Category: music video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Napoleon Gold Releases a Hazy and Surrealistic Video for 80s Inspired Pop Confection “Love Don’t Cut Me Down” feat. Haiva Ru

Born Antoine Honorez, the Luxembourg City, Luxembourg-born French electronic music producer and artist Napoleon Gold received attention across the European electronic music scene and elsewhere for as a solo artist, whose ambient electronic production work is generally centered around bewitching arrangements, warm, low-pitched vocal samples and rousing percussion — and for a series of remixes and collaborations with Sun Glitters and Monsoonsiren. Building upon a growing profile across the European Union, Honorez toured across the European Union’s festival circuit, making appearances at Liverpool Soundcity Festival, Nordik Impakt, Galapagai Festival, Rock A Field and others.

After signing to New York-based electronic labels 13 Audio and Cinematic Music Group last year, Honorez released an attention grabbing collaborative EP,  A New Colour with T-Pain. However, 2019 may be a breakthrough year for the Luxembourg City-born producer: his highly anticipated full-length debut Sunset Motel is slated for a September 20, 2019 release. Deriving its title from a fictitious place, where the producer takes refuge from his life-long struggles from insomnia — and the thoughts, desires, regrets and dreams that come during the late night hours, the album thematically is about the inspiration he feels late at night. The album will also further cement his reputation for being an expert curator of collaborative talent, as the album finds him working with an eclectic array of up-and-coming artists including Haiva Ru’s Annie Merrill, Anna Majidson, Madge, Jesus Honcho, PH Trigano, Raquel, Kimberly Tell and Jalen Santoy. 

The album’s first single “Love Don’t Cut Me Down,” a collaboration with Haiva Ru is a decidedly 80s synth R&B two-step centered around thumping beats, layers of arpeggiated synths, brief blasts of Nile Rodgers-like guitar, a funky bass line, a sinuous and infectious hook and Haiva Ru’s Allie Merrill’s tender and plaintive vocals. And while sonically speaking, the song manages to recall Cherrelle, and even contemporaries like ACES, the song expresses a mix of yearning, longing and desperate hope that seems all too common in any romantic relationship. “I think I associate my first encounters with insomnia to a period of my childhood when my parents were constantly listening to this Belgian radio station called RTL2, on which they’d always play this kind of music. The songs trigger emotions linked to my childhood and they really speak to me. I wanted to add similar textures and vibes into this album” Honorez says in press notes. 

Starring Haiva Ru’s Allie Merrill, the recently released video is a hazy, languid and surrealistic dream that has Merrill in a hotel room that’s both decadent and dilapidated. We see her intimate moments, dancing to a song and reminiscing — before bathing with her clothes on. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Corridor Releases a Hallucinogenic and Whimsical Visual for “Topographe”

With the release of 2015’s Le Voyage Éternel and 2017’s Supermercado, the Montreal-based indie rock act Corridor — longtime friends and collaborators Dominic Berthiaume (vocals/bass) and Jonathan Robert (vocals/guitar/synths) along with Julian Perreault (guitar) and Julien Bakvis (drums) — quickly won attention across the Francophone world and elsewhere, as they received glowing praise from the likes of NPR and Vice, who referred to Supermercado as “the best French record of 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, 2020 2021 and even 2022 .  . . ”  Last year, building upon the growing buzz surrounding them, the Quebecois band toured across Europe and made their Stateside debut with appearances at SXSW and Northside Music Festival. Shortly after, they returned to the States, touring with British post-punk act Shame. 

This year, the band opened for Crumb on a sold-out Stateside tour, and they’ve already made appearances at the London Calling Festival and La Villete Sonique Festival. Adding to an already busy year, the band’s third full-length album Junior is slated for an October 18, 2019 release through Sub Pop Records, making them the first Francophone band that the renowned indie label has ever signed.  Junior, which continues their ongoing collaboration with their friend, producer (and occasional roommate) Emmanuel Either finds the band jettisoning the languorous creative process of its predecessors — out of inspired necessity. Although the members of Corridor had just signed to their new label, the band firmly committed themselves to releasing a new album every two years. Sub Pop gently warned the band that if they wanted to release new material this fall that they needed material by May 10. 

