Category: reworkings/reimagining

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Ali Sethi is a Pakistani-born, New York-based singer/songwriter and author, who is best known globally for his attempts to revive ghazal, an ancient poetic form that was taken by Sufi mystics from the Arab world to Persia and throughout the Indian subcontinent, where it captivated the royal court. Over the last few decades, ghazal has been unfashionable and viewed as a heavily mannered style associated with decadence and misfits and madman who speak in puns about the charms of forbidden love.

Sethi has given the ancient poetic form a new lease of life through playfully revisionist covers and renditions, which draw from his years of training in raga music, and his own journey as an out-of-place queer kid back in Pakistan, who relocated to New York. His most popular single “Passori,” was one of the most Googled songs of last year, with hundreds of millions globally tuning into its timeless message of forbidden love.

Nicolás Jaar is a Chliean-born, New York-based musician, electronic music artist and producer. Throughout his career, improvisation has been the core of his work. Before he started writing and recording electronic music, Jaar jammed on accordion with friends on the streets here in NYC.

Sethi has long been a fan of Jaar’s music, long before they began collaborating together. He’d absorbed the sounds over a number of years, listening casually and taking in their subtleties in bars and rooftop parties across Lahore and London. “It felt familiar to me, that sense of adventure you have when you hear his music, like a tale that teases you and plays with your expectations as it unfolds,” says Sethi. “In that sense it resembled the leisurely improvised ghazals and qawwalis I grew up hearing in Pakistan.”

When the pair were introduced by Indian visual artists and frequent Jaar collaborator Somnath Bhatt, Sethi was prepared. He had began to sketch out voice notes using loops snipped from Jar’s acclaimed 2020 album Telas, improvising vocalizations and seductive Urdu poems of the Chilean’s ethereal, time-bending productions. Jaar was amazed by the result. “It was what ‘Telas’ had been missing,” he explains.

The result of the vocal sketches is the acclaimed duo’s collaborative album together Intiha, a Ghazal-driven re-working of Jaar’s 2020 album, Telas. Slated for a November 17, 2023 release through Other People, Initha draws from Sethi’s life — and it gives the album’s material a gently subversive edge paired with the addition of new, improvised elements, prompting a playful back-and-forth echoed throughout the record.

Genre is constantly evoked but in gesture. But overall, the music transcends formula, using cultural reverberations and distinct repetitions that lull listeners into a placeless trance. It’s “a sound that I hope can operate on multiple levels,” says Jaar, a borderless, playfully ambiguous set of improvisations that sing confidently of love, loss and belonging.”

The album’s first single “Muddat” is built around a soulful and mischievously anachronistic production featuring skittering castanet-like percussion, glistening organ arpeggios that veers briefly into club rocking techno. The production serves as lush, silky bed for Sethi’s plaintive and yearning delivery, crying for out desperately for union with his beloved.

The song takes the opening lines of a canonical ghazal written as the British were decimating India’s precolonial traditions and the elaborate rituals and ettiequte of its courtesans and noblemen. But at its core, the pair evoke the loss of a cherished — and mythical — milieu, that as a native New Yorker feels deeply familiar. Ultimately, the result is a song that’s simultaneously ancient and modern, while evoking an old and very human longing.

Following a North American tour that included sold-out shows in NYC, Los Angeles and Toronto, Sethi will be embarking on a run of world-wide dates to close out the year and start 2024. You can check out those dates below. More dates will be announced in the upcoming weeks. But you can grab tickets here.

Ali Sethi on tour 

10/8 – Austin City Limits – Austin, TX 

10/9 – House of Blues – Dallas, TX 

1010 – House of Blues – Houston, TX

10/12 – Variety Playhouse – Atlanta, GA

11/11 – Dubai Opera House – Dubai, UAE

11/14 – Saint Luke’s – Glasgow, UK

11/17 – Gorilla – Manchester, UK 

11/18 – O2 Institute – Birmingham, UK

11/19 – 02 Shepherds Bush Empire – London, UK

2/24 – District of Raga Washington, DC – Vienna, VA 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Elisapie’s Yearning Rendition of Queen’s “I Want to Break Free”

Acclaimed Montréal-based singer/songwriter, musician, actor and activist Elisapie was born and raised in Salluit, a small village in Nunavik, Québec’s northernmost region. In this extremely remote community, accessible only by plane, she was raised by an extended, yet slightly dysfunctional adoptive family. Growing up in Salluit, she lived through the loss of cousins who ended their lives, experienced young love, danced the night away at the village’s community center and witnessed first hand, the effects of colonialism — i.e., poverty, hopelessness, alcoholism, suicide, and more. 

Much like countless bright and ambitious young people across the world, the Salluit-born artist moved to the big city — in this case, Montréal to study and, ultimately, pursue a career in music. Since then, her work whether within the confines of a band or as as solo artist constantly displays her unconditional attachment to her native territory, its people, and to her language, Inuktitut. Spoken for millennia, Inuktitut embodies the harshness of its environment and the wild yet breathtaking beauty of the Inuit territory. Thematically, her work frequently pairs Inuit themes and concerns with modern rock music, mixing tradition with modernity in a deft, seamless fashion. 

