Category: singer/songwriters

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Glassio · Make No Mistake

The Queens, NY-based synth pop/New Wave/dream pop act Glassio can trace its origins back to 2015 when its founding members — Sam R. and Charles Pinel  — met while attending NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. Since its formation, the act has become the Queens-born and-based Sam R’s solo recording project. And during that same period of time, Glassio has developed and honed what its creative mastermind has dubbed “melancholy disco,” a mix of dance music influences, wavering pop melodies, introspective, storytelling-based lyrics and lush harmonies. Interestingly, the project has increasingly pulls from Sam R’s own life and heartbreak, while thematically wrestling with self-acceptance, loneliness and major life changes.

Last year, Sam R. and Glassio released their sophomore EP Age of Experience, an effort that Mother Jones called “proof that electronic music and great storytelling are a perfect match.” Interestingly, the EP featured “Back for More,” which amassed over 2 million Spotify streams while being featured on Alan Ball’s HBO show Here & Now.  Outside of his own work, Sam R. has received attention for remixing and reworking the work of artists like Madge, Argonaut & Wasp, Sulene and Goldwash.

Glassio’s long-awaited full-length debut, the 11 song, For The Very Last Time is slated for a July 23, 2020 release and earlier this year, the Queens-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and remixer has put out a couple of singles, the lullaby-like “A Million Doubts,” which was featured in the latest season of the Freeform TV series Good Trouble; the early 80s inspired “Nobody Stayed For The DJ;” and the contemplative “Are You Having Fun Without Me?”

“Make No Mistake,” For The Very Last Time‘s fourth and latest single continues a run of shimmering and swooning electro pop, centered around twinkling synth arpeggios, thumping beats, soaring hooks, Sam R.’s ethereal vocals and a guest backing spot from New York-based vocalist Daneshevskaya. What makes the song intriguing to me is that it balances achingly wistful nostalgia and a much-needed optimism. In many ways, the song is an anthemic blast of encouragement when coping with and facing circumstances much greater than ourselves  — as we all are right now.

“I was having a hard time getting out of bed towards the end of 2018 and facing everyday life. My anxiety was starting to go through the roof and daily tasks like taking the subway started to become difficult,” the rising Queens based artist explains in press notes. “The seed for the song came from wanting to talk about those feelings and I wanted to write a song that could get me moving. The lyrics and melody of the verse hit me out of the blue at the same time one morning while I was lying in bed and it was just there, already completed. The whole thing just unraveled very naturally and I think more than any other song on the album, it was very much written in the middle of the situation that it was about. Usually some time needs to pass before I write a song about an event, but this one was very much in the moment.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Tik Records · TIK56: Mia Berg – don’t know (what to do)

With the release of her debut EP, last year’s Intro, which featured “You Decided,” “Grow” and “Hurry,” the 24 year-old, Oslo-based pop artist Mia Berg quickly exploded into the international pop scene, receiving praise form the likes of Clash Magazine, God Is In The TV, WithGuitars and others.

Tik Records · TIK48: Mia Berg – You Decided

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, Berg’s latest single, the Henrik Lillehaug-produced “don’t know what to do” is an atmospheric pop song, centered around twinkling keys, shimmering synths, shuffling and thumping beats, an infectious radio friendly hook and Berg’s sultry vocals. And yet, while possessing a radio friendly accessibility, the song is actually a solemn track that captures the aching regret of someone begging a lover (or a love interest) for forgiveness for their transgressions — and the uncertainty of if that lover will actually forgive you or not.

