Category: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Wombo Shares Dreamy “Slab”

Louisville-based trio Wombo — Sydney Chadwick, Cameron Lowe and Joel Taylor — exploded into the national scene with last year’s critically applauded Fairy Rust. Building upon a growing profile, the Louisville-based trio’s follow-up effort, Slab EP is slated for a June 16, 2023 release through Fire Talk Records.

Recorded by Nick Roeder, the forthcoming EP is reportedly a loose, instinctual grouping of songs that gradually morph into sonic territory that’s familiar to those familiar with the band’s experimental and surrealistic escapism, as well as sweeter. stripped-down sets. Most of the EP’s guitar parts are scratch takes that fit both the dealing energies and international imperfections of the songs with overlaid vocals recorded on the same day. The result is an of-the-moment snapshot of a band that’s settling naturally into their own sound while in constant evolution.

The EP’s latest single, EP title track “Slab” is built around wiry and scratchy bursts of guitar, relentless four-on-the-floor paired with Chadwick’s dreamy and detached delivery singing lyrics that feel and sound like stream-of-consciousness non-sequiturs. “Slab” manages to be forceful yet dreamy and reveals an uncanny sense for catchy melody. The band explains that the lyrics were inspired by a book Chadwick had red abated dissociation, and came from improvising lyrics in the band’s basement practice space.

Directed by the band, fittingly, the video is a surrealistic fever dream that follows Chadwick as she walks from the basement studio through a pharmacy, a replica of her house, front porch and imaginary bedroom — and features a journal entry about a dream she had superimposed over it all.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Nashville’s Friendship Commanders Share Grungy Ripper “Fail”


Nashville-based melodic, heavy duo Friendship Commanders — Buick Audra (vocals, guitar) and Jerry Roe (drums, bass) — have released two albums 2016’s Dave, 2018’s  Steve Albini-produced Bill and two EPs 2020’s Hold On To Yourself and last year’s Release The Rest, an exclusive vinyl compilation of singles released since 2020, including “Stonechild”/”Your Reign Is Over,” which continued their ongoing collaboration with the engineering and mixing team of Kurt Ballou and Brad Boatright.

The Nashville-based duo’s forthcoming Kurt Ballou and Friendship Commanders co-produced third album MASS was recorded in Ballou’s Salem, MA-based studio, GodCity. The album’s second and latest single “Fail” is grunge-inspired ripper built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming, enormous mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses paired with Audra’s expressive, Ann Wilson-like delivery. The song evokes both a desperate cry for help and a desperate attempt to connect with another that sadly seems to fall short. The duo explains that the song was written to honor the memory of Spore‘s and Sunburned Hand of the Man‘s Marc Orleans, who committed suicide in June 2020. “We chose to make the song energetic, dissonant, and big, just as he would like it. Bit of a departure for us from our usual doomy vibe, but it’s still the same band, we think,” the band says.

Directed, edited and shot by the band’s Jerry Roe, the accompanying video features Audra, Roe and Daniel Skiver, and is split between the band playing performing the song in a bare loft space and intimately shot footage of a desperate man, who’s at the end of his rope.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays TEKE: TEKE Shares Bittersweet “Doppelgänger”

Montréal-based collective TEKE: TEKE – Yuki Isami (flute, shinobue and keys), Hidetaka Yoneyama (guitar), Sergio Nakauchi Pelletier (guitar), Mishka Stein (bass), Etienne Lebel (trombone), Ian Lettree (drums, percussion) and Maya Kuroki (vocals, keys and percussion) — initially began as loving homage and tribute band of legendary Japanese guitarist Takeshi “Terry” Terauchi, featuring a collection of accomplished local musicians, who have played with Pawa Up First, Patrick Wilson, Boogat, Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra and others. 

2018’s debut, Jikaku EP saw the Canadian outfit come into their own highly unique and difficult to pigeonhole sound that features elements of Japanese Eleki surf rock, shoegaze, post-punk, psych rock, ska, Latin music and Balkan music. They then signed to Kill Rock Stars Records, who released their full-length debut, 2021’s Shirushi last year, and in the lead-up to the album’s release, I wrote about five of its singles:  

The acclaimed JOVM mainstays’ highly-anticipated sophomore album, the Daniel Schlettt-produced Hagata is slated for a June 9, 2023 release through Kill Rock Stars. “Hagata,” as the band’s Maya Kuroki explains “is a very deep word, something present but also something leftover from someone or something no longer there. It’s like waking up from a dream, or being connected to the other side of something. As a band, the Canadian psych pop outfit are intimately familiar with the duality of splitting reality between past and present, complex melodies and hushed interludes, intense action and lingering response. After building their genre-defying sound on Shirushi, the septet indulged in and learned from stretching out in free-floating experimentation both on the road and with Schlett during the recording sessions in Mountain Dale, NY.

