Category: Single Review

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Beck Pete is an up-and-coming Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter. Her latest EP, Muse follows the trajectory of a dysfunctional romantic relationship that begins with both sides being in the wrong place mentally and emotionally. Not only do both people wind up making a ton of mistakes and missteps, there isn’t even a chance for a healthy relationship to occur.

Interestingly,  the EP’s latest single, the slow-burning “Whiskey #4,” is centered around a hauntingly sparse arrangement featuring strummed guitar, thumping hip hop-like beats and Page’s sultry vocals. But at its core is an unresolved tension: the weird and conflicting push and pull that happens for someone realizes that they may be in a dysfunctional and toxic relationship — and yet they’re still inexplicably drawn to it, and desire it.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Alekos “Kosie” Sryopoulous is an up-and-coming Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and producer, who has collaborated with the likes of Anderson .Paak, Mac Miller, JMSN, The Midnight, DUX, Stan Taylor, Vulfpeck, Cory Wong, DJ Williams, Tiffany Gouche, Sensae, Desi Valentine, Raquel Rodriguez, Ruslan Sirota, Madelyn Grant and others as a live and studio session player. (In fact, the Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and producer was recently featured on Anderson .Paak’s “King James.“)

As a producer and solo artist, Sryopoulous has begun to receive attention for a take on future funk that incorporates synths, woodwind and a mix of live and sampled drums that’s largely influenced by his deep and abiding love of jazz, funk, hip-hop and electronic music. His latest single “Beauty Sleep” is a lush and soulful track centered around arpeggiated synths, warm blasts of saxophone, thumping beats and Amber Navran’s easygoing yet sultry vocals. And while being one part Teddy Riley-era New Jack Swing and one part 80s synth R&B, the song finds Syropolous and and Navran balancing between a loving homage to two-step inducing soul and contemporary pop.

“The original beat for this song was made on my first iPhone 5 (imaschine) when I took a ferry to a Greek island of Chios to visit a colleague of mine,” the up-and-coming Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and producer recalls in press notes. “I specifically remember Amber commenting on a post I made on Instagram in 2014 and I kept her in mind as a potential collaboration when the song took full form down the road.”

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Interestingly, over the past couple of years, I’ve written about Madison, WI-based punk act The Hussy here and there, and as you may recall the band formed back in 2008 as a duo featuring by Bobby Hussy (guitar, vocals) and Heather Hussy (drums, vocals) — with both members contributing vocals. The duo quickly developed a reputation for a trashy and scuzzy take on punk and for a chaotic live show that wound up with the duo playing shows alongside a who’s who list of indie rock and punk — including Mudhoney, Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, Twin Peaks, Reigning Sound,Spectrum, Black Bananas, Black Lips, King Khan & BBQ, White Fence, The Faint, Tenement and countless others. All of that helped the band gain a cult-like following across the Midwestern underground scene.

Between 2009 and 2015, the band went through one of their most prolific periods of their history, in which they released material through 20 different labels and in countless different formats. During that same period, the duo also went through a relentless touring schedule across US and the European Union, including an appearance at Gonerfest after the release of their beloved sophomore album 2012’s Weed Seizure. Additionally, they also pulled double duty as the opening and backing band for NOBUNNY through tours of the US, Australia, and New Zealand.

Since touring with NOBUNNY, the band’s founding duo have split time between The Hussy and a series of other creative pursuits. Bobby Hussy has continued to tour off and on with NOBUNNY as a touring bassist. His other projects include playing in Fire Heads with Tyler Fassnacht, who recently joined The Hussy to help further flesh out their live sound — and synth wave post-punk act Cave Curse, who released a full-length in 2017. Heather Hussy is also a member of Proud Parents, an act that released their full-length debut through  Dirtnap Records last year.

At the end of last year, the members of the newly constituted trio began tracking their forthcoming full-length album Looming, the follow-up to 2015’s Galore. Galore saw the band moving into a more focused direction with their songwriting, and it included material with more complex arrangements paired with a mid-fi production. And while the album reflected an evolution in their sound and approach, they managed to retain the infectious pop-leaning hooks that won them cult-favorite status. Interestingly, the album which is slated for a September 27, 2019 release, finds the band going in a much darker thematic direction, as the material touches upon death and sudden loss, divorce, addiction and our  current horrifying, infuriating, and depressing sociopolitical moment.

