Category: Video Review

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Brainstory Shares a Woozy 70s-Inspired Visual for “XFaded,” an Ode To Getting Fucked Up

Brainstory‘s Leon Michels-produced sophomore album Sounds Good was released last month through renowned purveyors of soul, Big Crown Records. 

The album features the previously released:

  • “Gift of Life,” a lush, old-school, Quiet Storm-like, show-topping ballad built around a shimmering and vibey arrangement featuring fluttering, ethereal flute paired with Kevin Martin’s emotive, falsetto croon and some incredibly catch hooks. While the song see the band pulling from classic soul, psych soul and dub in a way that sounds like it could been released sometime between 1968-1974, “Gift of Life,” manages to feel remarkably modern. 

  • “Listen,” a classic, two-step inducing groove-driven song with shimmering analog synths, an overdrive-fueled guitar solo paired with some dreamy falsetto melodies and harmonies that sounds — to me, at least — as though it could have been been a Mandrill or Isley Brothers B side. The song sees the band’s Kevin Martin encouraging the listener to spend some time enjoying the present moment, because life’s all too short and remarkably fleeting 

  • “Peach Optimo,” a slow-burning and summery bit of psych soul anchored around a strutting and wobbling bass line, glistening keys, some funky drum rhythm patterns and an expressive guitar solo paired with some retro-futuristic synths. Seemingly channelling JOVM mainstays Mildlife and L’Eclair, sees the trio diving into the banality and simple pleasures of teenaged suburban life — full of the nostalgia of cul-de-sac hangs and bullshit sessions with the homies.

And Sounds Good‘s fifth and latest single “XFaded,” a strutting, hook-driven and funky psych soul jam anchored around an arrangement featuring skittering boom bap, a sinuous bass line and squiggling bursts of guitar. According to the trio, the song’s sound was partially inspired by what theft thought a modern day George Clinton/Parliament funk jam would sound like — and by small town life, where getting fucked up is an unofficial/official pastime because there isn’t much else to really do. The slick Leon Michels production paired with the band’s razor sharp yet seemingly effortless performance ironically contrasts the notion of getting sloppy and fucked up but reveals the easy-going chemistry between the trio and producer. 

Directed and animated by J. Bonne, the animated video for “XFaded” is visually indebted to The Beatles‘ Yellow Submarine, Fat Albert and Scooby Doo and follows the trio getting absolutely fucked up at a house party to wildly different results, including passing out with lit joint and drool rolling out of the corner of your mouth and almost starting a fire, desperately needing the wall to hold you up, but somehow failing and throwing up — or even hooking up with that pretty young thing that caught your eye. The video captures the wooziness of getting sloppily fucked up in a way that feels familiar to anyone who’s ever been sloppily fucked up at a party or in public.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Nashville’s Chapel of Roses Shares Slinky “Cast Out to Sea”

Nashville-based post punk outfit Chapel of Roses — Chris E. Kelley (vocal, guitar), Jim T. Graham (pedal steel), Preach Rutherford (bass), Colin Baker (drums) — can trace their origins back to the mid 1980s.

Their single “Chapel of Roses” received regular airplay on the local college radio station WRVU. And while the band’s members were just in high school, they toured for a bit including opening for Gene Loves Jezebel before breaking up. However, the members of the Nashville-based quartet continued to write and record music in a number of different projects throughout the years.

The band’s Chris Kelley spent the better part of the past two decades living overseas. But right before the pandemic, he returned to Nashville, and the the members of quartet started making music again.

The Nashville-based outfit’s latest single, “Cast Out to Sea” features backing vocals from Brittany Hadley. Anchored around a sinuous and slinky bass line, angular guitar stabs, driving four-on-the-floor and swirling reverb-soaked pedal steel serving as a brooding and sultry bed for Kelley’s yearning delivery and remarkably soulful catchy hooks with backing vocalist Brittany Hadley. And while the band cites Velvet Underground, Big Star, Ride, Joy Division, New Order as influences on their sound, “Cast Out to Sea” seems to channel Primal Scream and Britpop.

The accompanying, slickly edited video features the band performing the song in front of roving spotlight.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: AKA Kellz Teams Up with Ria Boss on a Celebration of Black Liberation, Beauty and Self-Acceptance

AKA Kelzz is a Berlin-based, queer, non-binary Black artist, who’s committed to intersectionality and uplifting BIPOC communities. The Berlin-based artist’s career and musical journey has been a testament to perseverance. Overcoming various setbacks and limited representation, AKA Kelzz found much-needed solace in Berlin while reigniting their passion for music.

The COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for the Berlin-based artist to develop their songwriting and to hone their production skills. Collaborating with producer Rafa Mura helped to launch their career, and since then they’ve become a rising figure in Berlin’s soul music scene.

