Category: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tampa’s Glove Releases a Frenetic Yet Dance Floor Friendly Ripper

Rising Tampa-based indie act Glove can trace their origins back to 2017: the band’s founding members Rod Wendt, Brie Deux and Michelle Primiani started playing music. Justin Burns joined shortly thereafter, and the band quickly established their sound, which blends 80s synth-based New Wave with elements of contemporary rock ‘n’ roll,.

The Tampa based indie outfit honed their show through two years of self-booking DIY shows, and then opening for The Nude Party and Broncho on a string of East Coast shows. The members of Glove caught the attention of Cage the Elephant‘s Brad Shultz, who produced the band’s forthcoming, full-length debut Boom Nights.

Boom Nights‘ first single “Glass” was released in April and landed on Spotify’s New Noise playlist. Since then, the Tampa based band has hit the road: they finished a month-long tour with White Reaper and have played sets at Lollapalooza and Levitation. They’ll play a handful of dates with Wavves this month.

2022 looks to be a breakthrough year for the Tampa-based quartet: they’ll begin the year touring with A Place to Bury Strangers and Boom Nights will see its release. As always, tour dates are below. But in the meantime the album’s third and latest single “Modern Toy,” which features the band’s Brie Deux taking up lead vocal duties, is a frenetic yet dance floor friendly ripper that’s one-part Freedom of Choice era Devo, one-part Fever to Tell era Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

“‘Modern Toy’ refers to the dark underbelly of Hollywood,” Glove’s Brie Deux says. “The song slowly creeps up and starts revealing the frustrations and alienation within the entertainment industry. It all leads up to a full fledge lash out, where the industry has completely consumed the person and reveals they’re nothing but a prop. This can be interpreted in any industry or life and for anyone who is being used or treated unjustly. I dedicate this song to Britney Spears.”

The recently released video features the band’s Brie Deux is a Tron-inspired silver jumpsuit and silver wraparound shades. If you’re a child of the 80s as I am, the video brings back a lot of memories.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Choses Sauvages Takes You on a Late Night “The Matrix”-like tour

With the release of their Emmanuel Ethier-produced 2018 self-titled, full-length debut, the Montreal dance punk outfit Choses Sauvages — Totalement Sublime‘s Marc-Antoine Barbier (guitar), Theirry Malépart (keys), Tony Bélisle (keys), Philippe Gauthier-Boudreau (drums) and Félix Bélisle (vocals, bass) — quickly exploded both locally and across Québec: the album was released to widespread critical applause across the province. Their self-titled album received a Félix Award nomination Alternative Album of the Year at the 2019 Association Québécoise de l’industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video (ADISQ) and a Félix Award for the Indie Rock Album of the Year. The album also topped the Independent Radio Charts across the province.

The band, along with their friend Foreign Diplomats‘ Charles Primeau (bass), who joins the band live, supported their self-titled debut during 2019 with a relentless tour schedule seemingly playing every joint and every festival stage across the province, developing a reputation for an explosive live show. Adding to a growing profile, the rising Montreal outfit went on tour with acclaimed act Half Moon Run.

Choses Sauvages’ highly-anticipated sophomore album, Choses Sauvages II is slated for an October 15, 2021 release through Audiogram. Sonically, the album finds the rising French Canadian outfit boldly pushing their sound towards more electronic and nu-disco influences, like L’Imperatice and Lindstrøm while still drawing from their love of funk, Bowie and Bee Gees. Interestingly, as a result, the album’s material finds the members of Choses Sauvages balancing a rigorous and meticulous songwriting approach with a long-held rebellious spirit.

Choses Sauvages II‘s third and latest single “Chambre d’écho” is a slinky Duran Duran meets Talking Heads banger centered around squiggling Nile Rodgers-like guitar, handclaps, a sinuous bass line, glistening synths, propulsive four-on-the-floor and an enormous, arena rock friendly hook. It’s the sort of song that will make you long for strobe-lit dance floors and sweaty clubs dancing the night — and your concerns — away.

Directed by Léa Dumoulin, the recently released video is heavily indebted to 1999’s The Matrix: we see the members of the band sending mysterious light-based signals to the video’s protagonist, as everyone travels to abandoned buildings and clandestine, late night, sweaty raves.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New VIdeo: Holy Fuck Teams Up with Kero Kero Bonito’s Sarah Bonito on the Frenetic “Airport Dreams”

Acclaimed Toronto-based electronic rock outfit Holy Fuck — Brian Borcherdt, Graham Walsh, Matt McQuaid and Matt Schultz — have developed and honed a long-held reputation for playing and crating by their own rules, while never being overly concerned about chasing the limelight or after genre-based trends. Along with that, they’ve established a unique, gritty, analog-based sound created through the use of both organic instruments and non-instruments including a 35mm film synchronizer, toy keyboards and toy phaser guns to achieve electronic-sounding effects without the use of laptops, programmed backing tracks, splicing and so on.

The Toronto-based act’s fifth album, last year’s Deleter found the band boldly pushing their sound in a new direction: polyrhythmic and euphoric, the album’s material meshed elements of krautrock, deep house and trance fittingly paired with relentless motorik groove. Thematically, the album explored what happens when humanity and technology coalesce into one big semi-organic celebration of the joys of spontaneity, repetition and individuality. As the band puts it, “the robots are smarter than ever, and the algorithm knows more and more what we like as individuals, but we have to remind ourselves that there is music in the margins that can go missing and that that music is more important than ever.”

