Category: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Amyl and The Sniffers Release an Explosive New Ripper

Acclaimed Melbourne-based punk act and JOVM mainstays Amyl and The Sniffers — Amy Taylor (vocals), Gus Romer (bass), Bryce Wilson (drums) and Declan Martens (guitar) — formed back in 2016, and shortly after their formation, they wrote and self-recorded their debut EP Giddy Up. The following year, saw the release of the Big Attractions EP, which was packaged as a double 12 inch EP with Giddy Up released through Homeless Records in Australia and Damaged Goods in the UK.

The band exploded into the international scene with a set at The Great Escape Festival, a series of sold out London area shows and a Stateside tour opening for JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. They added to a busy year with a headlining tours across both the UK and US before signing to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s Flightless Records for distribution across Australia and New Zealand and Rough Trade for the rest of the world. The year was capped off with a Q Awards nomination for Best New Act and won the $30,000 Levis Prize.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the Aussie punk quartet took 2019’s SXSW by storm. And then the band promptly released their self-tiled, full-length debut to critical applause globally while further cementing a feral and anarchic take on ’77 era punk. Adding to a breakthrough year, Amyl and the Sniffers won an ARIA Award for Best Rock Album. 

Comfort To Me, the Aussie punk quartet’s highly-anticipated Don Luscombe-produced sophomore album is slated for a release this Friday through ATO Records.  Written during a long year of pandemic quarantining, in which the members of the band lived in the same house, the album’s material sonically draws from a heavier set of references and influences including AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, Mötorhead,  Wendy O. Williams, Warthog, Power Trip, Coloured Balls and Cosmic Psychos. Taylor’s lyrics and delivery were also inspired by her long live of hip-hop and garage rock.

All four of us spent most of 2020 enclosed by pandemic authority in a 3-bedroom rental in our home city of Melbourne, Australia. We’re like a family: we love each other and feel nothing at the same time,” Amyl and the Sniffers’ Amy Taylor says in a lengthy statement on the album. “We had just come off two years of touring, being stuck in a van together eight hours a day, and then we’re trapped together for months in this house with sick green walls. It sucked but it was also nice. We spent heaps of time in the backyard listening to music, thrashing around in shorts, eating hot chips. The boys had a hard time being away from the pub and their mates, but it meant we had a lot of time to work on this record. Most of the songs were really intuitive. Main thing, we just wanted it to be us. In the small windows we had in between lockdowns, we went to our rehearsal space, which is a storage locker down the road at National Storage Northcote. We punched all the songs into shape at Nasho and for the first time ever we wrote more songs than we needed. We had the luxury of cutting out the songs that were shit and focusing on the ones we loved. 

We were all better musicians, as well, because that’s what happens when you go on tour for two years, you get really good at playing. We were a better band and we had heaps of songs, so we were just different. The nihilistic, live in the moment, positivity and panel beater rock-meets-shed show punk was still there, but it was better. The whole thing was less spontaneous and more darkly considered. The lyrics I wrote for the album are better too, I think. The amount of time and thought I put into the lyrics for this album is completely different from the EPs, and even the first record. Half of the lyrics were written during the Australian Bushfire season, when we were already wearing masks to protect ourselves from the smoke in the air. And then when the pandemic hit, our options were the same as everyone: go find a day job and work in intense conditions or sit at home and drown in introspection. I fell into the latter category. I had all this energy inside of me and nowhere to put it, because I couldn’t perform, and it had a hectic effect on my brain. 

My brain evolved and warped and my way of thinking about the world completely changed. Having to deal with a lot of authority during 2020 and realising my lack of power made me feel both more self destructive and more self disciplined, more nihilistic and more depressed and more resentful, which ultimately fuelled me with a kind of relentless motivation. I became a temporary monster. I partied more, but I also exercised heaps, read books and ate veggies. I was like an egg going into boiling water when this started, gooey and weak but with a hard surface. I came out even harder. I’m still soft on the inside, but in a different way. All of this time, I was working on the lyrics. I pushed myself heaps and heaps, because there were things that I needed to say. The lyrics draw a lot from rap phrasing, because that’s what I’m into. I just wanted to be a weird bitch and celebrate how weird life and humans are. 

