Category: New Wave

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Stefan Murphy is a singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and the creative mastermind behind the mostly Berlin, Germany-based New Wave and post-punk-inspired recording project Count Vaseline. Interestingly, Murphy started the project during a creative spell — and after a handful of live shows, Murphy went to the U.S. to write and record his Count Vaseline debut Yo No Soy Marinero, a deeply personal effort that focuses on what may have been one of the more difficult times of his own life — and as a result, the album is kind of a debaucherous romp that celebrates both his trials and tribulations and creativity while in Berlin.

Of course, Murphy’s decision to decision to stay in the US was followed by an earth-shattering Presidential election that still has countless people reeling, and his recently released sophomore effort Cascade thematically focuses on the depressingly cyclical patterns of both world history and world politics and the overall sense of pervasive doom; however, the album’s latest single “Russia” is an account of two lovers desperately trying to break free from the constraints and horrors of the modern world. And while deliberately performed at 117 beats per minute — the same beats per minute as Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” — the song manages to sound like what would happen if Duran Duran had covered Echo and the Bunnymen’s “Bring on the Dancing Horses” but with a young Ian McCulloch taking up vocal duties.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially members of Swedish melodic punk/dark pop collective Vånna Inget, Karolina Engdahl (vocals/bass) and Tommy Tift (guitar) can trace their latest musical project, the Malmo, Sweden-based post-punk quartet True Moon to a mounting frustration with what they felt was an increasingly sanitized and homogeneous Scandinavian music scene. “Karolina and I are bored with the Swedish music scene at the moment,” Tift explains in press notes. “It feels like everyone has the same blueprint, like there’s an industry rulebook now for how bands must sound. We wanted to do something different. With the last Vånna Inget (2013’s critically acclaimed, Swedish Grammy-nominated Ingen Botten) we got more and more into dark wave and new wave, so we felt we wanted to explore than more.”

“We were listening to artists such as Joy Division, Killing Joke, Siouxsie and The Banshees, The Sisters of Mercy, The Mission and early Cure,” Tift notes. “There is a purity and honesty and integrity to that music that’s missing from the current scene. Those bands weren’t making music to be pop stars or rock stars, it is pure expression and pure art, and that’s the aesthetic we were pursuing.” Once the duo settled on the band’s overall aesthetic, they recruited  Frederik Orevad (drums) and Linus Segerstedt (guitar) to complete the band’s lineup.
The Malmo, Sweden-based quartet’s self-titled full-length debut was recorded by producer Jari Haapalainen, known for his work with Ed Harcourt and The (International) Noise Conspiracy live to analog tape at Tift’s Studio Motion with the producer and band actively aiming for a raw, unpolished feel and sound reminiscent of Martin Hannet’s legendary work with Joy Division — and in a similar fashion to those legendary recordings, the members of True Moon recorded their debut album’s material in single takes, which gives the album’s material a forceful immediacy; in fact, Engdahl completed the vocals for the album in about 90 minutes.
Slated for an April 28, 2017 release through Lovely Records, the band and their label recently released the album’s first single “Sugar,” and while sonically speaking the song — to my ears, at least — sounds like what would happen if Siouxsie and the Banshees had covered Joy Division, complete with a roaring and rousingly anthemic hook, and an undeniably forceful, almost primal and explosive “you-were-there” immediacy that sets them apart from they countrymen and from their counterparts internationally.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The Penelopes Return with an 80s New Wave and Synth Pop Inspired New Single

Comprised of Paris-born, London-based duo Axel Basquiat (composer, vocals, bass) and Vincent T. (production, sound engineering and keys), The Penelopes are an indie electro pop act, production and DJ duo who have developed a reputation for propulsive, Giorgio Moroder-like remixes of Lana Del Ray, Pet Shop Boys, We Have Band, Night Drive, The Ting Tings, Alt J and others, and for their own original material, which critics have compared favorably to the likes of Daft Punk, M83 and Air. Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past 3 years or so, you may have come across posts on their remixes of The Ting Tings “Do It Again,” Alt J’s “Hunger of the Pine” and an anthemic, club-banging cover of Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again” that managed to retain the song’s sense of longing.

