Category: Psych Rock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Black Angels’ Alex Maas Releases a Contemplative and Dreamy Single off His Forthcoming Solo Debut

Best known as the frontman and founding member of the acclaimed Austin, TX-based psych rock act and JOVM mainstays The Black Angels — and a member of acclaimed psych rock supergroup MIEN, Alex Maas will be stepping out into the spotlight as a solo artist with the release of his full-length debut Luca.

Named for Maas’ firstborn child, Luca, which means “bringer of light,” the Mass and Brett Orrison co-produced album, which is slated for a December 4, 2020 release through Innovative Leisure was a long time coming — with some of its material dating back almost a decade and put together piece-by-piece over the course of a couple of years. Centered around a much gentler, contemplative take on psychedelia, Luca is a decided sonic departure from Maas’ best known work, showcasing what Maas says “a whole different part of gym brain.”

“I wanted to go someplace musically that I’ve never gone before,” Maas continues. Thematically, the album is driven by the nature and quiet of Maas’ home state and by his meditations about his son, his future, the often frightening world he was born in and how to navigate through the perils and frustrations of modern society. Interestingly, the album’s first single “Been Struggling” is a dreamy and shuffling waltz, centered around strummed guitar, shimmering pedal steel and Maas’ imitable falsetto that sonically nods at the melancholy psychedelia of Scott Walker and the classic Nashville sound. Instead of the menace, madness and darkness of his best known work, “Been Struggling” is a pensive meditation on memory, fate and loss from the perspective of a narrator, who has lived a messy and drama fueled life.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s ALIAS Releases a Trippy Visual for Anthemic “King”

ALIAS is an emerging Montreal-based signer/songwriter and musician. Developing a bit of a reputation locally as an introvert, who has recovered through some troubles, the Montreal-based artist’s material generally tells tales of lonely, endearingly sweet yet kind of schizophrenic cowboy types having a pleasant LSD trip. Sonically, his work features elements of psych pop and psych rock; in fact, his latest single “King” begins with a folksy strummed guitar intro before quickly morphing into a fuzzy power chord driven anthem with an infectious hook.

The emerging Montreal-based artist explains that the song, which makes a reference to a Tekken 3 character by the name of King, describes “the feeling of being a fighter instead of fearing. It’s the sentiment of becoming a beast instead of being a prey.”

Featuring ALIAS and his backing band — JB Beltra, Simon Bilodeau and Vincent Beneze — the video switches between footage of the Montreal-based artist and his band performing the song, leopards on the hunt and a swaggering leopard mask wearing character.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of Out in the Dark, the Israeli-born, Paris-based psych rock singer/songwriter and producer MAGON quickly established a unique sound, which he has described as urban rock on psychedelics. Over the course of this past year, I wrote about two of the album’s released singles — the incredibly self-aware and introspective,  The Strokes-like “My Reflection” and the David Bowie and T. Rex-like “Same House.”

The Israeli-born, Paris-based singer/songwriter and producer’s latest single “Change” is the first bit of new material since the release of Out in the Dark, and the track is a shimmering and lo-fi bit of psych pop with a subtle nod at glam rock — with the song being centered around shimmering strummed guitar, narcotic drumming, MAGON’s droll, ironically detached vocals and trippy reverb and other fluttering percussion. But at its core, the song is a dreamy meditation on the passing of time, inspired by a year, which saw a number of sea changes in his personal life.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Throughout the course of this site’s 10-plus year history, I’ve managed to spill quite a bit of virtual ink covering the Los Angeles-based garage rock/psych rock act JOVM mainstays Death Valley Girls. The act, which currently features founding duo Larry Schemel (guitar) and Bonnie Bloomgarden (vocals, guitar) 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 trace their origins back to over a decade ago, when they were formed by Schemel, Bloomgarden, Rachel Orosco (bass) and Hole‘s Patty Schemel (drums). Interestingly, despite the fact that the band has had a series of lineup changes thrhgout their history, the band’s aesthetic and sound has been generally indebted to The Manson Family, B movie theatrics and the occult.