Of course, much like countless other acts across the globe, the pandemic threw a monkey wrench into the acclaimed Canadian act’s plans to tour to support the album. But interestingly enough, they’ve managed to work on a new single, “Airport Dreams,” a collaboration with Kero Kero Bonito‘s Sarah Bonito. Interestingly, the new single sees the members of Holy Fuck continuing to push their sound in new directions — this time in a decidedly pop friendly direction: Featuring a more polished production, the track features snappier beats, razor sharp hooks and Sarah Bonito’s coquettish vocals while retaining the fuzzy and dusty analog texture of their previously released material.

Thematically and lyrically, the song evokes the frustration, boredom and longing for the places, people and things we couldn’t enjoy and experience as a result of pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions — and the hope of being able to travel, to see and do things, to see and be around others.

In a personal statement, Holy Fuck dive into the background behind the creative inspiration:

“Contrary to our usual method of recording ‘live off the studio floor’ where we prefer to hash out and capture the core of our songs together in the same room, we found ourselves, like a lot of people in 2020/21, working remotely. This meant building up tracks and song ideas separately at our own various recording and rehearsal spaces and then sharing them with each other online. In spite of the physical distance, we still dug into our classic ‘holy fuck spirit’: embracing whatever tools we have at hand to make the music we want. Voice memos of drum ideas Matt Schulz recorded of himself playing at home were shared, then edited together, forming the rhythmic foundation for ‘Airport Dreams.’ This later gave life to Matt McQuaid’s bass parts which were recorded over WiFi from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia to Toronto, Ontario. Situations are not always ideal, but can be used to an advantage – idea over execution. Branching even further into the spirit of collaboration, we sent these ideas to an incredibly talented artist, Sarah Bonito (of Kero Kero Bonito). Sarah’s super catchy and inspiring vocal parts were initially intended for a different song altogether. Their frenetic energy, however, became the catalyst for what is now called “Airport Dreams”. 

“During lockdown, I was having recurring dreams about being at the airport catching a flight every night,” Kero Kero Bonito’s Sarah Bonito says of the new single. “I feel like my mind was trying to break free from the physical constraints by travelling the universe whilst I slept. We are all free in our dreams!”

The recently released video for “Airport Dreams” features footage of the members of the acclaimed Canadian electronic act performing the song, superimposed with aviation and travel stock footage — people boarding planes, planes taking off and people exploring foreign places. We also see Sarah Bonito playing with her phone, goofing off and sleeping, presumably dreaming of the places she’d go if she were able to. Ah, how that feels so very familiar!

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Isle of Wight-Based Duo Wet Leg Release a Feverish Visual for Hook-Driven “Wet Dream”

Enigmatic Isle of Wight, UK-based duo Wet Leg — Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers — emerged into the national and international scenes in June with the release of their debut single “Chaise Lounge,” which has amassed over 3,000,000 streams through DSPs and 1,000,000 views. The song managed to win the praise of Paramore‘s Hayley Williams, Florence and the Machine’s Florence Welch, and the legendary Iggy Pop. With the rising buzz surrounding them, the Isle of Wight-based duo recently signed to Domino Recording Co.

Clocking in at a little over 2:30, the British duo’s latest single “Wet Dream” is a hook-driven guitar pop confection that’s one-part Elastica-era Brit Pop, one-part Phil Spector girl pop, and one-part neurotic post punk delivered with a self-assured and stylish panache. “‘Wet Dream’ is a breakup song; it came about when one of my ex’s went through a stage of texting me after we’d broken up telling me that ‘he had a dream about me,'” Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale explains.

Directed by the band’s Rhian Teasdale, the recently released video for “Wet Dream” is a surrealistic fever dream, shot in the English countryside with the British duo wearing old-fashioned dresses and plastic lobster claws.

The duo also announced their first run of Stateside shows with tickets on sale October 1, 2021 at 10am local time. The tour includes a December 8, 2021 stop at Baby’s All Right. Tour dates are below and you can buy tickets here: https://www.wetlegband.com/#

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: White Lies Release a Mesmerizing Visual for an Anthemic Yet Intimate Exploration of Vulnerability

Acclaimed London-based post-punk act and JOVM mainstays White Lies — Harry McVeigh (vocals. guitar), Charles Cave (bass, vocals) and Jack Lawrence-Brown (drums) — can trace their origins to a band that they started while they were all in high school called Fear of Flying. Although the band’s Charles Cave has publicly described Fear of Flying as a “weekend project” and one of many bands that each of the individual members were involved in at the time, Fear of Flying managed to release two Stephen Street-produced double A-side singles released through Young and Lost Club Records. 

Building upon the initial buzz surrounding them, Fear of Flying earned opening slots for The Maccabees, Jamie T, and Laura Marling. They completed a national tour as an opener, and they played the inaugural Underage Festival. 

Two weeks before the trio were to start college, they decided that they would take a second gap year to write and perform new material, which coincidentally they felt didn’t quite suite their current project. “I felt as though i couldn’t write about anything personal, so I would make up semi-comical stories that weren’t really important to anyone, not even me,” Charles Cave reflected on that period. Fear of Flying broke up in 2007 with a MySpace status that read “Fear of Flying is DEAD . . . White Lies is alive!,” before introducing a new name that the trio felt better represented their newfound maturity — and a much darker sound.

Officially forming in October 2007, the members of the then-newly formed White Lies delayed their first live shows for five months to build up media hype. And as the story goes, a few days after their live debut, the band signed with Fiction Records, who released the band’s first two singles — “Unfinished Business” and “Death,” which quickly drew comparisons to Joy Division, Editors, The Killers and Interpol. As a result of the buzz that their first two official singles earned, the London-based JOVM mainstays toured across the UK and North America, including a headlining BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend Festival set, a slot on 2009’s NME Awards tour, and number of appearances across the international festival circuit.

