Category: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Post-Apocalyptic World of The Church’s “The Hypnogogue”

Founded back in 1980, the Sydney-based ARIA Hall of Fame inductees The Church — currently founder member Steve Kilbey (vocals, bass, guitar); longtime collaborator and producer Tim Powles (drums), who joined the band in 1994 and has contributed to 17 albums; Ian Haug (guitar), a former member of Aussie rock outfit Powderfinger, who joined the band in 2013; multi-instrumentalist Jeffery Cain, a former member of Remy Zero and touring member of the band, who joined the band full-time after Peter Koppes left the band in early 2020; and their newest member, Ashley Naylor (guitar), a long-time member of Paul Kelly’s touring band and one of Australia’s most respected guitarists — was initially associated with their hometown’s New Wave, neo-psychedelic and indie rock scenes. But they became increasingly associated with dream pop and post-rock as their material took on slower tempos and surreal, shimmering soundscapes paired with their now, long-held reputation for an uncompromising approach to both their songwriting and sound.

1981’s full-length debut Of Skins and Hearts, was a commercial and critical success thanks in part to the success of their first radio hit, “The Unguarded Moment.” And as a result, the legendary Aussie outfit was signed to major labels in Australia, Europe and The States. However, their American label was dissatisfied with their sophomore album and dropped the band without releasing it in the States.

Although being dropped from their American label managed to slow down some of the international momentum surrounding the band a bit, 1988’s Starfish managed to be a smash hit, thanks to their only US Top 40 hit, “Under the Milky Way.” “Under the Milky Way,” received attention once again with its appearance in 2001’s cult-favorited film Donnie Darko.

Despite the fact that since the release of Starfish, mainstream success has been elusive, The Church have developed a devoted, international cult following while managing to be incredibly prolific. In fact, the band’s 25th album, 2017’s Man Woman Life Death Infinity was released to critical praise from the likes of PopMatters, who called the album “a 21st-century masterpiece, a bright beam of light amid a generic musical landscape, and truly one of the Church’s greatest releases.”

The highly-anticipated follow-up to 2017’s Man Woman Life Death Infinity — and their 26th album — is planned for an early 2023 release through Communicating Vessels/Unorthodox. The forthcoming album’s first single “The Hypnogogue” is an expansive and brooding track centered around the band’s unique swirling and textured guitar-driven sound paired with Kilbey’s imitable delivery and a contemporary sensibility heightened by a mix from Darrell Thorpe.

“‘The Hypnogogue’ is set in 2054… a dystopian and broken down future,” The Church’s Steve Kilbey explains. “Invented by Sun Kim Jong, a North Korean scientist and occult dabbler, it is a machine and a process that pulls music straight of dreams.”

“The song is about Eros Zeta the biggest rock star of 2054 who has traveled from his home in Antarctica (against his manager’s advice) to use the Hypnogogue to help him revive his flagging fortunes,” Kilbey continues, fleshing out the song’s sci-fi storyline. “In the midst of the toxic process, he also falls in love with Sun Kim and it all ends tragically (of course…as these thing often do).”

Directed by Aussie filmmaker Clint Lewis and starring Michael Coward and Emilia Eau, the accompanying, cinematic video for “The Hypnogogue” is set a rainy, neon-drenched retro-futuristic world that feels inspired by 80s dystopian sci-fi — in particular Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys. But the video also manages to faithfully capture the essence of the song’s storyline. “I gave the director a lot of input into this video but he took my ideas and ran with them and came up with a fair bit of stuff I never envisaged,” Kilbey says. “The Church appear on screens in the Hypnogogue as workers in the system, translating the dreams of users into real time music.  I’m very happy with the way it all turned out. It’d be hard to get a better result!”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ghost Funk Orchestra Share Trippy and Cinematic “Scatter”

Founded and led by multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and producer Seth Applebuam, rising New York-based psych rock/psych soul outfit Ghost Funk Orchestra initially began as a lo-fi, solo recording project back in 2014 with a unique sound featuring tape-saturated drums, spring reverb, surf rock guitar, Latin-styled percussion, odd time signatures and Spanish language female vocals. Since then, the project has become a full-fledged band featuring as many as 10 members — while still featuring a unique sound that draws from even more diverse sources including salsa, Afrobeat, classic soul, film soundtracks and more.

Ghost Funk Orchestra’s full-length debut, 2019’s A Song for Paul was conceived as a tribute to Applebaum’s late grandfather Paul Anish, who played an immense role in his life. Although the album’s songs don’t address Paul Anish directly, the album’s creative direction specifically conveys what Anish’s presence felt like — and was — for Seth, a tough but kind, music obsessed, native New Yorker. For Applebaum, accurately capturing what his grandfather’s essence meant to him forced him to expand the band’s arrangements and sound further than anything he had done to that point, including writing much more comprehensive horn lines and working with a string section.

Their sophomore album, 2020’s An Ode to Escapism saw the band further expanding upon the sound developed on A Song for Paul: The album’s material featured much more intricate arrangements, unusual time signatures, rapid tempo and time signature changes within songs, heavier drums and vocal harmonies that soar over the entire affair. Specifically written as an invitation to the listener to close their eyes and delve deep into their own subconscious while playing the album, if they weren’t too afraid to do so, the album thematically touched upon isolation, fear of the unknown and the fabrication of the self-image.

Written during pandemic-related lockdowns, Ghost Funk Orchestra’s third album A New Kind of Love reportedly feels 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 Applebaum. 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 his experiences as a young filmmaker. Sonically speaking, the end result is an album that encompasses a loving reverence for the past without attempting to recreate it.

The 12 song album sees Applebaum exploring a 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.

A New Kind of Love‘s first single “Scatter” is 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 freak out of a solo. But pay close attention, y’all. The song captures a narrator reeling from a love gone disastrously wrong but with the knowing self-assuredness that she deserves — and will get better.

