Category: indie rock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Featuring core members, founder and creative mastermind Isaac Flynn (vocals), who comes from a family of musicians and whose parents own Lawrence, KS‘ well-regarded guitar store, Mass Street Music; Eric Davis (keys, synths) and Garrett Childers (guitar, vocals), the Kansas City-based indie rock act Hembree received regional and national attention with the release of “Can’t Run Forever,” a shimmering and slickly produced, dance-floor friendly track that simultaneously nods at 80s New Wave, St. Lucia, and Interpol simultaneously.

Building upon the success of “Can’t Run Forever,” a track that has seen as of this post, over 500,000 Spotify and YouTube streams, the members of the Kansas City-based band went to record new material at Los Angeles-based Sunset Sound Studios with Chris Coady, who has worked with Beach House, Future Islands and Yeah Yeah Yeahs; but when Flynn returned home to Kansas City, he decided that those sessions should be tabled, and that it was time for the band to take a much different approach. “After ‘Can’t Run Forever’ came out, I was feeling the pressure to make our second single bigger and better, and found myself putting limitations on my writing,” Flynn explained in press notes.. “After being frustrated for several months, I decided to record whatever I want; just let it all pour out.” And with that mindset, Flynn, his bandmates Davis and Childers recorded their latest single “Holy Water,” with Foreign Fields’ Eric Hillman contributing additional production and Joe Visciano, who has worked with The Kills, Jamie xx and Beck mixing the proceedings.

“Holy Water” is a decided change in sound, as the swaggering and propulsive track nods at Kasabian and Primal Scream as the band pairs an an arena rock and dance floor-friendly hook with a slick production featuring layers of undulating synths, twinkling keys, enormous, tweeter and woofer rocking beats with a “we’re ready to take over the world right this fucking moment” feel. Interestingly, part of the song’s anthemic nature stems from the song’s overwhelmingly positive message. As Flynn says of the song, “The song started with me making a conscious decision to stop letting the bad win. It was time to start embracing the obstacles and then doing my best to overcome them. I really just want to be true to myself and good to others, and I want the same for other people. Perhaps that’s the message from this song.” Certainly, considering how maddening and dire everything seems on a daily basis, any positive message seems desperately necessary.  Unsurprisingly, since the single’s release at the end of last year, the song has seen regular rotation on 10 Midwestern radio markets including Columbus, OH; St. Louis, MO; and the Kansas City area — and the track has seen over 250,000 Spotify steams as of this writing.

 

 

The band will be going on a run of tour dates in the Midwest, with the first show of the tour, finding the band opening for Cold War Kids. Check out the tour dates below.

TOUR DATES
3/25 Columbus, Express Live
3/27 Omaha, Reverb
3/28 Iowa City, The Mill
3/29 Des Moines, Vaudeville Mews
3/30 St. Louis, Blueberry Hill
4/24 Omaha, Reverb
4/25 Davenport IA, Raccoon Motel
4/26 Des Moines, Vaudeville Mews
4/27 St. Louis, Blueberry Hill
4/28 Kansas City, Record Bar
4/29 Columbia MO, Rose Music Hall
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of its founding duo Thomas Barrett (vocals, guitar) and Lysa Opfer (vocals bass) along with Nick D’Amore (drums), who joined the band in 2015,  the Jersey City, NJ-based shoegazer trio Overlake officially formed in 2012 and can trace its origins to when its founding duo were bandmates in a local hard rock band.  Opfer and Barrett began to bond over their mutual love of shoegaze and 80s and 90s alt rock and after practices and rehearsals, the duo would spend time jamming together — and after about a year of jamming and songwriting, the duo recorded their 2014 full-length debut Sighs, which was praised for a sound that drew from My Bloody Valentine, Pavement and Sonic Youth among others.

Now, in terms of the JOVM universe, it’s been some time since I’ve written about the trio but as it turns out the New Jersey-based shoegazers have been pretty busy as they’ve spent the past couple of years extensively touring the US in support of Sighs and the “Travelogue”/”Winter is Why” 7 inch and writing and recording their sophomore Fall, which is slated for a May 12, 2017 release through Bar/None Records. Reportedly, the new album will build upon the massive and enveloping sound of their debut while adding some subtle flourishes as Claudia Chopek, who has worked with Norah Jones, TV on the Radio, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger and others, contributes piano and violin on a couple of songs. And from the album’s first single “Winter Is Why”  the band has continued to subtly expand upon their sound — while retaining a dreamy and enveloping quality to the moody proceedings, the song posses a m  a rousing, arena rock-friendly, anthemic hook and Opfer and Barrett harmonized choruses paired with some gorgeous guitar work that conveys a muscular and forceful insistence that reminds me a bit of A Northern Soul and Urban Hymns-era The Verve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Barry Adamson Returns with Sexy Slasher Film-Inspired Visuals for Latest Single “They Walk Among Us”