2009 saw the release of the act’s breakthrough, full-length debut To Lose My Life, which was released on the heels of being prominently featured in multiple “ones to watch” polls for that year, including BBC’s Sound of 2009 poll and the BRIT Critics’ Choice Award. To Lose My life earned the trio the distinction of being their first #1 album on the British Charts, and the first album by a British act that year to debut at #1.

White Lies third album, 2013’s Ed Bueller-produced Big TV was a critical and commercial success with the album debuting at #4 on the UK charts. The album’s material was centered around a narrative structure that followed a romantic couple, who leave a provincial area for a big city. Thematically, the material focused on equality and equity within a relationship. Interestingly, album single “Getting Even” landed at #1 on the Polish Singles charts.

The band’s fifth album, 2019’s aptly titled FIVE continued a run of material that found the band deftly balancing an ambitious arena rock friendly sound with enormous hooks and swaggering bombast with intimate and confessional, singer/songwriter pop lyrics. Album singles like “Time to Give,” “Tokyo” “Jo” and “Believe It” describe relationships on the brink of collapse and/or suffering through one of both parties’ dysfunction while rooted in the uncertainty, confusion, heartache and bitterness that romantic relationships often engender. And it all comes from a very lived-in, real place that should familiar to most, if not all of us.

FIVE also continued a remarkable and enviable run of commercially and critically successful material, with the album landing on UK Charts’ Top 15. The band supported the album with an extensive bit of touring that included a headlining stop at Irving Plaza. The London-based JOVM mainstay capped off a big 2019 with standalone single, the Andrew Wells-produced “Hurt My Heart,” which was recorded during a hiatus from touring.

White Lies’ highly anticipated sixth album, the Ed Bueller and Claudius Mittendorfer co-produced As I Try Not To Fall Apart is slated for a February 18, 2022 release through [PIAS]. Along with the album announcement, the trio and their long-time label home released the album’s latest single, album title track “As I Try Not To Fall Apart.” Featuring glistening synth arpeggios, thunderous boom bap-like drumming, McVeigh’s plaintive vocals, a hypnotic motorik-like groove, bursts of twinkling keys and their unerring knack for crafting an enormous hook “”As I Try Not To Fall Apart” is a psychologically precise character study of a desperate man, who feels stuck in a prescribed gender role while trying to accept and be comfortable with his vulnerability and weakness.

“We wrote this song quickly, late one night, and often the songs which come quickest are written from the gut and the heart, not with the head,” the members of White Lies explain. “We wanted the melody to feel like a hymn, to give the confessional lyrics weight despite being wrapped up as a pop song. It’s about accepting vulnerability as a man, and knowing it’s ok to be broken. There’s never been a more pressing time to spread the message that it’s ok to not be ok.” 

Directed by James Arden, a.k.a. The Trash Factory, the recently released video features the band’s frontman Harry McVeigh broodingly sitting on an ornate chair in a room with couple of inches of sand. As McVeigh sings the song, more sand is dumped on him.

“The track made me think of people trying to lift themselves out of emotional spirals – navigating feelings of fragility and fighting everyday pressures just so they can keep it together – and it made me think about how we can be buried and overwhelmed by our feelings and emotions, and how we could explore that, visually,” James Arden explains in press notes.

White Lies’ Harry McVeigh adds, “Being buried in sand was too mad to pass up. The sensation was really chilling and I was picking sand out of my ears for days, but I’m thrilled with the video, it really carries the message of the song and it looks beautiful.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Astral Swans Teams Up with Julie Doiron on a Mesmerizing New Single and Visual

Matthew Swann is a Calgary-based singer/songwriter, best known as the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed recording project Astral Swans. With Astral Swans, the Calgary-based singer/songwriter specializes in narratives of lonerism, frailty, absurdity and whimsy, told with darkly comedic empathy and helpless concern.

Swann first rose to prominence in 2015 as the first artist signed to Madic Records, an imprint of Arts & Crafts Records, helmed by Juno Award-winning artist Dan Mangan. The label was created for the purpose of releasing Swann’s Astral Swan debut, 2015’s All My Favourite Singers are Willie Nelson. The album was released to widespread critical acclaim receiving praise from Noisey, who described it as “a stark, beautiful project that embraces darkness rather than shying away from it,” and from The Calgary Herald, who called Swann, an artist of immeasurable depth, incredible smarts, remarkable bravery and infinite charm creativity and insight.

2018’s Scott Munro co-produced Strange Prison was released to even more acclaim, receiving praise from Paste, Tiny Mix Tapes, Post Trash and a long list of others. Album single “CONTROLS” reached #1 on CBC Radio 3 and lead to a live performance on CBC’s q.  Adding to a growing profile, Swann supported the tours across Canada, Japan and Europe, including a packed show at the 2019 Reeperbahn Festival.

Swann’s self-titled album comes after three and a half year of touring — and well, a pandemic. Unlike his previously released material, Swann almost exclusively composed the album’s songs internally on solo walks through various cities around the world before the pandemic and in the same city repeatedly during the pandemic. As Swann describes it, “the melodies were written in my head, on long walks alone, like spontaneous flowers sprouted from the id; ecstatic downloads from a cosmic wind. Sometimes the lyrics appeared with the melodies, other times they were refined, after the fact.”

The self-titled album is reportedly Swann’s most upbeat, catchy and immediate album to date. Each of the album’s songs operates as an absurdist short story filled with the Calgary-based singer/songwriter’s wry observations of the sad beauty of mundane moments. The songs range from affirmations of joy amidst dread, composed in the streets of Shimokitazawa Tokyo, ballads of disorientated musings on uncertainty and addiction, birds heckling the anxious and heartbroken in Amsterdam’s Vondel Park and more.

