New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Menthüll Shares Club Banging Yet Yearning “Parade”

Gatineau, QC-based indie electronic/goth duo Menthüll–Gabriel and Yseult — formed in 2021, and in short order, the French Canadian duo quickly established a retro-futuristic sound that draws from New Wave and electro pop with lyrics written and sung primarily in French.

The French-Canadian duo’s latest single “Parade” is an upbeat, club friendly bop that sounds like a slick and playful synthesis of New Order’s “Blue Monday” with thumping house music-like beats and enormous euphoria-inducing hooks paired with yearning vocals.

The song as a the duo explains takes the listen on a view of some of downtown Hull’s streets, the oldest neighborhood in their hometown. And while openly acknowledging that Hull isn’t beautiful or anything special, it’s their town — and because of that, they love it. But without loved ones, what does it really mean?

“Parade’s initial tempo was much slower and its rhythm was more subtle with lots of rolling toms,” the Hull-based duo recall. “We just decided to turn up the tempo and the house kicks!”

The accompanying video takes the viewer on a tour of downtown Hull, pointing out the boredom, frustration, love and yearning that their hometown — hell of anyone’s hometown — brings.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bordeaux’s St Franck Shares Lush and Escapist “Dream Trap”

Franck Lada is a Bordeaux-based producer, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind the emerging psych pop project St Franck. Lada’s career started in earnest with his participation in a number of musical projects in the UK that included sitting in on bass for Saint Leonard’s Horses for a few shows.

Lada stepped out into the spotlight with his debut EP, 2018’s Gamma Wave and a handful of singles that saw him establish a DIY/bedroom pop-meets- electro pop-meets psych pop sound, which he developed with some barebones equipment during flat shares in London: a computer, an 808, an Ms20 and Ableton.

Since his humble beginnings, the French artist has upgraded to a professional studio in Bordeaux’s bohemian La Bastide neighborhood. His Pierre Loustanau, a.k.a. Petit Fantôme co-produced full-length debut Cavalier Solaire is slated for a November 10, 2024 release through Courant Records/Modulor Records. The album reveals a producer and artist, who’s part of a new generation of producers and artists, who are searching for meaning in a mad, mad, mad world. Sonically, the album is anchored around lush, sculpted arrangements paired with lyrics that encourage the listener to explore the inner world of their dreams and the subconscious.

Cavalier Solaire‘s latest single “Dream Trap” is built around a lush and dreamily escapist soundscape: Starting the beep of an alarm clock, presumably startling the narrator — and in turn, the listener — awake, the song features woozy and glistening synths arpeggios, strummed acoustic guitar, a supple and sinuous bass line and bursts of twinkling keys and vocodered vocals paired with the French artist’s plaintive delivery. While sonically, channeling MGMT and Tame Impala, “Dream Trap” evokes the both the blissful nostalgia of a gorgeous summer afternoon — and the warm buzz of a half-remembered dream.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Geneva Jacuzzi Shares a Striking Visual for a Brooding and Retro-futuristic Bop

Geneva Jacuzzi is a Los Angeles-based multimedia artist, whose immersive and unhinged performances are considered legendary: they often involve a psychotropic gallery of masks, costumes, confrontation and massive art installations. Her recorded music frequently features catchy hooks and cryptic moods dusted in 4-track grit.

Jacuzzi recently signed to Dais Records, who shared the following about the signing: “As long-time fans of Geneva’s immersive world-building, singular songwriting and unforgettable live performances, we are honored to welcome her to the Dais roster.” She adds, “So excited to join the Dais crew. It’s definitely the coolest label in LA. Exciting new adventures on the horizon!” 

The Los Angeles-based multimedia artist’s latest single “Dry” is a brooding yet swaying bit of 80s retro-futuristic synth pop, anchored around layers of glistening analog synth arpeggios and skittering beats paired with catchy, razor sharp hooks. Jacuzzi’s seemingly detached vocal singing about disconnection and uncertainty ethereally floats over the dreamy arrangement.