She won her first Juno Award as a member of Taima, and since stepping out into the spotlight as a solo artist, her work has received rapturous critical acclaim: 2018’s The Ballad of the Runaway Girl was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, and earned her a number of Association du disque, de l’industrie du spectacle Québeécois (ADISQ) Felix Awards and a Juno Award nod. She followed up with a performance with the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal — at the invitation of Grammy Award-winning maestro Yannick Nézet Séguin — at Central Park SummerStage, a NPR Tiny Desk Session and headlining or festival sets both locally and internationally. 

In her native Canada, she is also known as an actor, starring in the TV series Motel Paradis and C.S. Roy’s experimental indie film VFC, which was released earlier this year. She has also graced the cover of a number of magazines including Châtelaine, Elle Québec and a long list of others. And as a devoted activist, she created and produced the first nation-wide broadcast TV show to celebrate National Indigenous People’s Day. 

Slated for a Friday release through Bonsound, her fourth solo album Inuktitut features inventive re-imaginings of songs by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Blondie, Fleetwood Mac, Metallica and more. Each of the acts and artists covered have warmly given their blessing to receive the acclaimed Canadian artist’s unique treatment. Fittingly, each song is imbued with depth and purpose, as the album’s material is an act of cultural re-appropriation that reinvigorates the poetry of these beloved songs by placing them within Inuit traditions. 

Through the album’s 10 songs, the acclaimed Inuk tells her story and offers these songs as a loving gift to her community, making her language and culture resonate well beyond the borders of the Inuit territory. But the album is also a testament to the power and remarkable universality of pop music, a reminder of the universality of human life, and fittingly an ode to the experiences, memories, places and people, who have shaped us.

So far, I’ve written about three of the album’s released singles: 

“Taimangalimaaq (Time After Time),” a gorgeous and fairly faithful Inuktiut adaptation of Cyndi Lauper‘s 1983 Rob Hyman co-written smash hit “Time After Time” that retains the familiar beloved melody of the original paired with a percussive yet atmospheric arrangement and the Salluit-born, Montréal-based artist’s gorgeous, achingly tender delivery. 

“Taimangalimaaq (Time After Time)” was inspired by a childhood memory of Elisapie’s aunt Alasie and her cousin Susie:
 

“I was able to get through my pre-teen years, thanks to my Aunt Alasie, as my mother had neither the knowledge nor the experience to give me a crash course on puberty, fashion or social relationships,” Elisapie recalls. “In addition to entering a new chapter in my life, we were in the midst of the 80’s and modernity was shaking up our traditional methods. My mother’s generation had lived in Igloos, and the cultural changes were too swift. 

“Despite her struggles, my aunt ensured I felt accepted and exposed me to new and modern things like TV, clothes, dancing, Kraft Dinner and make-up! 

 Whenever I went to my aunt’s house, I was in awe of my older girl cousins. They were all so cool and stylish, and they loved pop music and the crazy makeup of the 80s and early 90s.  One of my favorite memories is listening to the radio with them and hearing Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’ for the first time. It was like a lightning bolt, and I couldn’t separate the song or the artist from my older cousin Susie. For me, the song was all about her search for beauty, connection, love, and rising above pain.”

“Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven),” a hauntingly gorgeous, dream-like re-imagining of Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” that retains the song’s familiar melody but featuring an arrangement of traditional drums and flute and acoustic guitar paired with the acclaimed Canadian artist’s equally gorgeous, yearning delivery, some brooding synths and the incorporation of Inuktitut throat singing.

“Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven)” finds the acclaimed Canadian artist paying tribute to the Inuit men of Salluit and nodding to the time she interviewed Metallica’s Kirk Hammett in the early 90s:

“When I was 14 years old, I applied for a job at TNI, the first Inuit TV-radio broadcaster, and I was thrilled when I was chosen for the position! Everyone at the station dreamed big, and they put in a request for an interview with Metallica. The band was so loved in Salluit that we had to give it a shot. Metallica accepted only two interviews on their Québec tour, and TNI was chosen. In my boys’ eyes, I was the coolest!

As a teenager, I only wanted to hang around the gang of boys in my village. We would all go to my cousin’s house and smoke weed while listening to Metallica. The band’s music allowed us to delve into the darkness of our broken souls and feel good there. Men’s roles in our territory had been challenged by colonization, and it had become confusing what life was supposed to look like for a man. My boys were seeking new roles, and subconsciously, I allowed them to be my bodyguards so they could feel strong. Looking back, I was trying to give them the strength to find their place.
 

