Category: psych folk

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: London’s Eleanor Moss Shares Gorgeous and Intimate “The Way It Feels”

London-based singer/songwriter Eleanor Moss will be releasing her full-length debut, The Knife, The Needle on August 21, 2026 through Merge Records. The nine-song album concerns itself with the way relationships between people are transformed, complicated and troubled by love. It’s a devastating work and a feat of tight lyrical construction that is simultaneously patient and vulnerable, opulently rendered and keenly felt. But interestingly, The Knife, The Needle emerged from a place of restraint with Moss — staying in a cabin near her parents’ house in the Scottish Highlands after initially recording an entirely different version of the album in New York (“a bit rollicking,” she notes) — feeling the pangs of the album she hadn’t recorded — “quieter, weirder, more English.”

Recording an album with a new ensemble and producer/engineer Pete Miles was a risk, but for Moss, setting aside an already completed effort was worth it. With the quieter, weirder, more English sound, Moss attempts to capture something fleeting, ephemeral and honest about the moments in which love, for better or worse, irrevocably changes someone.

The album will feature the previously released “Sarah Waiting in the Car,” and its latests single, the breathtakingly gorgeous and timeless “The Way It Feels.” Moss’ achingly yearning and expressive vocal is accompanied by birdsong and her strummed acoustic, classical guitar — and the result is an intimate, timeless picture of a universe created in the bond between two people with the unvarnished humility and honesty of a narrator, who says “the more I learn, the less I understand.”

“This was the last song written for the album, and feels to me like it sums up the spirit of the record. The more I learn about love the less I know, the more I know about someone, the more I know I don’t know them,” Moss explains. “It feels like an appropriate last song for an album about paradoxes; love asks us to hold contradiction without giving in to its discomfort. A song about not turning away, but turning towards.” 

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Matthew Thorne, the accompanying video for “The Way It Feels” was shot in the Greek Peloponnese on 16mm film with Director of Photography Tasos Chatzis — and fittingly is as gorgeous and mediative as the song.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 81st Birthday, Stephen Stills!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the legendary Stephen Stills’ 81st birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay MAGON Shares Dreamily Meditative “All My Days Are Hanging”

Wildly prolific, Israeli-born, Costa Rican-based singer/songwriter, musician and JOVM mainstay MAGON recently released his third album of this year and 13th — yes, y’all, 13th! — album overall Zoe Rainbow Days.

Zoe Rainbow Days’ latest single “All My Days Are Hanging” continues a run or mediative and introspective material that seemingly draws from psych folk, Sea Change-era Beck and others. And at its core, is a dreamy and lovingly detailed depiction of domesticity that feels nostalgic yet somehow punctuated with a realization of how fleeting everything is.

The accompanying video features footage from Len Lye‘s 1936 short film, The Birth of the Robot. The footage is restored and re-imaged as a visual companion to the song.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Jenny James Shares Dreamy “Abandoning Alice”

Jenny James is an Oxnard, CA-based singer/songwriter, musician painter and college professor at Oxnard College. As a singer/songwriter, James has penned songs that have been recorded by Tanya Tucker, Carlene Carter, The Judds and KT […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 59th Birthday, Hope Sandoval!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Hope Sandoval’s 59th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Swimming Bell Shares Lush and Dreamlike “Meet My Shadow”

Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and musician Katie Schottland is the creative mastermind behind Swimming Bell. Her five-song, Rob Schnapf-produced EP Somnia is slated for a May 16, 2025 release through Perpetual Doom.

Somnia invites listeners to an ethereal sonic realm, a sort of underwater dreamworld where melodies drift effortlessly and rhythms pulse like ocean currents. Schottland envisioned the EP as an escape from the crushing weight of reality, a space where listeners could feel suspended — as though they were floating — between wakefulness and dreaming. Collaborating with Schnapf, Schottland embraced a much more percussive approach, allowing textures and rhythms to guide the listener through the material’s shimmering soundscapes.

