Category: music video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Paris’ Comma Period Shares Hypnotic “Presets for Life”

Vivian Morrison is a Paris-based electronic music producer, artist, remixer and creative mastermind behind emerging project Comma Period. Morrison initially started the project to remix a couple of songs for French multi-instrumentalist Colleen.

Comma Period quickly developed into a project rooted in retro-futuristic escapism, cyberpunk loneliness and synthwave nostalgia for a future that will never be and we’ll never see. The project’s debut EP Ruin Porn was released earlier this year. Thematically, the EP’s material is informed by the modern fascination with ruins — both ancient and modern. But it’s also about the horror of the ruins of Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere, and our powerlessness to stop the ongoing madness of our world.

The EP’s latest single “Presets for Life (Radio Edit)” is a hypnotic, industrial banger featuring layers upon layers of glistening and woozy synth oscillations paired with skittering beats. While sonically recalling Snap!’s “Rhythm Is A Dancer” and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK, the song as the emerging Parisian explains, ask a couple of questions: Wouldn’t it be nice if we had presets in real life, like in music software? And those presets would tell us how to behave, how to love, how to live and how to die?

Edited by Morrison, the accompanying video for “Presets for Life” features open source videos available on Pexels, and follows a young boy exploring a suburban ruin. Throughout, the video’s imagery gently undulates to the music, adding a lysergic feel to the visual.

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s DVTR Shares Anthemic Ripper “Les flics (sont des sacs à merde)”

Deriving their name as an acronym for the French phrase “D’où vient ton riz?” (Where does your rice come from?), Montréal-based duo DVTR is a new collaborative project featuring two of the city’s most highly acclaimed artists:

  • Laurence G-Do, the frontperson of JOVM mainstays  Le Couleur, an act that has toured internationally several times, and has opened for Giorgio Moroder, Polo & Pan and others, while amassing over 18 million streams across digital streaming platforms. 

  • JC Tellier, who has played with Gazoline, an act that has received multiple ADISQ and GAMIQ award nominations. Tellier has also played with Kandle, Xavier Caféine, Gab Bouchard and a lengthy list of other well-regarded artists in Québec. 

With the release of their debut EP BONJOUR, the French Canadian duo have been burning up the Canadian indie scene: The EP amassed a plethora of rapturous reviews, landed on a number of Best of 2023 Lists and earned the duo a handful of awards in Québec. 

The acclaimed and rising French Canadian duo celebrate their first full year of the project with their latest single “Les flics (sont des sacs à merde),” which translates into English as “The cops (are shitbags)” has quickly become a staple of their live set. Anchored around a supple and propulsive bass line, G-Do’s punchy delivery, buzzing power chords, and a steady four-on-the-floor, “Les flics” brings Ting Tings’ “That’s Not My Name” to mind — but while rooted in an unequivocal message that protestors and countless others rally behind: ACAB! Throughout the song, the duo excoriate and ridicule cops, referring them as a violent, brainless bullies and a shit ton more.

The computer animated video by Romy Côté further emphasizes its accompanying song’s themes: The video begins with an out-of-shape cop driving in a police car. Fittingly, the cop looks like a clown. As he drives around town, he comes across two people vandalizing some property. After a chase, the two young vandals overtake the cop and replace his shit for brains for an actual brain.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Razor Braids Share a “120 Minutes” MTV-Like Ode to the Uncertainty of New Love

Brooklyn-based indie outfit Razor Braids — Hollye Bynum (lead vocals, bass), Janie Peacock (lead guitar), Jilly Karande (vocal, rhythm guitar) — had a breakthrough 2023: Their full-length debut, I Could Cry Right Now If You Wanted To was released to critical praise from the likes of BrooklynVegan, Paper, Vanyaland, Creem Magazine and others. Adding to a big year, the band opened for The National, Foo Fighters, and Worriers, and they made the rounds of the festival circuit, playing sets at that year’s SXSW and Boston Calling.

The band’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Big Wave is slated for a June 2024 release. The album reportedly sees the band furthering their dedication to tightly layered vocals and emotionally reflective lyrics. Big Wave‘s third and latest single “Berate Me” features a dreamy and contemplative introduction, quickly followed by a prototypical grunge song structure held together by the crunch power chords and the big hooks that bring back memories of 120 Minutes MTV-era alt rock, like Live Though This-era Hole, Veruca Salt and others. The song conveys the woozy unease of starting a new relationship — with the all the prerequisite fears and uncertainties that we all have throughout our lives: Will this end like the other times? Will this be better? Will it be worse? What if it was always me? What if I just choose wrong? And so on in that sickening and all too familiar cycle of doubt. But it also captures a narrator, who has done some work on themselves and acknowledges they deserve and need better than what they’ve had in the past.