If you’ve been frequenting this site at some point over the course of its almost 7 year history, you’ve come across a couple of posts on the renowned Manchester, UK-born and-based singer/songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer and filmmaker, Barry Adamson. Tracing the origins of his musical career to stints a member Magazine, Visage, The Birthday Party, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Adamson has had a lengthy and critically applauded solo career, in which he’s recorded and released 8 full-length albums, 7 EPs and a retrospective compilation, including I Will Set You Free, one of my favorite albums of 2012.

Now up until last year, it had been some time since I had written about or heard from Adamson. In 2013, the Manchester-born and-based musician and singer/songwriter rejoined Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for the recording of Cave’s critically applauded Push the Sky Away and over the subsequent few years, Adamson was busy composing soundtracks and getting more involved in film; however, Adamson released Know Where to Run last year, an effort that found the renowned multimedia artist and multi-instrumentalist pushing his sound in a number of different directions with the album’s material drawing from film noir, pop standards, jazz, dub, trip-hop and indie rock — but in Adamson’s imitable style.

Adamson’s 8th EP, Love Sick Dick is slated for an April 14, 2017 release and reportedly the EP will thematically explore the deepest, inner workings of a lovelorn, sad sack bastard in all of his downhearted, paranoid, self-flagellation and grief paired with a sound that the renowned British artist and producer has dubbed “futuristic blues” — and as he explains in press notes, ‘The blues is the blues and if the heart aches then that’s the sound that will come out, whether you are playing guitar, a synth, a piano or performing futuristic guitar solos on your iPhone!” Of course, Love Sick Dick will also further cement Adamson’s reputation for writing, playing, sampling and recording every note, frequently employing the use of new technology to replicate his sound both in the studio and live.

Love Sick Dick’s second and latest single “They Walk Among Us” is a sultry and propulsive track in which Adamson’s husky baritone crooning is paired with a dance floor-friendly production featuring stomping, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, layers of shimmering arpeggio synths, ominously swirling electronics, a sinuous bass line and an infectious, ear worm of a hook to create a song that evokes the murkily foreboding, late night prowl of someone looking for action while being remarkably cinematic — as though it could easily be part of a soundtrack of a psychological horror film. Interestingly, as Adamson explained to the folks at Dangerous Minds the song and its accompanying, “‘They Walk Among Us’ explores the conviction of who or indeed what lies beneath the mask we present. The fantasy, the illusion, and all too often foreboding reality.”

Directed by Adamson himself, the recently released video also stars the Manchester, UK-born artist as a debonair English gentleman walking back to his flat, when he comes across a stunning woman, who he invites back to his place — but it ends with a horrible and bloody conclusion that hints at the fact that people aren’t what they seem or what they really are.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

With the release of their 2014 full-length debut This Is Not A Bedroom, the Austin, TX-based indie rock quartet Alex Napping — comprised of Alex Cohen (vocals, guitar), Adrian Sebastian Haynes (guitar), Tomas Garcia-Olano (bass) and Andrew Stevens (drummer) — quickly developed a reputation for a guitar rock/guitar pop sound with album material that thematically focused on a nostalgia for a period of youthful self-discovery and early romantic stirrings — while simultaneously drawing from collective conversations about their own youth and its limitations. The band followed that up in 2016 with a pair of expressive singles “Trembles Part 1 and 2,” which drew from a short story Cohen, and captured the attention of NPR and BBC Radio 1, who both covered them during the band’s SXSW sets.