2020 has been a very busy year for the JOVM mainstays: Earlier this year, the band released the two song, seven-inch EP Breakthrough, an effort that saw the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays covering two songs that have a profound connection to the band — both in their spirit and aural alignment. One of the songs included on the EP was  Atomic Rooster‘s “Breakthrough,” a song the band originally discovered through an even more obscure cover by Nigerian psych act The Funkees.  The Death Valley Girls’ cover leans more towards The Funkees’ version — thanks to grimy power chords, fire-and-brimstone organ lines and an in-your-face, combative chorus — but all three versions are centered around the age-old desire to be free from prisons — both literal and figurative.

Continuing upon the momentum of Breakthrough EP, the members of the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays will be releasing their newest album Under the Spell of Joy through their longtime label home Suicide Squeeze Records on October 2, 2020. The album’s title is derived from the text on at-shirt that the San Diego-based heavy psych rock act Joy gave to Death Valley Girls’ Bonnie Bloomgarden. Bloomgarden regularly wore the shirt constantly over the next five years, treating it like a talisman. “I read it as being about manifesting your biggest dreams and responding thoughtfully and mindfully to everything that comes in your path with joy and compassion first,” Bloomgarden explains in press notes. “There is a lot to be really angry about in the world but joy is just as powerful if used correctly!”

With Under the Spell of Joy, the members of the Death Valley Girls sough to make a spiritual record — what Bloomgarden describes as a “space gospel” — with the intention of bringing people together and creating the kind of participatory musical experience people have in places of worship. And as a result, the album’s material is generally centered around chants, choirs and rousing choruses, written with the purpose of encouraging people to sing along. Where the band had once sought to connect people through more esoteric means, Spell of Joy finds them tapping into an age-old tradition of uniting people by inviting them to be an active participant.

Although Bloomgarden and Schemel knew their intention for the album’s material before they had written a single note, the nature and direction of the music was initially inspired by the Ethiopian funk records they had been listening to while touring — but once they began playing and recording the material they had written, the music, which they claim came from tapping into their subconscious seemed to come from the future.

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s previously released singles: the slow-burning and expansive, Wish You Were-era Pink Floyd-like “The Universe,” which featured elements of shoegaze and classic psych rock — and the straightforward and soaring “Hold My Hand,” a track that evoked the swoon of new love, and the urge to improve oneself through deep personal reflection. Interestingly, Under the Spell of Joy‘s third and latest single, album title track “Under the Spell of Joy” is a hallucinogenic fever dream featuring chanted lyrics, fiery blasts of saxophone, enormous hooks and even bigger power chords. Seemingly one-part Fun House-era The Stooges, one-part acid-tinged psych rock, one-part Giant Steps-era Coltrane, the track is a rock”n’ roll take on the good news gospel stomp — while centered around an ebullient and mischievous joy.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Los Angeles’ Grand Master Releases a Power Chord Driven Anthem

Although he’s probably best known as the creative mastermind behind the rising psych rock act Grand Master, the Lincoln, NE-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Derek M. Walker is someone, who in his own words “knows nothing about music.” Walker initially relocated to Los Angeles for some adventure and to pursue music and film production despite not having a formal education in either one.

Walker spent a several year stint as the lead guitarist of Mere Mortals and then spent several years attempting to write and produce films and work on other creative pursuits; however, his obsession with music drove him back into his home studio, where he worked on writing and recording the demos that would eventually become Grand Master’s soon-to-be released album I Am Living. Initially Walker didn’t have intention of professionally recording or releasing the material but after he had written almost a dozen demos, he wondered to himself, what the purpose was if he didn’t do anything with them.

The Lincoln-born, Los Angeles-based mutli-instraumetnalist began the formal recording process by recording guitar, bass and vocals with his former Mere Mortals bandmate and current member of United Ghosts’ Axel Steurwald at Stuerwald’s Bedrock Studio. Walker didn’t make any changes to the material; he just duplicated what was already there with some vintage equipment. He then took the completed files over to Grammy Award-winning producer Mark Rains, who recorded drums with Bad Radio’s and United Ghosts’ Joey Ponchetti at Rains’ Station House studio — with Rains also mixing the album.