“I wanted this EP to feel like sinking into water, where everything is softened and suspended,” says Schottland. “Given all the stress and tension in the world, I wanted to make a feeling of escape – something hypnotic and transportive. Rob and I explored percussive layers in a way that felt both grounding and dreamy, creating movement within.”

Somnia’s first single, “Meet My Shadow” is a shimmering mix of Laurel Canyon, Nick Drake-era psych folk and country featuring shimmering pedal steel, twinkling keys, gently rolling percussion, strummed acoustic guitar, and a supple bass line serving as a lush and dreamlike bed for Schottland’s gorgeous yet effortless delivery.

“With this song, I wanted to strip things down and focus on the feel – letting the groove take the lead and allowing the melody to float within it.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 80th Birthday, Stephen Stills!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Stephen Stills’ 80th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay MAGON Shares Dreamily Introspective “Falling In Love”

Earlier this year, the prolific JOVM mainstay MAGON released his ninth album, Wedding Song, which featured two tracks I managed to write about here:

Album track “The Wedding Song,” a 70s Laurel Canyon/AM rock-like number featuring shimmering guitars, a shuffling yet propulsive rhythm and a glistening and soulful guitar solo paired with MAGON’s unerring knack for crafting catchy hooks. But under the slick and seemingly effortless craftsmanship is a song that feels much like the contented sigh of someone who after much effort and struggle, has found the true, long-lasting love they’ve long hoped for. The song marks the one-year anniversary of MAGON’s wedding to his now-wife Alexa, and is dedicated to their love.

“Portobello’s On The Run,” a mediative and folksy bit of Nick Drake-like psych folk anchored around an ethereal and old-timey mellotron flute lines, strummed acoustic guitar and tight-drum pattern paired with the Israeli-born, Costa Rican-based artist’s plaintively singing whimsical yet introspective lyrics. 

Closing out 2024, the JOVM mainstay will be releasing his 10th — yeah, 10th overall and third this year y’all — album, World Peace. World Peace will feature the previously released “Stoned Seclusion Blues” reveals yet another shift in sound direction with the track seemingly drawing from the Madchester sound of The Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses.

World Peace’s second and latest single “Falling In Love” is a dreamy psych folk ballad featuring strummed acoustic guitar, bursts of buzzing power chords and ethereal flutes paired with the JOVM’s mainstay giving an introspective and thoughtful vocal turn.

Thematically, the song is a journey of love and self-discovery, honed by hard-earned wisdom, experience and understanding of how difficult and maddening love can be — especially in a desperate, stark world.

The accompanying video follows a young woman wandering through the damp Costa Rican countryside and is shot with a loving, dreamy quality.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: GITKIN Shares Trance-Inducing “The One”

Brian J. Gitkin is a New Orleans-based multi-instrumentalist and Grammy-nominated producer, best known for his work as the bandleader and frontman of the road warrior, party rock outfit Pimps of Joytime. He also collaborated with  Cedric Burnside on a Grammy-nominated country blues effort.

Gitkin’s solo recording project, the aptly named GITKIN was initially conceived as a way for the Pimps of Joytime frontman and producer to “explore tonalities I’d never mess with,” as he puts it. Gradually, the instrumental project became a release from “having to write lyrics or involve my voice,” Gitkin explains.

With the release of 2018’s debut album, 5 Star Motel, the New Orleans-based Pimps of Joytime frontman, multi-instrumentalist and producer quickly established a sound that he dubbed “Outernational Psychedelic Twang,” which drew from a wide range of sounds and styles, including Peruvian Chicha, 60s Pakistani surf rock while featuring a back band with an impressive collection of players.

His sophomore GITKIN album, 2020’s Safe Passage saw the New Orleans-based multi-instrumentalist and producer expanding upon an already rich and eclectic sonic palette with melodies informed by Greek and Middle Eastern modalities, Saharan Tuareg guitar, creating a sound that was a mix of stomping blues and gritty funk.

Gitkin’s latest album, the recently released, 10-song Golden Age showcases yet another evolution of the New Orleans’ based artist’s lyrical guitar-driven sound. Exploring the endless expanses of cumbia, North African and Middle Eastern music, the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist and producer has increasingly brought his own personality to those traditions, while creating a lively interplay between distant modes and rhythms and his own New Orleans-steeped sound.