Over the past year, the Berlin-based artist has played opening slots for Pip Millet and Madison McFerrin. They’ve also played sets at Melt Festival and X-Jazz Berlin Festival. And along with that, they’ve collaborated with JOVM mainstays Nick Hakim and Annahstasia as part of Noah Slee’s vocal ensemble A Song For You. Building upon a growing profile, AKA Kelzz’s recent releases “Free Falling,” “Hidden” and TikTok viral hit “Fly,” are part of the creation of a platform that specifically uplifts the voices of dark-skinned and/or queer black folks, who are often overlooked. (Fuck yes to all of that.)

Ria Boss is an acclaimed Ghanian musician, songwriter and performer with an incredible voice. Affectionately nicknamed “Cat Mama,” Boss has created Cat Mama World, where her multiple artist personalities and endeavors come to life.

Her latest album, 2022’s Remember was ranked the #1 R&B album of that year by Native Magazine. And Boss’ live show Cat Mama World as gained popularity for its showcase of her theatrical ability and storytelling.

AKA Kelzz’s latest single “Mango” sees the Berlin-based artist collaborating with the acclaimed Ghanian artist. Anchored around a sleek Afrobeats-meets-contemporary R&B-like production featuring bursts of strummed acoustic guitar, swirling and painterly layers of glistening synths paired with skittering beats, the song’s production serves as a dreamily lush bed for AKA Kelzz’s and Boss’ to trade soulful vocals — and for their ethereal harmonies. The song captures the profound joy of finding understanding and acceptance in a world that can be all too cruel to anyone not white, cis het or heteronormative.

And while sonically reminding me of THEESatisifaction, “Mango,” as the two collaborators explain is “a celebration of liberation, beauty and self-acceptance” that was inspired by the rising Berlin-based artist’s experience visiting Ghana last summer.

During that trip, AKA Kelzz experienced a profound sense of liberation. “I saw my reflection daily,” the Berlin-based artist says. “This unlocked a new level of Black liberation for me, and I want to bring this sunshine and liberation back to folks all over the world.” 

“This song is about embracing our own beauty and power. It’s about not being afraid to be who we are and to shine our light,” Ria Boss adds. “It feels like the softness of the sun on my skin and reminds me of how sweet life can be when we accept ourselves.”

Directed by Yalla She Said, the accompanying video for “Mango” features a collection of beautiful and incredibly stylish Black folk at a picnic in a verdant park. There’s different expressions of gender and of Black people — but they’re experiencing a collective joy while championing and holding each other up.

“The ‘Mango’ music video serves as a call to liberation, crafted to ignite inspiration and empowerment among BIPOC wom*n, urging them to champion each other on a profound life journey: to lead and shape a fresh reality where all feel truly seen and heard. Equal and embraced, amidst our myriad differences,” Yalla She Said explains.

“‘Mango’ becomes a vibrant celebration of colors and diversity, embracing the tender link between goddesses and the essence of nature, rooted in Mother Earth’s embrace. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Shonali Shares Mischievous, Dance Floor Friendly Bop “Up All Night”

Shonali Bhowmik is a Nashville-born, New York-based singer/songwriter, actor, comedian, filmmaker, lawyer and writer, whose musical roots developed in Nashville, where she began making music on an 8-track recorder with her childhood best friend Michelle Dubois in Ultrababyfat, an act that opened for the likes of Pavement and PJ Harvey while she was in law school.

She was pulled into the NYC comedy scene by her close friend David Cross after touring with him during his Let America Laugh tour. Since then, she started the groundbreaking and influential comedy collective Variety Shac alongside Chelsea Peretti, Heather Lawless and Andrea Rosen, and she was the host of The Shac’s popular Upright Citizen’s Brigade live show. Bhowmik has also worked with renowned comedians like Fred Armisen, John Early, John Roberts, Nimesh Patel, Dave Hill, Wyatt Cenac, and Amy Poehler. She currently released comedy albums by rising comedians on her own label Little Lamb Recordings. And lastly, she co-shots her own live variety show podcast series We Don’t Know, which showcases comedians, artists and musicians.

Throughout her lengthy music career, Bhowmik has released nine albums with Ultrababyfat, including three with her current band Tigers and Monkeys and her 2011 solo debut, 100 Oaks Revival. The Nashville-born, New York-based artist steps back out into the spotlight again as a solo artist with her long-awaited sophomore album One Machine At A Time.

Slated for a July 26, 2024 release through Little Lamb Recordings, One Machine At A Time reportedly sees Bhowmik touting her clever songcraft and evocative lyrics while culminating in genre-bending material that feels ubiquitous yet unique to her own experience as an Indian-American woman from Nashville. The album’s songs playfully explore and mesh different genres and eras but within a cohesive, carefully curated musical universe — and overall, a well-rounded album.

The strength and bravery of Bhowmik’s artist drive is rooted in the steadfast support of her mother and father, professors who immigrated to the States and constantly encouraged her musical and creative efforts. For her, that support is a significant influence on why her music is so unabashedly emotional and fearless.

The forthcoming album sees Bhowmik honoring her father Dr, Dilip Kumar Bhowmik, who recently passed away after a full life of kindness, humor and academic achievement. The album’s cover art, a photo of a young Shonali, taken by her father demonstrates their love and lasting connection. That love and spark of her father’s life continues to fuel her artistic life. Now, she’s able to say “Farewell, sweet one,” while showing how, in the face of loss, how her delicate spark shines on.

