Category: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Enisa Shares Flirty “Just A Kiss (Muah)”

Rising Albanian-American, Brooklyn-born and-based singer/songwriter, pop artist Enisa is a first generation American, who has spent her whole life preparing for a career in music: Following her graduation from Edward R. Murrow High School, Enisa went on to attend Brooklyn College, where she further honed her sound — a sound that sees her meshing contemporary soul pop with Balkan and Middle Eastern flourishes and a touch of Europop.

The Brooklyn-based artist released a series of distinct covers, which went viral while earning critical acclaim from Complex, XXL, ThisSongIsSick and more. Building upon a growing profile, singles like “Burn This Bridge” and “Wait for Love,” and a guest spot on Scridge and Glenda’s viral smash “Karma (Remix)” amassed over 16 million views and over 3 million streams globally.

Last year was a big year for the rising Brooklyn-based artist: She appeared on the cover of Out Now and made her debut live performances as S.O.B.’s and Sacramento’s Lost In Riddim Festival. She closed out the year amassing over 8 million total followers globally — with 3.8 million on TikTok and over one million YouTube subscribers.

Earlier this year, Enisa released the Fake Love EP, an effort that she describes as “empowering” and “authentic” and features “Tears Hit The Ground and “One Thing.” She also made her television debut on NBC’s American Song Contest, representing her home state of New York. Since then she has over 41 million streams globally and more than 198 million total video views — with her material topping the charts in Nigeria, Gambia, Portugal, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Sri Lanka, India and more.

Building upon growing momentum, her latest single, the Enisa and acclaimed production and songwriting duo Space Primates (Marc Sibley and Nathan Cunningham) co-written “Just A Kiss (Muah)” is a sultry banger, centered around tweeter and woofer rattling thump, bursts of strummed guitar and glistening synth arpeggios and a slick string section and melodic nod to Tarkan’s “Kiss Kiss,” a crowd-pleasing banger over in Turkey. Enisa’s sultry come-hither vocals effortlessly glide over the dance floor friendly, genre-defying production. If there’s one thing to say about the track it’s this: Enisa is about to be a breakout star — and real soon.

“I grew up loving music from all around the world and this one track by Tarkan had a chorus melody that always randomly played through my head growing up, so I knew one day I wanted to put it in a song but make a whole new version with a different concept!” Enisa explains. “I went to the studio with that song in mind and created ‘Just a Kiss (Muah).’ I’d love for the new generation to listen to my song and feel the same way I did with the Tarkan one. “‘Just a Kiss (Muah)’ is about the fun of being a tease when it comes to dating & knowing you have the power to say yes or no! I wanted to make a really catchy, fun, lighthearted song that people can dance to, that also has the element of nostalgia!”

Directed by Azzie Scott, the accompanying video stars the rising Brooklyn-based artist in a flirty and fun nod to Tarkan’s “Kiss Kiss,” that further emphasizes the sultry teasing and desire at the core of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Boston’s Air Traffic Controller Shares Anthemic “20”

While serving in the US Navy as an air traffic controller, Boston-based singer/songwriter Dave Munro sent home demos of his songs. This eventually lead to his current musical project, the aptly named Air Traffic Controller. Over the course of the next decade, Munro wrote and recorded four critically applauded albums of heartfelt and earnest indie folk/indie pop with a backing band that features Adam Salameh (drums), Joe Campbell (bass), Bobby Borenstein (guitar), Emo McSwain (vocals, keytar) and multi-instrumentalist Steve Scott.

The Boston-based indie outfit’s fifth and latest album, the Dan Cardinal, Seth Kasper and Air Traffic co-produced Dash was released last Friday. Partially written in-person and remotely during pandemic-related lockdowns, Dash was recorded at Dimension Sound Studios and sees the band setting aside long-held formulas to allow each member to bring their own style and personality to the material — while retaining the story-based songwriting and catchy hooks that have won the band acclaim and fans.

The album’s lead single, “20” is a breezy pop anthem, rooted in Munro’s unerring knack for catchy hooks and lived-in story-based lyricism paired with a lush arrangement featuring reverb-drenched guitar, funky horns and a dance floor friendly groove. The song is rooted in a familiar nostalgia: the optimism and dreams of one’s youth — but seen from the perspective of someone a bit older, who has been forced to be pragmatic and make the sort of uncomfortable compromises that the song’s narrator would have loathed as a younger man. It’s a bittersweet sigh rooted in the recognition that life doesn’t always wind up how you”d like or hoped.

Directed filmed and edited by 9th Planet Productions with additional edits and effects by Joe Joyce, the accompanying video for “20” is a visual delight that recalls Broadway and major films — on a small budget: We follow a disco ball mask wearing character waking up and writing in a journal and playing a guitar while a wild and surreal array of things happen around him, including musicians playing on his bed, an entire party rocking out and so on.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: MARBLES Shares Breezy and Bittersweet “One of a Kind”

Kolbotn, Norway-based dream pop outfit MARBLES — Ferdinand Widmer (vocals, bass), Marius Ringen (drums), Adrian Sandberg (synths) and Marcus Widmer (guitar) — features members, who come from a variety of musical backgrounds with many of the band’s members also playing in the black metal bands that the city is best known for internationally. 

When the band started, its members were initially unsure exactly what sound and genre this new music would be, but they quickly discovered a shred interest in dream pop, indie and disco styles, and they were able to capture a unique vibe together in their jam sessions. That unique vibe was immediately present on their debut single “European Dream.” And from there, the Norwegian outfit quickly honed and built upon the blueprint that song set out for their overall sound.

