Category: post-punk

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Nathan Lithow (vocals, bass), known as a touring and recording bassist for My Brightest Diamond, Inlets, and Gabriel and the Hounds; and Garth Macaleavey (drums), a former Inlets touring percussionist and head sound engineer at Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s newest and intimate National Sawdust, the Brooklyn-based post-punk duo NØMADS incubated and forged a sound and songwriting process that owes a debt to Nirvana, Fugazi and Girls Against Boys — while subtly updating it in a way that reminds me of Zack De La Rocha’s post-Rage Against the Machine project, One Day As A Lion and Japandroids.

The duo received some attention with the release of their 2014 full-length debut, Free My Animal, an effort that reportedly drew from Death From Above 1979 and Queens of the Stone Age. After a year hiatus from touring and recording, the Brooklyn-based duo have re-emerged with new material off their newest effort, PHOBIAC, a conceptual collection of 12 songs, based on a different phobia — all approached in a very abstract, almost clinical fashion, capturing the inner thoughts of someone in the grips of their own fears. But just underneath the frantic, paranoid and irrational surface is a rather cautionary and rational message — that when we succumb to irrational fears, chaos will ultimately be the end of result. And with the current sociopolitical climate, the Brooklyn-based duo’s newest material is incredibly fitting and necessary, especially in light of the fact that there are large groups of people, who are currently ruled by their fears of “the other,” to the point of actually endangering everyone.

Each song off the album will be released every month over the next year, with the full album being released in 2018. The album’s latest single “Achluphobia” focuses on a fear of darkness, and throughout you can feel the narrator’s palpable and overwhelmingly primal dread and fear as darkness begins to envelope everything around him  — and it’s further emphasized by angular and forceful bass chords, thundering and propulsive drumming and Lithgow’s growled vocals. But the subliminal message of the song is that fear turns something that’s perfectly natural and normal into something horrible and dangerous.

 

 

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps best known as being one-half of renowned electro pop act, Radar Cult, KC Maloney has received an increasing national profile with the release of 2016’s LXII EP under his solo side project Adult Karate, a project that expands upon the sound of his primary project. And while arguably being a bit more minimalist, the project’s sound and aesthetic draws from several different styles and sub-genres of electronic music — including house music, acid house, techno, ambient electronica and others. Building upon the buzz that LXII EP received, Maloney will be releasing its follow up Indoors on March 31, 2017, and the album will reportedly see the Maloney’s solo project taking a decided sonic departure as the material possesses elements of post-punk and post-rock reminiscent of mid 80s New Order and In Ghost Colours-era Cut Copy. Also, as you’ll hear on Indoors‘ first single “From The Dust,” the material manages to also be a bit of a thematic departure. Although the song is less introspective than the material off its predecessor, the new single possesses a swaggering confidence; the sort of confidence that comes from a fully lived in life in which the song’s narrator has loved, had his heart broken, made mistakes and has found some hard-fought wisdom by living a life in his own terms — all while being one of the breeziest and summery songs Maloney has released to date.

Now while being a departure from his previously released material, Maloney’s latest single retains some of the elements that have won the attention of this site and the rest of the blogosphere as the song has a soaring hook, earnest and thoughtful songwriting paired with a sinuous bass line, along with shimmering and ethereal production.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Samuel Joseph Kim is a Canadian-born, San Francisco, CA-based singer/songwriter producer and multi-instrumentliast, arguably best known as a member of San Francisco-based band Museums and for a solo recording experimental side project, Mount Vermont. He also works as a freelance soundtrack composer, who has clients like Canon, Deloitte, TED, and others. Kim also recently released material under his own birth name — and that music as he describes on his website “is an evolving blend of organic guitars and electronic experimentation. Whatever the instrumentation or approach, it retains its melodic and emotive nature: haunting, intimate and sincere.”