Directed by Greg Hanson and shot on Kodak film, the accompanying video for “Scatter” stars singer/songwriter and musician Romi Hanoch in a gloriously cinematic fever dream that includes a debonair, fish man boyfriend, an underwater party, doppelgängers, and a saxophone playing creature that nods at nouveau vague and others.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The Orielles Share Expansive and Mind-Bending “BEAM/S”

Since forming in Halifax, UK over a decade ago, while their members were still in their teens, JOVM mainstays The Orielles — siblings Sidonie B. Hand-Halford (drums), Esmé Dee Hand-Halford (vocals, bass) and their best friend Henry Carlyle (guitar, vocals) — have released three critically applauded albums, 2017’s Silver Dollar Moment, 2020’s Disco Volador and last year’s La Vita Olistica, which has seen the band move from lo-fi DIY indie rock to Stereolab and A Certain Ratio-inspired avant pop.

When all of the band’s live dates to promote their sophomore album were scrapped as a result of the pandemic, the JOVM mainstays spent 2020 creating La Vita Olistica, a high-concept art film written and directed by the Hand-Halford sisters, which they toured in cinemas during the following year. This was the beginning of a series of creative breakthroughs that would result in Tableau, the band’s forthcoming album.

One of those breakthroughs came about when the band was booked to host a monthly show on Soho Radio. Those broadcasts quickly became impromptu research and development sessions for the ideas that would feed into the album. “Doing that monthly meant we had a reason to meet up and bring two hours of music between us which we’d play, discuss, hold physically and share,” the band’s Henry Carlyle says in press notes. “We were listening to much more contemporary music than before,” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford adds.

Another breakthrough came while remixing another band’s track in a studio in Goyt, UK. This wound up becoming what the band dubbed the Goyt method, a central creative process behind the forthcoming album. “To Goyt it” Sidonie B. Hand-Halford explains, “that’s getting all these pieces and rearranging them. We had vocal melodies and ideas that we’d then run through and sample, and play them on sample pads. We were being editors, really.”

The JOVM mainstays also completely revamped their long-held creative process: Where they had previously only gone into the studio once songs had been tightly crafted at the demo stage, the band began to consider new practices in line with the contemporary sound they were aspiring to craft. No demos, and a lot of improvisation. They also used experimental 1960s-era tape looping and Autotunes. The album also sees them drawing from teh likes of Burial and Sonic Youth. And for the first time, no outside producer — but the band collaborated with friend and producer Joel Anthony Patchett.

Mostly recorded during last summer while the band was holed away in Eastbourne, UK, the album not only sees the band quickly adopting contemporary production, but concepts from the art world and minimalism, as well. Sidonie B. Hand-Halford researched the graphic scoring method of Pulitzer Prize-nominated trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith. They also used Oblique Strategies, the playing cards designed to aide creativity created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt in the early 1970s. “We’d been speaking about wanting to use them for ages, and then we found a set of cards at the studio in Eastbourne,” explains Sidonie, “before each song, we’d pick out a card and that would be our motif for playing that take.”

Slated for an October 7, 2022 release through Heavenly Recordings, Tableau is a double album that reportedly rewards serious immersion, because it’s both complex and diverse. And while the album will likely challenge preconceptions, this is something that the band suggests they’ve been doing throughout their career anyway. “All through our whole career we’ve had to prove ourselves so, so much” Carlyle says. “You can’t disconnect the age and the gender thing either” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford says. “People belittle your age because they see women in the band. Whereas lad bands, if they’re eighteen it’s apparently exactly what people want to see.” Being from a small town in West Yorkshire may have added to that also, but Sidonie counters that “being from Halifax has also been a blessing, it’s kept our egos in check.”

Of course along with that, the album is also the product the product of the unique telepathy between three singular musicians that have grown in symbiosis for over a decade — and the three of them vibing and trading ideas together in a room. “As creators, for the fact we’ve produced it ourselves, it feels like a starting point” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford suggests, “even though everything that’s going previously has counted, this now feels like Ground Zero.” For the future, now, it’s all gates open.

Clocking in at 7:53, Tableau‘s expansive first single “BEAM/S” is a shapeshifting and cinematic bit of dream pop-meets-avant-garde jazz/pop featuring twinkling and fluttering synths, a jangling and chugging guitars, ethereal vocals and a soaring string arrangement. Sonically, the song evokes continuous and unending change and uncertainty — while continuing the band’s genre-bending approach with the song revealing nods to dream pop, slowcore, avant-garde pop and even Afrobeat.

“This is a song that has travelled, grown and adapted with us through all of the seasons,” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford explains. “This is why the lyrics kind of reflect that, the song reflects the changing of conditions. The warping of time, memories and relationships that you foster along the way. The original track was jammed at practice, Henry would bring his recording gear and it came about in quite an off the cuff way. I can’t remember how we really began jamming that. We further developed it whilst jamming at Eve Studios. We added distortion pedals and made it really big, but then going into the studio months later, maybe a year or more, we pared it back slightly. The majority of the song is just us in a room, a big room at that, which did the track a lot of justice. We wrote a visual score inspired by Wadada Leo Smith for this one, and then in the later half you hear the group percussion which is the final fallout of the song, and has nods to Afrobeat, where the majority of the song is taking this slowcore, emo feel to it. The track was originally titled ‘Brian Emo.’

Co-directed by the band and Mackenzie AJ Thompson, the accompanying video for “BEAM/S” is a surreal fever dream, chock-filed with some stunningly cinematic imagery.

New

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Young French Artist farah Shares Remarkably Self-Assured Bop

farah is a 15 year-old — yes, 15~! — French singer/songwriter. She wrote her debut single “Hurry Up” when she was 14, and the song reveals a remarkably self-assured songwriter beyond her relative youth. Centered around glistening synths, skittering beats and the young French artist’s sultry delivery, “Hurry Up” captures and evokes feelings teenagers often feel, when they feel they must quickly fit in and fulfill expectations that often means giving up on their dreams.

As the young French artist explains, the song reminds the listener to take their time, even if the world is rushing you. But also suggests that time is short and that if you don’t want to “do the adult thing.” you better hurry towards the goals and dreams that you hold dear before you get caught up into a world of uncomfortable compromise. If there’s one thing I’m certain of it’s this: This young artist has a bright future ahead of them.