 

Mise En Place, the band’s forthcoming sophomore effort is salted for a May 5, 2017 release through Father/Daughter Records and the album reportedly will thematically focus on the uncertainties of adulthood with a personal desire to establish some sort of existential structure as the album’s narrative revolves around a formative relationship in which the narrator explores the conflicting roles as an individual and as part of a couple. And with the album’s second and latest single “You Got Me” manages to sound as though it draws from power chord-based 90s alt rock, complete with anthemic hooks and an ethereal melody; but the song manages to be moody and remarkably direct, as it evokes the inherent uncertainty, baggage and self-doubts that everyone has whenever they’re in a relatively new relationship. After all, the one thing we’re all certain of is that a romantic relationship is a frantic, desperate leap of faith that this time it’ll be different.
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of two husband and wife couples, Christina Carmona (vocals, bass) and Noe Carmona (guitar, keys)  and Michelle Soto (guitar, vocals) and Jake Soto (drums), the Austin, TX-based dream pop/shoegaze quartet Blushing can trace its origins to the summer of 2015 when its founding member Michelle Soto recruited her classically trained friend Christina Carmona to join her new project, after several years of writing material on guitar.  Soto and Carmona then recruited their spouses to complete the band’s lineup and after about a year of writing and revising their material, the newly formed quartet went into Bad Wolf Recordings to record their debut EP Tether, which was mixed and mastered by Philip Odom and released earlier this year.

“Tether,” the EP’s title track  and immersive first single finds the band pairing Carmona and Soto’s ethereal harmonizing with shimmering guitar chords, a propulsive rhythm section, a soaring hook and some guitar pyrotechnics during an immense solo in a way that brings to mind Cocteau Twins, The Sundays, Belly, Beach House, Real Estate and A Storm in Heaven-era The Verve and Lightfoils, complete with a subtly cosmic glow.

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The 120 Minutes-Era, Alt Rock Sounds and Visuals of Aarhus, Denmark’s Shocking White

Currently comprised of founding member Jan Petersen (guitars, vocals), along with Rune Randlev (bass) and Marco Bøgehøj (drums), the Aarhus, Denmark-based trio Shocking White have released three studio albums in which they’ve experimented with energetic post-punk, nihilistic No Wave and furious garage rock while the material’s backbone had always been decidedly noise rock. And although the act can trace its origins back to when Petersen founded the band in 2009, the band has started to receive attention across their native Denmark, the rest of Scandinavia and elsewhere over the past couple of years as the trio have played at Recession Festival, Pop Revo, Mejlgade for Mangfoldighed and Spot Festival. Adding to a growing profile, the band has toured across their native Denmark with Norwegian space rock act Kal-El and Canadian avant-garde punk act Alpha Strategy — and their “Tweet Scientists” 7 inch, which was released last may through Copenhagen-based label Tigermilk Records has received airplay on French and Canadian radio, and will be included on a compilation featuring internationally-based alternative rock/indie rock bands.

March 24, 2017 will mark the release of the band’s fourth studio album, Ghosting, an album that continues the band’s continuing collaboration with producer Rasmus Bredvig, who along with the members of the band, recorded the album in a frenzied 3 days at Arhus’ Tapetown Studio. And from Ghosting’s first single and album opening single “Into The Sun,” the band’s sound seems to draw from 90s grunge rock — i.e., Pixies, Sonic Youth and Nirvana — as the Danish trio pairs power chords played through reverb and distortion pedals with a rousingly anthemic hook, a propulsive and chugging rhythm section and a playfully pop-leaning sense of melody while thematically focusing on a profound and palpable fear of death that gives the song an underlying sense of menace and unease.

The recently released video for the song features footage shot in color-treated film negatives which create an otherworldly, psychedelic feel to the proceedings while being reminiscent of the thousands of videos I’ve watched during 120 Minutes-era MTV.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Currently comprised of Julia Kugel (vocals and guitar), Meredith Franco (bass), and Stephanie Luke (drums), the Atlanta, GA-based trio and JOVM mainstay The Coathangers in over a decade together have released five full-length albums in which each album found the band refining their sound and songwriting approach, balancing a brash, raw and seemingly spontaneously simplicity and urgency with a razor sharp wit and irony. And with the band’s last two full length efforts, Suck My Shirt and Nosebleed Weekend, the band was at their most streamlined and direct, giving the material off both of those albums a primal urgency — but with the sort of anthemic hooks that you can envision a room full of sweaty concertgoers lustily yelling along in a tiny, dark club.

Parasite, the band’s latest EP is slated for a June 30, 2017 release through Suicide Squeeze Records and the album’s material has the Atlanta-based trio balancing the unbridled and furious expressionism of their debut and the increasingly nuanced, pop-leaning sensibility of their last two albums. As the band’s Julia Kugel explains in press notes  “During the making of our last album, I didn’t want to scream anymore, I just wanted to sing and focus on melody. When we came to this recording, I just wanted to scream and curse.” And in some way, it shouldn’t be surprising that the EP’s material is partially inspired by both the bandmembers’ personal lives and the current political climate, rife with kleptocracy, hypocrisy, blatant sexism, racism and gratuitous cruelty while managing to be akin to a journey through them band’s existence and development.

