Category: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Collapsing Scenery Shares Woozy and Uneasy “You Already Know”

Collapsing Scenery — long-time friends, New York-based artist and musician Don De Vore (Ink & Dagger, Sick Feeling, Lilys, The Icarus Line and Amazing Baby) and Los Angeles-based artist and musician Reggie Debris — can trace their origins back several years back: De Vore and Debris initially began collaborating in programming events with the Lower East Side-base D’agostino and Fiore Gallery.

Their first collaboration was a video installation, which led to a month of music and visual programming called “Rebuild Babylon.” That turned into a traveling residency series, which led to the duo’s musical project Collapsing Scenery.

Through their multimedia-based work, De Vore and Debris have been passionate about challenging and subverting perceptions in both the worlds of outsider art and political protest — and embracing the joyous, carnivalesque aspects of both. A 2016 artistic residency in New York saw Collapsing Scenery create a psychedelic immersive art installation that incorporated projections, layers of colorful plexi-glass, a reading from Genesis P-Orridge and performances from De Vore and Debris. Meanwhile in a clash of the old and the new, the gallery upstairs hosted a Picasso exhibition.

As a musical outfit, the duo started back in 2013 “in a pall of paranoia and disgust.” De Vore and Debris put their guitars away and began acquiring and assembling as much analog electronic equipment as possible, including samplers, step sequencers, synths and drums machines, and plugged them into a variety of effects pedals.

Their initial writing and recording sessions were largely improvised and were accompanied by Ryan Raspys (drums). The material they wrote managed to express their rage and frustration at the stage of the world, while drawing from punk rock, industrial electronica and techno, hip-hop, free jazz, disco, folk and more. Since they started the music project, De Vore and Debris have been restlessly prolific while also collaborating with Ninjaman, Money Mark, and James Chance among others.

The duo’s recently released Acid Casual EP is the first batch of material released from many hours of recordings they made during the pandemic. And with Acid Casual, the members of Collapsing Scenery sees the pair pushing deeper into sonic and genre experiments while finding beauty — and even joy — hiding within the cracks of the existential dread we’ve all felt in the past couple of years.

“You Already Know,” Acid Casual‘s latest single is a woozy and uneasy song centered around glistening and blown out electronic percussion, a mournful horn sample, live drumming wobbling synth arpeggios, Debris’ dreamily plaintive vocals, a chanted hook and bursts of scorching guitar before gently fading out. Sonically, “You Already Know” seems to nod at Tour de France era Kraftwerk, psych pop, trip hop and psych rock in a seamless and mind-bending fashion.

Directed, shot and edited by Kansas Bowling, the video stars Floyd Cashio, Park Love Bowling, Lo Espinosa and Kathy Corpus in a surreal fever dream fueled by obsession, slow-burning dread, violence. The video features a cameo from the members of Collapsing Scenery as inept and goofy hotel bellboys.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Hannah Stone Shares Dreamy “It’s Raining”

Hannah Stone is a Cape May, NJ-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, who has written and recorded under a number of pseudonyms and with a number of different projects, included Painted Pale. Stone’s voice has appeared in countless TV and Netflix series that you love — or are currently watching, like Search Party, Never Have I Ever, Vanderpump Rules and Emily in Paris among a lengthy list of shows.

In May 2020, Stone stepped out from the pseudonyms and various projects and released material under her own name — her first two singles, “It’s Raining” and “Sleep Through The Summer.” The Cape May-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter then followed up with her debut EP God’s Against This.

Thematically, the material on God’s Against This touches upon love, loss and the thrill of being alive and living in the present. The EP was recently re-released and will serve as Stone’s re-introduction as a solo artist, ahead of the forthcoming EP, which is currently in the works. In the meantime, God’s Against This single “It’s Raining” is a slow-burning, David Lynchian-like single centered around shimmering and reverb-drenched guitar twang, gently padded drumming, twinkling bursts of keys paired with Stone’s sultry cooing. The end result is a song that brings Mazzy Star and Amsterdam‘s Donna Blue to mind — a mist covered, lingering, half-remembered dream of a lazy, rainy day with nothing in particular to do but daydream and think.