The Norwegian pop outfit’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Humour is slated for a February 10, 2012 through Playground Music. The album will feature three singles released over the course of this year, including “World Inside Me,” a deliberately crafted mid-tempo and breezy Washed Out and Brothertiger-like bop that’s underpinned by a deep-seated — and perhaps hard won — introspection.

“‘World Inside Me’was written in our most isolated period through the pandemic. It tries to describe a feeling of loneliness that is mostly conjured by our own mind. Even though there are options and offers from the outside world, sometimes you just feel better in your own sphere,” the Norwegian dream pop outfit explains. “Living in your own little world (or bubble) can feel both pleasant and safe, but also quickly turn into a lonesome and desperate state of mind.” 

Album single “One of Kind” is a subdued, introspective and woozy bop centered around glistening synth arpeggios, skittering four-on-the-floor paired with Widmer’s ethereal vocals and the band’s unerring knack for well-crafted, catchy hooks. But the song is rooted in bittersweet, lived-in experience: MARBLES’ Ferdinand Widmer explains that “One of a Kind” is all about the experience of realizing that a relationship in your life — whether it be a friend, family member or romantic partner — and coming to terms with the fact that you are moving in different directions.

“Our message with ‘One of a Kind’ is that – sometimes it’s ok to lose contact with someone close in your life. Maybe you evolve differently or go down different paths. You come to the point in a relationship where both parts have moved on, and you´re still trying to accept it for a good thing. Doing your best to cherish their accomplishments in life. You’ll never find someone similar, and that’s just life. You still want the best for them. And you understand that ‘forever regretfulness’ can be a curse.”

The accompanying video for “One of a Kind” features the band’s Ferdinand Widmer and a green screen backdrop. Leaning hard into the goofiness and obvious fakery of its setup, Widmer is inserted into the screensaver type of backdrops like the photo booth karaoke machines you’d see at your local mall.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Minneapolis’ LUMARI Shares Swirling Shoegaze Anthem “Neon Mirror”

Minneapolis-based dream pop/shoegaze outfit Lumari — twin siblings Dave West (drums) and Dan West (guitar, bass), Margo Pearson (vocals, keys) and Robert Caple (guitar, bass) — can trace their origins back to the relationship between the West Brothers: Dave West and Dan West have played together in a number of different national and internationally touring projects over the course of several decades.

As the story goes, the West Brothers had the fortune of finding Pearson and Caple, who gamely completed Lumari’s lineup. Along with award-winning producer/engineer Eric Olsen, the Minneapolis-based sheogazers wrote and recorded an album’s worth of material that sets the groundwork for the band’s sound and approach.

The quartet’s debut single, and presumably, their album’s first single, “Neon Mirror” is centered around reverb-drenched, swirling guitar textures, thunderous and propulsive drumming, a supple bass line and enormous choruses paired with Pearson’s ethereal vocals. Sonically. the song strikes me a slick synthesis of Meat is Murder-era The Smiths, Cocteau Twins, Slowdive and RIDE — with a modern production sheen.

Co-directed by Sara Fox and the members of Lumari, the accompanying video was shot in the Catskills and follows Leslie Cuyjet wandering through the hilly forests, when she discovers an ornate, old fashioned mirror in the moss. We see the woman twirling through the forest pathways with her mirror before shifting to an ornate house. In one way, the video can be red as a modern day extrapolation of the old Greek myth of Narcissus — but while going through a lysergic and nightmarish funhouse mirror.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Warhaus Shares Quiet Storm-like “When I Am WIth You”

With Warhaus, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Maarten Devoldere, co-lead vocalist and one-half of core songwriting duo behind acclaimed Belgian indie rock outfit Balthazar, cemented a reputation for crating urbane, hyper literature art rock with an accessible, pop-leaning sensibility.

Devoldere’s Warhaus debut, 2016’s We Fucked A Flame Into Being derived its title from a line in DH Lawrence’s seminal, erotic novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Thematically, We Fucked A Flame Into Being touched upon lust, desire, the inscrutability of random encounters, bittersweet and regret with the deeply confessional nature of someone baring the deepest recesses of their soul. 

Devoldere’s sophomore Warhus effort, 2017’s self-titled album saw the acclaimed Belgian artist thematically moving away from decadence, lust and sin towards earnest, hard-fought and harder-won love — with much of the material being informed by his relationship with vocalist Sylvie Kreusch. The recording sessions were much more spontaneous and heavily influenced by Dr. John‘s Night Tripper period with the album’s material featuring voodoo rhythms and New Orleans jazz-styled playing, despite the fact that his backing band wasn’t known for being jazz musicians. 

The Belgian songwriter and multi-instrumentalist’s third Warhaus album, Ha Ha Heartbreak officially dropped today. The album’s material was written during a three-week stay in Palermo. All Devoldere needed was the solitude of a hotel room, a guitar, a microphone and a recently broken heart. The sorrow was too difficult to handle, so he went to Sicily to escape. But as it always turns out, those who try to outrun life and heartache quickly run into themselves.

The album sees Devoldere wrapping his sorrow into razor sharp hooks, instant sing-a-long choruses and irresistible melodies. Sonically, the material is ethereal yet lush, featuring strings, sensual vocal deliveries, horns and even some playful piano parts. The album manages to be a deep and moving emotional exploration of grief, loss and heartbreak — but while being musically very rich.

