Category: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The KVB Releases a Hallucinogenic Visual for Euphoric “World on Fire”

Currently based in Manchester, the acclaimed shoegazer duo The KVB initially was started back in 2010 as the solo recording project of singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Wood. Wood had a series of limited cassette and vinyl releases. In 2011, vocalist, keyboardist and visual artist Kat Day joined the project. And over the next decade, the duo released several critically applauded albums and EPs through a several different labels before signing to Geoff Barrow’s Invada Records, who released 2018’s Only Now Forever.

Each of the duo’s acclaimed releases found them blending the reverb soaked shoegaze with minimalist electronic production simultaneously inspired by The Jesus and Mary Chain and Cabaret Voltaire — but while increasingly streamlining their sound with each subsequent effort.

Having toured extensively across the European Union, the UK, China, Russia and Japan, the Manchester-based duo have amassed a devoted fanbase globally. And during the pandemic, the duo relocated from Berlin to Manchester to work on new material with Andy Savours. The duo’s latest single “World on Fire” is the first single from those sessions and interestingly enough, the track finds the duo further refining their sound: Starting with burst of drum machine, the song is centered around buzzing and slashing power chords, shimmering and arpeggiated synths, a relentless motorik groove and a euphoric hook paired with the duo’s breathy boy-girl harmonies. Sonically, the track finds the Wood and Day pushing the boundaries of shoegaze in a similar fashion to Lightfoils, BLACKSTONE RNGRS and others while giving their sound a gauzy, New Order-like sheen.

World On Fire’ was written in late 2019 and at its core it’s about duality and how a phrase like ‘set the world on fire’ which sounds so destructive, is also about doing something remarkable,” the members of The KVB explain. “We wanted it to be a phrase that is deliberately open to interpretation in this song.” They add, “Over time we have all become desensitised to bad news and horrific events through television and social media. In much the same way as people slow down to look at a car crash, it feels like we’ve all become more and more obsessed with watching the world on fire.”

wer of Babel comprised of TVs. Eventually, we see the background burst into flames and other signs of the apocalypse.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Death Valley GIrls Absurd Yet Defiant Visual for “I’m a Man Too”

I’ve spilled copious amounts of virtual ink over the course of the site’s 11+ year history covering Los Angeles-based garage rock/psych rock JOVM mainstays Death Valley Girls. Although the band has gone through a series of lineup changes throughout their history, the band — currently founding duo and primary songwriters Larry Schemel (guitar) and Bonnie Bloomgarden (vocals, guitar, keys) and a rotating cast of collaborators that includes Alana Amram (bass), Laura Harris (drums), Shannon Lay, members of The Make Up, The Shivas and Moaning, as well as The Flytraps’ Laura Kelsey — can quite literally trace its origins as a sort of safe haven for its founding duo, as they navigated the difficult path of getting clean from hard drugs.

Understandably, for Schemel and Bloomgarden, the band was a kind of rebirth for them, and an outlet for a new — perhaps clearer and cleaner — way of living. Their newfound appreciation for life, inspired a thirst for communal celebration. And their earliest shows wound up taking on a mystical fervor: While their overall aesthetic is influenced by The Manson Family, B movie theatrics and the occult, they paired that with adrenalized swagger, scuzzy garage rock and punk, without the hardened nihilism.

Glow in the Dark was a jittery and jubilant barnburner centered around scuzzy guitar riffle, rousingly anthemic choral hooks and thunderous rhythms. Thematically, the album sees the band reveling in the secret bond held between misfits and outcasts, who openly refused to submit to the crushing weight of “capitalism, classism and elitism” with the album’s songs being a rallying cry to like-minded souls. “Once you realize that money, government, and this whole system is a shitty construct that doesn’t work and stands in the way of our true magical infinite potential, we start to glow,” The Death Valley Girls’ Bloomgarden says about the album. “And we can see everyone that believes ‘cause they glow too!”

