Category: art pop

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Nailah Hunter Shares Ethereal and Hauntingly Gorgeous “Strange Delights”

Nailah Hunter is a Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter, composer and folk artist, who can trace the origins of her musical journey to the church: As the daughter of a Belizean pastor, she played drums, guitar and sang in the choir.

Hunter continued to study music at CalArts, where she studied vocal performance and was given her first harp lesson. Associating the instrument with fantasy, psychedelia, and dream worlds, she became an immediate devotee, locking herself in a room for six hours a day to practice the instrument

The Los Angeles-based artist has been writing and recording mystical folk and ambient-inspired music since the release of her debut single, 2019’s “Apple, Maple, Willow.” She followed up with a series of singles and two EPs 2020’s Spells and 2021’s Quietude released through Leaving Records. Since then, Hunter signed with Fat Possum, who will be releasing her highly-anticipated full-length debut, the Cicely Goulder-produced Lovegaze on January 12, 2024.

To create Lovegaze‘s material, Hunter went to a small coastal city along the English Channel, where she began recording demos with a borrowed Celtic harp. After being introduced to London-based producer Cicely Goulder, the Los Angeles-based artist returned to England the following year to further develop the album’s material.

Written alongside collaborator Ben Lukas Boysen, Lovegaze is reportedly an enthralling album that draws listeners into her enchanting cosmology while being rooted in the audible and palpable emotionality in her delivery.

Hunter’s full-length debut is reportedly an enthralling album that draws listeners into her enchanting cosmology. “I was crying when I recorded those vocals,” she says. “While I was writing Lovegaze, I was thinking about humanity’s propensity to destroy the things we love,” Hunter says. “I was thinking about ancient ruins and structures that once provided shelter but no longer do. There’s beauty to be found in ruins, too.” Sonically, the album evokes the eternal with Hunter’s harp being accompanied by an electronic palette created in the studio with Goulder.

Written during a period of global and personal strife for the Los Angeles-based artist, Lovegaze manages to capture some of that sense of distress, but it’s also a willful reminder of the fortitude and beauty of Earth’s natural processes. As Hunter says: “Nature remains; we’re the passing thing.” 

“Strange Delights,” Lovegaze‘s breathtakingly gorgeous second single pairs Hunter’s expressive and soulful delivery with an eerie Portishead-meets-Tales of Us-era Goldfrapp-like production featuring twinkling harp, woozily atmospheric synths and skittering beats. While featuring contemporary electronic elements, “Strange Delights” feels timeless and evokes a sense of breathless awe.

“‘Strange Delights’ started as an improv over a modular synth loop that my partner made,” Hunter explains. “At the time, we were burning a bunch of incense in a dark room, which served as inspiration for the wandering vocal melody. Once I worked on it with producer Cicely Goulder, ‘Strange Delights’ took on a more golden quality that reminds me of a hazy and intoxicated feast in a peculiar, yet familiar wood.”

The accompanying video by Haoyan of America is a computer generated visual that follows a crocodile with glowing eyes swimming past the broken down remains of human civilization — rusted cars, dilapidated factories, broken ruins of buildings and more. As the video slowly pans out, we see a collection of crocodiles with glowing eyes swimming over what used to be a supermarket.

“The idea for ‘Strange Delights’ was developed through conversations with Nailah and inspired by her interest in crocodilian ‘tapetum lucidum’ (Latin for “shining layer”), a biologic reflector system common in the eyes of vertebrates that give them enhanced night vision,” Haoyan of America explains. “The visual arc takes cues from the song’s musical progression and highlights contrasting evolutionary ecologies.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Art Feynman Shares A Frantic and Funky Ode to Fearing the End of The World

As it turns out, I’ve managed to write a bit about Luke Temple, a singer/songwriter, visual artist and producer, best known for being the creative mastermind behind the genre-defying recording project Art Feynman. Up until recently, Art Feynman has been strictly a solo thing, a way for Temple to explore surprising sonic landscapes without the burdens of identity.