“The whole thing is a fight between by my desire to evolve and the fact that somehow I always end up sounding like a dumb cunt. So anyway, that’s where this album comes from. People will use other bands as a sonic reference to make it more digestible and journalists will make it seem more pretentious and considered than it really is, but in the end this album is just us — raw self expression, defiant energy, unapologetic vulnerability. It was written by four self-taught musicians who are all just trying to get by and have a good time. 

“If you have to explain what this record is like, I reckon it’s like watching an episode of The Nanny but the setting is an Australian car show and the Nanny cares about social issues and she’s read a couple of books, and Mr Sheffield is drinking beer in the sun. It’s a Mitsubishi Lancer going slightly over the speed limit in a school zone. It’s realising how good it is to wear track pants in bed. It’s having someone who wants to cook you dinner when you’re really shattered. It’s me shadow-boxing on stage, covered in sweat, instead of sitting quietly in the corner.”

In the lead up to the album’s release, I’ve written about two of the album’s previously released singles:

“Guided by Angels,” a riotous, mosh pit friendly ripper centered around Taylor’s frenetic energy and punchily delivered vocals, buzzing power chords and a pub friendly, shout along with a raised beer in your hand hook. But underneath all of that, “Guided by Angels” is fueled by a defiant and unapologetic vulnerability and a rare, unshakeable faith in possibility and overall goodness; that there actually are good angels right over your shoulder to guide you and sustain you when you need them the most. 
“Security,” a Highway to Hell-era AC/DC-like anthem full of swaggering braggadocio, boozy power chords, thunderous drumming, shout along worthy hooks and Taylor’s feral delivery. Much like its immediate predecessor, the song is fueled by its narrator boldly and unapologetically declaring that they need and are looking for love — right now! ”

“Hertz” Comfort to Me’s third and latest single is a scorching AC/DC-inspired ripper fueled by the desperately frenetic energy of the bored, lonely and trapped within their heads desiring something different than the four walls of their apartment that they’ve grown sick of. It captures a feeling that many of us have struggled with during the pandemic with an urgency and vulnerability that’s devastating.

Continuing their ongoing collaboration with director John Angus Stewart, the recently released video places the frenetic nuclear bomb that’s Amy Taylor in a number of different set ups. At points, you can literally see Taylor being inspired by AC/DC’s Bon Scott and Angus Young and hip hop while capturing the urgent desire to just enjoy being here now with good people — to just go for a drive somewhere.

Along with the new single and video, the band announced that on October 5, 2021 they’ll premiere a filmed performance of Comfort to Me’s material played in full, in one take, on a slab of concrete in a suburban wasteland in the Melbourne area. You can purchase tickets for the livestream here: https://www.amylandthesniffers.com

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM mainstays Thyla Releases an Anthemic New Bop

Brighton, UK-based indie rock band and JOVM mainstays Thyla can trace its origins to when its founding members — Millie Duthie (vocals), Danny Southwell (drums) and Dan Hole (bass) — met while attending college.

While becoming JOVM mainstays, the Brighton-based indie act have helped cement their hometown’s reputation for a music scene with some of England’s hottest emerging acts.The band has played profile rising shows with Dream Wife, Luxury Death, Matt Maltese, Yonaka, Husky Loops, Lazy Day, Sunflower Bean, INHEAVEN and Fickle Friends. And they ere spotlighted alongside Pale Waves, Nilüfer Yanya, and Sorry in NME‘s 100 Essential Acts for 2018.