The album was then sent to JJ Golden, who mastered the material at Golden Mastering. Of course, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Walker had to complete his portion of the mixing and mastering process remotely, listening to mixes of headphones and then in hi car, comparing sounds and changes and sending notes. He’d wait a few days for changes to be made and they would all repeat the process again. But throughout it all. Walker says that he enjoyed the freedom of an untraditional songwriting process — one in which, he wasn’t concerned with song structure or arrangements. If he felt like singing a verse, he did so; if he felt like adding a chorus, he did so and if he didn’t, he it wasn’t added.

Slated for a September 25, 2020 release I Am Living reportedly finds the Lincoln-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist making the sort of music you’d cruise down the highway and bob your head while playing. I Am Living’s latest single, album title track “I Am Living” is an arena friendly psych rock song centered around a persistent, motorik groove, enormous fuzz and distortion pedal power chords, thunderous drumming and a rousingly anthemic hook. And while sonically, the song brings Songs for the Deaf-era Queens of the Stone Age to mind, the song manages to feel remarkably upbeat.

The recently released video features incredibly pixellated footage of cars driving down late night streets and of Walker bobbing his head and singing along. It’s eerie yet appropriately trippy.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Temples Release a Dance Floor Friendly and Kaleidoscopic Sean Ono Lennon-Produced Single

Kettering, Northamptonshire, UK-based indie rock/psych rock act Temples — currently founding members James Bagshaw (vocals, guitar) and Tom Walmsley (bass) with Adam Smith — can trace their origins back to 2012 when its founding members started the band as home-baed studio project, featuring two musicians, who had known each other through their hometown’s scene. 

Bagshaw and Walmsley uploaded four self-produced tracks, which caught the attention of Heavenly Recordings founder and label head Jeff Barrett, who signed the band and agreed to release their debut single “Shelter Song” later that year. Shortly after signing to Heavenly Recordings, Bagshaw and Walmsley recruited Samuel Toms (drums) and Adam Smith to flesh out the band’s live sound — and to complete the band’s first lineup. Since then the band has released two critically applauded and commercially successful albums — 2014’s Sun Structures, which landed at #7 on the UK Charts and 2017’s Volcano.  Building upon a growing profile, the British psych rock act has made appearances across the UK, European Union and North American festival circuits. They’ve shared stages with the likes of Suede, Mystery Jets, Kasabian and The Vaccines among others — but over the past few years, they’ve transitioned into a headlining act that has also made Stateside national television appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

2018 saw a number of major changes for the band: Samuel Toms left the band to focus on his solo recording project Secret Fix, and later joined the equally acclaimed Fat White Family. Temples also left their longtime label home Heavenly Recordings and signed with ATO Records, who released last year’s Hot Motion, which they supported with a busy touring schedule that included a stop at the Desert Daze Festival. The members of Temples caught their labelmates The Claypool Lennon Delirium’s set and shortly after they found themselves chatting about music with them band’s frontman Sean Ono Lennon. 

Several months later, ATO Records asked the band about releasing a previously unreleased Hot Motion sessions track as a single, and they immediately thought of Lennon and asked him to produce the track. “We couldn’t think of any greater mind than his to create with on this track,” the band’s Tom Walmsley says.  “When I first heard the demo for ‘Paraphernalia’ I knew they had a great tune,” says Lennon, who enlisted Dave Fridmann to mix the track.  “Paraphernalia” is a slick and kaleidoscopic synthesis of psych pop and disco pop featuring a sinuous and propulsive, dance floor friendly groove, shimmering guitars, twinkling keys, soaring strings and an anthemic hook paired with Bagshaw’s plaintive vocals. Sonically, the track reminds me of Fantasm-era Starlight Girls  but as the band explains the song is about the disconnect between reality and the online world. “In an age of constant distraction, we all strive to find focus and a sense of calm. ’Paraphernalia’ questions the depth of ‘real’ connections in a digital world,” the band says. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Marble Mammoth · Have The Sun Lick Your Mind

Led by Tobias Bergholm (singer and guitarist), the Stockholm-based indie rock act Marble Mammoth features members who have played in acts like The Unisex and have collaborated with the likes of MC5s Mike Davis and The Hellacopters‘ and Imperial State Electric’s Nicke Anderson. With the release of 2017’s self-tiled, debut EP and a handful of singles including “Wrecked Ship,” “Glitter Amongst Gravel” and others, the Swedish quartet received attention nationally and internationally for crafting a sound that draws from riff driven classic rock and melodic psych rock.