His soon-to-be-released Art Feynman album Be Good The Crazy Boys is slated for a Friday release through Western Digital, and the album sees Temple radically changing up his creative process: Recorded live in-studio with a full band, the album reportedly captures a spirit of restless anxiety while recalling Talking Heads, Oingo Bongo and others. “Sonically, I was inspired by records that were recorded at the late Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas such as Grace Jones‘ Private Life, Lizzy Mercier Descloux‘s Mambo Nassau, and Talking Heads‘ Remain in Light.”

And yet, despite those now classic references, the album’s material is firmly rooted in contemporary concerns.

Throughout his career, Temple has long specialized in a sound that draws from and meshes slightly twisted tasks on Komische musik, worldbeat and art pop. But with Be Good The Crazy Boys, Temple delicately balances dark thematic concerns like struggling to maintain balance in a toxic, chaotic and mad mad, mad world with dance floor friendly, hypnotic grooves.

“To me, there was a lot of energy that needed to be released as the result of living in isolation for six years,” Temple explains. “It also seems to speak to a general anxiety we’re all holding, but it’s expressed in a cathartic way.”

In the lead-up to the album’s release later this week, I’ve written about three of the album’s released singles:

  • “Desperately Free,” a a Fear of Music/Remain in Light-like jam built around twinkling tropicalia-inspired percussion and a hypnotic groove paired with chanted and call and response vocals. “Desperately Free” manages to simultaneously evoke sweaty summer nights on the dance floor and the yearning for something more than our mere existence. “I was thinking about the obsession with spiritual growth or with ‘curing’ death and the compensatory consequences that ensue as a result,” Temple says. “We can’t cheat nature of which we are one and the same, she’ll find balance eventually.”

  • “Passed Over,” a breezy and kaleidoscopic, tropicalia-meets-80s New Wave-inspired bop that channels Talking Heads, Zazou Bikaye‘s Mr. Manager and others — but with a soulful yacht rock sax solo from Nicole McCabe. Thematically, the song explores struggling with FOMO with the song’s narrator stubbornly and defiantly saying I’m ok to be passed over/ Let them have it/I don’t care. “It can be refreshing to decide to eat last, it’s stressful if you’re always needing to be at the front of the line,” Temple explains.

  • “Early Signs of Rhythm,” continued a remarkable run of funky tracks that seamlessly meshed krautrock/kosmiche musik, world beat and art pop in a way that will remind folks of Fear of Music and Remain in Light-era Talking Heads and Grace Jones’ “Pull Up To The Bumper” — but with a No Wave-like sax solo and references to Abraxis, a figure of both good and evil in Jungian mythology. Fittingly, the song is a meditation on opposites — both within and without.

Be Good The Crazy Boys‘ last pre-release single “Therapy at 3pm” manages to channel Fear of Music and Remain in Light-era Talking Heads with the song being built around a taught, propulsive bass line, frantic percussion. synths and a soulful No Wave-like horn line. The result is a decidedly tense, uneasy song that Temple explains is about fearing the end of the world, which seems increasingly likely every single day.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Art Feynman Returns with Funky “Early Signs of Rhythm”

Over the past few months, I’ve written a bit about Luke Temple, a singer/songwriter, visual artist, producer best known as being the creative mastermind behind the genre-defying recording project Art Feynman. Up until recently, Art Feynman has been strictly a solo thing, a way for Temple to explore surprising sonic landscapes without the burdens of identity.

His forthcoming Art Feynman album Be Good The Crazy Boys changes that quite a bit: Recorded live in-studio with a full band, the album reportedly captures a spirit of restless anxiety while recalling Talking Heads, Oingo Bongo and others. “Sonically, I was inspired by records that were recorded at the late Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas such as Grace Jones‘ Private Life, Lizzy Mercier Descloux‘s Mambo Nassau, and Talking Heads‘ Remain in Light.” And yet, despite those references, the album is firmly rooted in contemporary concerns: The material features songs about fearing the end of the world and struggling with FOMO. Normally, these would be relatable subjects — that is if it didn’t quite seem unhinged.

