Category: Video Review

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s APACALDA Shares Cinematic and Woozy “She’s Not Coming”

Cassandra Angheluta is a Romanian-born, Montréal-based singer/songwriter and the creative mastermind behind the solo recording project APACALDA. Deriving its name from the Romanian word for “warm water,” Angheluta’s solo project is both a reflection of her movement through her art and life, and a reminder to reconnect with the warmth that can calm and ground her, despite the chaos and unpredictability of outside circumstances.

Much like countless other artists, the Romanian-Canadian artist has found that through creating music, she can process and alchemize emotional traumas from throughout the course of her life, while giving her a sense of peace. Her work typically touches upon themes of devastation and transcendence.

With 2022’s self-titled, debut EP, which featured collaborations with Robert Robert; FHANG‘s Luca Fogale‘s and Half Moon Run‘s Sam Woywitka; FHANG’s, Patrick Watson‘s and TEKE :: TEKE’s Mishka Stein; Half Moon Run’s Isaac Symonds and the Esca Quartet, Angheluta quickly established a fresh take on indie rock, electro pop and New Wave/post-punk, crating a sound that has been described as melancholic, dreamy, enigmatic and hauntingly beautiful.

The Romanian-Canadian artist’s Miskha Stein and Sam Woywitka co-produced full-length debut, There’s a Shadow In My Room and It Isn’t Mine is slated for release next year. Thematically, the album delves into mental illness, obsession, jealousy and deceit.

The album’s first single “She’s Not There” features distorted and churning guitar tones, skittering and propulsive beats, atmospheric synths serving as a woozy and uneasy bed for Anghuleta’s achingly plaintive yet defiant delivery, evoking the turmoil and restlessness of its narrator. According to the Montréal-based artist, “She’s Not Coming” tells the story of a woman, who chooses to end her life, despite her outward devotion to God. While capturing the hidden struggles behind its narrator’s stoic exterior, the track sheds light on the pervasive nature of suicide. “I write these songs as an extension of healing—I want to be a medium. I often feel others’ pain and I want to express it in honour of them,” Angheluta says.

Directed by Mallis, a Montréal-based filmmaker, art director and production designer, known for visually rich storytelling, the accompanying video for “She’s Not Coming” was funded by The MVP Project and shot in Georgia, not too far from Angheluta’s homeland. While anchored in the themes of its accompanying song, the video follows the final journey of Louisa, an elderly woman, who ends her life, and is based on the true story of a friend, whose mother’s death was suspected to be a suicide. The friend’s mother was a deeply religious woman, who ultimately chose to leave the church. This lead to her exclusion from her religious community.

The friend’s mom was known to walk along the shores of a beach near her home. One morning, local news outlets reported that a woman’s body washed ashore. The friend knew it was his mother, realizing that he’d never speak or see her again. “Through her story, we really wanted to emphasize the impact of community on someone’s mental and emotional well-being,” the director and artist explain.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Child Actress Shares Woozy and Achingly Bittersweet “Just Fine Never Better”

Canadian singer/songwriter and musician Rena Kozak is the creative mastermind the solo recording project Child Actress. Initially starting her career in Calgary, Kozak relocated to Montréal in 2017, where she firmly solidified herself as a must-see performer and songwriter, as well as a highly sought-after producer and mixing engineer.

On the heels of last year’s Ancestor Worship, the Montréal-based artist’s just released EP, Just Fine Never Better is the last of a batch of songs she wrote after the 2012 death of her boyfriend, Women‘s and The Dodos‘ Chris Reimer. The EP’s first two songs were written very early on, as she was grieving Reimer’s death. But the last two were written in the last couple of years. For the Canadian artist, it was important for her to finish and release these remaining songs, so she can cleanse of herself of that phrase, and see what might happen next creatively. The EP’s last two songs were included on the EP to symbolize forward motion and growth.

Just Fine Never Better‘s latest track, EP title track “Just Fine Never Better” is an atmospheric Disintegration-era The Cure and Heaven or Las Vegas-era Cocteau Twins-like tune featuring Kozak’s achingly tender vocal ethereally floating over glistening synths and reverb-soaked shoegazer guitar textures. Much like the material its seemingly draws inspiration from and the deeply personal experience that informs it, “Just Fine Never Better” expresses the familiar bitter heartache that accompanies the “what-ifs” and the “if-I-had-only-knowns” of our lives — with the recognition that there are countless times we long for people, things and places we can’t ever get back.

Originally written by Reimer, “Just Fine Never Better” was a song that the couple really liked. And after Reimer’s death, his parents gave Kozak permission to use it with Child Actress.

“I struggled to understand what Chris was saying in the lyrics on the cell phone recording of us jamming together — beyond the phase ‘we could have a regular time tonight,’ I couldn’t make out much else,” the Montréal-based artist says. “I had never asked him what he was singing, I was always delicate with Chris and his creative output. He was shy about his songwriting and was just starting to develop lyrics and I didn’t want to push or influence him by prying. I figured he would make the words clear when he was sure of himself.