The album’s first single “Flood” was released to widespread praise last month. Continuing upon that momentum, the album’s latest single, “Spiral” is a breezy and mesmerizing bit of cosmic folk centered around twangy guitars, atmospheric synths and a soaring hook reminiscent of Nick Drake — but paired with Swann’s woozy delivery. Julie Doiron contributes her gorgeous vocals as a backing vocalist. Lyrically, the song reveals Swann as a sort of zen trickster: underneath the playful and absurdist jokes is a deeper message about our existence, if you pay close attention.

“This was the first song I wrote after Covid quarantine, in March 2020,” Swann explains. “It’s about seeking out joy, and trying to escape pain in ways that backfire, within reference to the hamster wheel of late stage capitalism; consumerism, addiction, neoliberalism, the reduction of identity to social media posturing, etc ad infinitum. It’s about trying to escape something that seemingly has no escape, in spite of its glaring foolishness and lack, and the desperation which it brings to a person’s humanity. In the studio we went for a 1970’s wrecking crew polished country vibe speckled with synth exploration a la Stereolab and Broadcast. Once again Julie’s vocals are the cherry on top. When I sent the final album to Jim Bryson (who’s one heck of a producer in his own right), He simply replied “you have Julie Doiron on it, you’ve already won the war.”

Directed by Laura-Lynn Petrick, the recently released video for “Spirals” follows Swann walking through a series of sun dappled and surreal settings. At one point, we see Swann pick up a black and white photo of Doiron from a stream. Throughout, there’s a sense of Swann seeking something, even if he doesn’t quite know why, what or how.

The self-titled album is slated for an October 8, 2021 release through Tiny Rooms/Major Tom Records.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Absolutely Free Releases a Trippy and Mind-Bending Visual for “Epilogue”

Acclaimed Toronto-based psych pop act Absolutely Free — multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Matt King, Michael Claxton (bass, synths) and Moshe Fisher-Rozenberg (drums, synths) — is an offshoot of experimental rock outfit DD/MM/YYYY, an act whose multi-rhythmic, boundary pushing raison d’être provided a springboard for Absolutely Free’s sound and approach.

The Canadian psych trio’s full-length debut, 2014’s Absolutely Free. received a Polaris Prize nomination and widespread critical applause from the likes of Pitchfork, The FADER, Stereogum, BrooklynVegan,Exclaim!, Under the Radar, PopMatters, AllMusic and countless others. 

Over the past decade, the members of the Absolutely Free have cultivated and developed a long-held reputation for an unorthodox approach to both conceiving and performing music: Since the release of Absolutely Free., the Toronto-based psych pop act have released an array of multimedia projects and releases including 2019’s Geneva Freeport EP, which features U.S. Girls‘ Meg Remy. And adding to a growing profile they’ve toured alongside the likes of Alvvays, Youth Lagoon and JOVM mainstays Preoccupations, and they’ve shared bills with Beak>, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, U.S. Girls and Fucked Up. 

Absolutely Free’s highly-anticipated Jorge Elbrecht-produced sophomore album Aftertouch is slated for release tomorrow through Boiled Records. Deriving its name from a the name of a synthesizer function, the album is fueled by the trio’s desire to “. . . to create an album that wasn’t bound by a physical ability to perform it live, to not only expand our palette, but also to consider the live performance as something completely separate.” Culling from a myriad of influences including krautrock, New Wave, early electronic dance music, and an array of international psych and funk complications, the album sonically and aesthetically finds the trio shifting in, around and between analog and digital sounds, and real and fabricated images while simultaneously reveling in and refuting the loss of tactility. Thematically, the album explores narratives of hegemony, grief and exploitation in the present while sustaining curiosity for the unknown post-everything future. 

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

  • “Interface,” a dreamily maximalist song featuring glistening synth arpeggios, percussive and angular guitar blasts, a chugging bass line and an insistent rhythm paired with plaintive vocals that reminded me of  Amoral-era Violens — in particular, “Trance Like Turn.”
  • “Remaining Light” is a sprawling track with two distinct parts — a cinematic and atmospheric instrumental introduction featuring twinkling keys, glistening synths and clinking marimba. At around the 2:20 mark, the song slowly morphs into a slow-burning and brooding bit of pop featuring King’s plaintive, reverb drenched vocals ethereally floating over the mix. The end result is a song that — to my ears, at least — sounded like a slick synthesis of The Fixx’s “Sign of Fire” and Amoral-era Violens. 

Album opening track “Epilogue” is Aftertouch‘s latest single. Beginning with a whirring to life, “Epilogue” is a slow-burning and reflective track that slowly builds into a maximalist crescendo towards its conclusion centered around a lush, New Wave inspired arrangement of glistening synth arpeggios, skittering beats paired with a motorik groove and King’s achingly plaintive vocals ethereally floating over the mix. But underneath the breezy and expansive arrangement, “Epilogue” manages to possess a wistful and melancholy air.

“‘Epilogue (After Touch)’ conjures an existence, where a linear progression of time no longer seems applicable. With reference to cinematic narrative, the lyrics touch upon living in a contemporary culture that seems to be referential and symbolic of what’s already in the past,” the members of Absolutely Free explain in press notes.

Directed by Rachelle Walkers, the recently released video for “Epilogue” is brooding and trippy as it features footage of a rollercoaster rendered through a fuzzy, neon-colored negative with prismatic figures superimposed over the proceedings.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul Team Up with Soulwax on an Off-Kilter Banger

Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul are a Ghent, Belgium electronic duo, who exploded into the national and international scenes with the release of 2019’s critically applauded, David and Stephen Dewaele-produced Zandoli EP. Their unpredictable and subversive take on electro pop sees the pair poking and prodding at the pop zeitgeist with a provocative and sly sense of humor. Adding to a growing profile, EP singles “Paténipat” and “High Lights” received airplay on UK Radio and were playlisted by BBC Radio 6.

