Category: Indie Pop

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Telescoping Shares Glitchy Yet Accessible “Don’t Show”

Led by co-founders, multi-instrumentalist Lorenzo Tomaselli and Maria Eduarda Garcia (bass), indie outfit Telescoping was formed last year. And since their formation, the band has created music that’s accessible and innovative rooted in their commitment to push the boundaries of what’s possible in pop.

Their latest single “Don’t Show” marks a change in sonic direction for the band. Built around an ear-catching hooks and melodies paired with a propulsive groove and distorted guitars, the song sees the band adding electronic glitches and looping to add a modern and experimental edge to their sound — while being remarkably accessible.

As the band explains, the song thematically explores the idea of showing your true self to others, and how people are committed to never letting others see or know their true selves.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Edie Yvonne Tells Off Fuckbois and Dummies in “Random Boy”

14 year-old — yeah, 14! — Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Edie Yvonne wrote her full-length debut At Ease in her room during pandemic-related quarantines. The young artist has shared three singles off the album so far, “On Your Mind,” “In the Rain,” and the album’s latest single “Random Boy,” which were released earlier this year.

Built around a singer/songwriter pop arrangement of strummed acoustic guitar, boom bap-like drums and a mischievously jaunty hook, “Random Boy” simultaneously reveals a young artist with a self-assuredness beyond her relative youth while being a tell off/reminder to not deal with fuckbois, bullies and other assorted dummies with the awareness that they’d be terrible for her.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Romy Valalik Shares Haunting and Eerie “Comme un reve”

French indie artist Romy Valalik is a self-taught singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, who started her career as a bassist. She quickly turned to electronic instruments, so that she could fully express her musical ideas — and have a symphony orchestra at her fingertips.

The French artist quickly established an attention grabbing sound that featured gorgeous symphonic-inspired arrangements paired with a Björk-like vocal. After singing to Universal Music France, Valalik released her debut EP, 2021’s 1 and last year’s “I Am Your Treasure,” she chose to follow her own path and become an independent artist with complete artistic freedom.

Her latest single “Comme un reve” is built around an eerie arrangement of twinkling keys, bursts of soaring strings and trumpet serving as an atmospheric bed for the French artist’s hauntingly expressive vocal. It’s a remarkably cinematic song that while somewhat indebted to Björk sounds as though it should be part of the soundtrack of a bildungsroman featuring a character discovering herself.

The accompanying video, which was directed by the French artist, features the artist in tight closeups, appearing like a siren in the deep. Behind her tendrils of light move with her. It’s a fittingly eerie and dreamy visual.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Guatemala’s Wino Gándara Shares Anthemic “The Journey”

Influenced by Tony Iomni, Kirk Hammett, Brett Garsed, and Joe Satriani, Guatemalan-born and-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Wino Gándara has been performing, recording and writing music professionally since 2008. He has shared stages with a number of acclaimed musicians and guitarists including Pablo Solar, WarCry‘s José Rubio, Rata Blanca‘s Gabriel Marián and Mario Ian, Alessandro Bertoni, Manuel Trabucco, Giuseppe Zanca, Atheris Energy, Lukky Sparxx, Walter Monsanto, Hedras Ramos and a lengthy list of others, while impressing both musicians and fans with his energy, creativity and talent.

Gándara will step out into the spotlight as a solo artist with the release of his full-length debut, Love Journey. Produced and recorded with several different artists and musicians, the album sonically ranges from prog rock, classic rock, fusion and even smooth jazz among others. The album will feature “The Journey,” a song that sounds like it would fit on the soundtrack of St. Elmo’s Fire, The Breakfast Club, Lethal Weapon, and other 80s fare, complete with bombastic guitar, keytar and saxophone solos.

Thematically, “The Journey” as the Guatemalan artist explains is informed by our daily struggle to achieve our dreams despite failure, fears and countless other obstacles. “It’s a reminder that no matter how hard our journey could seem, what we have learned and where we’ve gotten so far has made us who we are, stronger and wiser,” he says.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: TANSU Shares Sultry “DOWNTOWN”

Deriving her artist name from a Turkish term for the sun’s radiant touch on ocean waters just before sunrise, the emerging pop artist TANSU has a diverse and global cultural background with roots in Turkey and Ireland. She spent her formative years in London and Connecticut, had a stint in Boston for college, and has called NYC home for the past 13 years.