 

“Captain’s Dead,” the first single off the EP manages to sound as though it could have been a B-side to any of the singles off Nosebleed Weekend while drawing from 90s grunge rock as the song structurally consists of alternating quiet and loud, anthemic hooks, and a surfer rock-inspired bridge, a propulsive rhythm section and a sneering punk rock air — but paired with twisting and buzzing organ chords. And much like the  band’s previously released material, the new single possesses an underlying mischievous feel underneath the scuzzy, give no fucks swagger.

The renowned garage rock trio will be embarking on a lengthy US and EU tour throughout the Spring and it’ll include two NYC area dates — April 20, 2017 at Sunnyvale and April 21, 2017 at Baby’s All Right. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

TOUR DATES:
03.09.17 – Visalia, CA @ The Cellar Door
03.10.17 – San Francisco, CA @ Brick & Mortar
03.11.17 – Oakland, CA @ Starline Social Club
03.12.17 – Santa Rosa, CA @ Arlene Francis Center
03.13.17 – Reno, NV @ The Holland Project
03.16.17 – Eugene, OR @ The Boreal
03.17.17 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
03.18.17 – Vancouver, BC @ Fortune Sound Club
03.19.17 – Seattle, WA @ Chop Suey
03.21.17 – Spokane, WA @ The Observatory
03.23.17 – Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Fest
03.24.17 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Diabolical Records
03.25.17 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Bunkhouse Saloon

04.15.17 – Durham, NC @ Pinhook
04.16.17 – Richmond, VA @ The Camel
04.18.17 – Washington, DC @ DC9
04.19.17 – Philadelphia, PA @ Ortliebs
04.20.17 – Brooklyn, NY @ Sunnyvale
04.21.17 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right
04.22.17 – Boston, MA @ Do617 Pop-Up Record Shop @ Brighton Music Hall
04.24.17 – Montreal, QC @ L’ Esco
04.25.17 – Toronto, ON @ Silver Dollar
04.26.17 – Buffalo, NY @ Tralf Music Hall
04.27.17 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Mr. Roboto
04.28.17 – Baltimore, MD @ Metro Gallery
04.29.17 – Charlotte, NC @ Reverb Fest 5

05.12.17 – UK Manchester @ Night & Day
05.13.17 – UK Brighton @ The Joker
05.15.17 – UK Bristol @ The Exchange
05.16.17 – UK Oxford @ The Bullingdon
05.17.17 – UK London @ Oslo
05.18.17 – UK Hastings @ The Printworks
05.19.17 – UK Leicester @ The Cookie
05.20.17 – UK Leeds @ Gold Sounds at Brudenell Social
05.21.17 – UK Sheffield@ The Harley
05.23.17 – UK Ramsgate @ Music Hall
05.24.17 – BE Gent @ PSYCH OVER 9000
05.25.17 – NL Eindhoven @ Stroomhuisje
05.26.17 – NL Rotterdam @ Girls Go Boom Night @ Roodkapje
05.27.17 – NL Amsterdam @ Pacific Park
05.28.17 – NL Utrecht @ dB’s
05.30.17 – DE Hamburg @ Molotow
05.31.17 – DE Berlin @ Cassiopeia

06.01.17 – DE Munich @ Orangehouse
06.02.17 – DE Cologne @ MTC
06.03.17 – FR Paris @ Le Batofar
06.04.17 – IT Ravenna @ Beaches Brew Festival
06.08.17 – FR Clermont @ Ferrand Le Barraka
06.09.17 – FR Nimes @ This is not a Love Song
06.10.17 – FI Helsinki @ Sideways Festival

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Amber Arcade’s Psychedelic Leaning Visuals for “It Changes”

With the release of her 2016 debut, Fading Light, Dutch singer/songwriter and musician Annelotte de Graaf quickly received international attention for her solo recording project Amber Arcades, a project that thematically drew from a variety of esoteric and familiar subjects — time and the relativistic experience of it, jet leg and her own dreams; in fact, following her own dreams has informed much of the Dutch singer/songwriter’s personal and creative life. Because she had always dreamt of working for the UN, de Graaf worked her way into a position as a legal aide on a UN war crime tribunal and human rights law, assisting Syrian refugees. She also used her life savings for a flight to NYC and studio time to record her debut with Ben Greenberg, who has worked with The Men, Beach Fossils and Destruction Unit, and a studio backing band that included Quilt’s Shane Butler (guitar) and Keven Lareau (bass) and Real Esate’s Jackson Pollis (drums).