Thyla’s debut EP, 2019’s What’s On Your Mind was released to critical applause from Pitchfork, Stereogum, NME, The Line of Best Fit and Dork — and the material from the EP received airplay from BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 6, Radio X and KCRW. Adding to a breakthrough year, the Brighton JOVM mainstays opened for Rolling Blackouts Costal Fever, played attention-grabbing sets at The Great Escape, Live At Leeds and Hit The North. They capped the year off with their first national tour, which also included a headlining stop at London’s Electrowerk.

Last year, Thyla released their sophomore EP Everything at Once. The EP featured he anthemic and ambitious “Two Sense,” and the coming-of-age story “Lenox Hill,” which was arguably the most personal song the band’s Millie Duthie had written to date. After the release of Everything at Once, the rising British act spent the bulk of last year working on their highly-anticipated full-length debut.

Slated for a January 28, 2022 release through Easy Life Records, Thyla’s self-titled full-length debut will feature “Breathe,” an atmospheric yet dance floor friendly banger featuring glistening synth arpeggios, sinuous bass lines, squiggling guitar blasts, stuttering four-on-the-floor, Duthie’s plaintive vocals and an enormous, crowd-pleasing hook. The end result was a song that — to my ears, at least — reminded me of When The Night-era St. Lucia, while being completely of our weird and uncertain moment.

“Gum” the self-titled album’s second and latest single continues a run of rousingly anthemic material but while being a subtle return to form: while glistening synth arpeggios and driving bass lines are still prominent, the song features fuzzy power chords and thunderous drumming and Duthie’s plaintive vocals. The song manages to capture a self-assured young band — young compared to yours truly — with an unerring knack for an enormous, shout-along-with-your-friends worthy hook paired earnest, lived-in songwriting that seems to say to the listener “Don’t worry, we’ve been there, too.”

tach identity and value to ourselves and the sneaking and uneasy feeling that the more we learn, the less we know. And while you may learn more about yourself, everything else gets increasingly complicated and difficult. “Gum is about shrugging the weight of the world off your shoulders – being stuck, knowing it, and choosing not to care,” Thyla’s Millie Duthie explains. “The world is weird; life is confusing. You’re not always going to get what you want, but let’s stop talking about it.

Directed by John Daly, the recently released video for “Gum” features some surreal imagery — notably of the trio seemingly playing an unending game of Tug of War and not getting anywhere, despite being in the English woods.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: German Dream Pop Act Seasurfer Release a Gauzy Cocteau Twins-like Mix of “Drifting”

Hamburg-based songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Dirk Knight is one of that city’s grizzled scene vets, who can trace his career back to the 90s: his previous band Dark Orange was a pioneering act in the Heavenly Voices scene — and as a result, he collaborated with Cocteau Twins‘ Robin Guthrie.

amburg-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist started his current project  Seasurfer back in 2013, and interestingly enough, the project finds Knight eschewing the traditional rock band set up and collaborating with a rotating cat of vocalists and musicians. His first two critically applauded Seasurfer albums saw Knight work with members of acts like Trespassers William, Whimsical, Jaguwar and Last Leaf Down. 

Seasurfer’s third album Zombies was released last year through Reptile Music. The album saw Knight simultaneously refining and expanding upon the sound that has won him and his collaborators attention internationally. While still retaining shoegazer textures, there’s a much larger focus on cold wave and dark wave influences with the material employing an increasing use of synths, motorik grooves and beats to create what Knight has dubbed “electrogaze for dancers and dreamers alike.”

ritten and recorded during pandemic-related restrictions and lockdowns, Zombies thematically paints a picture of a society on the brink of annihilation. As a result of the pandemic, Zombies is the first album that features Knight playing and recording all of the material’s instrumentation and even contributing some vocals. The first part of the album features vocals from singer/songwriter Apolonia.

As the story goes, as the pair were finishing the album, they had the distinct impression of living in a world that was completely losing its mind: Naturally, there is constant fear and uncertainty inspired by the pandemic; but there’s also the increasing numbers of self-serving political leaders hellbent on power, greed, corruption and lust. And let’s not forget the looming global climate catastrophe that will likely occur within our lifetimes. It shouldn’t be surprising that the pair frequently felt as though they were like zombies struggling through a lost and dead world.

