Category: Live Footage

Video by William Ruben Helms

LIve Footage: Brazil’s WRY at Febre Festival 2020

With the release of their first five albums, 1998’s Direct, 2000’s Heart Experience, 2007’s Flames in the Head, 2009’s She Science and 2018’s National Indie Hits, the Sorocaba, São Paulo, Brazil-based psych rock quartet WRY — Mario Bross (vocals, guitar), Luciano Marcello (guitar), Ítalo Ribero (drums) and William Leonotti (bass) — have been at the forefront of Brazil’s contemporary rock scene while developing a sound indebted to Brit Pop, shoegaze and post-punk.

The members of WRY have also spent several years living and working in London, and as a result of a growing internationally recognized profile, they went on several tours across the UK and Continental Europe, eventually making their rounds of the European festival circuit with a notable stop at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound. Additionally, along with their recorded output and profile, the members of the Brazilian psych rock act own a popular club, which has frequently hosted their internationally acclaimed countrymen, JOVM mainstays Boogarins.

The Sorocaba, São Paulo, Brazil-based psych rock act released their sixth album Noites Infinitas earlier this year, and the album’s material touches upon themes of anxiety, despair and unconventional paths towards hope, while living in our fractious and divisive world. The band released a handful of singles off the album, including two singles I’ve personally written about:

“Travel:” Brit Pop-like single centered around a motorik groove and a rousingly anthemic hook.
“I feel invisible:” a shimmering New Wave meets shoegaze-like track featuring shimmering guitars fed through reverb and delay pedals that captures a narrator, who’s been oppressed and hemmed in by a society that won’t allow him to live his life in a truthful fashion.

Recently, the members of WRY played a career-spanning live-streamed set for Febre Festival that featured my two favorite songs off their recently released album, as well as some other material. Check it out.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 80th Birthday, Frank Zappa!

JOVM celebrates what would have been Frank Zappa’s 80th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Swiss Jazz Act Gianfranco GFN Teams up with Florence Chitacumbi on a Breezy and Sweet Love Song

Gianfranco GFN is a Swiss guitarist, composer and bandleader, whose work is influenced by jazz, blues, bossa nova, funk and rock. Leading a band that features longtime collaborators Stèphane Joerg (percussion) and Mimmo Pisino (double bass), Gianfranco GFN has released two instrumental albums and an EP — 2011’s Linnea, 2016’s Downtown in Person 70s and the Interlude EP. Interestingly, Interlude and Downtown in Person 70s had a handful of tracks — two and four respectively — that received airplay on Swiss radio.

Before the writing and recording of the band’s third album, 2019’s CA’GIAZZ, the trio expanded into a quartet with the addition of vocalist Florence Chitacumbi. The 11 song album features collaborations with 14 different artists with several tracks off the album receiving airplay on Swiss, French, German, Irish and Russian radio stations.

In February, Gianfranco GFN and his band entered the studio to record the material which would comprise their fourth album, slated for release next year. Simultaneously the Swiss act recorded acoustic material, which they’ve immediately released online, including their latest single “Adagio.” “Adagio” is a breezy and strutting blues featuring Chitacumbi’s easygoing and soulful Sharon Jones-like vocals, shimmering acoustic guitar, shuffling percussion and supple double bass. And at its core, the song is a sweet and old-timey love song, full of devotion and a familiar longing.

Gianfranco GFN released an intimately shot bit of live footage of the act performing “Adagio” in the studio.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Marcus King Performs “Wildflowers & Wine” on “The Tonight Show”

Marcus King is an acclaimed Grammy Award-nominated, Greenville, SC-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and JOVM mainstay. King is a fourth generation musician, who followed the family tradition. Playing professionally when he turned 11, King was discovered after a video of him performing at Norman’s Rare Guitars went viral. Now, in his 20s, King has been performing for the past 15 years, establishing himself as a world class guitarist, singer/songwriter and vocalist.

