Category: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Otoboke Beaver Shares a Dizzying and Breakneck Ripper

 Kyoto, Japan-based garage punk act Otoboke Beaver(おとぼけビ～バ～ in Japanese) — Accorinrin (vocals, guitar), Yoyoyoshie (guitar, vocals), Hirochan (bass, vocals) and Kahokiss (drums, vocals) — can trace their origins back to when the band member while being in Kyoto University‘s music club. 

The Kyoto-based punk outfit quickly built a profile locally and nationally for pairing incredibly dexterous musicianship with Accorinrin’s confrontational stage presence. But when Damnably Records released the Okoshiyasu!! Otoboke Beaver compilation, Otoboke Beaver began to amass international airplay from BBC Radio 6′s Gideon Coe and Tom Ravenscroft, XFM’s John Kennedy, as well as praise from the likes of Pitchfork, NPR, i-D and The Fader.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the band made critically applauded, attention-grabbing appearances across the international festival circuit with stops at SXSW and FujiRock Festival. Their extensive global touring included a sold-out show at London‘s 100 Club. 2018 included an extensive UK tour and a stop at that year’s Coachella Festival.

2019 saw the release of ITEKOMA HITS, an effort that featured “Anata Watashi Daita Ato Yome No Meshi” and “Don’t light my fire,” two feral rippers that possessed elements of noise punk, no wave, prog rock and riot grrl punk, as well as the straightforward yet breakneck “I’m tired of your repeating story.” 

At the beginning of 2020, the members of Otoboke Beaver quit their office days jobs in order to embark on a world tour. They completed a two week European tour and were about to embark on their first Stateside tour when the COVID-19 pandemic forced global quarantines and lockdowns. With touring out of the question, the band worked on new material, which they recorded between lockdowns at Osaka-based LM Studio. 

The acclaimed, Japanese punk outfit’s newest album Super Champon is slated for a May 6, 2022 release through their longtime label home Damnably. The album’s title is derived from champon, a Japanese word that means a mixture or jumble of things of different types. “It’s a mixture of songs from love to food, life and JASRAC (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers),” the band explains. “Our music is genre-less and has various elements. We hope that it will be our masterpiece of chaos music. It also sounds like champion.” 

Earlier this month, I wrote about “I am not maternal,” a defiantly feminist, breakneck, mosh pit friendly ripper meant to be played as loudly as humanly possible. The album’s latest single “PARDON?” is a feral, tempo-shifting thrash punk ripper, full of furious riffage and howled lyrical refrains in English and Japanese. The song is a playful retelling of situation the band often finds themselves in: unrelenting miscommunication of unsolicited and fervent points of views.

The accompanying lyric video is full of rapid-fire cuts and edits, which help emphasize the song’s glitchy stop-start nature while capturing the band’s infectious, raucous and playful energy.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Soccer Mommy Shares a Gorgeous, Behind-the-Scenes Visual for Woozy “Shotgun”

Sophie Allison is a Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and the creative mastermind behind the critically applauded indie rock project Soccer Mommy.  Allison first picked up guitar when she was six — and as a teenager, she attended Nashville School of the Arts, where she studied guitar and played in the school’s swing band. During the summer of 2015, the Swiss-born, Nashville-based artist began posting home-recorded songs as Soccer Mommy and posted them to Bandcamp, just as she was about to attend  New York University (my alma mater, no less!), where she studied music business at the University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.

While she was in college, Allison played her first Soccer Mommy show at Bushwick, Brooklyn’s Silent Barn. She caught the attention of Fat Possum Records, who signed her to a record deal — and after spending two years at NYU, she returned to Nashville to pursue a full-time career in music. Upon her return to Nashville, she wrote and released two Soccer Mommy albums — 2016’s For Young Hearts released through Orchid Tapes and 2017’s Collection released through Fat Possum.

Allison’s proper, full-length debut 2018’s Clean was released to widespread critical acclaim, and as a result of a rapidly growing profile, she has toured with the likes of  Stephen Malkmus, Mitski, Kacey Musgraves, Jay Som, Slowdive, Frankie Cosmos, Liz Phair, Phoebe Bridgers, Paramore, Foster the People, Vampire Weekend, and Wilco.

Before the pandemic, Allison, much like countless other artists was gearing up for a big year: she started off 2020 by playing one of Bernie Sanders’ presidential rallies and joined a lengthy and eclectic list of artists, who endorsed his presidential campaign. That year also saw the release of her critically applauded sophomore album color theory, which she had planned to support with a headline tour with a number of sold-out dates months in advance that included a stop Glastonbury Festival and her late-night, national TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

With touring at a half as a result of the pandemic, Allison, much like countless other artists recognized that the time off from touring offered a unique opportunity to get creative and experiment with new ideas and new ways to connect with fans.

Combining her love of video games and performing, Allison had a digital show on Club Penguin Rewritten with over 10,000 attendees, who all had to make their own penguin avatars to attend. The show was so popular, that the platform’s servers crashed, forcing a rescheduling of the event. Of course, Allison has also played a number of live-streamed sets, including ones hosted by  NPR’s Tiny Desk At Home (which she kicked off) and Pitchfork‘s IG Live Series. She also released her own Zoom background images for her fans to proudly show off their Soccer Mommy fandom. 

