Category: experimental pop

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jessica Martins’ Slow-Burning David Lynch-Inspired Tribute to David Bowie

Today is a very sad day for music fans across the world — and especially for devout David Bowie fans like myself, as today is the anniversary of Bowie’s death. And interestingly enough, along with the countless tributes to commemorate the occasion, renowned multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jessica Martins, best known as a member of Via Audio, Modest Midas and LAND ART and who has collaborated with Spoon’s Jim Eno and Lucius’ Dan Molde released a sultry, silky smooth yet atmospheric, David Lynch meets classic pop standard cover of David Bowie’s “Man Who Sold The World,” the features the backing vocals, mournful saxophone line of producer Matthew Silberman, credited as DeSoto, who is as equally acclaimed, as he has worked with Bilal, Miguel and System of a Down’s Daron Malakian among others. Drummer and percussionist Tommy Rose, who has worked with Crash Kings, Robert Schwartzman and Rooney, Brian Bell, Trevor Hall and Jon Bryant contributes percussion.

Directed and edited by Jessica Martins, the recently released music video owes a visual debt to David Lynch and film noir while being a gorgeous and moody tribute to someone, who has influenced so many musically and personally.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of  Nanna Schannong (lead vocals, guitar), Soffie Viemose (lead vocals, laptop), Kasper Staub (synthesisers), Thomas Lund (bass, Moog) and Steffen Lundtoft (drums, percussion), the up-and-coming Danish experimental pop/synth pop quintet Lowly can trace their origins to when the members of the quintet met while studying at the music academy at Aarhus, Denmark. And despite each member studying completely different subjects, they quick found a common musical ground based around what they’ve describe as a restlessly inventive and gorgeously melodic sound paired around an uncompromising songwriting approach in which their material manages to defy  easy categorization.

The Danish quintet’s highly-awaited full-length debut Heba is slated for a February 10, 2017 release through renowned indie label Bella Union Records and building an increasingly buzz for the band and their forthcoming debut, the members of the band recently released the album’s third single “Prepare the Lake,” a lush single that pairs fluttering and shuffling drumming with ethereally shimming synths, swirling and ambient electronics and glistening guitar chords with Schannong’s lilting Dido-like vocals. Interestingly, as the band explains in press notes: “‘Prepare The Lake’ is the oldest of the tracks on the forthcoming album Heba. We’d been playing it for quite some time live before recording it and the form sort of grew out of us during concerts, so perhaps it has more of live feel to it than the other songs on the album.

“The lyrics are inspired by Gertrude Stein’s poetry. She has a very intense way of giving words power because of their surprising or untraditional placement in a sentence. It gives them depth and color and you can almost look at each individual word as a small art installation. It’s not a song that you can say is about a specific subject but it still has something very personal about it. And because the words are so fragmented hopefully, people when they listen can draw their own conclusions to what it means to them.”

“Word,” Heba‘s second single is based around an unusual, prog rock-like song structure in which the song sounds comprised of multiple seemingly unrelated segments held together by a a twisting and turning synth line paired with oddly syncopated drum passages, explosive and buzzing guitar work and Schannong’s lilting soprano in a stormy song that evokes the frustration of not being to say what you needed to say in a relationship, whether from inability or dealing with a blowhard; and the vacillating feelings of self-doubt, hated, uncertainty and longing in a dramatic — and incredibly cinematic track.

As the band’s Kasper Staub adds in press notes “We think of our music and lyrics more like a painting, we think it should all melt together. We’re all interested in developing ourselves as songwriters, and working in new ways, with different ideas.” And as a result, the Danish quintet manages to carefully walk the tightrope between the incredibly challenging and the accessible in a way that may arguably make them among one of the most exciting acts I’ve heard in recent memory.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: New JOVM Mainstays Pavo Pavo Release a Surreal and Old-Timey Video for “Ruby (Let’s Buy the Bike)”

Now, as you may recall the band’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Young Narrator in the Breakers was released last month through Bella Union Records and thematically, the material according to the members of the band describes both the magic and panic of adult life — with the understanding that much like a getting caught in a vicious breaker, you have to stop fighting and ride it out until you can get to shore safely. Interestingly, the album’s latest single “Ruby (Let’s Buy The Bike)” consists of gorgeous falsetto boy/girl harmonies, a strummed and slightly ragged guitar-led melody, off-kilter percussion and soaring synths. And the result is a gorgeous and trippy acceptance of time’s passing and a swooning love song to a beautiful motorcycle named Ruby. Part of the song involves the hopes and plans the narrator has for the bike; some of which picturing himself riding around on the badass bike, potentially getting into a gruesome accident and dying — but saying “man, for the bike, it was fucking worth it.”

