Category: folk

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: Montréal’s Alex Nicol Shares Hauntingly Bittersweet “Hollywood”

Alex Nicol is a rising Montréal-based singer/songwriter, who spent five year period playing in a number of different projects, including Hoan, an act that released their critically applauded EP Modern Phase back in 2017.

Nicol stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist with the release of his full-length debut 2020’s All For Nada. All For Nada featured “Trust,” a slow-burning and gauzy song built around the Montréal-based artist’s achingly plaintive falsetto, shimmering guitars, a supple bass line and a soaring hook. And while the song reminded me of Canadian freak folk outfit Loving, the song as Nicol explained in press notes “is about whatever meaning the listener finds in it. For me, it’s about doing laundry (appreciating mundane tasks), honouring old traditions, striving to be a more ecological person, the realities of climate change on everyday life. . . ”

All For Nada‘s long anticipated follow-up Been A Long Year Vol. 1 EP was released last month. The EP’s last single, the bittersweet sigh “Hollywood” is built around a haunting arrangement featuring strummed acoustic guitar, twinkling keys and gently padded drumming paired with the Canadian artist’s achingly tender falsetto expressing the tension of unrealized dreams and aspirations — and a begrudgingly uneasy acceptance of the present. Certainly, if you’re in a creative field you’ve felt this deeply and have acknowledged in your life. But there’s also a deeper — and infinitely more positive — acknowledgment at the core of the song: that the narrator has actually accomplished something and has come a very long way to do so.

“Lyrically, ‘Hollywood’ is a reflective song in which I begrudgingly accept that I have failed to find success yet, with Hollywood symbolizing the fame-in-youth narrative that, because I am no longer young, I will never be able to claim,” the Montréal-based singer/songwriter explains. “But if the verses are where I list all the things I will never do, in the choruses I remind myself of all that nourishes me at home, and how far I have come. I have always considered myself a late bloomer, and Hollywood ends optimistically: me and the great blue sky, and all the opportunity that it conveys. Hollywood is a signpost in my path as a musician, marking the end of my youth, in which I was ravaged by self-doubt, and the beginning of my next chapter, in which the sky’s the limit.”

Directed by Alexander Maxim Seltzer, the accompanying video for “Hollywood” is shot on grainy camcorder cassette tape, and follows Nicols at Niagara Falls imitating seagulls, then at a what appears to be a Montréal-based arcade — by himself. The video ends with Nicol going to a low-budget wax museum, where the celebrities don’t quite look right. The video ends with Nicol pretending to be interviewed by a wax figure Jimmy Fallon, which further emphasizes the feeling of unfulfilled dreams and aspirations.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 94th Birthday, June Carter Cash!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 94th anniversary of June Carter Cash.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Berlin’s KAYAM Shares Dreamy “Omens”

Berlin-based sibling duo KAYAM — Kim (vocals, Celtic Harp) and Mike Rauss (vocals, guitar, loops) — have had a multicultural upbringing with stints residing in England, Germany and Israel, and understandably those experiences have influenced the duo’s eclectic and continually expanding sound and approach, which they’ve dubbed “Falafel Pop,” a playful and affectionate reference to the fusion of styles that defines their work — and a reference to their love of chickpeas.

The sibling duo’s sophomore album Omens was released earlier this year, and it features album title track “Omens,” a gorgeous and dreamy bit of folk built around looping and lush finger plucked guitar, twinkling harp and the sibling’s breathtakingly beautiful harmonies. Sonically, “Omens” reminds me quite a bit of Loving‘s gorgeous If I Am Only My Thoughts.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Faute Shares Haunting “Blue Girl Nice Day”

Peggy Messing is a Winnipeg-born, Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and visual artist, best known for her solo recording project La Faute. The Winnipeg-born, Toronto-based artist’s work sees her exploring several different themes including surface vs. depth, longing, betrayal, mourning and desire.