Physical copies of Glow in the Dark have been unavailable with the album being out of print since 2016. But thankfully, the good folks at Suicide Squeeze Records will officially re-issue Death Valley Girls’ sophomore album on August 27, 2021: The album will be available on all the digital platforms — and as an initial vinyl pressing limited to 2,000 copies (1,500 on Unite, Multiply, & Conquer splatter vinyl, 500 on Little Ghost tri-color vinyl).

brate the re-issue of Glow in the Dark, the band released a new video for album single “I’m a Man Too.” Centered around enormous and rousingly anthemic shout along worthy hooks, scuzz spattered power chords and a forcefully chugging rhythm section, “I’m a Man Too,” the song is a joyful and defiant anthem that calls for the end of societal ideals of gender and gender roles, pointing out that they’re complete restrictive bullshit.

“What it means to be a man and what we expect from a woman has negatively impacted all our lives. How we treat each other and ourselves shouldn’t be based on society’s ideals of gender!” Death Valley Girls’ Bonnie Bloomgarden explains in press notes, “Everyone is a unique combination of feminine and masculine energy. It’s constantly changing. Somebody outside of you telling you how to be yourself is the most ridiculous and harmful thing I can imagine. You are a beautiful combination of many different things. Get to know yourself, be the most authentic you you can be. Label yourself if you wanna, don’t if you don’t, respect yourself and who everyone else is; that’s who they are!”

The recently released video by Cherry and edited by Little Ghost is a surreal and nightmarish makeup tutorial set to the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Penelope Isles Release a gorgeous and Surreal Visual for CInematic “Sailing Still”

Acclaimed Brighton-based indie rock act Penelope Isles is led by sibling duo and co-songwriters and co-vocalists Lily and Jack Wolter. 2019 was a breakthrough year for the Wolters: they released their self-produced full-length debut Until The Tide Creeps to critical applause globally. That same year, the act toured extensively to support the album: they shared stages with the likes of The Flaming Lips and The Magic Numbers, playing over 100 shows — and touring the States three times, including a stop at the inaugural New Colossus Festival.

Since the release of Until The Tide Creeps, The Wolters have been busy with their own solo recording projects and collaborations with other artists, including Lost Horizons. They also spent time working on their highly-anticipated — and still not officially announced — sophomore album. (Word on the street is that we’ll be receiving details on that in the near future.)

in the UK — or if you’ll be in the UK during the late fall — you can check out the tour dates and ticket information on the band’s website. Hot on the heels of the tour announcement, the duo released “Sailing Still,” their forthcoming sophomore album’s first official single. “Sailing Still” is a cinematic track, centered around a brooding yet shimmering string arrangement, gently strummed guitar, thunderous drumming, a soaring hook and Lily Wolter’s achingly tender vocals. Sonically bearing a resemblance to Lily Wolter’s work with the aforementioned Lost Horizons, the heartbreakingly gorgeous track evokes a deep yet familiar yearning for peace in a mad, mad, mad world.

Directed by Jack Wolters, the recently released video is a gorgeously shot fever dream that follows Penelope Isles’ Lily Wolter as she walks through and in a series of different locations throughout their native UK including a winding stone staircase at the shore, endless meadows, the forests, quirky stores and elsewhere. The visual is edited in a way that each passage leads to a stranger and more surreal passage.

“Before the enforced break due to COVID-19, we spent pretty much all of 2019 driving ourselves around Europe and America having some incredible adventures as a band and it seemed that everything since then had been falling apart,” Penelope Isles’ Jack Wolter explains. “Writing and recording new music as a huge part of the recovery process and when making this film for ‘Sailing Still’ I wanted Lily and I to get back on the road somehow, as travelling has been such a massive part of our band ever since we began. So I had this idea of filming Lily in a myriad of places and scenarios, both urban and rural, coastal and inland. Mountains and rivers, council flats and tunnels, cafes and bridges. We drove up and down the country for a week, sleeping in the van, and waking up at the crack of dawn to start filming again. Reconnecting as a band again but also spending time together as brother and sister was special for filming this real heartbreaker of a song.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Low’s Gorgeous and Intimate Visual for Meditative and Yearning “Disappearing”

Formed back in 1993, the acclaimed Duluth-based indie act  Low — currently founding members and married couple Alan Sparhawk (guitar, vocals) and Mimi Parker (drums) with Steve Garrington (bass) — are considered pioneers of slowcore, an indie […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay MUNYA Releases a Gorgeous and Dreamy Visual for Shimmering “Pour Toi”

During the course of 2018 and 2019, I’ve managed to write quite a bit about Québec-born and-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and producer Josie Boivin, the creative mastermind behind the critically applauded recording project and JOVM mainstay act MUNYA.