The video was shot, directed, produced and edited by the members of the band and as the band’s Oliver Hill explains in press notes about the video “Pavo Pavo’s Oliver Hill talks about the video, saying “There’s a great Kenneth Anger documentary about a biker gang called Scorpio Rising that peers into all the death-obsessed symbology in these gangs, and the whole bizarre environment piqued my interest. For the video we went up to Pleasantville, NY, which is both me and Ian [Romer]’s hometown, and tried to make something that captured that special type of suburban-high-school boredom where groups of friends rove around and try to find little adventures – a sort of reimagined biker gang. We directed it ourselves and shot it on Super 8, which has such a beautiful and cool character – so in a way the whole enterprise was a bit like a group of high school friends, making something on a spare Saturday.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

While currently comprised of founder and primary member Jamie Stewart, Angela Seo and Shayna Dunkelman, indie rock trio Xiu Xiu have throughout the course of their history developed a reputation for restless experimentation and lately for a period of extraordinary diverse prolificacy — earlier this year, they released their critically applauded album Plays the Music of Twin Peaks, collaborated with renowned indie pop artist Mitski on a song that will appear on a forthcoming John Cameron Mitchell film, collaborated with Merzbow on an album, composed music for several art installations by renowned artist Danh Vo, wrote the score for an experimental reworking of Mozart’s The Magic Flute — and then they found time to write and record the material that comprises their forthcoming 11th full-length effort FORGET, which Polyvinyl Records will release on February 24, 2017.

Co-produced by John Congleton, who has worked with Blondie and Sigur Ros; Deerhoof‘s Greg Saunier and Xiu Xiu’s Angela Seo, the album features guest appearances by minimalist composer Charlemagne Palestine, Los Angeles Banjee Ball commentator Enyce Smith, Swans‘ Kristof Hahn and renowned drag artist Vaginal Davis. And as the band’s Jamie Stewart explains of both of the album’s title and its overarching theme, “To forget uncontrollably embraces the duality of human frailty. It is a rebirth in blanked out renewal but it also drowns and mutilates our attempt to hold on to what is dear.” FORGET is both the palliative fade out of a traumatic past but also the trampling pain of a beautiful one’s decay.”

“Wondering,” FORGET’s first single is a propulsive  dance floor-friendly single in which the band pairs layers of scuzzy, angular guitar chords with undulating synths, stuttering and skittering beats, brief bursts of twinkling keys and Stewart’s plaintive crooning with a swooning and anthemic hook — and while the equally shimmering and murky single sonically nods at Stevie Nicks‘ “Stand Back” and others, the song possesses and underlying tension between the known and unknown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tour Dates

Mar. 16th – Los Angeles, CA – Union

Mar. 17th – Escondido, CA – A Ship in The Woods

Mar. 19th – San Francisco, CA – The Chapel

Mar. 21st – Seattle, WA – Kremwork

Mar. 22nd – Portland, OR – Holocene

Mar 23rd – 26th – Knoxville, TN – Big Ears Festival

Mar. 30th – Detroit, MI – El Club

Mar. 31st – Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle

Apr. 1st – Jacksonville, FL – The Sleeping Giant Film Festival

Apr. 6th – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Bazaar

Apr. 7th – Philadelphia, PA – Boot & Saddle

Apr. 8th – Harrisburg, PA – Cathedral Room at Der Maennerchor

Apr. 9th – Baltimore, MD – The Wind-Up Space

Apr. 11th – Jersey City, NJ – Monty Hall

Apr.12th – New Haven, CT – Bar

Apr. 13th – Providence, RI – Colombus Theatre

Apr. 14th – Portsmouth, NH – 3SArtspace

Apr. 15th – Boston, MA – Cambridge Elks Lodge / Hardcore Stadium

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Atmospheric Sounds and Visuals of Dia’s “Gambling Girl”

Writing and recording under the moniker Dia, Birrittella has began to receive attention for “Gambling Girl,” the latest single off her debut EP Tiny Oceans and as you’ll hear from the new single, Birrittella’s specializes in a moody and lushly orchestral baroque pop-leaning sound in which Birrittella’s ethereal vocals are paired with a subtly droning melody consisting of electric guitar, ukulele, cello and swirling electronics. Thematically speaking the material is inspired by a 12th century Romantic poem written by Kafiristan, in which the poet confesses to his love “since you love me and I love you, the rest matters not.” According to Birrittella, the message of complete surrender and martyrdom for love was a powerful one and it gives “Gambling Girl” a swooning urgency just underneath the surface, while sounding as though it drew from Mazzy Star and Kate Bush.