During that period, TANSU has carefully balanced her life between music and fashion, which she defines as performing arts. While working in fashion PR, she lent her vocals to numerous projects as a session and featured vocalist, most recently releasing “The Wash Up,” co-produced with Lars Viola. She also performs extensively around both lower and Manhattan, including a monthly residency at Lafolia Restaurant, every first Thursday.

Back in 2015, the emerging pop artist reconnected with American Authors‘ Dave Rublin, a college acquaintance. Since then, they’ve been writing and recording music together, including her latest single “DOWNTOWN,” which has been released through Rublin’s Little Planet Records.

Featuring skittering, trap-like beats and glistening synths serving as a silky bed for the emerging New York-based artist’s self-assured and sultry delivery. Seemingly indebted to the likes of The Weeknd, SZA, Beyoncé and others, the anthemic and hook-driven “DOWNTOWN” marks a new sonic direction for the emerging artist, while being informed by the bitter hurt of lived-in personal experience, so the song sees its narrator expressing confusion, hurt, pride and then forgiveness within a turn of a phrase.

“I wrote this song on the heels of ‘The First Big Fight’ with, who was then, my new boyfriend,” TANSU explains. ” It was weird, because I was treating the fight with one-night-nonchalance; kind of a, ‘don’t worry baby, I never liked you that much anyway’ type of feeling. Because that’s how you were SUPPOSED to feel when dating in the late 2010’s. ‘Grabbing my scars/ and then deciding just to walk out’ is a very intimate line. It questions how we can be intimate with someone, touch each others’ bodies, our scars, our souls, and then pretend that we can just move on. It’s hard to justify an intimate fling with your soul. ‘DOWNTOWN’ speaks to the juxtaposition of that mind fuck,” TANSU shares. She continues, “fresh from the fight, I needed some glorifying attention from someone else. So I went to the studio to go write something. Luckily my producer was also going through a situational something, so we came up with a sexy song while both sexually frustrated. We ended up going out to Three Diamond Door in Bushwick that night after that session.  The bridge is an interpretation of what happened after Three Diamond Door. We were buzzed, music made us dance, I got the attention I thought I wanted… but as soon as I stepped outside, I knew who I was calling.”   

The couple eventually recovered from that argument, and they got married this past weekend.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Loréne Shares Ethereal Pop Confection

19-year-old, emerging, French-born pop artist Loréne can has dreamt of being a singer since she was a girl. She wrote her first songs in her room, by herself — initially without daring to finish them.

A few years pass by and she starts timidly singing in local bars and restaurants. Those experiences open the doors to cabaret and the orchestra. Last year, the French artist decided to throw herself fully into music. She notes that like countless other young artists, she had to face the doubts and fears that prevented her from attempting to pursue her dreams.

Her debut single, the Whosinnocent co-written and produced “Across the Universe” is an anthemic, pop confection featuring twinkling and atmospheric synths serving as a lush yet ethereal bed for the emerging French artist’s remarkably self-assured delivery. While sonically reminding me of Haerts and others, lyrically and thematically, “Across the Universe” finds it narrator trusting a larger power — the universe itself. And as a result, it’s simultaneously hopeful and an acceptance of our smallness.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Restlessly prolific Norwegian instrumental tropical funk/pop outfit and JOVM mainstays Orions Belte —Øyind Blomstrøm (guitar), Chris Holm (bass) and Kim Åge Furuhaug (drums) — will be releasing their third full-length album Women on October 6, 2023 through their longtime label home Jansen Records.

Much like their previously released work, all the songwriting and production is done by the band members themselves, but with Women they’ve consciously put a lot of effort into making everything bigger and more powerful than before. String arrangements flow easily throughout the album’s material and is meant to describe a sensation that they describe as feeling “like releasing a million balloons at once while lying looking at the night sky, and dreaming of road trips on bumpy country roads through the Amazon in Brazil.” 

Women will feature:

  • “Silhouettes,” a track rooted in the trio’s penchant for trippy and irresistibly funky grooves, but while also arguably being the darkest song of their growing catalog. The song bounces back and forth between ethereal verses and crunchy, earthy guitar riffage paired with soaring hooks, a supple bass line and a cacophonous string arrangement by Norwegian violinist and composer Ola Kvernberg. “Silhouettes” reveals a mischievous and adventurous group of musicians boldly pushing their sound and approach in new directions while still being rooted in their penchant for trippy grooves.
  • “Jai Alai,” a track built around a percussive and driving drum pattern, glistening and twinkling 80s-like synths, a Steely Dan-like guitar solo paired with a dreamy Tropicalia-like coda with acoustic guitar sand shimmering mandolin paired with a bemusedly delivered lyric, “Jai Alai” is mischievously anachronistic song that sounds as though it could have been released in 1974 or maybe 1984 but while dripping in self-deprecating irony. “‘Spent some time alone with you, a friend of mine told me to’ – everybody has gotten bad advice like this at some point,” the members of the Norwegian JOVM mainstay outfit say of the new single. “And sometimes things can go a lot faster than you thought, like Jai Alai – the world’s fastest sport. This track has a summery feel to it, percussive patterns, an in-your-face guitar solo and a dreamy ending with acoustic guitars and mandolins.”

Women‘s latest single “When You’re Gone, I’ll Be Gone” is a slow-burning, Quiet Storm-like jam built around a two step-inducing groove and shimmering guitar serving as a silky bed for Live Miranda Solberg, a.k.a. Louien’s delicate delivery. The song is a bittersweet, nostalgia-inducing song that’s part lament over the breakup of a relationship and part begrudging acceptance.

Solberg is a rising star in the Norwegian indie/folk scene, who received Norwegian Grammy nod last year, and is a current member of Silver Lining.

The band will be embarking on another Stateside tour this fall that includes an October 16, 2023 stop at Baltimore’s Metro Gallery and an October 17, 2023 stop at Johnny Brenda‘s in Philly. Sadly, there isn’t a NYC date, but Johnny Brenda’s is one of my favorite venues in Philly. And you can load up on cheesesteaks while you’re there! Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

Orions Belte Tour Dates:
10/4 – Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst*
10/5 – San Luis Obispo, CA @ Fremont Theatre*
10/6 – Ventura, CA @ Ventura Music Hall*
10/7 – Pomona, CA @ Glasshouse*
10/8 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom*
10/11 – Los Angeles, CA @ Vencie West
10/12 – Berkeley, CA @ Cornerstone
10/13 – Portland, OR @ Jack London Revue
10/14 – Bellingham, WA @ The Shakedown (Bellingham Exit)
10/15 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
10/16 – Baltimore, MD @ Metro Gallery
10/17 – Philadelphia, PA @ Jonny Brenda’s
10/18 – Boston, MA @ Deep Cuts
* w/ Psychedelic Porn Crumpets
 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: DC’s Alena Ciera Shares Lush and Anthemic “Change Your Mind”

Alena Ciera is a Maryland-born, Washington, DC-based singer/songwriter and musician. Throughout her career, she played at The St. James Theatre, Jamming Java, Snally Gaster Festival, Nationals Park, EagleBank Arena, Audi Field, Pearl Street Warehouse, and a growing list of other venues across both the DC region and nationally. She performed in David Byrne’s American Utopia, and she has collaborated with Yolanda Adams, CeeLo Green, Bela Dona, and a growing list of others.

The Maryland-born, DC-based artist’s work frequently draws from her own life experience while her extensive musical background allows her work to draw from rock, pop and R&B among others.

Released earlier this year, Alena Ciera’s latest EP All In My Head attempts to take listeners on “an immersive experience through a fusion of ethereal electronic sounds, soulful melodies and introspective lyrics,” she says. The EP’s latest single “Change Your Mind” is a crafted, radio friendly, pop confection built around a crafted and lush arrangement of pop funk guitar, atmospheric electronics, rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses serving as a silky 80s-influenced bed for the Maryland-born, DC-based artist’s yearning delivery and lived-in lyrics.

“Change Your Mind” reveals a remarkably self-assured songwriter, musician and artist, whose work wouldn’t be out of place on Top 40 radio right now.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Angeline Saris Teams Up with Naté the Soulsanger and Sandra Pippins on a Slinky Feminist Anthem

Over the past decade, California-based bassist, songwriter and educator Angeline Saris has developed a reputation for being an in-demand touring and session bassist, who has worked with an acclaimed collection of musicians and producers including Grammy Award-winning producer Naranda Michael Walden, Ernest Ranglin, Zepparella, The Celebration of Bowie Tour with Todd Rundgren, Adrian Belew, Spacehog’s Royston Langdon and Fishbone‘s Angelo Moore. Saris has also shared the stage with Carlos Santana, Ronnie Spector, Dionne Warwick, Steve Vai, Steve Morse, Richie Sambora, Orianthi, Steven Adler, Neal Schon and a lengthy list of others.