In the lead-up to th album’s release, I’ve written about three of the album’s singles:

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

  • Album opening track and first single “Open Window,” which marked the first bit of new Warhaus material in five years. Centered around Devoldere’s brooding baritone, strummed acoustic guitar, a Quiet Storm-like groove, twinkling piano and a gorgeous, cinematic string arrangement, making it the sort of song that you can gently sway along to with eyes closed while drifting off into your own nostalgia-induced dreams or delusions. Interestingly, the song is rooted in a painful, heartbroken delusional — that the now-former lover has just temporarily lost their minds and will be coming back to you. And yet deep down, you’re aware that it’s all vapor and blind, foolish, prideful denial.

  • “Desire,” Ha Ha Heartbreak‘s second single is a lush and sultry bop centered around mournful horns, soaring strings, an infectious, two-step inducing groove and twinkling keys paired with Devoldere’s breathy baritone. The song’s narrator desperately addresses just about every god he can imagine for answers, but as he says in the song, “No matter what I turn to/it’s failing me.”

  • Ha Ha Heartbreak’s third and latest single “Time Bomb” continues a remarkable run of slow-burning lush and sultry material, that features subtle elements of jazz, film scores, Quiet Storm soul and art pop. Much like its predecessors, “Time Bomb” sees its narrator dealing with the devastation of a breakup and its aftershock on both parties. But with the new single, its heartbroken narrator is left to wonder “but why” without any answers or closure. 

Ha Ha Heartbreak‘s fourth and latest single “When I Am With You” is a blue-eyed soul take on classic Sade-like Quiet Storm soul centered around strummed and looping acoustic guitar, a sultry two-step inducing groove, a shimmering string arrangement and razor sharp hooks paired with Develdere’s hushed delivery, which manages to evoke longing and vulnerability.

“’When I Am With You’ is a love song about growing up by holding the immaturity of the male condition against the light,” Devoldere explains. “It’s the reversed odyssey of the manchild towards the nipple. Let me be your baby.”

Directed by Pieter De Cnudde, the accompanying video for “When I Am With You,” features Devoldre jamming out and singing the song in front of or near a yellow spotlight, which mimics the moon.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay MAGON Shares Trippy and Introspective “Simple Mind”

Over the past three years or so, I think I’ve spilled more virtual ink covering wildly prolific JOVM mainstays LutchamaK and Israeli-born Paris-based singer/songwriter, guitarist MAGON. 

Continuing upon a remarkably prolific period, MAGON released his fourth album, A Night in Bethlehem, earlier this year. I managed to write about three of the album’s singles — two in the lead-up to the album’s release:

  • “Halley’s Comet,” a dreamy bit of glam-like psych pop featuring glistening and reverb-drenched, post punk-inspired guitars, a simple back beat and fluttering and spacey feedback. Thematically, the song touched upon the immensity of historical and cosmic time: the narrator wonders how life and humanity will be the next time Halley’s Comet passes by our section of the cosmic neighborhood in 2061. 

  • “A Night in Bethlehem,” the album’s title track and second single, which featured a chugging, motorik groove paired with angular bursts of guitar, a razor sharp hook, intergalactic feedback and Magon’s ironically detached vocals. Thematically, the song explored the surrealist fringes of mysticism. 

  • “This Man,” another bit of glam-inspired psych featuring Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie groove paired with a steady yet propulsive backbeat, some lysergic guitar solos, a supple bass line and Magon’s imitable, ironically detached deadpan. But at its core is a narrator, who yearns for something deeper, more profound and more true in a mad, mad, mad world.

The day after the release show for A Night in Bethlehem, MAGON, along with his girlfriend and daughter relocated to Costa Rica. Interestingly, the JOVM mainstay’s latest single “Simple Mind” sees the Israeli-born artist gently refining his sound 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 chapter in his career and life and is moving on to a new start, new possibilities and new horizons.

Animated by Violette Legoupil and Ronan Hubert-Duprat, the accompanying video for “Simple Mind” is rooted in a sort of Biblical return to nature while being mind-bending and lysergic.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Dream Wife Return with a Tense Post-Punk Influenced Ripper

Deriving their name from a pointed criticism of society’s long-held objectification of women, the acclaimed London-based punk rock trio and JOVM mainstays Dream Wife — Rakel Mjöll (vocals) (she/her), Alice Go (guitar, vocals) (she/her) and Bella Podapec (bass, vocals) (they/them) — can trace their origins to when the trio met and started the band back in 2015 as an art project rooted in a unique concept: a band born out of one girl’s memories of growing up in Canada in the 1990s.

Dream Wife’s 2018 self-titled debut was released to widespread critical acclaim, and led to the punk outfit opening for Garbage, The Kills and Sleigh Bells, as well as playing that year’s SXSW. Building upon a growing international profile, the members of Dream Wife also went on a series of headlining tours across the European Union and the States, which included a Rough Trade stop with New York-based genre-defying artist Sabri. 

The acclaimed London outfit’s 2020 Marta Salogni-produced So When You Gonna . . . saw the JOVM mainstays writing and recording their most urgent and direct material to date. Thematically touching upon “women’s issues” like abortion, miscarriage and gender equality, the album’s material is fueled by a “it’s-now-or-never” immediacy, with the listener being reminded that now is the time to get off their ass and start doing something right now to make a world a much better place for all of us. If not, we may all be doomed.