King’s Dan Auerbach-produced full-length debut El Dorado was released earlier this year, and the album, which was co-written with Auerbach over three days at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound Studio is a contemporary sonic exploration of classic rock, blues, southern R&B and country soul.

“Marcus is known by so many as a phenom guitar player, and rightfully so,” Dan Auerbach says of Marcus King. “He’s regularly the best player in the room, hands down. I was equally blown away by the way he can sing — so effortless, so soulful, straight to the heart. He’s a naturally gifted writer too, which was clear right away. Everything for him is so innate — that’s why he can always go right to the heart of a song and connect in a deeper way. He’s really one of a king and I’m proud I got to work alongside him on this record.”

Recently King performed one of my favorite El Dorado tracks on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon “Wildflowers and Wine,” a slow-burning and soulful song that’s one-part classic, Muscle Shoals soul, one-part Southern fried rock, one-part R&B and one-part Delta blues centered around King’s effortlessly soulful vocals. Simply put, this white boy can sang, y’all.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Amsterdam’s Altin Gün Performs “Ordunun Dereleri”

Deriving their name from the Turkish phase for “Golden Day,” the Amsterdam-based Turkish psych pop act Altin Gün — founding member founding member Jasper Verhulst (bass) with Ben Rider (guitar), Erdinç Ecevit Yildiz (keys, saz, vocals), Gino Groneveld (percussion), Merve Dasdemir (vocals) and Nic Mauskovic (drums) — can trace their origins to Japser Verhulst’s deep and abiding passion for 60s and 70s Turkish psych pop and folk and to frequent tour stops in Istanbul with a previous band.

As a result of his tour stops in Istanbul, Verhulst wound up discovering a lot of music that wasn’t readily available in his homeland. But as the story goes, he wasn’t just content to listen as an ardent fan, he had a vision of where he could potentially take the sound he loved. “We do have a weak spot for the music of the late ’60s and ’70s,” Verhulst admitted in press notes. “With all the instruments and effects that arrived then, it was an exciting time. Everything was new, and it still feels fresh. We’re not trying to copy it, but these are the sounds we like and we’re trying to make them our own.” The Dutch act actively interpret and reimagine this beloved material through a contemporary 21st century lens. “Of course, since our singers are Turkish, they know many of these pieces. All this is part of the country’s musical past, their heritage, like ‘House of The Rising Sun’ is in America,‘” Verhulst explains.

The act’s sophomore album, last year’s Grammy Award-nominated, critically applauded Gece helped the Amsterdam-based act win further worldwide acclaim for their reimagining of traditional Turkish folk through the lens of psych rock and pop. The band’s highly-anticipated third album Yol, the third album from the Dutch act in three years, finds the act continuing to draw upon the rich and diverse traditions of Turkish and Anatolian folk music. But as a result of pandemic-related restrictions and lockdowns, the members of the Dutch act was forced to write music in a new way: they traded demos and ideas built around Omnichord, 808 and other elements, including field recordings and New Age-like ideas by email.

“We were basically stuck at home for three months making home demos, with everybody adding their parts,” Altin Gün’s Merve Dasdemir says in press notes. “The transnational feeling maybe comes from that process of swapping demos over the internet, some of the music we did in the studio, but lockdown meant we had to follow a different approach.”

As a result of arrangements featuring Omnichord and 808 — and the new songwriting approach, the album finds the band crafting material that’s a bold, new sonic direction: a sleek, synth-based Europop sound with a dreamy quality that may have been informed by the enforced period of reflection. Additionally, Yol finds the members of Altin Gün enlisting Ghent, Belgium-based production duo Asa Moto — Oliver Geerts and Gilles Noë — to co-produce and mix the album, marking the first time that the band has collaborated with outsiders.

“Ordunun Dereleri,” Yol‘s mesmerizing first single finds the Dutch act pairing an old folk standard with an arrangement centered around atmospheric and glistening synth arpeggios, four-on-the-floor drumming paired with Mediterranean-like polyrhythmic percussion, shimmering bursts of guitar, a sinuous, motorik groove and plaintive vocals. And while, being a sleek and futuristic push in a new sonic direction, the track finds the band balancing careful and deliberate attention to craft with a dreamy introspection.