Throughout his career, Temple has long specialized in a sound that draws from and meshes slightly twisted tasks on Komische musik, worldbeat and art pop. But with the new album, slated for a November 10, 2023 release through Western Vinyl, Temple delicately balances dark thematic concerns like struggling to maintain balance in a toxic, chaotic and mad, mad, mad world with dance floor friendly, hypnotic groove. 

“To me, there was a lot of energy that needed to be released as the result of living in isolation for six years,” Temple explains. “It also seems to speak to a general anxiety we’re all holding, but it’s expressed in a cathartic way.”

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

  • “Desperately Free,” a a Fear of Music/Remain in Light-like jam built around twinkling tropicalia-inspired percussion and a hypnotic groove paired with chanted and call and response vocals. “Desperately Free” manages to simultaneously evoke sweaty summer nights on the dance floor and the yearning for something more than our mere existence. “I was thinking about the obsession with spiritual growth or with ‘curing’ death and the compensatory consequences that ensue as a result,” Temple says. “We can’t cheat nature of which we are one and the same, she’ll find balance eventually.”

  • “Passed Over,” a breezy and kaleidoscopic, tropicalia-meets-80s New Wave-inspired bop that channels Talking Heads, Zazou Bikaye‘s Mr. Manager and others — but with a soulful yacht rock sax solo from Nicole McCabe. Thematically, the song explores struggling with FOMO with the song’s narrator stubbornly and defiantly saying I’m ok to be passed over/ Let them have it/I don’t care. “It can be refreshing to decide to eat last, it’s stressful if you’re always needing to be at the front of the line,” Temple explains.

Be Good The Crazy Boys‘ latest single “Early Signs of Rhythm” continues a remarkable fun of funky tracks that seamlessly mesh krautrock/kosmiche musik, world beat and art pop in a way that will remind folks of Fear of Music and Remain in Light-era Talking Heads and Grace Jones’ “Pull Up To The Bumper” — but with a No Wave-like sax solo and references to Abrades, a figure of both good and evil in Jungian mythology.

Fittingly, the song is a meditation on opposites — both within and without.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Church Share Shimmering and Slow-Burning “Realm of Minor Angels”

Founded back in 1980, the Sydney-based ARIA Hall of Fame inductees The Church — currently founding member Steve Kilbey (vocals, bass, guitar); longtime collaborator and producer Tim Powles (drums), who joined the band in 1994 and has contributed to 17 albums; Ian Haug (guitar), a former member of Aussie rock outfit Powderfinger, who joined the band in 2013; multi-instrumentalist Jeffery Cain, a former member of Remy Zero and touring member of the band, who joined the band full-time after Peter Koppes left the band in early 2020; and their newest member, Ashley Naylor (guitar), a long-time member of Paul Kelly’s touring band and one of Australia’s most respected guitarists — was initially associated with their hometown’s New Wave, neo-psychedelic and indie rock scenes.

Over the course of the next couple of decades, they became increasingly associated with dream pop and post-rock: Featuring shimmering soundscapes, their material took on slower tempos while built around their now, long-held reputation for an uncompromising approach to both their songwriting and sound.

Their 25th album, 2017’s Man Woman Life Death Infinity was released to critical praise from the likes of PopMatters, who called the album “a 21st-century masterpiece, a bright beam of light amid a generic musical landscape, and truly one of the Church’s greatest releases.” 

The highly-anticipated follow-up to 2017’s Man Woman Life Death Infinity — and their 26th album! —  The Hypnogogue was released earlier this year release through Communicating Vessels/Unorthodox.

The Hypnogogue is the band’s first full-length concept album: Set in 2054, the album follows its protagonist Eros Zeta, the biggest rock star of his era, who travels from his home in Antarctica to use the titular Hypnogogue to help him revive his flagging and moribund fortunes. “The Hypnogogue is set in 2054… a dystopian and broken down future,” The Church’s Steve Kilbey explains. “Invented by Sun Kim Jong, a North Korean scientist and occult dabbler, it is a machine and a process that pulls music straight of dreams.”