For the album, the Nashville-born, New York-based artist wrote a personal statement on the album, which I’m including below:

“A year to-the-date, after losing my father in 2022, I came to the realization I had to share my music with the world again. My dad always encouraged me to take risks, to be true to myself and to ‘go for it.’ In an effort to embrace his wisdom, there was little thinking to be done; I went for it. Once I made the decision to record a new full-length release everything came together quickly. I had a stockpile of demos recorded on my GarageBand which I suddenly realized were worth sharing with the world. I left New York City to go record in Atlanta, Georgia with my OG musical family, friends with whom I formally started my musical career. In July 2023 in Peoplestown, Georgia, I sat with my insanely talented producer friend Dan Dixon, drummer Darren Dodd (along with other talented friends K. Michelle DuBois, Shannon Wright, and Jeff Holt) and recorded my album.

The result of our therapeutic time together is One Machine At A Time, out July 26, an album which combines aspects of all the music I am inspired by – indie rock, soul, psychedelic and retro sounds of the 70s, 80s, and 90s along with the folk singer-songwriter and country influences of my time growing up in Nashville, Tennessee. It takes you on a journey through many genres.

“One of my BFF’s asked his 24-year-old nephew to listen… to which he said “this is really fucking good. It’s like a different genre every song.” Another one of my favorite quotes comes from a friend who said “there’s something retro feeling about these songs that tug on my heart strings in the best way…without feeling retro or dated, if that makes any sense.

As the daughter of Indian professors who immigrated to the United States during the Civil Rights Movement and a woman who grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, I have always been drawn to stories that amplify voices minimized by mainstream media outlets – so here I am pushing myself to be louder and prouder. I considered sharing my music under a pseudonym, but realized that this album reflects my personal journey – pondering the meaning of our lives (including past loves), the state of our world, where love of machines has taken over love for each other, and the celebration and difficulty of life. 

My name is Shonali (pronounced Show-nalley.) I am a southern girl with Indian parents, who has been recording my songs on a tape recorder since childhood. My first doll was named Johnny Cash. My goal is connection – our goal should be connection – and I continue to be unable to resist the need to share my voice.   It’s my hope that this album fills in the gaps musically, sonically and emotionally for those who feel like they are watching life from the outside in.”

One Machine At A Time‘s latest single “Up All Night” is a disco pop-tinged bit of post punk anchored around squiggling guitar stabs, oscillating synths, propulsive polyrhythm and a sinuous bass line. The new single sonically channels a slick synthesis of Talking Heads “Stay Up Late,” Entertainment-era Gang of Four and Stevie Nicks‘ “Stand Back” but while evoking a mischievous coquettishness and achingly earnest yearning. The song also showcases Bhowmik’s uncanny knack for crafting ridiculously catchy hooks and larger-than-life, Karen O-like delivery.

Directed by Eleanore Pienta, the accompanying video is a much-needed joy bomb that follows Bhowmik letting loose and getting down while wearing a sparkly top, blue pants and neon green shoes and singing to the song. The video captures an unabashedly goofy and fun-loving spirit — while pointing out something we all do in our own homes, even if it’s singing wildly off-key.

Bhowmik writes on the video:

“At this point, I’m on a mission to continue to make every aspect of sharing this album a celebratory occasion. So asking Eleanore Pienta who directed the video for ‘Up All Night’ was a no brainer. She is the definition of celebration! She’s an actor, director, comedian, dancer, performance artist – yeah – we are all multi-hyphenates. She and I are long time friends who initially met through the comedy world. She’s a member of the incredible dance group Cocoon Central Dance Team (along with Sunita Mani and Tallie Medel.) I was especially blown away by watching one of her one-woman shows at Under St. Marks years ago – in which she’d shared some of her brilliantly kooky films. Our heads came together simultaneously regarding me just letting GOOOOO for this video! We are soul sisters when it comes to silly dancing. So we spent an afternoon at Wyckoff Windows Studios in Brooklyn with the goal of having a blast and our mission was accomplished. You can’t help but feel the joy of Shonali and Eleanore in this new video. Honestly, if you don’t – what’s going on with you? Ha!”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Washed Out Shares Surreal, Dream-like Visual for Achingly Nostalgic “The Hardest Part”

Back in 2021, Washed Out‘s creative mastermind Earnest Greene left Atlanta returned to the countryside he knew when he grew up. Where escapism once flooded his thoughts, today, he’s preoccupied with the universe of wonder in the reality around him.

He named the former horse farm he moved to “Endymion,” after the John Keats poem about a lovesick shepherd. It has shaped all that he’s created there, from his music to his albums’ creative direction to his planned large-scale visual-art experiments.

Greene’s fifth Washed Out Album, Notes From A Quiet Life is slated for a June 28, 2024 release through Sub Pop. The album, which reportedly is Greene’s most audacious effort to date, is anchored around a purity of vision. It’s also the first album of his catalog that Greene wholly self- produced with mixing assistance from Nathan Boddy and David Wrench.