“Doppelgänger,” Hagata‘s latest single sees the acclaimed JOVM mainstays pairing a cinematic arrangement that prominently features strummed guitar, a brooding horn line with Kuroki’s achingly wistful delivery. Part bittersweet ballad, part brooding meditation “Doppelgänger” speaks of the duality of identity: “Being of mixed Japanese and French-Canadian culture, I always feel like in some way I’m living two parallel lives…a big part of me is here in Canada, obviously, but another part of me is on the other side of the planet…this could be said about most of us in this band” the band’s Sergio Nakauchi Pelletier says.

The accompanying video created by the band’s Pelletier and Kuroki was shot during a recent trip to Japan: The pair took their camera all over Kyoto, Kamakura and Chiba, places, where they have family ties. The video features footage from that trip, along with childhood footage of the band members. It’s a deep care and low that at times overcomes distance, time and change — while pointing out that change is inevitable.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Babe Rainbow Shares Breezy “Super Ego”

Founded back in 2015, acclaimed Aussie psych pop outfit Babe Rainbow — Jack Crowther (a.k.a. Cool Breez), Angus Dowling and Elliot O’Reilly — can trace their origins to back to when the trio worked for John Cuts, a local grower near Tropical Fruit World in Duranbah, Australia.

Initially, the band’s sound was rooted in ’60s psych pop and ’70s French surf-pop, but since their formation, their sound has evolved to include elements of woodland bop, folk disco, dub, dance and international grooves while maintaining the Aquarian Age quality that has won them attention across the globe.

2015’s debut effort, The Babe Rainbow EP was recorded at an office space in Murwillumbah, and received airplay from triple j and support from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s Flightless Records. The band signed with Columbia Records‘ 30th Century imprint, who released their Stu Mackenzie-produced 2017 full-length, self-titled debut. The trio supported the album with international touring with Allah Las, Tomorrow’s Tulips and JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and La Femme.

2018’s Double Rainbow and 2019’s Today were also released through 30th Century, which completed their three-record deal. The band now owns all of their masters — and will be releasing future released through their own label Eureka! with the assistance of AWAL Music.

The acclaimed Aussie psych pop outfit’s latest EP, the Timon Martin-produced Fresh As A Head Of Lettuce is slated for a June 16, 2023 release. Their collaboration with Martin can be traced back to a random encounter between the band and BENEE on a festival stage last year. This lead to Martin joining the band on their sold-out Stateside tour last year, which ended with recording sessions at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 Studios. Fresh As A Head Of Lettuce EP reportedly sees the Aussie outfit bringing their counter-culture vibes to a new level.

The forthcoming EP’s first single, “Super Ego” is a lush and breezy bit of psych pop built around a laid back and buoyant groove and shuffling rhythms paired with a dreamy vocal and reverb-soaked, fluttering synths. While being a dub-like beach friendly jam, “Super Ego” manages to possess a subtly wistful air of summer memories yet to come and quickly gone.

Directed by Kristofski, the accompanying video for “Super Ego” was shot on grainy Super 8 film and follows a kite flyer, getting a ride for thrills and adventures on a glorious afternoon.

Babe Rainbow will be embarking on a short Stateside town to celebrate the release of the new single that includes a stop at this year’s Shaky Knees Festival. Check out the tour dates below.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Olivia Jean Shares Creepy and Groovy “Raving Ghost”

Growing up on the outskirts of Detroit, Olivia Jean found her first musical love in 1960’s instrumental surf bands. Taking up guitar at an early age, she became enamored by the city’s thriving garage rock scene, drawing inspiration from its unique rawness. By the time, she was a teenager, the Detroit-area based singer/songwriter and musician began regarding her own surf music compositions. After years of self-recording, she put together a demo that led to the founding of the Black Belles and the band’s signing to Jack White‘s Third Man Records.

After the release of the Black Belles’ 2011 self-titled full-length debut, Olivia Jean stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist with her full-length debut, 2014’s Bathtub Love Killings. She then followed with her self-produced sophomore album, 2019’s Night Owl.

