s eclectic spectrum. With tracks from seasoned veterans such as Technimatic and Mercury Prize Award Winner Roni Size and leaders of the new school like Whiney and Monrroe and the pair have ensured all musical areas of the scene are represented. Making sure to include some more female talent, the album also includes Kyrist and vocal support from SOFi MARi and the legendary Tali who was a huge formative influence on this duo growing up.

Separately, both artists have carved out significant notches within Drum & Bass, with their vocals on tracks being heard on timeless classics such as the forever beautiful ‘Kismet’ by Hybrid Minds and the haunting ‘One Exception’ with DJ Marky and Tyler Daley.

‘Two Sides of Everything’ has been selected by the PRS Foundation’s Women Make Music initiative, which aims to break down assumptions and stereotypes within the music industry and help to create role models for future generations. The PRS Foundation also wants to raise awareness of the gender gap and ensure women are aware that they are offering support. The album will be the debut release on Riya and Collette Warren’s new imprint Carnelian Music which has been set up to address the gender gap that exists in the genre as less than 5% of labels are owned by women with an aim to release more vocalist-led music on the imprint further down the line, giving more of a spotlight to vocalists which is something both artists have struggled with over the years.

“We are eternally grateful to PRS for believing in us and this project and we hope to make them, women, and of course the drum and bass genre proud.”

The album features 14 tracks, each one telling two sides of a story, encouraging us to think about other perspectives of a signal situation. In a world that can often be polarising, it’s a refreshing and much needed reminder. Just as the thought-provoking lyrical content differs from track to track so does the vibe, ‘Say No More’ featuring Ben Soundscape and fellow MC Visionobi has dark, rumbling low end, panic-stricken synths and killer jungle drum patterns, whereas the following track ‘Dance In The Shadows’ featuring BCee has gorgeous twinkling atmospherics which float around classic
think breaks.

“The idea for ‘Two Sides of Everything’ was born out of our many conversations about love and life and how there’s always at least two sides to every story and experience, and some would say, then there’s the truth. Because there are two of us, often with two differing opinions, it just felt perfect for us to explore this concept through the medium of song, looking at different aspects of our lives and the duality of those aspects: light & dark, good and bad, sorrow and joy etc, ultimately coming to the view that we need both to achieve balance and perspective and to appreciate the other. We try to promote the idea of balance in all of the song’s lyrics and in this way, it was a very healing and thought-provoking album for us to write and we hope that same feeling is felt by the listeners.”

We recently caught up with Riya and Collette to speak about this project, if you haven’t read that yet you can do so HERE.

Today we premiere ‘Say No More’ ft. Ben Soundscape and Visionobi which you can check out below. The ‘Two Sides of Everything’ LP drops this Friday (17th September) and is a future classic that we think everyone should have in their collections. Make sure you grab yourself a copy from the purchase button beneath the Soundcloud player!