Released earlier this month through Klorofyll Records, Marble Mammoth’s latest single “Have the Sun Lick Your Mind” is centered around an arrangement of twinkling keys, a bluesy and shimmering guitar line, a soaring hook and a propulsive rhythm section. Continuing a run of Brit Pop-tinged psych rock, “Have the Sun Lick Your Mind” may be the most expansive and ambitious songs they’ve released in their growing catalog — but at its core, the song is decidedly upbeat. “Have the Sun Lick Your Mind’ is about healing, abotu starting over and about feeling hope for the future, even thought it might look dark at the moment,” the band’s Tobias Bergholm explains.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Death Valley Girls Release a Feverish Visual for “Hold My Hand”

I’ve also spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the Los Angeles-based garage rock/psych rock act JOVM mainstays Death Valley Girls throughout the bulk of this site’s 10 year history.  The act which features founding duo Larry Schemel (guitar) and Bonnie Bloomgarden (vocals, guitar) 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 trace their origins back to over a decade ago, when they were formed by Schemel, Bloomgarden, Rachel Orosco (bass) and Hole‘s Patty Schemel (drums).  And despite the fact that they’ve gone through a series of lineup changes throughout their history, the band’s sound and aesthetic for much of their history has been heavily indebted to The Manson Family and B movie theatrics — while thematically concerned with the occult. 

Earlier this year, the longtime JOVM mainstays released a two song, seven-inch EP Breakthrough. The EP found the Los Angeles-based act covering two songs which have a deep and profound connection to the band — both in their spirit and aural alignment. One of those songs was Atomic Rooster‘s “Breakthrough,” a song discovered through an even more obscure cover by Nigerian psych act The Funkees.  While the Death Valley Girls’ cover leans more towards The Funkees’ version — thanks to grimy power chords, fire-and-brimstone organ lines and an in-your-face, combative chorus — all three versions of the song evoke the age-old desire to be free from prisons both real and mental.

Although they’ve been unable to tour because of COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns and quarantines, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays have managed to make 2020 a busy year: Slated for an October 2, 2020 release through their longtime label home, Suicide Squeeze Records, the band’s forthcoming album Under the Spell of Joy derives its title from the text on a t-shirt that the San Diego-based heavy psych rock act Joy gave to Death Valley Girls’ Bloomgarden. As the story goes, Bloomgarden regularly wore the shirt constantly over the next five years, treating it like a talisman. “I read it as being about manifesting your biggest dreams and responding thoughtfully and mindfully to everything that comes in your path with joy and compassion first,” Bloomgarden explains in press notes. “There is a lot to be really angry about in the world but joy is just as powerful if used correctly!”

With Under the Spell of Joy, the members of the Death Valley Girls sough to make a spiritual record — what Bloomgarden describes as a “space gospel” — with the intention of bringing people together and creating the kind of participatory musical experience people have in places of worship. And as a result, the album’s material is generally centered around chants, choirs and rousing choruses, written with the purpose of encouraging people to sing along. Where the band had once sought to connect people through more esoteric means, Spell of Joy finds them tapping into an age-old tradition of uniting people by inviting them to be an active participant.

Although Bloomgarden and Schemel knew their intention for the album’s material before they had written a single note, the nature and direction of the music was initially inspired by the Ethiopian funk records they had been listening to while touring — but once they began playing and recording the material they had written, the music, which they claim came from tapping into their subconscious seemed to come from the future. Now, as you may recall, last month, I wrote about Under the Spell of Joy’s first single, the slow-burning. expansive and yearning “The Universe,” a track which seemed to simultaneously nod at Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here era Pink Floyd, 60s psych rock and shoegaze. 