Building upon the buzz that she received for Fading Lines and a Fall 2016 tour with renowned indie rock act Nada Surf, de Graaf will be releasing her debut’s highly-anticipated follow up Cannonball on June 2, 2017 and the EP will include the propulsive “It Changes,” a single that reveals a decided change in sonic direction for the Dutch singer/songwriter, as the song manages to sound as though it draws from post-punk and garage rock, thanks in part to angular guitar chords played through effects pedals and an anthemic hook paired with de Graaf’s crooning. As de Graaf explains in press notes, the song is ultimately about life’s temporal nature. “Everything changes, all the time,” de Graaf says in press notes. “You think that when starting something new you can kinda tell which way it will go, but you never do. I always try to aim for constancy and stability but things always get messier than I foresaw. And hey, maybe that’s actually what makes it worthwhile.” As a result, while the song possesses a hopeful yet realistic take on life; suggesting that the recognition of messiness and uncertainty being a part of life and something you can learn from.

Created by Ben Clarkson, the recently released lyric video features psychedelic-leaning animation depicting the passage of time superimposed over neon-treated negatives of a variety of imagery including a woman playing at the beach, the icy North Atlantic Ocean, spinning tops, couples holding hands and so on, along with bursts of the song’s lyrics. It emphasizes the song’s central theme while being a little mischievous.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Dave Woody (guitar, vocals), Dave Bowman (bass) and Andrew Platts (drums), Wilding is a Los Angeles, CA-based indie rock trio and although the trio cite influences including Hum, Fugazi, Mew, M83, Autolux and Interpol among others — although interestingly enough, as you’ll hear on “Hot Prowl,” the latest single off the trio’s forthcoming EP Secular Music, the band specializes in an anthemic and moody shoegaze that’s sonically reminiscent to the likes of Jersey City, NJ’s Overlake, Chicago’s Lightfoils and others, complete with some explosive guitar pyrotechnics paired with thundering and insistent drumming.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past several years, you’ve probably been made familiar with John Dwyer, the co-founder of renowned indie rock label, Castle Face Records and the creative mastermind behind the equally renowned, JOVM mainstay act Thee Oh Sees — and throughout that time, Dwyer has maintained a reputation for being insanely prolific. Last year saw the release of two Thee Oh Sees albums — their contribution to Castle Face’s continuing live series, Live in San Francisco and a studio album, Weird Exit, both of which were supported with an intense and busy touring schedule. Somehow, Dwyer had managed to find time to write and record new material for his synth-based, solo, noise rock project Damaged Bug, a project that Thee Oh Sees frontman has publicly described as a welcome respite from the scuzzy, power chord-based garage rock and psych rock he’s long been known for.

Bunker Funk, Dwyer’s soon-to-be released Damaged Bug album will reportedly continue where the preceding effort Cold Hot Plumbs left off, while expanding upon the project’s sound. Earlier this year, I wrote about “Bog Dash,” a single featuring sputtering and noisy squalls of squiggling synths, propulsive, tribal-lke drumming and explosive blasts of guitar paired with Dwyer’s imitable falsetto singing lyrics about traveling across spacetime paired with a funky bass line. The album’s latest single “Unmanned Scanner” pairs menacingly buzzing synths with a T. Rex-inspired boogie shuffle and Dwyer sing-speaking the song’s lyrics with a somewhat ironic detachment while continuing the project’s reputation of sounding like it came from a  completely different dimension.

 

 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Although he may be best known as a member of renowned Brooklyn-based trio and JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers, the New Zealand-born, Brooklyn-based bassist Dion Lunadon can trace the origins of his music career to when he cut his teeth in his homeland as a member of The D4. During a short break in touring with APTBS, Lunadon had a sudden rush of inspiration that resulted in what he has described as a neurotic implies to write and record a bunch of songs right there and then — and the result was his solo debut EP, Com/Broke, an effort which drew from the bands that inspired him in his youth, including Toy Love and The Gun Club, as well as New Zealand unknowns such as Gestalt and Supercar while defying what may typically expected of someone who’s approaching middle age.