The duo released a new single package featuring their cover of Bowie’s “This Is Not America,” which received airplay on KCRW, along with several remixes, including Miguel Campbell’s remix, which received airplay on Nemone’s BBC 6 show, and a new, original song “Tina.” The duo’s latest single “Tina” manages to be a decided refinement of the sound that captured both the site’s attention and the rest of the blogosphere; in fact, while retaining a dance floor friendly feel, the song manages to decidedly leans in the direction of 80s New Wave and synth pop — in particular, I’m reminded a bit of Simple Mind’s “Don’t You Forget About Me,” as “Tina” possesses an rousingly anthemic nature that belies a swooning Romantic nature.

The recently released video cuts between footage from Asia Argento’s directorial feature film Misunderstood, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and footage of the band performing the song in a studio, shot in a striking, film noir-like black and white.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Currently comprised of founding member Mike Score (keys, vocals), Joe Rodriguez, Michael Brahm and Pando, the British new wave/synth pop quartet A Flock of Seagulls initially formed in 1980 — and with their most famous and longest running lineup featuring Mike Score, his brother Ali Score (drums), Frank Maudsley (bass) and Paul Reynolds (guitar), the quartet had some of their biggest success, including a string of international hit singles including their smash hit “I Ran (So Far Away),” “Space Age Love Song,” and “Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You),” all released in 1982 and 1984’s “The More You Live, The More You Love,” an anthemic pop song featuring angular guitars played with tons of reverb and delay pedal, an equally angular yet funky bass line, and a soaring hook.

 

Recently, JOVM mainstay artist Rhythm Scholar remixed A Flock of Seagulls’ 1984 hit single and his remix of the 1984 hit song, as futuristic bleeps and bloops, radio transmissions and feedback, along some distorted vocals during the song’s intro, bridge and coda and bigger, more forceful drum programming while retaining the angular guitar chords with reverb and delay, the equally angular bass line and the soaring hook of the original, essentially giving the song a subtle space-age feel — but space-age from what we would imagine 2017 would look like and feel like in 1984.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of founding members Ryan Walker (guitar) and Alex Hartman (bass), along with Suki San (vocals), the Los Angeles, CA-based post-punk trio Second Still can trace their origins to when Walker and Hartman met in 2007 in Los Angeles. By the time Walker and Hartman relocated to New York in 2011, they had recorded over 100 instrumental demos, which were largely inspired by French coldwave and No Wave. And as the story goes, after the band’s founding duo, while in New York they searched high and low for a vocalist that they felt could match their intensity and creative output, eventually meeting Suki San, with whom they felt an instant simpatico.

The trio’s first show was a party at the now-condemned McKibbin Street Lofts that was famously shut down by the police during their set’s second song. And building upon the buzz of that incident, the band recorded their debut EP, Early Forms, which was released last March as a limited edition cassette that quickly sold out.  While they were living in Brooklyn, the members of the band wrote the material, which would eventually comprise their forthcoming, self-titled, full-length debut — and the material on the album thematically covers deeply post-modern subjects: depression, frustration, anxiety and alienation. And before they all relocated to Los Angeles in November 2015, the members of the band hunkered down at Brooklyn’s Studio G and Seaside Lounge Studios to record their Hilary Johnson co-produced debut in two days.

Interestingly, between the release of their debut EP and their forthcoming album, they released “Walls,” a single that revealed that the material on their self-titled album would be a decided sonic departure from their EP; in fact, as you’ll hear on their album’s latest single “Recover,” the band’s sound nods to 80s post-punk — in particular Sixousie and the Banshees as San’s gorgeous vocals, which to my ears bear an uncanny resemblance to Sixousie Sioux’s are paired with angular and shimmering guitar chords played through reverb and delay pedal, a propulsive bass line and stark, industrial-leaning drum programming. And as a result, the song simultaneously possesses a brooding chilliness and a motorik groove.

The band will be touring up and down the Pacific Coast around the time of the album’s official release. Check out tour dates below.