“The Hypnogogue is the most prog rock thing we have ever done,” Kilbey says. “We’ve also never had a concept album before. It is the most ‘teamwork record’ we have ever had. Everyone in the band is so justifiably proud of this record and everyone helped to make sure it was as good as it could be. Personally, I think it’s in our top three records.”

In the lead to the album’s release, I wrote about three of its singles:

  • The album’s expansive and brooding title track and first single, “The Hypnogogue.” Featuring the band’s swirling and textured guitar-driven sound paired with Kilbey’s imitable delivery, the song introduces listeners to the album’s characters — Eros Zeta and Sum Kim. The song follows Zeta, as they’re traveling to meet Kim, to go through the titular hypnogogue. But during the toxic and weird process, Zeta winds up falling in love with Kim. As Kilbey says, “. . . it all ends tragically (of course . .. as these things often do). 

  • The jangling and deceptively upbeat “C’est La Vie,” which continues the album’s narrative. Zeta’s agent warms him not to mess with the hypnogogue. “His manager has heard some bad rumors about it, and he doesn’t want his boy all strung out on this unknown thing,” The Church’s Steve Kilbey explains. The song ends with a gorgeous, shimmering fade out. “Musically, the song is a fast-paced rocker very much initiated by our guitarist Ian Haug. But it has plenty of twists and turns and ends up fading away in a delicate and winsome way.” 

  • “No Other You,” a glittering glam rock-like ballad with some Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie guitar work and a cinematic quality paired with Kilbey expressing an aching, almost desperate longing. “No Other You” may arguably be the most straightforward and earnest song of the band’s extensive catalog. The song continues the album’s narrative — but on a more personal level: The Church’s Steve Kilbey explains that the song is an “ultra-romantic song that Zeta writes for Sun Kim Jong, who is the inventor of The Hypnogogue. It’s a heartfelt song about an irreplaceable woman. And the Church gets to explore a slightly glam rock feel to boot.”

The band will be embarking on a second leg of their North American tour to support their 26th album during the fall. The tour will see them playing dates across the West Coast, Southwest, Southeast and Illinois. The band will be offering a limited number of VIP packs on the tour’s second leg, which will include the show ticket, early venue access, an invitation to the band’s soundcheck, a special meet and greet with the band, exclusive merch and the ability to watch a portion of the show from the side of the stage, where available. Tour dates are below.

Coinciding with the fall tour, the acclaimed Aussie outfit will be releasing a digital deluxe edition of The Hypnogogue that will include material originally cut from the 13-song album.

The deluxe edition will include “Realm of Minor Angels,” a slow-burning and gorgeous, torch song-inspired ballad featuring shimmering mandolin from Ian Haug and slide guitar from Ashley Naylor paired with Kilbey’s crooned delivery. Sonically, “Realm of Minor Angels” wouldn’t sound out of place on Starfish or Gold Afternoon Fix.

“‘Realm of Minor Angels’ is without doubt one of my favorite singles The Church has ever released,” The Church’s Steve Bilberry says. “From the moment [guitarist] Jeffrey Cain started playing the opening riff, I was hooked. The singing and lyrics are my own subtle homage to the torch songs of the ‘60s and check out Ian Haug’s mandolin lines and Ashley Naylor’s slide work!”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Clementine Valentine Share Lush and Dreamy “Selenelion”

Kiwi-based sibling duo Clementine and Valentine Nixon have had music and performing deeply embedded in their lineage: Traveling musicians and performers go back hundreds of years on their maternal side — and has been documented on recordings such as 1968’s The Traveling Stewarts. As children, the Nixon Sisters were taught to sing traditional balladry by their grandmother, the daughter of revered Traveller musician Davie Stewart, who was once recorded by Alan Lomax.

Professionally, the sibling duo have made a career our of music that draws from that nomadic family heritage and conjures a series of contrasts: ancient and modern, beauty and brokenness, the ritual and the fleeting and more. Raised itinerantly between New Zealand and Hong Kong, the Kiwi-based sibling duo cut their teeth performing in renegade gallery spaces and rogue music venues across Hong Kong’s abandoned industrial section, eventually amassing both national and international attention with their acclaimed experimental noise and futuristic noise pop project Purple Pilgrims.