Allison and her backing band embarked on a Bella Clark-directed 8 bit, virtual music video tour that saw Soccer Mommy playing some of the cities she had been scheduled to play if the pandemic didn’t happen — in particular, Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle, Toronto, and Austin. Instead of having the visual shows at a traditional music venue or a familiar tourist spot, the band were mischievously placed in highly unusual places: an abandoned Toronto subway station, a haunted Chicago hotel, a bat-filled Austin bridge underpass and the like. The video tour featured color theory single “crawling in my skin,” a song centered around looping and shimming guitars, a sinuous bass line, shuffling drumming, subtly shifting tempos and an infectious hook.

She closed out 2020 with an Adam Kolodny-directed, fittingly Halloween-themed visual for “crawling in my skin” that’s full of creeping and slow-burning dread that reminds me of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe movies with Vincent Price.

Allison’s newest album, the Daniel Lopatin (a.k.a. Oneohtrix Point Never)-produced Sometimes, Forever is slated for a June 24, 2022 release through Loma Vista/Concord. The new album reportedly sees Allison pushing her sound in new directions — but without eschewing the unsparing lyricism and catchy melodies that have won her attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere.

Inspired by the concept that neither sorrow nor happiness is permanent, Sometimes, Forever will be a fresh peek into the mind of a bold, young artist who synthesizes everything — retro sounds, personal tumult, the disorder of modern life — into music that feels built to last for a long time. The album’s material is also partly inspired by the uncomfortable push and pull between her desire to make meaningful art, her skepticism about the mechanics of careerism, and the mundane, artless administrative chaos that comes with all of it.

The album’s first single, the woozy “Shotgun” is an infectious banger centered around a classic grunge song structure — quiet verses, explosive choruses paired with layers of distorted guitars, Allison’s achingly plaintive vocals, an enormous hook, thunderous drumming and a throbbing groove.

“Shotgun” manages to liken a young romance to a sort of chemical high — but without the bruising and sickening comedown, which always comes after. But throughout the song, its narrator focuses on small moments in a particular love affair that’s imbued with a deep, personal meaning, “‘Shotgun’ is all about the joys of losing yourself in love,” explains Allison. “I wanted it to capture the little moments in a relationship that stick with you.”

Directed by Kevin Lombardo, the accompanying video catches Allison strumming her guitar in a sunny bedroom — but pulls out to show the workings of a music video set, plus a promotional shoot. The video captures Allison’s own struggles in a way that’s both gorgeous and realistic.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Still Corners Share Dream-Like Visual for “Far Rider”

London-based dream pop act and JOVM mainstays Still Corners — vocalist and keyboardist Tessa Murray and multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter Greg Hughes — have managed to bounce between chilly and atmospheric pop and shimmering guitar-driven, desert noir through five full-length albums: 2012’s Creatures of an Hour, 2013’s Strange Pleasures, 2016’s Dead Blue, 2018’s Slow Air and 2020’s The Last Exit. 

The Last Exit continued where its immediate predecessor left off with 11 songs centered around shimmering and carefully crafted arrangements featuring organic instrumentation paired with Tessa Murray’s smoky crooning. Thematically, the album took the listener through a hypnotic and mesmerizing journey filled with dilapidated and long-abandoned towns, mysterious shapes appearing on the horizon and long trips that blur the lines between what’s there and not there. 

The album’s material was brought into further focus as a result of pandemic-related lockdowns and quarantines. “There’s always something at the end of the road and for us it was this album. Our plans were put on hold – an album set for release, tours, video shoots, travel,” Tessa Murray explained in press notes for The Last Exit. “We’d been touring nonstop for years, but we were forced to pause everything. We thought the album was finished but with the crisis found new inspiration and started writing again.” Three of the album’s songs — “Crying,” “Static,” and “‘Till We Meet Again” were written during this period and they reflect upon the profound impact of isolation and the human need for social contact and intimacy. 

Late last year, the JOVM mainstays released “Heavy Days,” a propulsive and uptempo bop featuring twinkling synth arpeggios, a chugging motorik groove, shimmering and reverb drenched guitars and a soaring hook paired with Murray’s smoky vocals. In many ways, “Heavy Days” could be seen as a synthesis of Dead Blue, Slow Air and The Last Exit.

Despite the literal weight of its title, “Heavy Days” may arguably be one of the more optimistic and sunnier songs of the duo’s growing catalog. “Sometimes it all feels like too much, there’s a lot to take in reading the news all the time,” Still Corners’ Tessa Murray said in press notes. “We wanted to write a reminder to put the phone down now and again and get out there and live life to the fullest while you can.”

The JOVM mainstays latest single “Far Rider” sees the duo returning to the sound of Slow Air and The Last Exit: shimmering and reverb-drenched guitar twang, a steady and propulsive rhythm and Murray’s imitably smoky vocals placed within an expansive and mind-bending song structure that’s roomy enough for a lengthy and hallucinogenic guitar solo and gently oscillating synths. At one point, Murray’s own vocal is sampled, distorted and layered into the mix to add to the dream-like vibe. Much like their last two albums, “Far Rider” evokes the lingering ghosts, regret and old memories conjured up on lonely drives meant to clear your head — or to redeem yourself.

