Category: Psych Rock

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Boogarins Return with Hallucinatory and Abrasive Visuals for Their Boundary-Pushing New Single

During a rather busy bit of international touring the Latin Grammy-nominated act, Boogarins, holed up in house near Austin, TX’s SPACE Studios for most of the summer, and they spent their time writing and recording new material in between a several weeks- long Austin club residency. the band’s latest single “Elogio a Instituição do Cinismo” (translated into English, the title is “Praise the Institution of Cynicism”)is a decided sonic departure as the band incorporates the use of thumping beats and breakbeats, swirling and whirling electronics, abrasive and buzzing guitars to create a malevolent and angrily brewing storm of sound that’s paired with vocals that manage to be both dreamily placid yet pissed off. While being hallucinatory, the song manages to be a rowdy, furious almost dance floor-like stomp, revealing a band that’s readily and aggressively pushing psych rock and Brazilian rock into strange, yet excitingly new directions.

Filmed and edited by Victor Souza and featuring collages by Beatriz Perini, the recently released lyric and subtitled video emphasizes the bitter, vitriol-fueled critique of society at the heart of the song, suggesting that society encourages people to be deceptive and allows people to be used as means for more ends in themselves. The collages help emphasize the song’s whirling malevolent storm.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially known as the Seattle, WA-based Bigfoot Wallace and His Wicked Sons, the newly renamed The Kingdom Boogie Band can trace their origins to the formation and breakup of a renowned Pacific Northwest percussion heavy band Kithkin, a band which released four critically well-received albums. Anyway, the members of the newly renamed band are currently working on a full-length album under their new name, an album which will likely comprised of material that the band has dubbed country fun(k) on their Facebook fan page  — although from “Caul,” the band manages to effortlessly mesh psych rock, boogie woogie, glam rock and 70s AM radio rock in a way that feels mischievously anachronistic, while actively not being a carbon copy of the sound that influenced it.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Playfully Childlike and Psychedelic Visuals for Winter’s “Dreaming”

As a newly formed quartet, the members of the band went into the studio to write and record their full-length debut Supreme Blue Dream, which Lolipop Records released last year. With material written and sung in both English and Brazilian Portuguese, the album thematically was designed to connect the listener to their inner child while writing shimmering and ethereal pop that interestingly enough sounds as though it could have been released by 4AD Records. The band is currently working on their forthcoming sophomore effort Ethereality — but interestingly enough, the album’s latest single “Dreaming” was originally written back in 2013 and was presumed lost when the band’s laptop was stolen while on tour. However, through a bit of coincidence and fate, the band found a version of the song on a backup hard drive — and interestingly enough, the single will further cement the band’s growing reputation for craft shimmering and ethereal shoegaze-leaning pop that manages to evoke the sensation of being awoken from a pleasant reverie.

Developed by Samara Winter and directed by Kevin Kearney, the 90s psych rock/alt rock-inspired video depicts Winter on the beach, connecting with her inner child as she plays on the beach, daydreams and bathes in a tub while being shot in neon bright filters and colors schemes.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: New JOVM Mainstays Pavo Pavo Release a Surreal and Old-Timey Video for “Ruby (Let’s Buy the Bike)”

Now, as you may recall the band’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Young Narrator in the Breakers was released last month through Bella Union Records and thematically, the material according to the members of the band describes both the magic and panic of adult life — with the understanding that much like a getting caught in a vicious breaker, you have to stop fighting and ride it out until you can get to shore safely. Interestingly, the album’s latest single “Ruby (Let’s Buy The Bike)” consists of gorgeous falsetto boy/girl harmonies, a strummed and slightly ragged guitar-led melody, off-kilter percussion and soaring synths. And the result is a gorgeous and trippy acceptance of time’s passing and a swooning love song to a beautiful motorcycle named Ruby. Part of the song involves the hopes and plans the narrator has for the bike; some of which picturing himself riding around on the badass bike, potentially getting into a gruesome accident and dying — but saying “man, for the bike, it was fucking worth it.”