“Gone” the EP opening single off Kim’s 2016 effort Lost/Found EP is a hazy post-punk-inspired song featuring a sinuous bass line, lush, swirling layers of shimmering synths and precise drum programming paired with Kim’s crooning vocals. Sonically speaking, the song nods at The Harrow, the 4AD Records sound, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division and others and while possessing a similar swooning and urgent Romanticism — and much like its (presumed) influences, the song focuses on visceral and profound heartache and confusion that has enveloped its narrator.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Last month, I wrote about the  Reykjavik, Iceland-based indie rock/post-punk trio Fufanu — and if you recall, the trio, which is currently comprised of founding members Kaktus Einarsson (vocals, guitar), whose father Einar, was a member of The Sugarcaubes and Guðlaugur “Gulli” Einarsson (guitar, programming) (no relation,by the way) along with Erling Bang (drums) can trace their origins to when the band’s founding members met while at school. According to the band’s founding duo, Katkus had glanced at Gulli’s iTunes and noticed that they had listened to a lot of the same techno and electronic music. Quickly bonding over mutual interests, the duo went into a studio and began writing and recording electronic music under the name Captain Fufanu. And within a month of their friendship and the project’s life, they had began to play shows in and around Reykjavik.

In a strange twist of fate, the original album of material that Kaktus Einarsson and Gulli Einarsson wrote and recorded has long been presumed lost as the studio they recorded their original Captain Fufanu album was burgled. And instead of trying to recall the material they initially wrote from memory, the project’s founding members decided that it was a perfect time to completely reinvent their sound.  Around the same time, Kaktus Einarsson was in London working on Damon Albarn‘s Everyday Robots and touring with Bobby Womack when he began writing lyrics  while simultaneously Gulli Einarsson had started to recreate their sound in a  way that Kaktus describes as conveying what he had been thinking. They then added guitars and drums and began pairing that with Katkus’ brooding vocals — and then renamed themselves Fufanu.

Their first live set with their new sound and aesthetic was at Iceland Airwaves and they quickly became one of the most talked about bands of the entire festival. Building upon the buzz they had received, they went into the studio their full-length debut A Few More Days To Go, which further expanded a growing national and international profile as they toured with renowned acts such as The Vaccines and played at JaJaJa Festival. The band’s forthcoming Nick Zinner-produced sophomore full-length Sports is slated for a February 3, 2017 release through renowned British label One Little Indian Records. And with the band’s sophomore effort,  the project’s founding duo recruited Erling “Elli” Bang (drums) to further flesh out their sound as they expanded upon it and its thematic direction. With Sports’ first single, album title track “Sports,” the band retained the synth-driven sound that first caught international attention while pairing it with a tight, motorik groove reminiscent of Can, Neu!  and Joy Division while nodding at Security-era Peter Gabriel.

“Liability,” Sports‘ second single continues in a similar vein as the trio pair angular busts of guitar with shimmering synths that twist and turn through the mix, a sinuous bass line and a mid-tempo groove that nods at the techno that the project once was. However, much like “Sports” the single possesses a dark, enigmatic air while pointing out the mundanity, drudgery and banality of daily life; but just under the surface there’s a broiling frustration and resentment of someone wanting to break free and yet not knowing how to do so.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their first three EPs, Gold, Better Off, and Broken Machine, and their full length debut Palace of Industrial Hope, the San Francisco, CA-based indie rock quintet The New Up — comprised of ES Pitcher (vocals, guitar), Noah Reid (guitar, vocals), Hawk West (automation), Nick Massaro (bass) and Art McConnell (drums) –developed a reputation for genre defying sound that possesses elements of garage rock and electro pop paired with lyrics that focus on philosophical concerns. And while the band has drawn comparisons to Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Kills, their sound reminds me of Dirty Ghosts.