The accompanying visual is an animated Dali-esque world in which a young woman walks down a path with running clocks surrounding her. The hands on the literal watch faces spin wildly, representing time’s rapid passing. She’s walking towards an angry looking sun. But throughout, she seems determined to make her own path.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tomorrow’s Child Shares Melancholic “Spectres of Summer”

High Wycombe, UK-born, Cornwall, UK-based multi-instrumentalist and electronic music producer Tomorrow’s Child creates music that draws from a broad spectrum of influences, surroundings and experiences — in particular, the ugly concrete buildings and garages old his hometown, the sense of failed potential and lost futures it all evoked, and the dystopian themes of a number of ’80s films and TV shows.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few months, you might recall that the rising British producer and JOVM mainstay’s full-length debut, Beach Ghosts thematically touches upon his father’s death back in 2015 and his relocation to Cornwall, where he went to study popular music.

Gradually evolving from a singer/songwriter and guitarist to an electronic music producer, he found a much-needed outlet to express his grief and to process the major life changes he had just gone through.

So far I’ve written about two album singles:

  • “Great Western Railway,” a cinematic and brooding track informed by his father, who was a stream-train enthusiast: His father grew up with the Great Western Railway trains passing his classroom windows. Sonically, “Great Western Railway” brought John Carpenter soundtracks and Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk to mind: Thumping, industrial clang and clatter paired with train whistle-like synth lines help to evoke a train roaring down the tracks to an unknown destination. 
  • “Ruination,” a haunting and ambient composition that brings Brian Eno and Autobahn-era Kraftwerk to mind as its centered around atmospheric synths and skittering beats before closing out in a slow fadeout. According to the British multi-instrumentalist and producer the composition reflects “the journey of Cornish mines from once thriving places of industry to ghostly monuments to the past haunting the landscape.”

Beach Ghosts‘ third and latest single “Spectres of Summer” is a brooding track meant to evoke the summer nights with a hint of autumn chill centered around layers of glistening synths, tweeter and woofer rattling thump and industrial clang, clatter and acidic scorch. While the song is a a melancholic ode to the end of summer, it’s possess a subtle — but still noticeable — hint of hope and uplift.

The British artist explains that the track references the vibe of trip hop artists like Goldie, Massive Attack, and Moby, as well as genres like Future Garage and Witch House.

The accompanying video features footage and stills shot at sunset in Gwithian, Cornwall UK, Redruth, Cornwall, UK and Chania, Crete, Greece and Sougia, Crete, Greece. The video evokes the inbound chilliness of autumn and the increasing darkness of long winter nights in a way that’s hauntingly beautiful.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Palm Ghosts Shares Power Ballad “Cross Your Heart”

Throughout the course of this site’s 12 year history, I’ve spilled copious amounts of virtual ink covering Nashville-based indie rock act Palm Ghosts. Led by singer/songwriter and producer and Ice Queen Records founder Joseph Lekkas, Palm Ghosts can trace its origins to when Lekkas lived in Philadelphia: After spending a number of years playing in local bands like Grammar Debate! and Hilliard, Lekkas took a lengthy hiatus from writing, recording and performing music to book shows and festivals in and around the Philadelphia area. 

Lekkas initially started Palm Ghosts as a solo recording project — and as a creative outlet to cope with an incapacitating bout of depression and anxiety. During a long, prototypically Northeastern winter, Lekkas recorded a batch of introspective songs that at the time, he dubbed “sun-damaged American music,” which eventually became the project’s full-length debut. After a short tour in 2013 to support the album, Lekkas packed up his belongings and relocated to Music City, enticed by its growing indie rock scene.

Palm Ghosts’ third album, 2018’s Architecture was a decided change in sonic direction with Lekkas crafting material influenced by the 80s — in particular, Cocteau Twins, Peter Gabriel, Dead Can Dance, New Order,  The Cure, and others. 

Much like countless musical acts across the globe, Lekkas and his bandmates spent the forced downtime of the pandemic, attempting to be as busy as they possible could: They wrote a ton of new material informed by a year or so of quarantine-related isolation, socioeconomic and financial instability, protests and demonstrations.

Last year, the JOVM mainstays released two albums, their fourth album, Lifeboat Candidate and their fifth album, Lost Frequency. Lifeboat Candidate was a fittingly dark, dystopian effort full of confusion, fear and dread that drew from the events and circumstances of the year preceding its release. Interestingly, Lost Frequency is a much different album: Initially scheduled for a 2020 release, Palm Ghosts’ fifth album harkens back to before the pandemic, when things seemed more or a less normal and carefree — or at least somehow a bit less uneasy and desperately urgent. In some way, the album’s material feels both celebratory, escapist, and perhaps even somewhat nostalgic. But paradoxically, the album’s material lyrically brings confrontation to the forefront, reminding the listener that nothing is normal — and that normalcy and the desire to return to it is extremely destructive.

The JOVM’s mainstays forthcoming sixth album Post Preservation reveals an entirely different side of the band. The album’s material features love songs — and there’s even a hint of optimism and some light showing through the cracks. But it’s still 2022, and there’s still plenty of darkness and discontent to the proceedings to balance the sunniness of much of the material. Conceived as a sort of soundtrack to a long lost John Hughes film, Post Preservation is full of nostalgic longing for a world that no longer exists, except in our hearts and minds.

Post Preservation‘s latest single “Cross Your Heart” is a swooning, hook-driven power ballad that sonically is one-part Psychedelic Furs‘ “Pretty in Pink,” one-part Simple Minds‘ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” and paired with earnest, lived-in lyrics that describe being in — and perhaps out of — love, at the end of the world.

The accompanying video is nostalgia-fueled fever dream featuring the band playing the song together at what appears to be either a house party or a rehearsal space, fuzzy nuclear snow, images of sun-dappled forests, adding to the overall dystopian yet hopeful feel.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: London’s deep tan Shares a “Blair Witch Project”-Meets-“Island of Dr. Moreau”-like Visual For “rudy ya ya ya”

Through the release of a handful of singles and last year’s critically applauded creeping speedwells EP, London-based post punk trio deep tan — Wafah (vocals), Celeste (bass) and Lucy (drums) — quickly exploded into the national and international post punk scenes: The band was featured in outlets like NME, DIY, Clash, Loud and Quiet, The Quietus, So Young, Notion, Dork, BrooklynVegan, and countless others. 