TOUR DATES

03.30 – The Acerogami – Pomona, CA
03.31 – Venue TBD – La Puente, CA
04.01 – Venue TBD –  San Diego, CA
04.04 – The Knockout – San Francisco, CA
04.05 – Starlight Lounge – Sacramento, CA
04.06 – Venue TBD – Oakland, CA
04.07 – Out From The Shadows Festival – Portland, OR
04.08 – The Black Lodge – Seattle, WA
04.16 – Part Time Punks @ The Echo – Los Angeles, CA

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: JOVM Mainstay White Reaper Returns with a New Wave-Leaning Anthemic Single

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cloP2ZIkxuo%5D

With the release of their blistering and urgent, self-titled EP, the Louisville, KY-based quartet White Reaper quickly received national attention — and after a number of tours with nationally renowned acts like Deerhoof, Young Widows, Priests and others, the quartet built upon the early buzz they received by recording and releasing their hook-laden, breakneck, full-length effort White Reaper Does It Again, which Polyvinyl Records released to critical praise two years ago. After touring to support their critically praised full-length debut, the band seemed disappeared for a bit; however as it turns out, the band had gone into the studio to write and record the material that would comprise their highly-anticipated, forthcoming sophomore effort The World’s Best American Band, which Polyvinyl Records on April 7, 2017. And from the album’s first single “Judy French,” the single reveals a decided change in sonic direction as the song leans heavily towards New Wave and prog rock — to my ears, the song reminds me quite a bit of The Cars “You Might Think” and Moving Pictures-era Rush; but with a garage punk sneer. Interestingly, the band has retained their ability to craft tight and anthemic hooks paired with earnest, swooning sentiment.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Initially comprised of founding member Al Jourgensen (vocals and guitar), Stephen George (drums), Robert Roberts (keys) and John Davis (keys), the renowned and influential Chicago, IL-based industrial metal/industrial electronic act Ministry began as a New Wave synth pop act that released several 12 inch singles through Wax Trax! Records between 1981-1984. And after a series of lineup changes that included a deeper focus on the band’s founding duo of Jourgensen and George, and a radical change in sonic direction that lead to the aggressive and abrasive sound that later inspired the likes of Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails ,KMFDM and others.

This Friday will mark the limited release of the long-awaited Trax! Rarities double album featuring rare, early tracks and versions of songs from Wax Trax! Records-era Ministry and unreleased material from Al Jourgensen’s related side projects including Revolting Cocks, PTP, Pailhead and 1000 Homo DJs through Cleopatra Records. And we’ve got three tracks from the Trax! Rarities collection — the A Flock of Seagulls meets Roxy Music-like demo version of “The Game Is Over,” which reveals that even with a completely different sound that Jourgensen, his late bandmate George and company had an uncanny ability to write an incredibly anthemic hook paired with shimmering guitars and a propulsive groove;  the mid 80s New Order and Depeche Mode-nodding “I See Red,” which is not only a dance-floor friendly song but manages to be a more conscious move towards something resembling industrial electronic music; and lastly, “Same Old Madness,” which strangely enough, bears an uncanny resemblance to Freedom of Choice-era DEVO. Of course, while the compilation will be a must have for die-hard fans and completetists, it’s a revealing look into how a band’s sound and aesthetic can morph from making them a mere footnote of a particular time into one of the more influential bands of their generation.

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Although they officially formed in 2014 when their previous bands and creative projects ended, NGHTCRWRLS, comprised of Frank DeFranco (guitar, vocals), Brian Goglia (bass, vocals), Eric Goldberg (guitar, vocals) and Max Rauch (drums and vocals), the members of the band have known each other for years as each member of the band has spent time playing in a number of bands across the tri-state area. And as the story goes, once their various creative outlets ended, the quartet managed to serendipitously began collaborating through a series of jam sessions that resulted in their debut effort, which was recorded by Rauch in the band’s practice space and engineered and mastered by the band’s dear friend Jeremy Cimino . After a series of short tours to support their debut, the members of the band went back to their practice space to record the material, which comprised their soon-to-be released sophomore effort Raging Hot, which they had written while touring.