The members of Altin Gün filmed a livestream concert for Dekmantel Connects that will air December 17, 2020 at 8:00PM Central European Time/2:00PM Eastern Standard Time/1:00PM Central Standard/12:00PM Mountain Standard Time and 11:00AM Pacific Standard Time. The livestream will feature a sneak peek at the band’s forthcoming album, including this gorgeously shot live footage of the aforementioned “Ordunun Dereleri” filmed in what looks like an abandoned factory.

Yol is slated for a February 26, 2021 release through ATO Records/Cadence Music Group.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: S.G. Goodman Performs “The Way I Talk” Live

Tennessee-born, Murray, KY-based singer/songwriter and guitarist S.G. Goodman was born and raised in a strict, church-going family of row crop farmers, near the Mississippi River. Eventually she went from singing and playing in her local church three times a week to becoming a prominent member of hometown’s art and music scene, as well as an impassioned voice and presence in the sociopolitical movements she supports.

Goodman’s Jim James-produced full-length debut Old Time Feeling was released through Verve Forecast Records earlier this year. Recorded at Louisville, KY-based La La Land Studio, because it featured three of Goodman’s favorite things — “a creek, a big porch and a kitchen” — the Old Time Feeling sessions were imbued with a down home, familial and community touch: in between the album’s recording. the Murray-based singer/songwriter cooked meals for the studio staff and for her backing band, which features her lifelong friends Matthew David Rowan (guitar) and S. Knox Montgomery (drums.)

The album’s songs are a brutally honest and loving look at the complexities of rural Southern life that debunks rural stereotypes while drawing from Goodman’s personal experiences as an openly gay woman with OCD in a deeply religious community. Thematically, the album touches upon estrangement, reconciliation and loving your family and community despite the fact that you might completely disagree with them on political and social issues.

Old Time Feeling‘s first single “The Way I Talk” is a slow-burning and sultry country-tinged blues centered around a sinuous bass line, shimmering guitars, explosive peals of feedback, dramatic and forceful drumming and Goodman’s plaintive, Western Kentucky drawl. And much like “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” which “The Way I Talk” subtly references, the song is brutally honest look at the plight of the rural working class and rural poor — in particular, the rural farming community she still lives in.

“The song is inspired by the plight of the farming community in Kentucky where I grew up, where big business and the laws that protect them have vast control over my community,” Goodman told The Fader earlier this year. “It is a scary thing calling into question the very thing that put food on my table and is putting food on my niece’s table (she plays the little girl in the official video, also released earlier this year). Isn’t that the case for every person working a factory line who is afraid to unionize? Or a fast food employee afraid to take sick leave to care for her kid? We are all expected to be thankful, not question, and shut our mouths.”

Goodman recently released a live video version of “The Way I Talk” and added some additional comments upon its release: “It is easy to cast judgement on a place you don’t truly understand, on a place whose people have remained exploited. Our food reflects that exploitation, our health, and the way we make our living. I have chosen to remain in the south. I was born in Tennessee and raised right across the state line in Kentucky.”

“Like many people living in the south, my ethics and beliefs do not align with my neighbors, and at many times those sitting across the table from me, but there are those who remain here who are working to bring change. There are people here who are breaking generational cycles. Those are the stories that matter to me, those are the stories that I strive to tell. ”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Montreal’s Prieur & Landry Perform New Ripper “Surreal Memories”

Montreal-based duo Prieur & Landry — Gab Prieur and Elliot Landry — have developed and honed a sludgy power chord riff driven rock sound that draws from ’90s grunge rock and ’00s blues rock. But more than mere mimicry, the duo’s sound and approach thrives on a careful balance of intensity and nuance with their live set finding the duo expanding upon riffs and songs structures — at will.