Slated for a Friday release through Third Man Records, Olivia Jean’s highly-anticipated third album Raving Ghost is populated by mysterious characters in various states of danger — cursed lovers, doomed souls, women deliriously hunted by unseen forces. Featuring backing from a collection of top players, including My Morning Jacket’s Bo Koster (keys), Jellyfish‘s Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. (keys). T-Bone Burnett‘s and Nikki Lane‘s Carla Azar (drums) and The Raconteurs‘ and The Afghan Whigs‘ Patrick Keeler (drums), the 11-song album sees Olivia Jean amplifying the drama with her wildly melodic take on garage rock, with each riff handled with the power and precision she’s shown as a member of the Black Belles and as an in-demand session and touring musician. As a whole, the album is reportedly an evolution of the retro-surf sound featured on her previously released solo work while arguably being among the most mesmerizing material she’s released to date.

The album’s latest single is the slinky and darkly seductive album title title track “Raving Ghost.” Built around a looping, Link Wray-meets-Jack White gutter line paired with twinkling keys, a rousing anthemic, power chord-driven chorus paired with Olivia Jean’s mesmerizing vocal, “Raving Ghost” is a groovy but unsettling tale of a woman being hunted by a creepy and determined, unseen force.

Directed by Erica Salazar and Olivia Jean, the accompanying video for “Raving Ghost” fittingly features the acclaimed singer/songwriter and musician being followed by monstrous and shadowy figures, who at times surround her.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Nonô and Baby Tate Share Playful Visual for Swaggering Feminist Anthem “ATM”

Rising Rio de Janeiro-born, London-based artist Nonô has quickly made a name for herself for a unique brand of pop that pairs Brazilian rhythms with topical lyrics and catchy melodies. She was dubbed “the UK’s freshest talent” by Notion and was selected as one of NME‘s “100” artists last year. She also released two singles through Helix Records, “Lovesick” and “Good Times,” and played headlining shows at The Grace, Colours, and Victorious Festival.

Nonô also hosts the Controversia radio show with Brazilian DJ Alok, and their collaboration together “Sky High” has amassed over 14 million streams. Collectively, the rising Rio de Janeiro-born, London-based artist’s discography has racked up over 200 million streams all the DSPs. 

The rising artist’s latest single “ATM” features Baby Tate a hip-hop and R&B wunderkind, who since the age of 13 has honed her skills as a singer/songwriter, emcee, producer and engineer. Baby Tate exploded into the mainstream with 2019’s Girls. Now. a VMA-nominated artist. she has toured with Ashnikko and Charlie XCX. Her work has appeared on Netflix and HBO Max, and as a result has amassed over 88 million streams. Her 2016 hit “Hey Mickey” has recently enjoyed a resurgence in popularity after going viral again on TIkTok. Beginning with tweeter and woofer rattling bass, skittering trap triplets and woozy synths., “ATM” is a club friendly vehicle for Nonô to effortlessly switch between spitting bars and crooning in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. Baby Tate joins in after the seductive and infectious chorus to spit some fire self-assured fire. 

The end result is a banger that’s also a defiant yet playfully feminist anthem delivered with a sultry self-assuredness of two artists, who seem set to take over the world right now. “ATM is about being a provider and sharing your material and non-material wealth with your loved ones,” Nonô explains. “It represents what I’ve learned from my family, especially from the women, taking care of each other in every way we can.”Baby Tate adds:“When I heard ‘ATM,’ I was so excited because it’s such a dope song. I know I have a lot of fans in Brazil and to collaborate with a Brazilian artist is exciting. I’m grateful Nonô thought of me and I was able to add my energy to it!”

Directed by Christian D.K. Long, the accompanying video for “ATM” features a stylish and swaggering performance from the rising artists, set at a backyard family birthday party. The video’s cast is populated by several generations of women — mothers, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, friends — engaged in the things that happen at every single backyard, birthday party. But the video’s protagonists ensure that fun — and a helluva lot of money is brought to the festivities. And it’s made obvious that they did it through their own pluck, moxie and determination — without the assistance of a man.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Protomartyr Shares Tense and Uneasy “Elimination Dances”

Detroit-based post-punk outfit Protomartyr — Joe Casey (vocals), Greg Ahee (guitar), Alex Leonard (percussion), and Scott Davidson (bass) — have become synonymous with caustic, impressionistic assemblages of politics and poetry, the literal and oblique over the course of five albums — 2012’s No Passion All Technique, 2014’s Under Color of Official Right, 2015’s The Agent Intellect, 2017’s Relatives In Descent and 2020’s Ultimate Success Today.