Shortly after the vinyl and CD releases of Zombies, the Hamburg-based act reworked album single “Drifting.” “Drifting” is a fan favorite on the album and as a result, Knight and Apolonia came up with an alternate mix of the song. Interestingly, the alternate mix is centered around gauzier textures while retaining the glistening synths and brooding air of the original. In some way, the alternate mix manages to gently push the song towards a Cocteau Twins-like sound.

For me ‘Drifting’ is the song with the coolest bass of the whole album Zombies,” Seasurfer’s Dirk Knight explains. ” For the first time I recorded all the basses by myself and learned to love playing this instrument. Basses are extremely important to us and determine the harmonies and melodies, similar to how Simon Gallup (The Cure), Peter Hook (Joy Division, New Order) and Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins) are doing it. For the single and the extended mix we let the drums run straight through to make the song even more mesmerizing.”

The recently released video is a trippy mix of nostalgia-inducing Super 8 shot footage of a young child going on a cruise on the open sea, projected over Apolonia’s face, as she sings the song’s lyrics.

“Drifting (Single Mix)” appears on Seasurfer’s recently released Drifting EP, which features a 12 minute, extended single mix, the previously unreleased track “Ghost Children” and remixes of “Drifting” by Spanish dreamwave duo STEREOSKOP, Russian shoegazers Life on Venus and French electronic artist GIIRLS.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Meatbodies’ New Scorching Ripper “Cancer”

Over the course of the past decade, Los Angeles-born and-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Chad Ubovich has developed and honed a reputation as a key mainstay of one of the country’s most fertile and important music scenes: Ubovich had a lengthy stint playing guitar in Mikal Cronin’s backing band and he’s currently contributing bass with Ty Segall and with Charlie Moothart and as a member of Fuzz. Additionally, the founding member and frontman of his own band, the experimental noise rock/freak rock outfit Meatbodies.

Meatbodies’ latest effort 333 was officially released today through In The Red Records. The album, which features corrosive bangers, raw acoustic rave-ups and primitive electronics, charts Ubovich’s personal journey from drug-induced darkness to clear-eyed sobriety — while simultaneously reflecting on how the world he re-entered was still pretty messed up — if not more so. “I’d been touring for eight years straight with all these bands, and just couldn’t do it anymore,” Ubovich recalls. “There was also a feeling in the air that everything was changing, politically. Things just didn’t feel right, and I went down a dark path.” Ubovich adds, “These lyrics are dark, but I think these are things that a lot of people are feeling and going through. Here in America, we’re watching the fall of U.S. capitalism, and 333 is a cartoonish representation of that decline.” 

Fortunately Ubovich was able to pull himself back from the brink and upon getting sober, began writing and recording material at a furious and impassioned pace. By late 2019, the band — Ubovich and Dylan Fujoka (drums) — had a new album in the can, ready to be mixed. Much like countless other artists, the pandemic forced the band to put their record on hold.

With some newfound downtime, Ubovich discovered a cache of demos that he and Fujoka recorded in a bedroom during the summer of 2018. As it turns out, Ubovcih really liked what he heard. Unlike their established full-band attack, the demos were deliriously disordered. Ironically, because 333’s material found the band working within a much tighter lo-fi aesthetic, the restriction allowed them to open space for more free-ranging experimentation. While speaking of the disillusionment of a lost generation, the album’s material is sparked by the innovation that limited resources and moxie can inspire.

333’s latest single “Cancer” is an expansive mosh pit ripper centered around scorching power chords driven riffage, thunderous drumming and mantra-like lyrics. While on one hand, the song superficially seems nihilistic, the song is fueled by a celebration — albeit of very small things.