“‘Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven)’ incorporates throat singing, known as katajjaq in Inuktitut. It felt like katajjaq was so appropriate, says Elisapie. It is Inuit women who throat sing. Inuit women, mothers and grandmothers had to be the nurturing ones during the hard times, as men were struggling emotionally due to colonialism. Through this song, I wanted the feminine strength to balance the men’s challenges.”

“Qimmijuat (Wild Horses),” a gorgeous reimagining of the classic Rolling Stones tune “Wild Horses,” which retains the original’s yearning and tender ache, but places the beloved melody in a hauntingly sparse arrangement by her longtime collaborator Joe Grass that that features a plaintive piano melody by Leif Vollebekk, a gorgeous, bluesy guitar solo and striking drumming from Robbie Kuster. Elisapie’s yearning delivery ethereally floats over the arrangement. 

The song is a tribute to a childhood friend of Elisapie who had a difficult home life due to his parent’s separation and a strained relationship with his father. “Wild Horses became a source of comfort for him and his obsession with it was palpable, as if he was riding away from all his problems on the back of this song,” explains Elisapie.

Inuktitut‘s fourth and final pre-release single “Qimatsilunga (I Want to Break Free),” is a hauntingly gorgeous and bittersweet re-imagining of Queen’s “I Want to Break Free.” Elisapie’s rendition of the song, slow’s the tempo down quite a bit, and places the song’s yearning melody and anthemic chorus within a haunting arrangement of strummed acoustic guitar and twinkling keys paired with dramatic drumming before closing in a slow, gentle fade-out.

The acclaimed Canadian’s rendition of “I Want to Break Free,” much like the preceding singles, sees her simultaneously evoking both fond and bittersweet memories of her youth in Salluit, while paying tribute to her cousin Tayara, with whom she grew up:

“Tayara was a little older than me. He was quiet, handsome, graceful and he loved music. He was named after our great-grandfather, a remarkable and gentle man. Tayara never found his place and never lived life to its fullest. Sadly, like too many Inuit teenagers and many of my cousins, he committed suicide by hanging himself in the tiny closet of his house, right next door to mine,” Elisapie says

But despite this tragic story, the Montréal-based JOVM mainstay sees this song as one of resilience, strength and of mourning:  “When ‘I Want to Break Free’ played on the radio, something magical happened. The lyrics resonated with him, allowing him to embrace his differences and marginality with pride. It was our song. When we danced to it, he shared his inner world with me, with all its complexities and desires. Through this music, he showed me how to be punk, wild and fierce. He was my best friend. When I sing it now, it’s a way of saying goodbye. Despite all its strength and power, it’s the saddest song in the world.”

Continuing her ongoing collaboration with Phillipe Léonard, the accompanying video for “Qimatsilunga (I Want to Break Free)” presents a visual narrative that invites people to break free from social norms and expectations — and express their desire for freedom through dancing. “We see Simik Komaksiutiksak, a contemporary dancer who energizes members of the community through his gestures and the light he projects on them,” explains the director. “In turn, he feeds on the movement of others, and a conversation takes shape as the video unfolds. It’s an invitation to dance, to let off steam.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Acclaimed Inuk Artist Elisapie Shares a Gorgeous Adaptation OF Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”

Acclaimed Montréal-based singer/songwriter, musician, actor and activist Elisapie Issac (best known as the mononymic Elisapie) was born and raised in Salluit, a small village in Nunavik, Québec’s northernmost region. In this extremely remote community, accessible only by plane, Issac was raised by an extended, yet slightly dysfunctional adoptive family. Growing up in Salliut, she lived through the loss of cousins who ended their lives. experienced young love, danced the night away at the village’s community center and witnessed first hand, the effects of colonialism — i.e., poverty, hopelessness, alcoholism, suicide, and more.

A teenaged Issac began performing on stage with her uncles, who were members of Sugluk (also known as Salliut Band), a famous and well-regarded Inuit rock band. She also worked at TNI, the village’s radio station, which broadcast across the region. And while working for the radio station, the teenaged Issac managed to secure an interview with Metallica.

Much like countless bright and ambitious young people across the world, Issac moved to the big city — in this case, Montréal to study and, ultimately, pursue a career in music. Since then, her work, whether within the confines of a band or as a solo artist, her unconditional attachment to her native territory, its people, and to her language, Inuktitut is at the core of her work. Spoken for millennia, Inuktitut embodies the harshness of its environment and the wild yet breathtaking beauty of the Inuit territory. Thematically, her work frequently pairs Intuit themes and concerns with modern rock music, mixing tradition with modernity in a deft fashion.

She won her first Juno Award as a member of Taima, and since then Issac’s work has received rapturous critical acclaim: 2018’s The Ballad of the Runaway Girl was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, earned her a number of Association du disque, de l’industrie du spectacle Québeécois (ADISQ) Felix Awards and a Juno Award nod. She followed up with a performance with the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal — at the invitation of Grammy Award-winning maestro Yannick Nézet Séguin — at Central Park SummerStage, a NPR Tiny Desk Session and headlining or festival sets both locally and internationally.