Protomartyr’s sixth album, the Greg Ahee and Jake Aron co-produced, 12-song Formal Growth In The Desert is slated for a June 2, 2023 release through Domino Recording Co. Although the band’s Joe Casey had a humbling experience staring at awe-inspiring Sonoran rock formations and reckoning with his own smallness in the scheme of things during the recording sessions at Tornillo, TX-based Sonic Ranch, the album’s title isn’t necessarily a nod to the sand and sun-blasted expanses of the southwest. Detroit or anyplace else on Earth can be its own desert. “The desert is more of a metaphor or symbol,” Casey says, “of emotional deserts, or a place or time that seems to lack life.” The desert brings an existential awareness that is ultimately internal.

The “growth” referenced in the album’s title came from a period of profound, life-altering transitions for the band’s Casey, including the death of his mother, who struggled with Alzheimer’s for 15 years. Now, 45, Casey had lived in the family home in northwest Detroit all his life. In 2021 though, a rash of repeated break-ins signaled that it was time to move out. Protomartyr’s music — this time more spacious and dynamic than ever before — helped pull Casey up. “The band still being viable was very important to me,” Casey adds, “and it definitely lifted my spirits.”

Having long served as the band’s unofficial musical director, Greg Ahee knew what Casey had been going through and the challenges he’d been processing, and as he was conceptualizing the music, he thought about how to make it all “like a narrative film.” The cinematic sensibility also manifest itself in Casey’s song-as-story-like lyrics, which see him critiquing ominous techno-capitalism, processing aging, the future and the possibility of love. But the underlying them as Casey describes it, is a testament to “getting on with life,” even when it feels impossibly hard.
 

Post quarantine, the band regrouped with an understandable sense of uncertainty, questioning if and how to continue after the turbulence of the past few years. They found themselves channeling that ambivalence to hone a song they named after a chapter from a 1950’s teen dance manual. “Elimination Dances,” Formal Growth In The Desert‘s second and latest single refers to a game where “‘you get tapped out when you lose the dance,” and that felt an apt metaphor for just surviving. “Life is a struggle, but “you might as well keep dancing until the tap comes,” Casey says.

Fittingly “Elimination Dances” is a cinematic yet tense and uneasy waltz built around rolling and propulsive drumming, angular and wiry bursts of guitar and a sinuous bass line paired with Casey’s urgent, snarling delivery. The song partially recounts Casey’s experience feeling small in the vast and indifferent desert, the existential acknowledgement of time and the struggle to survive with your dignity and wits intact.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toulouse’s BEAR Shares Atmospheric “Foreigner”

Toulouse, Franee-based electro pop duo BEAR — Rachel Balma (vocals) and Adrien Sabathier (production) — have developed a dreamy and atmospheric sound inspired by Kate Bush, Björk, Peter Gabriel, and Billie Eilish among others.

Their latest single “Foreigner” is a swooning track built around woozy synths, tweeter and woofer rattling bass and skittering beats paired with Balma’s expressive vocal. The end result is a song that sounds a bit like a slick synthesis of Kate Bush and contemporary alt pop — delivered with a heart-worn-on-sleeve earnestness.

Directed by Lionel Pesqué and Joakim Coutouly, the accompanying video for “Foreigner” is a hazy fever dream featuring sequences in which BEAR’s Balma is in a bare, white studio wearing white and the duo performing the song in a hazy red plastic, that looks a bit like an embryo.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Entrée Libre Shares Krautrock-like MedItation on Fame “Je voudrais que tout brûle”

Paris-based duo Entrée Libre formed back in 2019 and derives its name from the first letters of the childhood friends’ first names. The pair quickly developed a joyful, spontaneous and hook-driven pop sound, which for the duo — and in turn, their listeners — has served as an escape from our ongoing strange and uncertain moment.

The French duo’s debut EP, last year’s Avant-Premiére featured three singles I managed to write about on this site:

  • “Aller Simple,” a dance floor friendly track that’s one-part 80s New Order, one- part JOVM mainstays DBFC, one-part Daft Punk 

  • “Corps à corps,” a hook-driven,  LCD Soundsystem-like bop that’s perhaps even more danceable than its immediate predecessor.