So with the ink barely dried on the finalized deal, the members of Corridor went into the studio and recorded Junior in an inspired blitz, finishing the album in mid-April. Six of the album’s 10 songs were conceived in a single weekend — with the lyrics to “Bang” written on the eve of the sessions, as the band’s Jonathan Robert began to panic. And as a result, the album’s material features fewer expansive jams, fewer overdubs. Even the album’s artwork came in the nick of time: in spite of other, meticulous and gorgeous artwork they received, Robert’s “shitty last minute collage” (of an egg saying hello) was the one his bandmates went for. “Part of the beauty of the thing is that we didn’t have time to think about it,” the band’s Berthiaume says of the Junior recording sessions. 

Frequently, the songs that manage to be difficult to describe on on hand, yet remarkably accessible catch a hold on my ears and attention. Junior’s first single, “Topographe” is a breakneck gallop centered around jittering and jangling guitars, propulsive drumming,  and reverb-drenched call and response vocals. It’s a muscular swoon that seems to evoke the fluttering pangs of first love. And while being a remarkably urgent track, the song possesses a timeless quality because it’s a deliberately crafted bit of material that also liberally borrows from several decades of rock — particularly, jangle pop, shoegaze, psych rock and so on. 

Directed by the band’s Jonathan Robert, the recently released animated video for “Topographe” features the members band in a Wes Anderson meets Monty Python-like world that’s full of hallucinogenic and surreal whimsy. “While I’ve explored and mixed many different techniques in my past music videos, it’s the first time that I took the process this far, blending all of them together in one place,” Robert explains. “It’s a melting pot of stop motion, green screen, illustration, animation, collage, and live video. It’s the visual equivalent of the progression of the song, a simple idea that takes amplitude through repetition.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Mark Lanegan Releases a Hallucinogenic Visual for “Night Flight to Kabul”

Over the past few years, I’ve spilled a fair share of virtual ink covering Mark Lanegan, the Ellensburg, WA-born, Los Angeles, CA-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, known as the frontman and founding member of Seattle-based grunge rock pioneers Screaming Trees, and an acclaimed solo artist, who has collaborated with an eclectic array of artists and bands — including  Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain on an unreleased Lead Belly cover/tribute album recorded before the release of Nevermind; as a member of the renowned grunge All-Star supergroup/side project Mad Season with Alice in Chains‘ Layne Staley and Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready; as a member of  Queens of the Stone Age featured on five of the band’s albums — 2000’s Rated R, 2002’s Songs for the Deaf, 2005’s Lullabies to Paralyze, 2007’s Era Vulgaris and 2013’s . . . Like Clockwork; with The Afghan Whigs‘ Greg Dulli in The Gutter Twins; as well as former Belle and Sebastian vocalist Isobel Campbell on three albums. Additionally, Lanegan has contributed or guested on albums by Melisa Auf der Maur, Martina Topley-Bird, Creature with the Atom Brain, Moby, Bomb the Bass, Soulsavers, Greg Dulli’s The Twilight Singers, UNKLE and others.

As a solo artist, Lanegan has released 10 critically applauded albums that have seen a fair amount of commercial success. (Ironically, his solo work has seen much more commercial success than his work with Screaming Trees.) The Ellensburg-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and JOVM mainstay’s tenth solo album Gargoyle was a collaboration between him, British-born and-based musician Rob Marshall and longtime collaborator, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Alain Johannes. That album’s material was both an expansion and refinement of the Krautrock-tinged blues of his two preceding albums  2012’s Blues Funeral and 2014’s Phantom Radio.

Somebody’s Knocking, Lanegan’s 11th full-length solo album is slated for an October 18, 2019 release through Heavenly Recordings, and the album’s material finds the acclaimed singer/songwriter turning to some of his most formative musical influences and loves — electronic music. “I’ve always been into electronic music since I was a kid,” Lanegan says in press notes. “I think the reason those elements have become more obvious in my music is that my tastes have changed as I’ve grown older. The bulk of what I listen to now is electronic. Alain Johannes and I had actually written “Penthouse High” for Gargoyle but then it didn’t really fit on that record. I have been a huge fan of New Order and Depeche Mode forever and have wanted to do a song along those lines for a long time – a blatantly catchy, old-school dance-type song.”

Although Somebody’s Knocking came together during an 11 day session in Los Angeles, much of the album’s deepest musical influences are decidedly European, including the album’s two other writing partners Martin Jenkins, who records as Pye Corner Audio and the aforementioned Rob Marshall, who contribute some newer, murkier forms. Reportedly, Lanegan approached working with each of the album’s writing partners from the perspective and lens of a fan and interpreter. 