“I took the one phrase I could hear to be an implication of his desire to slow down on drinking and partying – a concept we had been talking about a lot. His lifestyle on tour was full of alcohol, and we were having a lot of conversations about how when we moved in together, we would slow down on the drinking; we would have more ‘regular nights,'” she recalls. “I built a little on the idea that he was musing on this with the song – what would it be like to fall asleep sober and wake up feeling fine… and then, for me, I inserted my own self into the theme of what would it be like to wake up with him still alive that day instead of waking up to find he had passed while I slept. In the end, that’s what I made the song about – what if we just went to bed that night and woke up to another day instead?”

The video by Forbidden Candy Productions manages to capture the 80s vibe of its accompanying video with an uncanny, period specific precision.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Shrines Shares Eerie “Witch Season”

Arguably best known for stints with Ponyhof and Will Butler, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician Carrie Erving is the creative mastermind behind the indie electro pop recording project Shrines. Erving’s work, which sees her deftly weaving elements of pop, electronic music, indie rock and Irish sean-nós (traditional Irish folk singing) into a shimmering take on art-pop that The New York Times has described as “spellbinding.”

Erving’s latest Shrines EP, the four-song Rosana Cabán-produced Seasons is slated for an October 18, 2024 release. The EP’s material explores the fragility of the individual seasons, documenting the collective cognitive dissonance of the fluctuations between celebration and trepidation that come about during a time of rapidly escalating climate change. Each of the EP’s songs lyrically suggest to the listener that allowing ourselves to save the present moment may be one of the keys to grappling with one of the largest challenges of our moment.

Seasons‘ latest single “Witch Season” is an eerie and brooding bit of electro pop featuring buzzing bass synths, gently oscillating atmospheric synths, skittering beats paired with Erving’s soaring vocals. Sonically, the song reminds me of a synthesis of Stevie Nicks, Bjork and Portishead while being a homage to fall and spooky season, evoking creepy crawlies and spirits lurking around the corner.

Directed by Brody Bernheisel, the accompanying video follows the Brooklyn-based artist in a flowing, black dress, driving to the woods where she fittingly dances around a bonfire. Visually, the video seems to draw from Madonna‘s “Like A Prayer” and Victoria + Jean’s “Harlight Sverige.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: A Place to Bury Strangers Shares Pulsating Synth Punk Ripper “Fear Of Transformation”

New York-based JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers — currently Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — will be releasing their seventh album Synthesizer on October 4, 2024 (digital) and October 25, 2024 (vinyl) through Dedstrange.

While Synthesizer is the album’s title, it’s also a physical entity, a synthesizer specifically made for the album — and a synthesizer that you too, can own (in part), if you buy the record on vinyl. The album’s cover art doubles as a circuit board and functional synth for curious and enterprising fans. “It’s pretty messed up, chaotic. But it feels really human,” the band’s Oliver Ackermann says. 

In an era of making music where so little is DIY and so much is left up to AI, never setting foot in a practice room or a home studio, making something that feels deliberately chaotic, messy, and human, is entirely the point. The album celebrates sounds that are spontaneous and natural, the kind of music that can only come from collaboration and community. 

The writing sessions for Synthesizer started in the band’s Queens studio, shortly after the release of 2022’s See Through You. The new lineup which featured Ackermann and his friends John and Sandra Fedowitz was especially inspiring for Ackermann. “It felt like a fresh new thing,” he says. “I wanted to write songs everyone was excited about playing.” 

The album captures the band at a place of reinvention, where they take a carefully honed sound and approach and crack it wide open to gut its then reimagine it. And of course, to ever so slightly reinvent one’s sound, one must also built a new instrument — the synthesizer at the core of the album’s overall sound. 

Reportedly, Synthesizer is arguably one of the band’s most live-sounding albums to date, accurately capturing the rawness and explosiveness of the band in a live setting, which is a fitting for a band that is best in a live setting, where the material takes on a new energy in the presence of a crowd. “We’re artists,” Ackermann says, “Going to shows and bringing that imperfect and beautiful DIY ethos is important.” 

In the lead-up to the album’s digital release on Friday, I’ve written about two of the album’s previously released singles:

  • “Disgust,” an eardrum shattering aural assault, anchored around explosive wailing feedback and distortion pedaled guitar lines paired with a relentles motorik groove featuring an arpeggiated bass line weaving in and out. But there’s subtle refinements, including some of the most rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly choruses and hooks I’ve heard from the band in some time. “‘Disgust’ is a song I wrote that was inspired by the way I used to perform ‘Got That Feeling,’ a song by my old band Skywave,” Ackermann explains. “There was a long riding open note on the bass that enabled me to play the whole part with my fist in the air.  I wrote this song just on open strings so it could be played with just one hand: dumb and fun.” 