In her native Canada, Issac is also known as an actor, starting in the TV series Motel Paradis and C.S. Roy’s experimental indie film VFC, which was released earlier this year. She’s also graced the cover of a number of nationally known magazines including Châtelaine, Elle Québec and a long list of others. And as a devoted activist, she created and produced the first nation-wide broadcast TV show to celebrate National Indigenous People’s Day.

Slated for a September 15, 2023 release through Bonsound, Issac’s forthcoming album Inuktiut features inventive re-imaginings of songs by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Blondie, Fleetwood Mac, Metallica and more. These are all acts and artists that the acclaimed Inuk artist received permission from. Elisapie has imbued each song with both depth and purpose, an act of cultural reappropriation that reinvigorates the poetry of these 10 classics by placing them within Inuit traditions. The album’s first single “Uummati Attanarsimat (Heart of Glass),” caught the attention of the legendary Debbie Harry.

The album’s second and latest single is a gorgeous and fairly faithful Inuktiut adaptation of Cyndi Lauper‘s 1983 Rob Hyman co-written smash hit “Time After Time” that retains the familiar beloved melody of the original paired with a percussive yet atmospheric arrangement and Issac’s gorgeous, achingly tender delivery.

Much like her previous single, “Taimangalimaaq (Time After Time)” was inspired by a childhood memory of Elisapie’s aunt Alasie and her cousin Susie:
 
“I was able to get through my pre-teen years, thanks to my Aunt Alasie, as my mother had neither the knowledge nor the experience to give me a crash course on puberty, fashion or social relationships,” Isaac recalls. “In addition to entering a new chapter in my life, we were in the midst of the 80’s and modernity was shaking up our traditional methods. My mother’s generation had lived in Igloos, and the cultural changes were too swift. 
 
Despite her struggles, my aunt ensured I felt accepted and exposed me to new and modern things like TV, clothes, dancing, Kraft Dinner and make-up! 
 
Whenever I went to my aunt’s house, I was in awe of my older girl cousins. They were all so cool and stylish, and they loved pop music and the crazy makeup of the 80s and early 90s.  One of my favorite memories is listening to the radio with them and hearing Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’ for the first time. It was like a lightning bolt, and I couldn’t separate the song or the artist from my older cousin Susie. For me, the song was all about her search for beauty, connection, love, and rising above pain.”

Directed by Philippe Léonard and edited by Omar Elhamy, the accompanying video for “Taimangalimaaq (Time After Time)” features home video-shot footage of dances, performances and games at her beloved community center, of kids just being kids and a slow yet steady encroachment of modernity as we see at least one kid popping and locking like Crazylegzs or least trying to do so. The video is a lovingly nostalgic look at the acclaimed Inuk’s community and of her childhood, making the video a meditation on the passing of time, and in some way the impact of pop culture on a young person trying to find their place in a changing world.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Easy Star All-Stars Team Up with Macy Gray on Swooning Rendition of Bowie’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide”

Founded and led by producer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Michael Goldwasser, Easy Star All-Stars have established themselves as one of the top reggae acts on the international scene for the better part of the past two decades. During that period, they’ve managed to tour in over 30 countries on six continents while bringing together fans of reggae, classic rock, dub, indie rock and pop into one big family through their collection of critically acclaimed reggae tribute albums that includes 2003’s Dub Side of the Moon, 2006’s Radiodread, 2009’s Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band and 2012’s Easy Star’s Thrillah — and 2010’s remix album, Dubber Side of the Moon. And before you go off and think that they’re just a tribute band, they’re not; they’ve also released two efforts of original material, 2008’s Until That Day EP and 2011’s First Light.

Continuing their run of reggae tribute albums across classic rock, dub, indie rock and pop, the acclaimed local reggae outfit will tackle David Bowie‘s beloved classic, 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars. Slated for an April 21, 2023 release through their own Easy Star Records, Ziggy Stardub is a reggae re-imagining of the beloved album, featuring guest spots from Macy Gray, Steel Pulse, Maxi Priest, Fishbone, Living Colour‘s Vernon Reid, The Skints, Mortimer, The Expanders, Samory I, and a lengthy list of others. 

Pre-order packages of the album are available here, including royal blue colored vinyl along with CD and exclusive t-shirt offerings.

In the lead-up to Ziggy Stardub‘s release on Thursday, I’ve written about three of the album’s previously released singles:

  • “Starman,” featuring Maxi Preist. The Easy Star All-Star rendition is a warm and soulful dub take on the original that retains the rousingly anthemic hook everyone and their grandmother knows but places it within a shuffling, reggae riddim paired with warm blasts of Rhodes, some cinematic strings and Maxi Priest’s effortlessly soulful delivery. 