The new track will appear on her sophomore EP which is slated for release later this year.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Zaac Pick is a Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada-born, Vancouver-based singer/songwriter and guitarist. Relocating to Vancouver in the early ’00s, Pick quickly immersed himself in the region’s indie-folk music community as a guitarist and songwriting member of Doubting Paris. After the band was dropped from their American label, Pick decided it was time to venture out on his own, eventually releasing a string of attention-grabbing EPs an an LP which received radio airplay on the CBC and helped built up enough of a profile to land opening slots for The Civil Wars, Noah Gundersen and Bahamas, helped him earn several regional songwriting nominations and awards, as prominent appearances for his work on major network television shows.
Slated for a June 26, 2020 release, Pick’s forthcoming full-length effort Passages reportedly finds the Medicine Hat-born, Vancouver-based singer/songwriting leaving behind the folk simplicity for a sweeping and cinematic sound featuring dance floor friendly rhythms, pulsing guitars, soaring strings and arpeggiating synths but while juxtaposed with his warmly reassuring vocals and thoughtful songwriting tackling heavy subject matter. In the case of Passages, the album’s material thematically focuses on learning to embrace the beauty of life’s liminal states with the album exploring the ambiguities and complexities of desire, masculinity, mental health, disillusionment and finding strength.
Although most of Passages‘ material was written fairly quickly, the recording process initially proved to test Pick’s resolve: three months of unfruitful recording sessions nearly derailed the project. Feeling as though he were floundering, Pick abandoned those early sessions and started over with a new producer Jonathan Anderson, at his Protection Island Studio in rural Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada. With Anderson’s guidance, Pick returned the album’s songs to their essence — and the album was recorded with newfound confidence in an inspired burst over a few weeks. Passages also features contributions from some of Vancouver’s finest singer/songwriters and players, including Jordan Klassen, Tourist Company‘s Taylor Swindells, Bre McDaniel, Copilots and Fond of Tigers‘ Skye Brooks and string arrangements by Dear Rouge‘s and Holy Hum‘s sibling duo Brian and Caleb Chan.
Passages’ first single, “Atmosphere” is a slick and seamless synthesis of earnest and deeply personal lyricism, cinematic and 80s inspired soundscapes and soaring hooks paired with what may be some of  Pick’s most ambitious and adventurous songwriting.
“‘Atmosphere’,” as Pick explains in press notes “is about loving someone despite the flaws or hardships you face together, and the tension between knowing and mystery in long-term relationships.” Pick notes that “‘Atmosphere acknowledges the space in between, how it expands and contracts, blurring and coming into focus over time. The distance that can grow between two people, that still allows for the desire or willingness to cross it and reconnect. The song started out as a scrap of a melody in a voice memo, and the lyrics came together from some disparate places — a Jeff Wall photograph, an Esther Perel podcast, some therapy.”
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Christian Cohle · Ghost

With the release of  his debut single “Breathe,” earlier this year, a track that championed across Ireland, the UK, the European Union and the States through praise from Hotpress Magazine, Euphoria Magazine, Nialler9 and airplay from BBC ATL Introducing, the rising Dublin-based electro pop artist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Christian Cohle quickly established a reputation for a songwriting approach that often finds him walking on the knife’s edge of fuzzy and anthemic electro pop and shoegazing, contemplative electronic music.

“Ghost,” Cohle’s second and latest single off his forthcoming full-length Michael Heffernan co-produced debut Holy Trouble is an atmospheric and melancholic track featuring shimmering and atmospheric synths, a spectral yet percussive beat and Cohle’s soulful and achingly plaintive crooning. But at its core, the song is a brooding and haunting meditation on seemingly unending loss that in some way evokes the  horror, unease and confusion that we all feel as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic: in some way we’re all aware that we’ve lost something profound that we’ll never get back.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Genevieve Stokes · Lonely And Bored

With the release of “Running Away” and “Surface Tension,” which landed on Spotify‘s New Music Friday, Lorem and Fresh Finds Playlists, the young and rapidly rising, Portland, ME-based singer/songwriter Genevieve Stokes quickly received attention for crafting alt pop songs featuring  a lush mixture of electronic and organic instruments and centered around an insight and honesty that belies her relative youth. Inspired by Regina Spektor, Frank Ocean, Bon Iver and Big Thief‘s Adrianna Lenker, the 18 year-old, Maine-based singer/songwriter can trace the origins of her music career to performing publicly as early as when she was 7 — so in many ways, Stokes is a grizzled pro.

Stokes’ is gearing up to release her highly-anticipated debut EP, which will feature her two previously released singles and her latest single, the slow-burning “Lonely and Bored.” Centered around twinkling keys, atmospheric electronics, Stokes’ gorgeous vocals and a soaring hook, “Lonely and Bored” is a self-assured yet melancholic and mediative track with a warm and effortlessly vibey air reminiscent of ’90s and ’00s neo-soul. But interestingly, the song is inspired by Stokes’ own personal experiences: “I’ve struggled with derealization and depersonalization for a couple years now,” the rising Portland, ME-based singer/songwriter says in press notes. “Often I find it hard to stay grounded in reality. It can be very isolating, but luckily it gets easier to manage over time. ‘Lonely and Bored’ is about a time in my life when I felt particularly disconnected from the world around me and my own emotions. I think a lot of people have experienced this sense of detachment, and hopefully this song helps them feel less alone.”

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Sophie Allison is a Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, best known as the creative mastermind behind the critically applauded indie rock project Soccer Mommy.  Allison first picked up guitar when she was six — and as a teenager, she attended Nashville School of the Arts, where she studied guitar and played in the school’s swing band. By 2015, the Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and guitarist began posting home-recorded songs as Soccer Mommy to Bandcamp during the summer of 2015, just as she was about head off to New York University, where she studied music business at the University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.