  • “Pixel” is a breezy yet wistful bop centered around glistening synth arpeggios, a chugging motorik groove, skittering beats paired with plaintive harmonies that brought Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk and La Femme to mind

The duo’s sophomore EP Mémoire de formes is slated for release this year. The EP’s first single “Je voudrais que tout brûle” is a swaggering and decidedly krautrock inspired song built around a relentless motorik groove, shimmering synth arpeggios and angular bursts of guitar paired with the duo’s unerring knack for catchy hooks. While sonically bringing DBFC to mind, “Je voudrais que tout brûlée” as the duo explains “deals with the wild and absurd quest for success, and the desire to be heard.”

Directed by Leïla Macaire, the accompanying video features the duo dreaming — and then realizing some of their wildest dreams of fame and attention to delirious and hilarious effect.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay MAGON Shares Breezy “Havana Bay”

Over the past handful of years, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the wildly prolific Israeli-born. Costa Rica-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and JOVM mainstay MAGON. 

Immediately after the release show for his fifth album, A Night in Bethlehem, MAGON, along with his girlfriend and daughter relocated to Costa Rica. He closed that year with “Simple Mind,” a song that saw the JOVM mainstay gently refining his sound yet again with hints of surf rock and jangle pop while retaining the hook-driven nature of his previously released material. Written during a major life transition, ‘Simple Mind” features a narrator, who’s closing a major chapter of his life — and perhaps career, as well — and is moving on to a new start, new possibilities, and new horizons. 

Continuing his reputation for being wildly and restlessly prolific, MAGON’s sixth album Did You Hear The Kids? reportedly features a broader and more expansive sonic palette than ever before. The album’s first single, the lush and laid-back “Onie Was A Kid” meshes elements of 60s psych rock, lo-fi singer/songwriter pop and contemporary indie rock paired with lyrics that are simultaneously autobiographical and deeply introspective. The song also features a guest spot from Paris-based indie duo SOS Citizen, who contribute shimmering guitar work and soaring backing vocals.

“Havana Bay,” the forthcoming sixth album’s second and latest single is an upbeat and summery tune built around jangling guitars, a shuffling and propulsive rhythm paired with the JOVM mainstay’s laid back delivery and his unerring knack for catchy hooks. While sonically reminding me of Psychic Ills‘ Inner Journey Out and Rolling Stones‘ Exile on Main Street, the song sees MAGON telling a story that shifts between two characters – a stoned jokester and a sincere balladeer — and describes a desire to escape ugliness and writer’s block.

Directed by Alexa Rotarescu and Magon, the accompanying video follows the JOVM mainstay as he cleans up a horse stall and grooms a couple of them before going on a lengthy ride on one of the horses. At one point, we see the JOVM mainstay and his daughter riding the same horse — with his daughter being thrilled beyond measure.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Pearl & The Oysters Share Woozy and Dreamy “Fireflies”

Released earlier this year through Stones Throw Records, Pearl & The Oysters‘ fourth album, Coast 2 Coast is heavily influenced by the pair’s move from Paris to Los Angeles — with a stop in Florida. Written mostly in Juliette “Pearl” Davis’ and Joachim Polack’s 1-bed apartment, the album’s material was fleshed out by a collection of friends and collaborators including Stereolab‘s Lætitia Sadier, Unknown Mortal Orchesta‘s, Caroline Rose’s and La Luz’s Riley Geare, Neon Indian creative mastermind Alan Palomo, Dent May, Mild High Club‘s Alex Brettin, and Shags Chamberlain, who mixed the album.

Because it was inspired so much by the pair’s relocation, the album thematically explores the idea of travel — physical, mental, experienced and fantasized. The album draws on an eclectic array of aesthetics and images, including Barbarella followed by an Agnés Varda triple bill; Florida swamps and sandy L.A. beaches under a mirrorball-like sun; a radio picking up a faraway broadcast before it fades into an oldies pop station, and crashing waves that melt into the sound of Davis’ white noise machine, among other things.

Coast 2 Coast‘s latest single “Fireflies” is a breezy and nostalgia-tinged bop built around woozy analog synths, twinkling keys, a supple bass line and a steady yet propulsive backbeat paired with Davis’ plaintive delivery. Sonically. “Fireflies” reminds me a bit of a synthesis of Young Narrator in the Breakers-era Pavo Pavo and 70s AM rock. Inspired by the late composer Ryuchi Sakamoto, the song explores dream states and insomniac visions.