  • “Bad Idea,” a track anchored around a simple yet hypnotically looping drum beat and woozily oscillating feedback-driven guitar lines. John Fedowitz’s plaintive yet punchy delivery weaves in and out of the stormy and soundscape, which helps to evoke the vacillating, almost nauseating unease of self-doubt. “Bad Idea” showcases the raw creativity of the band’s bassist John Fedowitz. “He came to the studio with a simple looping drum beat, thinking he didn’t have any good ideas — thus, this song was his ‘bad idea,’” the band’s frontman Oliver Ackermann says. “We each penned some lines on paper, and he sang the ones that resonated. After a few instrumental passes, the recording was complete. The result is an innovative track born from spontaneous collaboration and a touch of self-doubt, turned into something uniquely captivating.” 

Synthesizer‘s latest single “Fear Of Transformation” is a snarling and scuzzy New Wave/goth punk synth-driven ripper featuring layers of oscillating synths, a relentless motorik groove, explosive bursts of feedback paired with the band’s long-held penchant for rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hooks and Ackermann’s punchy delivery.

Thematically, the track focuses and delves into the struggle of overcoming internal barriers. As the band’s frontman Oliver Ackermann explains, “Sometimes fear builds up and pins you in a cage. A conversation occurs in my head where I have to convince myself to just fucking do something to break out of it.” The song embodies that internal dialogue, capturing the battle between the compulsion to avoid fear and the push to confront it. And as a result, the song is a raw, uneasy and intense conversation with the devil within.

Created and directed by Chad Crawford Kinkle, the accompanying video for “Fear Of Transformation” follows a teenage boy, who sneaks out from his parents’ house to go to his first furry party — but he has a deep secret: he’s a werewolf. And he winds up going on a bloody rampage.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sagrados Anônimos Shares Woozy and Dreamily Meditative “Martelo”

São Paulo-based singer/songwriter, guitarist Guilherme França is a key stalwart of the city’s growing indie rock scene: França was also a member of the now-shuttered Brazilian label Pessoa Qua Voa. He’s currently a member of Quasar. He’s the creator of fdaies and part of the teams at Boogarins and Casa do Mancha events.

Additionally, he’s the manager of his first band while helping the local indie ecosystem in any way that’s needed. From what I understand, if you’re a Brazilian band in São Paulo and you need a booker, roadie, producer, merch table person or something else, he’s the guy you need to call. Suffice to say, França is a busy guy. But in between the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and all of these various activities and jobs, he started Sagrados Anônimos, a solo recording project that specializes in a blend of slowcore, dream pop and shoegaze, anchored by introspective lyricism.

França’s Sagrados Anôminos’ debut single “Martelo” is a slow-burning track featuring dusty, tape saturated boom bap-like rhythms, looping, reverb-drenched, shimmering guitar lines. The psilocybin trip-like soundscape serves as a woozy and dreamily meditative bed for the Brazilian artist’s tenderly plaintive delivery. While sonically recalling acclaimed Brazilian JOVM mainstays Boogarins to mind, “Martelo” is rooted in a deeply philosophical and personal question: “What can happen when you allow yourself to add one more layer?”

The accompanying video features the Brazilian musician playing in front of projected imagery of urban scenery — inner city traffic, birds landing on wires and the like — that’s manipulated to the speed of the song.

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Paris’ Superjava Shares A Breezy, Hook-Driven Bop

Paris-based electro rock outfit Superjava can trace its origins back to when its founding duo Archi and Alex met in 2015 while they were studying at Berklee College of Music. Upon graduation, they relocated to Paris, where they met the band’s then-third member Arnaud. Although the band has gone through a lineup change, the members of the Parisian outfit — currently Archi and Arnaud — have managed to spread their music around the world, as a result of several global advertising campaigns.

After the release of several EPs, which were supported with tours in France and China in 2019, the duo recently released their highly-anticipated full-length debut, Get Sick, Get Better. Drawing influence from the likes of Phoenix, Justice, Jamaica, Air, Cassius, MGMT, Empire Of The Sun and Foster The People among others, the album sees the band embodying the spirit and feel of a new wave of French Touch while featuring elements of rock, pop and electro pop.

“Slowdown,” Get Sick, Get Better‘s latest single is a breezy bop featuring glistening synths, a strutting bass line and the pair’s unerring knack for crafting remarkably catchy, rousingly anthemic hooks. While seemingly indebted to Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix-era Phoenix and Oracular Spectacular-era MGMT, “Slowdown” to my ears, also subtly brings Tame Impala to mind, too. And at its core, the song is anchored in a much-needed reminder that we need to slow down and just enjoy the moment — whether it’s with our dear ones or just by ourselves.