“I took a little break from writing music and when I sat down at home to record, ‘Dry’ was the first song to burst out,” Jacuzzi recalls. “The music came together so instantly it’s as if it had been waiting and perfecting itself for years in the ether. The chorus lyrics came that same week after I went on a date with Mike Judge and he never called me back (haha). I wasn’t upset or anything, but I had never been ghosted before and couldn’t help but equate modern love to an appliance you buy on the home shopping network.”

The accompanying video is shot in a strikingly cinematic black and white, and features Geneva suspended upside down in an elaborate art installation-meets-costume, being literally hung out to dry.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Los Bitchos Share Glittery Visual for Disco-Inspired Romp “La Bomba”

Acclaimed London-based instrumental outfit Los Bitchos — Australian-born, Serra Petale (guitar); Uruguayan-born Agustina Ruiz (keytar); Swedish-born, Josefine Jonsson (bass) and London-born Nic Crawshaw (drums) — can trace their origins to meeting at various late-night parties and through mutual friends. Inspired by their individual members’ different upbringings and backgrounds, the acclaimed British outfit have firmly established a genre-blurring and retro-futuristic sound that blends elements of Peruvian chica, Argentine cumbia, Turkish psych, surf rock, and the music each individual member grew up with: 

  • The Uruguayan-born Ruiz had a Latin-American music collection that the members of the band fell in love with

  • The Swedish-born Jonsson “brings a touch of out of control pop,” her bandmates often joke

  • Aussie-born Petale is deeply inspired by her mother’s 70s Anatolian rock records

  • And the London-born Crawshaw played in a number of local punk bands before joining Los Bitchos

“Coming from all these different places,” Los Bitchos’ Serra Petale says, “it means we’re not stuck in one genre and we can rip up the rulebook a bit when it comes to our influences.”

Los Bitchos’ Alex Kapranos-produced, critically applauded, full-length debut, 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin! was recorded at Gallery Studios, and saw the band cementing their reputation for crafting playful, lysergic yet party friendly grooves.

The London-based JOVM mainstays capped off a breakthrough year with two Serra Petale and Javier Weyler-co-produced singles “Tip Tapp” and “Los Chrismos,” their first Christmas-themed composition. Fittingly, “Los Chrismos” is a celebratory party-starting romp built around a psych rock-inspired, dexterous and looping guitar line, atmospheric synths, cumbia rhythms paired with holiday appropriate cheers and shouts. Simply put, the song is a much-needed hope and joy bomb in desperate, uneasy time.

The tracks were released digitally and physically on a flexi-disc, bundled with a red vinyl re-pressing of their debut — for that year’s holiday season..

Building upon a growing profile internationally, the London-based JOVM mainstays released 2023’s PAH! EP, a two-track effort that featured a mischievously, rowdy and downright boozy cover of The Champs‘ oft-covered “Tequila,” a song that has become a fan favorite during the band’s live shows. The EP also featured a reworking of King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard‘s “Trapdoor.”

The British outfit’s latest single, the Oli Barton Wood-produced “La Bomba,” the first bit of new material from the band since last year’s PAH! EP. The track is an hook-driven 80s Turkish psych pop-inspired bop anchored around a shuffling dance floor rhythm, a twangy and looping guitar line, a disco-influenced bass line, some video game-like beats paired with glistening synths and ecstatic shouts.

“‘La Bomba’ is a burst of energy and power! It’s just such a fun song – we started playing it at festivals last summer and the energy felt so good!” The band says in press notes.

“The beginning stabs are what came to me (Serra) first as I was cooking in my kitchen. There’s something quite heroic and powerful about the opening guitar tone and the stabs underneath them. The twangy guitar tone cuts through the chaotic landscape of claps, pumping disco bassline and dreamy swirling synth sounds. The disco era influence is quite evident in this song, and I think the bassline sets the tone perfectly for this. Structurally the song delivers straight into a chorus (as Nile Rodgers said, ‘why wait?’). We wanted to keep this as close to a classic pop structure as possible, everything straight to the point. 