Directed by Ambar Navarro, the accompanying video for “Fireflies” is informed by old sci-fi films: We see Davis hatching from a pearl and throughout the video, she plays a a daydreaming Tinkerbell type, who travels freely from planet to planet. Police acts as a controller of the universe while trying to capture Juliette, who has teleportation powers.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays RVG Share Urgent and Fiery “Midnight Sun”

Acclaimed and rising Aussie outfit and JOVM mainstays  RVG — currently Romy Vager (vocals, guitar), Gregor’s and Hearing’s Reuben Bloxham (guitar), Rayon Moon‘s Marc Nolte (drums), and Isabelle Wallace (bass) — have released two critically applauded albums:

  • 2017’s A Quality of Mercy, which was recorded live off the floor at Melbourne’s iconic rock ‘n’ roll pub, The Tote Hotel. Initially released to little fanfare, the album, much to their surprise received critical acclaim both nationally and internationally, landing on a number of end-of-year Best of Lists. 

  • 2020’s Victor Van Vugt-produced Feral was released by Fire Records globally, excluding Australia and New Zealand, where it was released by Our Golden Friend. The album received breathless praise nationally and internationally, with Rolling Stone Australia calling the album “the record of a lifetime.”

The Melbourne-based band’s highly-anticipated third album Brain Worms is slated for a June 2, 2023 release through Fire Records globally with Our Golden Friend releasing the album in Australia and New Zealand. Between the band’s members, Brain Worms captures the band at their most confident point they’ve ever been in as a band. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the band moving past their influences, trying new things and pushing themselves towards what they believe is their best album of their growing catalog to date. 

“Hype is scary. After two years of COVID it felt like the hype had gone down so we were able to just do stuff,” RVG’s Romy Vager says. “This time around we were like, this is what we’re doing, we’re taking control, we’re taking risks, and we’re going to make an album that sounds big so that when we hear it on the radio we want to hear it again. If we could only make one more album, it would be this one.”

Deriving its title from the hyper-recognizable experience of each day bearing witness to a world of private obsession being aired out in the infinite, Brain Worms may not be wholly new territory for the acclaimed Melbourne post-punk outfit and its frontperson, but there is a newfound radical acceptance. Recorded in London’s Snap Studios with James Trevacus, the ten-song album surges with lush sounds and clear intentions — and the magic of an acoustic guitar, once owned by Kate Bush, given to her by Tears for Fears, who legend has it, wrote “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” on it.

Over the past couple of months I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

  • “Nothing Really Changes,” an angular, 80s New Wave-inspired track rooted in enormous arena rock friendly riffage, paired with the Aussie outfit’s long-held penchant for anthemic hooks and choruses and Vager’s lived-in, heart-worn-on-sleeve lyricism: The song features a narrator desperately missing someone while confronting the lingering ghosts of their relationship — with frustration, despair, anger and a begrudging acceptance. As the band’s Vager explains, the song “started off as a songwriting experiment to write something catchy with an obnoxious riff, a cross between Divinyls and ‘Smoke on the Water.‘ It’s a song about missing someone but protecting yourself from being hurt.”

  • “Squid,” a rousing arena rock friendly anthem that brings Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen and Starfish-era The Church to mind: Swirling and shimmering guitar textures are paired with angular guitar attack, thunderous drumming, shout-along worthy hooks and choruses. But while rooted in an absurd, Kafkaesque-like nightmare in which the song’s narrator imagines what might happen if they were to go back in time, step on something and become a squid, Vager’s delivery is so desperately earnest and urgent that it feels very real.

Brain Worms‘ third and latest single “Midnight Sun” is an urgent and hurtling ripper built around Vager’s defiant and furious delivery, jangling guitars, a thunderous and propulsive rhythm section paired with the band’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses. Fittingly, the song deals with matters of disbelief, and what it feels like to live in a culture — and a world — that often prefers to argue about semantics rather than save the world from burning. If it hits close to home, it fucking should. It’s our current hellscape, where we constantly deal with a seemingly unending and pervasive, cynical, self-serving stupidity and myopia.

“I wrote this around the time of the Australian bushfires in 2019 when it felt like everything precious about this country was being destroyed by climate change,” Vager explains. “There were all these talking heads trying to play down how much of a disaster it was, instead focusing on how much they hate immigrants or queer people. I thought – the world is literally on fucking fire and this is what you choose to use your platform on? The song is contrasting these two things, and how sick we are ideologically that we can’t identify what real problems are.”