Shot and edited by Jayden Becker with visual effects by Becker, the recently released video for “It’s Raining” fittingly employs a hazy, dream-like logic: We see a flannel wearing Stone walking near a pool, before jumping in, a brewing pot of tea, Stone eating fruit and squeezing it in between her hands and psychedelic visual effects.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Athenian Artist Theodore Shares Expansive, Shoegazer-like “Frame of Reference”

Initially schooled in piano and traditional Greek folk music, before heading to London to study Music Composition, the critically applauded Athens, Greece-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and composer, Theodore frequently meshes classically inspired compositions, electronic production and rock arrangements to create a cinematic sound and approach that nods at psych rock, prog rock and experimental rock. And in some way, it shouldn’t be surprising that the critically applauded Athenian artist has publicly cited Sigur Ros, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Manos Hadjidakis, Vangelis Papathanasiou, Nils Frahm, The National, Olafur Arnalds and Max Richter as being major influences on his work and sound. 

The Athens-based artist performed his sophomore album It Is But It’s Not at London’s Abbey Road Studio 2 and the live footage of that session amassed over two million YouTube views. Building upon a rapidly growing profile, Theodore and his backing band played sets across the global festival circuit, including Reeperhbahn Festival, Eurosonic Nooderslag, Release Festival, New Colossus and  SXSW.

Adding to a growing profile, he also opened for Sigur Ros and DIIV, and has received praise from a number of major outlets including Clash Magazine, Music Week, Tsugi, FGUK, Gaffa and Szene, as well as airplay from BBC Radio 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne.

As a composer, Theodore has written the scores for Matina Megla’s Windo and Vladan Nikolic’s Bourek. He was also commissioned to write a new, live score for Buster Keaton’s classic silent comedy The Cameraman, which was performed by the acclaimed Greek artist and his band during a screening at the Temple of Zeus. (Seriously, how cool is that?)

Theodore’s third album, 2018’s Inner Dynamics thematically found the Greek artist looking inward to examine the dichotomies — and dualities — of his identity to seek new, creative potential. “On It Is But It’s Not, I tried to explore how the opposite elements in the universe interact, how they fight and how without the one you can’t have the other.” Theodore says, adding, “For Inner Dynamics, I was trying to express my urge to connect the conscious and subconscious part of myself so I can be creative. It’s an understanding that humans are not just one thing, and they shouldn’t try to hide certain elements of their personality because society likes to put labels of who we are. It’s the different sides of my self that makes who I am.” 

The Athens-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and composer’s fourth album, The Voyage is slated for a March 13, 2022 release through United We Fly. The Voyage is a concept album that takes the listener on a journey through space while examining and reflection on human evolution.

The album’s latest single “Frame of Reference” is a slow-burning and expansive song that begins with a lengthy introduction featuring atmospheric synths and slowly builds up into a massive, orchestral swelling with swirling, shoegazer-like guitars and increasingly forceful drumming. The two distinct sections are held together by Theodore’s yearning vocals.

“Frame of Reference” is inspired by a dream Theodore had in which he was looking back on how charmingly blue Earth was, as he was floating away in outer space. The song as he explains is about how the things we don’t really appreciate in our daily lives can often appear beautiful from a distant point of view.

Fittingly, “Frame Of Reference” is accompanied by a space imagery themed, official lyric video, which helps set the overall mood for the Athenian artist’s forthcoming album.

“This lyric video is a space journey. From Earth to the planets of our solar system, to distant galaxies and interstellar transitions,” Danai Nielsen, the video’s director explains in press notes. “It follows the emotion and intensity of the song, trying to communicate and engage the emotion that Theodore conveys musically into moving images. It has a strong element of nostalgia and exploration. We are moving away from the Earth, our safe base and home, without a clear destination. We are just floating in this infinitely beautiful space.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: French-born, Danish-based Andrew Celestine Shares Brooding “Shattered”

Andrew Celestine is an emerging Rennes, France-born, Copenhagen-based singer/songwriter and musician. The Rennes-born Celestine relocated to Copenhagen back in 2015, where he began to pursue music full-time.

Celestine’s debut EP Shattered is the result of a two year journey for the self-taught French-born, Danish-based artist, with the EP’s five songs thematically being an open-hearted invitation into the melancholic, harrowing and at times universe of its creator. Sonically, the material is influenced by Depeche Mode, Moderat, French touch and Scandipop among others.

EP title track “Shattered” is a slickly produced, brooding, Depeche Mode-like track centered around glistening synth arpeggios, thumping beats and Celestine’s sonorous yet vulnerable baritone within an expansive yet dance floor friendly song structure. The song explores heartbreak and its devastation in a way that’s intimate, unvarnished and deeply familiar.

