Free Agents is a new feature series where we shine the spotlight on an up-and-coming act who’s yet to have a proper release – at least, not one that we’re aware of, and yes, we know that the phrase “proper release” is a bit of a cloudy one these days – but that we think is onto something special regardless. 

Artist: Micron Diamond
Origin: Northampton, Massachusetts
Style: Electronic / Hip-hop

If Swedish outsider Yung Lean represents the Sad Boys, it makes sense that somewhere there’s got to be a group of equally cloudy Sad Girls somewhere, right? Well it looks like Northampton-based beatmaker Micron Diamond (who FACT featured in our weekly mixtape round-up recently) has a trademark on that already if her April full-length Everything Didn’t Work and Nothing was Good (Part 1) is to be believed. Certainly the tracks themselves offer up pretty hard evidence, and with titles like ‘Sad Girlfriend’, ‘No Feelings’ and ‘Nothing Left’, you get the feeling she really means it.

It’s not all doom and gloom though, Laura Couture’s beats have a smart, airy ambience that prevents the wistful synth sweeps and dusty vocal snippets from diving too far into the tear-drenched mire. Like similarly-themed producer suicideyear, Couture is able to masterfully move past her obvious influences (Clams Casino, Friendzone et al) and blend together styles with a well practiced sleight of hand. Bass heavy club monster ‘Anti Party’ ends up sounding like Actress if he’d grown up in the Bay Area listening to E-40, and her rework of Drake’s ubiquitous ‘No New Friends’ wrenches the Canadian sadsack’s original from down in the dumps into a Baltimore club back room with surprising ease.

With a slew of productions for a number of upcoming blog-rap hopefuls and a sideline in heavy duty mixes, make sure you check Couture’s regularly updated Soundcloud stream for more goodies, and head over to her Bandcamp page to take a listen to her trio of albums.