“This song is about leaving, lost love and finding yourself somewhere on the journey, really it’s about redemption,” Still Corners Tessa Murray explains. I recently drove 6000 miles across the southwest to feel the sun on my face and think.  We used the dreamlike nature of the song to capture the landscape and a hypnotic feel to conjure up the long and lonely travel days.”

Primarily shot in the New Mexico desert during “Golden Hour,” the accompanying video for “Far Rider” follows a lone and weary traveler walking across the sandy dunes trying to forget a lost love or a escaping from a past that’s best forgotten forever. The dream-like nature of the song is emphasized with trippy effects.

“We filmed this video during a 6000 mile trip to New Mexico.  We did it all on a handheld camera.  Most of the time we would drive way out to a spot and have to wait until the light was right, the golden hour etc.,” Still Corners’ Tessa Murray explains. ”  One of the places we went to was White Sands and we spent ages sitting in a sand dune in the shade waiting for the light to change.  The sand is pure white gypsum so reflects the sun to such a degree it’s completely blinding.  The good thing is the sun takes a while to set so you have about 30 minutes of beautiful light.  We only had one problem, all the sand dunes look very similar, there’s really no landmarks so as it became dark we got completely lost on the way back to the car, it was a little scary but we made it.  We love how it turned out, it captures the vibe of the song perfectly.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: N’Faly Kouyaté Teams Up with Tiken Jah Fakoly on a Socially Relevant Banger

Throughout his lengthy musical career Guinean-born, Belgian-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist N’Faly Kouyaté has bridged the modern and the ancient, and Africa and the West: Kouyaté received a very traditional and rigorous Guinean musical education. He eventually relocated to Belgium, where he received conservatory training.

Inspired by Aretha Franklin, Harry Belafonte and a long list of others, the Guinean-born, Belgian-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has managed to collaborate with an eclectic array of acclaimed artists including Peter Gabriel, William Kentridge, Phil Manzanera, Ray Phiri and others. But he may be best known for his work with groundbreaking, genre-defying and Grammy Award-nominated act Afro Celt Sound System.

The acclaimed singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist will be releasing a new album — and that album sees Kouyaté developing a new genre, Afrotonix, which mixes polyphony, electronic production and traditional African instruments like the kora, the balafon and percussion. The album’s first single “Free Water,” which features a guest spot from Tiken Jah Fakoly is a slick synthesis of the modern and traditional: modern electronic production featuring wobbling, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and traditional Guinean instrumentation paired with a vitally necessary message — water is life for all of us.

The accompanying video reminds then viewer of water’s importance to all of us — from drinking, bathing, our food and so on. But it also gives the viewer a glimpse of daily life in beautiful Guinea and scenes from the studio.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toronto’s Mear Shares a Gorgeous and Expressive Visual for Cinematic “Second Sight”

Toronto-based synth pop duo Mear — Frances Miller and Greg Harrison — can trace their origins to when the pair met while working at renowned music venue Massey Hall. Shortly after meeting, Miller and Harrison began collaborating by sending tracks back and forth through social media.

Through the release of their debut EP, 2016’s Flood and a handful of singles, the Canadian synth pop duo have established a sound and approach that pairs catchy melodies and poignant lyrics with the duo’s shared love of experimental music. Their single “Perfect Mess” was released to praise by The East, edm joy and OMGblog and was named a “Song You Need to Hear This Week” by CBC Music.

Their full-length debut, Soft Chains is slated for an April 22, 2022 release. The album’s latest single “Second Sight” is a cinematic bit of pop centered around shimmering synth arpeggios and skittering reverb-drenched beats paired with Miller’s gorgeous and expressive vocals. While sonically recalling Flourish//Perish era BRAIDS, Kinlaw and ACES, the song as the duo explain “is about someone, who is grappling with a memory that holds them back. It’s about a confrontation and making it out on the other side.”

Edited by Mear’s Frances Miller, the accompanying video for “Second Sight” pairs the live action expressive dancing of choreographer and dancer Katherine Semchuk with the flowing animation of Kristen-Innes Stambolic. The visual manages to evoke a difficult and exhausting inward struggle that ends with the video’s protagonist coming out of the other side with an inner peace.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Cigar Cigarette’s Hazy and Feverish “Guilty Pleasures”

Chris McLaughin is a producer, sound engineer and multi-instrumentalist, who can boast over a decade of production work with a wide-ranging array of artists from Kanye West, Bon Iver, The Strokes‘ Fabrizio Moretti, machinegum, and a recent Neon Indian remix.

McLaughin steps out into the limelight as an artist with his solo recording project Cigar Cigarette. McLaughlin’s Cigar Cigarette forthcoming full-length debut Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigarette is an industrial-leaning soundscape guided by anxious, apocalyptic mystique — and McLaughlin’s wide-spanning ear and expansive vision.

Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigarette‘s latest single “Guilty Pleasures” is a woozy and feverish haze of buzzing and oscillating electronics, skittering boom bap, industrial clang and clatter, glistening synths and shoegazey guitars paired with McLaughlin’s achingly plaintive and processed vocals and an enormous hook. While recalling a slick synthesis of Uncanny Valley era Midnight Juggernauts and POND, “Guilty Pleasures” as McLaughlin explains “is a song that takes place in an early period of the Internet, and is built using sounds and memories from each of the last four decades. It’s about two people meeting on a road in the woods and exchanging briefcases which contain their own internal organs.