  • “Moonage Daydream,” featuring Naomi Cowan and the legendary Alex Lifeson. The Easy Star All-Star rendition  “Moonage Daydream” is a hazy dub-leaning take that makes loving nods to the original, with a full string seciton and a flute solo from Jenny Hill, that takes the place of Bowie’s recorder solo from the original. Cowan contributes a soulful, rock goddess vocal that I’d argue would make both Bowie and Tina Turner very proud. The song closes out with a trippy and inspired David Gilmour-like guitar solo from the legendary Lifeson. 

  • “Five Years” featuring the legendary Steel Pulse. Rooted in a soulful and slow-burning reggae riddim, the Easy Star All-Stars rendition lovingly retains the soaring string-driven hooks and choruses, and the weary, apocalyptic sigh-like vibe of the original. 

Ziggy Stardub‘s fourth and final pre-release single “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” features the acclaimed, multi-award-winning singer/songwriter, musician and producer Macy Gray. Pairing a deceptively laid-back vibe with strutting riddims and a coolly swaggering horn line with Macy Gray’s imitable and deeply sensitive delivery, the Easy Star All-Star rendition manages to retain the swooning and empathetic commiseration of the origin. Oh, how much all of us at one point or another, just needs to hear “Oh, no you’re not alone!”

“The main key was finding an emotive and groundbreaking vocalist, and we did just that with Macy Gray, who is truly inimitable in every song that she sings, including this one,” Easy Star All-Stars’ Goldwasser explains in press notes.

The Five Guys burger chain recently named Easy Star All-Stars as their Featured Artist of May. The chain will be playing an Easy Star track every hour in every store for the entire month.

Directed by Stefano Bertelli, the accompanying stop-animation video for “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” follows two stray street cats on a journey through a sleepy evening in an intricately made paper town.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Easy Star All-Stars Team up with Steel Pulse on a Soulful Rendition of Bowie’s “Five Years”

Continuing their run of reggae tribute albums across classic rock, dub, indie rock and pop, the acclaimed local reggae outfit will tackle David Bowie‘s beloved classic, 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars. Slated for an April 21, 2023 release through their own Easy Star Records, Ziggy Stardub is a reggae re-imagining of the beloved album, featuring guest spots from Macy Gray, Steel Pulse, Maxi Priest, Fishbone, Living Colour‘s Vernon Reid, The Skints, Mortimer, The Expanders, Samory I, and a lengthy list of others. 

Pre-order packages of the album are available here, including royal blue colored vinyl along with CD and exclusive t-shirt offerings.

Earlier this month, I wrote about two of the album’s previously released singles:

  • “Starman,” featuring Maxi Preist. The Easy Star All-Star rendition is a warm and soulful dub take on the original that retains the rousingly anthemic hook everyone and their grandmother knows but places it within a shuffling, reggae riddim paired with warm blasts of Rhodes, some cinematic strings and Maxi Priest’s effortlessly soulful delivery. 

  • “Moonage Daydream,” featuring Naomi Cowan and the legendary Alex Lifeson. The Easy Star All-Star rendition  “Moonage Daydream” is a hazy dub-leaning take that makes loving nods to the original, with a full string seciton and a flute solo from Jenny Hill, that takes the place of Bowie’s recorder solo from the original. Cowan contributes a soulful, rock goddess vocal that I’d argue would make both Bowie and Tina Turner very proud. The song closes out with a trippy and inspired David Gilmour-like guitar solo from the legendary Lifeson. 

Ziggy Stardub‘s third and latest single “Five Years” features the legendary Steel Pulse. Rooted in a soulful and slow-burning reggae riddim, the Easy Star All-Stars rendition lovingly retains the soaring string-driven hooks and choruses, and the weary, apocalyptic sigh-like vibe of the original.

Directed by Robert Bartolome, the accompanying video portrays the end of the world — and its eventual rebirth — on a miniature scale. It’s a gorgeous and unsettling reminder of the fate that we’re marching lockstep towards, and of the fact that nature will eventually reclaim everything once we’re all gone.

Continuing their long-held tradition of playing on April 20 — 4/20 y’all! — the acclaimed reggae outfit will be playing an album release show at Sony Hall. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Easy Star All-Stars Tackle Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust

Founded and led by producer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist Michael Goldwasser, Easy Star All-Stars have established themselves as one of the top reggae acts on the international scene for the better part of two decades. During that same period of time, they’ve managed to tour in over 30 countries on six continents while brining together fans of reggae, classic rock, dub, indie rock and pop into one big family as a result of their collection of critically acclaimed reggae tribute albums that includes 2003’s Dub Side of the Moon, 2006’s Radiodread, 2009’s Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band and 2012’s Easy Star’s Thrillah — and 2010’s remix album, Dubber Side of the Moon. They also have two releases of original material, 2008’s Until That Day EP and 2011’s First Light.