Their music has been playlisted on BBC 6 Music and Amazing Radio while receiving airplay on Apple Music Beats 1, Radio X, SiriusXM, KEXP, BBC Wales and Amazing Radio USA. And along with that, Steve Lamacq named the band his BBC 6 Music Spotlight Artist last May. Adding to a momentous year, last year the rapidly rising post-punk trio supported their debut EP with extensive touring that included an opening slot for critically applauded post- punk outfit Yard Act and the British festival circuit with stops at Dot to Dot, Live at Leads, Wide Eyed Festival, and Manchester Psych Fest. They closed out the year with the Dan Carey-produced “tamu’s riffing refuge,” which was released through Speedy Wunderground. 

Their sophomore EP diamond horsetail was released earlier this year — with a digital release preceding the physical release. They also released an extremely limited “Dinked Edition,” which featured diamond horsetail and creeping speedwells pressed together on “piss kink yellow” vinyl. (And by extremely limited, I mean it was 400 — yep, 400! — copies.)

deep tan’s sophomore EP saw the members of the British post-punk outfit further establishing their unique take on post punk in which their stripped-back, minimalist approach serves as a vehicle for songs that focus on contemporary thematic concerns, including deepfake revenge porn, surreal meme pages, furry hedonism and others.

EP single “rudy ya ya ya” is a taut, sparse and uneasy song centered around a propulsive and angular bass line and wiry guitar blasts paired with Wafah’s sultry yet ironically detached vocals. At its core, is a vicious, occasionally veiled, occasionally obvious, satirical takedown of the entirely deserving Rudy Giulliani — and old, power hungry bastards like him. The song is also a reminder of how far — and how quickly — Giulliani has fallen, becoming one of the world’s most hated, most despicable people.

Directed by Stringer, the accompanying video for “rudy ya ya ya” is a glitchy, Blair Witch Project-like visual that follows the band on a journey to a nightmarish Island of Doctor Moreau with hideous and menacing monsters in business suits.

“’rudy ya ya’ allowed me to fully realize my Island of Dr.Mareau [sic] by way of the Blair Witch fantasy and was a perfect opportunity to flex my Digital Bolex’s muscles with manic handheld movements and gritty psychedelic textures,” Stringer explains. “The end product is a haunted fever dream of a video and It’s the most fun I’ve had in the middle of nowhere at night in a long time.”

“For our rudy video we enlisted the help of stringer to direct, who caught our eye online with their excellent creeped-out gorefest references, which led to a very entertaining 12hrs in Epping Forest,” the band adds.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Thus Love Shares Satirical “Family Man”

Brattleboro, Vermont-based outfit Thus Love — multi-instrumentalists Echo Mars (she/her) and Lu Racine (he/him) and bassist Nathaniel van Osdol (they/them) — is a rising indie/post-punk trio with a bond cemented by their individual and collective experiences as outsiders looking in: They’ve ascribed to a DIY ethos that not only reflects their musical vision but their very existence as three self-identifying trans artists. 

The band can trace its origins to Mars’ and Racine’s serendipitous meeting at a local print show back in 2018, when the multi-instrumentalists agreed to collaborate on a new musical project. The band’s lineup was finalized when Mars and Racine were finally able to convince their roommate van Osdol to join the band in 2019. 

From the band’s inception, its members have lived together under the same roof, designed and produced their own merch, and even created their own recording studio from scratch. “I realize that most artists don’t live this way,” Thus Love’s Echo Mars says. “But for us, it was never really a choice. The art we make is so tied to who we are and the community we’re a part of, that this is the only way we can possibly do it.”

The trio was just starting to regularly headline renowned local venue The Stone Church when the pandemic struck and everything came to a sudden and screeching halt. “The pandemic hit everyone hard, but I think it was especially difficult for new artists like us that rely on live shows to spread the word,” Thus Love’s Lu Racine says. “At that point, we had a couple of demos and we weren’t sure what the future would hold.” 

Rather than idly wait, the band decided to take their future in their own hands. Armed with their innate curiosity and a ton of YouTube videos, Mars constructed a makeshift studio in their downtown Brattleboro apartment and the band set to work recording during the odd hours when their next-door neighbors were out and about. 

The end result is the rising band’s full-length debut Memorial. Slated for an October 7, 2022 digital release and November 11, 2022 physical release through Captured Tracks, Memorial is reportedly a remarkably self-assured and accomplished album, considering the circumstances surrounding its creation. While sonically, the album’s material draws heavily from classic post-punk and indie rock, the band manages to tap into that sound and approach and find a way to find their own voice — and to tell their story. 

Looking back now, Mars is glad the band decided to forge ahead. “I obviously would never want to go through a pandemic again, but I’m pretty confident in saying that this album would not be coming out in 2022 if we hadn’t had the forced downtime.” 

While the album does deal with grief and loss, the band’s Racine suggests that working through those feelings are a necessary prerequisite to true and meaningful healing. He points to his own process of transition as proof. “I was in a dark place for a long time even when we were making this record. I knew what I had to do, but it didn’t make it any easier. There was a long period of mourning.” Racine completed top surgery last September, an important step in a years-long journey to embrace his true self. “Even though I was struggling at the time, the happiness I feel now makes it all worth it. I will always have positive associations with this record.”

Last month, I wrote about “In Tandem,” a single that sonically brought  4AD Records‘ heyday to mind as it features angular, reverb-drenched guitar attack, glistening and atmospheric synths and a relentless motorik punch paired with a rousingly anthemic chorus. Interestingly, the song is simultaneously rooted in bitterness, heartachche and hope. As the the band explained to the folks at FLOOD, “Written in 12 hours of digestion of emotional turmoil, ‘In Tandem’ is a sonic promise to hold awareness of a fundamental truth: we are nothing but star-dust.”

Memorial‘s third and latest single “Family Man” is centered around a relentless and driving motorik punch, sinuous bass lines, bursts of reverb-drenched angular guitar attack paired with expressive baritone vocals. While continuing a run of decidedly post-punk inspired material, “Family Man,” as the band explains “is a playful commentary on internalized capitalism and the mutual hardships of the working class in a binary world. This song hints at an inevitable systemic collapse relieving all anguish.”

