Category: folk

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Boston, MA-born, New York-based composer and songwriter Jake Zavracky and Vancouver Island, BC-born, New York-based Elizabeth LeBaron, the New York-based dream pop duo The Dream Eaters can trace their origins back to 2015. After playing and touring in obscurity in several bands both in his hometown of Boston and New York, Jake Zavracky decided to give up the musician’s life, and for a period of time he was working in a Brooklyn dive bar, when he met Elizabeth LeBaron, another bartender, who had recently relocated to New York. Discovering that they were both musicians, they found an instant connection and began collaborating together — although initially, Zavracky had written songs for LeBaron to sing. However, upon the realization that their harmonies helped to create a wholly unique sound, that draws from dream pop, shoegaze, psych pop, folk and rock, they recognized that they needed to write and perform as a unit.

Initially writing and performing as Jake And Elizabeth, Zavracky and LeBaron saw a rapidly growing profile; however, as they began to further refine their sound, they felt that they needed to rebrand themselves, eventually performing as The Dream Eaters. And in fact, 2016 saw the release of their self-produced, debut EP as The Dream Eaters, Five Little Pills — and interestingly enough, the EP proved to be precursor of the bare-bone production and sparse yet hauntingly gorgeous sound of “Dead On The Inside,” the first single off the duo’s soon-to-be released full-length debut, We Are A Curse. Thematically speaking, the duo notes that the song focuses on coming unmoored and getting lost, and walking around with the realization that you’re living in a murky, anxious and unforgiving dream, evoking what many of us feel living in this surreal political climate; and while being a gorgeous and understated protest song, there’s an underlying sense of resolve and determination to survive and overcome the dark days ahead.

As far as the single, sonically speaking, the duo pairs LeBaron’s lilting and effortless vocals with gently strummed folk-like guitar and chiming percussion with a soaring hook which displays the duo’s stunning harmonizing. And while bearing a resemblance to Moonbabies’ Wizards on the Beach, the song manages to sound as though it draws from Nick Drake and Crosby, Stills, and Nash-era folk.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Port Townshend, WA’s Solvents Release a Politically Charged Anthem for the Holiday Season

During this shortened workweek at my day job, several coworkers had mentioned how they were feeling deeply unsettled and anxious about being around family members and associates who had voted for Donald Trump — and knowing that by their family’s support and votes, that their family actually seemed to hate them and everything they represented. Comprised of husband and wife duo Jarrod Paul Bramson and Emily Maddon, the Port Townsend, WA-based duo Solvents quickly wrote their latest single “Song For President Trump (I’m Gonna Fight)” as a way to inspire as many folks as possible to pick up an instrument, to write poetry, blog posts, take to the streets or open up a conversation, and that most important to put your feelings out there on how repugnant and frightening a Donald Trump administration is and will be for so many. If you have some asshole “family” to deal with this weekend, know that The Joy of Violent Movement is by your side and let this song be the theme song of your entire holiday season as you tell people to go fuck themselves.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Renowned British-born Singer/Songwriter Miten’s Elegantly Simple Cover of a Beloved Beatles Tune

Miten’s recently released Temple At Midnight is his first solo English language work in over a decade and in many ways the album finds him returning to his musical roots while writing deeply personal material inspired and influenced by his own journey to renewal, faith and love. And interestingly, the album’s latest single is an elegantly simple cover of The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” in which Miten’s soulful and wizened vocals are paired with a sparse arrangement that has Miten accompanying himself with guitar, a bit of piano here and there, a mournful string arrangement and some backing vocals from his partner and collaborator Deva Premal. And while radiating a quiet assuredness and tranquility, Miten’s cover also possesses the same wistfulness of the original.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Sawyer Gebauer is a Wisconsin-born, Oakland, CA-based singer/songwriter, who has spent a great deal of his musical career moving back and forth between the States and Europe. When he was 19, Gebauer relocated to Sweden, where he founded and formed Brittsommar, a musical project that featured a rotating cast of musicians and received quite a bit of attention across Continental Europe with the release of their 2011 debut effort Day Of Living Velvet. After the release of Brittsommar’s debut, Gebauer relocated to Berlin where he recored 2013’s The Machine Stops in a dilapidated warehouse. Eventually, Gebauer returned to the States, recording the final Brittsommar effort 2015’s Mary Me EP at TRI Studios in San Rafael, CA.  