The video was shot, directed, produced and edited by the members of the band and as the band’s Oliver Hill explains in press notes about the video “Pavo Pavo’s Oliver Hill talks about the video, saying “There’s a great Kenneth Anger documentary about a biker gang called Scorpio Rising that peers into all the death-obsessed symbology in these gangs, and the whole bizarre environment piqued my interest. For the video we went up to Pleasantville, NY, which is both me and Ian [Romer]’s hometown, and tried to make something that captured that special type of suburban-high-school boredom where groups of friends rove around and try to find little adventures – a sort of reimagined biker gang. We directed it ourselves and shot it on Super 8, which has such a beautiful and cool character – so in a way the whole enterprise was a bit like a group of high school friends, making something on a spare Saturday.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Giorgio Poti (vocals, guitars), Alessandro Marrosu (bass), Salvador Garza (keys) and Aurelien Bernard (drums), each member of the London-based psych rock quartet Cairobi can claim a multinational heritage, which manages to influence their songwriting approach and sound. And adding to that multicultural influence, the band’s self-produced, self-titled album was written in Berlin, where the band’s lead singer relocated, and was recorded in a series of sessions between Berlin, London, Rome and New York. Interestingly, part of the album’s writing sessions draws from Poti suffering frequent and violently incapacitating migraines. As Poti explains in press notes ““I could either stay still, in silence, eyes shut, or take the medication and hope it worked so I could move on with my day. Even when the medicine worked, it would make me extremely sleepy, so some of the music and lyrics on this record were written in a state of drowsiness. That part wasn’t particularly fun, but maybe it helped me get rid of some filters. Luckily, the headaches stopped after about a year.”

The band started to receive attention across the blogosphere with the jagged and jangling Brit Pop and dream pop-leaning “Lupo,” a single which revealed that the band employed an unusual songwriting technique while still hewing to a lengthy psych pop/psych rock tradition. The band’s latest single “Saint” is a dense, noisy and jangling track that sounds as though it draws a bit from Middle Eastern and Saharan African music with shuffling drumming, chopped up distorted vocals, electronic bleeps and bloops and other effects to create a trippy kaleidoscopic sound. And while still drawing from old school psych rock, the single manages to sound as though it’s a modern, maximalist take on a familiar and beloved sound, complete with an anthemic, arena rock-friendly hook.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the 2015 release of their excellent, sophomore effort Manual, the Brazilian psych rock quartet Boogarins quickly became a JOVM mainstay artist. Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past year or so, you’d recall that the internationally acclaimed psych rock quartet can trace their origins to when its founding members, Fernando “Dino” Almeida and Benke Ferraz started playing music together as teenagers in their hometown, the central Brazilian city of Goiânia. Interestingly, the music that the duo of Almedia and Ferraz began to write and eventually record quickly revealed a unique vision of psych pop that drew from their country’s incredibly rich and diverse musical and cultural history  — but with a decidedly modern viewpoint. And unlike a number of contemporary rock bands in their native Brazil, Boogarins were among one of the first, who wrote and sung lyrics completely in Brazilian Portuguese.

The release of the band’s full-length debut As Plantas Que Curam reverberated throughout Brazil as it was a massive critical and commercial success — without the support of a major label or a publicity firm pushing the album. As the band rose to national prominence, they started to receive larger international attention, and as a result they’ve played some of the world’s largest and most popular festivals including   Austin Psych Fest, Burgerama, Primavera Sound Festival, as well as playing headlining shows in clubs in London, Paris, Barcelona and New York. And while touring to support their their full-length debut, the members of the quartet had began writing and revising the material that would eventually comprise Manual. Now, interestingly enough, the material on their sophomore effort was specifically conceived as a diary or dream journal, which gives the material a deeply personal, almost stream-of-consciousness-like feel; but it also reveals a band that has become increasingly sociopolitically conscious as the album’s lyrical content also draws from the complex socioeconomic and political that affected their homeland’s communities before, during and after the 2014 World Cup — namely that entire neighborhoods and communities were being razed for massive commercial developments that helped multinational, global corporations and their interests make money hand over fist instead of uplifting those who desperately needed uplift.