Lyrically speaking, the album purportedly sets the listener down multiple rabbit holes, as Lanegan paints psychedelic pictures inspired by the music. “I feel like I write lyrics instinctively. I let the melody come first and then it tells me what the words are going to be and I write whatever feels appropriate,” Lanegan says in press notes. “That said, I’m also influenced by everything I’m into. I don’t usually like to talk about what a song means to me; I prefer that the people who connect with a song do so with their own interpretation. It never crossed my mind what Neil Young meant by After The Gold Rush, only the personal movie it created in my head. My entire life, all the music that I’ve connected to has drawn me in like that. Joy Division, Nick Drake, Son House, The 13th Floor Elevators, The Gun Club… all the music that meant the most to me, the music that saved my life was the music that told my own story back to me.”

Naturally, some aspects of the real world can’t help but seep their way into the album’s material. “It seems to me that the entire world is in a weird, precarious place right now,” the Ellensburg-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter says in press notes. “I try to not be someone in a constant state of worry and alarm but watching the massive divide that is taking place and the political situations, especially in the US and UK makes me think, ‘what the fuck are these idiots thinking?’ The hatred, racism and all this other fear-driven shit, these ‘adults’ that continually drive the machine that perpetuates this ignorance to their own ends should all be in the prison cells instead of the non-violent drug “offenders” in them now. I can’t specifically say how any of this effects my writing but I know that most of the things that occupy my thoughts have a way of coming back out in a song.”

Now, as you may recall, I wrote about the bluesy-Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen-like “Letter Never Sent.” The album’s latest single “Night Flight to Kabul” may arguably one of  be the album’s more dance floor friendly tracks, as it’s centered around thumping, four-on-the-floor drumming, rumbling bass lines, shimmering and skronky guitars, a tight motorik groove and Lanegan’s imitable croon. In some way, the song will likely remind listeners a bit of a bluesy take on the likes of Gary Numan and New Order. But lyrically, the song evokes a hallucinatory and surrealist fever dream, in which things aren’t quite what they seem. 

Directed by Dean Karr, the recently released video for “Night Flight to Kabul” is a hallucinogenic and feverish dream. ‘“The artistry and genius of Dean Karr is what made this video happen,” Mark Lanegan says in press notes. “5,000 still photographs taken in eight hours were painstakingly put together to give the appearance of a strange wraithlike figure moving weirdly through the desolate landscape of the Salton Sea. My third video with Dean in three different decades and I have to say this was the best. The most artistically challenging and satisfying.”

“We had been talking about doing this video for ‘Night Flight to Kabul’ for a month or two and my only concern was how could I pull this off with such a challenging budget for my friend?” The video’s director, Dean Karr adds in press notes. “Being a photographer before I was ever a director, I decided to use my Nikon D810 still camera for the entire music video and turn it into animation throughout the entire clip. What a simple solution! There’s lots of post work involved, which was done by editor and FX artist Joel Nathaniel Smith. There’s alot to be said for the simplicity of working WITHOUT a crew, it was just Mark, myself and a fan of Mark’s (Jason Hall) who drove 3 hours out of his way to meet us at the The Salton Sea, CA to help us shoot a beyond unique video! I think this is one of the freshest looking things out there today and love the ‘melty’ moments, which remind me of doing hallucinogenics back in the day!”

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Paranoyds Release an Interactive and Trippy, 360º Visual for “Face First”

Formed back in 2015, the buzz-worthy Los Angeles-based punk act The Paranoyds, derive their name as a bit of an apt summary of their general outlook on technology and modern culture — but ironically, the act can trace its origins to a friendship forged between its founding members Staz Lindes (bass, vocals) and Laila Hashemi (keys vocals) over MySpace in their early teens. Initially bonding over a shared interest in local underground music, the duo eventually became friends in real life. Eventually, the duo recruited Hashemi’s childhood friend Lexi Funston to join the band — with David Ruiz (drums) completing the band’s lineup in 2015.

Since their formation, the band has developed a reputation as one of Los Angeles’ most exciting bands as a result of tours with the likes of DIIV, White Reaper, Albert Hammond, Jr., Sunflower Bean, Tacocat, BRONCHO and others, and for playing major festivals like Coachella. The band’s highly-anticipated (and long-awaited) full-length debut Carnage Bargain is slated for a September 13, 2019 release through Suicide Squeeze Records — and the album is reportedly a raucous blend of gritty garage rock, New Wave swagger, B movie camp and a myriad of other left-of-center influences.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the album’s second single, album title track “Carnage Bargain,” a track which found the band pairing ironically delivered lyrics that offered a scathing observation of our world of instant gratification with quirky yet infectious pop hooks, fuzzy power chords  and forceful drumming. Beginning with a pair of alternating half-tones that sound like sirens piercing through the air, the album’s third and latest single, album opener “Face First”  quickly develops a motorik groove featuring some explosive blasts of post punk skronk and squeal. And over that the band’s Lexi Funston sings lyrics about watching other people’s private lives unfold on social media and on our phones. 