When Boivin was asked to play at 2017’s Pop Montreal, she had only written one song. Ironically, at the time, Boivin never intended to pursue music full-time; but after playing at the festival, she quickly realized that music was what she was meant to do. So, Boivin quit her day job, moved in with her sister and turned their kitchen into a home recording studio, where she wrote every day. Those recordings would become part of an EP trilogy with each individual EP named after a significant place in Boivin’s life: Her debut North Hatley EP derived its name from one of Boivin’s favorite little Québecois villages. Her second EP, the critically applauded Delmano EP derived its name from Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based bar Hotel Delmano. The third and final EP of the trilogy, Blue Pine derived its name from the Blue Pine Mountains in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.

Washed Out-like “Pour Toi” is centered around an aching and unfulfilled longing: The song as Boivin explains is about speaking to a loved one from a distance.

Co-directed by MUNYA and Josh Aldecoa, the recently released, gorgeously shot and surreal dream of a video for “Pour Toi” was shot in Williamsburg, a beautiful, sun-filled apartment and elsewhere. We see the acclaimed Québecois artist chatting on an old red dial tone phone in a variety of places , which manages to emphasize the longing at the center of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Laura Carbone Performs “Nightride” at Rockpalast

With the release of her first two albums — 2016’s Sirens and 2018’s Empty Sea — Berlin-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and photographer  Laura Carbone received attention across the European Union and elsewhere for a sound and approach that frequently draws comparisons to PJ Harvey, Shana Falana, Chelsea Wolfe, St. Vincent and others.

While opening for The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Carbone and her backing band quickly established a reputation for a powerful live show, which she further cemented with a headlining tours across the European Union and North America. (If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of years, you might recall that I caught Carbone when she played Baby’s All Right back in 2019. A lifetime ago, it seems.)

s the story goes, Carbone and her backing band were slated to go into the studio last May to record what would be her highly-anticipated, third album. But as a result of pandemic-related restrictions and lockdowns, Carbone’s plans were indefinitely shelved at the time, much like countless other artists across the globe. While she was touring across the European Union, Carbone and her band made an appearance on the beloved German live concert series Rockpalast. For Carbone, who grew up in a small, southwestern German town watching Rockpaalst as a music obsessed youth, appearing on the show was the achievement of a lifelong dream: Rockpalast has recorded and broadcasted a who’s who list of influential and important artists, including Siouxsie and The Banshees, Radiohead, Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, Sinead O’Connor, David Bowie, R.E.M., Echo and the Bunnymen, Screaming Trees, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bob Marley and the Wailers and a very lengthy list of others.

Because of pandemic-related shutdowns, Carbone and her band came up with an interesting idea: “What if Rockpalast would let us release that show as a live album?” Released last fall across Europe and today across North America,  Laura Carbone — Live at Rockpalast is just that. Taken from her October 2019 Rockpalast set at Harmonie Bonn, the live album is a centered around a career-spanning set featuring material from her first two albums and a rather unexpected cover. Hewing as closely as humanly possible to their live sound, the album was mixed by  in Los Angeles by The Jesus and Mary Chain‘s Scott Van Ryper and mastered by Philipp Welsing at Hamburg‘s Original Mastering with no overdubs.

Because of pandemic-related shutdowns, Carbone and her band came up with an interesting idea: “What if Rockpalast would let us release that show as a live album?” Released last fall across Europe and today across North America,  Laura Carbone — Live at Rockpalast is just that. Taken from her October 2019 Rockpalast set at Harmonie Bonn, the live album is a centered around a career-spanning set featuring material from her first two albums and a rather unexpected cover. Hewing as closely as humanly possible to their live sound, the album was mixed by  in Los Angeles by The Jesus and Mary Chain‘s Scott Van Ryper and mastered by Philipp Welsing at Hamburg‘s Original Mastering with no overdubs.