Under the Spell of Joy’s second and latest single “Hold My Hand” is simultaneously a return to form and arguably one of the album’s seemingly more straightforward songs: centered around stomping drums, reverb drenched guitars, soaring organs and a rousingly anthemic hook, the song evokes both the urgent swoon of new love, as well as the urge to improve upon oneself deep personal reflection and through love. 

“Relationships are really tricky and can be super messy and complicated! I used to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again,” Death Valley Girls’ Bonnie Bloomgarden explains in press notes. “I realized it’s cause I thought relationships were an agreement you made with another person. And that meant giving away my power to the other person and letting them navigate our way along our path. Then I realized things either happen to you or for you! Any relationship you have is an opportunity to make an agreement with yourself! It’s a chance to learn to be more compassionate and to grow stronger and more powerfully into the person you want to be and are meant to be! Hopefully, the other person will help along the way and grow with you! If not, peace and next, please.”

Curated by Andi Avery and Kate E. Hinshaw, the recently released video for “Hold My Hand” features painted film by a collection of artists. The end result is a visual that’s lysergic, urgent and feverish.  

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Noosa, Australia-born, London-based twin siblings Toma and Andy Benjamin grew up in a musical home, and as a result they wound up joining the local church band when they were teenagers. Coincidentally, that same church band was where the Banjamins met their future Tempesst bandmates Kane Reynolds and Blake Mispeka.

The Banjamin Brothers eventually left home and discovered a whole new world of music, ideas and ways of living that weren’t part of their previous purview: after a short stint in the UK, the Banjamins wound up in Brooklyn, where they soaked up the DIY ethos of the  late 2000s Williamsburg scene. They started to develop their own ideas, starting home recording projects initially inspired by Joni Mitchell, Al Green, Wings, Electric Light Orchestra and others.

After a year in Brooklyn, an expiring visa forced the Banjamins to relocate to Hackney, where they hunkered down and got serious about writing and recording material. They recruited Swiss-American Eric Weber (guitar) and reconnected with their fellow Aussies Reynolds and Mispeka — and at that point, the rising London-based indie act Tempesst started.

Unsurprisingly, the need to practice, write and record in a city like London helped facilitate the creation of their own studio. “We started out with a basic production studio that Tom kept at his house but one of the biggest challenges in London is that you can’t make noise,” the band’s Andy Banjamin recalls. “So we began looking for a rehearsal space and came across this warehouse, which was way bigger than anything we were looking for but got us wondering about what it would actually take to set up a proper studio.”

Naming the space Pony Studios, the band started to convert the warehouse into multiple studio rooms and practice spaces. Simultaneously, the band started Pony Recordings, which helped changed the way the band had approached their work.  “These days artists are expected to do so much themselves and we have always been slight control freaks anyway,” Andy Banjamin says in press notes. “DIY is part of everything that we do, so that extends to our label, the studio, the videos, all of it and really it’s just how the indie music scene has evolved.” Toma Banjamin adds “With the studio, we have time to work on all the key things that have become quintessential to our sound but also experiment and add an element of surprise, whether that is a weird synth solo or a key change. It’s those little departures that keep the listener on their toes.”

After releasing a handful of critically applauded, buzz worthy singles and EPs, the Aussie-born, British-based members of Tempesst will be releasing their highly anticipated full-length debut, the Eliot Heinrich co-produced Must Be a Dream. Slated for a September 30, 2020 release through the band’s own Pony Recordings, Tempesst’s full-length debut reportedly finds the band boldly taking a step forward with their songwriting and their sound. Generally leaning towards folk-tinged psychedelia, the album’s material nods at Spiritualized, The Flaming Lips, and The Beach Boys — but with a modern melodic sensibility.

Sonically, the material is deceptive: complex musical ideas are centered around seemingly simple melodies.  Seemingly sun-kissed, the album thematically explores themes of longing, love, loss, substance abuse, the death of loved ones — and yet remembering the beauty just underneath all of it. “This record is the first time that I feel like I’ve had the uninterrupted ability to create and have full control at our own pace,” Toma Banjamin says in press notes. “With this LP, we’ve created something we’re really proud of that truly cements our identity as a group. The joy of taking these songs live is something that we’re really excited about.”