Directed by David Gantz and Theo Cohn, the recently released video for “Face First” is  trippy 360º and interactive visual that follows a stalker. “We wanted the video to be driving, as the song has always reminded us of some sort of forward movement, like running, driving in a car late at night, etc.,” the members of The Paranoyds say in a statement. “The song is loosely about a stalker and we wanted that idea to be involved in the movement somehow. The video directors, our friends Theo Cohn and David Gantz, wanted to challenge themselves by doing something they had never done before–shooting with a 360º camera. This allowed us to show the point of view of these stalkers, where you could watch the video multiple times and still notice little Easter eggs each time depending on where you look. So many people watch videos on their phones now, and a 360º video makes for a much more interesting and fulfilling experience on a phone.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Brazilian-Canadian Shoegazers Palm Haze Release a Gorgeously Cinematic and Feverish Visual for “Second Round”

With the release of their self-produced debut EP, 2017’s Tangy Dream, Palm Haze, comprised of Illhabela, Brazil-born, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based Anna Wagner (vocals, bass) and Lucas Inacio, a.k.a Fløver (guitar, production) have quickly developed a reputation for a unique sound that meshes elements of alt rock, shoegaze and trip hop. Considered the third best shoegaze album that year by DKFM‘s listener’s pool, the EP was later released on cassette tape by Young Heavy Souls and on vinyl through a successful Qrates crowdfunding campaign. 

Slated for release later this week through YHS Records, the the Illhabela-born, Vancouver-based shoegazer duo’s forthcoming effort Rêve Bleu reportedly draws from the duo’s chaotic personal lives last year. “While Tangy Dream feels very tangible and achievable, Rêve Bleu will bring up chaotic emotions and thoughts, taking you much further from reality and closer to the wonders of uncertainty. Where could you go? What could you do? It’s a fantasy you fall on accidentally, revealing risky and forbidden paths. It’s the kind of dream you’re afraid of, but also tempted towards,” the duo explain in press notes

Earlier this month, I wrote about the Lightfoils-like album single “Floating,” a track, which was centered around layers of fuzzy, pedal-effected guitars, a motorik groove, shuffling drumming and Wagner’s ethereal vocals. Interestingly, Rêve Bleu’s latest single “Second Round” is an expansive and trippy track that begins with a lengthy jazz-like and slow-burning intro featuring Wagner’s vocals floating over shimmering guitar and stuttering beats but about half way through, the song morphs into towering shoegaze reminiscent of My Blood Valentine, Ride and others, complete with fuzzy power chords and thunderous drumming. “Second Round” may arguably be the best example of their sound and approach but while managing to be ambitious yet accessible. 

Directed and edited by Matt Black and featuring camera and drone work by Alex Buksdorf, the recently released video for “Second Round” is one part brooding and noir-ish as it’s all gorgeously cinematic black and white photography and neon light — but as the song’s intensity turns up, the visuals become increasingly hallucinogenic. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Lola Kirke Releases a Cinematic Yet Intimate Visual for New Single “Mama”

Over the past year couple of years, I’ve written quite a bit about the London-born, New York-based singer/songwriter, musician and actress Lola Kirke. Perhaps best known for her roles in Noah Bambauch’s Mistress America and the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle, and David Fincher’s Gone Girl, the London-born, New York-based JOVM mainstay is the daughter of drummer  Simon Kirke, who was a member of the 70s hit-making rock bands Bad Company and Free and Lorraine Kirke, the owner of Geminola, a New York-based vintage boutique known for supplying outfits for Sex and the City.  She’s also the sister of singer/songwriter Domino Kirke.

During that same period of time, Kirke has developed a reputation as singer/songwriter and solo artist, releasing last year’s Wyndham Garnett-produced full-length debut Heart Head West, a deeply personal effect that Kirke said at the time was “about basically everything I thought about in 2017 — time, loss, social injustice, sex, drinking, longing — essentially everything I’d talk about with a close friend for 40 minutes.” Building upon a rapidly growing profile, Kirke will be releasing an EP of country duets, Friends and Foes and Friends Again through Downtown Records on September 13, 2019. The EP reportedly finds Kirke further developing the honky tonk country sound that has her won her attention across the blogosphere — while subtly updating it, a smidge. 