The album’s latest single “The One” seems to be a mesh of Tuareg Desert Blues, Black Sabbath-era metal and krautrock that to my ears reminds me of Here Lies Man — but with deep, lysergic-fueled grooves. Gitkin describes teh song as “Sudanese synth-trance mixed with Tuareg, Black Sabbath, and 2000s-era hipster disco.”

“My goal when creating is to think as little as possible and do what feels good,” the New Orleans-based artist and producer says. “I don’t overthink creating. If I wake up with a groove in my head or melody idea I just go into my studio and record it.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Camilla Dávilla Shares Mesmerizing “Old Shoe”

Camille Dávilla is an American born producer, multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter, who currently split her time between the UK, Norway and Spain, making her a truly international artist. With the release of her first two albums through Norwegian label Goodbye Records, Dávilla quickly established an eclectic sound and approach inspired by the likes of David Bowie, Syd Barrett, Robyn Hitchcock, Harry Nilsson, Dibidim, Gaby Moreno, Cate Le Bon, C Duncan and Declan McKenna that frequently sees her pairing colorful, trippy whimsy with melancholic beauty and striking songwriting.

Dávilla’s third album, The Local Orchestra can trace its origins back several years ago: She was writing songs furiously with arrangements in mind and happened upon an inspiring and uplifting encounter with longtime David Bowie producer and collaborator Tony Visconti, who said to her, “Why don’t you just try and write all your own arrangements. I’m sure you can do it.”

She began an intensive self-education on arranging. Halfway through and feeling a little overwhelmed, Dávilla reached out to another musical and arranging hero Van Dyke Parks, who rapturously praised her previous album. Before listening to her arrangements, he asked to her a few of the tunes she had been writing, and took a particular liking to one, asking if he could write an arrangement. As most of her childhood soundtrack had been written by Parks, her answer was an obvious — and enthusiastic — yes, and a lunch in Los Angeles saw the pair making plans.

Several months later, Parks sent his arrangement to Dávilla, who at the time was residing in the UK, and she began working with the arrangement with other musicians. By 2020, Dávilla sent the arrangement to Jonathan Baker to conduct and record a string quartet. It was then sent to Norway, where composer and musician Stein Urheim added guitars and percussion and oversaw assembly and mixing with Anders Bjelland.

Over the next few years, confusion followed. Dávilla endured much turbulence: A pandemic lockdown-induced drinking binge led to sobriety — and a relocation from the UK to Spain. But through all of that, she continued her writing and arrangement work, and by last year, Dávilla had written nearly three albums of material; however, this proved daunting when she was trying to assemble what would become her third album.

Dibbidm’s, Grandama‘s and Klanghaus‘ Jeron Gundersen helped her wade through the massive amount of material and cherry-picked songs that should be recorded. They decided that the recording sessions should take place in Norway — in particular, the home studio of acclaimed producer HP Gundersen and his spouse, handball player Cecile Leganger. Coincidentally, Leganger had also bene studying piano and theremin and contributed to the sessions. Several other songs were recorded at Jonas Nielsen’s home in Bergen, Norway, alongside vocal dubs in Jostein Gundersen‘s studio.

The album was mixed in Gundersen’s Panera Studio in Asturias, Spain and mastered by Eric James at North Norfolk, UK-based Philosophers Barn Mastering.

The Local Orchestra‘s latest single “Old Shoe” is a gorgeous and meditative bit of psych folk built around an armament of strummed acoustic guitar, twinkling keys, ethereal backing vocals serving as a lush and mesmerizing bed for Dávilla’s captivating vocal, which expresses wizened regret, remorse and pride within a turn of a phrase.

“Imagine 20 years after Dorothy has found Oz and she’s doing a clear out of her closet, and is about to those ruby red slippers in the bin,” Dávilla says. “If they could walk, what would they say?”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Vanille Shares Shimmering and Ethereal “M’as tu vu passer?”