Creating her sound with tenor eclectic guitar and obsolete hardware samplers, Messing released her debut EP just before the pandemic put a halt on everything. She chose to pause live performing due to her health, and returned to focusing on creating music, finding workarounds to the problem of isolation. She connected with fellow artists and producers in France, the UK, Canada and the States — and most recently, Los Angeles-based producer, Topher Mohr, who produced her forthcoming La Faute self-titled debut album.

“Blue Girl Nice Day,” the self-titled album’s atmospheric first single features strummed acoustic guitar, twinkling keys, Messing’s gorgeous and expressive vocal paired with swirling synths and military-influenced drumming. Sonically, “Blue Girl Nice Day” is blends classic, guitar-driven folk with shoegazer-like textures.

Messing explains that “Blue Girl Nice Day” was inspired by the Milgram Experiments of the 60s. Subjects were told to give ever-increasing series of electric shocks to a “learner,” who had to repeat word pairs” Blue/Girl, Nice/Day, Slow/Dance, Sweet/Taste, and so on. In the experiment, the “learner” was an actor, who purposely made mistakes. The subject had to decide if they should obey orders and potentially give a lethal electric shock to a person, who was crying out in the next room — or to refuse. Subjects were shaken to find that most people would obey the authority figure and give what they thought were lethal shocks to the learner, even against their own conscience.”The song reflects on how easily we can betray and hurt each other, and how we don’t necessary know ourselves and what we are capable of,” the Canadian artist says.

The accompanying video follows Messing outside in a field near power lines and on a hospital bed with a cold wind blowing around her. It’s hauntingly eerie.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: John Grant Tackles an American Folk Classic

Singer/songwriter and pianist John Grant started his career in earnest as the frontman and primary songwriter for alternative rock outfit The Czars. Over the past decade, Grant has carved out a reputation as a prolific and acclaimed, solo artist.

“God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” is a traditional American folk song that’s famously oft-covered, with the earliest known recordings going back to the 1940s with the likes of Elvis Presley, Bobbie Gentry, Mercury Rev, Moby, Tom Jones, and The Blind Boys of Alabama recording covers. The song famously re-entered public consciousness through a Johnny Cash cover, which appeared on the country legend’s Rick Rubin-produced American Recordings V,

Johnny Cash’s version appeared as temporary music in an edit of Netflix’s smash hit series Inside Man. The show’s director Paul McGuigan claims that it was composer David Arnold’s “brilliant idea to use the song.” They were looking at a cut of an episode when Arnold said “Well this is perfect, so why don’t we do a version of that?”

Grant was recruited to record a new version of the song — specifically for the show. Appearing as the theme song for Inside Man, Grant’s David Arnold-produced cover is a bold re-imagining of the song, giving the song a gritty, modern gospel meets electro rock air.

“I’m so incredibly honored to have the opportunity to sing this fantastic track and to work with David Arnold,” Grant says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Kendra Morris Performs “Come Wander With Me” at Tupelo House Studio

JOVM mainstay Kendra Morris is a Florida-born, New York-based singer/songwriter, musician, and multi-disciplinary artist. As a singer/songwriter and musician, Morris can trace the origins of her music career to discovering the joys of multi-tracking and harmonizing with herself on a karaoke machine in the closet of her childhood home. 

Morris went on to play in cover bands in Florida before relocating to New York with her band, which played her original material. Her first band split up and she dealt with the aftermath by writing material alone on an 8-track recorder in her closet. Sometime after, she met longtime collaborator and producer Jeremy Page and signed to Wax Poetics, who released her full-length debut, 2012’s Banshee. 

The Florida-born, New York-based JOVM mainstay self-released her sophomore effort 2016’s Babble. She went on to collaborate with the likes of DJ Premier, 9th Wonder, MF DOOM, Czarface, Ghostface Killah, Dennis Coffey and Dave Sitek among others. And while being a grizzled, New York scene vet, Morris’ work generally embodies a broader sense of American culture, drawing from a wide array of influences across music and film dating back to the mid 20th Century. 