So far I’ve written about two of Laura Carbone — Live at Rockpalast’s singles:

“Who’s Gonna Save You,” which captures Catrbone and her band’s forceful live sound and the Berlin-based artist’s irresistible stage presence. And while the song finds the band deftly balancing menace and sultriness, the song should serve as an introduction to an artist, who has quickly added her name to a growing list of rock goddesses.
“Cellophane Skin:” Performed as the first song of the set’s encore, the live rendition finds Carbone and company taking the tension of the original and informing with a feral intensity developed while touring. And as a result, the song finds its narrator — and perhaps, even the artist herself — turning into a seductive, yet vengeful force of nature tearing down the bonds of poisonous social norms that have imprisoned her, while demanding that we — men particularly so — examine and check ourselves.

Laura Carbone — Live at Rockpalast’s third and latest single “Nightride” is a slow-burning and brooding bit of psychedelia-tinged post punk that sonically and lyrically nods at The Doors “The End” as though covered by PJ Harvey. Full of dark and uneasy imagery including a full moon on a clear night, a dark yet irresistible stranger, a road trip through the forest, sporadically lit by the moonlight and headlights, the song thematically is an existential journey — to the dark and murky depths of a human soul, to something and/or someone.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Colleen Green’s Anthemic “It’s Nice to Be Nice”

Colleen Green is a Dunstable, MA-born, Los Angeles-based lo-fi rock/indie pop singer/songwriter and guitarist. Green’s career started in earnest with her full-length debut, 2011’s Milo Goes to Compton, an effort initially released as a cassette and later on vinyl through Art Fag Recordings.

The Dunstable-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and guitarist’s debut caught the attention of Seattle-based indie label Hardly Art Records, who signed her and released her sophomore album, 2013’s Sock It To Me. Green’s third album, 20115’s I Want to Grow Up was released to critical acclaim with LA Weekly readers voting her that year’s Best Solo Artist. The album was also her most commercially successful album to date, perhaps as a result of album single “Wild One” being featured on the Netflix series Love.

Thematically, I Want To Grow Up found Green at a familiar yet profound existential crisis: Although almost always cool, she didn’t necessarily feel so at that point: Seemingly too young to be free of insecurities, she was old enough to be sick of them running — and ruining — her life.

Green’s forthcoming third album Cool is her first album in six years. Slated for a September 10, 2021 release through Hardly Art, the album’s material reportedly finds her figuring out what it means to be grown up — and realizing that being an adult, who has somehow managed to live and survive through a full and messy life is pretty damn cool. Co-produced by Gordon Raphael and Green and featuring beats by hip-hop producer Aqua and drumming from Brendan Eder, the album was recorded in several different Southern California-based studios including Glendale’s comp-ny, North Hollywood’s Tenement Yard and Los Angeles’ Cosmic Vinyl. Sonically, the album sees Green retaining the lo-fi aesthetic that has won her praise and fans globally while pushing her songs to a higher level: burnt out on bad feelings, Green wanted to have fun with melodies and beats while keeping her lo-fi aesthetic intact.

The album features “I Want to Be a Dog,” a single released to praise from the likes of The New York Times, The Fader, Stereogum, Under the Radar, DIY, BrooklynVegan, Spin, Our Culture, Closed Captioned and others. Cool’s and latest single “It’s Nice to Be Nice” is a breezy bit of power pop centered around chugging power chords, an athemic chorus and razor sharp hooks. But underneath the big choruses and power chords, the song thematically is a reminder — both to the songwriter and the listener — that in life, you often get what you give, so it’s important to be the best person you can be. And in a world that regularly seems on the verge of collapse, the song’s message seems rather pertinent.

y Renee Lusano, the recently released video was shot on a boat, just off the Los Angeles coast. We see Green making herself a simple dinner of spaghetti and meatballs and hanging out on the boat. But we see someone, who has finally gained comfort in her own skin and mind. As Green calls it, “a nice video for a nice song.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Bad Bad Hats’ Triumphant Return in Wacky Visual for Anthemic “Detroit Basketball”

Rising Minneapolis-based indie rock band Bad Bad Hats — currently founding members Kery Alexander (vocals, guitar) and Chris Hoge (bass) along with newest member Con Davidson (drums) — can trace its origins back to when Alexander and Hoge met while attending Saint Paul-based  Macalester College: the band’s founding duo had admired each other’s music on MySpace and the pair began writing songs together in 2010, eventually recording a collection of demos that would eventually comprise their debut EP.