Rising Montréal-based singer/songwriter Rachel Leblanc, best known to the outside world as Vanille, specializes in a sound that exists somewhere between ’60s folk and French chanson and brings the listener into a dreamlike world of dense forests and swooning heartbreak.

Leblanc’s sophomore Vanille album, the Alex Martel and Leblanc co-produced La clairière is slated for a February 3, 2023 release through Bonbonbon Records in Canada and Boogie Drugstore in Europe. Recorded at Wild Studio and Le Pantoum, La Clairére sees Leblanc retaining elements of the dream pop sound and approach that won her attention — but while leaning heavily into 60s English baroque folk.

Last summer, I wrote about “À bientôt,” a swooning and expansive bit of psych folk-meets-psych rock featuring a lush arrangement of strummed reverb-drenched guitars, gently padded drumming paired with Leblanc’s achingly tender falsetto. And at its core, is tale as old as time itself: a heartbroken narrator, in the aftermath of the devastation of a newly-ended relationship i left with their memories — and the bitter taste of their heartbreak.

La clairère‘s latest single “M’as tu vu passer?” continues a run of gorgeous, baroque folk-inspired material featuring strummed guitar, atmospheric synths, gently padded drumming and percussion paired with Leblanc’s plaintive and ethereal cooing. “M’as tu va passer?” is simultaneously a song about heartbreak and depression, and of dark and cold Montréal winters without anywhere to really go or anything to really do.

Directed by Rachel Leblanc and Irina Tempea, the accompanying visual for “M’as tu va passer?” is shot on Super 8 film to give it all a hazily nostalgic, old-timey air. The video references winter in several different instances: Leblanc laying down on a furry blanket with fake snow falling on her, Leblanc holding a snow globe and edited footage of a couple fighter skating.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

After spending years leading Boston-based art rock collective The Solars, whose 2017 EP Retitled Remastered landed on DigBoston‘s Best Massachusetts Albums of 2017, Miles Hewitt returned to Harvard College to finish his award-winning collection of poems The Candle is Forever Learning to Sing.

Following his graduation in 2018, Hewitt relocated to Western Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley, settling in a small hill town, just down the road from a friend’s recording studio — and a few miles from where he spent the first year of his life. It was amidst the cycling greens, browns and blues of the Pioneer Valley, where Hewitt began writing the songs that would become Hewtti’s ambitious and wide-ranging solo debut Heartfall. Drawing from British and American folk music, 70s songwriter rock, psychedelia, krautrock and electronic music, Heartfall‘s is reportedly an album for album-lovers. And while the material is formally spare, few of the album’s arrangements have recognizable verse/chorus structures, instead holding patterns that melt away only when fully exhausted. “As I became interested in a less anthropocentric mentality, I wondered if this could be expressed through formally organic songs, built from looping phrases or motifs and evolving at the level of the line,” Hewitt explains.
The effect of these slow changes — a kind of temporal dilation that can make it easy to forget just how long you’ve been listening to a given song — invites a state of consciousness more familiar in drone and ambient music than most rock ‘n’ roll. 

After relocating to Brooklyn in 2019, Hewitt began recruiting a variety of serious session players including members of the backing bands for Devendra Banhart, Kevin Moby and Aldous Harding, including Jared Samuel (organ), David Christian (drums), Shahzad Ismaily (piano) and Jack McLoughlin (guitar) and a cast of others, who all contributed to the Hewitt-produced recording sessions.

Heartfall‘s latest single, the vibey “The Ark” begins with the sound of rushing water, before quickly morphing into a tempest of jazz fusion drumming, glistening Rhodes, sinuous bass, atmospheric electronics. The song’s second section is a dreamy bit of guitar-driven Pink Floyd meets Radiohead-like psychedelia that slows down to a laconic fade out. The song ends with a folksy piano-driven coda. Although the song doesn’t hew to a familiar or recognizable chorus, verse, bridge structure, it’s all held together by the deft and seemingly effortless rhythm section and Hewitt’s tender vocals. Thematically, the song details the search for the Biblical — and mythical — vessel that can deliver humanity from certain doom.

Heartfall is slated for an August 26, 2022 release.