Earlier this year, I wrote about Must Be A Dream‘s first single, the Brit Pop meets psych psych rock “On The Run,” a track centered around shimmering and reverb drenched guitars, layered vocal harmonies, an enormous hook and Toma Benjamin’s serpentine-like vocals. And while superficially being a sun-kissed, summery anthem, the song is actually much darker, as the song thematically focuses on substance abuse, death and the loss of innocence — that feels haunted by the weight of heartache. “High On My Own,” the album’s third and latest single sounds as though it draws influence from Electric Light Orchestra, The Beach Boys and Primal Scream, as the song is centered by a  motorik groove, shimmering guitars and a soaring hook within an expansive song structure. But underneath the trippy, feel good vibes the song finds its narrator — and in turn, the band — juxtaposing their lives with those of their peers back home. Recognizing that settling down and having the family life at this moment isn’t for them, the song’s narrator does the brave thing — setting their own path in their own way.

“I grew up near Noosa, a small beach town in Australia. In my town, a 30 year old man was typically a family man, with a normal job, a mortgage etc.,” the band’s Toma Banjamin explains. “The kind of guy who had a balanced life and what seemed to be contentment as a byproduct. These guys had beliefs, they lived by a code that guided each decision with a brand of certainty that I envy and in my subconscious, this archetype framed the kind of firm identity one should expect to acquire by age 30. A couple of decades on, here I am, 30, still wandering, without the beliefs or certainty I expected to have.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Frankie and the Witch Fingers Release a Menacing and Trippy Visual for Mind-Bending “Sweet Freak”

Currently featuring core trio Dylan Sizemore (vocals), multi-instrumentalist Josh Menashe and Shaughnessy Starr (drums), the Los Angeles-based psych rock act Frankie and the Witch Fingers can trace their origins back to their formation about a decade ago in Bloomington, IN. Since the band’s formation the band has developed and honed a reputation for restless experimentation, multiple permutations and a high-powered, scuzzy take on psych rock, centered around absurdist lyrical imagery — fueled by hallucinations, paranoia and lust. And as a result, the band’s material manages to be simultaneously playful and menacing. 

With the addition of Shaughnessy Starr, the Los Angeles-based psych rock act went through another sonic mutation that resulted in a lysergic and claustrophobic sound — while further relying on their penchant for Black Sabbath-style riffage. Building upon a growing profile, the members of the Los Angeles-based act has opened for the likes of JOVM mainstays Thee Oh Sees, Cheap Trick and ZZ Top. 

Written while on the road, the act’s forthcoming album Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters . . . is slated for an October 2, 2020 release through Greenway Records and Levitation Festival’s label The Reverberation Appreciation Society. Recorded in a breakneck five day recording session, the highly-anticipated follow up to ZAM, Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters finds the band taking the turbulence of its immediate predecessor and making the material much more insidious, evil and ambitious while capturing the band in the midst of massive personnel changes — longtime bassist Alex Bulli left the band, and as a result the band’s Menashe wrote and played most of the material’s bass parts with occasional contributions from Dylan Sizemore. Much like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s Infest the Rats Nest, Frankie and the Witch Fingers’ forthcoming album sees the band crafting expansive, maximalist material — with fewer moving parts. (Interestingly, Death Valley Girls’ Nikki Pickle will join the band as a touring member.) 

“Sweat Freak,” Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters . . .’s latest single features crunchy, power chord-driven riffs, punchily delivered yet surrealistic lyrics and explosive horn blasts within an expansive, constantly morphing and expansive song structure. Sonically, the result is a song that’s one part King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard one part Stooges and one part Tool-like prog rock with a menacing and malicious air. 

Done by Spaghetti Jesus, the recently released claymation video for “Sweat Freak” features trippy visual effects by Slob Dylan and 2D animation by Mitchell Zeni — and the video is centered around monstrous aliens performing weird and bloody experiments on people and each other.  It’s hilariously disturbing and absolutely brilliant. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Death Valley Girls Release an Ebullient and Soaring New Single

Throughout the bulk of this site’s 10 year history, I’ve also spilled quite a bit of virtual ink cover the Los Angeles-based garage rock/psych rock act JOVM mainstays Death Valley Girls. Featuring core and founding duo Larry Schemel (guitar) and Bonnie Bloomgarden (vocals, guitar) 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, the JOVM mainstays can trace their origins back to over a decade ago, when they were formed by Schemel, Bloomgarden, Rachel Orosco (bass) and Hole‘s Patty Schemel (drums). And although they’ve gone through a series of lineup changes throughout their history, the band’s sound and aesthetic for much of their history was heavily indebted by The Manson Family and B movie theatrics — while thematically focused on the occult. 