The duo will be playing at this year’s Pitchfork Paris and Pitchfork London festivals in November. Tickets can be purchased here: https://charlotteadigeryandbolispupul.com/Tour-1.

But in the meantime, the rising Belgian duo have released a new single, the Soulwax co-written and co-produced “Thank You.” Marking the first release as a duo under their own names for the first time ever, “Thank You” is an off-kilter yet dance floor friendly, club banger centered around Adigéry’s deadpan delivery, skittering beats, layers of buzzing synth arpeggios and an enormous hook. Adigéry describes the song as “a cheeky and cynical revenge for all the unwanted, unsolicited opinions some people generously offer us.”

Directed and produced by the team behind DEWEE TEEVEE, the recently released video for “Thank You” is full of VHS tape fuzz, weird imagery and acid-fueled effects.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Penelope Isles Release a Gorgeous and Heartbreaking Visual for “Sudoku”

Led by sibling duo and co-songwriters and co-vocalists Lily and Jack Wolter, the Brighton-based indie rock act Penelope Isles had a breakthrough 2019: their self-produced, full-length debut Until The Tide Creeps In was released to critical acclaimed globally. And to support the album, the band shared stages with The Flaming Lips and The Magic Numbers, playing over 100 shows — and they made three Stateside tours, including a stop at the inaugural New Colossus Festival.

The duo’s highly-anticipated Jack Wolters-produced sophomore album Which Way To Happy is slated for a November 5, 2021 release through Bella Union. The album’s material was forged during a period of emotional and professional upheaval for The Wolters and for Penelope Isles. The band spent much of 2019 touring across Europe and America with their bandmates. When the pandemic struck early last year, the band — understandably — felt as though everything was falling apart: much like countless other folks across the world, the members of Penelope Isles found their plans in an indefinite halt. Jack and Lily were dealing with their own respective romantic heartaches and the departure of two bands members, who were replaced with Henry Nicholson, Joe Taylor and Hannah Feenstra for the recording of the album. “A godsend after a low time,” Lily Wolters says. 

The Wolters along with Nicholson, Taylor and Feenstra holed into a small cottage in Cornwall to start work on the new album when lockdowns were instituted everywhere. Claustrophobia kicked in, existential anxiety over the pandemic permeated everything and emotions — naturally — ran very high. “We were there for about two or three months, untilately,” says Jack. “It was a tiny cottage and we all went a bit bonkers, and we drank far too much, and it spiralled a bit out of control. There were a lot of emotional evenings and realisations, which I think reflects in the songs. Writing and recording new music was a huge part of the recovery process for all of us.”

Finished away from the confines of the Cornwall-based cottage and further flushed out with acclaimed composer Fiona Brice, the band’s sophomore album finds the band further emphasizing the core traits that have won them acclaim globally: the bond between Jack and Lily, a desire to celebrate life in all of its facets and a sensitivity towards complex feelings. But interestingly, Which Way To Happy may arguably be their most ambitious effort to date: Sometimes, the album’s material swoons, sometimes it soars. Other times it bravely says “it’s OK to not be OK.” And this is while balancing a tight rope between expansive, cosmic pop and up-close, heart-felt intimate songwriting. 

So far, I’ve written about two of Which Way To Happy‘s singles:

  • The cinematic “Sailing Still.” Centered around a shimmering and brooding string arrangement, gently strummed guitar, thunderous drumming, a soaring hook and Lily Wolter’s achingly tender vocals, the heartbreakingly gorgeous track evokes a deep yet familiar yearning for peace in a mad, mad, mad world — while sonically bearing a resemblance to Lily Wolter’s collaboration with Lost Horizons. 
  • “Iced Gems” is a gently undulating track featuring twinkling keys, fluttering and atmospheric electronics, thumping beats and Lily Wolters’ achingly plaintive vocals. And while being a decided sonic departure, the song is centered around somme deeply intimate lyricism and the duo’s unerring knack for crafting infectious, razor sharp hooks.

Which Way To Happy‘s third and latest single “Sudoku” is a slow-burning and lushly textured bit of dream pop/shoegaze centered around shimmering guitars, plaintive and expressive vocals, a soaring hook and a fuzzy power chord driven solo. Sonically, the track — to my ears, at least — brings back memories of classic Brit Pop.

“‘Sudoku’ is probably the oldest song on the album. We used to play it in our old band, Your Gold Teeth, back on the Isle of Man when Lily and I first started making music,” Penelope Isles’ Jack Wolters explains. “Dad loves a sudoku puzzle whilst he’s sat on the loo. So this one is for him! It’s a special song for us and we wanted to bring it back and play it with Penelope Isles.”

The recently released video for “Sudoku” is an intimate portrait of a middle aged gentleman. We follow the man as he gets up, brushes he teeth, makes himself a healthy breakfast and some tea before heading to his workspace to work on a model airplane. He stops to each lunch with his pet bird, water his plants and get a package delivered — and then back to work. When he finishes, he takes the plane out on a test flight; but it quickly proves to be a frustrating disaster with the plane flying a few feet before crashing.