Notes From A Quiet Life‘s first single “The Hardest Part” is classic Washed Out with subtle refinements: The atmospheric and achingly dream-like and nostalgia-inducing production is anchored around twinkling and arpeggiated keys, glistening bass synths, bursts of strummed guitar paired with Greene’s penchant for crafting catchy hooks and swooning choruses. And much like the JOVM mainstay’s most recently work, the song has Greene’s vocal front and center, with the song’s tale of love lost being the heartbroken star of the show.

Unabashed and unafraid to pioneer and incorporate new technologies within his art, Greene enlisted multi-disciplinary artist, writer, and director Paul Trillo to direct the music video for the album’s lead single, “The Hardest Part.” Created using OpenAI’s Sora, “The Hardest Part” marks the first collaboration with an artist and filmmaker to be generated entirely utilizing this technology.

Before I forget some background here: OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company. Their mission is to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. OpenAI’s Sora is an AI model that can create realistic and imaginative videos from text instructions. Although the model isn’t publicly available as of this writing, OpenAI is currently working with a number of visual artists, designers and filmmakers to gain feedback on how to advance the model to be the most helpful for creative professionals.
 
“I had the seed of this video concept 10 years ago, where we do an infinite zoom of a couple’s life over the course of many decades, but I have yet to attempt it because I figured it’d be too ambitious for a music video,” Paul Trillo says. “While the technology is experimental and cutting-edge, I wanted to do something that also felt like a classic music video that would hold your attention no matter what tech was being used in the process. I was specifically interested in what makes Sora so unique. It offers something that couldn’t quite be shot with a camera, nor could it be animated in 3D, it was something that could have only existed with this specific technology. The surreal and hallucinatory aspects of AI allow you to explore and discover new ideas that you would have never dreamed of.  Using AI to simply recreate reality is boring. I wasn’t interested in capturing realism but something that felt hyperreal. The fluid blending and merging of different scenes feels more akin to how we move through dreams and the murkiness of memories. While some people feel this may be supplanting how things are made, I see this as supplementing ideas that could never have been made otherwise. Many artists in this industry are constantly compromising and negotiating their ideas with the reality of what can be made. This offers a glimpse at a future where music artists will be given the opportunity to dream bigger. An overreliance on this technique may become a crutch and it’s important that we don’t use this as the new standard of creation but another technique in the toolbelt.”
 

“‘The Hardest Part’ is a story about nostalgia and love lost.  With the video, I wanted to bring this narrative to life in a sincere way that was also exciting and unexpected. I’ve been a fan of Paul for a long time and he is amazingly skilled at incorporating cutting-edge visual effects that elevate a story instead of simply supplementing it with shock and awe,” Washed Out’s Ernest Greene says. “He was at the top of my list of potential collaborators. 
 
“What he’s come up with is nostalgic, sad, uplifting, and often quite strange.  However, he still manages to make you feel for the characters and invested in the journey of how their lives progress.

“I think that Paul is right when he says that this video could only be made using this new AI technology.  In my opinion, the hallucinatory quality of Sora clips feels like the beginning of a new genre unto itself – one that is surreal and unpredictable and entirely unique to traditional cinema or even animation.”
 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Mayflower Madame Shares Brooding and Anthemic “A Foretold Ecstasy”

Rising Oslo-based post-punk outfit Mayflower Madame — Trond Fagernes (vocals, guitar, bass) and Ola J. Kyrkjeeide (drums) along with Kenneth Eknes (synths), who joins the band in the studio — can trace their origins back to 2011. Their hazy and smoky sound was conceived and inspired by the band’s gritty surroundings: Their first rehearsal space was a desolate, industrial building, which they shared with a local carwash company. After their formation, they quickly recorded a four-track demo, which led to the band being named “Unsigned Band of the Week” on one of Norway’s biggest radio stations.

Shortly after their four-track demo, the band then spent the next few years touring and playing shows across Scandinavia, carefully honing their sound along the way. The band’s full-length debut, 2016’s eight track Observed in a Dream was brooding and icy psych rock rooted in dark romanticism. Based on the success of their full-length debut, the Oslo-based outfit toured across North America and Europe to support the album.

Building upon a growing profile nationally and internationally, the Norwegian band released, the four-song Premonition EP, which they supposed with more touring, including stops across the European festival circuit. Because of the band’s relentless touring they’ve shared stages with an impressive and growing array of artists including Killing Joke, Moon Duo, Night Beats, Psychic Ills, Froth, The Underground Youth, Crocodiles, Cosmonauts and La Femme.

The Norwegian JOVM mainstays’ sophomore album, 2020’s Prepared for a Nightmare saw the band further developing a blend of psych-noir and post with elements of shoegaze and noise rock — and featured “Vultures” “Swallow” and “Sacred Core,” tracks that to my ears, channeled The Black Angels and Chain of Flowers.