Prieur & Landry recently released a live session shot in a bare, wood shed in Saguenay-Lac- St-Jean, Québec that featured the bluesy “For Once I Breathe in Control” and their latest single “Surreal Memories.” Centered around sludgy power chord driven riffs, thunderous drumming and howled Kurt Cobain-like vocals, “Surreal Memories” finds the Montreal-based duo crafting a mosh pit friendly ripper that will bring memories of Nirvana, Soundgarden and Tool to mind.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Palace Winter’s Tennis Court Session–“1996”

The Copenhagen, Denmark-based pop duo and JOVM mainstays Palace Winter — Australian-born, Copenhagen-based singer/songwriter Carl Coleman and Danish-born, Copenhagen-based producer and classically trained pianist Caspar Hesselager — built upon a rapidly growing profile regionally and internationally, with the release of their sophomore album 2018’s Nowadays.

Nowadays found the Danish pop duo firmly cementing their sound — carefully crafted, melodic and hook-driven, 70s AM radio rock-inspired pop paired with deep thematic concerns. Thematically, the Danish act’s sophomore album touched upon the loss of innocence and adulthood; the freedom and power that comes as one takes control of their life and destiny; and the the sobering life lessons that come about as one gets older.

Palace Winter’s third album . . . Keep Dreaming Buddy was released earlier this year through the band’s longtime label home Tambourhinoceros Records. Unlike their previously released material, the album was written through a long distance correspondence, as the band’s Carl Coleman was residing in an empty, retro hotel in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. Coleman’s lyrics were inspired by Tenerife’s unique landscape while drawing metaphorical parallels between Mt. Teide, a dormant volcano, which is also one of Spain’s tallest peaks, and the looming fear of a relationship about to disintegrate.

“I was walking around this weird volcano island. The retro hotel was like a forgotten paradise resort. The whole thing felt like a Lynchian alternate reality,” Palace Winter’s Carl Coleman recalls. “Caspar was sending me these synth hooks and drum loops from Denmark, so I started coming up with melodies and lyrical ideas to record into my phone.” And as a result, the album is figuratively and literally a tale of two cities and two completely different — yet oddly related — emotional states.

Over the past handful of months, I’ve written about four of the album’s released singles:

Top of the Hill,” was a great example of the album’s overall tale of two cities and two completely different emotional states. Featuring shimmering and icy synths, thumping beats and an enormous, arena rock friendly hook paired with Coleman’s volcanic imagery-based lyrics, the song captures the bubbling dissatisfaction, boredom, frustration and distrust of a relationship about to boil over and explode.
“Won’t Be Long,” . . . .Keep Dreaming Buddy‘s second single was an expansive song that featured elements of arena rock, glam rock and synth pop, complete with a rousingly anthemic hook, a crunchy power chord-driven riff, shimmering synth arpeggios and strummed guitar. But interestingly enough, the song is actually deceptively and ironically upbeat as it tackles the anxiety of anticipatory grief, as it focuses on a narrator, who is preparing for the inevitable loss of a dear, loved one. Loss and despair are always around the corner, indeed.
“Deeper End,” the album’s third single was a decidedly genre-defying affair that found the duo pushing their sound in a new direction without changing the essentially elements of the sound that has won them attention internationally. Featuring an infectious hook, shimmering synth arpeggios and strummed guitar, the breezy song is one part synth pop. one part 70s AM rock, one part country — but while centered around an unusual juxtaposition: the song as the band’s Carl Coleman explains is “a story about a bad trip at a weird house party I went to with my sister.” Granddaddy’s Jason Lytle contributes a guest verse to the song, a verse in which his character dispenses harsh yet very trippy truths to the song’s hallucinating and anxious narrator.
“Richard (Says Yes),” a playful, thematic left turn that finds the duo writing a big, upbeat party them — but while pushing their sound in a new direction. Centered around their unerring knack for crafting an anthemic hook, “Richard (Says Yes)” is a remarkably proggy take on their sound.

Earlier this year, the duo, along with their backing band filmed a live session from the tennis court of Copenhagen hotel, practically abandoned as a result of the pandemic. So in some way, the live session finds the band returning to the sort of surrealistic hotel scenes, which informed the album’s material. The sessions included live versions of two of my favorite songs off the album — the aforementioned “Won’t Be Long” and “Top of the Hill.”

