Since the arrival of his incredible debut “Not Around”, East London’s tendai has drawn us further into his shapeless world of warped instrumentation and hair-raising vocal techniques. In his latest release, “Pressure”, he pulls out his R&B palette alongside producer Blakey for a moment of romantic musing.

Synthesised vocal samples and drums cushion tendai’s poetic lyrics where he urges his lover to abandon all the games, confessing that he’s fallen deep as he wonders “If a word made you smile I wanna be the one who spoke it” on the opening verse.

For the visuals, he links up with duo Ethan & Tom who capture scenes of our protagonist lost deep in a daydream. However, his muse soon arrives and immediately snatches his attention, keeping his eyes trained on her every move.

Briefly speaking on the track, tendai says, “‘Pressure’ is me and Blake playing around with different sonics of the R&B music that we know and love, really trying to push the boundary on what textures and feeling can be felt within this kind of genre.”

When announcing the single on an Instagram post, he also described it as “the last stop on this part of the journey”, which has been an electrifying ride so far. The ghostly “Infinite Straight”, the garage-tinged “Lately” and now “Pressure” have all shown us just how varied tendai’s skillset is. We can only imagine the kinds of sounds he’ll introduce to us next.