Last month, I wrote about album single “Coast.” Beginning with a deceptive and upbeat intro featuring plinking and chiming guitars, the song quickly turned into a scuzzy power-chord ripper with an infectiously anthemic hook. “Sorry,” Looming‘s latest single is a decidedly 90s alt rock-inspired fuzz pop anthem featuring ironic lyrics, fluttering blasts of flute, layers of distortion pedaled guitars and thunderous drumming. Sonically speaking, “Sorry” will likely bring to mind a series of 120 Minutes-era MTV titans, like Hole, Veruca Salt, The Breeders and others with a similar gritty and bilious quality.

The members of The Hussy will be embarking on a lengthy tour during the fall. Check out the tour dates below.

 

Tour Dates
09/13 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
09/14 – Madison, WI @ Mickey’s Tavern
09/19 – Chicago, IL @ Reed’s
09/20 – Springfield, IL @ Dumb Records
09/21 – Fayetteville, AR @ Backspace w/ The Wirms
09/22 – Dalls, TX @ Ruins in Deep Ellum
09/23 – Austin, TX @ Hotel Vegas w/ Xetas
09/24 – New Orleans, LA @ Circle Bar w/ Thelma and the Sleaze
09/25- Hattiesburg, MS @ The Looney Bin
09/26 – Memphis, TN @ Hi-Tone – Gonerfest 16!
10/11 – Madison, WI @ Crystal Corner Bar – Turkeyfest 10 w/ Vacation
10/12 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall w/ Oh Sees & Prettiest Eyes
10/13 – Detroit, MI @ Outer Limits
10/14 – Cleveland, OH @ Little Rose Tavern
10/15 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Rock Room
10/16 – Washington, D.C. @ Slash/Run w/ Natural Velvet
10/17 – Philadelphia, PA @ Century
10/18 – New York City
10/19 – Stamford, CT @ Boy’s Club w/ Jacques Le Coque
10/20 – New Haven, CT @ Three Sheets w/ Jacques Le Coque
10/21 – Boston, MA @ The Greek w/ G Gordon Gritty
10/22 – Providence, NJ @ News Cafe
10/23 – Salem, MA @ Front Street Coffee House
10/24 – Montreal, Quebec – Canada @ Quai des brumes
10/25 – Buffalo, NY
10/26 – Cincinnati, OH @ MOTR
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Arron Davey is British multi-instrumentalist, electronic music producer, electronic music artist and DJ, best known for his acclaimed and attention-grabbing solo recording project Astronomyy. Interestingly, Davey first made a name for himself with one of his earliest singles “Don’t Need U,” which quickly established his sound — guitars fused to R&B styled beats. With the track going viral, the British multi-instrumentalist, electronic music producer, electronic music artist and DJ landed a major label deal. And although, it wasn’t the right fit for him, signing to a major label allowed him to build a home studio, where he recorded his first two EPs, There For U and When I’m With You. His own original material has received praise from Noisey, The Line of Best Fit, IndieShuffle, Earmilk and countless others while amassing over 40 million streams. Simultaneously, Davey developed a reputation as a highly sought-after collaborator. He co-wrote the triple-platinum, international smash hit “Never Forget You” for Zara Larsson and MNEK. He also released a remix of Billie Eilish‘s “Ocean Eyes,” which eventually amassed over 100 million streams.

After the release of 2017’s “Rest in Paradise” 12 inch, Davey decided to take a sabbatical. “I was overwhelmed by the industry,” he admits. “I never got into this for money; I just love creating. I decided to put my head down and lock myself away in the studio for as long as it took to re-ignite the fire. I had to ignore other people and really feel it for myself. My life was imbalanced, and I needed to focus my headspace.  I started physically working out. I feel like a much more balanced person now. I’m finally I’m ready.”

“I’m focusing on moods now,” Davey continues. ““Before, I was trying to paint a perfect picture. I wasn’t allowing the chaos to exist in my songs, but I’ve welcomed the contrast. There’s a yin and yang. The new music has duality. There are a lot of raw and natural performances. There’s variety in tone. It’s wavy and it has more depth. It just comes with trusting my instinct and my ears. If you strip something of its flaws and fix every blemish, you take away the character, so I backed off from the polished sound.”

“Flamingo” is the first bit of new material from Davey in over two years. Centered around layers of shimmering and arpeggiated synths, a sinuous bass line, stuttering beats, Davey’s plaintive falsetto, stuttering beats, and an infectious hook, the new single is one part 80s synth R&B and one part Teddy Riley New Jack Swing-like jam. And while the brooding track manages to possess a breezy and nostalgic quality that’s befitting for a late summer, club banger the song is underpinned by several layers of irony. “I had the side somebody can be like a flamingo,” Davey explains. “A flamingo is very pretty, but if you try to cage it, you realize it’s a live animal and shouldn’t be contained. It’s also tough-in-cheek and pokes fun at people in Britain, because ‘bird’ is a slang word for ‘girlfriend.’ It’s the first song I wanted to share with the world in a couple of years, because it’s got so many elements that represent me. It’s moody, it’s broody, it’s weird, it’s funky, it’s textured and it’s also quite pretty.”