Directed by Jules Salters, the accompanying video for “Slowdown” features the duo wandering the French countryside while being part of a pleasant psilocybin trip or while wandering a slightly alien yet familiar world — or perhaps even both.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: High. Shares Stormy and Cathartic “In A Hole”

Boonton, NJ-based shoegazers High. can trace their origins back to 2021 when Christian Castan (vocals, guitar) and Bridget Bakie (bass, vocals) met while playing across the Garden State’s DIY and college circuit, building Bakie’s reputation as “The Queen of The Quarter Note” and Castan’s profile as an unforgettable guitarist. After the pair played in a band together, they longed fora project that would be their sole creative focus and could tour as far and wide as possible. A few weeks and two weeks after their proper formation with the addition of Jack Miller (drums) and Danny Zavala (guitar), the quartet made their live debut at Saint Vitus. They followed that up with shows across the Tristate DIY circuit.

The New Jersey-based quartet’s highly-anticipated Matthew Molnar-produced sophomore EP Come Back Down is slated for a January 24, 2025 release digitally and on vinyl through Kanine Records. The EP’s first sessions started last June when the band, along with Molnar went to Chairlift‘s Patrick Wimberly‘s Greenpoint studio to test new material with engineer Sam Darwish. They also brought tracks to Shane Furst and his Cloud Factory Recording to review their recent work and begin the next stages of completion.

Come Back Down marks the beginning of the band’s partnership with Kanine Records — and a key period in the band’s development. With a greater expression of sonic range, the EP sees the band offering more noise, more hooks, more heaviness and much more emotion: The sad is much sadder and the love is more swooningly in love. There are more song about loss and being lost. For the band, it’s the culmination of their growth after the release of their well-received debut EP Bomber, which was released through Julia’s War and Suburban Creep.

Last fall, the band took a break from the sessions to do a week-long tour with Austin-based outfit STAB, as well as opening slots for DIIV, Glare, Lowertown, A Place To Bury Strangers, as well as a Midwest run with Chicago’s Smut. After touring across the nation, the band finished the EP with Jeff Ziegler at his Philadelphia-based Uniform Recording. Zeigler’s work on Nothing.’s Guilty of Everything has been a major inspiration for the New Jersey-based group.

Come Back Down‘s lead single “In A Hole” is a decidedly 120 Minutes MTV-era take on shoegaze anchored around a towering wall of stormy guitars, thunderous drumming and ethereal boy-girl harmonies. The song’s brooding soundscape evokes the stormy emotions, trauma and unease that inspired it — but also the comfort of finding friendship and a community that truly understands where you’re coming from.

“’In A Hole’ is inspired by meeting our group of friends,” High.’s Christian Castan explains. “It’s about being depressed and the people close to you dragging you out of it. It’s about the peace and belonging I used to dream about during childhood trauma and finally finding it. There’s a lyric – ‘These are the new stars, they burst alive.’  It’s about living life at its best and never wanting that feeling to end.”

Directed by Aleko Syntelis, the accompanying video for “In A Hole” was shot and is set in Brooklyn and features the band playing a rooftop show and hanging out with their crew. The video captures the feeling of being young, of seemingly infinite possibilities ahead of you, of the pure joy of hanging out with your dearest ones, who will hold you down when you need them most.

“We shot this video during a rooftop show in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on the first night of our tour with Birthday Girl,” the band’s Castan recalls. “It was the last weekend of summer with hella New Jersey heads, some new friends, Keg stands, and the New York Skyline. Sh*t was nuts, someone downstairs tried to shut us down. Aleko captured our live set and we hope anyone who sees this gets what that night felt like.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Miranda and the Beat Shares Breakneck Ripper “Manipulate Me”

Formed back in 2018 here in NYC and now based in New Orleans, the rising rock outfit Miranda and the Beat — currently Miranda Zipse (vocals, guitar), Dylan Fernandez (Farfisa) and Alvin Jackson (bass) — have been renowned for their high-energy live shows and fearless punk approach.

After extensive touring to support last year’s self-titled full-length debut, the rising rock outfit will be releasing their highly-anticipated sophomore album Can’t Take it on October 25, 2024 through Ernest Jenning Record Co./Khannibalism across North America and Wild Honey in Europe.

Written and recorded in a five day burst at King Khan‘s Moon Studios Rock n Roll Vortex in a remote village on the German countryside, the album sees the band blending all the best flavors from pure punk anthems played at a eardrum shattering intensity, to grinding R&B, to hypnotic, edgy sci-fi alchemy and some heartbreaking balladry too. “If you need a soundtrack to an evening of Germs burns and mind-altering mayhem followed by warm heartfelt embraces and skid marks this is the band for you,” King Khan says. “The soundtrack to the real apocalypse has arrived and is waiting for you at your favorite record store. Real Rock n’ Roll is alive and well, the torches have been passed and the Molotov cocktails are being lit and thrown. Miranda and the Beat are the wild fire you have been waiting for to light under the collective asses to destroy patriarchies, topple kingdoms, smash colonies with a bold middle stink finger in place. Be forewarned…. And come find out what ‘Earthquake Water’ is, it may one day save your life.”