The Josh Erkman-directed video for “Cancer” is a fittingly trippy visual split between the members of the band in the studio, shot in a hallucinogenic haze and two costumed men riffing out in front of a camp fire in the middle of nowhere.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Mort Rose Releases a Trippy DIY Visual for Twangy “Je dois savoir”

Since their formation back in 2016, the Montreal-based psych rock act Mort Rose has established a sound that’s deeply indebted to the sounds of the late 60s — but with a personal yet very modern touch. Goodbye Cowboys, the Montreal psych rockers psych rock sophomore album is slated for a September 10, 2021 release, and the album reportedly sees the act further embracing all things psychedelia.

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

“Money,” a mid-tempo, trippy song featuring shimmering sitar, guitar, dreamily sung verses, multi-part harmonized choruses and rousingly anthemic hooks before a “Baba O’Riley” meets bluegrass coda. But underneath the tune-out and lift-off vibes, the song is a satirical take on money and cryptocurrency that says “invest all of your money into some crypto and forget the world’s problems. Get rich at all costs, y’all!” 
“On part au soleil,” a song that continues a run of 60s inspired psych rock, featuring dreamily sung verses and choruses, fuzzy power chord-driven riffage and soaring soloing that’s meant to get the listener to tune out and lift off into the stratosphere.

Goodbye Cowboys third and latest single “Je dois savoir is a twangy, country rock take on psych rock that may remind some listeners of a wild mix of The Beach Boys, Exile on Main Street era Rolling Stones, The Byrds and even inner Journey Out era Psychic Ills but with a mischievous, shit-stirring air, an infectious hook and some scorching soloing.

e recently released video for follows the band on a promotional photo shoot in which the members of the band dress up as a hippie cowboys in the countryside. We also see intimate footage of the band in the studio working on the album. There’s also somme fittingly appropriate kaleidoscopic imagery and playful superimpositions that features the individual members of the band riding an exotic animal.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Aussie JOVM Mainstays POND release a DEVO-like Ripper

Perth-based act and JOVM mainstays POND — currently, creative mastermind, songwriter and producer Jay Watson (vocals, guitar, keys, drums, synths and bass), who’s also a touring member of fellow Aussie JOVM mainstays Tame Impala; Nicholas Allbook (lead vocals, guitar, keys, bass, flute, slide guitar and drums); Joe Ryan (vocals, guitar, bass, 12 string guitar, slide guitar); Jamie Terry (keys, bass, synths, organs, guitar); and Jamie Ireland (drums, keys) — have released a handful of critically applauded albums that have seen the band’s sound gradually morph into increasingly synth-driven psych pop.

2019’s Tasmania is POND’s most commercially successful and critically applauded album to date, with the album debuting at #15 on the ARIA album charts and #2 on the AIR Independent charts. Conceived as a sort of sister effort to its predecessor, 2017’s The Weather, Tasmania thematically is a dejected and heartbroken meditation on our current sociopolitical moment: planetary discord, water and its dearth in much of the world, machismo, shame, blame, responsibility, love, and the impact of colonial empires. While accurately capturing the restless, anxious dread that most of us have been feeling, the album doesn’t completely wallow in self-pity and fear. Rather, it encourages the listener to celebrate and enjoy the small things of life while we still can.

The Perth-based JOVM mainstays ninth album, the aptly titled 9 is slated for an October 1, 2021 release through Spinning Top Music. Produced by the band’s Watson and Ireland, 9 reportedly sees the band pushing the sound they’ve established and honed over the past few albums even further while attempting to recapture an anarchic sense of uncertainty. “We sort of gave ourselves permission to make something stuffed this time,” the band’s Nicholas Albrook says in press notes. “We’d settled into a pretty tight routine with the last few albums and wanted to shake a boat with this so we started off with filling a few tape reels with some absolutely heinous improvised sonic babble which, after much sifting, became the first few songs of the album. We also wanted to up the tempo. The last few albums have a neat little mantra or repetitive theme. If I was forced to find something like that in 9, I guess it would be ‘biography’ or ‘observation’ – a lot of the lyrics seem to focus on single people’s lives, or the lives of small moments or small things when you zoom real close up and they reveal something deeper. Stuff like my cheap Chinese slippers, or a soiled teddy bear, or Agnes Martin (not to put them in the same category, although maybe Agnes would’ve appreciated it). In the Rorschach test of re-reading lyrics, one thing that sticks out is a fixation on leaving behind a time of golden optimism and uncynical abandon. We can’t look at ourselves the same anymore, and the world we’ve built provides a scary lense [sic] for viewing our past.”