Continuing their run of reggae tribute albums across classic rock, dub, indie rock and pop, the acclaimed local reggae outfit will tackle David Bowie‘s beloved classic, 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars. Slated for an April 21, 2023 release through their own Easy Star Records, Ziggy Stardub is a reggae re-imagining of the beloved album, featuring guest spots from Macy Gray, Steel Pulse, Maxi Priest, Fishbone, Living Colour‘s Vernon Reid, The Skints, Mortimer, The Expanders, Samory I, and a lengthy list of others.

Pre-order packages of the album are available here, including royal blue colored vinyl along with CD and exclusive t-shirt offerings.

But in the meantime, Easy Star All-Stars have shared two singles from the album:

“Starman,” featuring Maxi Preist, who’s one of two British-born acts to have a #1 Billboard here in the States with 1990’s smash hit “Close To You.” By the way, for you trivia heads, the other British act was UB40 with their cover of Neil Diamond’s “Red Red Wine” back in 1983.

“Starman,” is a warm and soulful dub take on the original that retains the rousingly anthemic hook everyone and their grandmother knows but places it within a shuffling, reggae riddim paired with warm blasts of Rhodes, some cinematic strings and Maxi Priest’s effortlessly soulful delivery.

“Moonage Daydream,” which features Naomi Cowan and the legendary Alex Lifeson. Cowan is th daughter of impresario Tommy Cowan, a producer, songwriter and former road manager for Bob Marley — and the internationally beloved reggae vocalist Carlene Davis. Touted as one of the top rising female artists in Caribbean music, Cowan won the Breakthrough Reggae Artist Award at 2019’s Jamaica Reggae Industry Awards. Building upon a buzz-worthy profile, her single “Paradise Plum” has topped several reggae charts and has quickly become a staple in the new wave of reggae. Lifeson is best known as the co-founder, backing vocalist and guitarist of beloved Canadian prog rock outfit Rush. As a member of Rush, Lifeson is in the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame, and is included on Rolling Stone‘s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” Adding to an extensive list of accolades, Lifeson was made an Officer of the Order of Canada back in 1996 and in 2012, he received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, Canada’s highest artistic honor.

The Easy Star All-Star cover of “Moonage Daydream” is a hazy dub-leaning take that makes loving nods to the original, with a full string seciton and a flute solo from Jenny Hill, that takes the place of Bowie’s recorder solo from the original. Cowan contributes a soulful, rock goddess vocal that I’d argue would make both Bowie and Tina Turner very proud. The song closes out with a trippy and inspired David Gilmour-like guitar solo from the legendary Lifeson.

“This has been my favorite tune on the Bowie album since I first started listening as a teenager,” Easy Star All-Star’s Michael Goldwasser says in press notes. “In light of that, it’s interesting that it’s the song that I changed most radically by simplifying the chord progression and pedaling on one bass line for the entire track, which gives it somewhat of a hypnotic effect and roots it in reggae tradition.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Rising Brooklyn-based quartet Razor Braids — Hollye Bynum (she/her) – lead vocals, bass;
Janie Peacock (she/her) – lead guitar; Jilly Karande (she/her) – rhythm guitar, vocals; and
Hannah Nichols (they/them) – drums — is a queer, all female/non-binary indie rock outfit that combines the vulnerable, self-awareness of indie rock with the dynamic instrumentation of 90s alt rock paired with soaring harmonies and a driving rhythm section.

The Brooklyn quartet’s full-length debut, 2021’s I Could Cry Right Now If You Wanted Me To was warmly received. Building upon a growing profile, the band released two singles last Spring, “Kelloggs” and “Megachurch,” which received praise from BrooklynVegan while landing on several Spotify Fresh Finds playlists.

Since then, Razor Braids embarked on their first tour through the East Coast, Midwest and South — and played Music Hall of Williamsburg, Sultan Room and Elsewhere as openers for the likes of Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Jigsaw Youth and Anna Shoemaker.

For the new year, the band plans to release new music, which will expand on their unique sound with more confidence and sense of purpose. But before they moved forward with new material, the members of the band felt it necessary to take a look back at some older material with fresh eyes: “one is our own and the other a throwback favorite,” the band says.” The first single “Nashville, Again” is a thorough reworking of their debut single “Nashville” that turns the rousing rocker into a slow-burning, honky tonk centered around the act’s gorgeous harmonies and shimmering guitars. “Nashville, Again” was the first song we released as a band and in revisiting the single we got to breathe new life into a song that always feels like coming home when we play it live.”

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The second single sees the rising indie outfit covering Weezer’s 1994 smash hit “Buddy Holly.” Interestingly, the Razor Braids cover begins as a lovingly straightforward cover rooted in the act’s gorgeous harmonizing paired with the original’s rousingly anthemic hooks. But unlike the original there’s a trippy and expansive bridge that reveals the band’s love for the original — and their sense of humor. “As for ‘Buddy Holly,’ mid-90s alt-rock is a big inspiration for us and ‘Say It Ain’t So’ tends to show face at every Razor Braids-attended karaoke so we thought it’d be fun to try our hand at another Weezer classic,” the band explains. “We wanted to call it ‘Buddy Hollye’ but didn’t. But please know that we wanted to.”