While she was in college, Allison played her first Soccer Mommy show at Bushwick, Brooklyn’s Silent Barn. The Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and guitarist caught the attention of Fat Possum Records, who signed her to a record deal. After spending two years studying at NYU, Allison returned to Nashville to pursue a full-time career in music.

Upon her return to Nashville, the acclaimed Swiss-born artist wrote and released two Soccer Mommy albums — 2016’s For Young Hearts through Orchid Tapes and 2017’s Collection through Fat Possum Records. Her proper, full-length debut, 2018’s Clean was released to widespread critical acclaim, and as a result of a rapidly growing profile, Alison has wound up touring with Stephen Malkmus, Mitski, Kacey Musgraves, Jay Som, Slowdive, Frankie Cosmos, Liz Phair, Phoebe Bridgers, Paramore, Foster the People, Vampire Weekend, and Wilco.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was gearing up to be a massive year for the young and rising singer/songwriter and guitarist: she began the year by playing at one of Bernie Sanders’ presidential rallies and had joined a list of contemporary artists, who endorsed his presidential campaign. Allison’s highly-anticipated sophomore album color theory was released to critical applause — and building upon a rapidly growing profile, the Nashville-based artist had been gearing up for a massive year: she was about to embark one a headlining tour with a number of dates sold-out months in advance, along with that, she had lined up appearances across the global festival circuit that included a stop at Glastonbury. Additionally, she was supposed to make her late-night, nationally televised debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

With touring being on an indefinite half for the music industry, the Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and guitarist recognized that this was a unique opportunity to get creative and experiment with new ideas. Combining her love of video games and performing, Allison held a digital concert on the online gaming platform Club Penguin Rewritten with over 10,000 attendees, who all had to make their own penguin avatars to attend it. The concert was so popular, that her fans crashed the platform’s servers, forcing a rescheduling of the event. Allison has also performed a number of live streams events, including  NPR’s Tiny Desk At Home (which she kicked off) and Pitchfork‘s IG Live Series. And she also recently released her own Zoom background images.

Recently, Allison and company embarked on a an Bella Clark-directed 8-bit virtual, music video tour in which the band plays some of the cities she was meant to be passing through — Minneapolis, Chicago,Seattle, Toronto, and Austin. Instead of virtually playing at the more common tourist locations or a traditional music venue, the members of the band are mischievously placed in unusual locations: an abandoned Toronto area subway station, a haunted Chicago hotel, a bat-filled Austin bridge and more.performing album track “crawling in my skin.”

Continuing some wildly creative ways to maintain the momentum of her full-length debut, Allison recently launched a singles series, Soccer Mommy & Friends that sees some of her most accomplished friends and associates covering her work — and Allison covering their work. The singles series will see contributions from MGMT‘s Andrew VanWyngarden, Beabadoobee, Beach Bunny, Jay Som and a list others — with releases dropping every two weeks. The singles series first release finds the acclaimed Oakland-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Melina Duterte, the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed indie rock act Jay Som covering Soccer Mommy’s “Lucy.”

Interestingly, Jay Som’s take on “lucy” turns the jangling guitar pop anthem into a shimmering and brooding track, centered around atmospheric synths, thumping beats and ethereal vocals that to my ears reminds me quite a bit of Air’s ethereal remix of Beck’s “Heaven Hammer.” “I had an extremely fun time recording the ‘lucy’ cover,” Duterte says in press notes. “Sophie has such a special way of entwining catchy melodies and sometimes dark chord progressions. I feel very lucky to be a part of this comp!”

All net profits from Bandcamp sales from the series will be donated to Oxfam‘s COVID-19 relief fun. Oxfam is working with partners to reach more than 14 million people in nearly 50 countries and the US to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 in vulnerable communities and support people’s basic food needs and livelihoods. As we’re all aware women and girls usually bear a disproportionate burden of care in a crises like COVID-19, and Oxfam has a proven record of helping women cope during and recover after these crises in ways that allow them to be safer and stronger than ever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Michael Desmond is a Long Island, NY-born singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who first earned attention as the frontman of orchestral indie rock act Gabriel the Marine, an act that went on national tours with Taking Back Sunday, Glassjaw, Mew, Jack’s Mannequin and The Dear Hunter. After some significant changes in his personal life that included the death of his uncle, the end of a six-year relationship and graduation from college, Desmond was inspired to reinvent himself and his career by going solo. “The only way I was able to slow my mind down was to write. I look at this body of work as a time capsule, as it represents a snapshot of life during this period of time,” Desmond recalls.

