Category: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Nicholas Allbrook Shares Shimmering “Jackie”

Nicholas Allbrook is an acclaimed Western Australian-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist. painter and producer. Since starting his artistic career, Allbrook has brought community and collaboration to the forefront of his artistic and creative method — both as a solo artist and with POND. Allbrook has also collaborated with Aussie and international acts alike. including King Krule, Cate Le Bon, Cuco and Holy Fuck among others.

Through his career, Allbrook has shown a deep understanding of the human experience and the importance of art in modern society. His fourth solo album, the Allbrook and Nathaniel Hoho (a.k.a. HOKO) co-produced Manganese is slated for a July 9, 2023 release through Spinning Top Music . The album reportedly is a psyche pop wonderland that captures the sound of a musician with a symphony in his back pocket, a thorough history of 80s Oz-rock in his rearview mirror and modern Australia in his sights.

“Jackie,” Manganese‘s latest single is a mid-tempo, swooning ballad centered around twinkling synths, strummed guitar, a sinuous bass line and a rousingly anthemic hook paired with Allbrook’s plaintive vocal. Seemingly indebted to 80s pop, “Jackie” is a bittersweet song that grapples with loss, grief and hope for peace in the afterlife — or whatever is beyond this.

“This song is about my friend (whose name isn’t Jackie) who died in 2021,” Allbrook explains. “She was fantastic and the news left me with familiar feelings of guilt and regret and ‘why didn’t I do more or know better?’ I don’t usually get hit with creative bolts while running, but by the canal once in London I was struck with the hopeful image of her rowing away from the earth that had been so hurtful and hard, on a black lake surrounded by stars, finally finding peace and silence. It felt nice to think about death like that, bathed in pale silver light rather than just cold. I got lots of instrumental help from Nathaniel Hoho, who bizarrely and brilliantly put in the nature documentary voice about the giant panda which should never work but somehow does.”

Directed by Alex Haygarth, the accompanying video for “Jackie” is split between Allbrook in full Thin White Duke mode, playing acoustic guitar while bathed in spotlight with flecks of starlight around him. We also see drag performance artist Ash Baroque expressively dancing and lip synching to the song, making the video seem as though it’s a duet between two dear friends — one just departed, one still here in the mortal coil.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JJUUJJUU Shares Trippy “Nowhere”

Phil Pirrone is a Los Angeles-based musician and co-founder of Desert Daze. In 2011, after spending ten years as a touring bassist, Pirrone borrowed an SG and DL4 and began his exploration of recording looped based music with JJUUJJUU. Pirrone’s JJUUJJUU debut, 2013’s FRST EP and the follow-up standalone single “Bleck” helped build up buzz about the project. Throughout that period, the lineup and instrumentation of the JJUUJJUU moved in step with the project’s ethos of ephemera and flux with the project touring in several different configurations with Pirrone at the center, sharing stages with The Claypool Lennon Delirium, Tortoise, Allah-Lahs, Temples, Tinariwen and others.

Pirrone spent the next few years recording material in various spaces around California. Those sessions included collaborations with Vinyl Williams, members of Lumerians, Dahga Bloom and others. That material eventually comprised Pirrone’s JJUUJJUU full-length debut, 2018’s Zionic Mud. The albums release was accompanied by alternate versions of the tracks remixed or reimagined by many of the band’s most notable fans and supporters, including J. Mascis, Warpaint‘s jennylee, Liars, METZ, and Autolux. JJUUJJUU supported the album by opening for Primus, Mastodon, Kikagaku Moyo, and Earhtless, as well as festival sets at Pickathon, Nelsonville, M3F and others.

Pirrone and his collaborators went on to record two follow-up efforts to Zionic Mud during the height of the pandemic. With extra time on his hands, Pirrone taught himself how to record material, and then sent tracks to longtime band members Ian Gibbs and Joseph Assef. The tracks were then sent around to Boogarins, METZ’s Alex Adkins and a collection of friends that will be revealed in the future. When it was safe to do so, the band wound up at Rancho De La Luna with Dave Catching and Jon Russo and put finishing touches on the material.

In the meantime, the act shares its first single of the year, “Nowhere.” Featuring a relentless motorik pulse, rolling drum beats, bursts of feedback and distortion paired with wailing vocals buried in the mix, “Nowhere” brings Connect the Dots-era Toy, Deleters-era Holy Fuck and others to my mind.