Filmed by Rine Rodin and edited by Celestine and Rodin, the video for “Shattered” follows a young woman — My Marie Nilsson — sneaking out of the spare bedroom and apartment of a lover, through the gray streets of an extremely Northern European industrial area, and into a creepy forest as the sun goes down.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Vancouver’s Bratboy Shares Stylish Video for Anthemic New Ripper “Dream Rope”

Founded back in 2017 as BB by founding duo Bella Bebe (lead vocals, guitar) and Megan Magdalena (bass, vocals), the Vancouver-based punk outfit Bratboy have been busy: they’ve cut their teeth touring across North America, making strong connections up and down the West Coast, while opening for Amyl and The Sniffers, Sheer Mag, La Luz, Meatbodies, Blackwater Holylight, The Shivas, Dead Soft, Woolworm and Dumb.

Bebe’s and Magdalena’s good friend Tony Dallas (drums) joined the band — and the newly constituted trio went to Noise Floor Recording Studio to record their Jordan Koop-produced full-length debut, which is slated for release early this year.

The still unnamed album’s latest single “Dream Rope” is a beguiling and seamless synthesis of 60s girl pop, Ramones, The Go-Gos and 90s Riot Grrrl punk centered around crunchy power chords, down-tuned bass, forceful drumming, coquettish vocals and harmonies within a classic grunge song structure — alternating quiet verses, explosive choruses, a dreamy bridge and a scorching guitar solo. And the trio do so with a winning and mischievous mix of playfulness and earnestness.

Directed by Zachary Vague, the recently released video for “Dream Rope” is a stylish, French New Wave-inspired visual featuring a bright fairly monochromic color scheme featuring white, red, blue, orange that captures the band’s energy and style.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul Turn Pop Clichés on Their Head in “Ceci n’est pas un cliché”

Ghent, Belgium-based electronic duo Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul exploded into the national and international scenes with the release of 2019’s critically applauded David and Stephen Dewaele-produced Zandoli EP, which featured Paténipat” and “High Lights,” tracks that received airplay on UK Radio and were playlisted by BBC Radio 6. 

Adigéry and Pupul’s official full-length debut as a duo, Topical Dancer is slated for a March 4, 2022 release through Soulwax‘s own label DEEWEE. Co-written and co-produced by Soulwax and the acclaimed duo, Topical Dancer is deeply rooted in two things: their perspectives as Belgians with immigrant backgrounds with Adigéry proudly claiming Guadeloupean and French-Martinique ancestry and Pupul being of Chinese descent, and the conversations the duo have had touching upon cultural appropriation, misogyny, racism, social media vanity, post-colonialism. Their wildly unpredictable and subversive take on pop and electro pop sees the Belgian duo poking and prodding at the pop zeitgeist.

While being a snapshot of their thoughts and observations of pop culture in the early 2020s, the album also further cements their sound and approach; they manage to craft thoughtful songs that bang hard but are centered around their idiosyncratic and off-kilter take on familiar genres and styles. “We like to fuck things up a bit,” Pupul laughs. “We cringe when we feel like we’re making something that already exists, so we’re always looking for things to combine to make it sound not like a pop song, not like an R&B song, not a techno song. We’re always putting different worlds together. Charlotte and I get bored when things get too predictable.”  

And as result, Topical Dancer’s 13 songs are fueled by a restless desire to not be boxed in — and to escape narrow perceptions of who they are and what they can be. “One thing that always comes up,” Bolis Pupul says, “is that people perceive me as the producer, and Charlotte as just a singer. Or that being a Black artist means you should be making ‘urban’ music. Those kinds of boxes don’t feel good to us.” But they manage to do all of this with a satirical bent; for the duo it’s emancipation through humor. “I don’t want to feel this heaviness on me,” Charlotte Adigéry says. “These aren’t my crosses to bear. Topical Dancer is my way of freeing myself of these issues. And of having fun.”

So far, I’ve written about three of Topical Dancer‘s singles:

  • “Thank You,” a sardonic, club banger featuring skittering beats, buzzing synth arpeggios and Adigéry’s deadpan delivery destroying mansplainers and unwanted, unsolicited and straight up dumb opinions and advice from outsiders. 
  • “Blenda,” a club banger, centered around African-inspired polyrhythm, wobbling bass synths, skittering beats and Adigéry’s deadpan. Informed by Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race, “Blenda” focuses on colonialism and post colonialism through Adigéry’s experience as Black immigrant in an extremely white place. 
  • “HAHA,” a track built around a chopped up sample of Adigéry making herself laughed paired with twinkling synths, skittering beats and a relentless motorik groove that feels improvised and unfinished yet somehow simultaneously polished.

