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Last night, I was listening to some of Anthony Hamilton’s earlier work and contemplating the state of contemporary R&B. It feels like R&B is back, but when can you really tell? It’s been slowly resuscitated over the past couple of years and it finally feels fresh and new again. I mean, D’Angelo’s back and R. Kelly’s “Trapped In The Closet” is returning as well. The Weeknd and Frank Ocean have managed to attract the Pitchforkians, hip hop heads and traditional R&B fans in surprising fashion. Jacques Greene, Shlohmo and more have taken to sampling and remixing R&B tracks to make seductive, syruppy dance music for the masses. Is this new though? The truth is that D’Angelo and R. Kelly probably won’t be able to recreate their former extraterrestrial sex god personas. The Weeknd and Frank Ocean, despite their cultish fan bases, will probably never sell all that many records. As much as I adore Jacques Greene and Shlohmo, Burial’s been sampling R&B joints with aplomb for years, so they’re not exactly setting any trends. So where does this leave us?

While I failed to come to any definite conclusions, I realized that the signifiers that R&B is “back” probably won’t come from revitalized, or (overly) hyped acts, and certainly not from the dance music scene. Instead, they will shine through in young artists struggling to be the next D’Angelo. When skinny white kids from the UK are making some of the best R&B around, that means something. When Canada of all places becomes an R&B hotbed, that means something.

This brings us to why I wrote this post: TALWST. You might be thinking: “god dammit Gabe, not another mediocre artist who spells their name in all caps and few vowels.” Well, I’m sorry, this is too good to pass up. Not much is known about TALWST. He’s from Canada. He used to go by the name Curtis Santiago. He’s worked with Illangelo, producer of much of The Weeknd’s more recent work. His upcoming album is titled Alien Sex Tentacles. Last night, RCRD LBL threw up “Peace Tonight,” a track that has been floating around Soundcloud for about a month now. He’s dark, weird and likes to growl sometimes. He used to, and maybe still does, make strange art projects that he likes to post to his blog. His name and the shroud of mystery (not exactly a fresh gimmick) he’s engulfed himself in are not what make him an interesting artist. It’s purely the music and while he’s only officially released on song, “Peace Tonight” is quite the doozy. There’s plenty more TALWST floating around the web. Live videos, features and the like. I highly recommend checking them out, or at least downloading “Peace Tonight (Via RCRD LBL). Is R&B back? Who really cares when we’re consistently getting tracks likes this.