Can’t Take It’s third and latest single “Manipulate Me” is a breakneck and bruising, mosh pit friendly, punk rock ripper anchored around some scorching riffs. “Manipulate Me” brings back memories of sweaty, hardcore punk shows at Coney Island High and The Continental. So play as loud as humanly possible — and then open up that pit!

“This song was probably the most fun to write for the album,” Miranda and the Beat’s Miranda Zipse says. “We were all in King Khan’s studio getting wine drunk and spitballing lines back and forth. We pretty much spent the whole time rolling on the floor dying of laughter, which ended up being very therapeutic and what we needed to do at the time. This song’s about some real shit and it felt really good to get it out of our system in the form of an absolute fuckin banger. Moral of the story: always be a weirdo but never be a manipulative creep.”

Directed by Nazar Khamis and the band, the accompanying video was filmed by the band’s Dylan Fernandez and Nazar Khamis, and edited by the band’s Miranda Zipse and Dylan Fernandez. The video begins with the band hopping the turnstiles at the Morgan Avenue L train station, and following them being badasses around Bushwick.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Virginie B Shares Sleek and Breakneck “Astral 2000”

Virginie B is a rising, Montréal-based self-taught singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and self-described “extravagant mess” influenced by a wide range of music, including experimental electronic music, classical, old-timey jazz, 90s R&B, art pop, art rock and more. The French Canadian artist and her collaborator and co-produced Louis Jeay-Beaulieu have received attention across the province and elsewhere for crafting a unique take on hyper pop that incorporates elements of nu-jazz, funk and R&B with a refined conceptual approach informed by art pop. 

Thematically, her work is informed by her studies in psychology and sees her exploring her psyche, femininity and her relationship with technology and nature. For the rising French Canadian artist, her work is an outlet which she expresses her desires and excesses with an unvarnished honesty that reflects her vulnerability and confidence, while not taking herself too seriously. 

The rising Montréal-based producer and artist collaborates with a number of local acts including  Super Plage, Maggie Lennon, Georgette, Félix Dyotte and Marie-Gold among others. 

Her full-length debut, 2022’s INSULA garnered praise from ICI Première, Le Devoir, La Presse, Montreal Rocks!, and PAN M 360, which led to a nomination for Pop Album of the Year nomination at 2022’s GAMIQ.Adding to a growing profile, Virginie B played sets across the provincial festival circuit, including Francofoiles de Montréal, Coup de Cœur Francophone, Le Phoque OFF, Santa Teresa Festival, Taverne Tour, 2022’s M for Montréal — and last year’s SXSW. 

The Montréal artist’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Astral 2000 is slated for a Friday release through Bonsound. Reportedly, her Bonsound debut is at once quirky and accessible, visceral and sophisticated, synthetic and deeply human with its songs exploring conflicting personal themes: Throughout the album, the rising Montréal-based artist wavers back and forth between her love of nature and fascination with new technologies, her longing for lazy days and the urgency of her mortality, her desire for simple pleasures and need to perform (and to be)in the spotlight, her relationship with her femininity, her desires and the resulting excesses.

Conceived alongside producer, multi-instrumentalist and longtime collaborator Louis Jean-Beaulieu, Astral 2000 is one of la belle province’s first hyper pop albums. The album’s latest single, album opener and title track “Astral 2000” is set during an escapist night out, partying at a karaoke bar. Anchored around a breakneck BPM, thumping kicks, glistening and blocky synth arpeggios, “Astral 2000” is meant to evoke a white-knuckle ride through a wild cycle off partying, the pressure to perform and the soul-crushing search for authenticity through the perception of others. But throughout, Virginie B’s coquettish melodic delivery is a sharp and almost playful contrast to the song’s breakneck nature.

Directed by Rosalie Bordeleau, the accompanying video for “Astral 2000” is an homage to Wong Kar Wai and Sofia Coppola, meshing the two influences to evoke a woozy and dizzying sense of solitude. Flashing between intimate karaoke jam with friends, a motorcycle race through tunnels and a disorientating night-time wander through the city, the Montréal-based artist seems to find herself both isolated and connected to the world and people around her.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Homer and KIRBY Share Mind-Bending Visual for Lush “Rollin'”

Acclaimed New York-born and-based drummer, songwriter and producer Homer Steinweiss has a storied career that started in earnest when he was just a teenager. He has been instrumental in helping bring the raw-but-receptive soul sound back into the mainstream through his work with Amy Winehouse, Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley. Steinwess has also been behind the kit for nearly every contemporary soul outfit that has mattered. 

The New York-born and-based musician is now one of the most in demand drummers in the world, playing with the likes of Clairo, Solange, Adele, Silk Sonic and Bruno Mars, among a lengthy list of others. And much like his longtime bandmate Dave Guy, Steinweiss is stepping into the spotlight as a both a musician and producer with Ensatina, his first solo album released under the moniker Homer. 