The accompanying video for the track was created for Micah Buzan, who has worked on videos for Adult Swim and for a variety of bands including Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Flaming Lips, and The Claypool Lennon Delirium. Fittingly the video employs the use of psychedelic imagery and hand-drawn animation that undulates in time with the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Boris Shares Surreal and Nightmarish Video for Spectral “michikusa”

Formed back in 1992, Japanese, experimental heavy rock outfit Boris ((ボリス, Borisu) — currently core members Takeshi (vocals, bass, guitar), Wata (vocals, guitar, keys, accordion and echo) Atsuo (vocals, drums, percussion and electronics) with Mucho (drums) — settled on their current lineup in 1996. Since then, the members of Boris have tirelessly explored their own genre-defying take on heavy music.

In an effort to sublimate the negative energy surrounding everyone and everything in 2020, Boris wrote and recorded NO, one of the most extreme albums of their widely celebrated and lengthy career. The band self-released the album during the height of pandemic-related lockdowns, desiring to get the album out as quickly as possible. Interestingly, they intentionally titled NO‘s closing track “Interlude,” and then set out to plan NO‘s follow up.

Last year’s W saw the band creating material that stylistically ranged from noise to New Age, further continuing their long-held reputation for sonically adventurous and dynamic work. While being remarkably disparate, W is held together by a melodic deliberation through each song that helps the band accomplish their ultimate goal with the material — eliciting deep sensations.

NO and W were conceived to weave together to form NOW, a pair of releases that respond to each other: The band followed one of their hardest albums with an effort that’s sensuous, lush yet thunderous. The result is a continuous circle of harshness and healing that seems more relevant — and necessary — now than ever. 

Further continuing their long-held reputation for being incredibly prolific, the Japanese heavy outfit released two more albums last year.

Last August’s 10-track Heavy Rocks (2022), another installment of their Heavy Rocks series that saw the members of Boris channelling 70s proto-metal and glam rock through their own unique lens.

They closed the year out with fade, an album informed by the massive sounds of drone metal that’s “. . . not bound by concepts of rock and music in general but could rather be said to be a documentary of the world plunged into the chaotic age of boris moving forward,” the band says.

They continue, “Break into the present, post-pandemic era. Memories of the world wrapped in disorder and uncertainty already bring feelings of nostalgia. Every individual was cut off from society, but now have returned as one.

Among that disorder like a primitive scenery, did you have fear? Did you doze off? Or in an extreme state of mind, did you even feel some comfort in the solitude?

Among that disorder, did you make eye contact with yourself, or did you not experience such a moment?

Now, wrapped in a thunderous roar, your whole body will be caressed on the way to awakening.

Morning comes.”

fade was released digitally last December through Bandcamp and finally sees its release on double LP today. The deluxe, 180g vinyl release comes in pink and black variants with laminated gatefold jacket. The albums were manufactured by Third Man Pressing, released by fangsanalsatan, and are available for pre-order through Sacred Bones.

In the meantime, fade‘s latest composition “michikusa” is a slow-burning shoegazer-like composition rooted in swirling guitar squall and droning textures that gently ebbs and flows like waves hitting the shore.

Directed by award-winning director, animator and painter Nalani Williams. Through Williams’ career, she has crafted surrealistic stories and imagery, seamlessly implementing stop motion, hand drawn animation and painting in a distinctive style of her own. The accompanying video for “michikusa” is set in a surreal and hellish, microscopic landscape seemingly made of skin and bone. And in this landscape, mysterious and weird beings battle for dominance in the unending cycle of life and death — or something in between.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Chicago’s FACS Shares Tense and Propulsive “When You Say”

https://youtu.be/9r7WAqzHgLs

Back in 2013, Chicago-based post-punk act Disappears — founding member Brian Case (vocals, guitar) along with  Noah Leger (drums), Jonathan van Herirk (guitar) and Damon Carruesco (bass) — released two related yet very different efforts that I love quite a bit –the atmospheric and tempestuous Kone EP and the tense, ranging Era. Era‘s material featured narrators, who rapidly vacillated between anxiousness, dangerously unhinged obsession, self-loathing, envy, unadulterated blind rage directed both at oneself and at the entire world. And much like the interior monologues of Underground Man in Notes from the Underground or of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, Era captures the dark and frightening recesses of a wounded psyche — and a furious roar into a cold and indifferent void.

In 2017, Carruesco left the band. The remaining members — Case, Lager and van Herrik — eventually decided to continue onward, but under a new name, and new sonic direction and songwriting approach as FACS. With 2018’s full-length debut, Negative Houses, the trio have quickly establish themselves as a heavy band, although they don’t necessarily feel like one: Case’s fluttering and wiry melodic guitar lines are paired with an insistent, rhythmic pulse.