After Brittsommar ended, Gebauer started his latest musical project Catch Prichard, which draws deeply from Americana; in fact, Gebauer has publicly cited Townes Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen‘s 1995 release The Ghost of Tom Joad as major influences on his latest project, and that he wanted to write and record a collection of stripped down songs based around narrative and melody — and the end result is the soon-to-be released Eskota EP, a five song EP named after the Texas ghost town in which it was recorded. 

The first single from the EP “Hometown” is an elegantly simple track featuring Gebauer’s gorgeous and moody baritone, accompanied by his dexterous guitar strumming, and gently padded drumming — and the result is a sparse, spectral song that’s indebted to folk as much as it country, while possessing a narrator’s attention to physical and psychological detail. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Lush and Boldly Colored, Primal Visuals for Y La Bamba’s “Libre”

Over the course of the band’s three albums and several lineup changes of collaborators, friends and musicians, the band’s material has gone through a variety of changes — but it’s the the band’s forth full-length effort Ojos Del Sol that may be arguably be the most radical turn in sonic direction, while returning to familiar themes of searching and personal discovery — themes that have come up a number of times in Mendoza’s own life, whether as the daughter of Mexican immigrants connecting with her ancestry and searching for spiritual meaning that goes much further than organized religion. In fact, as Mendoza explains in press notes, the material on the album thematically is a “cerebration of family and community” — but a community of shared humanity.

Interestingly, the album’s first single “Libre” finds Mendoza and company at their most self-assured but in one of the breeziest and pop-leaning songs as they pair an infectious and anthemic hook with an arrangement that includes what sounds like xylophone, a mischievous and sinuous bass line, a steady backbeat, Mendoza’s gorgeous vocals along three part harmonies in English and Spanish, a rolling, African folk music-like guitar line in a song that evokes a sense of almost childlike wonder and joy, while making a connection both to Mendoza’s ancestral homeland and Africa in a way that subtly channels Paul Simon’s Graceland.

The recently released video accompanying the song is a lush, cinematically shot video using impossibly verdant greens, bright reds, and a seemingly primal and ecstatic dance routine in the fields just featuring women wearing ancient-inspired costumes, masks and the like. And while being swoon worthy, the video manages to make a vital connection between the primal and ancient and the modern, between celebrating spring and summer and fertility, and a celebrating a community of strong like-minded women simultaneously.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Hauntingly Gorgeous Visuals and Sounds of Benjamin’s Brother’s “Room 505”

Benjamin’s Brother is a fairly mysterious British electro folk/electro pop act comprised of a producer and songwriter, who writes and records under the moniker of Benjamin’s Brother and a rotating cast of collaborators and friends who pair haunting and ambient productions with songs that lyrically focus on death, desire and pain, among other subjects. The act’s latest single “Room 505” is an eerily sparse production featuring contemplative piano chords, plaintive, falsetto vocals, stuttering drum programming and brief burst of mournful horns. Sonically, the song reminds me of BRAIDS’ impressive Flourish//Perish but with an aching yearning at its core.

The recently released video features a dancer performing in sparsely arranged room with her doppleganger — but is it all an delusional within her head? Interestingly, the video manages to suggest the internal struggle between our real, internal self and the self we project out toward the world.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Devil Makes Three’s Cover of A Ralph Stanley Classic