Slated for a November 15, 2024 release through Big Crown Records, Ensatina is reflection of who Steinweiss is now and a testament of how struggle often brings about much-needed changes. He was dealing with considerable emotional turbulence; at the same time that his band Holy Hive broke up, a long-personal relationship fell apart, putting him in an uncertain place mentally. The fallout was significant enough for him to seek professional help. “I was going through these super manic highs and then very depressive lows,” Steinweiss explains. “And being in all that, it’s just so tough to imagine that the other side is there, that it’ll be ok.” But, with time, professional help, and support from friends and family, Homer made it through and has been forever changed. This album is a product of that period of his life.

For Steinweiss, creating the album was a refuge, and it put him back on track. Creatives across the world have an innate understanding of that. But the album is also a glimpse into the different energies that influences that make the man and the artist tick. And fittingly, the album is the beginning of a new, interesting chapter of Steinweiss’ life and career. 

The album’s second single, album opening track “Rollin’” features the self-proclaimed “granddaughter of soul” KIRBY. The song is anchored around a lush and swaggering, Quiet Storm-like soundscape with skittering and plinking 808s, broodingly regal horns, bursts of strummed guitar. KIRBY’s ethereal delivery, which alternates between scatting and cooing lyrics, floats over the lush production. 

Steinweiss fell in love with the melody scratch track, and, as he puts it, “the first take, that scratch take is always the one with the most feeling to it.” He ultimately decided to keep the first take for the album, loving the way it forces the listener to come up with their own interpretation of what exactly KIRBY is singing.

The accompanying animated video by Alex Cascone evokes a gentle yet mind-bending psilocybin trip that features a regal looking lizard and morphing geometric shapes.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: A Place To Bury Strangers Share Woozy “Bad Idea”

New York-based JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers — currently Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — will be releasing their seventh album Synthesizer on October 4, 2024 through Dedstrange records. 

While Synthesizer is the album’s title, it’s also a physical entity, a synthesizer specifically made for the album — and a synthesizer that you too, can own (in part), if you buy the record on vinyl. The album’s cover art doubles as a circuit board and functional synth for curious and enterprising fans. “It’s pretty messed up, chaotic. But it feels really human,” the band’s Oliver Ackermann says. 

In an era of making music where so little is DIY and so much is left up to AI, never setting foot in a practice room or a home studio, making something that feels deliberately chaotic, messy, and human, is entirely the point. The album celebrates sounds that are spontaneous and natural, the kind of music that can only come from collaboration and community. 

The writing sessions for Synthesizer started in the band’s Queens studio, shortly after the release of 2022’s See Through You. The new lineup which featured Ackermann and his friends John and Sandra Fedowitz was especially inspiring for Ackermann. “It felt like a fresh new thing,” he says. “I wanted to write songs everyone was excited about playing.” 

The album captures the band at a place of reinvention, where they take a carefully honed sound and approach and crack it wide open to gut its then reimagine it. And of course, to ever so slightly reinvent one’s sound, one must also built a new instrument — the synthesizer at the core of the album’s overall sound. 

Reportedly, Synthesizer is arguably one of the band’s most live-sounding albums to date, accurately capturing the rawness and explosiveness of the band in a live setting, which is a fitting for a band that is best in a live setting, where the material takes on a new energy in the presence of a crowd. “We’re artists,” Ackermann says, “Going to shows and bringing that imperfect and beautiful DIY ethos is important.” 

Earlier this year, I wrote about album single “Disgust,” a classic bit of APTBS. Or in other words, an eardrum shattering aural assault, anchored around explosive wailing feedback and distortion pedaled guitar lines paired with a relentles motorik groove featuring an arpeggiated bass line weaving in and out. But there’s subtle refinements, including some of the most rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly choruses and hooks I’ve heard from the band in some time.

“‘Disgust’ is a song I wrote that was inspired by the way I used to perform ‘Got That Feeling,’ a song by my old band Skywave,” Ackermann explains. “There was a long riding open note on the bass that enabled me to play the whole part with my fist in the air.  I wrote this song just on open strings so it could be played with just one hand: dumb and fun.” 

Synthesizer‘s latest single “Bad Idea” is anchored around a simple yet hypnotically looping drum beat, woozily oscillating feedback-driven guitar lines. John Fedowitz’s plaintive yet punchy delivery weaves in and out of the stormy and soundscape, which helps to evoke the vacillating, almost nauseating unease of self-doubt.

“Bad Idea” showcases the raw creativity of the band’s bassist John Fedowitz. “He came to the studio with a simple looping drum beat, thinking he didn’t have any good ideas — thus, this song was his ‘bad idea,'” the band’s frontman Oliver Ackermann says. “We each penned some lines on paper, and he sang the ones that resonated. After a few instrumental passes, the recording was complete. The result is an innovative track born from spontaneous collaboration and a touch of self-doubt, turned into something uniquely captivating.”