“Ceci n’est pas un cliché,” Topical Dancer‘s fourth and latest single is centered around a slick, dance floor friendly production featuring a strutting bass line, finger snaps, skittering beats and glistening synth arpeggios paired with Adigéry’s coolly delivering a collection of clichéd pop lyrics in a series of non-sequiturs that’s surrealistic yet displays its own weird logic that sort of makes sense.

Directed by Bob Jeusette, the recently released video is also series of music video cliches, pulled out of context and made utterly ridiculous.

The song’s title is a winking nods to one of the most copied sentence sin art history, originally by Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte. “This song is an accumulation of all the cliché lyrics so often used in pop music. It came about when we were touring and heard a song on the radio opening with ‘I was walking down the street’ which made us strongly cringe,” the duo’s Charlotte Adigéry says. “But the thing is, cringing is a shared passion of Bolis and I. So we passionately made a song out of it called ‘Ceci n’est pas un cliché’. Even more passionately we performed ourselves into a video about all the clichés we see in the magic world of musical genres. The musician in all its glory, capturing momentum and delivering a top notch performance, gazing into the light that’s called inspiration. And so for once and for all, please leave Magritte alone…!”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Kinlaw Shares Mind-bending Visual for “The Mechanic”

New York-based composer, choreographer, multi-disciplinary artist, multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Sarah Kinlaw may be best known for their multimedia-based productions and collaborations with the likes of Devonte Hynes (a.k.a Blood Orange), Caroline Polacheck, SOPHIE, Dan Deacon and others that feature as many as 200 performers. She was aslo the co-founder of acclaimed JOVM mainstay act Softspot. 

Kinlaw stepped out into the limelight as a solo artist with her solo recording project Kinlaw. Last year, saw the release of the New York-based artist’s full-length debut, The Tipping Scale, which found Kinlaw showcasing their work in a new light.

Initially writing material with a goal of finding entry points that felt honest and authentic to their work, Kinlaw frequently saw their music directly relating to motion: “I would start with a gesture and let it build into something until a memory attached itself to it,” the New York-based artist explained in press notes. “The memory would become a story and the story would reveal itself as something important that needed to be expressed in this album.” 

Lyrically, the album’s material bridges the universal with the deeply personal as Kinlaw explores loss, empathy, regret, confusion, strength, identity, hope, power, and change among other things. Sonically, the album’s songs are centered around slick electronic production and a refined compositional sensibility with ornate flourishes paired with the New York based artist’s expressive and gorgeous vocals.

In the lead-up to The Tipping Point‘s release, I managed to write about three of the album’s singles:

  • “Blindspot,” a slow-burning and dramatic track featuring Kinalw’s yearning and ethereal crooning paired with shimmering synth arpeggios and stuttering beats.
  • “Permissions” a track inspired by physical movement that evokes a rapidly vacillating array of emotional states including confusion, heartache, self-flagellation and despair as its narrator seemingly is in the middle of a difficult conversation with themselves. 
  • “Haircut,” a deeply intimate monologue of a song that reveals its narrator’s inner world with an uncomfortable and unvarnished honesty that was centered around reverb-drenched, ethereal production featuring glistening synth apreggios and bells.

Kinlaw begins 2022 with the release of a remix EP titled TTS Extended — and The Tipping Point‘s fourth single, album opening track, the Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel-like “The Mechanic,” a single, which features an expansive, cinematic production and arrangement of glistening and twinkling synth arpeggios, skittering castanet-like percussion, angular guitar and bass paired with a soaring hook and Kinlaw’s achingly expressive vocals. The song’s narrator discusses their feelings about a relationship that’s rooted in a weird and uneven power dynamic; but the song also touches upon regret, self-doubt and confusion simultaneously.

Created by with New York-based artist and creator Dance Lawyer over the course of several months, the recently released video for “The Mechanic” sees Kinlaw attempting to bridge the gap between video recording and live performance, while pushing the idea of movement being deeply musical — and sound is an intricate dance.

Kinlaw’s interest in psychoacoustics and cinematic sound design led her to recruit sound designer Colin Alexander, who weaves in sound effects with Kinlaw’s choreography, giving the video’s dance sequence and added musical quality.

“The remixes are playful. It doesn’t take itself too seriously but is still exploratory,” Kinlaw says. “Video brought new life into these recordings initially, so I worked with Colin Alexander to weave SFX with the choreography, turning the dance into this added musical element within the track.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Howless Shares a “120 Minutes” MTV-like Visual for Brooding “Rain and Ice”

Led by co-lead vocalists Dominique Sanchez and Mauricio Tinejro, the rising Mexico City, Mexico-based noise pop/shoegaze quartet Howless will be releasing their highly-anticipated full-length debut, To Repel Ghosts on February 18, 2022 through Static Blooms Records.