Directed by Wes Sterrs, the accompanying video for “Family Man” stars James Ledue as “The Beast,” a pink short suit-clad monster who rocks out karaoke style to the song in an empty studio, along with footage of the band performing the song in VHS tape fuzz and static. We also see Ledue’s Beast sitting in a chair, next to a TV. It’s a playful and absurdist video.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Femme Share a Hilarious and Summery Visual for Breezy “Sacatela”

Founded back in 2010, Parisian psych pop act and longtime JOVM mainstays  La Femme — currently, founding members Sacha Got and Marlon Magnée, along with Sam Lefévre, Noé Delmas, Cleémence Quélennec, Clara Luiciani, Jane Peynot, Marilou Chollet and Lucas Nunez Ritter — managed to completely hoodwink the French music industry by lining up a DIY Stateside tour as a then unknown band, with only $3,000 Euros and their debut EP, that year’s Le Podium #1. 

After playing 20 gigs across the States, the members of La Femme returned to their native France with immense interest from the Parisian music scene. “The industry was like, ‘What the fuck? They have an EP out and they are touring in the US and we don’t know them?” Marlon Magnée told The Guardian. “So the buzz began to start. When we came back to France, it was red carpet. Fucking DIY.” 

2013’s critically applauded and commercially successful full-length debut Psycho Tropical Berlin found the Parisian JOVM mainstays making a wild, creative and sonic left turn incorporating krautrock and synths to the mix. The album eventually earned a Victoires de la Musique Award. Building upon a rapidly growing national and international profile, La Femme’s sophomore album, 2016’s Mystére to praise by Sound Opinions, The Line of Best Fit, The Guardian, AllMusic, BrooklynVegan and a lengthy list of others. 

The French JOVM mainstays long-awaited, third album Paradigmes was released last year through the band’s own Disque Pointu and distributed through IDOL. And over the course of 2021, I managed to write about five of the album’s nine — that’s right, nine! — released singles: 

  • “Cool Colorado,” a coolly bombastic single that seemed indebted to Scott Walker and Ennio Morricone soundtracks while being an “ode to the San Francisco of the 70s — and to Colorado, the first American state to legalize cannabis. 
  • Disconnexion,” a surreal what-the-fuck fever dream centered around pulsating Giorgio Moroder-like motorik grooves, a fiery banjo solo, atmospheric electronics, twinkling synth arpeggios, a philosophic soliloquy delivered in a dry, academic French and operatic caterwauling. 
  • “Foutre le Bordel,” a breakneck freak out that meshed Freedom of Choice-era DEVO and Giorgio Moroder with ’77 punk rock nihilism. 
  • “Le Jardin,” an achingly sad lullaby written and sung in Spanish — the band’s first song in Spanish. Inspired by a trip to Spain that the band took a few years ago, the song as the band explains is a kind of an old-school slow dance, which underlines how fragile and random fate is. 
  • “Pasadena,” a slow-burning, woozy ballad that sounds — and feels — like a narcotic-induced haze. Written as an informal response and continuation of the story told in “Septembre,” off the band’s sophomore album, “Pasadena” features the main character of “Septembre” as a teenager. And as a result, the song is about budding romances — primarily their seemingly carefree nature at the time, their eventual difficulties and confusions, and the weight of peer pressure. 

So far, 2022 has been very busy for the Paris-based JOVM mainstays: Back in April, La Femme released Paradigmes: Le Film, a full-length film co-directed by the band’s Sacha Got and Marlon Magnée and Aymeric Bergada du Cadet that highlights the band’s humor and creativity while being primarily centered around Paradigmes‘ material. (You can watch it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Wnil2ipf0)

The also released an exclusive, vinyl Record Store Day edition of Paradigmes, Paradigmes: suppléments, a deluxe edition of their critically applauded third album. Along with the Record Store Day exclusive vinyl release of Paradigmes: suppléments, the band released yet another single off Paradigmes, the album closing track “Tu T’en Lasses,” a slow-burning and atmospheric fever dream, centered around skittering beats, glistening synths and a distorted yet mournful horn solo paired with dreamily delivered vocals.

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of Paradigmes, La Femme announced the release of a limited collection of NFTs made from the original frames used for the animated video for “Foutre le Bordel.” The NFTs were released by  by Ballad(r), an NFT launchpad for artists and institutions in the music industry. These unique digital works of art included a unique audio track made from stems of the original song and unlocked exclusive content and numerous real-life perks for each lucky NFT holder.

During the JOVM mainstays’ time touring across Latin America and Spain, the band wrote their first song entirely in Spanish, “Le Jardin,” which appeared on the aforementioned 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 November 4, 2022 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 calls Collection Odyssèe.

The album 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.

Now, as you may recall just before the JOVM mainstays last North American tour, La Femme shared “Sacatela.” Inspired by their tours across South American and Spain, “Sacatela” is a Tropicalia-take on psych pop featuring shuffling Latin rhythms and lyrics sung entirely in Spanish paired with an infectious call-and-response vocal-led hook.

Directed by Ilan Zerrouki and starring Itziar Guardamino Sanchez, Marlon Magnée, Sacha Got, Ysé Grospiron, Samantha Quealy, Sam Lefèvre, Daniel Barda and Francesco Mocchia Di Coggiola, the accompanying visual for “Sacatela” was shot in Nice, France and is a breezy, stylish blast of seemingly carefree, easy-going summer, full of frolicking at the beach, rooftop parties and the like. But things quickly go hilariously wrong with some of the video’s cast getting violently ill. As the band explains the video is about unacknowledged desires and un-pursued dreams, which is also called “sacatelaism.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Vanille Shares Swooning “À bientôt”

Rachel Leblanc is a Montreal-based singer/songwriter and creative mastermind behind the rising recording project Vanille. With Vanille, Leblanc specializes in a sound that exists somewhere between of 60s folk and French chanson and brings the listener into a dreamlike world of dense forests and swooning heartbreak.

Leblanc’s sophomore album, which will reportedly feature lush arrangements and melodies is slated for a February 2023 release through Bonbonbon Records in Canada and Boogie Drugstore in Europe. And to build up buzz for the new album, the French Canadian artist will be busy touring along the European festival circuit this fall, making stops at Austria’s Waves Festival, France’s MAMA Festival and Belgium’s FrancoFaune Festival.