As for an August 30 release Davey says, “I’ve always been obsessed with space and as I’ve spent the last two years rebalancing myself and my sound, it seemed only right to release the first single under a new moon. Which also happens to be a super black new moon.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Beiju is an up-and-coming French-American musician, who splits her time between New York and Paris. Her latest single “Lost at the Beach” is centered around the French-American musician’s sultry, jazz-like inflection gliding over a glitchy and brooding production consisting of jagged pulses of arpeggiated synths and off-kilter syncopation. And while sonically bearing a resemblance to JOVM mainstays Bells Atlas and the acclaimed Hiatus Kaiyote, the song manages to possesses a breezy nostalgia.

The song as Beiju says in press notes is inspired by and reflects upon a recent weekend at the Rockaways with two of her friends. “Like many people, I can get caught up and anxious in such an intense urban environment as New York,” Beiju explains. “Getting back to basics by being with loved ones, playing music for pure enjoyment, and being carefree in the ocean made us feel gratitude for aspects of life, which we sometimes take for granted. That feeling of being reminded and aware is one to which I wanted to hold on and put into a song.”

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past few years, I’ve written a lot about the Toronto, ON-born, Los Angeles, CA-based JOVM mainstay and electronic music producer and electronic music artist Robert Alfons, best known for his acclaimed recording project TR/ST. So far Alfons has released two critically applauded and commercially successful albums — 2012’s self-titled debut and 2014’s sophomore effort, Joyland. But interestingly his first two albums found Alfons taking risks and playing with his sound and approach: his self-titled TR/ST debut was largely considered dark, kinky and defiantly queer electronica while Joyland was bright and upbeat electronic dance music.

Five years have passed since the release of Joyland and during that period, Alfons wrote and recorded material in a secluded farmhouse in Southern Ontario and in Los Angeles, where he has since relocated. The recording sessions, which eventually became his two album effort Destroyer 1 and Destroyer 2 finds Alfons collaborating former bandmate, electronic music producer and electronic music artist Maya Postepski, who co-wrote and co-produced six of the entire project’s songs. Lars Stalfors and Damien Taylor were also enlisted to further refine the album’s overall sound — at parts industrial, at parts intimate and ambient.

Interestingly, one of the key ingredients behind the Destroyer‘s material was patience. “The environment I work in has always guided me. But it took a long time to submit to the kind of patience these songs were asking of me. I was getting glimpses of what I wanted to achieve with the album,” he says. “But it wasn’t feeling cohesive; things weren’t aligning in a clear direction.” Alfons realized it was a question of patience and perseverance. “My first two records were put out so close to one another that I think of them as one,” he says, “They just poured out of me.” With Destroyer, the process was entirely different. “It was so much more careful. I found myself seeking spaces of absolute quiet; I needed them in order to hear what was going on inside.”

And while both parts of the project sound different from one another, there’s a central theme throughout — the deconstruction of shame, expressed in raging industrial and machine-like clang and clatter, atmospheric and eerie quiet paired with introspective lyricism. “I think the biggest reason it took five years to write and rework so much material, is that I finally had to confront these feelings of shame that I had somehow been able to push aside for so many years, which explains why the album is so tumultuous” Alfons explains in press notes.

Slated for a November 1, 2019 release, Destroyer 2 as I mentioned earlier is a decided sonic departure from both its immediate predecessor and from his previously released work as the material consists of delicate, earnest and shimmering pop songs. “I think I took so many more risks sonically and emotionally on Part 2 of this record, for that reason this release has much more importance to me. I’ve spent much of the past five years writing and re-working these songs to get them to the state they are in” Alfons says in press notes.

Centered around twinkling keys, atmospheric synths and electronics, thumping drum programming and Alfons’ plaintive vocals, Destroyer 2‘s first single “Destroyer” is an achingly tender and intimate song that’s one part introspective and soulful confession and one part hook-driven, slickly produced pop.

Alfons will be embarking on a lengthy tour throughout the fall — and each of these tour stops will find him playing in much bigger venues than before. The tour includes a November 15, 2019 stop at The Knockdown Center. Check out the tour dates below.