Hewitt will be embarking on a tour to support his full-length debut. Check out the tour dates below.

TOUR DATES

    Aug 03 – Khyber Pass Pub – Philadelphia, PA
    Aug 04 – Garden Grove Brewing Company – Richmond, VA
    Aug 05 – Down Yonder Farm – Hillsborough, NC
    Aug 06 – Story Parlor – Asheville, NC
    Aug 09 – 5 Spot – Nashville, TN
    Aug 10 – Northside Tavern – Cincinnati, OH
    Aug 11 – Rear End Gastropub – Pittsburgh, PA
    Aug 12 – The Avalon Lounge – Catskill, NY
    Aug 13 – Lilypad – Cambridge, MA
    Aug 14 – Sun Tiki Studios – Portland, ME

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: DG Solaris and Jeremy Tuplin Team Up on The Gorgeous and Meditative “In The Name of Love”

London-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Danny Green may be best known for being the frontman of acclaimed British folk pop act Laish. With Laish, Green wrote and recorded four critically applauded albums released through French indie label Tailres, which he and his bandmates supported with extensive touring across the UK, the European Union and the States. 

In 2019 Green went through a number of major life changes: That March, he met Leanna “LG” Green — and by December they got married. For their honeymoon, Leanna and Danny Green decided to spend six months across South America with a simple recording setup that they carried with them in a backpack. During their trip, the couple wound up writing and recording demos that would become the earliest material of their recording project together DG Solaris. “In between swimming with sea-lions, exploring sacred plant medicines and climbing mountains, we had been searching for beautiful spaces to set up our backpack studio,” the Greens explained in press notes. “All of our recordings feature the sounds of birds, cicadas and crickets.”

Returning home to London after their honeymoon, Danny and Leanna recruited Tom Chadd, Matt Canty and Matt Hardy to help flesh out the material they demoed during their honeymoon. The end result was the act’s full-length debut, last year’s Spirit Glow, which drew from and meshed elements of 70s psych pop, synth pop, krautrock and prog rock in a unique and playful fashion — with the album’s material written as a textural journey through emotional realms. “We wanted to explore the idea of two voices, two spirits, two creative minds and see where this dynamic could take us,” DG Solaris’ Leanna Green says in press notes. Danny Green adds, “It has been an incredibly inspiring trip. We came back with over forty songs and it has been a challenge to chose our favourites for this first album.”

Recently Green has been collaborating with Somerset, UK-born, London-based singer/songwriter  Jeremy Tuplin. With the release of his full-length debut 2017’s I Dreamt I Was an Astronaut Tuplin’s sound and approach gradually evolved with the Somerset-born, London-based singer/songwriter incorporating indie rock and psych music into what he has semi-ironically dubbed “space folk.” 2019’s Pink Mirror was released to critical acclaim with the album being lauded by The Line of Best fit, Loud & Quiet Magazine, BBC Radio 6 and Rumore Magazine. As a result of Pink Mirror’s success, Tuplin received funding from PRS’ Open Fund to record last year’s Violet Waves.

Green and Tuplin’s first single together, “Ocean/Are You Weird Enough?” came about from some unusual circumstances: Although Green and Tuplin have been writing and recording albums during the past decade, they’ve only been vaguely aware of each other’s existence. One night in Peru, following an intense shamanic ceremony, Green had a vivid dream that he and Tuplin were floating high above the ocean. The next morning, Green contacted Tuplin to share his strange astral encounter — and the pair began a correspondence.

Written and recorded during the middle of a pandemic — which created its own challenges — “Ocean/Are You Weird Enough?” is centered around a sparse yet haunting arrangement of acoustic guitar, atmospheric synths, shuffling drums serving as a gentle and ethereal bed for a gorgeous melody — and some equally gorgeous harmonies. And while sounding a bit like a cross between The Church and Nick Drake, the song as Green explains thematically explores the oneness and weirdness of people within a collective whole. 

