"Feel It" is a 2023 single by MJ Cole featuring Piri & Tommy Villiers. Released on 20 January 2023 on 892 Recordings, the song was Piri & Tommy's first since splitting up, and received positive reception.
Background and composition
Piri met Tommy Villiers in 2020, after matching on Tinder, finding his band on Twitter, finding his Instagram account, and asking him if she could "shoot [her] shot", in that order. He produced Piri's first two singles, "It's a Match" and "Soft Spot". The latter went viral on TikTok and Spotify, prompting EMI to sign them, and re-release "Soft Spot" under the name "Piri & Tommy Villiers", along with a remix from MJ Cole. The following year, they visited Cole's studio, and recorded "Feel It". On 11 January 2023, Clash reported that McBurnie and Villiers had split up, but remained friends, would release previously recorded music, and planned to work together in the future.
On 20 January, the pair released "Feel It" with MJ Cole on 892 Recordings, Cole's own label; the song has been described as "UK garage-oriented", and contains a guitar solo from Villiers. Despite the fact that they had been releasing music for two years, "Feel It" was Piri and Villiers' first song to be recorded in a studio, as they had previously recorded everything in their bedrooms. The song premiered on Radio 1's Dance Party with Danny Howard, and made the Capital Dance playlist. On 13 February 2023, the song was used in a series nine broadcast of Love Island.
Critical reception
Scoope described the song as "a sugary, bouncy 2-step roller with an edgy hyper-pop appeal", while Indiependent.co.uk described it as a "colli[sion of] old school and new school garage [where] the 2-step beat skitters over piri's light-hearted vocal-lines "keep it up, I know I'll be catching feelings / I can't stop, give me something cos I need it"". Wonderland Magazine described Piri's voice as "angelic", while Matthew Perpetua used his Fluxblog to note that "Piri sings in a tone so relaxed and low-key that it neutralizes the frantic quality of jungle and garage bpms without compromising the velocity of the music", and that this was "like lying down or lounging in a very comfy chair inside a vehicle that's zooming ahead – you can sense the movement but you’re just chilling within it"; he also noted that [i]n most respects it feels like most everything else the duo has done", but that Cole brought "a different sort of color to the mix, which contrasts nicely with Piri's voice", and that this felt "literal" to him, describing it as "the musical equivalent of someone showing up with a cool lighting rig and changing the ambiance around something that maintains its form".
Track listing
Digital single
"Feel It" (MJ Cole, Piri & Tommy Villiers) – 3:12
MJ's VIP Mix (Bandcamp version) "Feel It" (MJ's VIP Mix) – 4:56