Since Negative Houses, the Chicago-based outfit has released three more albums, including 2021’s Present Tense. Each of those albums have seen the members of FACS perfercting their unique brand of intense, catharsis-inducing art rock/post-punk, while pushing their sound and approach in new directions. The Chicago-based outfit’s fifth album, Still Life In Decay was recorded by Sanford Parker at Electrical Audio Recording and is slated for an April 7, 2023 release through Trouble In Mind Records. Bassist Alianna Kalaba, who took over for founding member Jonathan van Herik after the release of Negative Houses makes her amicable last stand with the group. Alongside Leger, the band’s rhythm section dance and twist around each other like double helix in which collectively they approach rhythm from outside the groove, rather than inside it, creating a lattice in which Case can weave his guitar lines in an around, like creeping vines.

Reportedly, Still Life in Decay is a decidedly focused effort that sees the band at their most solidified. The apocalyptic chaos of that defined their previous album is pushed away in favor of examination with a remarkable clarity — while being a sort of addendum to Present Tense.

“When You Say,” Still Life in Decay‘s uneasy first single is centered around the propulsive rhythmic lockstep between Leger and Kalaba that’s punctured with Case’s reverb-drenched and slashing bursts of guitar. Throughout, Case shouts repeated phrases with a desperate urgency, as though desperately trying to hold on to something — to anything, really — while the freeform lyrics touch on themes of resignation, cynicism, classism and a search for identity and meaning in a crumbling society. But at its core is a primal and forceful meditation on the exposed ugliness, inequities and divides within our “post pandemic” lives and world.

Directed by Joshua Ford, the accompanying video for “When You Say” performing the song in silhouette in a red-lit studio. Three cathode ray TVs of varying sizes are behind them, full of VHS-era fuzz and distortion — including close-up footage of the band’s members playing their instruments. The video captures the band at their tightest and most forceful.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Object of Affection Returns with Anthemic “Con-Man”

Los Angeles-based post punk outfit Object of Affection features members of acclaimed local acts Death Bells, LOCK, and Fury. The project sees its members tapping into the primitivism of their diverse projects while elevating their capacity for both atmosphere and melody. While hints of gloomy punk, brooding New Wave and down-and-out Regan-era alt rock reverberate in their sound and approach, it’s not in pastiche; but rather in a sort of sonic kinship to the austerity and fatalism embedded in the previous generation’s dejected anthems. Plus. holy shit, things are really fucked.

Since the release of the project’s 2020 self-titled, debut EP, they’ve been busy: They’ve released “Through and Through” through Suicide Squeeze — and they’ve already shared stages with the likes of Ceremony, Fiddlehead, Special Interest, Gulch, and a growing list of others. Building upon a growing profile, the members of Object of Affection signed to Profound Lore, who will release their highly-anticipated full-length debut, the ten-song, Alex Newport-produced Field of Appearances on March 3, 2023. 

Field of Appearances reportedly sees the band expanding upon their sonic palette with the addition of drum machines, synths, acoustic guitar and auxiliary percussion, highlighting their evolution — and a growing sense of experimentalism. Each of the album’s ten songs are part of a cohesive and complete statement, while standing part on their own, with the material exploding in character, contract and excitement. Thematically, the album’s material touches upon reflection, insufficiency and Déjà vu among others. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about the album’s lead single, album opener “Half Life,” an anthemic track that’s one-part angular post-punk, one-part mosh-pit friendly grunge with rousing hooks and a forcefully propulsive rhythm section. Bearing a bit of a resemblance to Ceremony‘s In The Spirit World Now, “Half Life” is rooted in an uneasy and palpable sense of existential dread right around the corner The song thematically touches upon the inevitable passage of time and the aching effects of hopelessness — both are which are often a weird part of life. 

“Con-Man,” Field of Appearances‘ latest single continues a run of material that meshes elements of of post-punk and grunge: Centered around a quiet-loud-quiet song structure featuring angular guitars, propulsive drumming and rousingly anthemic hooks, paired with a feedback-driven bridge, “Con-Man” is a remarkably accessible, almost pop-leaning track that throbs with palpable disgust — and a sense of betrayal. The song as the band explains is about “being ripped off and how we deal with wounded pride in the aftermath.”

Employing the use of silhouettes, strobe lights to create a sense of brooding unease.

You can pre-order and/or pre-save the forthcoming album here: https://linktr.ee/objectofaffection

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Faute Shares Haunting “Blue Girl Nice Day”

Peggy Messing is a Winnipeg-born, Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and visual artist, best known for her solo recording project La Faute. The Winnipeg-born, Toronto-based artist’s work sees her exploring several different themes including surface vs. depth, longing, betrayal, mourning and desire.