Now earlier this month, you might remember that I wrote about Redemption and Ruin’s first single, a slowed-down, twangy, Johnny Cash, Sun Records-era-leaning cover of one of my favorite Muddy Waters tunes “Champagne and Reefer” that retained the original’s wicked sense of humor and gleeful debauchery. The album’s second single is a cover of bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley’s classic and oft-covered “I Am The Man Thomas,” and as Bernhard told the folks at Relix, “‘I Am The Man’ is a gruesome tale of the capture and crucifixion of Jesus sung by none other than the late great Ralph Stanley. It may be the most metal Gospel song ever penned by mortal hand. What better song to include on Redemption And Ruin, This tune has it all, the chase the death and the rise from the grave.” The Devil Makes Three cover is a subtly and deceptively straightforward cover that puts a bit of snarl and muscle into it — while with a deeper emphasis on the gruesomeness and cruelty of the cruxifixction and Jesus’ eventual redemption.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Led by frontwoman and principle songwriter Luz Elena Mendoza, Portland, OR-based alt folk/folk rock/indie rock act Y La Bamba, the critically applauded act can trace its origins to  early 2008 when Mendoza wanted to perform under something else other than her name, and began writing and making home recordings of her songs on a one-by-one basis largely drawing from the traditional Mexican folk songs she heard as a child growing up in San Francisco and playing with her cousins in the San Joaquin Valley, the work of Loch Lomond and Devendra Banhardt and others. Around the time she had begun writing her own material, Mendoza had begun regularly hosting an open mic at a sake bar in Northeast Portland, where she met the members of the band’s original line up — Ben Meyercord, Mike Kitson (drums), Sean Flinn (guitar) and Eric Shrapel (accordion).

Over the course of the band’s three albums and several lineup changes of collaborators, friends and musicians, the band’s material has gone through a variety of changes — but it’s the the band’s forth full-length effort Ojos Del Sol that may be arguably be the most radical turn in sonic direction, while returning to familiar themes of searching and personal discovery — themes that have come up a number of times in Mendoza’s own life, whether as the daughter of Mexican immigrants connecting with her ancestry and searching for spiritual meaning that goes much further than organized religion. In fact, as Mendoza explains in press notes, the material on the album thematically is a “cerebration of family and community” — but a community of shared humanity.

Interestingly, the album’s first single “Libre” finds Mendoza and company at their most self-assured but in one of the breeziest and pop-leaning songs as they pair an infectious and anthemic hook with an arrangement that includes what sounds like xylophone, a mischievous and sinuous bass line, a steady backbeat, Mendoza’s gorgeous vocals along three part harmonies in English and Spanish, a rolling, African folk music-like guitar line in a song that evokes a sense of almost childlike wonder and joy, while making a connection both to Mendoza’s ancestral homeland and Africa in a way that subtly channels Paul Simon‘s Graceland.

 

 

 

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Summer Festival Preview: Northside Festival 2016

The JOVM previews 2016’s Northside Festival, along with brief bios and music from some of the artists performing — including Brian Wilson, Kasey Musgraves, Conor Oberst, Wolf Parade, Psychic Ills, Diarrhea Planet, The Giraffes, Bambara, Blak Emoji and Boulevards.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Oh Pep! on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts

Comprised of Olivia Hally and Pepita Emmerichs, Melbourne, Australia-based electro folk duo Oh, Pep! derive their name from the first names of both members of the act, and they can trace the origins of their collaboration to […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Comprised of Olivia Hally and Pepita Emmerichs, Melbourne, Australia-based electro folk duo Oh, Pep! can trace their origins to when the act formed while Hally and Emmerichs were students at a music secondary school. And since 2012, the duo have quickly amassed a tremendous amount of commercial and critical success at a relatively young age — the duo have released three EPs that have received both national and international attention, including a huge CMJ last year in which KCRW, NPR‘s Bob Boilen breathlessly praised them, a NPR Tiny Desk Concert appearance and a Nashville’s AMA’s Pop Matters appearance, as well as appearances at  The Woodford Folk Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival, The National Folk Festival in Canberra, and Folk Alliance International, Kansas City. Adding to the duo’s growing national and international profile, they’ve won the Young Folk Performer of the Year and were nominated in the Best Folk Roots Category at 2014’s  The Age Music Victoria Awards.