In the UK, Dream Wife’s sophomore album was a critical and commercial success: The album landed at #18 on the UK Albums Chart, making it the only album in the Top 20 to be produced by an all womxn/non-male production and engineering team — and the only non-major label release to chart that high. 

The trio’s latest single “Leech” is the first bit of new material from the member of the London-based JOVM mainstays since So When You Gonna . . . is an urgent post-punk inspired ripper that sees the band’s Mjöll alternating between spoken-word delivery for the song’s verses and feral shouting for the song’s choruses. Mjöll’s delivery is paired with an alternating song structure that features a looping and wiry guitar bursts for the verses and explosive power chord-driven riffage for the song’s chorus. The song manages to be a tense, uneasy and forceful mosh pit friendly anthem for our uncertain, fucked up time with the song addressing the double standards of power — while urgently calling for more empathy.

“It’s an anthem for empathy. For solidarity,” the JOVM mainstays explain. “Musically tense and withheld, erupting to angry cathartic crescendos. The push and pull of the song lyrically and musically expands and contracts, stating and calling out the double standards of power. Nobody really wins in a patriarchal society. We all lose. We could all use more empathy. As our first song to be released in a while, we wanted to write something that feels like letting an animal out of a cage. It’s out. And it’s out for blood…”

Directed by Bethany Fitter, the accompanying video is centered around a concept and creative direction by the members of Dream Wife, and CGI effects by Amy Gough: The video features the band wearing outfits by East London-based designer Ingrid Kraftchenko, playing the song in someone’s blood stream with CGI leeches crawling around.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ghost Funk Orchestra Shares Cool and Funky “Blockhead”

Written during pandemic-related lockdowns, Ghost Funk Orchestra’s recently released third album  A New Kind of Love feels and sounds like the soundtrack from an imaginary movie — with the album’s songs easily being part of the score of a romantic drama, an action thriller or a modern twist on film noir: Spare, cascading vocals accentuate the lush instrumental arrangements composed, arranged, performed and produced by the band’s creative mastermind Seth Applebaum and a talented cast of collaborators and players that include Billy Aukstik (trumpet), Stephen Chen (baritone sax), Lo Gwynn (vocals), Romi Hanoch (vocals), James kelly (trombone), Megan Mancini (vocals), Michael Sarason (flute) and a list of others.

Sonically, the album’s material draws from mid-20th Century exotica, 60s and 70s orchestral pop, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and Antibalas among others, as well as Applebaum’s experiences as a young filmmaker. Sonically speaking, the end result is an album that encompasses a loving reverence for the past without attempting to soullessly recreate it. 

Thematically, the 12-song album sees Applebaum exploring the complicated, confusing and conflicting realm of love, with the album’s songs capturing the emotional notes of love going well and love gone sour, as though manifesting love songs based in ghostly affairs. 

In the lead-up to the album’s release, I wrote about two A New Kind of Love‘s singles:

  • “Scatter,” a cinematic affair that pairs Romi Hanoch’s sultry and ethereal delivery with an expansive, lush and downright trippy arrangement that’s one-part film-noir-like spy movie, one-part classic rom-com, one-part Blaxploitation — with a wild late-period John Coltrane-like saxophone freakout of a solo. But if you pay close attention, the song captures a narrator reeling from a love gone disastrously wrong but with the knowing self-assuredness and confidence that she deserves — and will get much better soon enough. 

  • “Why” a spectral and slow-burning bit of psych soul with Latin-influenced percussion paired with powerhouse vocals. The song manages to capture curiosity, obsession and desire with an uncanny psychological realism. 

“Blockhead,” A New Kind of Love‘s third and latest single is narratively structured around a phone call between the song’s narrator — voiced by Megan Mancini — and an unheard listener, in which the narrator reminds their caller that their lover is absent, a virtual non-presence, who’s blowing it. And throughout, you can feel the narrator’s frustration with the other side of the phone call — with the narrator literally saying at one point, “what are you doing here?” Guaranteed, for most of us, this conversation should feel so familiar, that it scans simultaneously as advice and accusation. The song is built around a coolly funky and cinematic psych soul arrangement that’s roomy enough for some inspired and fiery soloing.

Directed by Ghost Funk Orchestra’s Seth Applebaum, and shot on glorious Kodak film, the accompanying video stars Megan Mancini as herself, on an old-fashioned landline and a lawn chair that she takes everywhere with her.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JAMBINAI Teams Up with K Pop Legend swja on a Brooding and Forceful Ripper

South Korean outfit JAMBINAI — currently founding (and core) trio Bongi Kim (haegum — a Korean fiddle-like instrument), Ilwoo Lee (guitar and piri — a Korean flute, made of bamboo) and Eun Young Sim (geomungo, a Korean zither). Jaehyuk Choi (drums) and B.K. Yu (bass) — can trace its origins tow hen its founding trio met while studying traditional music at Korea National University of Arts. Kim, Lee and Sim bounded over a mutual desire to present traditional music in a new way, “to communicate with the ordinary person, who doesn’t listen to traditional Korean music,” Ilwoo Lee, JAMBINAI’s principal composer and songwriter explained in press notes.