Since the release of Prepared for a Nightmare, the Oslo-based JOVM mainstays have been busy: They spent 2022 touring across the UK and Europe. And last year, they released Prepared for a Nightmare Deluxe, which featured five previously unreleased tracks from the album’s recording sessions while working on new material.

Mayflower Madame’s highly-anticipated third album is slated for release later this year digitally through Norwegian label Night Cult Records, on CD through French label Icy Cold Records and on vinyl through French label Only Lovers Records and British label Up In Her Room. The album was mixed by renowned Italian engineer Maurizio Baggio, who has worked with the likes of The Soft Moon, Boy Harsher and JOVM mainstays The Vacant Lots.

The forthcoming album’s first single “A Foretold Ecstasy” sees the band refining their sound: The song is built around a forceful, motorik-like pulse, atmospheric synths, reverb-drenched shimmering guitar stabs and anthemic hooks and choruses serving as post-punk-inspired soundscape for Trond Fagernes’ yearning and uneasy delivery. The result is a song that simultaneously feels dark, brooding and somehow euphoric.

The band’s Fagernes explains that the song is about “constantly chasing ome elation or intoxicating sensation to relieve one’s inner turmoil, while still being aware that it’s just a passing state followed by an inevitable downfall.”

The accompanying video features a trippy array of images that pulse and undulate with the song’s relentless motorik-like groove.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Atlanta’s Rose Hotel Shares Lynchian Visual for Lush and Sultry “Fruit Tree”

Jordan Reynolds is a Bowling Green, KY-born, Atlanta-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, whose career started in earnest when she was 19 and playing keys in psych rock outfit Buffalo Rodeo. “We bought an Econoline van that didn’t even have seats in it for like $1,500. We fixed it up, and I learned how to be in a band,” she says. “I learned how to communicate with sound guys, how to fix a pedal board on the fly, how to be the only girl on a tour with 10 dudes. It was a super formative time for me. When rubber hit the road, I was like ‘oh, this is actually what I really want to be doing.’”

Since her time in Buffalo Rodeo, Reynolds has built a career as an in-demand side musician playing keys and guitar and providing backing vocals for Neighbor Lady, Susto, Faye Webster and She Returns From War, while being the creative mastermind behind the recording project Rose Hotel.

Reynolds collaborated with longtime friend Micheal Ruth to produce her debut Rose Hotel EP, 2017’s Always a Good Reason, which helped her build a following in small-town music scenes around the Southeast. Her full-length debut, 2019’s I Will Only Come When It’s a Yes received praise from Vice, as “a wonderfully collaborative LP,” where “Reynolds’ songwriting shines as she navigates the gray areas in love and life” and featured a cultivated group of DIY musicians in her then-newly adopted home base of East Atlanta.

Since then, Reynolds has released a double cassingle 2020’s “Drive Alone”/”Constant” and 2021’s The House That We Knew EP through Nashville-based Cold Lunch Recordings.

While her full-length debut, presented a coming-of-age story, the Atlanta-based artist’s highly-anticipated sophomore album, the 10-song A Pawn Surrender approaches adulthood with a genre-spanning yet cohesive approach that pulls from an expansive palette of psychedelic shimmer and jangle and Southern folk that was inspired and informed by a chess metaphor. “I was playing a lot of chess when I wrote this album, so I started to think about these songs as if they were all different pieces on the board representing varying aspects of my songwriting, personality, and experience,” Reynolds explains. “Each piece has its own specific purpose and its own strength to utilize, but you can’t play the game with only your queen or your knights, or whatever. That became such a comforting idea and ethos to operate within – not just accepting variety but finding its inherent value. I went into the studio without any fear of being all over the board. I wanted to be limitless in letting my influences shine through the music in different ways.”

The studio backing band for the A Pawn Surrenders sessions features a personally hand-picked group of players that Reynolds knows from DIY scenes across the Southeast and includes Rich Ruth’s and S.G. Goodman‘s Micheal Ruth (synth), Neighbor Lady’s, Night Palace‘s, and CDSM‘s Jack Blauvelt (lead guitar, drums), Margo Price‘s, Caitlin Rose‘s, and Orville Peck‘s Luke Schneider (pedal steel), Neighbor Lady’s Payton Collier (bass, drums), RumorsATL‘s and Nomenclature‘s Denny Hanson (bass, piano) and a list of others.

Reynolds co-produced the album with Standard Electric Recorders engineer Damon Moon and Mirror Mirror Recordings engineer Graham Tavel. She enlisted acclaimed Athens, GA-based producer Drew Vandenberg for additional production and mixing. “I brought Damon and Graham together to form one unified brain with me,” she explains. “Damon’s incredibly curated studio space has a certain crispness that I was after. He knows how to get that clean, beautiful, organic sound. On the other end of the spectrum, Graham comes from a background in Punk and DIY, and brings a really unique analog approach. Together, I think we found a sweet spot between HiFi and LoFi.”

Thematically, the album reportedly sees the Bowling Green, KY-born, Atlanta-based artist exploring relationships, feminine rage, lust, temptation, blissful ignorance, apathy, delusions, illusions and more.