The video ends with the band throwing the plane in the garbage and heading home to work on a model car.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jess Chalker Releases a Charming, Classic Cinema Inspired Visual for “Stupid Trick”

Sydney-born, London-based singer/songwriter and producer, Jess Chalker began here career as the frontwoman of Aussie New Wave act We Are The Brave. Interestingly, since We Are The Brave’s breakup, Chalker has become a highly sought-after collaborator: She has worked with Sam Fischer, Vintage Culture, Isamachine, Gold Kimono, and Passenger — and she was part of the Grammy Award-winning songwriting and production team that cowrote Lisa Loeb‘s lead single on the acclaimed artist’s kids record Feel What U Feel. Additionally, the Aussie-born, British-based artist wrote “Darkest Hour” for the Amazon Original series Panic, performed by Tate McRae.

Chalker finally steps out into the spotlight as a solo artist with her full-length debut Hemispheres. Slated for a November 5, 2021 release through her own imprint 528 Records, the album received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts. The album was completed under the massive weight of the pandemic, and as Chalker grappled with the loss of her day job and heartbreaking health issues.

Much like countless others across the globe, she found herself spiraling and turned to music for the creative outlet she needed. Collaborating with friends across Sydney, Los Angeles and London, including Dan Long, Josh Humphreys and Chalker’s former We Are The Brave bandmate Ox Why, Chalker wound up finishing what would turn out to be a deeply emotional album. And interestingly enough, she managed to find much longed-for freedom in the process: “Releasing this album is terrifying and thrilling to me,” the Aussie-born, British-based artist says in press notes. “I grew up in a religion that discouraged us from pursuing career success, where women weren’t allowed on stage to address an audience directly. I think it’s why I’ve always tried to avoid the spotlight but, after the year we’ve all had, my perspective on things has changed quite a lot. I’m not wasting any more time doubting myself.”

Sonically, the album reportedly finds Chalker and her collaborators crafting material featuring guitar-driven hooks and retro synths paired with the Aussie-born, British-based artist’s expressive vocals. Thematically, the album deals with themes that explore the dichotomy between depression and hopefulness, self-doubt and self-love and more. 

Last month, I wrote about album “Don’t Fight It.” Cowritten by Chalker, Grammy Award-winning collaborator Rich Jacques and Martjin Tinus Konijnenburg, “Don’t Fight It” was co-produced in a transcontinental fashion across Los Angeles and London by Chalker and Jacques. Centered around glistening synth arpeggios, reverb-drenched drums. Chalker’s expressive vocals, the track hints at Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush and Prince, while full of the bittersweet longing and uncertainty of a narrator who’s physically and emotionally lost.

Hemispheres‘ latest single is the breezy and defiantly upbeat “Stupid Trick.” Centered around shimmering guitars, atmospheric synths, Chalker’s plaintive vocals, the song thematically focuses on the innocence and desperately intense feelings of teenaged love, before gradually learning what love really is and what it really means. And while bringing up memories of Pat Benetar‘s “Love is a Battlefield,” Rod Stewart‘s “Young Turks” and others, the song continues a run of material driven by Chalker’s unerring knack for paring earnestly written material with a razor sharp hook.

“I’d been reading Gael Garcia Marquez novels and watching a lot ofJohn Hughes films at the time of writing it, which I think definitely helped shape the concept,” Jess Chalker says of the new single.

Directed by Marcelo de la Vega with cinematography by Shane Benson, the recently released and gorgeous video for “Stupid Trick” is based on a short film script written by Chalker. Shot in London’s Postman’s Park, the video makes loving visual references to Charlie Chaplin, the classic 1956 French film, The Red Balloon and Before Sunrise.

Pre-order the album now via Bandcamp (https://jesschalker.bandcamp.com)

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Indie Act Koalra Releases a Nostalgia Inducing Visual for Shimmering “Sight Unseen”

Formed in Chicago back in 2019 and now currently based Portland, OR, the members of rising indie rock outfit Koalra quickly established a sound and songwriting approach indebted to 120 Minutes-era alt rock — in particular, The Cure, Dinosaur Jr., Ween, Sonic Youth, Boyracer, and The Thermals, as well as contemporaries like No Age, and Waaves. 

Since their formation, the now Portland-based act have been remarkably prolific. They’ve released three albums and a handful of EPs, including 2019’s self-titled debut, last year’s The Wakes and this year’s Into The Everything, as well as a handful of EPs. Interestingly, Into The Everything, which featured “Water’s Push” found the rising indie rock act pushing their sound into New Wave territory.

Koalra’s fourth album Love Songs To Remind Us That We Can’t Stand Each Other is a collection of love songs inspired by the disenchantment of our current sociopolitical climate. The album is sparked by a lineup change and the change of location. The album’s latest single “Sight Unseen” continues a run of 4AD Records inspired material centered around atmospheric synths, angular guitars, a propulsive rhythm section and plaintive vocals. Thematically, the song focuses on some familiar and universal themes — nostalgia over a youthful yet major love that’s been long lost.

The recently released video features fittingly nostalgic footage by Len Elders that captures young people hanging out and goofing off in seemingly much simpler times.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: A Frenetic Day and Night In Sydney with Low Life in New Visual for “Agony & XTC”

With the release of their full-length debut, 2014’s Dogging, Sydney-based punk act Low Life — at the time, a trio featuring Mitch Tolman, Cristian O’Sullivan and Greg Alfaro — quickly exploded into both the national and international scenes.

The Aussie act’s sophomore album, 2019’s Downer Edn (read as Downer Edition) was written and recorded over a two year period and found the band expanding from the trio of Tolman, O’Sullivan and Alfaro to a quintet with the addition of Oily Boys‘ and Orion‘s Dizzy Daldal (guitar) and Yuta Matsumura (guitar), who actually rejoined the band. The lineup change allowed Tolman to be a full-time vocalist. But along with that, the band went through a decided change in sonic direction towards a much more post-punk/New Wave-inspired sound.