Raging Hot‘s latest single, the appropriately titled “Fear and Greed” is a funky, post-punk and 80s New Wave-leaning single, which finds the band pairing shimmering and angular guitar chords played through gentle amounts of reverb, a rolling and sinuous bass line, and propulsive drumming with DeFranco’s crooning falsetto. And while sonically being reminiscent of Wire and The Fixx, the song manages to possess a creeping sense of dread and uncertainty — the same sort of dread and uncertainty that countless people have started to feel about their prospects.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Russian Indie Rock Band Return with Brooding Yet Swooning New Single and Visuals

Much like it’s preceding single “Tell Me,” Dialogue’s latest single “By Your Side” is an moodily atmospheric single consisting of twinkling and shimmering synths, swirling electronics, four-on-the-floor drumming, brief blasts of plucked guitar chords and earnest and plaintive baritone in a swooning proclamation of love and devotion while further cementing their reputation for crafting material that sounds indebted to the classic 4AD Records sound.

The recently released video features fittingly moody and brooding visuals including the band preparing to record and record in a darkened studio, members of the band walking around their town and some of its quieter and lovelier sights and so on.

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Surreal Visuals for Teeth and Tongue’s “Turn Turn Turn”

Give Up On Your Health’s second and latest single “Turn Turn Turn” much like its predecessor is inspired by a painful breakup — and lyrically, the song is full of the bitter regret, uncertainty, self-deception and gradual acceptance that occurs in the aftermath of a breakup, while sonically speaking, the song draws from 80s New Wave, synth pop and the DFA Records roster. Or in other words, undulating and propulsive synths are paired with cowbell-led percussion, angular guitar chords in a sensual and slinky arrangement, along with an infectious, dance-floor friendly hook. And somehow, every time I’ve heard it I’m reminded of Stevie Nicks’ “Stand Back” and Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Heads Will Roll.”

The recently released video for the song turns the simple act of eating into something surreal, disgusting and detached and mechanical — and perhaps in some way, the video’s actors are deluding themselves into this being normal.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Motorama is a Russian indie rock quintet from Rostov-on-Don, a port city at Russia’s southwest corner, near the Caucasus. Formed in 2005, the band self-produced their records for several years before they got signed by French label Talitres Records in 2012 – and with their forthcoming effort Dialogues, which is slated for an October 22, 2016 release, the band reportedly expanding upon and cleaning up the sound that first won them international attention without removing the melancholy feel of the material.

Dialogue‘s latest single “Tell Me” has the band pairing atmospheric synths, a strutting and bopping bass line and plaintive vocals in a song that sounds as though it could have been released during 4AD Records heyday, complete with a wistful melancholy and an urgent, swooning Romanticism.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The 80s New Wave Channeling Sounds and Visuals of Public Access TV’s “End of an Era”

The quartet’s highly-anticipated full-length debut Never Enough is slated for a September 30, 2016 through Cinematic Records and the album’s latest single “End of an Era” sounds as though it draws from radio-friendly, 80s New Wave — in particular, think of The Fixx’s “Saved by Zero,” “One Thing Leads to Another,” “Red Skies,” and “The Sign of Fire,” The Knack’s “My Sharona,” Huey Lewis and The News’ “The Heart of Rock ‘N’ Roll,” and others as the band pairs angular guitar chords, a driving bass line, four-on-on-the-floor-like drumming, atmospheric synths, punchily delivered lyrics and an anthemic hook. As the band’s John Eartherly mentions in press notes “We’ve been told that playing a rock ‘n’ roll band in 2016 is a ridiculous thing. For all of us though, it isn’t a question of wanting to do it or not. We have to do it. I left home and quit school at 16 to play music. Music is all we know and love, and this son his an ode to us following that path.”

As for the recently released video, the band’s John Eatherly mentions in press notes that “the label wanted David LaChappelle to do this one, especially ’cause it’s the pop sugar injection song, and they hope, a little pot of radio-friendly unit-shifting gold. But we said ‘nah, give us your money and we’ll do it it ourselves.’ So we took their money and bought a 1986 Dodge 600 and a mini DV Cam and did what we normally do — but for your voyeuristic pleasure.” While visually nodding at the sort of visuals Crocodiles would do, the video does capture some of the spirit and feel of videos released in the 80s.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this summer, I wrote about the Melbourne, Australia-based indie rock quartet Teeth and Tongue With the 2014 release of Grids, the band comprised of New Zealand-born, Melbourne, Australia-based Jess Cornelius (guitar, vocals), Marc Regueiro-McKelvie (guitar), Damian Sullivan (bass) and James Harvey (drums) received attention across Australia for an ambient-leaning sound that paired textured and layered vocals with lyrics that thematically focused on the intricacies of romantic relationships with an unvarnished honesty. And as a result of the attention they’ve received across Australia, they’ve managed to tour with internationally recognized indie rock sensation and fellow Australian Courtney Barnett, which has helped raised their profile internationally.