A Pawn Surrender‘s latest single “Fruit Tree” is a lush and seamless synthesis of 60s psych pop and psych folk and shoegaze, featuring an arrangement of shimmering acoustic guitar and electric guitar, fluttering flute, atmospheric synths and thunderstorm samples. While seemingly evoking getting caught in a rain storm on a narrow stretch of two-lane blacktop surrounded by verdant greenery, the song is anchored by Reynold’s sultry, siren-like delivery beckoning the listener to come, come, come . . .

“I wrote ‘Fruit Tree’ towards the end of the album writing process — a time where I was thinking very much about what I wanted from music and my ‘career’ and if that dream was even possible anymore,” Reynolds explains. “I wanted to personify the temptation of success in music as something sensual and lusted over, which brought up the image of the forbidden fruit. The lyrics are written from the perspective of the Fruit Tree, but with the tantalizing voice of an alluring woman. Sort of a ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’ tune.”

Directed by Hannah Welever and her production company Good Trouble Films, the accompanying video is a gorgeously shot, Lynchian and eerily Southern Gothic tale of lust, longing, temptation and madness

A Pawn Surrender is slated for a June 7, 2024 release through Strolling Bones Records.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Miki Berenyi Trio Shares Dreamy and Meditative “Vertigo”

Miki Berenyi Trio features an acclaimed and accomplished group of artists:

  • Miki Berenyi (vocals/ guitar), a founding member, frontperson and rhythm guitarist of acclaimed and iconic shoegazer outfit Lush — and the founder and frontperson of acclaimed outfit Piroshka

  • Kevin “Moose” McKillop (guitar), a founding member of acclaimed shoegazers Moose, Berenyi’s spouse and Piroshka bandmate

  • Oliver Cherer (bass)

  • Michael Conroy (bass), a member of beloved post punk outfit Modern English, who had a stint as McKillop’s bandmate in Moose and sat in on Lush’s last live show ever — and a member of Piroshka with Berenyi and McKillop, will be joining the band for their forthcoming Stateside tour

The trio’s first official single “Vertigo,” is a gorgeous and meditative track anchored around skittering heartbeat-like thump, atmospheric synths, swirling shoegazer guitar textures. The song’s arrangement and production serves as an atmospheric yet lush bed for Berenyi’s imitable ethereal and yearning delivery talking herself — and all of us, really — down from the precipice of endless anxiety and dread.

“Vertigo” has been a part of the band’s live set for over a year, and is one o the first songs they wrote together. “‘Vertigo’ is about anxiety and the efforts to talk myself down from the precipice – the usual cheerful stuff,” Berenyi explains. Talking about the recording process, she adds, ““It’s a challenge to not have a drummer, and to use more programming, but the essence of the music is still guitars and melody – as it always has been, particularly in mine and Moose’s bands.” 

The accompanying video was filmed by French director Sébastien Faits-Divers in Dijon‘s Consortium Museum (Contemporary Art Center) in one of the Isabella Ducrot exhibition rooms, capturing the trio performing the song in the round — and surrounded by remarkably childlike and dream-like art.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: KOKOKO! Shares Throbbing and Propulsive “Bazo Bango”

The acclaimed Congolese collective KOKOKO!’s highly-anticipated sophomore album BUTU is slated for a July 5, 2024 release through Transgressive Records. BUTU sees the collective continuing to pair a defiantly resistant punk-like energy, informed and inspired by the attitude and thought of a new generation of Congolese artists and young people with their neck-snapping, attention-grabbing block party alchemy — but pushed to new, global heights.

Kinshasa’s after-dark buzz was one of the major inspirations behind BUTU, which means “the night” in Lingala, and the album dives deep into the heart of the chaotic, throbbing city, celebrating and championing the joyful and creative spirit of its inhabits. Continuing their ongoing collaboration with Belgian producer Xavier Thomas, a.k.a. Débruit, the forthcoming album sees the collective led by Makara Bianko channeling a more electronic-driven, upbeat sound while replicating the frenetic feel of their hometown’s dynamic nightlife: equipment is pushed to its limits through saturated and distorted speakers and the sonic push-and-pull of nighttime sounds. 

The band employs field recordings, recorded from the city’s nighttime sounds and “ready-made percussion” like detergent bottles, which they fed through distortion to get closer to their city’s nighttime sounds. “Compared to Fongola, this album is intentionally way more intense, because it’s quite upbeat and quite full-on,” Xavier Thomas says. The album’s material also pulls from much wider influences and span across West Africa and South Africa, influenced by Bianko’s global travel, which introduced him to new types of alternative electronic music and punk. 

Over the past couple of months, I’ve written about the following singles:

“Mokili” a house music inspired banger featuring glistening synth arpeggios, relentlessly skittering hi-hats and tweeter and woofer rattling thump serving as a slickly produced bed for Bianko’s crooning and impassioned shouts. Continuing a remarkable run of club friendly material with an in-your-face punk attitude and ethos, “Mokili” captures the frenetic and sweaty energy of their hometown and its nightlife scene with an uncanny, novelistic realism. But along with that, the song is a forceful and joyous reminder that Africa is the present and the future.