Reportedly, To Repel Ghosts will see the Mexican shoegaze outfit grappling with big themes, while hinting at nervous foreboding and striking different levels of consciousness throughout the album’s eight crafted and dynamic songs. Sonically, the album’s songs seamlessly transition into the next — and are performed with the self-assuredness and effortless aplomb of a group of old pros.

Late last year, I wrote about album single “Levels.” Lyrically inspired by William Garvey’s “Goodbye Horses,” “Levels” saw the members of Howless pairing old-fashioned pop craftmanship and textured soundscapes with an uncanny ability to write a razor sharp hook.

“Rain and Ice,” To Repel Ghosts‘ brooding, new single is a slick synthesis of Garlands era Cocteau Twins-like atmospherics and A Storm in Heaven-like, painterly textures with the song featuring a glistening synth intro, layers of chiming, reverb-drenched guitars and forceful chug and thunderous drumming paired with Sanchez’s and Tinejro’s languid and beguiling harmonies. Perhaps one of the Mexican outfit’s heaviest and darkest songs — both sonically and thematically — of their growing catalog, “Rain and Ice” further establishes the band’s ability to craft melodic and hook-driven material while evoking the sensation of a flop sweat inducing fever dream.

The recently released video for “Rain and Ice” was shot on a VHS camcorder — for that grainy, analog quality. And as a child of of the 80s and 90s, the video reminds me of 120 Minutes MTV alt rock, complete with the band members standing and/or moving in front of trippy projections.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Spaceface Shares an Infectious and Uplifting New Bop

Jake Ignalls, a former member of The Flaming Lips founded Spaceface back in 2012. The self-professed “retro-futurist dream rock” outfit is currently split between between Memphis and Los Angeles and features a collection of current and past members of The Flaming Lips and Pierced. And since their formation a decade ago, the members of Spaceface have developed a reputation for crafting incredibly catchy songs that feature elements of dream pop, funk, rock and post-disco.

Aneomoia, Spaceface’s sophomore album is slated for a Friday release through Montreal-based label Mothland. The album is the result of several months spent back in 2019 at Blackwatch Studios, where the band spent several months working with Jarod Evans writing material inspired by funk rock and the turn of the millennium psychedelia revival. Although the material can be initially perceived as a feat of efficient and minimalistic songwriting by Ignalls and a cast of friends and collaborators, centered around slick melodies, lush arrangements and effortlessly flowing rhythmic grooves, each spin reportedly will reveal a new layer while painting a positive but somewhat critical portrayal of modern life.

In the lead-up to Anemoia‘s release, Mothland and the members of the self-professed retro-futuristic dream rock outfit have previously released an incredible five singles off the album: “Happens All The Time,” “Earth In Awe,” and “Piña Collider,” which featured samples and choir vocals from actual CERN scientists and “ were all previously released to praise across the blogopshere.

And if you’ve been frequenting over the past few months, you may recall that I’ve personally written about the album’s two most recent singles:

  • “Long Time:” a woozy and funky contemplation of life choices and alternate realities centered around a strutting bass line, glistening synth arpeggios and infectious hooks paired with guest vocals from Penny Pitchlynn, best known for her work with BRONCHO and LABRYS.
  • “Rain Passing Through:” an Oracular Spectacular era MGMT meets  Nile Rodgers-like bop with guest vocals from  Mikaela Davis about the fleeting moments one may have with former or future lovers in passing turbulent times, and despite knowing that it probably shouldn’t, wouldn’t or can’t happen, that it was okay to feel good and safe, even if it was for a brief, lovely moment.

Anemoia‘s sixth and final single, “Millions & Memes” is a hook-driven earworm centered around a buzzing, phaser-drenched guitar riff, funky boom bap beats that sounds — to my ears, at least — like a slick and seamless synthesis of Currents era Tame Impala, 70s glam rock and funk. Much its predecessors, “Millions & Memes” is rooted in deeply detailed psychological observation and overwhelmingly positive messaging.

“It’s about a character who is sort of at the end of their rope, not knowing what to do or where to go, but just knowing they could really make something of themselves if they could just make a decision,” Jake Ingalls explains. But the song’s chorus is a simple reminder that the world is our oyster — even if we don’t immediately see it.