Earlier this year, I wrote about album single “Toast, a slow-burning and atmospheric song featuring shimmering synth arpeggios, squiggling blasts of guitar, a gorgeous string arrangement, some mellotron and a soaring hook paired with Allbrook’s plaintive vocals. The end result is a song that seems equally indebted to Avalon era Roxy Music and Quiet Storm R&B. But lyrically, the song addresses the massive bush fires that devastated much of Australia and the inequality gap in Allbrook’s Western Australian hometown. 

“Human Touch” is an uptempo banger centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, buzzing bass synths, scorching feedback and distortion, a relentless motorik groove, blown out beats and a rousingly anthemic hook. The end result is DEVO-like thrasher. POND’s Nicholas Allbrook describes the inspiration for the song, saying “one time a woman was smashing up a car outside my house, begging me to help her steal it. It was a lovely day. She was wired but sweet in a way. Her dog, Josie, was sitting in the passenger seat being very cute and fluffy. We talked for a good few hours in the sunny cul-de-sac and neither of us ended up committing grand theft auto. The music started with a grimey Casio loop Jay made, that we built the song around.” 

Directed by Duncan Wright, the recently released video for “Human Touch” stars the band’s Nicholas Allbrook in a 70s styled suit, high heel boots and headphones dancing in the middle of empty, morning streets. An old Panasonic cathode ray TV is almost nearby, playing footage of Allbrook putting a tape into a tape player and pushing play, rocking out in a studio and stock footage of a disastrous fire. “My original idea was to be dancing in the central business district of Perth, being thoroughly ignored by suits on their lunch break,” Allbrook explains. “Turns out me and Duncan Wright are both quivering Fremantle natives and terrified of the City. When Duncan saw a pretty sliver of morning sunlight in the West End we figured, stuff it, let’s do it there. Zero people is kind of the same thing as being ignored by lots of people, right? I need some human connection blah blah blah. It was super fun to make. We didn’t really have a strict plan and I overcame by anxiety about dancing in platform shoes to no music at 9am on a Tuesday morning like a kook”.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Legendary Johnny Marr Releases a Trippy Visual for Rousingly Anthemic “Spirit, Power And Soul”

Manchester-born and-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Johnny Marr first rose to fame as the guitarist and co-songwriter of The Smiths between 1982 and 1987. Since The Smiths split up in 1987, Marr has been extremely busy: he has played in number of different projects and has collaborated with a who’s who of acclaimed artists including the likes of The The, Electronic, Modest Mouse, The Cribs, The Pretenders, Talking Heads, The Avalanches, Billie Eilish and Hans Zimmer.

The Manchester-born and-based artist’s highly anticipated fourth album Fever Dreams Pts. 1-4 is a double album, with the first segment, Fever Dreams Pt. 1 being released through BMG on October 15, 2021. Reportedly fusing the language of soul music with his roots as a self-described “Mancunian glam rocker,” the four-song EP features lyrics that could be seen as simultaneously personal and universal — paired with an high energy electronic sound. The end result is an EP worth of material that reflects and is informed by Marr’s legendary and multifaceted past but while seeing him push his sound to a new direction.

Fever Dreams Pt. 1’s first single is the rousingly anthemic, “Spirit, Power And Soul.” Centered around heavily arpeggiated synths, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, shimmering guitars, Marr’s plaintive vocals and an enormous hook, “Spirit Power And Soul” manages to bring Movement and Power, Corruption and Lies era New Order to mind while subtly hinting at Marr’s past, beloved work.

