The Philippines and suburban Maryland aren’t exactly R&B or dance music hot beds, but they didn’t need to be for Antonio Cuna aka Sweater Beats to ingest both genres and spit out an exciting hybrid, melding the sensuality of contemporary R&B with the immediacy of dance music. Born in the Philippines, Cuna moved to Maryland, adapting to his new environment by engaging with music and skate culture. But it wasn’t long before R&B entered the picture, first as an obsession and later, while Cuna was at university in New York, as a creative outlet. Growing up in the 2000s, it’s no surprise that Cuna’s heroes include R&B producer mavens like Pharrell and Timbaland, as well as French dance music behemoths Daft Punk, but it’s how he’s filtered those influences into the ingenious sonic aesthetic, a sound equally fitting both the festival stage and bedroom play, that makes Sweater Beats such an unavoidably intriguing project.