Author: William Ruben Helms

William Ruben Helms is a Corona, Queens, NYC-born and-based African American music journalist, freelance writer, editor, photographer and founder of the DIY, independent music and photography site, The Joy of Violent Movement. Over the course of the past two decades, Helms’ writing and photography has been published in Downbeat, Premier Guitar Magazine (photography), Consequence, The Inventory, Glide Magazine.com (words and photography), Publisher’s Weekly, Sheckys.com, Shecky’s Bar and Nightlife Guide 2004, New York Press, Ins&Outs Magazine, Dish Du Jour Magazine, Aussie music publication Musicology.xyz (photography) and countless others, including his own site. With The Joy of Violent Movement, Helms specializes in covering music with an eclectic, globe-trotting, and genre-defying perspective that’s deeply inspired by and informed by his birthplace and home, arguably one of the most diverse places in the world. Since its founding back in 2010, The Joy of Violent Movement can proudly claim readers across the US, Canada, the UK, The Netherlands, France, Australia, and several others throughout its history. https://www.joyofviolentmovement.com https://www.joyofviolentmovement.com/shop https://www.instagram.com/william_ruben_helms Twitter: @yankee32879 @joyofviolent become a fan of the joy of violent movement: https://www.facebook.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement support the joy of violent movement on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement hire me for headshots, portraits and event photography: https://www.photobooker.com/photographer/ny/new-york/william-h?duration=1?duration=1#
Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Up-and-Coming Danish Indie Act Aztek Releases a Trippy Visual for Anthemic “Darkest Hour”

Formed back in 2015, the Aalborg, Denmark-based prog rock act Aztek — Benjamin Vestergaard (vocals), Michael Buchardt (drums), Rasmus Lykke (bass), Minik Lundblad (guitar) and Jeppe Søndergaard (guitar) — can trace their origins to shared interest and love of experimental and prog rock. Since their formation, the Aalborg-based quintet have developed a reputation for an adventurous yet accessible sound, centered around traditional rock instrumentation paired with dreamy synths and Vestergaard’s plaintive vocals, which imbues the material with a distinct melancholy. 

Aztek’s full-length debut, 2016’s critically applauded Dream Dealer was a harmonically experimental and ambitious effort that led to the band playing some of the region’s biggest venues and festivals, including Way Up North, Nibe Festival and SPOT Festival. Building upon a growing national and regional profile, the up-and-coming Danish act released their sophomore album Perfect Imbalance last year. Aztek’s latest single, the expansive, Pablo Honey and The Bends-era Radiohead meets space rock-like “Darkest Hour” finds the act ambitiously expanding upon the sound that has won them attention across Denmark and Scandinavia — with fuzzy power chords and rousingly anthemic hooks paired with a heart-on-sleeve earnestness. However, despite its anthemic quality, the song is about observing a loved one’s during a life crisis and the complicated array  feelings that come along with it.

Interestingly, the song’s structure, alternating ethereal verses with heavy, power chord-driven hooks also manages to be influenced by the song’s message — that the darkest hour is typically just before dawn; and that most importantly, things do (and can) get better. Set in space, the recently released video by Anders Riber Nielsen features 80s influenced CGI: the viewer first moves among a large constellation of stars, before passing through a terrestrial-like planet with mountains. It’s trippy and expansive yet centered around scientific reality. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Over the first half of this year, I’ve written a bit about the Queens-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Longo, the creative mastermind behind Thin Lear, a solo recording project largely inspired by the likes of Todd Rundgren, Shuggie Otis and Kate Bush.  Longo’s latest Thin Lear album Wooden Cave is slated for release later this year, and as you may recall, album singles “The Guesthouse,” and “Death in a Field” were deeply indebted to different styles of 70s rock.

Wooden Cave‘s third and latest single is the delicate and almost spectral “Your Family.” Centered around a folk-like arrangement of twinkling piano, strummed guitar and Longo’s plaintive falsetto, the song is imbued with an aching and inconsolable sense of loss. Much like its predecessors, the song reveals a heart-on-the-sleeve earnestness paired with a careful and deliberate craftsmanship that ends with a simple yet profound mantra of self-acceptance. “It’s an orchestral track that explores the aftermath of losing a partner, the ensuing self-imposed exile and the struggle to re-emerge whole again,” Longo says in press notes. 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Dark and Atmospheric Sounds and Visuals of Brooklyn’s Linda Gardens

Linda Gardens is an up-and-coming, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and indie electro pop artist, who has started to receive attention across the blogosphere for an ethereal sound that meshes elements of dream pop electronica, psych rock and goth rock. Garden’s forthcoming EP Real Time is slated for release this summer through Liquorice Tapes. The EP’s single “Tubular Steel” is centered around an atmospheric production featuring shimmering synths and industrial-like drum programming paired with an infectious, razor sharp hook and Gardens’ etheral vocals — and in some way, the single feels and sounds like an uncanny synthesis of classic 4AD Records-era dream pop, Depeche Mode, Peter Gabriel, and Kate Bush. 