As the story goes, when it came time to start working on the material that would comprise the San Francisco-based quintet’s forthcoming, sophomore effort Tiny Mirrors, the members of the band launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to obtain the necessary funds to create and build their own recording studio, which the band felt was necessary to realize their creative vision for the album — with label or studio interference. Then they covered a secluded Mendocino County, CA barn into a state-of-the-art recording facility and enlisted Jack Frost who has worked with Antartica and BlackRock to produce the recording sessions and Sean Beresford, who has worked with Chuck Prophet, The Donnas and Vanessa Carlton to mix the album.

Now, if you had been frequenting this site towards the end of last year, you may recall that I wrote about album single “Black Swan,” a slinky and slickly produced track in which shimmering and atmospheric electronics, slashing and angular guitar chords and a sinuous bass line are paired with ES Pitcher’s sensual vocals — singing lyrics that reveal the narrator’s urgent, carnal need, the need (and desire) to lose one’s self, if even for a little bit, her increasing frustration with people and human relationships and empty, soulless hookups. But at the core of the song is the sort of loneliness and dissatisfaction that being in a large city frequently inspires within people. The album’s latest single “No Fly Zone” continues on a similar vein as its preceding single as shimmering synths and processed beats are paired with Pitcher’s cooing, shimmering guitar chords in a moody and sensual song that sonically and structurally reminds me of Antics-era Interpol.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: The Moody and Anthemic Post Pop Sound of London’s Keroscene

With the release of “I Can’t Do A Thing,” and several other singles, the London-based post-punk/indie rock quartet Keroscene — comprised of David Troster, Edd Wilding, Francesco Bond, and Jake Sorbie — received praise from the likes of Q Magazine and have had material land on Spotify’s Hot New Bands and Fresh Finds: Six Strings playlists for an ethereal yet brooding sound that draws from post-punk, shoegaze and Brit Pop; however, the quartet’s latest single “Feel Like The First Time” possesses a much darker, moodier feel as the song beings with tribal drumming-based slow-burning, lurching and atmospheric dirge, layers of slashing and shimmering guitar chords before picking up the pace with four-on-the-floor drumming for the song’s anthemic and soaring hook. And it’s all held together by a propulsive groove.

As the members of the band explain in press notes “With all our modern distractions and the need to be constantly connected, people have grown uncomfortable with being by themselves, alone in silence. We may all belong to our society and feel the need to connect with others but ultimately, you will leave just as you came in; by yourself.” And as a result, the song suggests a couple of things — that loneliness is a part of human life; and that accepting it and being content with it is critical to achieving true understanding and contentedness. Interestingly, the recently released lyric video is carefully and deliberately opaque, suggesting our smallness, loneliness and vulnerability in the face of a cruel and indifferent universe.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Knol Tate (vocals, guitar), known as a member of Askeleton and Killsadie; Travis Collins (bass, vocals), known as a member of Spirit of 76 and We Are The Willows; Josh McKay (drum, percussion), known as a member of Farewell Continental, Small Towns Burn A Little Slower; and Jordan Morantez (guitar), known as a member of Blue Green and The King and The Thief, the Minneapolis, MN-based punk rock/post-punk quartet Deleter initially formed in 2012 as a side project for all of its members to deal with pent up musical and personal frustrations in which they would create not by over-thinking or over-producing their material and focusing on the immediacy of their first thoughts, as well as concerning themselves with playing by their instincts. After a series of self-released singles, which further developed their sound and approach throughout 2013 and the subsequent release of several EPs, the Minneapolis-based post-punk quartet released their full-length debut Oblique Seasons late in 2015.