2016 may be the biggest year for the duo of Hally and Emmerichs will be releasing their much-anticipated full-length debut Stadium Cake on June 24, 2016 through Dualtone Records and the album which was recorded in Echo Lake, Nova Scotia last August with Canadian producer Daniel Ledwell has the duo expanding upon the songwriting approach and sound that first won them national and international attention — namely the duo’s ability to subtly mesh lightness and darkness within their material. The album’s first single “Doctor Doctor” has the band pairing stuttering cascades of synths, propulsive boom bap drums with Hally and Emmerich’s ethereal and sultry vocals singing lyrics focusing on a narrator that is suffering through self-doubt and indecision while life is rushing past them and a dysfunctional relationship that they can’t seem to get out of. Throughout the song there’s a palpable tension — the sort of tension that’s unusual for such buoyant and playful pop.

Haley and Emmerichs will be embarking on a lengthy tour throughout the Spring and Summer that’ll start off in their native Australia, a lengthy tour across the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, France and Spain and a North American tour that includes a June 29, 2016 at Mercury Lounge. Check out tour dates below.

TOUR DATES
* w/ Lake Street Dive
# w/ Basia Balut
+ w/ Lord Huron and Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
Apr 6 The Jade Monkey, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Apr 8  Northcote social club, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Apr 10 The Polish Club, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Apr 13 Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane, NSW
Apr 14 No. 5 Church St, Bellingen, NSW, Australia
Apr 15 Oxford arts centre, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Apr 23 CAFE DE LA DANSE, Paris, France*
Apr 25 Komedia, Telscombe Cliffs, United Kingdom*
Apr 26 Scala, London, United Kingdom*
Apr 28 Whelans, Dublin, Ireland*
Apr 29 Landmark, Bergen, Norway#
Apr 30 Kägelbanan, Stockholm, Sweden#
May 1  Smedjan, Tollered, Sweden#
May 2  Revolver, Oslo, Norway#
May 3  Mejeriet, Lund, Sweden#
May 4  De Barras, Clonakilty, Co. Cork, Ireland
May 5  Levis, Ballydehob, Co. Cork Ireland
May 6  Ambigious Fiddle Presents: leap, Co.Cork, Ireland
May 7  Roisin Dubh, Galway, Ireland
May 8  Mullarkeys, Clifden, Co.Galway, Ireland
May 12 After Dark, Dartington Hall, Tontes, Devon, UK
May 13 Ruby lounge, Manchester, UK
May 14 The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, Scotland
May 18 The Greennote, London, UK
May 19-22 The Great Escape, Brighton, UK
May 28 Liverpool Sounds City, Liverpool, UK
Jun  2-5 Primavara, Barcelona, Spain
Jun 6 Fillmore Theatre, Philadelphia, PA+
Jun 7 Wolf Trap, Vienna, VA+
Jun 8 Red Hat Amphitheatre, Raliegh, NC+
Jun 24 The Drake, Toronto, ON, Canada
Jun 29 Mercury Lounge, New York, NY
Jul 7 Jammin Java, Vienna, VA
Jul 8 World Cafe Live, Philadelphia, PA
Jul 9 Green River Festival, Northampton, MA
Jul 11 Schubas, Chicago, IL
Jul 12 Cedar Cultural Centre, Minneapolis, MN
Jul 25 Mississippi Studios, Portland, OR
Jul 27 Ricksaw Stop, San Francisco, CA
Jul 28 Bootleg Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
Jul 30 Casbah, San Diego, CA
Aug 1 Larimer Lounge, Denver, CO
Aug 3 The Demo, St. Louis, MO
Aug 4 High Watt, Nashville, TN
Aug 5 Evening Muse, Charlotte, NC
Aug 6 Cats Cradle, Carrboro, NC

 

 

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Gorgeous and Meditative Visuals for José González’s “With the Ink of a Ghost”

José González is a Gothenburg, Sweden-based indie folk singer/songwriter and guitarist, who quickly rose to international prominence as both a solo artist and as a member of the indie electro folk act Junip, as well […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Brandi Carlile’s “The Things I Regret” Live at Red Rocks Amphitheater

Ravensdale, WA-born and Seattle, WA-based singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood — when she was 8 she performed Johnny Cash‘s “Tennessee Flat Top Box” with her mother […]