The EP’s first single is the gorgeous and achingly mournful “Mama.” Penned by Kirke herself and featuring Wet’s Kelly Zutrau, the  song about the painful complexities of the mother/daughter relationship, written from lived-in, deeply personal experience. And as a result, the song’s narrator expresses remorse, regret and longing for a relationship that’s been tainted by the pride, idiosyncrasies, misunderstandings, different perspectives of two stubborn, hurting, foolish and very human adults, who love each other — but also know how to wound each other. 

Lola’s older sister, Jemina Kirke offered to direct the video. And originally, Jemina and Lola intended to have their mother star in the video. But when their mom politely declined, they decided to age Lola to create their own mother figure. The cinematically shot yet intimate visual follows our mother figure in her some of her deepest, most private moments — getting dressed and going through her daily beauty routine, fussing about through an enormous mansion before eating a cheeseburger and washing it down with a beer. Is she preparing for some sort of gathering? We don’t know. But what’s obvious is that the mother figure in the video is painfully lonely — and the video suggests that she is going through some sort of emotional breakdown. 

“It’s a perverse not mine to want to see people in their private moment,” Jemina Kirke says of the video. “I would’ve loved to her be defecating on the toilet but decided ravenous eating was just as good, just as grotesquely human. This story is about a character of stature and prestige, whose live is all about appearances, engaging in an act that puts her on the level with everyone else. And then the relief (and the horror) that comes from that.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Follow Acclaimed JOVM Mainstays Tinariwen on a Cinematically Shot Journey in the Desert

I’ve written quite a bit about the internationally acclaimed Algerian Tuareg pioneers of Desert Blues and JOVM mainstays Tinariwen over the past handful of years. And as you can recall, the act can trace its origins back to the late 1970s when the band’s founding member, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib (guitar) joined a small group of Tuareg rebels living in refugee camps in Libya and Algeria. The rebels Ag Alhabib hooked up with had been influenced by radical chaabi protest music of groups like Nass El Ghiwane and Jil Jilala, Algerian pop rai, and western artists like Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, Carlos Santana, Dire Straits, Jimi Hendrix, Boney M, and Bob Marley  — and they started writing music that meshed the traditional folk music of their people with Western rock, reggae and blues-leaning arrangements.

Despite a series of lineup changes since their formation, the act has toured regularly across the European Union, North American, Japan and Australia, playing some fo the biggest festivals of the international touring circuit — and at some of the world’s biggest clubs and music venues. But one thing has been consistent: they’ve firmly established a sound that evokes the harsh and surreal beauty of their desert homeland, centered around the poetry and wisdom of a rough and tumble, proud and rebellious people, whose old-fashioned way of life is rapidly disappearing as a result of increasingly technology and encroaching Westernization and globalization. And while 2017’s Elwan (which translates into English as “The Elephants”) thematically touches upon on the impact that Westernization and technology has had on the lives of their people, their exile from their homeland as  result of religious and ethnic infighting, the uncertain future of their homeland and their longing to be back in their homeland — with the tacit understanding that many within the band may never see their homeland ever again.

Slated for a September 6, 2019 release through Anti- Records, the acclaimed JOVM mainstays’ forthcoming album Amadjar reportedly is as close as listeners can get to the proverbial soul of the band as it was recorded in a natural setting. Accompanied by their French production team, who arrived in an old camper can that has been converted into a makeshift studio, the Saharan Africa JOVM mainstays’ journey to the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott takes about 12 days or so. Every evening, the caravan stopped to set up camp and the band went to work under the stars to prepare for the recording sessions, talking through things, and letting their guitar motifs, thoughts and long buried songs come. Then, during a final two-week camp in the desert around Nouakchott, the band, joined by The Mauritanian griot  Noura Mint Seymali and her guitarist husband, Jeiche Ould Chigaly, recorded their songs under large tent in a few live takes, without headphones or effects.

Once recorded, a host of Western musicians added additional instrumentation including the Bad Seeds’ Warren Ellis, who contributed violin; Micah Nelson, the son of the legendary Willie Nelson and a member of Neil Young‘s backing band, contributed mandolin and charango; Sunn O)))‘s Stephen O’Malley contributes guitar; Cass McCombs, who contributes guitar; and Rodophe Burger.