Saris showcased her talent as a songwriter with ANGELEX‘s 2018 debut Tight Lips, which received glowing praise from Bass Player Magazine, who wrote: “Her vibe on the album is that of a musician finally creating her own musical identity, after years of playing other people’s material–and it’s a sound that suits her well.”

“Come Undone,” sees Saris boldly stepping out into the spotlight as a solo artist, as it’s the first single she’s releasing under her own name. The track, which features soulful vocals from Naté The Soulsanger and Sandra Pippins is a slinky feminist anthem built around Saris’ dexterous and funky Patrice Rushen and Bootsy Collins-like bass lines, and a remarkably catchy hook. Inspired by Saris’ own experiences as a woman in the music industry, “Come Undone” is a kiss-off to misogyny — both external an internal — and the outdated ways that the world treats and perceives women that boldly says “Those old days ain’t coming back.”

Directed by Nino Fernandez, the accompanying video for “Come Undone” is slick and stylishly shot visual that showcases Saris, her incredible bass playing and her talented backing band.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Queens’ ANI Shares Flirty and Summery Bop “Miss U”

Ani Djirdjirian is an emerging, Queens-born and-based, queer Armenian-American singer/songwriter, best known as ANI. Despite her training as a classical musician and vocalist, the Queens-born and-based artist’s work sees her seamlessly meshing elements of soul, pop, R&B and electronic music paired with earnest lyricism informed by her studies in social work and her desire for her work to be a conduit for listeners to explore their own emotions, embark on journeys of healing and rise above the limitations imposed by archaic perspectives.

For the Queens-born and-based Djirdjirian, she hopes to break down barriers and redefine norms of self-expression and resilience within both the music industry and Middle Eastern culture.

Released last month, Djirdjirian’s debut single “Miss U” is a slickly produced bit of thoughtful and coquettish Quiet Storm-inspired pop built around glistening synths, finger snap-led percussion, a supple yet subtle bass line and bursts of funk guitar paired with the Queens-born artist’s yearning delivery and a remarkably catchy, two-step inducing hook. Simply put, it’s the perfect song to play when you want to tell that love interest of yours how you feel — without being cringey. The song also reveals a budding superstar talent with an effortlessly soulful and dynamic range.

Shot at Rockaway Beach during Golden Hour, the accompanying video begins with the Queens-born artist sitting in a chair on the shore. She’s reminiscing about someone she really digs, who can’t be there at that moment. Throughout, Djirdjirian embodies the song’s flirtatious yet earnest nature.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s Diamond Day Shares Breezy “Fiction Feel”

Montréal-based duo Diamond Day features two highly acclaimed musicians in their own right:

  • Vermont-born Béatrix Méthé was raised with the traditional music of rural Québec. Her family moved to Canada when she was baby, and she grew up acquiring Lanaudiere’s regional repertoire from her father, the founder of legendary folk-trad group Le Rêve du Diable. Her mother, a singer-songwriter and fine arts graduate versed in early digital media, inspired Méthé’s own aesthetic. After spending some time venturing deeper into visual art, Béthé moved to Montréal to study filmmaking, but wound up discovering indie and psychedelic folk music along the way. She cut her studies short in 2015 to pursue music full-time, fronting acclaimed outfit Rosier, whose unique fusion of Québécois folk and indie rock garnered multiple nominations and awards — and lead them to tour across 15 countries with stops at SXSW, NPR’s Mountain Stage and the BBC. 

  • Western Canada-born Quinn Bachand grew up in a home where art was omnipresent and the family’s 40-year-old record collection was on an omnipresent loop. As the son of a luthier, Bachand began playing guitars handmade by his father and was touring internationally by the time he turned 12. After graduating from Berklee College of Music back in 2019 on a presidential scholarship, the Western Canadian-born multi-instrumentalist spent time in the Grammy-nominated band Kittel & Co. His involvement in the US folk scene prompted collaborations with a number of like-minded artists, including Chris Thile. In 2019, Bachand began collaborating with Méthé and Rosier, quickly establishing himself as an influential, genre-bending producer.

That initial successful collaboration with Rosier lead to the duo’s forthcoming full-length debut as Diamond Day, Connect the Dots Slated for a fall 2023 release, the Canadian duo’s full-length debut reportedly sees them crafting a sound that weaves elements of folk, indie rock, electronica, shoegaze and dream pop into a unique take on alt-pop.