The French Canadian artist’s latest single, the swooning “À bientôt,” translates into English as “see you soon.” And although the song is centered around a lush arrangement of strummed, reverb-drenched guitars, gently padded drumming paired with Leblanc’s achingly tender falsetto delivery and an expansive psych folk-meets-psych rock song structure. But at its core is a tale as old as time itself: a heartbroken narrator, left with the devastation of a newly-ended relationship, their memories — and naturally, their bitter heartbreak.

Directed by Gabriella Quesnel-Olivo, the accompanying video for “À bienôt” is seemingly set in 17th or 18th century France: We’re introduced to Leblanc/Vanille riding a horse through a field before a flashback to Leblanc with her beloved at a picnic in the same fields. The video ends with an equally ironic and shocking conclusion — Leblanc’s character poisoning her lover and escaping.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jonathan Personne Shares Gorgeous “À présent”

Montreal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, animator and visual artist Jonathan Robert may be best known for being a co-founder and co-lead vocalist of internationally acclaimed JOVM mainstay act Corridor. But Robert is also an acclaimed solo artist, writing and performing as Jonathan Personne.

Robert’s solo debut as Jonathan Personne, Histoire Naturelle, sonically drew from desert dream pop, Western Spaghetti rock and jangle pop. Thematically, the album’s material focused on the potential end of the world. Of course, with the album’s timing, it might have hit the nail a bit too hard on the head.

His sophomore Jonathan Personne album, 2020’s Guillaume Chiasson-product Disparitions was primarily written while the Montreal-based artist was touring with Corridor, and came about in a quick and fluid fashion. While the album saw Robert continuing upon the hook-driven yet intimate and sensitive songwriting that has won him acclaim as a solo artist, Disparitions was largely inspired by moment when music became a source of profound disgust. “I spent a lot of time touring away from home. Towards the end I felt like I was reluctantly going to do something that I had longed wished for,” Robert explained in press notes. 

The Montreal-based singer/songwriter began 2022 by signing with Bonsound, who will be releasing his third Jonathan Personne album, the Emmanuel Éthier-produced Jonathan Personne on Friday. Written alone on an acoustic guitar in a cottage, the album took an unexpected turn, when the Montreal-based artist went to Quebec City-based Le Pantoum with his friends and frequent collaborators Samuel Gougoux (drums), Julian Perreault (guitar), Mathieu Cloutier (bass) and the aforementioned Éthier (violin, synths, mellotron, vocals and production). The album’s material features arrangements centered around electric guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, Rhodes, timpani, mellotron, synths, violin and even samples, the eight-song album continues Robert’s reputation for crafting material inspired by 60s pop and Spaghetti Westerns but with samples from obscure TV shows and movies, blistering rock grooves and extravagant guitar licks, the album features a more polished production than previous releases. 

Packaged with a Jonathan Robert illustration in which two children discover the remains of a dead body, the album thematically is rooted in duality: While continuing his reputation for breezy guitar pop, the album’s material is simultaneously brutal and sinister, yet candid. The album’s material evokes a mysterious world where ghosts, the supernatural, fate and broken characters with broken lives all intertwine and interact.

Featuring a Jonathan Robert illustration in which two children discover the remains of a dead body as its album cover art, the album thematically is rooted in duality: Continuing his reputation for breezy guitar pop, the album is also brutal, sinister yet candid. The end result is an album that evokes a mysterious world where ghosts, the supernatural, fate and broken characters with broken lives intertwine. 

In the lead-up to the album’s release later this week, I’ve managed to write about two album singles:

  • “Un homme sans visage” a deceptively breezy song centered around an arrangement of gorgeous Mellotron-driven melody, jangling guitar, simple yet propulsive rhythms, bursts of lap steep, big hooky choruses and Robert’s plaintive falsetto. While continuing to be lovingly inspired by the sounds of the late 60s, the song is a bittersweet, modern fable of sorts that tells a story about a man, whose face is badly burned in a fire. 
  • “Rock & roll sur ton chemin,” a deceptively straightforward rocker centered around a loose and breezy surf rock-like riff and a churning groove paired with dreamily delivered falsetto harmonies and Robert’s penchant for big, catchy hooks paired with subtle amounts of bongo, Mellotron and whistles. But despite it’s breezy air, the song is bittersweet and drenched with irony with the song being a tribute to dying art forms and those, who still practice them. “Devoting oneself to a genre destined to failure, there’s something pathetic about it, but also something very beautiful,” Robert says.

Jonathan Personne‘s third and latest single, “À présent” sounds indebted to Scott Walker‘s orchestral pop and Phil Spector‘s famous Wall of Sound production but with a greatest emphasis on the jangling rhythm section, which subtly pushes the whole affair into more contemporary realm. Thematically, the song depicts a world where excess, speed and love coexist in a setting that’s kind of a synthesis of Romeo and Juliet and James Dean’s life with the song’s central couple dying in a horrific accident.

Animated by Mathieu Larone and Henry McClellan, the accompanying video for “À présent” is abstract but centered in dualities, evoking the album’s themes: the animation is both childlike and disturbing, broodingly dark and colorful. But throughout, the intention was to present the optimistic vision of a new beginning.

“Mathieu and Henry were able to translate the song into images, and it’s just beautiful! It’s like an excerpt from the movie Fantasia, only weirder, darker, and done by the NFB rather than Disney,” Jonathan Robert says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Say She She Shares Glittery and Mesmerizing “Prism”

Deriving their name as a sort of tongue-in-cheek nod to the legendary Nile Rodgers — “C’est chi-chi! It’s Chic!” — the rising NYC-based funk and disco act Say She She features three accomplished, strong female lead vocalists: founding members Piya Malik, who has spent time in El Michels Affair, 79.5 and Chicano Batman; and Sabrina Cunningham; along with Nya Gazelle Brown, a former member of 79.5. 

Over the course of this past year I’ve written about the act quite a bit, so you might recall that they can trace their origins to when Malik and Cunningham found themselves living in the studio apartments directly above and below each other. The pair would hear each other singing through the floorboards and quickly became friends. “I knew the girl below me had the most beautiful voice as I would hear her early in the morning and she would hear me late at night. Between the two of us I don’t think we got a wink of sleep. Then again I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say they moved to New York City to sleep,” Malik says in press notes. 