Directed by Dan Foley, the recently released video for “Tubular Steel” is a moody yet feverish and lysergic dream that stars Gardens walking through a dark and smoke-filled room, lit in neon. At points, the visuals become kaleidoscopic with the visuals exploding into bursts of wild colors — while moving to the industrial-like beats.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Centered around the friendship and collaboration between its found members — Steven van Betten (vocals, guitar), Gregory Uhlmann (guitar, vocals), Marcus Hogsta (bass) and The Americans’ and HAIM’s Tim Carr (drums), the Los Angeles-based art rock/post-punk act Fell Runner has developed a reputation for a unique take on guitar rock. Imbued with a literary sensibility, the band pairs vibrant vocal harmonies and expressive polyrhythms influenced from their studies with Ghanian drum master Alfred Ledzekpo with an urgent and uninhibited air that comes from the improvisational nature of much of their work.

The Los Angeles-based band’s recently released sophomore album Talking finds the band branching out a bit from their initial influences, while crafting material that thematically touch upon themes of frustrated communication, failed language and dealing with one’s own shortcomings. Tracked live to tape in Tim Carr’s bedroom, the album also finds the band attempting to accurately capture the spontaneity and improvisational nature of their live sets.  Talking‘s latest single “Same Way” is centered around a breezy, tropical-influenced arrangement centered around fluttering electronics, propulsive polyrhythm, a sinuous bass line and angular bursts of guitar — and while bearing an uncanny resemblance to Omega La La-era Rubblebucket, the song possesses a breakneck, improvisational quality in which after repeated listens, you feel that you can’t quite predict where the musicians will go next. Honestly, it’s one of more unusual and exciting indie rock songs I’ve heard in several months.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
Deriving their name from the address of a ramshackle house inhabited by several of the bandmates in their formative years, the members of Austin, TX-based indie rock Duncan Fellows — dual frontmen Colin Harman (vocals, guitar) and Cullen Trevino (vocals, guitar) along with Jack Malonis (keys backing vocals, guitar), Tim Hagen (drums) and David Stimson (bass) — traded their previous life of piling into various bedrooms for piling into a tour van in their mid-20s, centered by a shared sense of adventure. Interestingly, with the release of two EPs and a full-length album — 2013’s Twelve Months Older EP, 2015’s Marrow EP and 2017’s Both Sides of the Ceiling, which featured the attention grabbing single “Fresh Squeezed” — the band emerged into the national scene. That shouldn’t be surprising, as the band’s work explores multiple vibes, feelings, tempos and perspectives — and frequently within the same song.
Slated for a July 24, 2019 release through Warner Records’ new distribution channel Level Music, the Austin-based indie rock act’s forthcoming Eyelids Shut EP reportedly finds the the band exploring the dynamic sonic balance while concurrently toeing a similar line in their own lives. “We tend towards the deeper stuff you have to chew on longer,” Harman says. “Our tendency is to sing about the more difficult things we encounter in life, and as we’ve gotten older we’ve experienced heavy things that have added more serious layers to what we do. But at the same time our most popular song is largely about waking up and making breakfast. We definitely talk about straddling that line.”
Reportedly, the EP’s four songs thematically and sonically touch upon loss, reflection and how getting older lends a deeper  perspective on both. “As you get older, your perspective on things like loss changes but you still live with everything that’s happened to you,” Trevino says. “Be it the loss of a person, or even the loss of a version of a person,” Harman adds. “Death is definitely a part of it, but change and a part of someone being lost is something we are singing about as well.” Malonis adds, “I also resonate with losing a version of yourself, how as you’re experiencing these losses you’re losing the more naive parts of yourself. A lot of it lines up with the theme of our first album: becoming an adult and growing wise to the ills and parts of the world that aren’t so pretty.”
Eyelids Shut‘s latest single “Cursive Tattoo” finds the band seamlessly jumping and from anthemic power-chord rock, twangy, Southern fried rock and New Wave-like indie rock within an expansive, trippy yet breakneck song structure held together by anthemic hooks and a swinging rhythm. The song is underpinned by a bitter and awkward confusion that can only come from an unsettling and equally confusing longtime relationship. “I got the name ‘Cursive Tattoo’ from actually looking at the tattoo of my name on my partner’s arm,” Harman says in press notes. “It was in the middle of one of those moments that feels very distanced relationally, like you can’t find the other person and they can’t find you. Those moments feel really jarring and insurmountable while you’re in them and that is what cursive tattoo is about, the feeling, and the physical spaces surrounding it. Much like getting a tattoo, this song is about the wild ride of a permanent commitment. Tim really smashed the cans on this one – guiding us rhythmically handicapped members between straight and swung. Cullen naturally sprinkling some sweet sweet piano over the chorus in a few breezy improv takes. Dave providing sincerity as he does. Myself providing one quarter of the lead chorus lick but zero quarters of the skill to perform it. Jack executed on this endeavor. A true collaboration.”