Shot and edited by Nick Kulp with additional filming by Mathilde Cartoux, the accompanying video for “Bad Idea” was shot during various live performances by the band between 2023-2024 on a Sony Hi8 video camera, and was edited through various analog glitch processors.

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Seafoam Walls Share Woozily Meditative “Humanitarian Pt. II”

Formed back in 2016, the acclaimed Miami-based quartet Seafoam Walls — Jayan Bertrand (vocals, guitar), Josh Ewers (bass), Josue Vargas (electronic drums) and Dion Kerr (guitar) — quickly caught the attention of undgeround music and art communities across South Florida a unique sound that they dubbed “Caribbean Jazzgaze,” a mesh of jazz, showcase, rock, hip-hop and Afro-Caribbean rhythms.

The Miami- based outfit exploded into the larger, international scene following a secret, all-ages matinee show with DC-based hardcore photographer Susie J. and Sonic Youth‘s Thurston Moore. Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the band released 2018’s R-E-F-L-E-C-T EP and 2019’s one-off “Root.”

2021’s full-length debut, XVI, which featured the A Storm in Heaven-meets-TV on the Radio-like “Program” was released through Thurston Moore’s The Daydream Library Series.

The Miami-based outfit’s sophomore album Standing Too Close To The Elephant In The Room is slated for an October 18, 2024 release through Dion Dia. The album’s title is partially derived for a metaphor for the often overlooked but significant challenges and complexes that people face in their lives. But it also is a warning about getting caught up in the details — at the risk of missing the bigger picture. “Everyone has an elephant in the room; an obvious problem in their life that everyone, including the person affected, knowingly looks past,” the band’s frontman Jayan Bertrand explains. “BUT, I say that one is standing too close, because the problem is more complex and their vision is too obstructed to see the bigger picture. So viewers are providing their skewed perspectives of the same problem. It’s an illustration of the areas in which intersectionality fails to meet.”

Standing Too Close To The Elephant In The Room reportedly represents a new chapter for the band: The album’s material not only showcases the band’s evolution as musicians, but it also solidifies their reputation as bounding-pushing artists, inviting the listener to a Technicolor mist of experimental influences and instrumentation. Continuing their commitment to full artistic autonomy, the band’s members took production duties, shaping an album that will reward those who will revel in its sweeping soundscapes, as thematically the material delves deeper into questioning the trappings of modern society and all of its contradictions.

The album’s latest single “Humanitarian Pt. II” is anchored around glistening guitar melodies and a relentless motorik-like groove and bursts of whirring synths. The arrangement serves as a lush and dreamy bed for Bertrand’s meditative vocal to sing philosophical lyrics that examines the motivation that makes us choose our paths — and how we go about those paths. Some people are drawn to the attention or superficial perks of an occupation, without understanding what it really entails. Through the song, the listener must face the very shitty reality that only certain efforts, from certain people get rewarded. Certainly, whether as a musician, a writer or a photographer, these observations are familiar, especially when you see others seemingly being much more successful at what you do, than you are.

“Before I picked up a guitar, I was simply a fan of music,” the band’s Bertrand explains. “Then, I began learning about the oppressive tactics of governments worldwide, and my world shattered. The entities of authority that assured me that everything they did was just were actually a key part of the problem. I started to believe that art was the only safe space in this cruel world. ‘Humanitarian Pt. II’ is about disillusionment. 
 
“I jumped into the music scene headfirst without realizing that the same tactics would exist. I then made it my mission to call out such tactics and question our societal norms like my favorite artists before me.
 
I’m still looking for an answer to all of my pressing questions, but it helps to be grouped with people with a similar mindset who have practical solutions. I gravitated towards Dion Dia records for our latest and upcoming releases because while everyone I admired raised great questions and awareness, Dion Dia presented a hopeful alternative.”

Shot on VHS, the accompanying video is a lo-fi, goofy and surrealistic romp that features the elaborately costumed band members playing different instruments in the studio — and it includes the group sing-a-along, clap-a-long montage.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Kris Cari Shares Breakneck Banger “No Pasa Na”

Carlos Luis Arroyo Cruz is a Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico-based singer/songwriter and Latin Pop artist, best known as Kris Cari. HIs work simultaneously reflects his Puerto Rican heritage and a diverse range of influences, from Miles Davis to Bad Bunny. Back in 2020, Cruz began working with the production crew at 1Face Music, which paved the way for his debut EP, 2022’s Platinum Waves, an effort that was praised for its unique sound, while helping him gain a devoted following.

“A Donde Fue,” a collaboration with Tunon received airplay from SiriusXM’s Viva Channel.

Last year was a big year for the Puerto Rican artist. “Ojos Tristes” was featured at the San Antonio Film Festival and received praise for its emotional depth. Summertime hits “Invoca” and “Un Verano Mas” managed to captivate audiences with catchy hooks and infectious energy. While “Una Carta Pa Ti” addressed driving under the influence, aiming to raise awareness within the Hispanic/Latino community about a serious issue through powerful lyrics and visuals. His sophomore EP, Arca touched upon love, heartbreak and resilience while drawing parallels with the biblical flood allegory.