Building upon a growing profile, the Aussie outfit’s highly-anticipated third album From Squats to Lots: The Agony & XTC of Low Life is slated for a November 5, 2021 release through Goner Records in North America, ALTER in the UK and the European Union and Lulu’s in Australia. The band has a lengthy statement on the album, “Notes on How To Listen To The Agony and XTC of Low Life,” which you can check out below:

NOTES ON HOW TO LISTEN TO The AGONY AND XTC OF LOW LIFE:

1.  Some records hit you with an instant impression of timeless brilliance, and Low Life’s Dogging is one of those records, what the wise call “an instant classic”.

2.  From Squats to Lots: The Agony and the XTC of Low Life is more like their second album Downer Edn (read Edition), a little more withdrawn, a little more textured. Complex. Rich. Which is to say: you’re going to need some time with it.

3.  Some show, some grow. Low Life have done both. This one is a grower. Spend some time with this one. It’s got that nuanced flavour. Don’t guzzle. Sip. Savour.

4.  Sip it, and sense the recurring brilliance of Mitch Tolman’s lyrics, exploring the usual territory of gutter life, lad life, punk life, low life. The dirge. Disgust and shame in white Australia. Council housing, bills piled to the neck, substance abuse and rehabilitation, the fallen lads and lasses who stood too close to the flame, loss and loneliness, from squats to lots. Un-Australian gutter symphony.

5.  There is a celebration of resilience and that’s a central theme of this record and a time like ours needs a record like Agony & XTC. Low times are coming through, but if you’re low they won’t get to you.

6.  Iggy Pop’s Bowie produced studio rock masterpieces The Idiot and Lust For Life are important reference points to the 3rd album sounds of Low Life. Here comes success!

7.  The Agony and Ecstasy is a 1985 novel by Irving Stone about the life of Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo. Stone wrote another novel about the single eared painter Vincent Van Gogh called Lust For Life. This synchronicity hit me.

8.  Iggy and the Stooges are a pretty safe reference for Low Life (and all good rock music). Iggy and the Stooges are a low life’s Michelangelo, but solo Iggy like Lust for Life is a better reference for this particular incarnation of Low Life, which is to say they are studio rock albums.

9.  Bowie later referred to this period of his life as profoundly nihilistic. But Iggy looked at it as the period of his life that saved him from an early grave. This confrontation is Low life lore.

10. Let’s stick to this, because there’s something about this era of Bowie that makes sense with Low Life’s new album, particularly Low. One should never miss the Low in our new album from Low Life. Producer and studio boss Mickey Grossman has the ear for the Low, and he has carved out a little statue of David right here.

11. Mickey’s ears are recording, mixing and producing the best of Sydney, most notably the Oily Boys Cro Memory Grin. A great companion record to this one. Use Agony & XTC AFTER Oily Boys. Not on an empty stomach, and don’t try to operate heavy machinery (bobcat, bulldozer etc).

12. The relationship between Low Life and Sydney hardcore should not be understated, but it also shouldn’t guide how to listen to Agony & XTC. This is not austere, disciplined music.

13. Think, like, if Poison Idea were given the kind of studio time and budget as Happy Mondays. You wouldn’t play it to a teenager. It’s not for children. This is a mature flavour, one for the adults who have had to contend with failure and hardship, medical bills and disappointed family members, betrayed lovers and worrisome growths, police brutality and tooth decay, humiliating bowels and collapsed septums, detoxing and drying out, for those who have seen themselves as corrupted and putrid and unloveable, for those who endure all of this and aren’t willing to lie down and cop it sweet: Low Life are still here and they ain’t going nowhere.  

NOTES ON HOW NOT TO LISTEN TO AGONY AND XTC OF LOW LIFE:

1.  Don’t think of shoe-gaze. It suggests a safe passage to 90’s reminiscences, a vogue style of our time, but nothing to do with Low Life style. Low Life style is always of its time. The content changes. Agony & XTC shares weight of records like My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless and Slowdive’s Kebab, records that were laboured on after the songs were recorded, songs that were written as they were recorded.

2.  We can call these “studio albums” as opposed to albums built in the heat of live performance. Studio albums from the 90’s are called shoe-gaze by some journalist nerds, but we know better than to use words like this.

3.  Studio albums are excessive and, at the same time, so empty. Agony & XTC, Loveless, Kebab, Rumours: excessive! And empty. This is not to suggest this is Low Lite, some throwback, soft. A band like Low Life can make an overproduced studio rock album without having to use the word shoe-gaze. So, don’t think studio albums mean anything especially 90’s. Don’t look back.

4.  Let’s lose these distasteful labels, like “shoe-gaze”, “rehab rock”, “stab”, “guitar OD overdrive”, “western Sydney wonder”. They can fade out. A low life was once referred to as a vagabond. Who uses this term today? Nobody. Language can murder. Words can die. Kill ‘em all!

The album’s first single “Agony & XTC” is a breakneck ripper that brings The Sisters of Mercy and Chain of Flowers to mind: shimmering and reverb-drenched power chords paired with a world weary and heartbroken snarl.