“Dianne,” the first single off Teeth and Tongue’s recently released album Give Up On Your Health revealed a band that has gone through a change in sonic direction and songwriting approach, with the band taking up  an angular, dance floor friendly New Wave/post-punk sound reminiscent of Blondie, Yeah Yeah Yeahs‘ It’s Blitz! and Dirty Ghosts. Give Up On Your Health’s latest single “Turn, Turn, Turn” much like its predecessor is inspired by a painful breakup — in particular, the song lyrically is full of the bitter regret,  uncertainty, self-deception and eventual acceptance that occurs in the aftermath of a breakup. Sonically speaking, the song sounds as though it draws from 80s New Wave, synth pop and DFA Records as you’ll hear undulating and propulsive synths, cowbell-led percussion, angular guitar chords in a sensual and slinky arrangement, along with an infectious, dance-floor friendly hook. Somehow, every time I’ve heard it I’m reminded of Stevie Nicks’ “Stand Back” and Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Heads Will Roll.”

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Currently based in New Orleans, Kate Fagan is a ska, punk and new wave musician, who first emerged to local and regional attention as the founding member and frontwoman of Chicago-based ska act Heavy Manners, an act that once opened for the The Clash and The English Beat; but interestingly enough before that Fagan released a cult-favorited New Wave single “I Don’t Wanna Be Too Cool” through local imprint Disturbing Records that was immediately embraced by local club DJs, radio stations and taste-making record stores like Chicago’s Wax Trax, where it became the best-selling release by a local artist ever.  The B-side single “Waiting for the Crisis” also received attention for its politically charged, Reagan-era lyrics, which manage to still resonate today.

 

As the story goes, Fagan wrote the title track after moving from New York to Chicago in the late 70s. “I pretty much came to visit Chicago and fell in love with the scene and never left,” Fagan recalled in press notes. “At the time I’d been working at New York magazine and was getting dismayed watching the CBGB scene give way to the whole Studio 54/velvet rope thing. So I spontaneously moved to Chicago, which was much more inclusive and everyone wasn’t standing around peering at each other from behind their shades. But eventually I saw that same kind of divisive hipster culture start to creep in. ‘Too Cool’ was my reaction to that.” Along with “Too Cool,” Fagan wrote many of her earliest songs as a solo artist and with Heavy Manners in an intuitive fashion, recording them at Chicago’s Acme Studios, where she’d meet the fellow artists with whom she’d form Disturbing Records.

Although the “Too Cool” single was a cult favorite back in the early 80s, sadly it was thought to be long lost, as the second printing of the album was lost in a house fire that destroyed almost everything Fagan had owned at the time — that is until Manufactured Recordings stumbled upon the original single, along with two unreleased bonus tracks that Fagan recorded with members of My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult and Scarlet Architect. Interestingly, when you listen to the four tracks off the re-issued 7 inch, the songs manage to sound both of its time and incredibly contemporary — in some way you can imagine acts like Colleen Green, Courtney Barnett, Karen O. and several others citing Fagan as an influence, as Fagan’s lyrics possess a wry irony at at their core, as you’ll hear on the aforementioned “Too Cool,” a song that’s reminiscent of both The B52s and Go-Gos. “Waiting for the Crisis” sounds as though it were influenced by Sandinista! and Combat Rock-era The Clash. However, “Master of Passion” and “Come Over” are the most dance floor-friendly, New Order-like songs of the re-issue, featuring shimmering undulating synths, propulsive drum programming paired with Fagan’s sultry and coquettish delivery.

Of course, each track reveals a songwriter, who had an uncanny knack at writing an infectiously catchy hook that you could imagine kids bouncing up and down to in a sweaty club — and does so with a cool, swaggering self-assuredness.