“The cherries on top are the little ping pong drum sounds (think Ring My Bell, Anita Ward) – they just make the track go off and totally emulate the feelings of euphoria and pure energy running through it.”

Directed by the band’s long-term artistic collaborator Tom Mitchell, the accompanying video, features some high-energy, glittery visuals that at points playfully nods at Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

The band says of the video “As it’s a high energy, pumping song, we needed to have really dynamic visuals to go with that and bring the song to life. The video has lots of shiny, glitterball moments and moves between performance and surreal segments. We had so much fun with make-up and styling for this video. Josefine saw this thing on Tik Tok where you film in a way which gives the illusion you’re riding a horse, so obviously we had a go and put that in the video last minute on set.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Kai Tak Teams up with There’s Talk on Ethereal and Brooding “Flood The Harbour”

Born in Hong Kong and adopted by American parents, who worked at a camp for Vietnamese refugees seeking opportunity in the city nicknamed the Pearl of the Orient, the Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and producerChris King may be best known for his work in Cold Showers and his production work for a list of artists that include Tamaryn, House of Harm and Fearing. 

Led by King, the Los Angeles-based collective Kai Tak derives its name from the now-retired Hong Kong airport, famously known for its harrowing approach just above and through the city’s skyscrapers. Founded during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when King started to write songs as a vehicle for connecting with his own unconventional roots — and as a platform for collaboration with the numerous musical friends made from his lengthy career as a producer and engineer.

Operating without any deadlines or creative constraints allowed King to use and explore every technique he had learned over the years, incorporating re-sampling, drastic pitch shifting, time-stretching, liberal use of tape delay, recording live drums with MIDI drum triggers, and creating his own sample-based synthesizers using found sounds recorded during various trips to Hong Kong.

The Los Angeles-based collective’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Designed In Heaven Made In Hong Kong is slated for a June 21, 2024 release through á La Carte Records. The album sees King and collaborators specializing in sculpted, moody soundscapes that draw inspirations from shoegaze, trip hop and electronica. The album will feature three previously released tracks:

“Jalen Rose,” feat. Draag

“Villains In My Mind,” feat. Foie Gras

“Blush,” feat. Dol Ikara‘s Claire Roddy. The collaboration can be traced back to when the two artists were placed together by chance at a live show. “Blush,” is built around a brooding and cinematic arrangement that — to my ears — sounds like a synthesis of Massive Attack and Cocteau Twins with the song featuring skittering boom bap and a looping glistening string sample paired with swirling shoegazer guitar textures serving as a lush bed for Roddy’s soulful, smoky croon.

“Chris came to me with this transportive instrumental while I was dealing with a bit of a writer’s block,” Roddy explains. “These lyrics are an ode to that very moment of inspiration where suddenly feelings, words, and melodies spring right out from the drought, as instantly and vulnerably as a blush.”

“When Claire explained the meaning behind her lyrics, I almost couldn’t believe it,” Kai Tak’s Chris King explains. “The music also came to me during a bout of writer’s block, which was broken by one of my old tried and true methods – watching a visually stunning movie on mute and composing music inspired by the imagery.  In the case of ‘Blush,’ the inspiration was Fallen Angels, which has always made me feel like I’m permanently suspended in the most beautiful fever dream.” 

Designed In Heaven Made In Hong Kong‘s fourth and latest single, the brooding “Flood The Harbour” seems to sonically channel Garlands and Heaven or Las Vegas-era Cocteau Twins: swirling shoegazer guitar textures are paired with swaggering and thumping, boom bap-like drums and a supple bass line create a lush and dreamy bed for There’s Talk’s Olivia Lee’s gorgeous and expressive vocal fed through a little bit of reverb. Throughout the song evokes the existential unease and dread of our current moment — with the acknowledgment that the our current world is on its death knell, and the hope that we’re on the precipice of a new, fairer world for all.