Morris’ most recent album Nine Lives was released earlier this year, Karma Chief Records. While being her first full-length album in about a decade, the album for Morris represents a major turning point in her life both professionally and personally: For Morris, the album heralds the beginning of a new chapter, an evolution to the next level of adulthood — and the first on her new label. The album’s material encapsulates moments from what could easily be nine lifetimes lived over a chronological time period — or nine lives lived simultaneously in parallel and convergent realities in the multiverse.

I wrote about three of the album’s singles:  

  • “Penny Pincher,” a slow-burning ballad about reaching the end of the road in a relationship, fueled by regret, heartache, acceptance and steely determination to go forward with your life.

  • “Nine Lives” is a strutting, hook-driven bit of soul pop jam centered around Morris’ sultry vocals, stuttering boom bap beats, squiggling guitar, and glistening Rhodes arpeggios that sounds as though it could have been released between 1992-1996 or so. 

  • “Circle Eights” is a slow-burning song centered around twinkling Rhodes, a sinuous bass line, a steady rhythm and Morris’ soulful vocals full of a deeply aching yearning.

Earlier this year, Morris stopped at Colemine Records’ Cinncinnati area-based Tupelo House Studio to lay down some stripped down version of tracks from her then-forthcoming album. While she was there, she recorded a hauntingly gorgeous version of the Jeff Alexander and Tony Wilson penned “Come Wander With Me,” a song written for and featured in a 1964 episode of The Twilight Zone with the same name. “Come Wander With Me” was the final episode to be filmed of the series — and interestingly, the song has a connection to Cincinnati: The Twilight Zone can trace its origins back to Cincinnati, where it was originally known as Rod Serling’s The Storm in the mid-’50s.

Both versions are so gorgeous, so haunting that I stopped in my tracks when I heard them. Rooted in heartache, longing, the desire to escape a sad world of devastating heartbreak and loss, “Come Wander With Me” at its core, is a lament older than time itself.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toronto’s Shirley Hurt Shares Introspective and Gorgeous “Problem Child”

Sophie Katz is a Toronto-based singer/songwriter, musician and creative mastermind behind Shirley Hurt, her latest music project. Katz’s self-titled Shirley Hurt debut is slated for a December 2, 2022 release through Telephone Explosion Records.

Recorded with a highly-accomplished backing band that features Fresh Pepper‘s and The War on Drugs‘ Joseph Shabason (sax, flute), Chris Shannon (bass), Harrison Forman (guitar), Jason Bhattacharya (percussion), Jacques Mindreau (violin) and Nick Durado (piano), the Nathan Vanderwielen-produced, nine song album reportedly sees Katz and company traversing into the furthest corners of experimental indie folk, pop and country to create a singular sound that integrates elements of each with self-assured elegance, ease and unpredictability. Sonically, the album’s material is centered around skeletal arrangements that tastefully slink around Katz’s delivery, which subtly recalls the likes of Joni Mitchell, Carole King and others.

“This album feels lonely and roadworn to me. The woman who wrote this was definitely in the winter of her life,” Katz says. “The landscape feels blue and burnt orange. There is a wistfulness and longing, whether I like it or not.” The album’s persistent tone of propulsive contemplation wasn’t by chance; Katz came up with many of the album’s lyrical and structural ideas while on the road.

The self-titled album’s first single “Problem Child” is built around a 70s AM rock/troubadour-like arrangement featuring Bhattacharya’s assertive and propulsive percussion, Dorado’s dreamy and twinkling keys, meditative strummed and looping guitar lines and fluttering bursts of Shabason’s flute. The sparse arrangement allows Katz’s husky delivery and observant, longing and conversational lyrics to take the spotlight. The end result is akin to Nabokov being paired with gorgeous, spectral arrangements.

Directed and edited by Eli Spiegel, the accompanying video for “Problem Child” is set in a warm and gorgeous, suburban home, and features two women — presumably a grandmother and her granddaughter spending an afternoon together. The older woman is teaching the younger woman a recipe for pie. Throughout the video, there’s a palpable sense of tradition and love –and in a very lovely place.