Directed by Robert Condol, the video is shot in a sort of dreamy series of flashbacks of a desperately and passionately in love couple on a ranch in sunset, riding horses and being romantic in front of a cinematically shot desert vista.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past year or so, you’ve come across a handful of posts featuring the Brooklyn-based experimental/psych pop act Pavo Pavo. Deriving their name from the name of the southern constellation Pavo — Latin for peacock —the members of the band Eliza Bagg (violin, synths, vocals), Oliver Hill (guitar, synths and vocals). Nolan Green (guitar, vocals), Austin Vaughn (drums) and Ian Romer (bass) can trace its origins to when the members of the quintet were studying while at Yale University, and since then individual members have collaborated with the likes of Here We Go Magic, John Zorn, Dave Longstreth, Porches, Olga Bell, Lucius, Roomful of Teeth and San Fermin among others.  Adding to a growing profile, their “Ran Ran Run”/”Annie Hall” 7 inch was praised by a number of media outlets and blogs, including  Stereogum as being “weightless pop music that sounds like it was beamed down from a glimmering utopian future.” And while nodding at 60s psych pop and 80s New Age, just underneath the glimmering surface there’s a hint at unease, anxiety, rot and dysfunction.

Now, as you may recall the band’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Young Narrator in the Breakers is slated for a November 11, 2016 release through Bella Union Records and thematically, the material according to the members of the band describes both the magic and panic of adult life — with the understanding that much like a getting caught in a vicious breaker, you have to stop fighting and ride it out until you can get to shore safely. Interestingly, the album’s latest single “Ruby (Let’s Buy The Bike)” consists of gorgeous falsetto boy/girl harmonies, a strummed and slightly ragged guitar-led melody, off-kilter percussion and soaring synths, and the result is a gorgeous and trippy acceptance of time’s passing and a swooning love song to a beautiful motorcycle named Ruby that the song’s narrator stumbled on to at a bike show. Part of the song involves the hopes and plans the narrator has for the bike; some of which picturing himself riding around on the badass bike, potentially getting into a gruesome accident and dying — but saying “man, for the bike, it was fucking worth it.”

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Surreal Visuals and Swaggering, Hyper-Futuristic Sounds of Bonzai’s “I Did”

As you’ll hear on “I Did,” the latest single off Lunacy pairs Mura Masa’s swaggering futuristic and incredibly unique production style comprised of industrial clang and clatter, stuttering and skittering beats, staccato cascades of hot, neon synths with Bonzai’s swaggering, self-assured vocal style, which nods at a young Missy Elliot. As the Irish pop artist explains “I wrote ‘I Did’ about some people I felt were jealous of me and I what I was doing cause they think they’re better than me and you know that might be true but I did something with myself and they did not.” She later explains on the incredibly technicolor and psychedelic animated video directed by Tom Bunker, which features Bonzai’s cartoon avatar running through a surreal, dream-like jungle, “the video is meant to depict a journey to success, the tree being the tough climb to the top and the voyage through space at the end being the sweet victory.”

As the video’s producer Tom Bunker adds “The original idea for the video came out of a discussion illustrator Pete Sharp and I had with Cassia [a.k.a. Bonzai) about the track It follows themes that Bonzai puts across in the track about progression in life and moving away from negativity, which could be resentment from your peers or a giant smoke monster that lives in a log. It’s a pretty relatable struggle either way. For the jungle sequences, a lot of the plant and wildlife were a mishmash of different fruits and flowers which Pete took from old Botanical drawings and references of exotic animals.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Vienna, Austria’s Hearts Hearts Return with a Brooding and Artistic Meditation on Identity, Self-Invention and Perspective