The band will be embarking on a month-long tour next month and it includes a stop at this year’s SXSW. Check out the tour dates below.

TOUR DATES

2/23/2023 Asbury Park NJ Bond Street Bar
2/24/2023 Philadelphia PA MilkBoy
2/25/2023 Washington DC Pie Shop
2/27/2023 Asheville NC The Grey Eagle
3/1/2023 Atlanta GA Vinyl
3/2/2023 Charlotte NC Snug Harbor
3/3/2023 West Columbia SC New Brookland Tavern
3/4/2023 Tallahassee FL The Bark
3/7/2023 New Orleans LA Gasa Gasa
3/8/2023 Houston TX House of Blues – Bronze Peacock
3/13 – 3/18 Austin, TX SXSW
3/22/2023 Nashville TN The Basement
3/24/2023 Chicago IL Subterranean
3/25/2023 Toledo OH The Ottawa Tavern
3/26/2023 Ferndale MI The Parliament Room at Otus Supply
3/28/2023 Cleveland OH Beachland Tavern
3/29/2023 Pittsburgh PA Club Cafe

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Ghent, Belgium-based electronic duo Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul exploded into the national and international scenes with the release of 2019’s critically applauded David and Stephen Dewaele-produced Zandoli EP, which featured Paténipat” and “High Lights,” tracks that received airplay on UK Radio and were playlisted by  BBC Radio 6. 

Adigéry and Pupul’s official full-length debut as a duo, Topical Dancer was released earlier this year through Soulwax‘s own label DEEWEE. Co-written and co-produced by Soulwax and the acclaimed duo, Topical Dancer is deeply rooted in two things: The duo’s perspectives as Belgians with immigrant backgrounds with Adigéry proudly claiming Guadeloupean and French-Martinique ancestry — and the wide-ranging conversations the duo have had touching upon cultural appropriation, misogyny, racism, social media vanity, post-colonialism. 

While being a snapshot of their thoughts and observations of pop culture in the early 2020s, the album also further cements their sound and approach: They manage to craft thoughtful songs that bang hard but are centered around their idiosyncratic, off-kilter take on familiar genres take off familiar genres and styles. “We like to fuck things up a bit,” Pupul laughs. “We cringe when we feel like we’re making something that already exists, so we’re always looking for things to combine to make it sound not like a pop song, not like an R&B song, not a techno song. We’re always putting different worlds together. Charlotte and I get bored when things get too predictable.”  

And as result, Topical Dancer’s 13 songs are fueled by a restless desire to not be boxed in — and to escape narrow perceptions of who they are and what they can be. “One thing that always comes up,” Bolis Pupul says, “is that people perceive me as the producer, and Charlotte as just a singer. Or that being a Black artist means you should be making ‘urban’ music. Those kinds of boxes don’t feel good to us.” But they manage to do all of this with a satirical bent; for the duo it’s emancipation through humor. “I don’t want to feel this heaviness on me,” Charlotte Adigéry says. “These aren’t my crosses to bear. Topical Dancer is my way of freeing myself of these issues. And of having fun.”

In the lead up to the album’s release, I wrote about four of Topical Dancer‘s singles:

  • “Thank You,” a sardonic, club banger featuring skittering beats, buzzing synth arpeggios and Adigéry’s deadpan delivery destroying mansplainers and unwanted, unsolicited and straight up dumb opinions and advice from outsiders. 
  • “Blenda,” a club banger, centered around African-inspired polyrhythm, wobbling bass synths, skittering beats and Adigéry’s deadpan. Informed by Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race, “Blenda” focuses on colonialism and post colonialism through Adigéry’s experience as Black immigrant in an extremely white place. 
  • “HAHA,” a track built around a chopped up sample of Adigéry making herself laughed paired with twinkling synths, skittering beats and a relentless motorik groove that feels improvised and unfinished yet somehow simultaneously polished. 
  • “Ceci n’est pas un cliché,” a slick dancer floor friendly bop centered around a strutting bass line, finger snaps, skittering beats and glistening synth arpeggios paired with Adigéry cool delivery of clichéd pop lyrics in a series of non-sequiturs that’s surreal yet displays a weird sense of logic.

The song’s title is a winking nods to one of the most copied sentences in art history, originally by Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte. “This song is an accumulation of all the cliché lyrics so often used in pop music. It came about when we were touring and heard a song on the radio opening with ‘I was walking down the street’ which made us strongly cringe,” the duo’s Charlotte Adigéry says. “But the thing is, cringing is a shared passion of Bolis and I. So we passionately made a song out of it called ‘Ceci n’est pas un cliché’. Even more passionately we performed ourselves into a video about all the clichés we see in the magic world of musical genres. The musician in all its glory, capturing momentum and delivering a top notch performance, gazing into the light that’s called inspiration. And so for once and for all, please leave Magritte alone…!”

