Shallou

Operating under the name Shallou, Joe Boston crafts warm yet melancholy electronic pop. Although his tracks typically sparkle with bright textures and midtempo beats that feel relaxed and summery, the lyrics often express profound sorrow and isolation. Souls, released in 2018, reached the Top 25 on Billboard's Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart. His major-label debut Magical Thinking arrived in 2020, after which he added more acoustic instruments to his palette on the 2021 release The Long Way Home. With In Touch in 2023 and singles such as the 2024 track "I Just Wanted to Dance," he has steered his music toward a more uptempo, house-driven sound.

Boston grew up in Maryland, studied in New Orleans, launched Shallou in 2014, and soon relocated to Chicago. His earliest recordings incorporated his vocals in fragmented, textural ways before he began writing fully lyrical material. The 2016 singles "Doubt [Summer Edit]" and tropical house cut "Heights" circulated widely online, after which Shallou—now featuring Emilio Quezada alongside Boston—toured with El Ten Eleven and Roosevelt. In 2017 he issued a cover of Radiohead's "Motion Picture Soundtrack" and the original EP All Becomes Okay. Three singles, one of them the Kasbo and Cody Lovaas collaboration "Find," preceded the April 2018 arrival of Souls, which also contained the Riah-featured single "Lie."

Two standalone tracks, "All Your Days" and "Fading," surfaced in 2019, and early the next year Shallou delivered his full-length debut Magical Thinking via Island Records. He appeared on Petit Biscuit's "I Leave Again." The introspective EP The Long Way Home, shaped by trips to seaside towns and a retreat from urban life, came out on FADER Label in late 2021 and was followed by The Long Way Home (Remixes). The Ayokay collaboration "Us" and the solo single "Save Some Room" emerged in 2022. Shallou issued his most club-oriented album, In Touch, in 2023. He returned to downtempo, R&B-tinged material with the 2024 track "iwaly," then released the piano-driven house cuts "It's You" (with Queen D) and "I Just Wanted to Dance" (with Night Tales).