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of the first two singles “Shambhala” and “Darts,” the up-and-coming Dublin, Ireland-based experimental rock/psych rock sextet Fat Pablo quickly emerged into their homeland’s busy music scene, essentially carving a new musical niche for themselves with a sound that some have described as recalling Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Grizzly Bear.

Fat Pablo’s latest single “Ganki” is a gauzy and woozy bit of psychedelia centered around a propulsive bass line, layers of shimmering guitars within an expansive song structure that finds the band carefully walking a tightrope between anthemic urgency and slow-burning pensiveness in a way that reminds me of JOVM mainstays Caveman. “Ganki took a good while for us to write. We went back to the drawing board a few times with this one as it was tough to merge the urgency at the beginning of the song with the mellowness of the latter half,” the band explains in press notes. “We think we’ve found a nice balance where you get the best of both worlds. We try not to act as a one trick pony, but rather an acre of unicorns.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays Here Lies Man Releases a Cinematic and Lysergic Single

Over the past couple of years, I’ve written quite  bit about the Los Angeles, CA-based JOVM mainstays Here Lies Man, and as you may recall, the act which was founded by Marcos Garcia and Geoff Man has received attention across the blogosphere for a sound that seamlessly bridges Fela Kuti Afrobeat grooves with classic Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin-era, power chord-fueled rock.  

The Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstay’s sophomore album, last year’s You Will Know Nothing found the band refining and expanding their sound. “We’re very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs. Tony Iommi’s innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song,” the band’s Marcos Garcia explained in press notes. “We are talking the same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi, it was the blues, for us to comes directly from Africa.” The album also found the band focusing on writing catchier, much more anthemic songs with thematically conceptualized lyrics focusing on states of being and consciousness. Additionally, they aimed for slicker production values than its predecessor. “We wanted to go deeper with the sonic experience. Even though it sounds more hi-fi than the first record, it was important that it didn’t sound too polished,” Garcia added. 

Sonically, the material was composed with music theory in mind — interludes between songs were written and recorded with them specifically being 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the tempo of the song proceeding it. “The reason it breaks down to 2 over 3 or 3 over 4 is that everything in the music rhythmically corresponds to a set of mathematical algorithms known as the clave. The clave is an ancient organizing rhythmic principle developed in Africa,” Here Lies Man’s Geoff Mann explains in press notes. 

Slated for an August 16, 2019 release through RidingEasy Records, the forthcoming mini-album No Ground to Walk Upon finds the band continuing the aesthetic they’ve developed through their first two albums but conceptually the material is essentially the soundtrack to an imaginary movie with each song being the score for a key scene of that movie. The mini-album’s swaggering and strutting, first single “Clad in Silver”  is centered around buzzing power chords, propulsive Afro-Caribbean rhythms and punchily delivered lyrics within an expansive, hallucinogenic song structure. As the band explains in press notes, the mini-album’s lead single “is the soundtrack snippet of a  journey to the imaginary place called home, which can never be arrived at. With every step, the character imagines getting closer, bu it is a hallucination that fades in and out of perception.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Planet Giza Release a Lysergic Visual for “Ace Boogie Energy”

Up-and-coming Montreal-based hip-hop and production trio Planet Giza — comprised of Rami B, Tony Stone and Dumix — have released a series of efforts over the last couple of years, including last year’s ZZZ EP. Sonically, the trio effortlessly meshes elements of hip-hip, soul and funk into a unique sound that clearly nods to the past, but with a look towards the future, all while reflecting their multi-cultural backgrounds. Naturally, the trio cite the diversity of their hometown, as well as their widely-varying musical influences that inlaced Lil Boosie, Madlib, Roy Ayers, Michael Jackson and others. And as a result some critics have said that their sound easily sits with contemporaries such as The Internet, Kaytranada (who they collaborated with on “Domina”) and Godlink. 

The Montreal hip hop and production trio’s latest effort, the recently released Added Sugar is reportedly the trio’s most versatile release to date, as the material finds the members of Planet Giza crafting an effortlessly meshing elements of R&B, electro pop, hip-hop and others into a sleek and lushly texture sound paired with dexterous and perfectly delivered bars. Additionally, the Canadian hip-hop and production trio collaborate with Mick Jenkins and Kaytranada, who co-produced a track on the effort. (The trio also produced Goldlink’s “Ridd,” which the artist performed earlier this week on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.) 

Added Sugar’s latest single “Ace Boogie Energy” is centered around a lush, sleek and incredibly hyper modern production featuring shimmering and atmospheric synths, stuttering hi-hat, tweeter and woofer rocking low end paired with emcees ruthlessly rhyming about  hustling and taking over the industry. The Touchemoipas-directed visual is partially inspired by “Paid In Full” but with a subtly  lysergic air.