The acclaimed Belgian duo shared Soulwax’s remix/reworking of “Ceci n’est pas un cliché” simply titled “Cliché.” Soulwax delivers a euphoric the on the Adigéry and Pupul original, pushing up the tempo and energy in a club banger centered around tweeter and woofer rattling four-on-the-floor paired with dense layers of oscillating synths and chopped up samples of Adigéry’s vocals. Much like the original, it’s surreal yet wildly accessible.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Acclaimed Chicago-based post-punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Ganser — founding members Nadia Garofalo (vocals, keys) and Alicia Gaines (vocals, bass) along with Brian Cundiff (drums) and Charlie Landsman (guitar) — can trace their origins back to when its founding members met while attending art school. Bonding over a mutual love of The Residents, outsider communities and the work of John Waters, the duo developed a hands-on DIY craftsmanship that eventually carried into their band: Each member of the post punk outfit shares writing duties and they collaborate on every aspect of their creative work, including videos, album art, merch and the visuals which often accompany their live shows. 

Ganser’s 2018 full-length debut Odd Talk received widespread praise nationally and across the blogosphere with some critics comparing their sound and approach to Sonic Youth and Magazine. Thematically, the album focused on communication breakdowns — namely, the difficulties of being understood, avoidance, intimacy and avoidance. 

2020’s sophomore album, the critically applauded Just Look at That Sky found the members of Ganser thematically probing the futility of striving for self-growth during chorus — all while evoking an all to familiar manic worry and generalized sense of existential dread and doom. It’s an album that seems to accurately captures our slow-burning, omnipresent hellscape. 

Besides last year’s Look at That Sky Remixes EP, the Chicago-based JOVM have been busy working on new material — including their Angus Andrew co-produced, three-song Nothing You Do Matters EP.

Earlier this year, I wrote about “People Watching,” a woozy and expansive ripper that begins with a slow-burning and atmospheric, bass-driven intro before quickly morphing into a feverish thrash featuring slashing guitar attack, relentless four-on-the-four and squiggling bursts of electronics paired with Garofalo’s seething, irony-drenched delivery. 

Arguably the most tense and uneasy song of their growing catalog, “People Watching” captures the mad and desperate senselessness —of well, just about everything right now. 

LIARS’ creative mastermind Angus Andrew recently gave “People Watching,” the remix treatment — and the LIARS remix is bold and mind-bending rework that retains the propulsive energy, rhythm and acerbic vocal delivery of the original but transform the song into a kaleidoscopic, funhouse from hell-like club banger that sounds much like a garbled transmission beamed down from a UFO 20,000 light years away.

“We had worked on the original recording of ‘People Watching’ together at Key Club in Benton Harbor, MI so I was already super entwined with the song,” Andrew explains. “That familiarity gave me a lot of freedom with the remix. My goal was to maintain the great momentum and vocal delivery of the initial recording, but just give it all a big kick in the butt with synths.”

Nothing You Do Matters EP is slated for an October 5, 2022 digital release and a December 2, 2022 vinyl release through Felte Records.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: TRY Shares Hazy Rework of “Silence”

TRY is a new music project featuring:

Born during a terrifyingly uncertain and perilous time, the project was formed as a way to provide uplift and optimism, with the project’s members actively choosing the path of light. And while they choose to find the beauty of the human experience, they acknowledge the world’s flaws and ugliness. “We wanted to make something that sounded timeless, and we figured that out as we went along – music that provided a visceral energy,” Shmuck the Local explains.

The duo’s full-length debut will be released in three parts, respectively titled Chapter One, Chapter Two and Chapter Three. The album will feature an impressively varied cast of musical and artistic collaborators, who will further fuel their impossible-to-pin-down sound while bringing positive energy and vibes. The end result is an album that’s sonically diverse with the material spanning 2step, trap, house music and synth pop — among others. “We have very eclectic taste, and the record reflects that,” Spiegel says.  

Last month, the duo released Chapter One of their full-length debut. Chapter One featured guest spots from EARTHGANG, Camden, and Miette Hope. Building upon the buzz of those early tracks, the duo will share a collection of Chapter One remixes including a Couros remix of “End of Times,” the duo’s rework of “Aphrodite Part II,” which features a guest spot from Wu-Tang Clan affiliate Killah Priest — and the remix collection’s latest single “Silence (Redux).”

Chapter One track “Silence” feat. Camden and Miette Hope is an infectious banger centered around a feel good, Larry Levan-meets-Ibiza-like production of glistening synths, wobbling tweeter and woofer rattling low end, skittering beats and an infectious hook serving as a sinuous and silky bed for Camden and Hope’s sultrily vulnerable deliveries. The duo’s rework of “Silence” retains the glistening synths and vulnerability of the original — but their rework turns the song into a hazy, Quiet Storm-infused, lo-fi hip-hop affair, featuring tweeter and woofer rattling thump.

The remix collection is slated for a Friday release, so be on the lookout, y’all.