Creating her sound with tenor eclectic guitar and obsolete hardware samplers, Messing released her debut EP just before the pandemic put a halt on everything. She chose to pause live performing due to her health, and returned to focusing on creating music, finding workarounds to the problem of isolation. She connected with fellow artists and producers in France, the UK, Canada and the States — and most recently, Los Angeles-based producer, Topher Mohr, who produced her forthcoming La Faute self-titled debut album.

“Blue Girl Nice Day,” the self-titled album’s atmospheric first single features strummed acoustic guitar, twinkling keys, Messing’s gorgeous and expressive vocal paired with swirling synths and military-influenced drumming. Sonically, “Blue Girl Nice Day” is blends classic, guitar-driven folk with shoegazer-like textures.

Messing explains that “Blue Girl Nice Day” was inspired by the Milgram Experiments of the 60s. Subjects were told to give ever-increasing series of electric shocks to a “learner,” who had to repeat word pairs” Blue/Girl, Nice/Day, Slow/Dance, Sweet/Taste, and so on. In the experiment, the “learner” was an actor, who purposely made mistakes. The subject had to decide if they should obey orders and potentially give a lethal electric shock to a person, who was crying out in the next room — or to refuse. Subjects were shaken to find that most people would obey the authority figure and give what they thought were lethal shocks to the learner, even against their own conscience.”The song reflects on how easily we can betray and hurt each other, and how we don’t necessary know ourselves and what we are capable of,” the Canadian artist says.

The accompanying video follows Messing outside in a field near power lines and on a hospital bed with a cold wind blowing around her. It’s hauntingly eerie.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Donna “La Mulatta” Shares Swaggering “Get Away From Me (Freestyle)”

Donna “La Mulatta” is an emerging, underground Paris-based artist. In a freestyle accompanied by a chilled out and psych jazz-influenced production by Lille, France-based producer Fair’Son, the Parisian artist spitting bars full of mischievous wordplay with a swaggering, self-assuredness reminiscent of Rapsody and Lady of Rage. Simply put, I thought this was fire. And I’m looking forward to hearing more from the Parisian artist.

The accompanying video follows the emerging Parisian through a variety of urban settings.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Mariaa Siga Shares Uplifting “Le murmure des anges”

Mariaa Siga (born Mariama Siga Goudiaby) is a Senegalese singer/songwriter, musician, and JOVM mainstay, who can trace the bulk of the origins of her music career to winning a local talent show, where she caught the attention of acclaimed Senegalese act Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc’s frontperson mentored the young Goudiaby, helping her refine her style and further develop her musical skills. Shortly after, Gouldiaby landed a role in Mon Réve, a film which aired on RDV. 

As a singer/songwriter and musician, the Senegalese JOVM mainstay was long accustomed to the traditional rhythms of the Casamance region of Southern Senegal; but her curiosity led to her to discover and experiment with Western styles like reggae, blues and jazz, which she freely incorporates into her own work.

Back in 2016, Goudiaby was was one of the winners of the Festival des Vielles Pirogues‘ Tremplin competition. Building upon that momentum, she released two singles the following year, “Ya sama none” and “Asekaw.”

The Senegalese JOVM mainstay performed in her native Casamance for the first time with a set at 2018’s Kayissen Festival. That same year, Yoro Ndiyae featured Goudiaby on his Sunu Folk compilation. She capped that year off with a French tour that November.

Her full-length debut Askew, which translates to “Woman” in her native Diola, was released back in 2019. That year, she won Baco Records‘ One Riddim Contest, which led to sets at Morocco’s Festival MarcoFoiles, France’s Midem Festival and to an invite to play Quebec’s Festival Mondial des Femmes d’Ici et d’Ailleurs. 

The JOVM mainstay begins 2023 with “Le murmure des anges.” The song features a shuffling and buoyant reggae riddim from Artikal Band, complete with a slow-burning and soulful guitar solo paired with Siga’s gorgeous and expressive delivery. “Le murmure des angels” is a song that does two things — give thanks to the enteral while reminding listeners that they should listen to the little voice inside of us, which arms us with much-needed confidence; that voice that frequently says “You know, you got this. You know you’re dope.”