The last Tennis Session features . . . Keep Dreaming Buddy’s latest single , the slow-burning “1996.” Featuring a shimmering synth arpeggios, stuttering drumming, strummed acoustic guitar and a bluesy electric guitar solo paired with Coleman’s plaintive vocals, “1996” describes a romantic relationship at a major crossroads in which both parties don’t quite know if it’s worth fighting for or not. Sonically, the song — to my ears at least — manages to bring The Cars “Drive” to mind, as it possesses a similar longing to get it right one way or the other.

Unlike the previous videos, this particular session eventually pans into the empty hotel. which gives the entire proceedings a dream-like feel.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: JOVM Mainstays Black Pumas on Tiny Desk (at Home)

Over the past year or so, I’ve spilled a ton of virtual ink covering the Grammy Award-nominated Austin, TX-based soul act and JOVM mainstays, Black Pumas over the past year. Led by Grammy Award-winning producer, songwriter, guitarist and producer Adrian Quesada and San Fernando Valley-born singer/songwriter and guitarist Eric Burton, the acclaimed act can trace their origins back to 2017.

Burton, who grew up singing in church and in musical theater, started busking at the Santa Monica pier, where he brought in a few hundred dollars a day while developing the stage presence, that would later win attention both nationally and internationally. He then traveled across the Western US, eventually relocating to Austin, where he set up a busking spot on 6th Street and Congress, a prime location in the city’s busy downtown neighborhood for maximum exposure.

Meanwhile Quesada was looking to collaborate with someone new. He had been reaching out to friends in Los Angeles and London but nothing seemed to fit. Serendipitously, a mutual friend recommended Burton to Quesada, with that friend telling Quesada that Bruton was the best vocalist he had ever heard. As the story goes, Quesada had reached out to Burton, but it took the San Fernando Valley-born, Austin-based singer/songwriter a while to respond. “My friends were like ‘Dude, you’re a mad man, you need to hit that guy back!’” Burton recalls. When Burton did call Quesada, he sang to him over the phone. “I loved his energy, his vibe, and I knew it would be incredible on record,” Quesada says. “From the moment I heard him on the phone, I was all about it.”

Last year, the duo along with a talented cast of collaborators released their breakthrough full-length debut. And since the self-titled debut’s release, the album has sold 155,000+ album equivalents worldwide, with smash hit “Colors” hitting #1 on Adult Album Alternative (AAA) radio and has been streamed over 60 million times. They also maintained a relentless tour schedule across North America that brought their uplifting and powerful live show to New York three times: The Knitting Factory, last May; Mercury Lounge, last July; and Brooklyn Bowl last September. Additionally, the band began to make stops across the nationally televised, talk show circuit, playing Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Ellen Show and others.

And adding to a breakthrough year, Black Pumas earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best New Artist along with fellow JOVM mainstay Yola — with both acts anti-climatically losing out to Billie Eilish.

This year has seen the release of a deluxe version of their breakthrough self-titled album — and it features new artwork, previously unpublished in-studio and live performance photographs and a bonus 7 inch featuring three previously unreleased originals, live in-studio versions of popular album singles “Colors,” “October 33,” and “Confines;” a live version of “Know You Better,” recorded at C-Boys Heart & Soul, the Austin club, where the band first made a name for themselves, as well as attention-grabbing covers of The Beatles‘ “Eleanor Rigby,” (a staple of their live shows), Death’s “Politicians in My Eyes,” Bobby “Blue” Bland‘s “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City,” and Tracy Chapman‘s “Fast Car,” which they premiered on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Continuing upon an enviable run of success, Black Pumas recently received three nominations for the 2021 Grammys — Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best American Roots Performance for “Colors.” And they’ve capped off the year with an NPR Tiny Desk (At Home) session that featured album singles “Fire,” “Oct 33,” and “Colors,” as well as set opener “Red Rover.” And although they’re performing in an empty studio — it’s a pandemic after all — the NPR set is fueled by the same passionate and soulful spirit of their live sets.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Laura Carbone Performs “Cellophane Skin” at Rockpalast

With the release of her first two albums — 2016’s Sirens and 2018’s Empty Sea — the rising Berlin-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and photographer Laura Carbone received attention across the European Union and elsewhere for a sound and approach that frequently draws comparisons to PJ Harvey, Shana Falana, Chelsea Wolfe, St. Vincent and others. Additionally,. Carbone published a limited-edition book of photography, also named The Empty Sea.