“I thought it would be funny to begin a song with the beat from the 80’s hit ‘Come On Eileen‘, making hi hats from voices and chords from vocoder. Ultimately, it ascends into a wash of shoe-gaze guitars and heavy modular synths as the characters in the song take turns swallowing their own lungs.

“As an engineer I love the process of recording sounds; but as a producer and musician I’m more interested in resampling those sounds and creating a collage with them, rather than just letting the performances sit,” McLaughin adds. “I blended the vocoder and natural vocals for the same reason: I want the song to evoke the same cold unease of the uncanny valley, to feel like something a slightly imperfect copy of a human would make.”

Directed by frequently collaborator, MOTHERMARY‘s Elyse Winn and shot by Michael Pessah is a surreal and disorientating visual that follows McLaughin as he drives a badass car through time and space as he sings along with the song. “We wanted to use the ‘poor man’s process’ technique of projecting a video behind a stationary vehicle to make it appear like it’s moving. Using these sorts of ‘movie magic’ practical effects from another time period can create a much more surreal and disorienting world,” says McLaughlin.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Mysterious French Outfit 4ever lost Shares Sultry and Uneasy “I don’t know how to love you”

Formed back in 2020, 4ever lost is a mysterious French outfit — founding member Six (vocalist, songwriting) along with Hero (guitar, bass), One (keys) and Abi (drums/percussion) — that specializes in a sound that they’ve dubbed “eclectic pop,” which features elements of alternative R&B, pop and electro pop paired with poetic, deep lyrics that speak for those who can’t (or are unable) to put words to their feelings.

Released earlier this year, the mysterious French outfit’s debut single, the slow-burning “I don’t know how to love you” is centered around a sleek and hyper modern production featuring finger-snap led percussion, atmospheric and glistening synths, skittering beats and wobbling electronics paired with cooed vocals. The end result is a sultry and uneasy song that recalls JOVM mainstays Beacon and Quiet Storm soul.

Edited by Thibault Remetter and starring the members of 4ever lost in brightly colored suits and ski masks and David Jacquemin and Simon Thiebaut as servants, the accompanying video for “I don’t know how to love you” is a stylish fever dream that nods at Roger Corman era horror movies.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Transatlantic Duo The Churchhill Garden Shares a Gorgeous and Cinematic Visual For Slow-Burning “Rearview Mirror”

Influenced by The Cure, Cocteau Twins and Joy Division and others, the Swiss-American shoegaze duo The Churchhill Garden — currently, founding member Andy Jossi (guitar) and Whimsical‘s Krissy Vanderwoude (vocals) — was originally founded by Jossi as a solo recording project back in 2010 as a way for the Swiss-born and-based guitarist to plug into his emotions and to focus on writing music without any pressure.

A friend had showed Jossi how to use GarageBand, which he eventually used for some of his earliest recordings. He was determine to become a better guitarist and songwriter, so he learned from his mistakes, which helped him advance as an artist. As he was growing as a musician and songwriter, Jossi discovered Logic, which led to an improved and lusher quality to his recordings. 

Around the same time, Jossi began to notice that the songs he had begun to write were more expansive, and although largely inspired by Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, shoegaze, post punk and jangle pop, the material revealed his own take on the sounds he had long loved. The Swiss guitarist and songwriting posted his compositions on Myspace without expecting much in return but, he was pleasantly surprised and encouraged by the positive response he received. Although he had enjoyed writing and recording the material he posted on MySpace, he felt as though the material was missing something — vocals.

Hoping to broaden his musical horizons, the Swiss guitarist and songwriter sought out a few local vocalists to collaborate with. His first collaboration was with The Reaction’s Max Burki, one of Jossi’s local musical heroes. Jossi then went on to record two more tracks with Eva Tresch. Technological advances — i.e., home recording studios and programs, as well as file sharing — allowed Jossi to collaborate with vocalists outside of his native Switzerland. His first collaboration with a foreign vocalist, “Noisy Butterfly,” which featured Italian vocalist Damiano Rosetti helped expand The Churchhill Garden’s audience and fanbase outside of Switzerland.

“The Same Sky” was released to an overwhelmingly positive response with people generally commenting that they felt a magical chemistry between the two — and after a couple of songs together, they both realized that Vanderwoude should be a permanent and full-time member of The Churchhill Garden. And while Vanderwoude is a permanent member of The Churchill Garden, Jossi has continued to collaborate with other vocalists, including including Seashine’s Demi Haynes and Fables‘ and Swirl’s Ben Aylward. 

Back in 2020, The Churchhill Garden released their full-length debut, a double LP album Heart and Soul, which their fans had clamored for, for quite some time. Since Heart and Soul, the duo have been busily writing, recording and releasing new material including the Souvlaki-era Slowdive and So Tonight That I May See-era Mazzy Star-like “Fade Away,” and the slow-burning, Cocteau Twins-like “Lonely.”