Directed and animated by Curtis Peel, the quirky and recently released video for “Millions & Memes” is a collage of submissions from Spaceface fans, visuals from album promo shots, thematic elements and memes in a trippy, mind-bending fashion. “I loved the duality in the spectrum, with riches, high society, and excess on one end, and humor, conversational, and shit-posting on the other,” the video’s director Curtis Peel explains. “After seeing some of the album-era artwork, I immediately saw in my mind the aesthetic of 70’s fortune and fame, and the memes were obviously a very deep well to draw from, as well.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Babeheaven and Navy Blue Share Lush and Yearning “Make Me Wanna”

Rising London-based quintet Babeheaven — led by Nancy Anderson (vocals) and Jamie Travis (instrumentation and co-production along with Simon Byrt) can trace their origins back to when Anderson and Travis struck up a friendship while working in shops located on the same street. With their critically applauded, full-length debut Home For Now, the British pop outfit established a sound and approach guided more by mood than message, while thematically reflecting the disengagement that comes from years of uncertainty, fits and stops and crushing disappointment.

Babeheaven’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Sink Into Me is slated for a March 18, 2022 release through Believe. And while the album continues the British pop outfit’s long-held reputation for crating music that is imbued with feelings of loneliness and disconnection, the album’s material is rooted in a central tension: there’s disillusionment sure; but there’s also a yearning for growth and evolution.

Informed by the death of two close family friends of Anderson’s within a year of each other, the album explores love and loss — and the very human desire for comfort and connection. Unlike its predecessor, the members of Babeheave were able to write songs together in the studio, along with Luca Mantero, Milo McGuire and Ned Smith. “It was more organic,” Babeheaven’s Jamie Travis says of Sink Into Me‘s songwriting process, which happened over the course of six months over the course of 2020. “It sounds ridiculous but we hadn’t been able to do that before.”

Reportedly Sink Into Me sees the members of Babehaven making a huge step forward: Sonically, the band sees the band distilling their influences and coming into their own distinct style. “It was a conscious decision to move away from being a trip-hop bedroom-pop band,” says the band’s Travis. “We did that on the last album; now it was time to try something different.” The trip-hop references are still there — but they no longer dominate; rather, the album reportedly finds the band crafting a decidedly widescreen sound that seamlessly meshes elements of pop, R&B, indie rock and electronica.

The end result is an album that sees the London-based act encapsulating the past few years while attempting to make something universal. “We’re not trying to write hits,” says Jamie. “We’re trying to write good songs that people can connect with.”

Sink Into Me‘s third and latest single, the lush “Make Me Wanna” is centered around a glistening production featuring buzzing and swelling synths, boom bap-like drums, shimmering guitars paired with Anderson’s gorgeous vocals expressing an aching and maddening yearning for connection. The song also features a thoughtful and longing response back to Anderson’s narrator from Brooklyn-based emcee Navy Blue. Subtly nodding at the classic soul duets and the hip-hop soul duets of the 90s, “Make Me Wanna” at its core is a sweet, and somewhat old-fashioned love song about missing that someone who may be an ocean away.

 “​​The verses and chorus from this song were taken from two really old demos,” Nancy Anderson explains in press notes. “Listening to it now I was obviously really heartbroken but I find it hard to be direct with my lyrics. The synth swells in this song really pull at my heartstrings and when we were writing the track for this it reminded me of those lyrics and how I felt at that time. I reached out to Navy to see if he wanted to be part of the album and he wrote a verse for this song it really feels like a direct and concise version of what I was trying to say in that moment.”

Directed by Noel Paul, the recently released video for “Make Me Wanna” features Babeheaven’s Anderson taking a seaside walk to presumably clear her head. As she’s walking a former lover/fling/love-interest nicknamed “do not answer” on her phone tries to reach her on her phone — first by Facetime, which she ignores. “do not answer,” turns out to be Navy Blue, who texts her in a rapid flurry the lines of his verses, confessing his thoughts. She eventually answers, listens to Navy Blue for a seconds and with a bitter smile, tosses her phone into the sea.

I’m not sure if I’d do that. But I think we all can get the sentiment — heartache, frustration, longing and exhaustion rolled into one confusing yet familiar ball.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Mama’s Gun Shares a Surreal and Comic “Thriller”-Inspired Visual for “Party For One”

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.

Now, if you’ve been following this site over the past few weeks, you might recall that the rising London-based soul outfit began the year with the “Party For One”/”Looking for Moses” double A-side single. Released earlier this month, the double A single serves as a teaser for the band’s highly-anticipated fifth album Cure The Jones.