Last month, the longtime JOVM mainstays and Suicide Squeeze Records, released a two song, seven-inch EP Breakthrough. The EP found the Los Angeles-based act covering two songs which have a deep and profound connection to the band — both in their spirit and aural alignment, including  Atomic Rooster‘s “Breakthrough,” a song discovered through an even more obscure cover by Nigerian psych act The Funkees.  While the Death Valley Girls cover leans more towards The Funkees’ version — thanks to a grimy power chords, fire-and-brimstone organ chords and an in-your-face, combative chorus — all three versions of the song evoke the age-old desire to be free from prisons both real and mental. 

Although they’ve been unable to tour because of COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns and quarantines, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays have managed to make 2020 a busy year: Slated for an October 2, 2020 release through their longtime label home, the band’s forthcoming album Under the Spell of Joy derives its title from the text on a t-shirt that the San Diego-based heavy psych rock act Joy gave to Death Valley Girls’ Bloomgarden. As the story goes, Bloomgarden regularly wore the shirt constantly over the next five years, treating it like a talisman. “I read it as being about manifesting your biggest dreams and responding thoughtfully and mindfully to everything that comes in your path with joy and compassion first,” Bloomgarden explains in press notes. “There is a lot to be really angry about in the world but joy is just as powerful if used correctly!”

With Under the Spell of Joy, the members of the Death Valley Girls sough to make a spiritual record — what Bloomgarden describes as a “space gospel” — with the intention of bringing people together and creating the kind of participatory musical experience people have in places of worship. And as a result, the album’s material is generally centered around chains, choirs and rousing choruses, written with the purpose of encouraging people to sing along. Where the band had once sought to connect people through more esoteric means, Spell of Joy finds them tapping into an age-old tradition of uniting people by inviting them to be an active participant. 

Although Bloomgarden and Schemel knew their intention for the album’s material before they had written a single note, the nature and direction of the music was initially inspired by the Ethiopian funk records they had been listening to while touring — but once they began playing and recording the material they had written, the music, which they claim came from tapping into their subconscious seemed to come from the future. 

centered around soaring and soulful saxophone, shimmering keyboard arpeggios, a sinuous bass line, a propulsive bass line and a shout along worthy chorus, “The Universe,” Under the Spell of Joy’s first single is a slow-burning and expansive song with a cosmic sheen that yearns and arches itself into a higher — and seemingly lysergic — plane of existence. Simultaneously nodding at Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here era Pink Floyd, 60s psych rock and shoegaze, the song bristles with a mischievous and ebullient joy that’s infectious. 

“The world is crazy right now and it feels like we should be doing more than just trying to perpetuate joy,” Bloomgarden says. “I think music becomes a part of you. Like Black Sabbath’s first record is as much a part of me as my own music. I think you can listen to music or song to get lost in it, or you can listen to music to find something in your self or the world that either you never had or just went missing. I want people to sing to this record, make it their own, and focus on manifesting their dreams as much as they can!” 

Directed by Bradley Hale, the recently released video for “The Universe” is a collage of newspaper and magazine clippings featuring occult and horror films, astral projection, UFOs and abductions and psychedelic blasts of color. And all of it centered around the desire to seek something beyond oneself, beyond their limited plane of existence and knowledge. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Canadian Rock Duo Crown Lands Releases an Impassioned and Fiery Visual and Single

Crown Lands is a rising Oshawa, Ontario, Canada-based rock duo — Cody Bowles (vocals, drums) and Kevin Comeau (guitar, bass, synths) — that can trace its origins back to 2014, when the duo met. Bonding over a shared love and passion for music, Bowles and Comeau quickly became best friends and started jamming together in a local barn. And although they switched up instruments, they never strayed from writing, recording and performing as a duo. 