Directed by Oscar O’Shea, the accompanying video for “Midnight Sun” shows Vager singing along with the track, as she walks around a house party with attendees, who chat with each other, make out and make drinks while completely oblivious to the RVG frontperson — and to the entire world burning around them.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays JOSEPH Shares Buoyant, Feminist Anthem “Fireworks”

JOVM mainstays JOSEPH‘s fourth album, the Tucker Martine and  Christian “Leggy” Langdon co-produced The Sun is slated for a Friday release through their longtime label home ATO Records. The album reportedly sees the group — Natalie Closner Schepman and her two, younger twin sisters Meegan and Allison Closner —working with a collection of new collaborators and making yet another vibrant sonic shift while retaining the craft, three-part harmonies and hard-fought and harder-won lyrical wisdom that they’ve been known for throughout their career. But unlike its predecessors, The Sun sees the sibling trio taking a decidedly more hands-on role in the production process. The result is an album of material that sees Joseph spinning incredibly complex concepts into anthemic, sing-along ready pop that serves as a backdrop for the trio’s fearless and deeply personal storytelling from each of their perspectives. 

Thematically, the forthcoming album sees the trio focusing their soul-searching songwriting on the quietly damaging forces that keep us from living fully in our truth — e.g., gaslighting, cultural conditioning, unconscious yet painfully limiting self-beliefs and the like. Drawing on hard lessons from relationships and personal growth through therapy, The Sun reportedly shares stories of taking control of your own fate, making difficult decisions in the name of becoming yourself and weathering the highs and lows of love while keeping the faith — and importantly, tending to ourselves with presence and compassion. “All of our therapists were a huge influence on this album,” the sibling trio say in press notes. 

In the lead-up to the album’s release later this year, I managed to write about two of the album’s singles”

  • “Nervous System,” a punchy pop song rooted in deep. personal experience, the rousingly anthemic, sing-along friendly choruses the trio is known for, and big-hearted, earnest compassion. Fittingly the song — and its narrator — discusses being our own lifeline during times of anxiety, struggle and uncertainty. “It’s about self regulating and tending to ourselves with presence and compassion, rather than frantically reaching outside of ourselves,” the trio explain. Alison Closner adds “I’ve struggled with a lot of anxiety over the years, at times a constant inner storm, and it’s been easy to look outside myself to feel safe and secure. I’ve fought to find my inner peace, and through that process I’ve found that so much of the time I already have what it takes to calm my nervous system.”

  • “The Sun,” a shimmering, buoyant and fittingly summery pop anthem and a righteously defiant tell-off to a relationship that has made you feel small and insignificant while recognizing — and perhaps for some, reclaiming — one’s own power, integrity and sense of self. Much like the previously released material from the album, the song is rooted in universal yet deeply personal experiences, which add to its rousingly anthemic nature. “Many times I have found myself in a position where I’m stuck in cycles of negative self-talk” Meegan Closner explains. “Times when I have seen myself as bad and struggle seeing any other possible truth. This song is my higher self speaking to that me. It’s me reminding myself that I am more than I think I am.” 

The album’s latest single “Fireworks” is a lush, stadium-ready bop built around the trio’s soaring harmonies and their penchant for shout-along worthy choruses paired with twinkling synths, strummed acoustic guitar and a propulsive backbeat. While seeming like a slick mesh of 80s pop and country, “Fireworks” is a feminist anthem about knowing your worth and refusing to settle or compromise your romantic ideals. The song is rooted in psychological realism though, with the song’s narrator admitting that she’s taking a leap of faith, while expressing self-doubt and frustration.

“This song was inspired after my sisters and I binged the UK version of Love Island season 6. Everyone is walking around in bathing suits and falling in love – it’s perfect,” JOSEPH’s Allison Closner says. “I was fascinated by how many times ‘what’s your type’ was asked, only to have the response be ‘tall, dark, and handsome’. I would think, why isn’t anyone saying ‘fireworks’? There’s a line in the song, ‘I don’t want to just settle now, put my fire underground’, and to me it symbolizes wanting to feel like that fire is being fed by something deep and meaningful – not settling for anything less than FIREWORKS.”  