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 through the band’s Candelion Records with Secretly Group and Colemine Records 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.

Double A-side single and album single “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.” 

Directed and edited by Chip Creative, the recently released video for “Party For One” is a surreal and comic romp featuring the band and their family and friends on a night out that turns into a low-budget Thriller, which includes werewolves and a dance routine.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Staten Island’s Elaine Kristal Teams up with Produkt and Herve Alexandre on an Earnest and Soulful New Bop

Elaine Kristal is an emerging Staten Island-born and-based singer/songwriter, who can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood: a young music-loving Elaine Kristal took part in school plays at her elementary school — and she sung in the hallways of her school, wearing a bandana and hoop earrings, inspired by Alicia Keys.

She started performing her own music with one of her best friends, Mikey Fuego at a local open mic. The young, Staten Island-born and-based singer/songwriter quickly began to realize that people were coming to see her perform — and were learning the lyrics to her songs. When the entire place started singing along, Kristal realized she needed to seriously pursue music. “It’s a high I will never forget, and one I want to have for the rest of my life,” she says.

Last year, R&B singer Tank launched the “Can We Talk Challenge” on Tik Tok. The challenge required participants to sing the hook to Tevin Campbell‘s 1993 hit single. Kristal, refused to sit on the sidelines, knowing she could contribute to the challenge while making one of her favorite vocalists proud. Her contribution quickly amassed over 40,000 views with the video being favorited over 400 times.

Naturally, the Staten Island-born and-based vocalist was ecstatic by the positive response she received. Then a Tik Tok user questioned the young, emerging artist’s talent and ability in the comments. She responded swiftly, singing the hook to “Can We Talk” a cappella while pounding her fist on a stage platform. “When I saw the comment my first reaction was “Oh word”, he really went there?” explained Elaine. “I take this VERY serious and my pride couldn’t let it go so I just walked over to this stage located in the studio complex I record in and just started pounding my fist while I sang a cappella.” Kristal continues, “Here I am with limited hours in a day trying to divide my time between recording new music, promoting recently released tracks, and preparing for the release of my new new single ‘Nasty In The Morning’ and now I’m replying to thousands of comments on my page.”

In the past year, the #CanWeTalkChallenge has become a viral sensation with thousands of entries across the world and over 20 million views of the hashtag. The Staten Island-based artist has 250,000 of those views, with over 3,000 comments, 48,000 likes — and has seen a 500% growth in followers on the platform. In fact, she’s in the Top 10 of the challenge, alongside X Factor USA season one winner Melanie Amaro and rapper Joyner Lucas while surpassing established artists like Lil Mama, Anthony Hamilton, 112‘s Q and Bobby Valentino. “2021 was hard for so many people including myself, but there were also many developments that made it tough to see last year end” Kristal says.

Elaine Kristal hopes to build upon the momentum of the #CanWeTalkChallenge. Her latest single “Love Over Living” is a slickly produced, radio and club friendly bop that features a soulful saxophone by Herve Alexandre, looping acoustic guitar and skittering, tweeter and woofer rocking trap beats. The Staten Island-based artist’s easy-going vocals effortlessly glide over a production that nods at Mary J. Blige and Alicia Keys-like hip-hop soul, contemporary pop and trap. Interestingly, underneath the contemporary production is a sweet, old-school love song in which the narrator expresses the age old “us against the world, baby” sentiment. Local emcee and labelmate Produkt contributes a couple of lovestruck verses describes how he feels about his “round-the-way girl,” who keeps it real — and is ride or die. It’s honestly, the sort of earnest love song that you don’t hear that you don’t hear too often these days.

As the emerging artist explains the song offers a simple yet profound message of how the power of love can get us through the darkest moments of our lives.

The recently released video for “Love Over Living” portrays the young Staten Island artist as a down-to-earth, round the way girl. We follow the two artists as they drive around town in a gorgeous, turquoise speedster — notably on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the FDR Drive and the West Side Highway. We also see them stop by a neighborhood bodega.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jenny Stevens and The Empty Mirrors Share a Trippy and Nostalgia-Inducing Visual for “No, I Wouldn’t Call It Love”

Jenny Stevens, a.k.a. The Ukelele Girl is a Welsh-born, Finnish-based singer/songwriter and musician, and the creative mastermind behind Jenny Stevens and The Empty Mirrors, a songwriting project that finds the Welsh-born, Finnish-based artist pairing dark alt-pop with quirky visuals.