Earlier this year, I wrote about Connect the Dots‘ first single “Noisemaker,” which was built around tape-saturated organ echo, fluttering synths, blown out beats, a sinuous bass line and lush, painterly sheogazer-like guitar textures paired with Méthé’s gorgeous vocals. The result — to my ears at least — reminded me of a mix of Beach House and Souvlaki-era Slowdive with a subtle amount of glitchiness.

The album’s second and latest single “Fiction Feel” is a breezy, summertime dream of a song built around a glitch pop soundscape featuring vintage tape recordings, glistening synths and a shuffling organ drum machine before quickly morphing into a lush New Wave/post-punk anthem that brings Cocteau Twins and Violens to mind.

Directed by Natan B. Foisy, the accompanying video is shot in a gorgeous, cinematic black and white an features a collection of Montréal area theater club teens in a school auditorium. We see the teens as they cycle through a series of different emotions in an oddly bipolar yet playful fashion.

“We recorded ‘Fiction Feel’ a few times over the past year or so. Initially, it was very ‘post-punk,'” Diamond Day’s Quinn Bachand explains in press notes. ” I had just watched Converse PURPLE video which featured ‘Cries and Whispers’ by New Order and I was getting into a lot of newer stuff in that vein, especially Cate le Bon’s latest album. Ultimately, we don’t sound anything like that, so the arrangement turned into a bit of a frankenstein. We re-wrote melodies, and added and muted stuff. Before we sent it out to get mixed by Elijah [Marrett-Hitch], we removed tons of unused tracks and weird outdated plugins that were constantly making Pro Tools crash.”

“The song ended up being a little glitchy. Lo-fi thrift store keyboards, cheap classical guitars, archived speech recordings and arena-rocky drums,” the duo’s Béatrix Méthé says.  

“One of our mix notes to Elijah was, ‘Make the drums a bit more douchey, like Eric Valentine,” Bachand adds.

“We wanted it to evolve from tiny and creepy like The Books to big and bombastic like Depeche Mode. But we wanted it to remain catchy and dancey,” Méthé says.

“We love how The Books use extremely edited found sounds to intensify emotional moments and create a really unique feel. There’s so much subtle information–both melodic and rhythmic–packed into speech and these dated home recordings have so much depth,” says Bachand.

“We’re both folk musicians. Slightly jaded ones… [when it comes to folk music] we really only listen to archives now–rare home recordings of musicians in rural areas. There are tons of old reel-to-reel and cassette recordings across the country with this material, anyone can find them, you just have to dig. Quinn and I have a lot of that digitized now. Listening to everything around the music, the stuff the interviewer or engineer didn’t mean to record; that’s the weird stuff,” Méthé explains. “Quinn and I heard an argument on one tape, there was so much tension and urge in their speech. It was perfect… we had to include it in ‘Fiction Feel.’ Connect the Dots (the full record) has a bunch of awkward little archive-chestnuts sprinkled in.”

“Natan B. Foisy also directed this visualizer. He and Béatrix (and most of the video team) are from a region north of Montreal called Lanaudière,” Bachand says of the video. “Last winter, we were able to utilize a local high school in the region for some video.”

“The song is a little nerdy and bipolar and Natan did a great job of capturing that in the visualizer. He got teenagers from the school to play with the camera, cycling through different emotions and expressions as the song develops. And it’s all in black & white to contrast those dynamics,” Méthé says 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: Detroit’s Zilched Shares Yearning “Loveless”

23 year-old, Detroit-based singer/songwriter Chloe Drallos is the creative mastermind behind the rising pop recording project Zilched. Started back in 2017, Drallos exploded into the national scene with her full-length debut, 2020’s DOOMPOP, an effort, which saw the Detroit-based artist quickly establishing an eclectic, genre-defying take on pop.

Drallos’ highly-anticipated sophomore album, the Ian Ruhala and Ben Collins co-produced Earthly Delights is slated for an August 11, 2023 release through Young Heavy Souls. Reportedly a testament to the maturation of her uncompromising creative vision, Drallos’ sophomore album sees her adding grunge elements to her gothic pop-tinged take on art rock. While being a dazzling display of poetic lyricism that sees the Detroit-based artist weaving an intricate tapestry of Romantic imagery, metaphor and religious allegory that softens the blow of her brutal honesty, the album explores the purgatorial nature of bargaining with an indecisive lover and with oneself.