Alexander and Hoge recruited their friend Noah Boswell (bass) to solidify their initial lineup and flesh out their sound. After playing in and around the Minneapolis area, the trio caught the attention of Afternoon Records, who signed the band and released their debut EP and their Brett Buillion-produced full-length debut, 2015’s Psychic Reader and 2018’s sophomore album Lightning Round.

hanges. Noah Boswell left the band and was replaced by Con Davidson — and as a result, some duties have been reshuffled: Hoge, who initially played drums is now playing bass. The Minneapolis-based trio recently signed to Don Giovanni Records, who will be releasing their highly anticipated third album, Walkman on September 17, 2021.

lkman’s first single “Detroit Basketball” derives its name from the call-and-response chant Pistons fans routinely fill Little Caesar’s Arena with during game night. The phrase stuck in Alexander’s head, and she later drew on it for inspiration. “Detroit Basketball” finds the rising Midwestern trio further refining their sound: sonically, the track is a breezy mix of power pop, 120 Minutes MTV-era alt rock and 00s pop punk centered around Alexander’s deeply personal songwriting, a rousingly anthemic, sing-along worthy chorus and an infectious hook. But underneath the song’s breezy infectiousness, the song balances bittersweet and sour as it’s one- part tell off to a lover that jilted its narrator, one-part feminist anthem in which its narrator boldly tells the world what she deserves and one-part tale of heartbreak by a cold and indifferent former lover — with a sort of winking acknowledgment of the whole ordeal’s shittiness.

The recently released video for “Detroit Basketball” is a playful and absurd romp: The video begins with the band disappearing off the face of the earth, and a devoted fan attempting to find them. We see that each of the members have started new, very weird careers — presumably as a result of the pandemic: Hoge has become devoted to placing miniature chip bags in bottles. Davidson has become a competitive puzzler. Alexander has become a motivational speaker for a rip off TED-like series. They each get summoned to reunite. Of course, there’s a workout montage. (I mean there has to be a workout montage) And then the band’s triumphant return — at a backyard birthday party in front of that devoted fan.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Vancouver’s Aversions Release a Hallucinogenic Visual for Tense “Famous Last Lines”

Led by frontman Sam Coll, the Vancouver-based post-punk act Aversions is a band that manages the difficult balance between having legitimate day jobs, and attempting to live the axiom of art interlacing life. Sonically, the Vancouver-based act’s work features muscular riffs, angular bass lines and thunderous drumming paired with Coll’s takes on a variety of topics big and small — while alternating between exalting and disparaging the many contradictions of their hometown.

io Rain City Records and self-recorded and -self-engineered the sessions live-off-the-floor with friends. The four songs they recorded together were mixed by Jordan Koop at The Noise Floor and mastered by Jack Shirley at the Bay Area-based Atomic Garden. Their latest single, “Famous Last Lines” is the first release from those pandemic-restricted sessions.

muscular riffs, angular bass lines, thunderous drumming and Coll’s shouted lyrics, the taut and uneasy “Famous Last Lines” finds the members of Aversions darting between forceful thrash, anxious thrum and desperate howl — all while sonically recalling fellow Canadians Preoccupations and METZ. The band explains that the song lyrically explores the disconnect between our memory of a thing and its true nature, using commonly misunderstood “last lines” of famous works of art and literature to illustrate the idea. Thematically, the song questions what true ownership really is: of ideas, associations and objects themselves.