“The music for ‘Flood The Harbour’ was written on the same day I wrote ‘Blush.’ After feeling uninspired for a long time, I spent the day repeatedly watching Fallen Angels on mute while messing around with instruments, and 90% of both songs were written in a few hours,” King explains. “Whenever I’m working on something new, I always give the songs a temporary working title of the neighborhood that inspired the tune, or that I’m using found samples from, and this song drew from Yau Ma Tei. Formerly a little fishing bay, Yau Ma Tei has been built extensively upon reclaimed land. Because of Hong Kong’s limited usable land and massive population density, land reclamation has been a central part of the city’s growth over the past century – over 60 km of land has been added to the city from land reclamation projects, including part of the old Kai Tak airport, and just thinking about land reclamation and its endless ripples helped shape the song.”

“I aligned on inspiration with Chris – the lyrics came to mind after simmering on the working title for the song, Yau Ma Tei, as well as hazy neon-lit montages from Fallen Angels,” There’s Talk’s Olivia Lee adds. “Sinking into the broodiness of the song, images of a revolution on the heels of the end of the world engulfed in flames and flood came to mind. Perhaps a meditation on the consequences of colonialism and corporate greed, and who will have the last word.”

News/Announcements by William Ruben Helms

It’s spring and y’all know what that means! Summer festival announcement time! So let’s get to it.

Woodsist Festival is a collaboration between:

  • Woodsist, an indie label founded back in 2006 by Woods‘ Jeremy Earl. Founded in Brooklyn, the label is currently based in Stone Ridge, NY. For more information on the label, check out: https://www.woodsist.com
  • Impact Concerts, the Hudson Valley’s premiere concert and festival producer, creating carefully curated music and lifestyle events showcasing internationally renowned artists alongside local crafts, food, libations and cannabis. For more information on the production company, check out: https://www.impactconcerts.com. 
  • Arrowood Farms, a Hudson Valley-based sustainably-minded farm, brewery, distillery, dining and event destination that regularly hosts concerts and festivals including Woodsist Festival, Dirt Farmer Festival, Felice County Fair and Follow The Arrow Festival. For more information, check out https://arrowoodfarms.com. 
  • Ground Control Touring is a boutique booking agency based in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, offering international tour booking services to a tightly focused roster of artists. Their hands-on approach to the careers of their clients has taken the recent form of producing bespoke festival and curatorial properties alongside them, including both Woodsist Festival and Felice County Fair in the Hudson Valley and additional events elsewhere throughout North America. For additional information, check out: http://www.groundcontroltouring.com

Started back in 2009, the inaugural Woodsist Festival took place in Brooklyn and featured a lineup of Thee Oh Sees, alongside acts like Beach Fossils, Real Estate, and Kurt Vile. Since then, the festival has taken place in several different locations including Big Sur, Point Reyes National Seashore and Pioneertown, CA. The festival has been presented at its current home of Arrowood Farms since 2019 in partnership with Ground Control Touring and Hudson Valley-based concert promoters Impact Concerts. The festival has played there annually since 2021.

Woodsist Festival returns to Accord, NY‘s Arrowood Farms. Taking place September 21, 2024 – September 22, 2024, this year’s lineup, which was curated by Woods’ Jeremy Earl, features headliners Yo La Tengo, Real Estate and Jessica Pratt, along with Woods, Haliu Mergia, the acclaimed Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Jeff Parker, Ethan de L’Aïr, The Messthetics, 75 Dollar Bill Big Band, Rosali, Mystic 100s, Florry and Sylvia on two alternating stages.

Arrowood Farms will also feature food from local Hudson Valley-based vendors and craft beer brewed directly on site. Tickets go on sale April 26, 2024 at 10:00AM ET and are available via www.woodsistfestival.com.