Their Purple Pilgrim material was frequently self-produced and released through a series of labels including beloved Kiwi label Flying Nun Records.

With their latest project Clementine Valentine, Clementine and Valentine Nixon write, record and perform with a fusion of their birth names. Sonically, the project sees the sibling duo refining their craft into a more fully realized and sophisticated sound than ever before.

Their Randall Dunn-produced Clementine Valentine full-length debut The Coin That Broke the Fountain Floor is slated for an August 25, 2023 release through Flying Nun Records. The album reportedly marks a pivotal moment in the pair’s creative evolution: The material sees them transposing their keyboard-and-guitar driven demos to cello, pedal steel, 12 string guitar and a collection of vintage synthesizers. Matt Chamberlain, who has worked with David Bowie, Lana Del Rey and Fiona Apple contributed percussion for the recording sessions.

The result is material that’s lush, shimmering and softly orchestral while being an accumulation of songcraft that has stretched back generations within their family.

In the lead up to the album’s release later this week, I’ve managed to write about two of the album’s previously released singles:

“Time and Tide,” a single built around the duo’s gorgeous and expressive vocal range, soaring hooks and choruses, dramatic percussion, strummed guitar and atmospheric synths. Sonically nodding at Kate Bush, “Time and Tide” aims for the celestial and the timeless, while being one of the more optimistic-leaning songs of their career to date.“We thought we were only capable of writing sad songs — but found optimism creeping in during the writing of this album,” Clementine and Valentine Nixon explain. “Without ruining the mystery, ‘Time and Tide’ is about the release that comes in too brief moments of relinquishing overthinking, fret and regret. It’s coloured with melancholy, but cheerful by our measure.” 

“The Rope,” a haunting siren song that pulls the listener in, much like the old Greek myths — but whether it’s to safety or your demise is ultimately up to the listener. The Nixon’s sisters’ unncaily breathtaking harmonies ethereally float over a sparse arrangement of their vocals, strummed guitar and gentle percussion. Unlike its immediate predecessor, “The Rope” is clearly informed and inspired by a deep understanding and love of folk tradition. “The rope acts as a motif to connect us to our ancestors – we wanted it to feel as though it could be both ancient and of now,” the Nixon Sisters explain. “A feeling we call ‘ancient futurism’ – something we’ve been chasing in our songs for years now. We were reaching for a feeling simultaneously sinister and comforting as, to us, so many ancient songs are.   

“We’ve always listened to a lot of new music, but the core of our creative expression has always come directly from our deep familial folk music traditions. This is something that has not always been easily identifiable, perhaps due to the fact that we’ve never been interested in making ‘folk revival music’ — there’s no finger picking on any of our family records. The folk element in our songs is on a DNA level, stretching back beyond the 1960s wave that folk music is commonly associated with.   

Having felt for a long time that pop, and (more importantly to us) lo-fi or bedroom produced music, to now be the true music of the people (accessible to all) — we finally decided we wanted to use more acoustic and ‘traditional’ instrumentation to express this feeling of modernising relics.   Although our personal tradition of using an excess of synthesizers is still very much present all over this album, ‘The Rope’ is very stripped back for us and tells the story of our family music in a way we never have before.”

The Coin That Broke The Fountain Floor’s third and latest single “Selenelion” is a slow-burning dream pop-like ballad featuring glistening pedal steel, atmospheric synths, strummed acoustic guitar, Matt Chamberlain’s propulsive yet dramatic drumming serving as a lush bed for the Nixon Sisters’ gorgeous, uncannily precise, soaring harmonies. And while feeling and sounding rather contemporary, the song is rooted in something much more ancient.

“Selenelion is a type of lunar eclipse where both the sun and moon appear in the sky at the same time. As a story the song is based on aspects of countless old folk songs and fables. A star-crossed dynamic,” Valentine and Clementine Nixon explain. “The meeting of a mythological creature and a mortal, always ending in tragedy.”