The accompanying visual is a hallucinogenic fever dream that draws from horror movies, dystopian sci-fi and believe it or not, Peter Gabriel.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Lucid Express Release a Trippy Visual for Shimmering and Lush “North Acton”

Hong Kong-based shoegazer outfit and newest JOVM mainstays Lucid Express — Kim (vocals, synths), Andy (guitar), Sky (guitar), and siblings Samuel (bass) and Wai (drums) — can trace their origins back to 2014: the then-teenagers started the band (initially known as Thud), in the turbulent weeks before the Umbrella Movement, the most recent in a series of tense pro-democracy protests against the increasingly brutal state-led suppression in the region. Amidst the constant scenery of tear-gassed, bloodied and beaten protestors, politically-targeted arrests and death threats from government officials, the five Hong Kong-based musicians met in a small practice space sun the remote, industrial Kwai Hing neighborhood. 

Despite the ugliness of their sociopolitical moment, the Hong Kong-based outfit manages to specialize in an ethereal and shimmering blend of indie pop, dream pop and shoegaze with their practice space being someplace where they could escape their world. “At that time, it felt like we have [sic] a need to hold on to something more beautiful than before. Like close friendships, the band, our creation,” the band’s Kim says in press notes. 

The band’s current name can be seen as a relatively modest mission statement describing the band’s intent: their use of the word lucid is in the poetic sense of something bright and radiant. Essentially, Lucid Express operates as the service to take the listener on a journey through their lush, dreamy and blissful sound. Interestingly, their material often manages to evoke the mood of its inception: with the band’s members working late-night shifts, their rehearsal and recording schedules found the band playing, writing and recording material between midnight and 4:00AM — and then crashing for a few hours in the studio, before heading back to their jobs.

The Hong Kong-based JOVM mainstay’s 10-song, self-titled, full-length debut officially dropped today. And as you may recall, the album’s material thematically touches upon being young, being in love and maneuvering through heartache in difficult and desperate times. Over the past handful of months I’ve written about three of the album’s singles in the lead-up to its release:

“Wellwave,” a sculptured and lush soundscape centered around Kim’s ethereal vocals, glistening synths, skittering four-on-the-floor and a motorik groove — with the end result being a song that reminded me quite a bit of Lightfoils, Palm Haze and Cocteau Twins but while feeling like a lucid fever dream. 
“Hollowers” the only collaborative track on the album as it features The Bilinda Butchers‘ Adam Honingford, who contributes his baritone to the song’s chorus. Interestingly, the track found the Hong Kong-based outfit pushing their sound towards its darkest corners. While prominently featuring shimmering synth arpeggios and shimmering guitars, the song’s emotional heftiness comes from its stormy, feedback driven chorus. 
“Hotel 65” a song that alternates between shimmering and ethereal verses and anthemic choruses featuring thunderous drumming and feedback drenched power chords. And while evoking a brewing storm on the horizon, the song lyrically name drops the guesthouse where Lucid Express’ frontperson Kim Ho stayed in while visiting the UK — and speaks of a relationship that should have never happened between two strangers, who both know that their time together will only be brief moment.

“North Acton,” the self-titled album’s opener — and fifth and latest single — continues a run of sculptured and painterly lush soundscapes, but this time paired with a propulsive and energetic four-on-the-floor. Seemingly nodding at 4AD Records beloved heyday, “North Acton” serves as the perfect introduction to the band and their sound while arguably be one of the album’s most upbeat and hopeful singles.

The recently released video for “North Acton” features trippy collage-based artwork by London-based artist Nick Scott (who also designed the album’s cover art) that takes the viewer on a psychedelic journey through his hometown and landscapes featuring oceans, mountains and clouds — all seen in neon-colored negatives.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Dill’s Groovy “Lover Baby”

Dylan Hudecki is a Hamilton, Ontario, Canada-based singer/songwriter and guitarist and grizzled Hamilton music scene vet, best known for stints in bands like By Divine Right and Junior Blue. Back in 2018, Hudecki stepped out into the limelight as a solo artist with his solo recording project The Dill — and the project’s full-length debut Greetings From.