Continuing their ongoing collaboration with Justin Frick, the accompanying video captures the Closner’s deep and affectionate bond with following them on the road, and their obsession with Love Island in a fun, playful fashion.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Draag Shares Dreamy “Good Era Doom”

Los Angeles-based musician Adrian Acosta was trained as a mariachi singer by his father, an established noreeńo musician, but after finding his older brother’s electric guitar, wound up getting into indie rock and shoegaze. He started the rising electro shoegaze outfit Draag as a solo recording project, but the project expanded into a full-fledged band when he brought together local musicians from the disparate musical worlds of underground punk, experimental jazz, no wave and classical to flesh out the project’s sound.  

The band — Acosta along with Jessica Huang, Ray Montes, Nick Kelley and Eric Fabbro —initially set about reviving songs from a karaoke tape deck that Acosta recorded when he was 10. They quickly became a buzz-worthy local act, playing shows with Wednesday, Reggie Watts, Mint Field and a lengthy list of others. Then the Los Angeles-based shoegazers released two critically applauded EPs, 2018’s Nontoxic Process and 2020’s Clara Luz. 

Draag’s full-length debut, Dark Fire Heresy is slated for a Friday release. Featuring arrangements built around Nintendo-era synths, lush guitars and warped tape samples played in reverse, the album thematically is reportedly a cathartic portrayal and release of religious trauma informed by Haung’s experience of using therapy to process her upbringing in a religious cult. Some songs act as vessels of healing and forgiveness and others became a revenge fantasy. Ultimately, the album holds space for a deeply familiar sentiment — the things you could have said, done or knew, while acknowledging a bittersweet nostalgia. 

Built around dense layers of scorching guitar fuzz paired with relentless, staccato thrash punk-styled drumming paired with ethereal vocal harmonies mosh pit friendly hooks and tape hiss “Demonbird” saw the Los Angeles-based shoegazers adding their name to a growing list of acts boldly pushing the genre’s sonic boundaries as far as humanly possible — while ripping extremely hard. 

Dark Fire Heresy‘s latest pre-release single “Good Era Doom” may arguably be the most 120 Minutes MTV-era like song on the entire album. Built around rapid-fire and propulsive drumming, jangling guitars dipped in gentle reverb paired with a dreamy melody and a soaring hook, “Good Era Doom” brings Souvlaki-era Slowdive and others to mind, but with a clean, modern production sheen and a weary sense of heartache.

Shot by Goon’s Kenny Becker, the accompanying video focuses on shadows on walls and windows, reflections of shiny surfaces and the like. “The video is through the lens of myself as an odd child who would obsess over liminal spaces, shadows on the walls and windows, imagining things coming to life that adults don’t register,” Draag’s Adrian Acosta explains.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Chopper Teams Up with Glitchi on Hedonistic and Bombastic “Sugar and Spice”

Jonatan K. Magnussen is a singer/songwriter and musician, best known for being the frontman of Copenhagen-based goth outfit The Love Coffin. Magnussen recently stepped into the spotlight as a solo artist with his solo project Chopper, which specializes in what the Danish artist has dubbed “shock pop,” a sound that draws from Eurodance, glam rock, industrial, disco and B horror movies. 

Magnussen’s upcoming Chopper effort Shock Pop Vol. 1 reportedly sees the Danish artist continuing to explore inherent dualities of the human condition while touching upon love, sexuality and carefree joy. Sonically, the album’s material is influenced by Pet Shop Boys, Skinny Puppy and Underworld — but placed in a modern context. 

Last month, I wrote about Shock Pop Vol. 1 single “Springtime,” a sleazy, dance floor friendly banger built around Magnussen’s sultrily delivered cooing, shimmering guitars, industrial clang and clatter, glistening synths and enormous, crowd pleasing hooks. The end result is a song — that to my ears — brings Electronic, New Order and Ministry to mind, while rooted in sleek, hyper modern production and razor sharp hooks. But underneath the dance floor rocking grooves, is something far darker and menacing. Written during the pandemic winter, the song illuminates the feelings of longing and isolation — capturing the desire to be out among friends, to meet lovers, to just do things with anyone. 

Shock Pop Vol. 1‘s second and latest single “Sugar and Spice” begins with a brooding horn line, twinkling synths and percussion, a sinuous bass line and tweeter and woofer rattling thump paired with Magnussen’s and Glitchi‘s sultry deliveries and enormous Larry Levan-era house-like hooks. The end result is a sweaty and hedonistic banger that to my ears sounds like a slick synthesis of Ministry, The Sisters of Mercy and Electronic.

Fittingly, the accompanying video for “Sugar and Spice” is as maximalist and bombastic as its single while drawing from 80s visual cliches.