Euphoria (Labrinth) – Soundtrack 2LP (Color Vinyl) Online now

Labrinth has had a busy couple of years, scoring his first TV series with HBO s Euphoria, releasing an album with his new supertrio, LSD (with Sia and Diplo), and co-writing the Beyoncé song Spirit as part of Disney s recent Lion King movie. This wide array of projects is nothing new for the London-based singer-songwriter-producer, whose music spans electronic, hip-hop, R&B, gospel, and jungle, among other sounds. Labrinth attributes this genre-mashing to the influence of his childhood home – an unofficial music school, as he puts it, where his eight siblings each came in listening to a giant grab bag of artists. I m this 12-year-old kid being a sponge to all of these energies, he says. It s like a bag of Skittles when I m creating music.

His style got the attention of Sam Levinson, creator of Euphoria – which paved the way for Labrinth s opportunity to score the show. His soundtrack, due out in album form this Friday, hums with soft electricity, perfectly complementing the journey of the main character, Rue, a teenager caught in limbo between the euphoria of a drug high and the harsh consequences of addiction. When you look back to your teenage days, he says, it feels semi-magical but semi-crazy and semi-psychotic. I wanted to make sure the music felt like those things.