Released through Dead Radio Love Records, a boutique imprint of Riverfest Elora, Greetings From was a vinyl release featuring a best of selection of the 52 songs he had written as part of a larger magnum opus titled 52, which features 113 different Canadian artists collaborating with Hudecki and took the better part of 15 years to write and record. Late last year, Hudecki took 12 of the remaining 40 songs left off the vinyl, had those tracks remixed and remastered and released it as a book-end effort titled Beside to close out the last chapter of 52.

rock musicians including The Weakerthans and Bahamas’ Jason Tait, Broken Social Scene’s Sam Goldberg, Rheostatics’ Don Kerr, Twin Within’s Steve McKay, Monster Truck’s Jeremy Widerman, Chalk Circle’s Chris Tait, Holy Fuck’s Brian Borcherdt and a list of others. Sonically, Besides is centered around playful eclecticism paired with Hudecki’s wry and sobering observations on navigating life’s great disappointments.

For Hudecki, the experience has shown I’m that good things do come to those, who wait. “I’ve got great friends, plain and simple,” Hudecki says. “If it wasn’t for them, this project wouldn’t exist. The spirit of collaboration kept me going. I had to finish it for them, if no one else.”

Besides’ latest single “Lover Baby” which features Bahamas’ Don Kerr (drums) and Monster Truck’s Jeremey Wilderman (guitar) sees Hudecki pairing his wry, deadpan delivery in English and French with a scuzzy and bluesy guitar-led groove that would thrill Jack White or Dan Auerbach and an enormous hook. At its core, “Lover Baby” is a playful yet earnest plea of eternal devotion. After making music that was full of guitar tracks and multi-layering, it’s great to try to be minimal and evolve as a songwriter to keep it to the basics,” the Hamilton-based artist says.

The recently released video for “Lover Baby” features Hudecki dancing around the streets of Hamilton, Ontario in a monkey mask. “Sometimes, we just need to go for a walk and dance down the street for the hell of it — taking the piss out of life,” Dylan Hudecki say of the video treatment. “I cruised around Hamilton, Ontario dressed as a monkey while filming the video for my new song, ‘Lover Baby.’ It was an interesting feeling to be looked at as odd and unusual – ostracized for being different – which ultimately felt freeing.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Follow Young French Artist Esther Maud on a Wild Adventure in “Etranger Solitaire”

Esther Maud is an emerging Paris-based multidisciplinary artist: Maud is a photographer, videographer and singer/songwriter, who also designs clothes and draws. As a songwriter, the rising French artist records sketches and snippets of melodies and verses as vice memos, that over time eventually become acapella recorded songs that are often simultaneously melancholy and playful. She then sends them off to producers across French to flesh out.

debut EP Puisque rien ne dure thematically touches upon love, particularly lost love, heartbreak, romantic reunions, longing and so on while seemingly drawing comparisons to the great French chanson singers like Françoise Hardy, Jacquline Taïeb and contemporaries like Claire Laffut and Clara Luciani. Puisque rien ne dure‘s latest single “Etranger solitaire” is a hook driven pop confection centered around the rising French artist’s breathy and coquettish cooing and a slick, dance floor friendly production that — to my ears — reminds me a little bit of Daft Punk. But underneath the song’s breezy exterior is a a sweet and swooning tale of reunited love.

French artist flying above the French seaside, hanging out with her best girlfriend and and a group of people attempting a Tik Tok-styled dance on the beach.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays La Femme’s Hazy and Nostalgic Ode to Young Love

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

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

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

was released earlier this year through the band’s own Disque Pointu and distributed through IDOL. In the lead up to the album’s release, I managed to write about four of the album’s singles:

ool Colorado,” a cool yet bombastic single that seemed indebted to Scott Walker and Ennio Morricone soundtracks while being an “ode to the San Francisco of the 70s — and to Colorado, the first American state to legalize cannabis. 
Disconnexion,” a surreal what-the-fuck fever dream centered around pulsating Giorgio Moroder-like motorik grooves, a fiery banjo solo, atmospheric electronics, twinkling synth arpeggios, a philosophic soliloquy delivered in a dry, academic French and operatic caterwauling. 
“Foutre le Bordel,” a breakneck freak out that meshed Freedom of Choice-era DEVO and Giorgio Moroder with ’77 punk rock nihilism. 
“Le Jardin,” an achingly sad lullaby written and sung in Spanish — the band’s first song in Spanish. Inspired by a trip to Spain that the band took a few years ago, the song as the band explains “is a kind of an old-school slow dance, which underlines how fate random and fragile. The moments we go through, sometimes very sudden, from shadows to light, and vice-versa.”