The band’s soon to be released effort Meaningless Chants is slated for a January 21 release by Land Ski Records and the soon-to-be-released effort reportedly will be a gentle refinement of their sound — while retaining the thoughtfulness and conciseness of their previous releases, Meaningless Chants’ material may arguably be some of their manic, most outright political effort they’ve released to date. And considering the very urgency of the political moment, it seems fitting that artists are beginning to comment on our new absurd normal. Interestingly, the tense and anxious single “Start to Watch” sounds as though it owes a debt to both R.E.M., Gang of Four and Mission of Burma; but with a paranoid sense of something being terribly and irrevocably wrong, and an infectiously anthemic hook.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Echo and the Bunnymen Live at Shepherd’s Bush Empire

Live footage of Echo and the Bunnymen live at Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Dreamlike and 80s MTV-Inspired Visuals for Radar Eyes’ “Community”

Featuring Anthony Cozzi (vocals, guitar), Russell Calderwood (guitar), Nithin Kalvakota (drums) and Lucas Sikorski (bass), Chicago, IL-based quartet Radar Eyes initially received attention for a fuzzy, garage rock sound, and with Cozzi’s relocation to Los Angeles, the quartet’s forthcoming effort Radiant Remains was in some way meant to be a swan song for the band — while being a sonic change in direction as the band’s material took on a decidedly 80s post-punk rock sound that channeled the likes of Crocodiles, Heaven Up Here and Ocean Rain-era Echo and the Bunnymen, Starfish-era The Church and others as you’ll hear on the album’s moody and shimmering first single “Community.” And much like the material that influenced it, “Community” reveals that the band has the ability to write material that possess an incredibly anthemic and rousing hook.

Directed by Laura Callier and featuring desert footage shot by Jason Ogawa, the recently released music video for “Community” manages to mesh the feel, spirit and imagery of contemporary videos with that of videos from MTV’s heyday — including a Peter Gabriel “Shock the Monkey”-like motif, in which the lead singer sits in front of screen in which various images are projected; sequences in which the band’s lead singer, dressed entirely in black is wandering around the desert, followed around by an equally mysterious man dressed entirely in white; along with some introductory sequences in which the band are hanging out with a bunch of folks at an outdoor bar. The video itself possesses a dreamlike logic while hitting upon the song’s sense of longing to fit into someplace.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Moodily Psychedelic Visuals for Heat’s “Lush”

Comprised of Susil Sharma (vocals, guitar and synths) Matthew Fiorentino (guitar, synth), and Raphael Bussières (bass), the Montreal, QC-based indie rock/post-punk trio Heat have received praise from Brooklyn Vegan and NME for a swaggering and moody material that’s “equal parts hooks, melody and attitude.” The band’s latest single “Lush” off their new album, Overnight is moody and seductive track in which the band pairs shimmering synths, angular guitar chords played though reverb, thumping, four-on-the-floor drumming, and a sinuous bass line with a razor sharp hook to create a sound that nods heavily at The Psychedelic Furs and Echo and the Bunnymen — but with a slick, dance floor-friendly feel.
Directed by Charles Andre Coderre, the recently released video feels as though it could have been released sometime in the 80s as it employs the use of split screens — in one half, a man may be sleeping or it may turn into heavily treated footage of daily life somewhere — mainly people walking around a busy Chinatown. It’s a trippy yet fitting accompaniment to a propulsive and wistfully moody song

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Surreal and Brooding Visuals for Up-and-Coming Icelandic Post-Punk Act Fufanu’s Latest Single “Sports”

Currently comprised of founding members Katkus Einarsson (vocals, guitar), whose father Einar, was a member of The Sugarcubes and Guðlaugur “Gulli” Einarsson (guitar, programming) (no relation,by the way) along with Erling Bang (drums), the members of Reykjavik, Iceland-based indie rock/post-punk trio Fufanu can trace its origins to when its founding members met at school — and as the story goes, Katkus had glanced at Gulli’s iTunes and noticed that they had listened to a lot of the same techno and electronic music. In the same week that the duo met, they went into the studio and began writing and recording electronic music under the name Captain Fufanu. And within a month of their meeting they began playing shows in and around Reykjavik. “It was happy electronica,” Katkus Einarsson recalls in press notes. “We were aiming for something deeper, but didn’t have the capabilities. The reason we never released anything as Captain Fufanu was that as soon as we had something ready, we aimed for something new, more challenging.”