 

Tour Dates

28 Sept Mexico City, MX – CMD_F

31 Oct San Diego, CA -The Observatory North Park

1 Nov Los Angeles, CA – The Novo

3 Nov Denver, CO – Summit Music Hall

4 Nov Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf

6 Nov San Antonio, TX – Paper Tiger

8 Nov Houston,TX – White Oak Music Hall Downstairs

9 Nov Austin, TX – Levitation

11 Nov Atlanta, GA – Terminal West

12 Nov Durham, NC –  Motorco Music Hall

13 Nov Baltimore, MD – Ottobar

15 Nov Maspeth, NY – Knockdown Center

EUROPE

20 Nov London – Heaven

21 Nov Brussels – Botanique

23 Nov Bern – Saint Ghetto

24 Nov Paris – Le Trianon

26 Nov Amsterdam – Paradiso Noord

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past couple of months, I’ve written a bit about the Brooklyn-based indie rock act Big Cheese. And since their formation back in 2012, the band has released two albums — 2014’s Loose Teeth and 2016’s Supersonic Nothing, which have helped them establish a reputation for crafting 90s alt rock-inspired fuzz pop ant=hems paired with sarcasm and irony soaked lyrics.

Now, as you may recall, the band’s forthcoming Oliver Ignatius-produced third full-length album, Wild to Be Born is slated for a September 13, 2019 release. Deriving its title from the untamed sentiment of the album’s material — and an overall feeling of being ravenous for some kind of awakened, the album, which was recorded at Holy Fang Studios reportedly finds the band expanding their sound with the material drawing from Amerciana, grunge and several other genres and styles. I’ve written about two album singles so far:  the anthemic “Golden.” a mosh-pit friendly bit of fuzz pop that brought Dinosaur, Jr., JOVM mainstays Dead Stars and The Colour and the Shape-era Foo Fighters to mind — and the grunge rock-inspired “Filthy Rich.” The album’s latest single “In This World” is centered by a propulsive and rolling bass line, thunderous drumming, slashing guitar lines and ironically delivered lyrics, making it the most post punk-like and forward thinking song off the album to date

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Acclaimed Dream Pop Act Cigarettes After Sex Release a Hauntingly Spectral Single

Currently comprised of founding member and primary songwriter Greg Gonzalez (vocals, guitar) with Jacob Tomsky (drums) and Randy Miller (bass), the acclaimed Brooklyn-based dream pop act Cigarettes After Sex can trace their origins back to when Gonzalez formed the band in El Paso. TX back in 2008. Their debut EP, 2012’s I received some attention when “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby” became a sleeper hit of sorts, after it was licensed for use in commercials.

With the release of 2017’s self-titled debut, Cigarettes After Sex quickly became international sensations. Since its release the album as sold over 550,000 records to date, amassed over 360 million Spotify streams, 2.2 million monthly listeners and 350 million YouTube streams. They’ve been featured in a number of major media outlets including Vice Noisey, V Magazine, Interview, NPR’s Tiny Desk — and their music has appeared in The Handmaid’s Tale, Killing Eve and in a Ralph Lauren ad campaign. Additionally, Taylor Swift, Kylie Jenner, Lana Del Rey, Françoise Hardy, Lily Allen, Busy Phillips and a long list of others have claimed to be fans of the band’s work. 

During the week of their full-length debut’s release, the members of the Cigarettes After Sex traveled to Mallorca, Spain. And naturally, each of the band’s individual members consciously let the striking location guide what was to become the initial sessions for their forthcoming sophomore album Cry. “The sound of this record is completely tied to the location for me,” Greg Gonzalez explains in press notes. “Ultimately, I view this record as a film. It was shot in this stunning, exotic location, and it stitches all these different characters and scenes together, but in the end is really about romance, beauty and sexuality. It’s a very personal telling of what those things mean to me.” 

While the instrumentation came about quickly — often improvised on the spot — it would be another two years before Gonzalez would attempt to complete the material’s accompanying lyrics. Slated for an October 25, 2019 release through Partisan Records, Cigarettes After Sex’s highly-anticipated sophomore album is influenced by a new, burgeoning romantic relationship, the films of Eric Rohmer and the work of Selena and Shania Twain. Thematically, the material is a cinematic and brooding meditation on the many complex facets of love — meeting, wanting, needing and losing .  . . sometimes simultaneously. But interestingly enough, Cry will find the band blending the carnal subtly of its predecessor with a warmer sonic palette. 