Directed by Mao Sidibé, the gorgeously shot, accompanying video captures snippets of everyday Senegalese life, following a small collection of hard-working folks, trying to survive with their dignity intact. When the video’s protagonist, stumbles upon a suitcase of money that falls out of car, he’s tempted to keep the money — who wouldn’t? — but he does the right thing and winds up being rewarded.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Donnie Doolittle’s Darkly HIlarious “Resurrect Me”

Donnie Doolittle is a Charlotte-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Although Doolittle studied piano and guitar as a child, he cut his teeth fronting a series of popular local bands in the early 2000s, including garage pop act Stone Figs, doom rock outfit Little Bull Lee and dark, psychedelic solo project Dreamy D.

Back in 2018, Doolittle recorded the first version of upbeat psuedo-lovesong “When a Woman,” a song inspired by 1970s Aussie thrilled Wake in Fright, while visiting his friend, producer Jesse Clasen in New York. Originally conceived as a Dreamy D, the collaboration marked a shift in his songwriting and creative process, and later became the first single under his own name. “That song just felt different: I was evolving, and I wanted to start fresh, releasing tracks under my own name,” he says. “The new music feels more true to who I am as an artist and as a person.”

As a solo artist, Doolittle crafts moody, synth driven material that hover between dark, retro-pop and melancholy rock that blends bright, pop-leaning melodies into ominous and cinematic soundscapes. Described as “Southern New Wave,” to “Goth Americana” by the press, his genre-bending sound has frequently been compared to Orville Peck, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, and Iggy Pop. He pairs each release with carefully-honed imagery and thematic narrative videos, meant to engage a range of senses. “I want to provide a full experience—to use my resources to create a palpable ambiance,” Doolittle says.

Doolittle’s Jesse Clasen-produced self-titled, full-length debut is slated for an April 7, 2023 release. The 12-song album reportedly features arrangements that weave together modern and vintage synths (most notably, the Mellotron and 80s-era Roland Juno 106) with electric guitar, bass and drums to create songs that drift mood-wise between vibrant and gloomy. Informed by Doolittle’s love of the work of Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Lee Hazlewood, the album’s cinematic arrangements help to draw listeners into multifaceted sonic worlds, laced with sharp, narrative lyrics that touch upon religion, gender, pop culture and sexuality with a light, subtly ironic touch. “I like to play around with religion and sex,” says Doolittle. “Feeling jaded about God and the world, but also firmly attached to both. I think that’s a big part of Southern culture, and who I am as an artist…for better or worse.”

Along with the album announcement, Doolittle shared the album’s latest single, the slow-burning and broodingly cinematic “Resurrect Me.” Featuring twangy and reverb-drenched guitars, glistening and atmospheric synths paired with Doolittle’s baritone paired with big hooks and a buzzing guitar solo, “Resurrect Me” manages to sound a bit like a synthesis of the Twin Peaks soundtrack, Bruce Springsteen‘s “Tunnel of Love” and Orville Peck, while rooted in a bittersweet heartache.

“I started writing this song after learning about so-called ‘resurrection men,’ body snatchers in the 18th and 19th centuries that would exhume corpses from graveyards and sell them to medical schools for research and teaching purposes,” Doolittle explains. “I was interested in the idea of someone seeing value in these buried and abandoned vessels, and putting in the work to give them a second chance at showing their worth above ground. I related to the dead people in this scenario.”

Directed by North Carolina-based producer and director Josh Rob Thomas, the accompanying video is a darkly hilarious visual that follows Doolittle’s corpse on a wild adventure as its passed along a rotation cast of odd companions. “As heavy as the inspiration was, I thought we could lighten the mood with the video. Influenced by absurd films like Weekend at Bernie’s (which didn’t age too well) and Swiss Army Man, we took my corpse on an adventure with a rotating cast of companions,” Doolittle explains. “Fun was had with most of them, but only one character cared enough to put me to rest. I’ve assembled a very talented production team and we stepped up our game for this one. I hope you enjoy it.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Nite Bjuti Shares Woozy Contemplation of Black Girlhood and Womanhood

Nite Bjuti (pronounced as Night Beauty) — Candice Hoyes, Val Jeanty, and Mimi Jones — is an an acclaimed trio of Afro Caribbean improvisational artists, who use electronics, vocalism, bass, Haitian rhythms, sampling and spoken word to cultivate their narrative journey. The trio draw inspiration from a a centuries’ old Hatian folk tale called “Night Beauty,” about a girl whose bones begin to sing in the afterlife, her spirit seeking justice. The members of the trio play to rediscover the deeply buried Diasporic beauty in our world that’s transcendent cross generations. Fittingly, they made their debut at Jazz at Lincoln Center, as part of a celebration of 2018 International Women’s Day.