JAMBINAI’s approach manages to eschew several generations of Korean modernists and post-modernists and leans much closer to Western styles with Korean instrumentation — with their sound drawing from Western classical music, jazz, jazz fusion, post rock, prog rock and experimental rock. The then-trio further established their unique headbanging take on traditional Korean music with 2010’s self-tiled debut EP and 2012’s full-length debut, Differance.

While their sound and approach does manage to shock Korean audiences, the band has seen critical and commercial success: Differance was nominated for Best Crossover Album and Best Jazz and Crossover Performance at the 2013 South Korean Music Awards, and won Best Crossover Album. The band used the album’s success as a springboard for several critically applauded, international tours as a quintet.

2016’s Hermitage was released through Bella Union Records, The album featured “They Keep Silence,” a song that sonically brought  Tool and Ministry to mind while tapping into a seemingly universal feeling of anger and isolation — especially those, who are growing both impatient and suspicious of the forces that are influencing and controlling their daily lives.

For the South Korean post rock outfit, the past couple of years have been the best of times and the worst of times: The outfit released their third album ONDA back in 2019. Just a few months later, in February 2020, the quintet won Best Rock Album and Best Rock song for album track “ONDA” at that year’s South Korean Music Awards. Of course, the pandemic struck in March 2020, throwing a monkey wrench into both people’s lives and their plans.

The band’s latest EP Apparition is slated for a Friday release through Bella Union. The EP reportedly captures the depth and range of emotions that the band has felt and experienced over the past couple of years, from anxious lockdowns and the disappointment of thwarted plans, to the thrill of renewed creativity, hunger and hope. “After ONDA we saw 2020 as a new opportunity to work on a bigger stage,” JAMBINAI’s Ilwoo Lee recalls. “I personally wanted to release a new album and tour to exhaust the energy of ONDA and find new inspiration, but it didn’t work out that way. We didn’t find enough energy to make a full album yet, so for now we are releasing four songs.”

The EP’s title is derived from Lee’s perception of the band,. “JAMBINAI have been making intense music for an intense group of devotees in invisible places,” he says. “Overall, I have tried to express a message of comfort to everyone living in a difficult time due to the pandemic and what’s going on in the world.” 

The EP reveals a band that’s more energized than ever, making up for lost time and momentum: Their appearance at the Seoul 2018 Winter Olympic Games Closing Ceremony set up the forward momentum that produced ONDA. Their South Korean Music Awards wins upped the ante for a prospective follow-up. Even after winning the Asia category at the 2020 Songlines Awards, they felt that the thrill and force of new music and performance would be the only thing to really count. By the end of 2021, they had started to record the material that would become Apparition — but they managed to be be busy: They released four acoustic performances. They collaborated with Soojung Baek’s boutique Craft Codes to combine two of her seats “that seemed to match our music the best,” Lee says.

The urge to create has pushed the band’s core trio creative energies into new territories: In September, JAMBINAI’s Lee worked as a metro of the traditional Gyeonggi Sinawi Orchestra for performances in Poland, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia and the Czech Republic. Just last month, he collaborated with PAKK at London’s K-Music Festival. And he wrote the music for the first season of the BBC’S Korean-set crime podcast, The Lazarus Heist. The band’s Kim and Sim co-wrote the music for a modern art piece in South Korea’s National Museum of Contemporary and Modern Arts. Sim also released a solo album back in 2019 — and wrote and performed the music for a piece by choreographer Jinyeob Cha earlier this year, Kim also currently DJs for a Korean traditional music broadcast.

The band’s core trio, along with Choi and Yu will embark on a tour in may 2023, “and when there’s an empty space, I want to make a new album,” Lee adds.

Apparition‘s latest single “from the place been erased,” features guest vocals from K Pop legend swja (also known as sunwoojunga), who has worked with 2NE1, Blackpink and a little known outfit by the name of something like BTS. swja’s ethereal and achingly delicate delivery i paired with a brooding and expansive arrangement that alternates between dreamy and atmospheric passages and stormy power chord-driven sections that rip hard. Sonically, the song is a seamless synthesis of trip-hop, shoegaze, doom metal and post rock — with Western and Korean instrumentation that captures intense emotion: unease, frustration, anger and hope within a turn of a phrase.

“I thought swja’s voice would go well with our music,” says Lee, “so I asked her for help. I am honoured that she willingly participated. Despite our heavy and strong sound, she understood its inner emotions.”

Directed by Jinho Park, the accompanying video features swja and the members of JAMBINAI performing the song together in intimately shot footage paired with some gorgeous and trippy lighting.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Welsh Artist Bethan Lloyd Shares Trance-Inducing “Cutting Circuits”

Bethan Lloyd is a Welsh singer/songwriter, composer, television present, performance artist and vocal teacher at some of the best Earth-based practice schools. Lloyd also performs with experimental vocal project SoundingBody and ritualistic beats duo Jet Pack Dog. But as a solo artist, the Welsh artist pairs trance-inducing vocals with harmonic layering and rave-inspired production to craft material infused with an otherworldly ecstasy.

Thematically, Lloyd’s work sees her engaged deeply in the art of relinquishing control and exploring the spiritual and emotional realms — and meshing them into something playful yet danceable. Her latest single, the woozy “Cutting Circles” see Lloyd pairing her plaintive, pop belter-like delivery with a lush and hypnotic production featuring skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling beats, buzzing synths and enormous hooks. Sonically, the song is a slick and futuristic synthesis of Kate Bush, Princess Century and Bjork — but in the 23rd Century.