The duo’s name manages to be forcefully indicative of their ambitions and intentions. Crown Land is territorial area belonging to a monarch — or as Bowles puts it: “Crown Land is stolen land and we are reclaiming it.” The band’s overall mission is to represent a sense of empowerment for marginalized communities through their music and their work’s thematic concerns and lyrical content. People are going to listen to you, so you may as well say something that matters,” Crown Land’s Kevin Comeau says in press notes. 

Since their formation, the band has released three EPs 2016’s Mantra, 2017’s Rise Over Run and this year’s Wayward Flyers, Volume 1. Each of those releases have firmly established the band’s unique sound, a sound that draws from a wide range of influences including folk. blues, psych rock and prog rock among others. Along with those releases, the band has released two singles — “Spit It Out,” and “Howlin’ Back” — which will appear on their forthcoming Dave Cobb-produced full-length debut, which is slated for an August 13, 2020 release. “Dave pushed us to listen to ourselves and really trust our initial instinct with a song,” the band’s Bowles’ says in press notes. 

The Canadian duo’s latest single, the anthemic “End of the Road” is the third and latest single they’ve released this year, and the track is fueled by Bowles’ personal experiences — while calling attention to an urgent social issue. According to Statistics Canada, between 2001 to 2015, the homicide rate for Indigenous Womxn in Canada was almost six times as high as the rate for non-indigenous womxn. “‘End of the Road’ is an outcry for awareness and action surrounding the colonial horrors of the missing and murdered Indigenous Womxn, Girls, and Two-Spirits that still haunt Indigenous communities today,” Bowles explains. “Violence against Indigenous people is something I have witnessed firsthand throughout my life. I am half Mi’kmaw and grew up spending of a lot of my childhood in and around Alderville First Nation. I identify as Two-Spirit and dream of a better world for the brilliant Indigenous womxn, girls and 2SLGBTQ+ people who face adversity every day for their very existence. It’s up to all of us to make this world a better place for future generations, and this song is a small message of hope adding to the rising wave of Indigenous resistance throughout this land.” 

Sonically, the track finds the duo bringing  JOVM mainstay Sam Fender and even fellow Canadian Bryan Adams to mind: enormous, power chord-driven arena rock friendly hooks and thunderous drumming within an expansive song structure. And while being  remarkably accessible, the song is centered around ambitious and passionate songwriting — the sort informed by the righteous fury of lived-in injustice, of people who have reached their breaking point and are screaming “I’VE HAD ENOUGH!”  “We don’t claim to have any answers., but we want to use our voice to bring awareness and help make a difference,” the band’s Comeau adds. 

Directed by Tim Myles and Alex P. Smith, the haunting video for “End of the Road” opens with impassionaied narration by Canadian Inuk vocalist Tanya Tagaq, who offers some contextualization of the ongoing disappearances and murders of Indigenous womxn. The video features cast of Indigenous dancers, who are dancing to choreography by Teineisha Richards, a Mi’kmaq artist based in Bear River First Nations, Nova Scotia, wearing red dresses inspired by the work of The REDress Project, a collection of 600 red dresses by community donation installed across Canada as a visual reminder of the staggering number of missing womxn and the gendered, racial nature of violent crimes against Indigenous womxn, girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ people. The dancers represent the souls of those missing and murdered womxn, demanding answers from the afterlife — and adding to overall eerie yet urgent nature of the song and its accompanying video, the video was shot on British Columbia Highway 16, better known (infamously so) as “The Highway of Tears,” where most of these women have disappeared. 

“To create the choreography I had to go to a pretty deep and dark place and put myself in the shoes of both the women who went missing and the families of those women who suffered with their loss,” Richards explains. “I  wanted to express the desperate feeling of someone fighting to escape, but with no redemption. Additionally, I aimed to generate a sense of self-empowerment and unity within a shared struggle, by my use of staccato, aggressive, and synchronized movement during the group sections of choreography. Most of the choreography derived from that dark, yet powerful place, and the overall message and feeling I received from the song.”