Directed by Britt Walton and shot in Hong Kong, the accompanying video for “Selenelion,” follows two star crossed and seemingly doomed lovers — one, who is waiting for her lover at a Clementine Valentine show in a little cabaret-styled joint. The other wandering the busy, neon-lit streets of Hong Kong, like a hungry ghost. Surrounding them are equally lonely souls, trying to forget their loneliness for a little bit.

“The video by Britt Walton follows the same doomed scenario, set in a place dear to us – Hong Kong, where we grew up,” Clementine Valentine say of the video.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Clementine Valentine Shares Haunting “The Rope”

Kiwi-based sibling duo Clementine and Valentine Nixon have had music and performing embedded in their lineage: Traveling musicians and performers go back hundreds of years on their maternal side — and was documented on recordings such as 1968’s The Traveling Stewarts. As children, the Nixon Sisters were taught to sing traditional balladry by their grandmother, the daughter of revered Traveller musician Davie Stewart, who was recorded by Alan Lomax.

Professionally, the sibling duo have made a career our of music that draws from that nomadic family heritage and conjures a series of contrasts: ancient and modern, beauty and brokenness, the ritual and the fleeting and more. Raised itinerantly between New Zealand and Hong Kong, the Kiwi-based sibling duo cut their teeth performing in renegade gallery spaces and rogue music venues across Hong Kong’s abandoned industrial section, eventually amassing both national and international attention with their acclaimed experimental noise and futuristic noise pop project Purple Pilgrims.

Their Purple Pilgrim material was frequently self-produced and released through a series of labels including beloved Kiwi label Flying Nun Records. With their latest project Clementine Valentine, Clementine and Valentine Nixon write, record and perform with a fusion of their birth names. Sonically, the project sees the sibling duo refining their craft into a more fully realized and sophisticated sound than ever before.

Their Randall Dunn-produced Clementine Valentine full-length debut The Coin That Broke the Fountain Floor is slated for an August 25, 2023 release through Flying Nun Records. The album reportedly marks a pivotal moment in the pair’s creative evolution: The material sees them transposing their keyboard-and-guitar driven demos to cello, pedal steel, 12 string guitar and a collection of vintage synthesizers. Matt Chamberlain, who has worked with David Bowie, Lana Del Rey and Fiona Apple contributed percussion for the recording sessions.

The result is material that’s lush, shimmering and softly orchestral while being an accumulation of songcraft that has stretched back generations within their family.

Last month, I wrote about album single “Time and Tide,” a single built around the duo’s gorgeous and expressive vocal range, soaring hooks and choruses, dramatic percussion, strummed guitar and atmospheric synths. Sonically nodding at Kate Bush, “Time and Tide” aims for the celestial and the timeless, while being one of the more optimistic-leaning songs of their career to date.

“We thought we were only capable of writing sad songs — but found optimism creeping in during the writing of this album,” Clementine and Valentine Nixon explain. “Without ruining the mystery, ‘Time and Tide’ is about the release that comes in too brief moments of relinquishing overthinking, fret and regret. It’s coloured with melancholy, but cheerful by our measure.” 

The Coin That Broke the Fountain Floor‘s second and latest single “The Rope” is a haunting siren song that pulls the listener in, much like the old Greek myths — but whether it’s to safety or your demise is ultimately up to the listener. The Nixon’s sisters’ unncaily breathtaking harmonies ethereally float over a sparse arrangement of their vocals, strummed guitar and gentle percussion. Unlike it’s immediate predecessor, “The Rope” is clearly informed and inspired by a deep understanding and love of folk tradition.

“The rope acts as a motif to connect us to our ancestors – we wanted it to feel as though it could be both ancient and of now,” the Nixon Sisters explain. “A feeling we call ‘ancient futurism’ – something we’ve been chasing in our songs for years now. We were reaching for a feeling simultaneously sinister and comforting as, to us, so many ancient songs are.   

“We’ve always listened to a lot of new music, but the core of our creative expression has always come directly from our deep familial folk music traditions. This is something that has not always been easily identifiable, perhaps due to the fact that we’ve never been interested in making ‘folk revival music’ — there’s no finger picking on any of our family records. The folk element in our songs is on a DNA level, stretching back beyond the 1960s wave that folk music is commonly associated with.   