Directed by Nathan Lewis, the recently released video for “Agony & XTC” captures a frenetic night out in the band’s native Sydney. But underneath it all, are desperate and bored young people.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toronto Garage Psych Outfit Wine Lips Releases a Furious Ripper

Started as a part-time project between founding members Cam Hilborn (vocals, guitar) and Aurora Evans (drums), the rapidly rising Toronto-based, garage psych rock outfit Wine Lips — Hilborn and Evans, along with Jordan Sosensky (guitar) and Charlie Weare (bass) — hit the stage together for the first time in late 2015. The band began playing shows in and around Toronto, eventually stretching out organically to the surrounding towns and cities, then into Québec

By mid 2017, it was clear that the band members were ready to make a full-time commitment. That year, they released their self-titled full-length debut through Fried Records, which they supported with a five province tour with a stops in the country’s Maritime Region — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. A chance meeting resulted in an April 2018 tour of Hong Kong and China, where they were received by enthusiastic audiences.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the Toronto-based garage psych outfit released their sophomore album, 2019’s Stressor, which they supported with relentless touring across North America until the pandemic struck. But the band was able to amass an ardent following — and some of their material has been featured prominently on television and Netflix.

Much like countless artists across the world, the members of the band spent the bulk of last year, holed up at London, Ontario-based Sugar Shack Studios, where they wrote and recorded their Simon Larochette-produced third album Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party. “The record is crazy! We really spent a lot of time getting the songs to sound exactly the way we wanted,” Cam Hilborn says in press notes. ” I think this is the best stuff we’ve recorded and I’m super stoked with the end result!” 

Slated for a Fall release through Montreal-based Stomp Records, Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party is reportedly a collection of psych rock bangers influenced and informed by the likes of The Hives, Bad Nerves, Dead Kennedys, Thee Oh Sees, Idles, Ty Segall, Buzzcocks and Parquet Courts.

Clocking in at 90 seconds, Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party‘s first single “Eyes” is a sweat and beer fueled mosh pit ripper centered around scuzzy power chords, frenetic drumming, rousingly anthemic hooks and Hilborn’s shouts and yelps. Play this one at ear splitting volumes and rock out. You’ll thank me for it.

“Eyes is a song about feeling burnt out creatively, mentally and physically. Something so many of us can relate to, even more so over the past year and a half,” Wine Lips’ Hilborn explains in press notes. “It sheds light on situations where you find yourself powering through the days with different coping methods brought on by late nights, alcohol and promiscuity, and seeing how far you can push the limits of your body before you find yourself defeated and broken down.” 

Directed and filmed by Sammy J. Lewis, the recently released video begins with a woman smoking a cigarette in a seedy, garbage-strewn Toronto alley. The cigarette smoking woman sees a slightly opened garbage bag with a glowing light coming out of it. Curious, the woman opens the bag and dives into a frenzied live performance of the song.

“Sammy had the idea of making it look like the band was playing inside a garbage bag, so we did a classic performance video but tried to make it a little more interesting with crazy fast paced cuts and some added green screen fun,” Wine Lips’ Hilborn says of the video. “It was super fun, super sweaty and we felt like trash by the end of the day.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays ACTORS Releases a Sultry Dance Floor Friendly Bop

With the release of 2018’s full-length debut It Will Come To You, the acclaimed Vancouver-based JOVM mainstay act ACTORS — currently Jason Corbett (vocals, guitar), Shannon Hemmett (synth, vocals), Kendall Wooding (bass) and Adam Fink (drums) — quickly established a brooding yet anthemic post-punk sound centered around icy synths, angular bass lines, squiggling guitars and Corbett’s reverb-drenched croon.

Since the release of their full-length debut, the Canadian post-punk outfit had been busy: Until pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions put touring on pause, ACTORS had been on a relentless touring schedule to support the album, including a stop at the long-shuttered Brooklyn Bazaar for a headlining set at 2018’s A Murder of Crows Festival. Interestingly, during that same period of time, ACTORS’ frontman Jason Corbett has become an in-demand producer, who has worked with the likes of Bootblacks, Ultrviolence, SPECTRES, and others.

The Vancouver-based JOVM mainstays’ highly-anticipated sophomore album Acts of Worship is slated for an October 1, 2021 release through Artoffact Records. Recorded and produced at Corbett’s Jacknife Studio, the album reportedly finds the Vancouver-based pushing their synth-driven post-punk sound in a much more dance floor friendly direction while retaining the brooding melancholy and massive hooks that have won them attention across the international post-punk scene.

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

  • “Love U More,” a single that can trace its origins to the band being on the road: While traveling the Autobahn at 190km per hour (about 120 mph), the song’s opening synth melody looped through Jason Corbett’s head. The song itself is centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, angular and reverb-drenched bursts of guitar and a relentless motorik groove in one of the act’s more sensual songs to date.
  • “Only Lonely,” Acts of Worship‘s second single, a song that Corbett explains is indebted to Roxy Music — in particular “The Space Between” “Dance Away” and “Love Is The Drug.” And much like the sources that inspired it, “Only Lonely” manages to express a similar yearning and vulnerability.

Acts of Worship‘s third and latest single “Cold Eyes” continues a relatively new run of dance floor friendly bangers. Centered around buzzing bass synths, twinkling synth arpeggios, a relentless motorik groove, Corbett’s breathy vocal delivery dueling boy-girl harmonizing for the song’s rousingly anthemic hook, “Cold Eyes” is all leather, lace and late night come on.

“‘Cold Eyes’ was written and recorded in one day. Sometimes that just happens and it ends up being the band’s favorite song on the new album,” ACTORS’ Jason Corbett says in press notes. “We can’t wait to play it live!”

Shot in a cinematic black and white, the recently released video for “Cold Eyes” employs a relatively simple concept: we see the individual members of the band dancing to the song while occasionally playing their respective instruments. As ACTORS’ Jason Corbett notes, the band’s current lineup perfectly reflects the balance of masculine and feminine energy contained within the songs.

The members of ACTORS had planned a Fall North American tour to build up buzz for the album and them to support it; but those plans have been put on hold because of pandemic. Hopefully, they’ll be able to reschedule those dates.