The accompanying video features Lloyd dancing and singing along to the song with a spectral aura surrounding her. It’s as trippy and trance-inducing as the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Yeah Yeah Yeahs Share Dance Floor Friendly and Feral “Wolf”

Yeah Yeah Yeahs — Karen O. (vocals), Nick Zinner (keys, guitar, drum machine, bass) and Brian Chase (drums) — released their long-awaited and highly-anticipated fifth album Cool It Down earlier this year through Secretly Canadian. The eight-song album is an expert distillation of the band’s gifts that will impel the listener to move, cry, and listen closely.  

“To all who have waited, our dear fans, thank you, our fever to tell has returned, and writing these songs came with its fair share of chills, tears, and euphoria when the pain lifts and truth is revealed,” Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O wrote in a statement to the band’s fans. “Don’t have to tell you how much we’ve been going through in the last nine years since our last record, because you’ve been going through it too, and we love you and we see you, and we hope you feel the feels from the music we’ve made. No shying away from the feels, or backing down from what’s been gripping all of us these days. So yes we’ve taken our time, happy to report when it’s ready it really does just flow out.”

“The record is called Cool It Down which is snagged from a lesser known Velvet Underground song. I told Alex Prager whose photo graces our record cover that her image speaks to sweeping themes in the music and sums up how I, Karen, feel existentially in these times! But there’s always more to the story. . . “

Cool It Down‘s first single, the Dave Sitek-produced “Spitting Off the Edge of the World,” featuring Perfume Genius is a slow-burning and cathartic power ballad centered around glistening and droning synths, Chase’s thunderous drumming, a distortion-driven guitar solo by Zinner, arena rock friendly hooks paired with the lush interplay between Karen O’s and Perfume Genius imitable vocals. Sonically “Spiting Off The Edge of the World” to my ears sounds like a slick yet subtle synthesis of Show Your Bones and It’s Blitz! — and as a result, the song is simultaneously urgent yet an exercise in restraint. 

Lyrically, the song reflects on the current state of the environment, and the need for honesty about the damage we’re inflicting on the Earth. “I see the younger generations staring down this threat, and they’re standing on the edge of a precipice, confronting what’s coming with anger and defiant,” Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O explains. “It’s galvanizing and there’s hope there.” 

The album’s second single., the Andrew Wyatt-produced “Burning” is a dance floor anthem built over a twinkling piano loop inspired by The Four Seasons’ “Beggin’” and features Zinner’s fiery guitar sprawl, thumping beats, Chase’s funky drum patterns pared with Karen O’s imitable croons and shouts. The song captures the Karen O being engulfed in the tumult and unrest of Los Angeles in 2020 — with fire and smoke bearing down on the city and everything its in path. Sonically, the song sounds like a subtle refinement of It’s Blitz!-era YYYs that nods at Fever to Tell.

“Back when I was 19 living in the East Village, one night a roommate dragged me out of the apartment for an impromptu drink across the street,” Karen O writes. “I left a votive candle burning on a plastic yaffa block which, in my absence set flame to my room. Within an hour and-a half of having one drink down the block, firefighters had come and gone extinguishing the fire. I came home to find that a natural disaster had occurred (to my room) and most of my stuff, lost in the flames. All electronic goods were melted and demolished like my laptop, cameras etc. but oddly enough the items that held the most sentimental value remained intact like sketchbooks, a favorite sweater with hearts across the chest, and photographs. I had photos of my parents in their youth where the fire burnt around the two of them as if there was some intangible force field protecting them, many photos like that, mysteriously leaving the beloved subjects untouched.”

If the world is on fire I hope the most beloved stay protected and that we do all we can to protect what we cherish most in this life. ‘Burning’ is a song about that feeling, smoke signals for the soul. Begging to cool it down, just doing it the best we know how. Nick and I nodded to Frankie Valli’s ‘Begging’, with the line ‘oooh lay your red hand on me baby.’ We’ve cut a rug to many a soulful sixties bangers in our day, it was in our DNA by the time we wrote ‘Burning’.”

Cool It Down‘s third and latest single “Wolf” is a pulsating, It’s Blitz!-meets-Giorgio Moroder-like club banger centered around glistening synth arpeggios, thumping four-on-the-floor paired with Karen O’s imitable delivery expressing yearning vulnerability, longing, and feral lust within the turn of a phrase.

Directed by Allie Avital, the accompanying video stars Severance‘s Britt Lower as a bored and frustrated wife, who rediscovers the wild within — and without. Lower’s performance in which we see her quickly move from bored, frustrated and hemmed in to completely wild — and with teeth bared sees her carrying the emotional weight of the video.

“It was our great fortune to collaborate with the powerhouses Allie and Brit on this video for ‘Wolf.’ Allie casts a spell with the gorgeous world she weaves — always with teeth that bite, and Brit embodies all the contradictions in the themes of ‘Wolf,’ so enamored with her performance that’s got as much heaven as it does hell,” Karen O. says of the accompanying video. “We were beside ourselves with excitement when Allie cast Brit as the lead in the video, YYYs are serious nerds for Severance, what luck when the stars align.”

“’Wolf’ has so much narrative built into the lyrics, and it was such a dream to delve into these themes of hunger, connection, and wildness,” Allie Avital says. “Britt Lower and I used a movement-based technique to play with the nuances of this character as she seeks various forms of connection and moves from feeling trapped to wild to rediscovering a new form of intimacy with her husband. As a director, it’s rare to find such open minded artists like Karen, Nick, and Brian and I’m so grateful they put so much trust in our creative process.”