In a strange twist of fate, that album that Katkus Einarsson and Gulli Einarsson wrote and recorded has long been presumed lost as the studio they recorded their original Captain Fufanu album was burgled and this was paired with the duo wanting to reinvent their sound. Interestingly, at the time Katkus Einarsson was in London working on Damon Albarn’s Everyday Robots and touring with Bobby Womack when he began writing lyrics — and simultaneously Gulli Einarsson had started to recreate their sound in a way that Katkus describes as conveying what he had been thinking. They then added guitars and drums and began pairing that with Katkus’ brooding vocals — and then renamed themselves Fufanu.

Their first live set with their new sound and aesthetic was Iceland Airwaves and they quickly became one of the most talked about bands of the entire festival. The band’s founding members then went into the studio to record their brooding full-length debut A Few More Days To Go, which further expanded a growing national and international profile as they toured with renowned acts such as The Vaccines and played at JaJaJa Festival. The band’s forthcoming Nick Zimmer-produced sophomore full-length Sports is slated for a February 3, 2017 release through renowned British label One Little Indian Records and the album which has the band recruiting Erling “Elli” Bang (drums), also finds the band expanding upon their sound and its thematic direction. While retaining sound elements of the synth-based sound that first caught attention, the band’s sound also possesses a motorik groove reminiscent of krautrock acts like Can and Neu! as well as Joy Division and Security-era Peter Gabriel as you’ll hear on the moodily atmospheric and propulsive first single off Sports, album title track “Sports.”

Reportedly, “Sports” as well as the rest of the material on Sports thematically deals with the drudgery and mundanity of daily life, while subtly hinting at other things in an enigmatic fashion. As Katkus Einarsson explains their lead single “could be about getting really obsessed with a chocolate brownie, or it could be about a boy or girl and being obsessed with getting them on your side.”

The recently released music video was directed by the members of the band and the video is a rather ironic take on the song as it features a bunch of high-school aged kids getting off a bus at a local track where they stretch and do the Olympic-styled track and field sports — but as the camera follows some of these kids, there’s creeping sense of something not quite right, as the kids look at the camera with distrust, loathing, fear and confusion. It’s a striking and surreal video that leaves a lingering feeling of unease, much like the song that it accompanies.

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Haunting Visuals for Preoccupations’ “Memory”

As the band’s frontman Matt Flegel has explained in press notes, Preoccupations’ self-titled album draws from very specific things — the sort of things that has most people up at night, fraught with anxiety and despair. And while the album’s first single “Anxiety,” was about the process of both natural and forced change upon the band and people generally, while on another level the song captures the uncertain and uncomfortable push and pull of human relationships, including the bitterness, regret, ambivalence, frustration and self-doubt they almost always gender within us all. The self-titled album’s second single “Degraded” while being a tense and angular song also may arguably be the most straightforward and hook-laden song they’ve written to date. However, lyrically speaking, the song reveals that its full of bilious accusation and recrimination while evoking a dysfunctional relationship splintering apart.

The album’s third single “Memory” is an expansive song that clocks in at just a little under 11:30 and is comprised of three distinct and very different movements held together by the song’s central narrative, which focuses on how much the past and its distortions, influences and invades every relationship and aspect of our lives and relationships — while also suggesting the vacillating cycles of bipolar mania. The song’s lengthy and atmospheric introduction consists of shimmering guitar chords paired with an angular, slashing bass line, and propulsive drumming and seems to look back on a relationship with a bit of regret. The song’s second section sounds as though it drew from Joy Division/New Order as shimmering guitar chords, soaring synths and Wolf Parade‘s Don Boecker contributing lilting falsetto vocals and an anthemic hook — and while being a bit bittersweet, the section also conveys a profound sense of joy and wonder before fading out into a coda consisting of gently undulating feedback that lingers with a spectral quality.