During a rather busy bit of international touring the Latin Grammy nominated act, the quartet holed up in house near Austin, TX‘s SPACE Studios for most of the summer, and they spent their time writing and recording new material in between a several weeks along Austin club residency. the band’s latest single “Elogio a Instituição do Cinismo” (translated into English, the title is “Praise the Institution of Cynicism”)is a decided sonic departure as the band incorporates the use of thumping beats and breakbeats, swirling and whirling electronics, abrasive and buzzing guitars to create a malevolent and angrily brewing storm of sound that’s paired with vocals that manage to be both dreamily placid yet pissed off. While being hallucinatory, the song manages to be a rowdy, furious almost dance floor-like stomp, revealing a band that’s readily and aggressively pushing psych rock and Brazilian rock into strange, yet excitingly new directions.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Bay Area music scene veterans Ethan Miller, a member of Heron Oblivion, Howlin Rain and Comets on Fire; Chris Johnson, a member of Drunk Horse, Andy Human and the Reptoids; and Josh Hynes, a member of Nudity, the Oakland, CA-based psych trio Feral Ohms have developed a reputation for crating some of the Bay Area’s heaviest and hardest rock since their formation in 2011.

John Dwyer’s Castle Face Records will be releasing the band’s highly anticipated debut (and) live album Live in San Francisco on Friday, and as you’ll hear on “The Glow,” one of the barn-burning singles off Live in San Francisco, the band’s sound consists of loud, fuzzy, power chord-based psych rock that’s fittingly feral, explosive and mosh-pit friendly.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site, you may recall that I’ve written about Montreal-based psych rock/indie rock quintet Chocolat — and with the release of their 2008 full-length debut effort, Piano Elegant, the Canadian act received critical praise for material comprised of sophisticated arrangements with a gritty garage rock sound that also simultaneously drew from yeye and indie rock. And as a result of the attention from the press and blogosphere, the band played several dates with the renowned Jay Reatard — that is before quickly and completely disappearing from the public eye. Interestingly, as it turned out, the band had gone on an extensive and somewhat unannounced hiatus in which several members pursued other creative pursuits — in particular, Ysaël Pépin played bass and toured with Demon’s Claws while Jimmy Hunt focused on a solo career as a singer/songwriter, collaborating with producer Emmanuel Ether and Organ Mood‘s Christophe Larmarche-Ledoux on his 2013 effort, Maladie d’amour. 

According to press notes, the members of the Montreal-based indie rock band were brought back together by a strange force of nature for their 2014 release Tss Tss, an album that was released to international acclaim for a sound that drew from psych rock and krautrock, and was supported by several tours both nationally and internationally. And building upon the buzz that they received after the release of Tss Tss, the Canadian band will be releasing their third full-length album, Rencontrer Looloo on November 11, 2016 through Beyond Beyond Is Beyond Records. And as you would have heard “Ah Ouin,” the album’s first single, the single suggests that the band has been heavily experimenting with their songwriting approach — the material is heavily modal-leaning while with that single possesses elements of skronking and screeching experimental, avant-garde jazz, surfer rock, surfer metal and psych rock. The album’s second and latest single “Le Falcon el Chacal et le Vaisseau Spatial” begins with a twinkling analog synth introduction reminiscent of 80s cartoons followed by lengthier section consisting angular guitar stabs, swirling electronics, bop jazz-like syncopation, followed by a much more anthemic section  consisting of angular power chords and a steady rhythm, twinkling synths and a fiery guitar solo to craft a song that not only sonically and structurally sounds indebted to prog rock but nods at psych rock and classic, arena rock.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The 60s Psych Rock and Horror Movie-Inspired Sounds and Visuals of Tele Novella’s Latest Video

“Even Steven” is the latest single off the band’s recently released House of Souls and the single sounds as though it were inspired by 60s psych pop and Roger Corman horror movies — in particular, his loopy Fall of the House of Usher, as the band pairs shimmering guitar chords played through reverb, soaring organ chords, an anthemic and infectious hook, and sultry and subtly menacing vocals in a song about a evil character, named Even Steven who does everything within his power to get even with those who he feels wronged him.

The recently released music video employs the use of Claymation, construction paper animation and collages to create a hilarious DIY video full of cartoonish gore and violence — all of which are fitting for the Halloween season.