The trio have played NUBLU Jazz Fest, NYC Winter Jazzfest, The Schomberg Center and Jazz at Lincoln Center, and have done a live studio performance on WGBO. The trio are UMEZ Arts Engagement grant recipients for last year’s mixed media installation commissioned by the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture. They’re also 2020 recipients of the NYC Women’s Fund in Jazz Music, which has fully funded their full-length debut album, slated for an April 14, 2023 release.

Thematically, the trio’s debut reportedly contemplates existential themes including coming of age and deep physical, mental and spiritual change. The album’s first single, “Mood (Liberation Walk)” features around skittering voodoo and soca-like beats, ethereal cooing and wailing, a propulsive bass line, whirring electronics and a spoken word poetry to create a woozy synthesis of ancient folk traditions, contemporary electronic production and tight grooves. But the song also manages to a be an ageless conversation across time and space among members of the Diaspora, discussing things that only those within the community know and understand — and in the language that those within know and understand.

”What good is freedom if you don’t really feel free? Black girlhood maturation brings a range of evocative contradictory experiences,” Nite Bjuti’s Candice Hoyes asks, and “in ‘Mood (Liberation Walk)’ we express the sudden sensation of a girl jumping/jumped into puberty, roped into a new emotional reality, physicality and societal positionality. As explored in the music video, she jumps through the portals of her own design right until the foreboding street lights flicker. Jumping is tied to shared childhood experiences, embodies connectivity and the chasmic leaps of growth in the Black womanly experience.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Wings of Desire Share Dreamy, Krautrock-Inspired “Runnin'”

Rising British indie duo Wings of Desire — James Taylor and Chloe Little — draw inspiration from several eclectic sources, including early 00s New York post punk, Factory Records, krautrock and the work of philosophers like Alan Watts, Noam Chomsky and Wim Wenders.

Sonically, they attempt to key into a specific lived in experience: “We were inspired by a trip to Berlin where we visited the legendary Hansa Studios, and got drunk at Neues Ufer.” Built in 1913, the building was later used as a cabaret and chamber music hall during the Weimar era, and converted to a recording studio in the early 1970s. Because of its outstanding acoustics, the studio has played host to David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Brian Eno, U2, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Depeche Mode, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Killing Joke, Manic Street Preachers, R.E.M. and Living Things among others. It’s been said that Bowie wrote “Heroes” at a window of the studio, from which he saw his producer and longtime collaborator Tony Visconti kiss backing vocalist Antonia Maass, by the Berlin Wall, an image that’s referenced in the song’s lyrics.

Hansa Studios is a spiritual home for the rising British duo as they specialize in a gritty take on dream pop rooted in earnest, lived-in emotion. So far, the duo have received praise from Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, The Line of Best Fit, DIY, Clash Magazine, Dork, The Independent and others. They’ve received airplay from BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq and Lauren Laverne and Radio X’s John Kennedy. And last year they’ve opened for JOVM mainstays Nation of Language.

Building upon a growing profile, the duo share a new single, the expansive “Runnin,'” which will appear on effort slated for release later this year. Featuring shimmering and reverb-drenched, angular guitar attack, atmospheric synths and a relentless motorik groove paired with Taylor’s plaintive vocal and rousingly anthemic hooks, “Runnin” to these ears, sounds like a sleek synthesis of Berlin Trilogy-era David Bowie and The Jesus and Mary Chain, but rooted in incisive observation of the contemporary human experience.

With their new single, the duo offers a much-needed reminder, that there’s more to life than what we’re being served and fed on a daily basis through the algorithm. “Running endlessly in circles under the tight grip of a culture designed to distract us from ourselves,” the band explains. “Do we still believe that the internet knows what’s best for us? Maybe it’s time to get off the wheel and see what’s outside.”

The accompanying video featured slickly edited stock footage — of natural and man-made disasters, news broadcasts, the Wall Street trading floor, people in internet cafes and elsewhere. All of them feeling desperately empty, inadequate, lonely and desiring earnest connections that they don’t know how to achieve. It’s as much of a critique of the social media world, as it is of capitalism.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Miami’s Gurudine Shares Cathartic and Anthemic “Maniac”

Gurudine is a Queens-born, Miami-based singer/songwriter, electronic music producer and artist of mixed Moroccan-Egyptian heritage. “music has always been a part of my life, and I’ve always wanted to be a creator,” Gurudine says. “I hope my music helps people the way my favorite artists have helped me.”