“‘Spirit, Power And Soul’ is a kind of mission statement. I had an idea about an electro sound with gospel feeling, in my own words… an electro soul anthem,” Marr says of the new single.

The recently released video or “Spirit, Power And Soul” features the legendary Marr in series of trippy set ups, where he’s seen floating serenely through the cosmos and through repeating geometric shapes — sometimes playing his guitar, sometimes rocking out to the song or just with a Buddha-like zen calm.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toronto’s Hot Garbage Release a Trippy and Menacing Visual for Anthemic, New Ripper “Sometimes I Go Down”

Toronto-based psych outfit Hot Garbage — Alex Carlevaris (lead vocals, guitar), Juliana Carlevaris (bass, vocals), Dylan Gamble (keys, synths) and Mark Henin (drums) — will be releasing their Graham Walsh-produced full-length debut RIDE through beloved Montreal-based label Mothland on October 29, 2021.

Coming hot on the heels of some extensive North American touring including opening for Ty Segall, Meatbodies, L.A. Witch and JJUUJJUU, as well as stops at LEVITATION and Sled Island Festivals, the Graham Walsh-produced RIDE was recorded mostly live off the floor at Palace Sound and Basketball 4 Life Studios to to better capture the band’s raw energy, developed and honed from relentless touring. Sonically, the 33 minute album, which also features a guest spot from Kali Horse’s Sam Maloney on percussion, reportedly sees the Toronto psych rockers meshing core elements of 60s and 70s psych music, post punk and desert rock but while also speeding through motorik krautrock, nodding at surf rock and flirting with garage rock paired with otherworldly textures. Thematically and lyrically the album’s material tackles the afterlife, depression and freedom — but also rejoices in soft mantras and uplifting verses. The end result is an album’s worth of material that simultaneously evokes dread, beauty, wonder, horror and mystery.

RIDE’s first single “Sometimes I Go Down” is metallic mesh of psych rock, post punk and kraut rock featuring scorching guitar fuzz, thunderous drumming, droning and glistening organ, boy-girl vocal harmonizing and a relentless motorik groove paired with enormous hooks. While the band mentions that the song draws influence from Sonic Youth, Wand, L.A. Witch and Kikagaku Moyo, I also hear hints of Directions To See a Ghost era Black Angels.

Hot Garbage’s Alex Carlevaris says of the new single “It’s okay to feel down sometimes and need space. We as people have to accept that, allow that and have a healthy and realistic idea about having shitty days, feeling like shit and still loving ourselves. Also recognizing that others around us may need it and being patient with people.”

Directed by William Suarez, the recently released video features the members of Hot Garbage getting on the phone to make or receive phone calls using a four-way split screen. Whether or they’re actually speaking to each other in a four way call is up to you but you’ll notice that each of the characters is acting a little off — perhaps because something is after them? A mysterious black clad figure suddenly appears and each character disappears — that is until the end when the tarot card playing woman shows the figure the card she just pulled out during her reading. Trippy.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: London’s Jessica Wilde Releases a Soulful Banger

Jessica Wilde is a rising London singer/songwriter, spoon word who has been both behind the scenes and in the spotlight as a solo artist: Wilde has written songs for renowned K Pop label, SM Entertainment — and she has collaborated with Rudimental, Emeli Sande, Tough Love and Kizzo. As a solo artist, Wilde’s work has begun to receive airplay across BBC Radio with airplay from Robert Elms, Claira Hermet, Salma El-Wardany and LionHeart and Amelia Poamz, as well as Record of the Week nods from BBC Radio 1xtra and BBC Radio London. Her material has also bene played on KISS FM, Hoxton Radio, Reprezent Radio, Amsterdam’s Radio 5 and many others. Wilde has also landed material on UK Spotify’s Pride Editorial Playlist.

ng to a growing platform, Wilde has been interviewed by The Independent, featured in Clash Magazine, Wonderland, The Daily Star, WordPlay, Cool Hunting, Noctis Magazine, and SBTV’s New Music Friday. Her life story, which features battles with addiction and struggles with sobriety have caught the attention of several podcasts and influencers, who focus on sexuality and addiction, including Mouth Off, Muso Muso and a live interview with sober blogger Katie McNicol.