“Loveless,” Earthly Delights‘ latest single oscillates between shimmering and yearning Kate Bush-like verses and cathartic, rousingly anthemic choruses as the song’s narrator speaks of something that’s fairly universal: the frustration and annoyance of a lover that’s been withholding and indecisive. The song ends with its narrator essentially saying “make up your mind or I’ll make it up for you.” While “Loveless” is a display of slick and seemingly effortless craft, the song feels rooted in bitter, deeply lived-in experience.

“The song is like a conversation between lovers. Contemplating the purgatorial roller coaster that exists between freedom and unity,” Drallos says.

Directed by Chloe Drallos, the accompanying video for “Loveless” sees Drallos and her band performing in a bare studio in a lush swatch of red and blue lighting as a sparse crowd of mysterious onlookers dispassionately watch. “As for the video, I was inspired by disco TV performances and Giallo horror,” Drallos explains.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Ian Asher’s Remix of JAIN’s Infectious, Smash Hit “Makeeba”

French-born with international pop sensation JAIN is a true international citizen: She has spent significant portions of her live in the United Arab Emirates and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her full-length debut 2016’s Zanaka quickly put her on the global pop map: The album sold over one-million copies worldwide, with singles “Come” and “Makeba” climbing the charts. Adding to a growing profile, the accompanying video for “Makeba” led to the French-born pop earning artist her first Grammy Award nomination for Best Music Video.

JAIN’s sophomore album, 2018’s Souldier reached #1 on the French charts, with the album achieving double platinum status, while album single “Alright” was certified diamond. That same year, Rolling Stone named the French-born pop artist, “An Artist You Need To Know.”

The French pop star has played over 300 shows in 15 countries across the European Union, North America, South America and Asia, as well as the rounds of the global festival circuit with sets at Coachella and Lollapalooza. She has also performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Later . . . with Jools Holland, the 2018 Ryder Cup and the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Her highly-anticipated third album The Fool was released earlier this year through Columbia/Sony Music France. The album serves as a new chapter for the French-born pop sensation. Thematically, the album chronicles the stages one goes through whenever they make a fresh start — fear, excitement, innocent, self-doubt/doubt, letting go, epiphany and more. And while her perviously released work saw her effortlessly meshing a myriad collection of genres, styles and instrumentation including Arabic percussion, African rhythms, electro pop, reggae, soul and hip-hop, The Fool is a decided change in sonic direction with the material drawing from Kate Bush and Stevie Nicks. 

Recently, the French pop sensation’s hit “Makeba” has gone viral globally. I’ve seen at least three different Instagram reels today that have mentioned the song. And understandably, artists and producers from across the globe have shared their own takes on the smash hit single, including American producer Ian Asher. Asher’s remix retains JAIN’s coquettish delivery and the song’s incredibly catchy hook but while stepping up the tempo quite a bit — creating a subtle yet breezy house meets footwork take.

The Ian Asher remix serves a reminder of why the song has become so wildly popular a few years after its release — it has a hook that you can’t get out of your brain, no matter what you do.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Tiphanie Doucet Shares a Synth Pop cover of Julien Doré

Tiphanie Doucet is a French-born singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who currently splits her time between New York and Los Angeles. Doucet can trace her love of performing to her childhood: She was a child actor, who appeared on French TV. After earning a merit scholarship, the French-born, Los Angeles-based artist, relocated to New York, where she studied acting and musical theater at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA).

Her music career started in earnest after appearing on The Voice Canada, where she gained a wide fanbase. Her full-length debut 2018’s Simon Felice and David Baron-produced Under My Sun and 2020’s Painted Blue were released to critical applause. The five-song Painted Blue EP showcased Doucet’s sultry vocal and sophisticated imagery and featured “You and I,” which received praise from Rolling Stone France.

The French-born artist has always played covers throughout her career, and 2020’s Re-Imagined EP feature covers that she re-arranged — and the EP’s material manages to reveal the breadth of her influences. The following year, she released a virtually unrecognizable David Baron-produced cover of Lenny Kravitz‘s “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over,” which was recorded at Sun Mountain Studio.

Last year, the French artist embraced the harp and started producing her own material, including “Joe le Taxi” and “Une Love Song,” which featured bilingual lyrics paired with a pop-folk-meets-electro pop sound.

Doucet’s latest single sees her turning Julien Doré‘s dreamy M83-meets-Air-like “Paris-Seychelles” into a glistening synth-driven bop that retains the yearning of the original while being a perfect vehicle for the French artist’s sultry and coquettish delivery.

“Paris-Seychelles” will appear on Doucet’s forthcoming second collection of re-imaging covers Re-Imagined 2 EP.