Paradigmes’ ninth (!) and latest single, “Pasadena” is a slow-burning and woozy ballad featuring a vocoder’ed intro and centered around thumping, reverb-drenched beats, atmospheric synths, twinkling keys and alternating boy-girl vocals that as a whole sounds like a narcotic-induced haze. Written as a informal response to “Septembre,” a song off their sophomore album that was about the entire school world, “Pasadena” finds “Sepetmbre’s main character as a teenager, and is about budding school-age romances, primarily their seemingly carefree nature, their eventual difficulties and the weight of peer pressure. The song manages to make references to situations that are familiar to many of us, because we’ve all experienced them in some fashion — the swooning passion of new, young love; the bitter taste of heartbreak; the difficulties in moving forward and the like.

he recently released video for “Pasadena” is a hazy fever dream full of aching nostalgia for the meet cutes in Chemistry class days — but seen through the perspective of an adult, who seems to miss how simple things seemed. The band explains that for the first time in their decade-plus history, they made videos for each of Paradigmes’ 15 songs with the intent of creating a full-length movie, which they hope to release next fall.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Princess Century (Maya Postepski) Releases a Swooning and Propulsive Banger

Maya Postepski is an acclaimed Canadian DJ, producer and songwriter, known for her feature-length film scores, global DJ gigs and her work collaborating with Austra, Peaches and JOVM mainstay TR/ST. Postepski is also a solo artist and creative mastermind behind Princess Century, a recording project that thematically and sonically is committed to submersion rather than submission.

anticipated sophomore album s u r r e n d e r reportedly finds the acclaimed Canadian DJ, producer and songwriter breaking away from the purely instrumental sound and approach that initially won her acclaim — by showcasing her own lyrics and vocal performances. The process, as Postepski readily admits has been at times nerve-wracking and uneasy: “It’s like opening up my diary and saying, ‘Have a look, there’s a lot of weird shit in there,’” she laughs. “I’ve always been hiding in the back behind a band or behind a singer,” she continues. “It’s my first step into a more vulnerable and exposed place, which I’m finally okay with for the first time in my adult life. I guess I stopped caring about being shy or being insecure, or hiding who I am. I don’t like to be in the limelight, but life is short and I guess I should share who I am eventually.”

The album’s material was written between Narva, an Eastern Estonia town, near the Russian border; a tent in the Moroccan portion of the Sahara Desert without internet; and Berlin, where she became a resident at Riverside Studios. Postepski recorded the album in her room at the studio while Brazilian artist Julia Borelli engineered the album in her own space at the studio. s u r r e n d e r’s title refers not to a white flag or a towel being thrown but a surrounding of the self to everything around it. Fueled by the philosophy of “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final,” the album’s 12 songs thematically sees Postepski guiding the listener to though a maze of pure, unbridled emotion: the end result is material that’s rich and visceral yet offers healing through dancing your pain away.

Inspired by Steve Reich, Róisín Murphy and Jorja Chalmer, the forthcoming 12-song album is centered around a minimalist aesthetic that emphasizes the use of repetition. “It’s sort of this minimalistic, pattern-based music,” Postepski says. “I play drums and synths, so those are my worlds. I’m obsessed with finding these beautiful landscapes with synthesizers and drum machines.”

“Still The Same,” s u r r e n d e r’s latest single is a dance floor friendly track punctuated with a desperately unfulfilled and swooning yearning, evoked through pulsating synth arpeggios, skittering beats and Postepski’s ethereal vocals. The song’s narrator repeatedly tells its love object “You’re still the same/But I need you now/I need you more again . . .” “‘Still the Same’ embodies the mix of emotions that arise at the end of a relationship,” the acclaimed acclaimed Canadian DJ, producer and songwriter explains. “The longing and frustration, hopelessness and desire fused into a confusing cocktail. The inescapable need to feel held and seen by the one you were closest to, but can no longer reach, then pretending it’s all ok by going out on the town in a desperate attempt for connection.”

orgeously shot fever dream of longing, nostalgia, desire, loss and frustration between a couple on the brink of a heartbreaking split — but seen from the nagging perspective of hindsight.