Lunadon’s highly-anticipated and still untitled full-length debut is forthcoming and the album’s first single “Fire” reveals a man, who refuses to start the process of going quietly into the night, but instead maintains the primal, furious roar that many heard on Com/Broke while subtly drawing from psych and garage rock as soaring organs are paired with enormous power chords with blistering peals of feedback, a forceful and propulsive bass line, thundering drumming and Lunadon’s shouting and howling throughout the song. Interestingly, the song manages evoke a tense, anxious paranoia  — the anxious, creeping paranoia that many of us likely feel during this weird political climate.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Pom Poms Return with Sultry and Psychedelic Visuals for “Gimme You”

With the release of their debut single “Betty” and “123” the Los Angeles-based duo Pom Poms, comprised of singer/songwriter and frontwoman, the mononymic Marlene and Grammy-nominated producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Billy Mohler, who is known for his work with Awolnation, Liz Phair, Kelly Clarkson, and Macy Gray, were quickly thrust into the national spotlight for a sound that owes a debt from classic garage rock and pop such as Connie Francis, Pasty Cline, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, the girl groups of the early 60s and others; however, lyrically, the material drew from Marlene’s own personal experiences, covering a wide spectrum of emotions from yearning, loss, perseverance, lust, desire, coquettish flirting and just wanting to have a good time with a very modern, unguarded frankness while possessing a loose, off-the-cuff, improvised feel. And as a result, of the early buzz the band received, they opened for The Psychedelic Furs and went on a West Coast tour with The Mowgli’s.

That off-the-cuff, loose feel has filtered into the duo’s highly-anticipated full-length debut Turn You Out, as you’ll hear on the album’s first official single, the sultry, late night, come hither, come on “Gimme You,” a song that’s essentially about being desperately lonely and lusting for someone so badly that you crave them and their loving– to the point that you’re trying to set up a booty call; but in the case, of “Gimme You,” Marlene’s vocals posses a subtle hint of menace, that conveys the idea that the song’s narrator gets what she wants — by any means necessary, if possible. Sonically, the single will further cement the duo’s reputation for crafting soulful and gritty 60s-inspired pop reminiscent of Amy Winehouse, thanks in part to its incredibly transgressive feel.

The recently released video for “Gimme You” is deeply indebted to both the mod 60s and psych 60s as it features Pom Poms frontwoman broodingly posing, dancing and singing in front of a projection screen featuring psychedelic imagery — and in a some way, the video feels voyeuristic, as though the viewer is watching the act’s frontman putting on a burlesque-like tease for someone else, who’s off-screen.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Moody Visuals for The Away Days “Places To Go”

With the release of their How Did It Start? EP to critical praise both nationally and internationally from the likes of The Guardian, SPIN Magazine,and Noisey, as well receiving airplay from renowned Seattle, WA-based radio station KEXP, the Istanbul, Turkey-based quartet The Away Days quickly established a reputation for being a the forefront of an extremely Western-influenced indie music scene, thanks in part for a sound that’s largely inspired by The Cure, Tame Impala and others. And adding to a growing international profile, the members of the Turkish indie rock quartet have toured across the UK, played at two consecutive SXSW Festivals and have played festival dates opening for Portishead, Massive Attack, Belle and Sebastian and others.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of years, you may recall that the Istanbul-based quartet have released a handful of singles that have received international attention — including this site — since the release of their debut EP. However, the band’s long-awaited full-length debut Dreamed at Dawn was released earlier this year, and landed at number 5 on the Turkish album charts, marking it both a commercial success and the highest ever chart position for a Turkish indie rock album. The Turkish indie rock band’s commercial and critical success in their homeland and elsewhere shouldn’t be surprising as Dawn’s first two singles “Less Is More” and “World Horizon” paired atmospheric and moody yet lush instrumentation and ethereally shimming synths with material that thematically and lyrically drew from the band members’ own lives in a society in which their creative desires and efforts are viewed as being suspicious and seditious.

“Places to Go,” Dreamed at Dawn’s third and latest single continues along a similar vein as its two preceding singles as it’s a lush and plaintive song featuring shimming guitar chords played through a bit of reverb and delay pedal, an angular and propulsive bass line, twinkling synths and a rousingly antthemic hook,. and in some way, sonically the song manages to mesh dance floor friendly post-punk, electro pop and shoegazer rock; however, despite the seemingly upbeat tone, the song is a look into their lives and their cohorts as it touches upon the weight their homeland’s young people feel from an oppressive and seemingly capricious regime that demands oppression and a restlessness from the lack of meaningful opportunities.

Interestingly, the recently released music video for the song is based upon a deceptively simple concept of the band performing the song in a dramatically lit studio but throughout there are vivid bursts of animation that explode across the screen.