“’Mokili’ is about moving the world so much that it’s going to tip over sort of,” the acclaimed Congolese collective explains. “This track was a track we were used to trying live in a more improvised way, we never got the chance to record till recently where we added the right touch for the studio. It was the last addition to our album BUTU and became the first single, so it’s really fresh. It has obviously influences from Kinshasa but also Kwaito and 90’s dance music.”

“Salaka Bien,” a euphoric, trance-inducing banger anchored around percussion created on heavy ceramic pots and pans, glistening house music synth stabs and skittering beats that helps to emphasize Bianko’s punchy and swaggering delivery singing lyrics full of winking sexual innuendo. If this track doesn’t fire you up and get you moving, you’re probably dead — literally and figuratively. 

“It’s a bass line driven track, with a lot of influences, like punk funk meeting old house stabs with a trance feeling!” The acclaimed Congolese collective explain. “When we play it live there are moments of overwhelming feeling building till it explodes and people let go totally. Do it, do it good, do it till you break it”.

BUTU‘s third and latest single “Bazo Bango,” derives its title from a Lingala phrase that translates to English as “they are scared,” a chant sung by crowds as a way to vent frustration, the collective explains. Anchored around a looping and propulsive electric bass line, skittering electronic beats, twinkling and percussive polyrhythm and bursts of woozy synth arpeggios pared with chanted call and response vocals, “Bazo Bango” is a euphoric, riotous banger that captures Kinshasa’s chaotic, throbbing and irresistible energy with a mischievous aplomb.

The accompanying video is a woozy mix of digital and electronic glitch shot in and around Kinshasa that pulsates to the song’s relentless throb.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ren Harvieu Shares Swooning Baroque Pop Anthem “Black Wig”

Ren Harvieu is an emerging Manchester, UK-based singer/songwriter and producer. Harvieu’s work is inspired by a life altering brush with death when she was 20 — and by the Northern English working class penchant for finding humor within despair.

The Manchester-based artist’s single, the Romeo Stodart and Harvieu co-written and co-produced “Black Wig” is a baroque, chamber pop anthem reminiscent of Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Kishi Bashi and Vanille but anchored in an off-kilter yet swooning arrangement of strings, marxophone, harpsichord and musical saw paired with Harvieu’s ethereal Kate Bush-like delivery.

I could picture Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette twerking to this. But as the emerging Manchester-based artist explains, “‘Black Wig’ is an ambitious baroque pop for all the unhinged out there, who are just far too fabulous and tortured for this world.”

Directed by Romeo Stodart, the accompanying video for “Black Wig” visually plays on the Marie Antoinette vibes of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Denmark’s 802 Shares a Mind-Bending, Genre-Defying Ripper

At one point, Andreas “Slowoff” Asingh was one of the most critically acclaimed electronic artists in Denmark, working with internationally renowned artists like Raekwon while touring the world. Eventually, life’s twist and turns took Asingh […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Paris’ Comma Period Shares Hypnotic “Presets for Life”

Vivian Morrison is a Paris-based electronic music producer, artist, remixer and creative mastermind behind emerging project Comma Period. Morrison initially started the project to remix a couple of songs for French multi-instrumentalist Colleen.

Comma Period quickly developed into a project rooted in retro-futuristic escapism, cyberpunk loneliness and synthwave nostalgia for a future that will never be and we’ll never see. The project’s debut EP Ruin Porn was released earlier this year. Thematically, the EP’s material is informed by the modern fascination with ruins — both ancient and modern. But it’s also about the horror of the ruins of Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere, and our powerlessness to stop the ongoing madness of our world.

The EP’s latest single “Presets for Life (Radio Edit)” is a hypnotic, industrial banger featuring layers upon layers of glistening and woozy synth oscillations paired with skittering beats. While sonically recalling Snap!’s “Rhythm Is A Dancer” and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK, the song as the emerging Parisian explains, ask a couple of questions: Wouldn’t it be nice if we had presets in real life, like in music software? And those presets would tell us how to behave, how to love, how to live and how to die?

Edited by Morrison, the accompanying video for “Presets for Life” features open source videos available on Pexels, and follows a young boy exploring a suburban ruin. Throughout, the video’s imagery gently undulates to the music, adding a lysergic feel to the visual.

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s DVTR Shares Anthemic Ripper “Les flics (sont des sacs à merde)”

Deriving their name as an acronym for the French phrase “D’où vient ton riz?” (Where does your rice come from?), Montréal-based duo DVTR is a new collaborative project featuring two of the city’s most highly acclaimed artists:

  • Laurence G-Do, the frontperson of JOVM mainstays  Le Couleur, an act that has toured internationally several times, and has opened for Giorgio Moroder, Polo & Pan and others, while amassing over 18 million streams across digital streaming platforms. 