Having felt for a long time that pop, and (more importantly to us) lo-fi or bedroom produced music, to now be the true music of the people (accessible to all) — we finally decided we wanted to use more acoustic and ‘traditional’ instrumentation to express this feeling of modernising relics.   Although our personal tradition of using an excess of synthesizers is still very much present all over this album, ‘The Rope’ is very stripped back for us and tells the story of our family music in a way we never have before.”

Directed by PICTVRE — the directorial and creative duo of Veronica Crockford-Pound and Joseph Griffen — the gorgeously cinematic, black and white visual for “The Rope” is inspired by 1960s noveau vague film — in particular Jean-Luc Godard’s sci-fi/noir Alphaville and Ingmar Bergman’s psychological drama Persona.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Kiwi Sibling Duo Clementine Valentine Share Lush and Spectral “Time and Tide”

Kiwi-based sibling duo Clementine and Valentine Nixon have had music and performing embedded in their lineage: Traveling musicians and performers go back hundreds of years on their maternal side — and was documented on recordings such as 1968’s The Traveling Stewarts. As children, the Nixon Sisters were taught to sing traditional balladry by their grandmother, the daughter of revered Traveller musician Davie Stewart, who was recorded by Alan Lomax.

Professionally, the sibling duo have made a career our of music that draws from that nomadic family heritage and conjures a series of contrasts: ancient and modern, beauty an brokenness, the ritual and the fleeting and more. Raised itinerantly between New Zealand and Hong Kong, the Kiwi-based sibling duo cut their teeth performing in renegade gallery spaces and rogue music venues across Hong Kong’s abandoned industrial section, eventually amassing both national and international attention with their acclaimed experimental noise and futuristic noise pop project Purple Pilgrims.

Their Purple Pilgrim material was frequently self-produced and through a series of labels including beloved Kiwi label Flying Nun Records. The sibling duo’s latest project Clementine Valentine, which sees them writing, recording and performing with a fusion of their birth names. The new project, sees the duo refining their craft into a more fully realized and sophisticated sound.

The Kiwi duo’s Randall Dunn-produced Clementine Valentine full-length debut The Coin That Broke the Fountain Floor is slated for an August 25, 2023 release through Flying Nun Records, and reportedly marks a pivotal moment in the sibling duo’s creative evolution. The album sees the pair transposing their keyboard-and-guitar driven demos to cello, pedal steel, 12 string guitar and a a collection of vintage synthesizers. Matt Chamberlain, who has worked with David Bowie, Lana Del Rey and Fiona Apple contributed percussion. The result is material that’s lush, shimmering and softly orchestral while being an accumulation of songcraft that has stretched back centuries.

The Coin That Broke the Fountain Floor‘s lush, lead single “Time and Tide” is built around the Kiwi sibling duo’s gorgeous and expressive vocal range paired with soaring hooks and chorus, dramatic percussion, strummed guitar and atmospheric synths. Sonically nodding at Kate Bush, “Time and Tide” aims for the celestial and the timeless, while being one of the more optimistic-leaning songs of their career to date.

“We thought we were only capable of writing sad songs — but found optimism creeping in during the writing of this album,” Clementine and Valentine Nixon explain. “Without ruining the mystery, ‘Time and Tide’ is about the release that comes in too brief moments of relinquishing overthinking, fret and regret. It’s coloured with melancholy, but cheerful by our measure.” 

Directed by Auckland-based photographer and filmmaker Greta van der Star, the accompanying video for “Time and Tide” has a painterly quality while nodding at 80s-era music videos, Romantic poetry and more. “We’re always inspired by [and identify with] outsiders,” the Kiwi sibling duo say. “For this video we were influenced by three in particular: the photography of Francesca Woodman, the cover image of Brett Smiley’s album [Breathlessly Brett], and Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’. Trapped in a tower, looking out over a pastoral scene, waiting for life to begin again (if you squint you’ll see Camelot in the distance). The idea of merging with four walls, or being suffocated by them (as felt in Woodman’s photos) resonated with us, and no doubt countless others, at the time this song was written.”