“AAA” is the Austrian quintet’s latest single off Young and sonically it’s a song that nods at Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail to the Thief-era Radiohead as shimmering guitar chords, stuttering drum programming, swirling electronics, twinkling keys and a lush string arrangement with Österle’s tender and aching falsetto expressing a deep yearning for more while possessing an underlying uncertainty at its core. Interestingly enough as the band’s frontman David Österle explained about both the song and its video treatment: “I think that the world is a place, where we can dare to pretend. ‘AAA’ deals with that basic feature of the human condition. We fake it till we make it, and thereby go (at least sometimes) astray in the plethora of metamorphoses in that societal masquerade. I think that by assuming different roles we ourselves are fulfilling the requirements of the economy, demanding excessive flexibility and changeability. As a result we all feel like faceless puppets sometimes.

“We wanted to make a video that visually underscores this figuration of identity as a permanent process of self-inventions. The video is much about showing people in different perspectives. The images are blurry, sometimes they are overlapping and merging together seamlessly. What the lens captures, is actually the performance of a performance, the play in a play.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Gorgeous and Surreal Visuals and Sounds of Pavo Pavo’s “Ran Ran Run”

If you have been frequenting this site, you may have come across a couple of posts about the band when they released their “Ran Ran Run”/”Annie Hall” 7 inch, an effort that was also praised by the folks at Stereogum as “weightless pop music that sounds like it was beamed down from a glimmering utopian future,” while nodding at the psych pop sounds of the mid 60s; but just underneath the gleaming surface, there’s a bit of unease, anxiety and rot. In my mind, the song strikes me as a feverish yet whimsical dream of simmering synths and ethereal harmonies that skip about the song’s instrumentation like a pebble being tossed across a placid lake.

The band’s long-awaited full-length debut Young Narrator in the Breakers is slated for a November 11, 2016 through Bella Union Records and to celebrate the album’s upcoming release, the band released a gorgeous and artful music video for the album’s first single “Ran Ran Run.” Directed by artist collective SWIMMERS, the video features the bandmembers in a series of surreally staged scenarios that emphasize the song’s ethereal and surreal nature. As the band’s Eliza Bagg explains of the song and the video, “‘Ran Ran Run’ is a song about the joys and sorrows of growing up, the awareness of impermanence and change — ‘time is a hole in my waterbed!’ In the video we pass through some kind of portal into a completely manufactured reality — a space that is intense but also playful, full of stark contrasts and extremes (of color, texture, mood). We’re somewhere between children and adults, literally dressing up, playing, play-acting, trying on the guises of who we might be. Actually a theme throughout this record is that the whole prospect of becoming an adult involves a little bit of fantasy — reaching for a possible world or possible self, and aiming for magic, for something over the top, fantastical.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Derek Barber (guitar) Geneva Harrison (drums, percussion, keys) Sandra Lawson-Ndu (vocals, percussion, keys) and Doug Stuart (bass, vocals, keys), the Oakland, CA-based soul pop quintet Bells Atlas specialize in a sound that’s been kaleidoscopic, lushly layered and yet difficult to pigeonhole sound as it incorporates elements of indie rock, Afro pop, jazz, electro pop as you’ll hear on the Bay Area’s trippy, shimmering and atmospheric new single “Spec and Bubbles.” Structurally speaking, the song twists and morphs into several distinct segments held together by stuttering drumming, a sinuous bass line and Lawson-Ndu’s sultry cooing — and in some way it channels renowned soul pop act, Hiatus Kaiyote but with a deliberate and painterly act, as though each chord and each bar were a brushstroke, and each brushstroke added color and texture to the larger whole.

Interestingly, the release of single immediately came on the heels of their upcoming run as the house band for WNYC/NPR’s Snap Judgement, later this year and through 2017.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Cinematic Visuals for The Deltahorse’s “Call It a Day”

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site for some time, you’re most likely familiar with The Deltahorse in some fashion or another — and you’d know that earlier this month I wrote about “Happy Heart (Can Go For Miles),” the first single off the act’s long-anticipated and soon-to-be released, full-length debut Transatlantic. “Happy Heart” consisted of Colley’s swaggering and sultry electric baritone saxophone passages, stuttering drumming and drum programming, Sash’s propulsive bass lines with Vadim’s plaintive vocals signing lyrics about how a happy heart can endure almost everything; however, just under the surface was an underlying bitter irony. The album’s second and latest single “Call It A Day” is a cinematic and forceful single consisting of slashing, staccato piano chords, boom bap drum programming, Colley’s swaggering and strutting electric baritone sax skronking, subtly ominous and swirling guitar and bass chords, propulsive percussion and Zeberg’s coolly ironic vocals singing lyrics that hint at the desire to continually move forward and physical desire while beginning to cement their reputation for crafting material with deep, danceable grooves paired with a literate, cinematic sound.