Last year, Stevens released the The Distance Between Us EP, an effort that featured “The River Rolls On,” which paired Stevens’ yearning vocals with a slow-burning and atmospheric arrangement that seemed indebted to Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Cocteau Twins.

The Welsh-born, Finnish-based artist begins 2022 with the more uptempo “No, I Wouldn’t Call It Love.” Centered around glistening synths and shimmering, reverb-drenched guitars, “No, I Wouldn’t Call It Love” features a decidedly 4AD Records-like sound paired with Stevens’ achingly yearning vocals singing lyrics about a perfect moment through the lens of nostalgia and longing.

The recently released video emphasizes the longing and nostalgia at the core of the song: The video focuses on the passing of time, the changing of the seasons, and the song narrator’s loneliness and regret.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Thaïs Shares a Trippy and Cinematic Visual for “Arrête de danser”

Thaïs is an emerging Montreal-based singer/songwriter, who specializes in an atmospheric and delicate pop centered around the French Canadian singer/songwriter’s ethereal vocals. Thematically her work focuses on melancholy, loneliness and dysfunctional and confusing love.

Last year, the French Canadian artist released the Paradis Artificiels EP, which featured “Boreal,” a track inspired by a trip she took to Iceland that evoked the awe-inspiring sense of being in a gorgeous, natural beauty and taking it all in deeply — and “Sushi Solitude,” an atmospheric and delicate bit of synth pop that brought Washed Out to mind.

Since the release of Paradis Artificiels, the emerging Montreal-based artist signed to Bravo Musique, who released Thaïs’ latest single, “Arrête de danser.” Continuing a run of slickly produced pop centered around glistening and atmospheric synth arpeggios and traplike beats, “Arrête de danser” sees the French Canadian artist seamlessly meshing electro pop and trap; in fact, the song alternating between a syncopated trap-inspired flow for the verses and her ethereal cooing for the song’s hook.

While being club friendly, the song is actually a bitter tell-off to an unhealthy and dysfunctional lover that the song’s narrator knows is wrong for her and yet, she can’t quite get over. Despite her relative youth, the rising Montreal-based artist captures the push-and-pull of fucked up relationships with fucked up people.

Directed by Bobby Leon, the recently released, cinematically shot video for “Arrête de danser” follows an incredibly fashionable Thaïs as she goes to a local mall complex, where she’s haunted by memories of this lover at almost every turn, including a movie theater, that shows a movie that’s suspiciously close to her own life.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Maggie Gently Shares Anthemic and Earnest “Worried”

Maggie Gently is a San Francisco-based singer/songwriter and queer woman, whose identity is very important to her and to the community she creates and participates in. And with the release of her debut EP, 2020’s Good Cry and singles like “Where My Time Went” and “Bitter Pills,” Gently’s work explored heartbreak, attempts at healing, learning things the hard way, establishing boundaries and protecting your heart. Sonically, her work is generally inspired by Snail Mail, Lala Lala, Tancred and Clairo, as well as Meg Hayertz’s “Make It Mean It” tarot-focused. guided meditations, lesbian romance novels and the Enneagram of Personality. As a result, her work is often melody-driven and heartfelt.

The San Francisco-based artist’s full-length debut, the Eva Treadway-produced Peppermint is slated for a March 18, 2022 release through Refresh Records. Recorded at San Francisco’s El Studio the album features a backing band that includes Treadway (lead guitar), Gently’s brother Joey Grabmeier (drums) and Sinclair Riley (bass). Peppermint‘s nine songs focus on the personal yet deeply universal questions of commitment and love, the terrifying possibility of being vulnerable and known, and ultimately trusting something enough to let yourself get swept away in it.

Peppermint‘s latest single “Worried” is an anthemic bit of 90s alt rock-inspired pop featuring chugging guitars and thunderous drumming paired with earnest and lived-in songwriting, Gently’s plaintive vocals and an enormous, sing-along worthy hook. The song is written from the perspective of an uneasy and anxious person desperately trying to hold on to the things and people who she believes she can’t afford to lose.

Peppermint‘s latest single “Worried” is an anthemic bit of 90s alt rock-inspired pop featuring chugging guitars and thunderous drumming paired with earnest and lived-in songwriting, Gently’s plaintive vocals and an enormous, sing-along worthy hook. The song is written from the perspective of an uneasy and anxious person desperately trying to hold on to the things and people who she believes she can’t afford to lose; but ironically she may lose anyway.

The lyric video follows the rising San Francisco-based artist on what may arguably be the longest Uber ride ever taken.