After spending years singing in other people’s bands, Malik and Cunningham felt they were finally ready to step out into the spotlight with their own project, at first writing tongue-in-cheek songs about bad boyfriends, band breakups and bad politics.  Shortly after, they started writing much more serious and vulnerable tunes, like much-needed therapy sessions, detailing the lives of post-modern women. And as a result their material touches upon love, lust, sex, heartbreak, betrayal and hope. 

A few years after starting the project, the duo recruited their close friend and Malik’s former 79.5 bandmate Nya Gazelle Brown to join them. At that point, the act’s core lineup was settled. 

Sonically, Say She She’s sound nods at 70s girl groups — multi-part female harmonies paired paired with funky, disco-inspired arrangements played by a backing band featuring some of New York’s most talented and accomplished players, featuring former members of  Antibalas, Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaries, Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings, The Shacks, Twin Shadow and others. Locally, they’ve developed a reputation as a must-see live act, playing sold out shows at Bowery Ballroom, Nublu 151, Brooklyn Bazaar, C’Mon Everybody and Baby’s All Right among others. 

Slated for an October 7, 2022 release through Karma Chief Records, an imprint of Colemine Records, Say She She’s eight-song, Sergio Rios-produced, full-length debut Prism was recorded on old tape machines
in the basement studios of friends. The album features guest spots from The Dap Kings‘ Joey Crispiano and Victor Axelrod, The Shacks’ Max Shrager, Chicano Batman’s Bardo Martinez, Antibalas‘  Superhuman Happiness‘ and Low Mentality’s Nikhil Yerawadekar, Twin Shadow’s Andy Bauer and NYMPH‘s Matty McDermot. 

The rising New York act have released a handful of attention-grabbing singles that include:

  • “Forget Me Not,” the New York-based act’s debut single and their forthcoming debut album’s first single. Featuring a strutting bass line, glistening wah wah pedaled funk guitar, fluttering flute and dreamy three part harmonies “Forget Me Not” is one part Patrice Rushen, one part Tom Tom Club’s “Gangster of Love,” one part ESG, one part Mary Jane Girls, centered around righteous feminist lyrics. “Forget Me Not” premiered on KCRW‘s Morning Becomes Eclectic and was played in heavy rotation, with a KCRW DJ describing the song as “The funkiest shit I’ve heard in a while!” They performed the song for a Paste Magazine session. The song has started to receive airplay on BBC6.
  • “Blow My Mind,” a slow-burning, sultry bop centered around the trio’s yearning and impassioned cries, shimmering Bollywood-inspired riffage and a strutting bass line that’s about returning to a former flame, who you’ve managed to hold feelings for — even after some period of years.
  • “Trouble,” which landed at #7 on  KCRW’s Top 30, with the station saying “”New York’s Say She She are always on the assignment of making it as funky as possible, and with their new single they’ve cranked up the lovers rock lever.”
  • “NORMA,” a defiant, politically-charged, glittery dance floor anthem — and urgent call for action, for all of us. Written in response to the leaked Supreme Court draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the song is a powerful reminder that the fight to have this country live up to its ideals ain’t over — and that women’s rights and their right to choose what’s best for them need to be protected. 

And adding to a growing profile, the trio’s music is featured in the trailer for Lena Dunham’s upcoming feature-length film Sharp Stick. 

Prism‘s latest single, album title track “Prism” is a glittery and silky ballad centered around glistening keys, a supple bass line and metronomic-like drumming paired with the trio’s lush harmonies. The end result is a hook-driven song that sonically nods at The Supremes, psych pop and psych soul, and sounds as though it could have been released in 1968, 1978, 2008 or — well, today.

Directed by Alyssa Boni and shot by by New York-born and-based film producer Nathan Corbin, a.k.a. Blazer, the accompanying video for “Prism” was filmed in upstate New York and features the trio delighting in a gloriously sunny and lysergic trip through blooming summer pastures — with Bollywood-inspired dance moves.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Aussie Punk Outfit CLAMM Wrestle with Impatience and Yearning in “Something New”

With the release of 2020’s full-length debut Beseech Me, the Melbourne-based punk outfit CLAMM — Jack Summers (vocals, guitar), Maisie Everett (bass, backing vocals) and Miles Harding (drums, backing vocals) — quickly exploded into national and international punk scenes. Originally released by the band on cassette, the album received airplay and praise from Aussie radio stations 3RRR and FBi. Reissued by UK-based label Meat Machine last year, the album earned best punk nods from the likes of Spin, Bandcamp Daily and KEXP.

Adding to a growing profile, the band has played with Wolf Alice, Civic, Amyl & The Sniffers, The Chats, Vintage Crop, and The Murlocs — and they’ve made their way across the Aussie festival circuit with stops at Boogie Festival, Melbourne Music Week, and Meadow.

The rising Aussie punk rock band’s sophomore album Care was released last week through Chapter Music globally — with the exception of the UK, Europe and Asia, where it was released by Meat Machine.

Recorded during any free moment they had last year in one of the most locked down cities in the world, the band’s sophomore album was tracked at Rolling Stock Recording Rooms and Sound Park Studios with Nao Anzai. The album also features Anzai playing synth — and he has joined the band on stage at recent shows. Mangelwurzel‘s Anna Gordon (sax) contributes sax on a number of the album’s songs.

Care, much like its predecessor sees the band exploring the confusion — and perhaps seeming hopelessness — of being a young person trying to live an honorable life in a fucked-up, mad world. Thematically, their songs are frequently about trying to navigate systems of power and oppression while retaining a healthy sense of self and mental health. Community, creativity and catharsis are what they hope to achieve through their work.

Care‘s third and latest single “Something New” is an urgent, mosh pit friendly ripper centered around enormous power chords and thunderous drumming, propulsive basslines paired with rousingly cathartic hooks and choruses, Summers’ urgent, yearning delivery and some sax wailing from Anna Gordon. The song manages to capture and evoke youthful impatience, the subtle and creeping recognition of mortality just over your shoulder, and the yearning desire for meaning and peace in such a mad, fucked up world in a visceral way — so visceral that it hurts, because we’ve all been there. Or maybe we’re still there despite age and perceived wisdom.