The recently released music video employs a rather simple concept — the band’s Vadim Zeberg in close up singing the song with the Atlantic Ocean behind him. Throughout Zeberg is revealed to have a rather expressive face, at one point after briefly looking at his shoulder at something, he begins to smile mischievously, at other points bobbing his head while singing, and at other points looking at things with an ironically, raised eyebrow.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Led by its Berlin, Germany-based founding member and bassist Sash and featuring Boston, MA-based saxophonist Dana Colley, best known as a former member of Morphine and their latest member, the Belfast, Northern Ireland-based vocalist Vadim Zeberg, the members of indie act The Deltahorse have managed throughout their few years of existence to create a sound that feels and sounds lived in and created live with all three members playing in a studio, despite the fact that because of the distance between each member, they can’t perform together, and reportedly have rarely seen each other face-to-face. As result, the members of the band have never had the experience of playing in a room and picking up on the physical and visual cues that musicians can pick up on that allow them to easily play off and riff off one another. And yet when the trio does write and record, the sessions are treated as though they were impromptu jam sessions with each member adding their individual musical talents and tendencies to create a swaggering and uniquely genre-defying sound.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site for some time, you’re most likely familiar with The Deltahorse in some fashion or another — and you’d know that earlier this month I wrote about “Happy Heart (Can Go For Miles),” the first single off the act’s long-anticipated and soon-to-be released, full-length debut Transatlantic. “Happy Heart” consisted of Colley’s swaggering and sultry electric baritone saxophone passages, stuttering drumming and drum programming, Sash’s propulsive bass lines with Vadim’s plaintive vocals signing lyrics about how a happy heart can endure almost everything; however, just under the surface was an underlying bitter irony. The album’s second and latest single “Call It A Day” is a cinematic and forceful single consisting of slashing, staccato piano chords, boom bap drum programming, Colley’s swaggering and strutting electric baritone sax skronking, subtly ominous and swirling guitar and bass chords, propulsive percussion and Zeberg’s coolly ironic vocals singing lyrics that hint at the desire to continually move forward and physical desire while beginning to cement their reputation for crafting material with deep, danceable grooves paired with a literate, cinematic sound.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Jess Labrador and Shannon Madden, Chasms is a San Francisco, CA-based duo who specialize in crafting sparsely, minimalist dirges based around Labrador’s hauntingly ethereal vocals and shimmering guitar, propulsive and pummeling drum programming, swirling electronics and bursts of feedback and industrial clang and clatter. And in some way their sound draws from shoegaze, drone, dream pop, doom metal and ambient electronica as you’ll hear on the “We’ll Go,” the latest single off the duo’s forthcoming, full-length debut effort On The Legs Of Love Purified, which is slated for an October 14, 2016 through felte records. Interestingly, “We’ll Go” may arguably be the most slow-burning song they’ve ever released — and in some way it evokes smoke slowly dissipating before your eyes as Labrador’s vocals and shimmering synths gently drift into and out of focus and reverberate.

But just under the seemingly placid surface, there’s a sense of unease and discomfort, and that shouldn’t be terrifying surprising. Labrador spent most of the year recording the album herself with a hand injury that made guitar playing and production work difficult, laborious and painful.  Then add that the duo recorded the album in an illegally rented rehearsal space and a cramped apartment, struggling to survive financially as artists while facing the constantly looming threat of eviction, as they were frantically trying to finish their long-awaited debut effort. And in some way, that discomfort helps to emphasize the stark and haunting beauty and the visceral ache at its core.

The duo will be embarking on a tour through October and November, which will include a November 16, 2016 stop at Brooklyn’s Shea Stadium. Check out tour dates below.