Released earlier this month, the Queens-born, Miami-based artist’s latest single, the high energy “Maniac” firmly establishes a genre-defying sound and approach: The song sees Gurudine effortlessly meshing elements of 80s-influenced synth pop, emo, alt rock and hip-hop with earnest, heart-on-sleeve lyrics and arena rock friendly, catharsis-inducing hooks. The song’s uptempo air is at best deceptive; the song thematically details struggles with anxiety, depression and other mental health issues — with the nuance and empathy of someone, who has suffered through something similar.

Directed and edited by the Queens-born, Miami-based, features the mysterious and masked artist rocking out in the studio and throughout random locations in sunny Miami, in a Freddy Kreuger-like outfit.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Matt B and Eddy Kenzo’s Sultry “Gimme Love”

Matt B is a Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter., known globally for crafting romantically-driven, chart topping R&B: His debut, Love & War and his sophomore album Dive landed at #1 on the iTunes R&B charts. Building upon a rapidly growing profile, 2018’s Bryan-Michael Cox-produced EP Rise and his 2021 Cox and Tricky Stewart-co-produced Stateside debut, 2021’s EDEN landed in the Top 40 on Billboard‘s R&B Albums, Digital Albums, Heatseekers and R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Charts.

The Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based global R&B artist’s highly-anticipated forthcoming EP ALKEBULAN is slated for a spring release through Vitae Records. The EP derives its name from the ancient name of African, and sees the acclaimed, chart-topping artist paying homage to his African ancestry while further tapping into the Afrobeats-inspired sound he has developed and honed over the course of the past couple of releases.

“ALKEBULAN is a body of work that searches for identity and the longing to reconnect with the Motherland and my people,” Matt B explains. “In search of this identity, I found that the heartbeat of it all is rooted in love. When I first stepped foot on the continent of Africa, that longing for home and search of identity was finally fulfilled. This EP encompasses the summation of this journey.”

The EP features the previously released “Get Down Mami,” and “Gimme Love,” feat. Eddy Kenzo, which received a Best Global Music Performance nomination at this year’s Grammy Awards. The track has also received critical acclaim and commercial success, debuting in the Top 50 on Billboard US Afrobeats Songs Charts, and took home top prizes at the MUSE Creative Awards, Global Music Awards, LIT Talent Awards, and New York International Film Awards — all while amassing over five million streams across digital platforms.

“Gimme Love” is a crowd-pleasing, bop rooted in slick, modern production featuring glistening synth arpeggios, processed and chopped up vocal samples, skittering tribal-influenced beats paired with euphoric hooks, serving as a silky, sultry bed for Mike B’s plaintive and achingly vulnerable delivery and Eddy Kenzo’s smooth, easy-going and soulful flow. The end result is a song that’s both club and lounge friendly while being a sweetly earnest love song.

Directed by PhillyFlyBoy, the accompanying video for “Gimme Love” featuring the two collaborations and a collection of some of the most beautiful sisters I’ve ever seen — in beautiful Africa. Give me this all the time!

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s Bodywash Shares Woozy and Uneasy “Massif Central”

Montréal-based shoegazers Bodywash — Chris Steward and Rosie Long Dector — can trace their origins back to when the pair met while attending McGill University. But when they met, the pair didn’t immediately share a common musical language: Steward grew up in London listening to celestial dream pop while Dector grew up in Toronto listening to folk and Canadiana. The music they began writing together saw the pair bridging their influences. And with the release of 2016’s self-titled EP and 2019’s full-length debut, Comforter, the Montréal-based duo firmly established their sound — slow-burning and dreamy material centered around ethereal vocals, intricate guitar lines and pulsating synths. 

The Canadian shoegazers’ sophomore album I Held the Shape While I Could is slated for an April 14, 2023 release through Light Organ Records. . When touring to support Comforter was cut short by the pandemic, the duo used the unexpected hiatus to write new material, which was darker, more experimental and more invigorating than its predecessor, and managed to reflect on Steward’s and Long Dector’s separate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the psychological and emotional fallout.

Late last year, I wrote about the sophomore album’s expansive first single, “Kind of Light.” Beginning with a slow-burning and elegiac intro featuring glistening organ and a skittering yet propulsive kick pattern that slow builds up and breaks into a high energy boom bap-like breakbeat paired with scorching guitar squealing and wobbling bass synths. Long Decter’s ethereal and achingly plaintive vocals expressing profound, heart-wrenching despair — and hope. The song suggests that while loss is natural and sadly expected there can be hope; that there are only a handful of things in our lives that are truly permanent. And that ultimately for the most part, it can get better.