Clocking in at a little over seven-and-a-half minutes, the slow-burning “Rearview Mirror,” the Transatlantic shoegaze duo’s latest single begins with a gorgeous and lengthy acoustic guitar-led intro that slowly morphs into a noisy and towering wall of sound centered around Jossi’s impressive guitar work and Vanderwoude’s achingly plaintive and ethereal vocals. While arguably being the most Storm in Heaven-like track of their rapidly growing catalog, the song details a heartbreakingly bittersweet relationship including its sublime highs, darkest lows and ultimately, its conclusion.

The cinematic, accompanying video for “Rearview Mirror” follows a stranded astronaut who has crash landed on a remarkably Earth-like world — and some mind-bending visual effects that capture the slow-burning storminess of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Colatura Shares a Shimmering and Bittersweet Look at Family and Family Dynamics

Rising New York-based outfit Colatura — Jennica (bass, vocals), Digo (guitar, vocals) and Meredith (guitar, synth, vocals) is a rising Brooklyn-based indie trio that features multiple lead singers while establishing a sound that’s sometimes dreamy and sometimes heavy, centered around pop-leaning melodies and post-punk atmospherics. And as a result, some critics have described them as “Fleetwood Mac with shoegaze guitars.” 

With the release of 2018’s debut EP Spring Drew Blood and a handful of singles released in 2020, including “I Don’t Belong Here,” the Brooklyn-based indie outfit built up some buzz: They’ve been featured by The Deli and Oh My Rockness, and they’ve received breathless praise from Full Time Aesthetic, who covered a live show and wrote “the easiest way to describe Colatura is they’re like sunshine streaming out of an amplifier with its volume set at nine.” Adding to a growing profile locally, Colatura has played sets at Rough Trade, Baby’s All Right, Mercury Lounge and Elsewhere as well as house parties and DIY Brooklyn venues.

The band’s full-length debut, And Then I’ll Be Happy is slated for an April 22, 2022 release. Album single “Team Sport,” was released to breathless praise from the likes of BrooklynVegan and Under The Radar — with Under The Radar making references to Cocteau Twins, Alvvays and Yumi Zouma. And Then I’ll Be Happy‘s latest single “Kids Like Us” continues a run of gorgeous, nostalgia-inducing, 120 Minutes MTV-like dream pop featuring Meredith’s plaintive and yearning vocals, reverb-drenched guitars, driving rhythms and the band’s unerring ability to craft an enormous hook.

Seemingly drawing from personal and very lived-in experience, the song is rooted in bittersweet memories of a dysfunctional, flawed family — with the recognition that you’ll only have one, very screwed up biological family for better or for worse.

“This song is about collective family baggage, mental illness, and destructive patterns that can repeat generation after generation,” the band’s Meredith Lampe explains in press notes. “We wrote it from the perspective of one sibling calling another to remind them that they made a pact to never have kids in the hopes of cutting off the negative cycle and to stop passing down traits that they wish they didn’t have themselves.

The accompanying video was made by Phantom Handshakes‘ Matt Sklar and features the band performing over a college of footage from each band member’s childhoods, which fittingly gives the visual a bittersweet, nostalgic air.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Mexican Post-Punk Outift Mercvrial Shares a Glistening and Incisive Critique of the Social Media Age

Primarily based in Rosarito, Mexico, Mercvrial is a geographically-dispersed recording project in which its members combine elements of post-punk, dream pop and neo-psychedelia to draw the listener into “an opaque musicverse of sparkling melodies and layered guitarchitecture,” the band says in press notes. Back in 2019, the post-punk orientated recording project released their critically applauded debut EP The Stars, Like Dust, which drew favorably comparisons to Creation Records‘, Flying Nun Records‘ and 4AD Records‘ output in the 80s.

And if you’ve been frequenting this site since then — or even earlier — you may recall that in early 2020, I wrote about the hook driven, Wire meets The Church-like EP single “Hsieh Su-Wei” is a shimmering and reverb-drenched, motorik-groove driven homage to the unorthodox Taiwanese tennis professional, Hsieh Su-Wei.

The mysterious, Mexican post-punk outfit’s full-length debut Brief Algorithms is slated for a white vinyl release through British label Crafting Room Recordings — and will be available on all streaming platforms on April 29, 2022. The album will feature guitar from The House of Love‘s and Levitation‘s Terry Bickers on half of the album’s tracks — including the album’s first single “Be That Someone.”

Centered around an angular bass line-driven motor groove, glistening, reverb-drenched guitars, metronomic-like drum patterns, a yearning vocal delivery and the band’s unerring knack for crafting a razor sharp hook, “Be That Someone” sonically reminds me quite a bit of 90125 era Yes and Garlands era Cocteau Twins but with a sleek, modern production sheen. Interestingly, the song comes from a familiar and very lived-in place for most of us at some point in our lives: the need and desire to be liked, desired, wanted — and to have sex.

The accompanying visual is an incisive criticism of our social media-based world: We see people endlessly scrolling and liking on Instagram and posting for pictures with hopes of getting likes. We also see people constantly lying about how awesome their lives are — because they’re desperate to seem likable, popular and beautiful. But in reality, everyone is bored, empty and disconnected.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: British Soul Outfit Mama’s Gun Shares an Adorable Visual for “Good Love”

Deriving their name from Erykah Badu‘s acclaimed and beloved album Mama’s Gun, the London-based soul outfit Mama’s Gun — currently, Andy Platts, Cameron Dawson, David Oliver, Terry Lewis and Chris Boot — formed back in 2008. And since their formation, they’ve released four full-length albums: 2009’s Routes to Riches, which broke big in Japan and eventually lead to the British band being the most played international artist on Japanese radio that year; 2011’s Life and Soul; 2014’s Cheap Hotel; and 2018’s Golden Days.