“’Berate Me’ is about entering a new romantic relationship with someone and the anxiety and baggage you bring along with you,” Razor Braids’ Bynum explains. “The healing done from past experiences has led you to the realization that you should be treated better than you’ve been. You recognize the patterns not only with past partners, but also within yourself. What is my role in this? What unhealthy behaviors am I exhibiting? It sometimes sucks to be self-aware. There’s this sense of playing it cool and really badass in a new relationship when in fact you’re like shitting your pants. You don’t want to show all your skeletons in the closet.”

Directed, produced, choreographed and edited by Hollye Bynum, the accompanying video for “Berate Me” shows the band’s members dressed in red and in a front of a red background struggling against themselves and forces that would deny them the hard-earned wisdom and peace they’ve fought for.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Sweet Kill Shares Brooding and Anthemic “Forbidden”

Pete Mills is a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and creative mastermind behind the solo recording project The Sweet Kill. With The Sweet Kill, Mills focuses on the darker and goth side of post-punk.

Constantly recording and producing material at his own studio, Shadow Zone Sound, Mills wrote The Sweet Kill debut album Darkness with the expressed intention to inspire those lost in the shadows of life. Anchored around cold wave-like synths, post-punk drums, atmospheric guitar and melodic bass, the album’s material channels Editors, Fontaines DC, Joy Division and others while thematically exploring the the soul’s journey between two worlds, asking the question: Are we eternally floating in the ether? Or are we never lost and always found?

“Forbidden,” Nowhere‘s latest single is a brooding and anthemic bit of post punk anchored around glistening and angular guitar tones, swaggering and thunderous beats, a propulsive and melodic bass line and enormous hooks and choruses and an atmospheric, acoustic guitar-driven bridge. The arrangement and production serves as a lush, arena rock friendly bed for Mills plaintive baritone. And while sonically seeming to channel White Lies, Editors, Interpol and others, “Forbidden” tackles love, longing and loss through some Romantic tropes and a lived-in specificity.

Directed by Ellen Hawk and shot in a gorgeous, cinematic black and white, features protagonists, who are outcasts and whose love for each other is fiery and passionate yet forbidden. They’re led to a secret world, which is both an escape and exile, and where they can be both consumed by their love. Sounds like an Edgar Allan Poe story doesn’t it?

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Menthüll Shares Club Banging Yet Yearning “Parade”

Gatineau, QC-based indie electronic/goth duo Menthüll–Gabriel and Yseult — formed in 2021, and in short order, the French Canadian duo quickly established a retro-futuristic sound that draws from New Wave and electro pop with lyrics written and sung primarily in French.

The French-Canadian duo’s latest single “Parade” is an upbeat, club friendly bop that sounds like a slick and playful synthesis of New Order’s “Blue Monday” with thumping house music-like beats and enormous euphoria-inducing hooks paired with yearning vocals.

The song as a the duo explains takes the listen on a view of some of downtown Hull’s streets, the oldest neighborhood in their hometown. And while openly acknowledging that Hull isn’t beautiful or anything special, it’s their town — and because of that, they love it. But without loved ones, what does it really mean?

“Parade’s initial tempo was much slower and its rhythm was more subtle with lots of rolling toms,” the Hull-based duo recall. “We just decided to turn up the tempo and the house kicks!”

The accompanying video takes the viewer on a tour of downtown Hull, pointing out the boredom, frustration, love and yearning that their hometown — hell of anyone’s hometown — brings.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Geneva Jacuzzi Shares a Striking Visual for a Brooding and Retro-futuristic Bop

Geneva Jacuzzi is a Los Angeles-based multimedia artist, whose immersive and unhinged performances are considered legendary: they often involve a psychotropic gallery of masks, costumes, confrontation and massive art installations. Her recorded music frequently features catchy hooks and cryptic moods dusted in 4-track grit.

Jacuzzi recently signed to Dais Records, who shared the following about the signing: “As long-time fans of Geneva’s immersive world-building, singular songwriting and unforgettable live performances, we are honored to welcome her to the Dais roster.” She adds, “So excited to join the Dais crew. It’s definitely the coolest label in LA. Exciting new adventures on the horizon!” 

The Los Angeles-based multimedia artist’s latest single “Dry” is a brooding yet swaying bit of 80s retro-futuristic synth pop, anchored around layers of glistening analog synth arpeggios and skittering beats paired with catchy, razor sharp hooks. Jacuzzi’s seemingly detached vocal singing about disconnection and uncertainty ethereally floats over the dreamy arrangement.

“I took a little break from writing music and when I sat down at home to record, ‘Dry’ was the first song to burst out,” Jacuzzi recalls. “The music came together so instantly it’s as if it had been waiting and perfecting itself for years in the ether. The chorus lyrics came that same week after I went on a date with Mike Judge and he never called me back (haha). I wasn’t upset or anything, but I had never been ghosted before and couldn’t help but equate modern love to an appliance you buy on the home shopping network.”

The accompanying video is shot in a strikingly cinematic black and white, and features Geneva suspended upside down in an elaborate art installation-meets-costume, being literally hung out to dry.