“When I heard the title of the song and description of the role were both ‘WOLF’ it was a full body ‘yes.’ To get to work on a story about a woman discovering the wild within and without was a dream. And to do so alongside legend Karen O….I mean, I’m speechless,” Britt Lower says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Just Mustard Shares Dream-like Meditation on Grief

Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland-based indie outfit Just Mustard — Katie Ball (vocals), David Noonan (guitar, vocals), Mete Kalyon (guitar), Rob Clarke (bass) and Shane Maguire (drums) — formed back in 2016. Their self-produced and self-recorded full-length debut, 2018’s Wednesday was released to critical acclaim: The album was nominated for that year’s Choice Music Prize.

The Irish quintet signed to Partisan Records, who released their sophomore album, Heart Under earlier this year. Heart Under may arguably be one of the most acclaimed and commercially successful albums of the year so far: The album landed at #1 on the Independent Album Chart in their native Ireland — and currently at #7 on the Meteoritic Best Albums of 2022 Chart with an overall score of 89.

Heart Under is an album that challenges the listener, and asks them to forget what they know at every turn — with the the Irish outfit reconfiguring and stretching the ideas and ambitions of a rock band, while turning a year of lockdown and personal struggles into a breathtaking, personal artistic statement.

The band caps off a momentous year with the release of a special deluxe edition of Heart Under that will consist of of a double LP in a gatefold jacket and obi strip, a booklet with exclusive in-studio photos, handwritten lyrics from the band’s Katie Bell and a print of English artist Graham Dean’s In The Water Waiting, the painting that comprises the album’s cover art. The deluxe edition of Heart Under is slated for a Friday release through Partisan Records. Along with that, the acclaimed Irish outfit will be embarking on their first North American headlining tour. The tour includes a November 5, 2022 stop at Baby’s All Right. Tour dates as always are below.

“Blue Chalk,” Heart Under‘s latest single is a brooding and atmospheric song centered around swirling and textured, A Storm in Heaven-like synth oscillations, thumping and propulsive heartbeat-like beats paired with Katie Ball’s ethereal and soaring vocal. The song evokes the oppressively heavy weight of grief.

Directed by the band’s Katie Ball and the help of the band’s friend Seán McMahon, the accompanying under water — and with colored flashing lights. “The song ‘Blue Chalk’ defines the heaviness that the whole of Heart Under exists beneath. The kind that comes with grief and you feel like you are trying to navigate life with the weight of the sea on your chest keeping you down. I wanted to make this video since we started writing ‘Heart Under’ and to me, it visually represents a lot of the emotion in the album. It was filmed in 4hrs in freezing cold water with the help of our friend Seán McMahon.” Just Mustard’s Katie Ball explains.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New VIdeo: Hello Mary Shares Trippy and Uneasy “Spiral”

Brooklyn-based indie rock trio Hello Mary — Helena Straight (guitar, vocals), Mikaela Oppenheimer (bass), and Stella Wave (drums, vocalsmutl) — can trace their origins back to high school: Oppenheimer and Straight started th band when they were high school freshmen. When they met Wave through happenstance, the trio became an inseparable unit with the band consisting of good friends, who are also bandmates.

With the release of a handful of singles and their debut EP, 2020’s Ginger, the Brooklyn-based trio have quickly established and cemented a sound that meshes elements of shoegaze, indie rock and grunge paired with the band’s multipart harmonies. Their Bryce Goggin-produced, self-titled, full-length debut is slated for a March 3, 2023 release through Frenchkiss Records. The album reportedly sees the band referencing 90s alt rock, Elliot Smith and Jeff Buckley — while nodding at contemporaries like Palberta, Spirit of the Beehive and Palehound, acts that don’t shy away from unusual time signatures, careening feedback and unconventional harmonies.

The album will feature several previously released singles including “Rabbit,” “Sink In,” “Stinge,” and “Looking Right Into the Sun,” all of which were recorded in a proper studio and won attention outside of the Brooklyn music scene. Hello Mary’s Stella Wave describes those singles as the first proper introduction to the band.

The album’s material — both lyrics and music — were written in tandem, with the trio knotting their perspectives into a singular consciousness. “We collaborate on everything,” Oppenheimer says, “from our lyrics to guitar parts and even bass and drums sometimes.” Unsurprisingly, the album was written during our current period of immense uncertainty and unease.  “We were battling things personally, the world was battling COVID,” Wave says. “This might sound vague,” Wave adds “but to me, this album is about accepting the state of things as they are at a given moment, whether it’s your relationship to another person or the world around you.” 

The self-titled album’s latest single “Spiral” is a decidedly 120 Minutes-era MTV-like anthem centered around swirling guitar textures, Oppenheimer’s and Straight’s gorgeous and ethereal harmonies paired with Oppenheimer’s driving baseline and a steady backbeat. The song’s narrator directs their angst and unease to an unknown other, who may have wronged them — or fucked them over.

“‘Spiral’ is about the feelings of paranoia and jealousy that can come with relationships, and how these feelings can become so strong that they turn into delusions,” the band explains.

Directed and edited by Isaac Roberts, the accompanying video for “Spiral” was shot on what appears to be grainy Super 8 at The Slipper Room and Tompkins Square Park, and captures the spiraling jealous and paranoia of someone in an unsteady relationship.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Femme Shares Breezy “No Pasa Nada”

Paris-based JOVM mainstays La Femme have spent quite a bit time touring across Latin American and Spain. Those experienced helped inspired the band’s first song entirely in Spanish, “Le Jardin,” which appeared on their third album, last year’s Paradigmes.