Adding to a growing profile, the London-based soul outfit have opened for Level 42, Beverley Knight, Ben l’Oncle Soul and Raphael Saadiq while developing a fanbase across Southeast Asia — in particular South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore. 

The rising British soul outfit began 2022 with the “Party For One”/”Looking For Moses” double A-side single. Released through the band’s Candelion Records with Secretly Group and Colemine Records, the double A-side single served as a teaser for the band’s fifth album Cure The Jones.  (More on the singles a bit further below.)

Written and produced during the pandemic by the band’s Andy Platts’ with additional soundscaping from the band’s Chriss Bott, Cure The Jones was recorded direct-to-tape with an array of analog gear at Platts’ home studio in a breakneck three day session. The album, which is slated for an April 1. 2022 release, is reportedly informed and inspired by the spirit of conscious late ’60s and ’70s soul (think Bill Withers and Marvin Gaye) and the turbulence of the past couple of years. While being a lush, nuanced meditation on a world turned upside down, the album thematically explores and touches upon love, loss, and life through the most pressing sociopolitical issues of our day. 

“Party For One” is a slow-burning and strutting bit of 70s psych soul and neo-soul centered around the sort of low-slung and wobbling bass line that would make Bootsy Collins proud, a lush horn line, fluttering psychedelic effects and Andy Platts’ dreamy falsetto. “Party For One” points out a bitter irony that even loners and homebodies felt during pandemic-related lockdowns — sometimes, you just want to see and talk to another human adult. 

“Lyrically ‘Party For One’ comes from me being a bit of a loner – I like my own company and space to create, think and reflect,” the band’s Andy Platts explains. “I was in my ideal world during the early stages of the pandemic, on my own and with no one around, but I was mourning the company of strangers. There is something in anonymous togetherness that is the stuff of life.” 

“Looking For Moses” continued a run of crafted and expansive, 70s inspired soul centered around Andy Platts’ easygoing Bill Withers-like delivery paired with a warm and lush arrangement of wah wah pedaled guitar, glistening and arpeggiated Rhodes, shimmering strings and soulful harmonizing. Much like its companion, “Looking For Moses” comes from a deeply personal, lived-in space –while actually paying homage to the legendary Withers. 

“‘Looking For Moses’ was the track that kicked off the writing for our new album [to be announced shortly],” Platts says. “Everything was panic stations at the time, it was my daughter that inspired the first set up with the lyrics ‘her mama says she can’t go out, baby girl maybe one day you’ll understand, when all of this is in the past.’ I wanted to imbue it with a bit of hope too – it’s about leaning on your beliefs but more so it’s about standing united and staying the course, and the reality of simply getting by and getting through life.”

“Good Love,” Cure the Jones‘ third and latest single is classic Motown era-inspired love song (think What’s Going On era Marvin Gaye, in particular), centered around a shuffling, two-step inducing rhythm, a sinuous bass line, squiggling funk guitar and twinkling keys paired with Platts’ soaring and expressive falsetto. But at its core, the song is a contented and thankful sigh for the constant and dependable love you can count on –for better and for worse.

“This is a love song, no doubt about it,” Mama’s Gun’s Andy Platts explains. “But it was really prompted by life in the pandemic which forces you to reflect on what you have. The thought of getting through this pandemic alone like so many others out there — on top of everything else like work struggles and raising children — was overwhelming. So it is about counting your blessings, the constant and dependable love of your significant other.”

Directed and edited by Polyrock Films prominently stars a lizard named Ted and a doll named Barb as the couple’s odd yet devoted couple. Throughout the video, our protagonists are thrown into scenes that classic movies, including King Kong. At the end of the video, Ted remarks that he thought love — the love they have — only happened in the movies. It’s adorable.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Radiohead and Sons of Kemet Side Project The Smile Share Meditative Visual for “Skirting On The Surface”

The Smile is a new act featuring some familiar names and faces: Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood (maybe you might have heard of them?), and Sons of Kemet‘s Tom Skinner. The act has released two critically applauded singles so far this year — “The Smoke” and “You Will Never Work in Television Again.”

The alt-rock All-Star act’s third and latest single together, “Skirting On The Surface” is a stunningly gorgeous and meditative slow-burn centered around Jonny Greenwood’s looping and shimmering guitar lines, stuttering jazz syncopation, a supple yet propulsive bass line, mournful sax and Thom Yorke’s imitable, achingly weary falsetto singing lyrics contemplating human mortality and impermanence.