Tour Dates

10.07 Portland, OR @ Lovecraft %  
10.08 Seattle, WA @ Blue Moon
10.09 Eugene, WA @ Wandering Goat 
10.10 Sacramento @ Press Club # 
10.11 San Francisco, CA @ The Knockout ^ 
10.13 La Puente, CA @ Bridgetown DIY ~ 
10.14 San Diego, CA @ The Whistle Stop *
10.15 Long Beach, CA @ 4th St. Vine 
10.16 Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo (Part Time Punks) + 
10.29 Berkeley, CA @ KALX (Live Session + Interview)
11.08 Indianapolis, IN @ State St. Pub
11.15 Providence, RI @ Machines with Magnets
11.16 Brooklyn, NY @ Shea Stadium =
11.19 Chicago, IL @ TBA

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the course of this site’s six year history, you’ve likely come across a number of posts on Brooklyn/Pittsburgh dance pop/experimental pop/funk act Superhuman Happiness. With the release of their long-awaited 2014 full-length debut Hands, the act led by co-founders Stuart Bogie (vocals, saxophones, synths) and Eric Biondo (vocals, trump, synths, percussion) emerged on the national scene for a sound that draws from Talking Heads, Antibalas (which, both founding members and several members of their rotating cast of collaborators have been members of), Fela Kuti, synth pop, dance music, New Wave, and others, and for an ebullient and mischievous live show that incorporates elements of jazz-like improvisation, surrealist comedy, performance art and infectious joy. Interestingly, since the release of Hands, the act has gone through a major lineup reshuffling that included the recruitment of Andrea Diaz (lead vocals, keyboards, percussion) along with the aforementioned rotating cast of collaborators featuring friends, former bandmates and other musicians from across the Northeast in completely reformatted project that has gone through a major (and decided) change in sonic direction as the material on Hands‘ follow up Escape Velocity incorporated an increasing use of synths and electronics while retaining many of the elements that first caught my attention, as well as that of the blogosphere — deep groove-filled material that’s whimsical, mischievous, joyous while continuing to thematically focus on profound topics. In the case of Escape Velocity, several songs focused on the fidelity and accuracy of one’s memories against nostalgia.

From what I understand, the members of Superhuman Happiness are currently working on yet another full-length effort but in the meantime, they’ve released their latest single “Powermasters,” which consists of boom-bap drum programming, fluttering and twinkling electronics, warm blasts of horn and a driving, dance floor-friendly hook – – and in some way, it sounds a bit like a subtle yet bumping modernization of their “GMYL”/”Hounds” 7 inch. Completing the single is a hauntingly gorgeous, atmospheric and mournful coda that begins with looping synths, subtly syncopated drumming and ends with a gorgeous string arrangement.

 

The band is in the middle of a tour with Arc Iris that includes an October 6, 2016 stop at Rough Trade. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

Superhuman Happiness / Arc Iris — 2016 Tour Dates
October 6 – Brooklyn, NY – Rough Trade
October 12 – Portland, ME – Empire
October 13 – Cambridge MA – Lizard Lounge
October 14 – Providence, RI – Columbus Theatre
October 15 – Burlington, VT – Signal Kitchen

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Led by its Berlin, Germany-based founder and bassist Sash and featuring Boston, MA-based saxophonist Dana Colley, best known as a former member of Morphine and their newest member, the Belfast, Northern Ireland-based vocalist Vadim Zeberg, the members of indie act The Deltahorse have managed throughout their existence to create a sound that feels and sounds lived in and created live with all three members playing in a studio, despite the fact of the distance between each member, they can’t perform together, and reportedly have rarely seen each other face-to-face and as a result have never quite had the experience of picking up on physical and visual cues musicians pick up on that allow them to easily play off and riff off one another. And yet when the trio does write and record, the sessions are treated as though they were impromptu jam sessions with each member adding their individual musical talents and tendencies to create a swaggering and uniquely genre-defying sound.

Now if you’ve been frequenting this site for some time, you’re most likely familiar with The Deltahorse in some fashion or another. The band’s long-anticipated full-length debut Transatlantic is slated for a September 30, 2016 and the album’s first single “Happy Heart (Can Go For Miles)” consists of Colley’s swaggering and sultry electric baritone saxophone passages, stuttering drumming and drum programming, Sash’s propulsive bass lines with Vadim’s plaintive vocals singing lyrics about how a happy heart can endure almost everything — with an underlying bitter irony. And while further cementing the act’s reputation for a highly sophisticated and almost literate sound, it also reflects a great deal of artistic growth, as the song may arguably possess the deepest groove they’ve yet to release, while being the most accessible.