As the band’s Scott “Monty” Munro explains in press notes “‘Memory’ was the second song that we started working on for Preoccupations after ‘Anxiety.’ It was unique to the sessions of the record in that we worked on it in every studio that we were in. The idea we had for its arc made it necessary to put more work into it than any of the other tracks. The finished result was worked on in six different studios over almost two years. Getting Dan [Boeckner of Wolf Parade] to record the vocals was the final piece of the puzzle and was Matt [Fiegel]’s idea. We were tracking in Montreal and cold-called him to see if he wanted to sing a duet of songs, but his vocal was so perfect that we didn’t use Matt’s for most of it.” And the end result may be the most cinematic song they’ve released to date.

Directed by award-winning director Kevan Funk, the recently released short film/music video as he told NPR was loosely based on the story of Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor, who after years of harassment by police, who lit himself on fire in the middle of traffic in December 2010, much like the acts of self-immolation performed by Buddhist monks protesting the Vietnam War in the 1960s. And much like those protests, some have said that Bouazizi’s protest may have triggered both the Tunisian Revolution, in which the country’s then-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced to step down from power — and later the events of the Arab Spring. “I don’t mean to sound dark, but there’s something poetic about a fire burning so intensely that one day, it actually physically manifested,” Funk explains. “You ask yourself, ‘how much pain can we take? How much control do we have?'”

Starring the band’s Mike Wallace as the video’s lead, the video follow a man as he cycles and vacillates through the bipolar mania of action and boredom, while becoming further lost in his own mind and disconnected from others. Gradually, Wallace’s character becomes increasingly obsessed with fire and loses his grip on his own sanity and reality. Disturbingly, the video reminds us that there’s only so much loneliness and pain we can take before we shatter, and that our grip on ourselves and our sanity is ftenuous at best. But it also asks the viewer “Do you know your mind? Do you know how much you can take? Do you know the darkness within your heart?”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Surreal and Psychedelic Visuals for The Moonlandingz’ Manchester-Inspired Single “Black Hanz”

Featuring The Eccentronic Research Council‘s Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer and Fat White Family‘s Lias Saoudi and Saul Adamczweski, The Moonlandingz are both a side project and a semi-fictional guitar pop act, whose latest single “Black Hanz,” is as the band refers to in press notes “a song for our times, born out of abuse; abuse in the workplace, abuse in the street, abuse by the sniveling toe rags we call a government, abuse for daring to dream and to be different,” and “a celebration of the Outsider, the socially inept . . ” Sonically speaking their sound manages to mesh a facsimile of the Manchester sound — twinkling synths, guitars fed through delay and effects pedals and a driving motorik groove — paired with a sneering and ironic punk sentiment, and a mischievous and menacing spoken word section towards the song’s bridge.

The recently released video features a Ziggy Startdust-era David Bowie rocker who gets picked on, ridiculed and threatened everywhere he goes for both his ridiculous, alien-like appearance and for having the bravery to not fit in. The video goes into much stranger territory when the rocker’s Fairy Godmother swoops down to save him from a bunch of thugs — and then promptly places him where he belongs, fronting a rock band. Simply put it’s fittingly and goofily low-budget while emphasizing the song’s central theme of celebrating those who are proudly different and are proverbial square pegs – but with a subtly 60s psychedelia.

indie rock by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Introducing the Wire-Inspired Post-Punk Sound of Bloomington, Indiana’s Permit

Permit is a Bloomington, IN-based indie rock/punk rock duo and with the release of their debut 7 inch, the duo’s sound was indebted to power pop, classic rock and early punk; however, with the release of their debut EP Vol. 1 the duo’s sound has increasingly taken on a frenetic post-punk vibe that makes their material sound as though it were indebted to Pink Flag-era Wire but as though it were a 33 rpm album played 45 rpm speed, as you’ll hear on Vol. 1’s latest single “Track #6.”

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.