The accompanying video was shot in the depths of the disused Rosevale Tin Mine in Cornwall, UK on 16mm black and white film by BAFTA-winning writer/director Mark Jenkin. The visual follows Thom Yorke, as a cart-pushing miner through the mine’s narrow passageways and tunnels. He sees water go about strange, almost supernatural phenomenon. And at one point in his journey, the exhausted miner stops, dumps his load and begins filling in a passageway. It’s as gorgeous, meditative and as surreal as its accompanying song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Yumi Zouma Share a Hallucinogenic Visual for New Single “Astral Projection”

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the course of its almost 12 year history, you may recall that the acclaimed indie synth pop outfit and longtime JOVM mainstay outfit Yumi Zouma signed to Polyvinyl Record Co back in 2020. That same year, they JOVM mainstays released their critically applauded, self-produced third album Truth or Consequences, an album that thematically focused on distance — both real and metaphorical; romantic and platonic heartbreak; disillusionment and feeling (and being) out of reach. 

For the overwhelming majority of the bands I’ve covered over the past 12 years, touring is often the most important — and necessary — part of the promotional campaign for an artist’s or band’s new release. Before they hit the road, that artist or band will figure out how to re-contextualize their new material and even previously released material for a live setting, imagining how a crowd will react to what — and how — they’ll play the material in a live set. Like all of the acts across the world, who were touring — or were about to tour–- as COVID-19 struck across the world, the members of Yumi Zouma were forced to end their tour, which included their first ever sold-out, headlining North American dates, and quickly head to their respective homes, leaving scores of their most devoted fans without the opportunity to hear the new album in a live setting. 

That October, the JOVM mainstays released Truth or Consequences (Alternate Versions), an album conceived as the band’s response to the lost opportunity to re-contextualize and explore the boundaries of the original album’s material through live engagement with fans.

Last year, Yumi Zouma released two singles: 

  • “Give It Hell,” a wistful and bittersweet song centered around a classic Yumi Zouma breezy arrangement. But underneath the aching melancholy is a subtle but necessary celebratory note, a reminder that we will find a way to survive and thrive in the most difficult and unusual circumstances — and as someone far wiser than I once sang “all things will pass.” 
  • “Mona Lisa,” an expansive and breezy pop confection that’s one part New Order and one-part Bruce Springsteen that manages to convey a complicated, shifting emotional state, seemingly influenced and informed by our weird and uncertain moment. 

Both of those tracks will appear on the band’s highly-anticipated fourth album, Present Tense. Dedicated to an embattled past, Present Tense is the JOVM mainstays’ offering to a tenuous future. With the members of the band forced to go their separate ways and return to their homes, Yumi Zouma found themselves in an unusual place: “It was disorientating,” the band’s Charlie Ryder says in press notes. ““We generally work at a quick clip and average about a record a year, but with no foreseeable plans, we lost our momentum.”

In response, the members of the band went to work, setting a September 1, 2021 deadline for the album to be finished, regardless of world events. What initially began in fits and starts became a committed practice again as the band worked on new material, digging through demos from as early as 2018 and making them relevant to that particular — and peculiar — moment in time. “Someone brings in a seed,” the band’s Josh Burgess says, “and through collaboration, it grows into a song that is vastly different from its original form.”

“The lyrics on these songs feel like premonitions, in some regards,” says Yumi Zouma’s Christie Simpson says. “So much has changed for us, both personally and as a band, that things I wrote because the words sounded good together now speak to me in ways I didn’t anticipate.”

The album’s material evolved through remote and in-person sessions in Wellington, New Zealand, Florence, Italy, Los Angeles, NYC and London. Those sessions found the band exploring a broader sonic palette that includes pedal steel, piano, sax, woodwind and string arrangements played by friends around the globe.  The complex scope of the recordings were then fine-tuned by an array of top mixes including Ash Workman, Kenny Gilmore, Jake Aron with mastering by Antoine Chabert. 

“This is our fourth album, so we wanted to pivot slightly, create more extreme versions of songs,” Ryder says. “Working with other artists helped with that and took us far outside of our normal comfort zone.”

Last month, I wrote about “Where The Light Used To Lay,” a single that continued a remarkably run of bittersweet pop confections, centered around Christie Simpson’s achingly tender vocals, shimmering guitars, glistening keys and the JOVM mainstays’ unerring knack for crafting a razor sharp and infectious hook. Interestingly, “Where The Light Used To Lay” has a hopeful, adult perspective on heartbreak, one that seems to say that while you may be down in the dumps today, this too, like all other things, shall end. And you shall yet again find love in all of its complicated, conflicting, nonsensical glory in its due time. 

“‘Where The Light Used To Lay’ eventually revealed itself as a bittersweet song about the agony of detangling your life as you break up and the enticing future, clarity, and lightness that the end of the tunnel can offer,” the band’s Josh Burgess explains. “When we first started writing the song in 2019, we were all in long-term relationships. By the time the final mix was completed in the Fall of 2021, only one of those remained (thanks COVID). It’s funny how songs can end up revealing themselves in surprising ways, even to their writers. It’s equal parts confronting and calming, knowing that the subconscious starts processing long before the conscious comes to it. Regardless, it’s nice to have a moment with a song where you go ‘damn, ain’t that the truth.’”

Present Tense‘s latest single “Astral Projection” is a decidedly 80s inspired song centered around glistening, reverb-drenched guitars, gently oscillating synths, jazz-like syncopation, Simpson’s imitable vocals and an infectious hook. The song’s narrator seems to have come to a wobbly sort of acceptance of the end of their relationship and what it means for them and their life,.