Cry’s first single is the spectral yet lush “Heavenly.” Centered around Gonzalez’s achingly tender and vulnerable falsetto, hushed and shuffling drumming, shimmering guitar, a sinuous bass line and a soaring hook, the song sonically reminds me a bit of Mazzy Star’s smash hit “Fade Into You.” And much like  “Fade Into You,” “Heavenly” is a feverish, narcoleptic dream that expresses a wild, desperate, swooning longing — the sort that mixes devotion, obsession, love and lust into a confusing and wonderful blur.  Of course, the song finds the band managing to craft material that’s as intimate as whispered, sweet  nothings to a lover while possessing a cinematic (and larger than life) quality.  As the band’s Greg Gonzalez explains, the song was “inspired by the overwhelming beauty I felt watching an endless sunset on a secluded beach in Latvia one summer night…”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Magic Sword Releases an Expansive Retro-Futuristic Single

Centered around an ever-expanding graphic novel story and accompanying synth-led soundtrack albums, Magic Sword is a multimedia project heavily indebted to 70s and 80s fantasy and sci-fi: featuring three masked and cloaked members, only known as The Keeper, The Seer and The Weaver, also referred to as The Three Immortals, their ageless story of their role in the battle between good and evil is told through graphic novels and occasionally online by The Harbinger. 

Awakening, the follow up to the Legend EP is the second chapter in their tale of the search for the chosen one. In the story, the prophesied being is the only one who has the ability to wield the power of the Magic Sword and defeat the Dark One. Until The Chosen One reveals themself, The Three Immortals cannot rest. Naturally, the EP’s first single is  the appropriately epic and cinematic, EP title track “Awakening.” Centered around layers of shimmering and arpeggiated synths, thumping beats, the song stars off as a sort retro-futuristic John Carpenter-inspired soundtrack meets 1984-era Van Halen intro — but closes with a funky, Random Access Memories-era Daft Punk-like coda. It’s decidedly slick while sounding as though it were part the soundtrack of that movie you thought you might have seen back in 1986. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: The Hauntingly Beautiful and Old-Time Folk of Rwanda’s The Good Ones

Primarily centered around its core, founding trio of co-lead singer Janvier Hauvgimana, co-lead singer and primary songwriter Adrien Kazigira and Javan Mahoro, the Rwandan folk act, The Good Ones, who hail from the outskirts of the nation’s capital Kigali, can trace their origins back to about 1978, when its members, who were still children, were taught music by Hauvgimana’s older brother. Sadly, Hauvgimana’s older brother, who was also blind, later died in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The members of The Good Ones formed the band as part of the healing process after the genocide and interestingly enough, the band’s original trio featured individual members of each of Rwanda’s three tribes — Tutsi, Hutu and Abatwa — symbolically and metaphorically reuniting a country that had been split apart at its seams. But on a personal level, for each of the band’s founding members, the band was an active attempt to seek out “the good ones” after witnessing and enduring unthinkable horrors. 

Most of the members of the band are small plot, subsistence farmers — with two of the band’s members living on family plots that  have been passed down through several generations. Because most Rwandans are very poor, instruments are very rare. The members of the band do what poor people everywhere do. They find some truly creative ways to get by out of necessity — sometimes they may find and use a broken guitar; other times they may borrow a friend’s guitar; but in most cases they’ll make their own instruments, sometimes incorporating their farm tools.  As the band’s primary songwriter Kazigira writes material that routinely features interwoven, intricate harmonies between himself and co-lead vocalist Havugimana that may remind some folks of classic American Bluegrass — but also acoustic, Mississippi Delta Blues.  

Slated for a November 8, 2019 release through Anti- Records, The Good Ones’ forthcoming album Rwanda, You Should Be Love can trace its origins to a batch of over 40 songs that the band’s Adrien Kazigira had originally written. Most of the material centered around meditations on his now 13-year-old daughter Marie Clare, and the life-threatening tumor that has afflicted her left eye. Recorded live and without overdubs on Kazigira’s farm, the sessions were imbued with a further sense of loss: their longtime collaborator and producer Ian Brennan’s mother died and a former bandmember and founding member had both died during the sessions. The album also features guest appearances from an All-Star team of indie rock stars, including Wilco’s Nels Cline, TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker, My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields and Fugazi’s Joe Lally. 

Interestingly, despite the massive number of profound losses in the bandmembers’ lives, Rwanda, You Are Loved’s first single “The Farmer” celebrates the critical role farmers play in society and to a nation but it’s also an aching lament, acknowledging the bitter irony that farmers often can’t feed their own families and are struggling to get by.  Built around a sparse arrangement of strummed guitar, harmonized vocals, the song is a timeless one that has seemingly been sung by generations upon generations across the world — and in a variety of languages.