“I wrote ‘Kind of Light’ in bed,” Long Decter says. ““It was the fall of 2018 and Chris and I were both going through experiences of learning not to trust what feels like home. He sent me a plugin for a new organ sound, suggesting it might provide inspiration. I sent him back chords, a kick pattern, and some vocals about trying to pull your legs back; trying to take your energy out of the wreckage and put it into yourself. The process of deciding what’s worth keeping, what can be reworked and what gets tossed in the fire. A process that is devastating and also weirdly invigorating, because you can see new possibilities opening up in front of you. And you can start to look for light somewhere else.”

I Held the Shape While I Could‘s second single, the woozy “Massif Central” features glistening synth bursts, shimmering and angular post punk-meets-shoegaeze-like textures paired with a relentless motorik groove, stormy guitar feedback and Steward’s ethereal whispers recounting an experience of Kafka-esque, bureaucratic purgatory: a typo in a government letter caused Steward to lose his legal work status in Canada. The song manages to evoke the sensation of having your life flipped upside down, then being hopelessly stuck and having no say or agency in your situation.

“After eight years living in Canada, in the Spring of 2021, a government clerical error caused me to lose my legal status here,” Steward explains. “As a UK national, I lost my right to work. My savings trickled away during months where I could do little but pace the corners of my apartment. I was prepared to pack my bags and leave as the life I’d hoped to construct for myself seemed to vanish into a bureaucratic abyss.”
 
“‘Massif’ is the sound of wailing into a cliff and not knowing if you’ll hear an echo,” continued Steward. “The spoken word is inspired by a squirrel that was trapped in the wall behind my bed, clawing its way to salvation. With the help of friends, family, music, and a few immigration lawyers (and the rest of my savings), I’m now a permanent resident here. But this song remains as testament to my experience with an exploitative institution.”

Directed by Jordan Allen, the accompanying video for “Massif Central” is a dizzying collage of live footage, directed by Brandon Kaufman, distorted VHS-like visuals and eerie. retro-futuristic -inspired graphics. “With ‘Massif Central,’ we wanted to encapsulate the panic and urgency that Chris experienced, and have the abstracts portray the anxiety and hopelessness one can feel at the hands of bureaucracy,” Allen explains. “I chose graphics that heavily leaned into feelings of being lost in a maze, with towering structures and horizon lines pulling you into them. The idea was that the camera would be both a CCTV view of the band, but also glitching to reveal the more emotionally internal visual aspects.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ninety’s Story Shares Sultry “Bad” feat. Ferdi and Béssau

With the release of their debut EP, 2017’s Kikuyu, which featured EP title track and debut single “Kikuyu” Nice-based indie act Ninety’s Story — childhood friends Guillaume Adamo and Florian Deyz — quickly established a sound and approach that’s fittingly inspired by Phoenix, Daft Punk and Air, and fittingly the French Riviera.

The duo, along with their backing band have opened for Archive, Morcheeba, Pale Waves and Puggy and a list of others. Adding to a growing profile, the duo wrote the music for a Citroën C4 Aircross ad campaign that aired in China —  with the band representing the company at the Paris and Hangzhou Motor Shows. 

Since then, the Nice-based JOVM mainstays have been busy releasing a handful of singles over the past couple of years, including:

  • The breezy and anthemic “APO”

  • The sultry, R&B-inflluenced “Home.” 

And a a Groover Obsessions‘ Les Capsules sessions at La Marbrerie that featured two songs:

  • “Heaven,” a slow-burning and brooding song that reminds me a bit of JOVM mainstays Ten Fe and Palace Winter: a deliberately crafted, anthemic song centered around expressive and bluesy guitars, shimmering synths, plaintive vocals and lived-in lyrics. 

  • “Ride,” a strutting bit of pop rock that — to my ears, at least — brings a slick synthesis of Steely Dan and Radiohead to mind. 

The French JOVM mainstays begin their 2023 with their latest single “Bad,” feat. Ferdi and Béesau which sees the band embracing a slickly produced synth pop-driven sound that seems equally inspired by The Weeknd, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy-era Kanye West, and 80s sophistipop — thanks in part to a soulful horn solo. Thematically, the song touches upon regret, longing and taking a desperate and much-needed leap of faith to keep a relationship on the verge going.

The song will appear on the duo’s forthcoming album, Tears and Laughter, which is slated for a Spring release.

Directed By Victor Rahman, the cinematically song visual for “Bad” starts with a woman walking around the shore before seeing her expressive dance along a windswept shore. The rest of the video is told through a series of flashbacks from a drunken night of revelry — and of regret.