Lyrically and thematically, the album explores the continuing political, social, humanitarian and environmental problems faced in their home country of Mali and continues Tinariwen’s pursuit to highlight the plight and issues of their people through their music. The album continues the band’s ongoing work of highlighting the plight of the Tuareg community — from the collapse of infrastructure and public services, climate change and the ongoing political and military conflicts that have plagued their homeland since it gained independence in 1960.

Interestingly, “Kel Tinariwen” Amadjar’s latest single continues in a similar path of its predecessors as its centered around shimmering and looping acoustic guitar, call and response vocals, handclaps and drums and while the addition of a sinuous electric bass line  helps to modernize the song, the song feels as though it’s an effortless synthesis of the ancient and the modern. Thematically, the song touches upon two ancient things: the treacherousness of those power mad and greedy sorts, who will sell out their people — and a triumph of the righteous over them. Cass McCombs contributes some trippy vocals towards the song’s coda and his guitar work. 

Directed by Celidja Pornon, the recently released video for “Kel Tinariwen” is a cinematic and intimate shot visual that follows the band and their crew as they travel through the desert with their makeshift recording studio. We see tons of earthy browns and oranges, eerily beautiful landscapes, enormous and seemingly endless skies, and Van Gogh-like suns. Over the course of their journey, they stop for the night, set up camp, play dominoes, joke and chat and at night, they jam and write songs — the songs that represent the struggles and concerns of their people and of their homeland. We also get glimpses of the band performing for an ecstatic group of Tuaregs, who cheer them up and record every moment. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: North Carolina’s Tracy Shedd Releases a Playful Stop Animation Visual for “Kissing and Romancing”

With the release of her five previous albums through labels like Teen Beat, New Granada Records and Devil In The Woods and stints in Band & The Beat, the Jacksonville, FL-born, Wilmington, NC-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Tracy Shedd has developed a reputation for being a musician’s musician, whose sound and approach has been compared to the likes of Alvvays, Belle & Sebastian, Liz Phair, My Bloody Valentine, Snail Mail, Sonic Youth and countless others.  

After Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley sit in on drums during her last US tour, Shedd began writing the material, which would comprise her forthcoming album The Carolinas in her new home of North Carolina. The album reportedly finds Shedd drawing upon her indie rock roots with some of her electro pop experiences with Band & The Beat — and is arguably some of the most playful material she’s written and recorded to date. The album’s first single is the coquettish fuzz pop anthem “Kissing and Romancing.” Centered around fuzzy power chords, a big infectious hook and a decidedly lo-fi production, the song manages to recall 90s grunge and fuzz pop — Liz Phair’s “Supernova” immediately comes to mind; but with a playful, coquettish air. 

The recently released video features stop-motion animation of a wooden robot dancing and courting a blue alien. And while drawing some influence from The White Stripes “Fell in Love with a Girl,” the video, much like the song has a playful air. 

Shedd’s latest album, The Carolinas is slated for a September 20, 2019 digitally through Fort Lowell Records and on vinyl through Science Project Records. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: METZ Releases an Explosive Take on a Gary Numan Classic

I’ve written quite a bit about the Toronto-based punk trio and JOVM mainstays METZ over the years and if you’ve been frequenting this during that same period, you may recall that their third album, 2017’s Strange Peace found the band pushing their songwriting in new directions with their most personal and politically charged work to date — and while retaining the furious and blistering energy of their live sets, the material managed to capture the anxiety, uncertainty, fear and outrage that many of have felt over the past couple of years. 

Earlier this year, Sub Pop Records released Automat, a collection of METZ’s non-album singles, B-sides and rarities dating back to 2009 on vinyl for the first time — including, the band’s long out-of-print (pre-Sub Pop) recordings. Essentially, the album is designed as a chronological trip through the acclaimed Canadian JOVM mainstays lesser-known material. Interestingly, the vinyl version of Automat included a bonus 7′ single of the band covering three very diverse songs, which will offer fans and listeners a glimpse into their wide-ranging tastes — a cover of Sparklehorse’s “Pig” off a very limited 2012 Record Store Day split single, originally released by Toronto-based record store, Sonic Boom; a cover of The Urinals’ “I’m a Bug” originally released on YouTube in 2014′; and lastly, a previously unreleased cover of Gary Numan’s “M.E.” Today, the three bonus tracks were made available to all digital services. So with that in mind, check out METZ’s explosive, feedback-driven take on Gary Numan’s classic “M.E.” 

Featuring a three-headed Pleasure Principle hydra illustrated by Kirin Booth and animation by Martin MacPherson, the recently released video for “M.E.” is a mesmerizing and hallucinogenic romp.