The rising Puerto Rican artist’s latest single “No Pasa Na,” is a breakneck and free-wheeling merengue banger featuring a looping, twinkling keyboard figure paired with a chugging rhythm, skittering beats, a remarkably catchy hook and Kris Cari’s swaggering and punchy delivery. It’s the sort of song that would turn a small family gathering into a sweaty dance party that has your neighbors coming to join in.

Directed by Maico Jimenez, the accompanying video for “No Pasa Na,” begins a prototypical Latin family gathering: Some of the women are playing with a baby. Grandma is serving plates of food. Others are playing dominoes. The TV is on, featuring a video within a video. Suddenly, the staid gathering becomes a sweaty party.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay TR/ST Shares Brooding and Uneasy “Performance”

Toronto-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and producer Robert Alfons is the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed JOVM mainstay project TR/ST. For well over a decade, Alfons has captivated audiences with a unique blend of dynamic vocals, emotive lyrics and late night sensuality. 

Alfons’ fifth TR/ST album, the TR/ST and Nightfeelings co-produced Performance is slated for a Friday release through Dais Records. The album’s title alludes to a friend’s offhand remark about the Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based artist’s intrinsically performative nature. Recorded in Los Angeles, the album’s material reportedly seethes with dread, lust, reckoning and abandon. Sonically, the production pair achieved a thick, smoky balance of eerie synths and fog machine low end paired with bruised, crooning vocals. The result is an album of material that moves between beauty and bitterness, rousing anthems and crushing anguish rooted by emotional turmoil, the lingering ghosts of guilt and the memories of those wronged and those still unforgiven. 

Alfons’ voice is the anchor in the storm, singing a collage of impressions and confessions with a smeared, stream of consciousness logic. He’s both observer and instigator, performer and playwright, liberated by the stage and the night.

Last month, I wrote about the Cecile Believe and Nightfeelings co-produced “Dark Day,” an ethereal yet uneasy track featuring eerily atmospheric and glistening synth arpeggios, skittering industrial clang and clatter serving as a foggy and unsettlingly brooding bed for Alfons’ bruised and aching vocal. “I think there’s something in the song about the flashes that come to you when you try to fall asleep, flashes that show you where you have unfinished business,” Alfons says of the song. “It was such a pleasure working with Cecile Believe and Nightfeelings on production for this track.”

Performance‘s latest single, album title track “Performance” continues a run of brooding and uneasy material, anchored around a foggy, strobe-lit fueled production featuring bursts of glistening synth arpeggios, skittering, reverb-soaked beats. Alfons’ aching and bruised delivery ethereally floats over the menacing soundscape.

Directed and edited by Bryan M. Ferguson and featuring cinematography by George Harwood, the accompanying video for “Performance” follows Alfons as he arrives at a grim karaoke bar. While he’s lost in his own performance, the sparse crowd is lost in their thoughts. You can almost feel the despair through the screen.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Elisapie Tackles Sheryl Crow’s Smash-Hit “If It Makes You Happy”

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 a 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 last 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. 

Her fourth solo album, last year’s 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.

Almost a year since the release of Inuktitut, the JOVM mainstay returns with “Quviasukkuvit (If It Makes You Happy),” her take on the Sheryl Crow smash-hit that also took over the Nunavik radio airwaves when the Inuk artist was still a teen. Produced by close collaborator, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Joe Grass and translated into Inuktitut, Elisapie’s turns the twangy power ballad into a meditative and dreamily atmospheric tune anchored around some shoegazer-like textures and broodingly cinematic arrangements. The Inuk artist’s smoky and achingly tender delivery ethereally floats over the arrangement, expressing a nostalgic yearning for a time, a place and people that you can’t get back.

Much like the songs on Inuktitut, “Quviasukkuvit (If It Makes You Happy)” is inspired by one of Elisapie’s childhood memories: 

“An image that always comes to mind, no matter where I travel or live, is of the people dancing at the magical and dramatic Ikkarivvik Bar in Kuujjuaq,” the acclaimed Inuk artist says. “In my mind’s eye, it is always Friday night, and the moon is full. Most people are either a little drunk or very drunk. The bar and the dancefloor are an escape, and people dance to forget and escape. I recognize so many faces and I can see their smiles and closed eyes as they dance.

‘If It Makes You Happy’ was so popular in the North, and it reminds me so much of when I was a teenager. It played on TV and radio, and we listened to it at home. Those lines made us want to scream along with Sheryl. Her song liberates my people in the North, giving them the words to shout about being sad without feeling ashamed.”

When I perform this song, it has Sheryl Crow’s enthusiasm, but my Inuit sensibility slows it down, echoing the rhythm of the land.”