Wilde’s forthcoming album is a concept album with each song being much like a diary entry, in which the listener is taken on a journey from addiction, bad behavior and toxic relationships to self-love and sobriety. “Daylight,” the album’s fourth single continues Wilde’s ongoing collaboration with producers Eljay and Kris Houston. Centered around a warm and vibey production that gently nods at old school soul, paired with thumping beats, “Daylight” is roomy enough for Wilde’s big soulful vocals –before showing her off that she can spit some bars, too. But at its core, the song tells the tale of a dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship fueled by reckless and debauched partying that morphs into a destructive, self-sabotaging Groundhog’s Day.

Wilde through a seemingly endless cycle of booze and drug fueled nights with a lover, filled with passionate love making, drag out, knock down fights and early morning, hung over come downs, full of regret and shame that only ends with Wilde walks away and breaks the cycle.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Miles Francis Tackles Male Ego with “Popular”

Over the past decade, New York-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Miles Francis has developed a reputation locally and elsewhere as a musician’s musician — and arguably one of the local scene’s best kept secrets. Francis can trace much of the origins of their career to learning the drums when they turned six, then guitar, bass, keys and percussion.

As a working musician, Francis has toured the world with Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, Antibalas and EMEFE — and he has collaborated and performed with Sharon Jones, Amber Mark, Angelique Kidjo, Allen Toussaint, TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe and a lengthy list of others. As a result of their various collaborations, Francis has appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and The Late Show with David Letterman. Francis stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist with the release of 2018’s debut EP Swimmers, which earned praise from The Fader, Stereogum and KCRW for material that saw the New York-based artist blending an eclectic array of influences including David Bowie, Prince, Afrobeat and a childhood obsession with early 2000s boy band pop.

The New York-based artist has released two singles this year — “Service,” which was released earlier this year and the recently released “Popular,” which features Lizzie Loveless and Lou Tides (best known as TEEN’s Lizzie and Teeny Lieberson). Both tracks will appear on a forthcoming project that will explore and question masculinity, male conditioning — and their own gender identity, presumably informed by Francis coming out as a non-binary. Whereas the Prince meets Afrobeat-like “Service,” is a darkly ironic send up of the over-the-top obsequiousness of boy band pop, “Popular” is its anthesis, featuring an ego-driven, narcissist, who craves undivided attention. While centered around Francis’ unerring ability to write a rousingly infectious hook, “Popular” manages to be simultaneously breezy and full of menacing anxiety and insecurity, evoked through rapid-fire drumming, slinky and angular guitars, buzzing bass synths and twinkling keys. “I grew up with Backstreet Boys posters lining my bedroom walls, floor to ceiling,” Francis recalls. That era of music is dear to my heart, but upon closer look those songs are ridden with anxiety, songs about male adolescence written by grown men. That anxiety and impulsiveness is the place from which ‘Popular’ grows out from.”

Francis goes on to say that “Service” and “Popular” are “my own little Jekyll and Hyde. “One minute, it’s ‘I’ll do anything for you’ – the next minute, it’s ‘I don’t care for you.” They addd “I am interested in man’s two-faced-ness – our ability to show one thing to the world and someone completely different in private.” And as a result, at their core, both songs are about the male ego. “Power is essential to the male ego. That ego is a house of cards, of course, threatened by even the slightest loss of control. These songs and videos are meant to illustrate that delicate balance between control and disarray.” About “Popular,” in particular, Francis says ““Everyone indulges in having an ego and wanting to be recognized, but men seem particularly bent on the power element — whether it’s taking up space in a room or leading a country.”