“Le Jardin” led the band down the path to write Teatro Lucido. Deriving its name from a mythic theater, where the band has played many times while touring in Mexico, the album, which is slated for a Friday release will be their first album with lyrics written and sung entirely in Spanish. Teatro Lucido will also be the first of a planned thematic series of albums that the band has dubbed Collection Odyssèe.

Teatro Lucido is informed by their adventures in Seville, Granada, Madrid, Mexico City, Cuautepec, Padul — all of which hold important places in their hearts, because they had a ton of laughs, joys, tears and disappointments in each. The album also reportedly draws from a number of different inspirations including Spain’s Semana Santa — or holy week; pasodoble, reggaeton, Brazilian and Andalusian rhythms, classical guitars and 80s Movida among others. Much like their previous releases, the members of French JOVM mainstays wrote, composed and produced the album entirely by themselves, while inviting numerous female vocalists to participate in the process. 

In the lead-up to the album’s release on Friday, I’ve managed to write about two of the album’s singles:

“Sacatela,” a breezy, Tropicalia-like take on psych pop centered around an infectious, call-and-response vocal-led hook paired shuffling Latin rhythms and lyrics sung entirely in Spanish. 

“Y Tu Te Vas,” a track centered around cinematic, flamenco-inspired guitars and a tweeter and woofer rocking reggaeton beat that might bring Rosalía, Bad Bunny, and others to mind. The song features a sultry, Shakira-like turn from Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Tatiana Hazel. “Tatiana is an artist living in Los Angeles where I recorded the track in 2019,” La Femme’s Marlon Magnée says of their collaboration. ‘Y Tu Te Vas’ is one of the more powerful tracks voice-wise on the album. Tatiana brings the track to another dimension, she really is one of the new artists to follow on the American scene.”

Written when La Femme’s Sacha Got was living at Adios Amores’ Iman Amar’s place in Grenada Spain, Teatro Lucida’s third and latest single “No Pasa Nada” centered around ’60s and ’70s Brazilian rhythms, strummed guitar, woozy synths and ethereal vocals from Amar. But the song’s seemingly breezy and easygoing nature is superficial; the song’s lyrics focus something far more menacing and fucked up — a night out in a foreign country gone horribly wrong.

Directed by the band, the accompanying video for “No Pasa Nada” was shot in the streets of Grenada, Spain — and features the band partying and having a wild night on the town that includes the familiar drunken, late night, zombie lurch thought town and the collapse into a queasy heap of limbs. The video was innspired by a night on the town the band had back in 2018, which ended with the members of the band blacking out. It was the kind of night that ends in the morning at 8AM when kids are going to school,” La Femme’s Sacha Got says.That kind of night where you drink to forget, and you end up forgetting what you drank… or you just don’t want to remember. And when you wake you’re like ‘No problem, nothing happened!’”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Pop Artist Ayoni Shares Anthemic “Vision”

Ayoni is a rising Barbados-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, pop artist and producer,. who spent her formative years bouncing around Singapore, Indonesia and the States. Naturally, she frequently draws on those experiences to guide her musical and professional journey as a young, Black woman — and as an immigrant. Her work is deeply inspired by Whitney Houston, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Lorde, and Adele among others.

The rising pop artist’s acclaimed debut EP 2019’s Iridescent saw her exploring the ups and downs of blossoming into her full-self. She followed that up with 2020’s “Unmoved (A Black Woman Truth),” which was inspired and informed by the Black Lives Matter movement. The single also saw Ayoni cementing a reputation as an artist, who is unafraid to confront raw truths in her work.

So far, the Barbadian-born artist has amassed millions of streams while being featured in V Magazine, Clash Magazine, Essence, Paper, Popsugar, Glide Magazine, NPR, Ones to Watch and Euphoria Zine. She also co-produced and appeared on Ricky Reed‘s “No Stone” with Dirty Projectors.

Her sophomore EP The Vision was released last month. While displaying deeply intentional production and songwriting, the EP’s material thematically is a testament to manifestation, prosperity and the cultivation of the self. Lyrically, the material sees Ayoni weaving her life’s story with authentic anecdotes. which grounds the material in gritty, every day realism.

The EP’s third and latest single “Vision” is a slickly produced bop centered around soaring and rousingly anthemic choruses, bursts of rock guitar, a sinuous bass line, twinkling and atmospheric synths and a cathartic, sing-a-long worthy chorus paired with the rising pop artist’s powerhouse vocals. The anthemic song details the persistence, hard work, and drive required to live out your dreams — while acknowledging the fact that the road ahead will frequently be rocky and uncertain. And yet it’ll be worth it.

Co-directed by Francisco Covarrubias and Ayoni, the accompanying video is split between footage shot in and around Los Angeles and in studios. “Making this music video was a really fulfilling experience,” Ayoni says, “It was filmed after the release of the EP and translating the sonic ambition of the EP into a visual manifestation was a very healing way to close out this chapter. We shot around downtown Los Angeles and in studio, with director Francisco Cavarrubias at the helm. I wanted to represent the journey to living your dreams. Using fashion, glam, and setting to highlight the beauty of the journey, I hope the video presents the song in new light.”