centered around atmospheric synths, strummed acoustic guitar serving as a sumptuous bed for the pair’s mellifluous vocals and equally gorgeous harmonizing. Much like its predecessor, “In The Name of Love” brings The Church’s “Under the Milky Way” but while also nodding at Nick Drake. Thematically, the song tackles chaos theory, the nature of the cosmos and our tendency to distort the truth in the name of love. But underneath the seriousness of the song, there’s a a delicately wry sense of humor over the fact that everything in the cosmos may ultimately be up to chance.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Amsterdam’s Altin Gün Performs “Ordunun Dereleri”

Deriving their name from the Turkish phase for “Golden Day,” the Amsterdam-based Turkish psych pop act Altin Gün — founding member founding member Jasper Verhulst (bass) with Ben Rider (guitar), Erdinç Ecevit Yildiz (keys, saz, vocals), Gino Groneveld (percussion), Merve Dasdemir (vocals) and Nic Mauskovic (drums) — can trace their origins to Japser Verhulst’s deep and abiding passion for 60s and 70s Turkish psych pop and folk and to frequent tour stops in Istanbul with a previous band.

As a result of his tour stops in Istanbul, Verhulst wound up discovering a lot of music that wasn’t readily available in his homeland. But as the story goes, he wasn’t just content to listen as an ardent fan, he had a vision of where he could potentially take the sound he loved. “We do have a weak spot for the music of the late ’60s and ’70s,” Verhulst admitted in press notes. “With all the instruments and effects that arrived then, it was an exciting time. Everything was new, and it still feels fresh. We’re not trying to copy it, but these are the sounds we like and we’re trying to make them our own.” The Dutch act actively interpret and reimagine this beloved material through a contemporary 21st century lens. “Of course, since our singers are Turkish, they know many of these pieces. All this is part of the country’s musical past, their heritage, like ‘House of The Rising Sun’ is in America,‘” Verhulst explains.

The act’s sophomore album, last year’s Grammy Award-nominated, critically applauded Gece helped the Amsterdam-based act win further worldwide acclaim for their reimagining of traditional Turkish folk through the lens of psych rock and pop. The band’s highly-anticipated third album Yol, the third album from the Dutch act in three years, finds the act continuing to draw upon the rich and diverse traditions of Turkish and Anatolian folk music. But as a result of pandemic-related restrictions and lockdowns, the members of the Dutch act was forced to write music in a new way: they traded demos and ideas built around Omnichord, 808 and other elements, including field recordings and New Age-like ideas by email.

“We were basically stuck at home for three months making home demos, with everybody adding their parts,” Altin Gün’s Merve Dasdemir says in press notes. “The transnational feeling maybe comes from that process of swapping demos over the internet, some of the music we did in the studio, but lockdown meant we had to follow a different approach.”

As a result of arrangements featuring Omnichord and 808 — and the new songwriting approach, the album finds the band crafting material that’s a bold, new sonic direction: a sleek, synth-based Europop sound with a dreamy quality that may have been informed by the enforced period of reflection. Additionally, Yol finds the members of Altin Gün enlisting Ghent, Belgium-based production duo Asa Moto — Oliver Geerts and Gilles Noë — to co-produce and mix the album, marking the first time that the band has collaborated with outsiders.

“Ordunun Dereleri,” Yol‘s mesmerizing first single finds the Dutch act pairing an old folk standard with an arrangement centered around atmospheric and glistening synth arpeggios, four-on-the-floor drumming paired with Mediterranean-like polyrhythmic percussion, shimmering bursts of guitar, a sinuous, motorik groove and plaintive vocals. And while, being a sleek and futuristic push in a new sonic direction, the track finds the band balancing careful and deliberate attention to craft with a dreamy introspection.

The members of Altin Gün filmed a livestream concert for Dekmantel Connects that will air December 17, 2020 at 8:00PM Central European Time/2:00PM Eastern Standard Time/1:00PM Central Standard/12:00PM Mountain Standard Time and 11:00AM Pacific Standard Time. The livestream will feature a sneak peek at the band’s forthcoming album, including this gorgeously shot live footage of the aforementioned “Ordunun Dereleri” filmed in what looks like an abandoned factory.

Yol is slated for a February 26, 2021 release through ATO Records/Cadence Music Group.