Desmond’s solo recording project, Local Nomad derives its name from several dichotomies: “Local Nomad is the resistance of sedentary life. It’s about seeking the strange and embracing the unknown. Wondering. Wandering. Young and Old. Everywhere and Nowhere. As cliche as it may sound – when I pick up a guitar and sing it’s the only time I feel at home,” Desmond says. Sonically, the project’s sound features soulful vocals, enormous hooks, atmospheric synths and lustrous beats and draws influence from the likes of Tears for Fears, Elvis Costello, and Phil Collins.

Local Nomad’s self-titled, debut EP is slated for a June 19, 2020 release, and the EP’s material found extra inspiration from the Long Island-born singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist borrowing his friends’ gear to implement mellotron, DX and 808s to add further texture and muscle to his attention-grabbing, anthemic sound. The self-titled EP’s latest single “Young Vampires” further establishes his remarkably self-assured and anthemic take on synth pop. Centered around a classic, alternating quiet verse, loud chorus-based song structure, an enormous, power chord-driven, arena rock friendly hook with shimmering and arpeggiated synths and Desmond’s plaintive vocals, the song reveals some ambitious songwriting bringing JOVM mainstays St. Lucia and the aforementioned Tears for Fears, among others.

“This song is about becoming the ugliest version of yourself in a relationship. You’re not necessarily trying to hurt one another, but you end up forgetting the thing that once brought you together,” the Long Island-born singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist explains. “‘Young Vampires’ is kind of an oxymoron because based on various films, vampires tend to live forever. They feed off of humans to survive and ultimately live a pretty reclusive lifestyle, only going out at night and sleeping all day. I think it’s comparable to being in an unhealthy relationship.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Behind-the-Scenes with S.G. Goodman for “Old-Time Feeling”

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few months, I’ve managed to write a quite a bit about the rapidly rising Murray, KY-born and based singer/songwriter, S.G. Goodman. Born and raised near the Mississippi to a strict, church-going family of row crop farmers, Goodman went from singing and playing in church three times a week to becoming a prominent member of Murray’s DIY arts and music scene, as well as an impassioned voice and presence in the political and social movements she supports.

Initially slated for a May 29, 2020 release through Verve Forecast Records, Goodman’s im James-produced full-length debut Old Time Feeling has been rescheduled for a July 17, 2020 release as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Recorded at Louisville, KY-based La La Land Studio. which was specifically chosen by Goodman because it possessed her three favorite things — “a creek, a big porch and a kitchen” — the sessions were imbued with a familial and communal touch: Goodman cooked meals for the studio crew and her backing band, which includes lifelong friends Matthew David Rowan (guitar) and S. Knox Montgomery (drums).

Reportedly, the album’s material is a brutally honest, complex and deeply loving look at rural Southern life that debunks rural stereotypes while drawing from her own experiences as a gay woman and artist in a rural and deeply religious Southern community. Interestingly, the album also touches up on living with OCD, estrangement, reconciliation and loving your family and community although you might disagree with them on political and social issues.

Earlier this year, (which seems like a lifetime ago), I caught Goodman play her first New York Metropolitan area show at Communion at Rockwood Music Hall, and the set found Goodman and her band crafting a sound that meshed elements of old-school country, folk, Delta Blues and rockabilly centered around Goodman’s aching Kentuckian twang. Now, as you may recall I’ve written about the album’s two previously released singles. The slow-burning, country blues-like “The Way I Talk,” a brutally honest look at the plight and concerns of the rural farming community she has spent her life in. Much like every aspect of our daily lives, big business and their interests have acted in concert with politicians to exploit and destroy the lives, well-being and environment of everything and everyone within their path. And as a result, the song seethes with anger and defiant pride. The album’s second single was the sparse and atmospheric “Red Bird Morning,” a haunting song song that evokes tear-streaked and lonely drives across unending blacktop, torturing yourself by replaying the messiness of your life from 126 different angles. 

Old Time Feeling’s third and latest single, album title track “Old Time Feeling” is the album’s most rollicking and freewheeling track, as it draws from influences like rockabilly, early rock ‘n’ roll and Sun Records-era country. And while centered around an an anachronistic sound, the song seethes with the modern day frustration and desperation of the working (and barely getting by) poor. But it also subtly points out that we all live in a system that’s insane and sick — and has caused unnecessary hurt and poverty, just to keep a handful of people stay rich.    

Directed by Brandon Boyd, the recently released video for “Old Time Feeling” continues Goodman’s ongoing visual collaboration with the director. Featuring intimate, behind-the-scene footage of Goodman, her band, Jim James and the rest of the studio crew during the Old Time Feeling sessions, the video is an intimate look into the creative process — while reminding us that traditional recording and creation will be at a standstill until we can get a handle on COVID-19.