“‘Something New’ is a song about searching or yearning,” CLAMM’s Jack Saunders explains. “It is about impatience and time, and its title refers to the process of facing seemingly new stimuli throughout life.”

Frequent visual collaborator Oscar O’Shea directed the accompanying video for “Something New.” Shot on Kodak film, the video follows the members of CLAMM storming around Melbourne and its surroundings, starting with a house near the train line, a lakefront, an abandoned warehouse and the beach with the city just over the horizon.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay James Chatburn Shares a Woozy, Classic Soul-Inspired Jam

James Chatburn is a rising, Sydney-born, Berlin-based singer/songwriter and producer. Since relocating to the German capital back in 2015, Chatburn has carved out a reputation for being a highly in-demand singer/songwriter and producer, who has collaborated with acclaimed Aussie hip-hop outfit Hilltop Hoods‘ certified Gold single “Higher,”  rum.gold, Jordan Rakei, Noah Slee, Sedric Perry, and a growing list of others. As a solo artist, the Sydney-born, Berlin-based JOVM mainstay has developed and honed a sound that meshes elements of soul, blues, electro pop, neo-soul and psych pop with the release of his full-length debut, 2020’s David Tobias co-produced Faible. 

During the lead-up to Fabile‘s release, I managed to write about three of the album’s singles: 

  • “In My House,” a warm and vibey, two-step inducing bit of soul, centered around introspective, earnest songwriting, reverb-drenched guitars and thumping beats.
  • “Jewellery and Gold,” one of the album’s more tongue-in-cheek tracks, featuring a narrator looking forward to a future, where he’s flush with cash, and as a result, any of the major issues of his life being settled with that newfound cash — because dollar dollar bill y’all. 
  • “The Hurt,” a ballad that saw the Aussie-born, German-based JOVM mainstay express longing and heartache in a way that reminded me quite a bit of Nick Hakim.

Chatburn’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Late Night Howling officially dropped today. And if you’ve been following this site over the past month, you might recall that I wrote about “Do You Wanna Live Like That,” feat. Noah Slee, an expansive and mind-bending take on neo-soul and pop centered around a unique and woozily dynamic song structure that rapidly shifts in tone, time signature and instrumentation: The song’s introduction begins with twinkling pianos in a Latin jazz like tempo before quickly shifting to tweeter and woofer rattling trap beats and then shifting again to a vibey 70s neo-soul-inspired coda. 

Lyrically, the song is intimate and introspective, with its narrator vacillating between self-doubt, analysis, progression and gratefulness. “‘Do You Wanna Live Like That’ is a track I created which ended up kind of being a few different tracks in one, inspired by people like Tyler, The Creator with just these sudden drops and Sault with this vibe – simple not perfect, but just perfectly imperfect,” James Chatburn explains. “Noah Slee and I have been friends basically since we both moved to Berlin, it just took 7 years but we finally got around to releasing a track together.” 

Late Night Howling‘s latest single “Some Kind of Fool” sonically is indebted to Quiet Storm-meets-classic, late 60s-mid 70s psych soul as it’s centered around an arrangement of shimmering Rhodes, supple and sinuous bass lines, some metronomic time keeping, squiggling bursts of funk guitar and a soaring string arrangement serving as an ethereal and brooding bed for Chatburn, who fittingly adopts a yearning and heartbroken falsetto for most of the song. Although the song’s narrator is heartbroken and deceived, they have taken some degree of power back by clearly calling out someone, who has manipulated and exploited them.

“This song is about noticing being taken advantage of by other people and manipulated, but taking power over that situation by noticing it and calling out the behaviour,” Chatburn explains. “When producing and performing this song I wanted to land somewhere between Cleo Sol, Shuggie Otis, and Curtis Mayfield, I was like fuck it, I love it, I am going to make one of these songs.”

Directed by Dhanesh Jayaselan and featuring set design by Shari Annabel Marks, the accompanying video for “Some Kind of Fool” is an ethereal, fever dream that features an entirely black-clad Chatburn with his entirely white-clad backing band performing the song in a mistily lit, loft space. Local dancers — Nino Benito Marks, Kandi Alum and Lara Scheiber — perform some free, floating movements to the song’s slow-burning groove, and it gives the entire affair a woozy and floating feel.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Flossing Shares Sultry and Menacing “All We Are”

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck and sideswiped everything, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician Heather Elle found themselves thrown from touring with buzz-worthy post-punk outfit The Wants (f.k.a. as BODEGA) and into a dizzying state of long overdue decompression. Aching to artistically progress, Elle felt the need to completely untether from both personal and professional entanglements: They left The Wants and a long-term relationship and quickly began writing and recording songs in their new bachelorette pad.

Elle dug up five-year old songs and song ideas written on the road and unexpectedly wrote last year’s confessional and hedonistic “Switch,” which pushed the Brooklyn-based artist to take their Flossing project further. Elle’s Flossing debut, Queen of the Mall EP was released to critical praise with critics describing the Brooklyn-based artist as a “mischievous pop poet” and the “newly appointed master of psychological provocative.”

Building upon growing buzz, Elle’s sophomore EP World Of Mirth is slated for an August 26, 2022 release through London-based Brace Yourself Records. The soon-to-be released EP continues the Brooklyn-based artist’s for being enigmatic and provocative, while excavating and proving into the self even further than before.

World Of Mirth‘s latest single, the smoldering “All We Are.” Centered around densely layered, tweeter and woofer rattling, Nine Inch Nails-meets-ADULT.-like industrial production paired with Elle’s alternating cooing and howling, “All We Are” is possess a sultry yet menacing quality that’s simultaneously irresistible and uneasy.

“Inspired by binge-watching Steven Soderbergh’s medical drama series The Knick at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — which is set in an ER in turn-of-the-century New York City — the song invokes themes of metaphysics, existentialism, pride, competition, and legacy,” Elle explains in press notes. “‘This is all we are,’ is the final line from the lead surgeon as he operates upon himself in front of a stadium of colleagues and doctors, attempting to outsmart death.”

Directed by Dylan Brannigan, the accompanying video for “All We Are” is shot through grainy VHS fuzz and emphasizes the song’s sultry yet menacing air.