Carbone and her backing band have opened for The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, developing a reputation for a self-assured and explosive live show, which she further cemented with a headlining tour across Europe last year. The Berlin-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and photographer then followed that up with a stop at SXSW Levitation Festival/Creem Magazine Showcase and a headlining North American tour with The Natvral that included a stop at Baby’s All Right.

Carbone and her backing band were slated to go into the studio in May to record her highly-anticipated third album — but as a result of pandemic-related restrictions, the rising Berlin-based artist’s plans were placed in an indefinite hiatus, much like countless other artists across the globe. Last year, the rising Berlin-based singer/songwriter and guitarist and her backing band performed on the famed German, live concert series Rockpalast — and for Carbone, who grew up in a small town in Southwestern Germany watching the show, appearing on the show was the accomplishment of a lifelong dream: Rockpalast has recorded and broadcasted a who’s who list of influential and important artists, playing some of their most memorable performances, including Siouxsie and The Banshees, Radiohead, Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, Sinead O’Connor, David Bowie, R.E.M., Echo and the Bunnymen, Screaming Trees, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bob Marley and the Wailers and an amazing and very lengthy list of others.

As a result of pandemic-related shutdowns, an idea emerged with Carbone and her band: “What if Rockpalast would let us release that show as a live album?” Released yesterday, Laura Carbone — Live at Rockpalast is just that. Taken from her Rockpalast set at Harmonie Bonn last October, the live album features a career-spanning set, centered around her first two albums, and an unexpected cover, Hewing as closely as possible to their live sound, the album was mixed in Los Angeles by The Jesus and Mary Chain‘s Scott Van Ryper and mastered by Philipp Welsing at Hamburg‘s Original Mastering with no overdubs.

Last month, I wrote about the live album’s first single, “Who’s Gonna Save You.” The live rendition accurately captures Carbone and her band’s forceful live sound and Carbone’s irresistible stage presence, While the song itself finds the band balancing menace, power and sultriness, it should also serve as an introduction to an artist, who in my book is adding her name to a list of powerful rock goddesses.

To celebrate the release of the album, Carbone released the live album’s second single, “Cellophane Skin.” Performed as the first song of their encore, the live rendition finds the band taking the tension of the original and informing it with a feral and ferocious power, informed by dozens of shows across Europe and North America — and by the occasion. And as a result, the song finds its narrator — and perhaps the artist herself — turning into a seductive and vengeful force of nature, much like the sirens of the ancient myths. At its down core, the song finds its narrator forcefully tearing down the bonds of poisonous social norms that have imprisoned her while demanding that we — particularly men — examine ourselves. Of course, much like its immediate predecessor, the song captures a woman with mighty and fearsome roar.

Directed by Olga Dyer, the recently released video for “Cellophane Skin” is split between gorgeous and seductive footage of Carbone in a black gown being touched by a series of seemingly disembodied hands and black and white footage captured on stage.
“The feminine point of view has always been much more difficult to articulate,” Olga Dyer says in press notes. “And once articulated, alas, quite often it becomes a point of vulnerability, seen through the prism of sexual objectification, helpless stereotypes and indecency. It’s literally stripped of its actual meaning or even possible interpretations. To me, this is what ‘Cellophane Skin’ is about. People jump to conclusions, so quick to assume that they can see through someone. Personally it doesn’t offend me, I only find it banal and boring. I love creating beautiful and dark sequences, inspired by noir surrealism.”