  • JC Tellier, who has played with Gazoline, an act that has received multiple ADISQ and GAMIQ award nominations. Tellier has also played with Kandle, Xavier Caféine, Gab Bouchard and a lengthy list of other well-regarded artists in Québec. 

With the release of their debut EP BONJOUR, the French Canadian duo have been burning up the Canadian indie scene: The EP amassed a plethora of rapturous reviews, landed on a number of Best of 2023 Lists and earned the duo a handful of awards in Québec. 

The acclaimed and rising French Canadian duo celebrate their first full year of the project with their latest single “Les flics (sont des sacs à merde),” which translates into English as “The cops (are shitbags)” has quickly become a staple of their live set. Anchored around a supple and propulsive bass line, G-Do’s punchy delivery, buzzing power chords, and a steady four-on-the-floor, “Les flics” brings Ting Tings’ “That’s Not My Name” to mind — but while rooted in an unequivocal message that protestors and countless others rally behind: ACAB! Throughout the song, the duo excoriate and ridicule cops, referring them as a violent, brainless bullies and a shit ton more.

The computer animated video by Romy Côté further emphasizes its accompanying song’s themes: The video begins with an out-of-shape cop driving in a police car. Fittingly, the cop looks like a clown. As he drives around town, he comes across two people vandalizing some property. After a chase, the two young vandals overtake the cop and replace his shit for brains for an actual brain.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Razor Braids Share a “120 Minutes” MTV-Like Ode to the Uncertainty of New Love

Brooklyn-based indie outfit Razor Braids — Hollye Bynum (lead vocals, bass), Janie Peacock (lead guitar), Jilly Karande (vocal, rhythm guitar) — had a breakthrough 2023: Their full-length debut, I Could Cry Right Now If You Wanted To was released to critical praise from the likes of BrooklynVegan, Paper, Vanyaland, Creem Magazine and others. Adding to a big year, the band opened for The National, Foo Fighters, and Worriers, and they made the rounds of the festival circuit, playing sets at that year’s SXSW and Boston Calling.

The band’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Big Wave is slated for a June 2024 release. The album reportedly sees the band furthering their dedication to tightly layered vocals and emotionally reflective lyrics. Big Wave‘s third and latest single “Berate Me” features a dreamy and contemplative introduction, quickly followed by a prototypical grunge song structure held together by the crunch power chords and the big hooks that bring back memories of 120 Minutes MTV-era alt rock, like Live Though This-era Hole, Veruca Salt and others. The song conveys the woozy unease of starting a new relationship — with the all the prerequisite fears and uncertainties that we all have throughout our lives: Will this end like the other times? Will this be better? Will it be worse? What if it was always me? What if I just choose wrong? And so on in that sickening and all too familiar cycle of doubt. But it also captures a narrator, who has done some work on themselves and acknowledges they deserve and need better than what they’ve had in the past.

“’Berate Me’ is about entering a new romantic relationship with someone and the anxiety and baggage you bring along with you,” Razor Braids’ Bynum explains. “The healing done from past experiences has led you to the realization that you should be treated better than you’ve been. You recognize the patterns not only with past partners, but also within yourself. What is my role in this? What unhealthy behaviors am I exhibiting? It sometimes sucks to be self-aware. There’s this sense of playing it cool and really badass in a new relationship when in fact you’re like shitting your pants. You don’t want to show all your skeletons in the closet.”

Directed, produced, choreographed and edited by Hollye Bynum, the accompanying video for “Berate Me” shows the band’s members dressed in red and in a front of a red background struggling against themselves and forces that would deny them the hard-earned wisdom and peace they’ve fought for.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Sweet Kill Shares Brooding and Anthemic “Forbidden”

Pete Mills is a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and creative mastermind behind the solo recording project The Sweet Kill. With The Sweet Kill, Mills focuses on the darker and goth side of post-punk.

Constantly recording and producing material at his own studio, Shadow Zone Sound, Mills wrote The Sweet Kill debut album Darkness with the expressed intention to inspire those lost in the shadows of life. Anchored around cold wave-like synths, post-punk drums, atmospheric guitar and melodic bass, the album’s material channels Editors, Fontaines DC, Joy Division and others while thematically exploring the the soul’s journey between two worlds, asking the question: Are we eternally floating in the ether? Or are we never lost and always found?

“Forbidden,” Nowhere‘s latest single is a brooding and anthemic bit of post punk anchored around glistening and angular guitar tones, swaggering and thunderous beats, a propulsive and melodic bass line and enormous hooks and choruses and an atmospheric, acoustic guitar-driven bridge. The arrangement and production serves as a lush, arena rock friendly bed for Mills plaintive baritone. And while sonically seeming to channel White Lies, Editors, Interpol and others, “Forbidden” tackles love, longing and loss through some Romantic tropes and a lived-in specificity.

Directed by Ellen Hawk and shot in a gorgeous, cinematic black and white, features protagonists, who are outcasts and whose love for each other is fiery and passionate yet forbidden. They’re led to a secret world, which is both an escape and exile, and where they can be both consumed by their love. Sounds like an Edgar Allan Poe story doesn’t it?