“’Astral Projection’ is about leaning into bad feelings and the mixed results it brings,” Yumi Zouma’s Christie Simpson explains. “Learning to sit with the reality of a relationship not working out as you hoped. Looking towards the future and knowing there will be others, there will be better times, but sitting in the present moment, trying to make peace with that.”

Directed by Alex Ross Perry, the accompanying video is the third and final part of a narrative trilogy featuring our familiar trio of protagonists. They’re trapped in the apartment. One of the rooms turns into a forest, where the individual members lose their minds and have wild hallucinations while trying to escape. Some of the experience is playful and hilarious; some of it is terrifying and dark. Once they stop fighting their feelings, the weird experience clears up — and they’re able to finally leave. Their friendship seems tighter than what it was at the beginning as a result.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Canadian Poet and Singer/Songwriter Jenny Berkel Shares Meditative and Gorgeous “Kaleidoscope”

Jenny Berkel is a Canadaian poet, singer/songwriter and guitarist. The past couple of years have been busy for Berkel: her debut chapbook Grease Dogs was published last June through Baseline Press. She also wrote and released her sophomore album, last year’s Pale Moon Kid.

Berkel’s third album These Are The Sounds Left from Leaving is slated for a May 13, 2022 release through Outside Music. These Are The Sounds Left from Leaving will reportedly showcase the perspective of a unique storyteller whose work is centered around relatable introspection: Each song on the album is set in the micro-world of a keen feeling observer, trying to parse a mindful moment in a mad, mad, mad world in which it feels impossible to gleam truth — a post-Trump, heavily gaslit world where perceptions of reality are hopelessly distorted.

“I wrote the album in a tiny apartment, at a time when everything felt big and overwhelming,” Berkel says in press notes. She was living in a brownstone walk-up full of radiant light and the omnipresent sound of a leaky bathtub faucet. It was a sudden move at the time — a spontaneous departure from touring, bustling city life, being many things to many people — that landed the Canadian poet and singer/songwriter in a space of self-imposed stillness.

“The songs themselves are a study of proximity, bringing big fears into small spaces,” the Canadian artist explains in press notes. “They’re intimate examinations of a world that often overwhelms.”

These Are The Sounds Left from Leaving was recorded live off the floor at The Sugar Shack and was co-produced by Dan Edmons, Ryan Boldt and Berkel. The album features guest spots from critically acclaimed folk duo Kacy & Clayton, and string arrangements by Colin Nealis. “I wanted the songs to feel like living creations that capture a living moment,” Berkel says. “I wanted that theme of big fears in small spaces to be heard and felt as a coexistence of intimacy and menacing permeability.”

“Kaleidoscope,” the album’s first single is a lush and meditative song featuring an arrangement of soaring strings, glistening acoustic guitar, gently padded drumming, twinkling piano and Berkel’s gorgeous and expressive vocal singing lyrics with a novelist’s attention to detail — both physical and psychological. And as a result, the song feels dizzyingly intimate yet cinematic.

Thematically, the song is a poetic consideration of the importance of care and precision in language, both in the broader political landscape and in intimate emotional ways. From the heart-wrench confusion of interpersonal manipulation, the song and its narrator extrapolate a collectively felt disorientation at the kaleidoscopic swirling of disinformation, misinformation and lies.

Directed by Meg Hubley, the accompanying video stars Jenny Berkel and Mads Higgins is a cinematic fever dream that features Berkel in a tiny bedroom set up, alternating between watching herself on TV, opening a luggage crate, from which a clown-like doppleganger — starred by Higgins — pops out. Higgins’ character manipulates Berkel in various ways throughout the video.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: SheLoom Shares an Arena Rock Friendly Anthem

Today was the fifth and final day of this year’s New Colossus Festival. I’m exhausted and everything hurts but I had a great time — and you’ll be seeing my photos and thoughts in the future. (I have way too many photos to edit and post. That’s a good problem to have, right?)

But in the meantime, let’s get to the business at hand, shall we?

Transatlantic indie duo SheLoom — Blinker the Star‘s Jordon Zadorozny and producer/songwriter Filippo Gaetani — formed back in 2008. And although they’ve primarily worked together remotely throughout their history with the occasional in-person writing and recording session, the members of SheLoom have released two albums of orchestrated pop.

Currently, the duo is working on their third SheLoom album, which is slated for release later this year. Bu tin the meantime, the forthcoming album’s first single “It Scares Me” is a big genre and style mashing rocker, that to my ears nods at Peter Gabriel era Genesis, Moving Pictures era Rush, and glittery glam rock centered around arena rock bombast, enormous hooks, equally enormous power chords, thunderous drumming and some fluttering synths. And all of this is paired with an expansive song structure that’s roomy enough for some bluesy yet atmospheric solos and earnest, seemingly lived-in lyricism.

The song explain in press notes that “It Scares Me” is “a song about the psychological struggles of human relationships” that . . . “blends indie rock guitar riffs with progressive rock style grandeur, tipping their hats to late 70’s The Police, Arcarde Fire, Rush and Genesis along the way.”

The accompanying visual for “It Scares Me” employs a trippy array of effects including superimpositions, double and triple exposures, found footage, space imagery and footage of the duo performing the song in a studio.