Category: Video Review

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Geneva Jacuzzi Shares a Striking Visual for a Brooding and Retro-futuristic Bop

Geneva Jacuzzi is a Los Angeles-based multimedia artist, whose immersive and unhinged performances are considered legendary: they often involve a psychotropic gallery of masks, costumes, confrontation and massive art installations. Her recorded music frequently features catchy hooks and cryptic moods dusted in 4-track grit.

Jacuzzi recently signed to Dais Records, who shared the following about the signing: “As long-time fans of Geneva’s immersive world-building, singular songwriting and unforgettable live performances, we are honored to welcome her to the Dais roster.” She adds, “So excited to join the Dais crew. It’s definitely the coolest label in LA. Exciting new adventures on the horizon!” 

The Los Angeles-based multimedia artist’s latest single “Dry” is a brooding yet swaying bit of 80s retro-futuristic synth pop, anchored around layers of glistening analog synth arpeggios and skittering beats paired with catchy, razor sharp hooks. Jacuzzi’s seemingly detached vocal singing about disconnection and uncertainty ethereally floats over the dreamy arrangement.

“I took a little break from writing music and when I sat down at home to record, ‘Dry’ was the first song to burst out,” Jacuzzi recalls. “The music came together so instantly it’s as if it had been waiting and perfecting itself for years in the ether. The chorus lyrics came that same week after I went on a date with Mike Judge and he never called me back (haha). I wasn’t upset or anything, but I had never been ghosted before and couldn’t help but equate modern love to an appliance you buy on the home shopping network.”

The accompanying video is shot in a strikingly cinematic black and white, and features Geneva suspended upside down in an elaborate art installation-meets-costume, being literally hung out to dry.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Los Bitchos Share Glittery Visual for Disco-Inspired Romp “La Bomba”

Acclaimed London-based instrumental outfit Los Bitchos — Australian-born, Serra Petale (guitar); Uruguayan-born Agustina Ruiz (keytar); Swedish-born, Josefine Jonsson (bass) and London-born Nic Crawshaw (drums) — can trace their origins to meeting at various late-night parties and through mutual friends. Inspired by their individual members’ different upbringings and backgrounds, the acclaimed British outfit have firmly established a genre-blurring and retro-futuristic sound that blends elements of Peruvian chica, Argentine cumbia, Turkish psych, surf rock, and the music each individual member grew up with: 

  • The Uruguayan-born Ruiz had a Latin-American music collection that the members of the band fell in love with

  • The Swedish-born Jonsson “brings a touch of out of control pop,” her bandmates often joke

  • Aussie-born Petale is deeply inspired by her mother’s 70s Anatolian rock records

  • And the London-born Crawshaw played in a number of local punk bands before joining Los Bitchos

“Coming from all these different places,” Los Bitchos’ Serra Petale says, “it means we’re not stuck in one genre and we can rip up the rulebook a bit when it comes to our influences.”

Los Bitchos’ Alex Kapranos-produced, critically applauded, full-length debut, 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin! was recorded at Gallery Studios, and saw the band cementing their reputation for crafting playful, lysergic yet party friendly grooves.

The London-based JOVM mainstays capped off a breakthrough year with two Serra Petale and Javier Weyler-co-produced singles “Tip Tapp” and “Los Chrismos,” their first Christmas-themed composition. Fittingly, “Los Chrismos” is a celebratory party-starting romp built around a psych rock-inspired, dexterous and looping guitar line, atmospheric synths, cumbia rhythms paired with holiday appropriate cheers and shouts. Simply put, the song is a much-needed hope and joy bomb in desperate, uneasy time.

The tracks were released digitally and physically on a flexi-disc, bundled with a red vinyl re-pressing of their debut — for that year’s holiday season..

Building upon a growing profile internationally, the London-based JOVM mainstays released 2023’s PAH! EP, a two-track effort that featured a mischievously, rowdy and downright boozy cover of The Champs‘ oft-covered “Tequila,” a song that has become a fan favorite during the band’s live shows. The EP also featured a reworking of King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard‘s “Trapdoor.”

The British outfit’s latest single, the Oli Barton Wood-produced “La Bomba,” the first bit of new material from the band since last year’s PAH! EP. The track is an hook-driven 80s Turkish psych pop-inspired bop anchored around a shuffling dance floor rhythm, a twangy and looping guitar line, a disco-influenced bass line, some video game-like beats paired with glistening synths and ecstatic shouts.

“‘La Bomba’ is a burst of energy and power! It’s just such a fun song – we started playing it at festivals last summer and the energy felt so good!” The band says in press notes.

“The beginning stabs are what came to me (Serra) first as I was cooking in my kitchen. There’s something quite heroic and powerful about the opening guitar tone and the stabs underneath them. The twangy guitar tone cuts through the chaotic landscape of claps, pumping disco bassline and dreamy swirling synth sounds. The disco era influence is quite evident in this song, and I think the bassline sets the tone perfectly for this. Structurally the song delivers straight into a chorus (as Nile Rodgers said, ‘why wait?’). We wanted to keep this as close to a classic pop structure as possible, everything straight to the point. 

“The cherries on top are the little ping pong drum sounds (think Ring My Bell, Anita Ward) – they just make the track go off and totally emulate the feelings of euphoria and pure energy running through it.”

Directed by the band’s long-term artistic collaborator Tom Mitchell, the accompanying video, features some high-energy, glittery visuals that at points playfully nods at Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

The band says of the video “As it’s a high energy, pumping song, we needed to have really dynamic visuals to go with that and bring the song to life. The video has lots of shiny, glitterball moments and moves between performance and surreal segments. We had so much fun with make-up and styling for this video. Josefine saw this thing on Tik Tok where you film in a way which gives the illusion you’re riding a horse, so obviously we had a go and put that in the video last minute on set.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Corridor Shares GIF-tastic Visual for “Jump Cut”

Mimi, Corridor‘s long-awaited and highly-anticipated fourth album is slated for Friday release on CD, LP and DSP globally through Sub Pop and across Canada through Bonsound. 

The eight-song album, which was co-produced by the band and Joojoo Ashworth, recorded at Montréal-based Studio Gamma and mastered by Brooklyn’s Heba Kadry Mastering, derives its name from Jonathan Robert’s cat and features — presumably — Mimi’s face on the album artwork. Thematically, the album as the band explains is about “getting older” and “figuring out new parts of life,” inspired and informed by the type of personal changes that accompany the passage of time. And while the album’s material reflects a newfound and perhaps hard-won contemplative maturity, sonically, Mimi is reportedly a huge step forward with the band expanding on the sound of 2019’s critically applauded Junior with ever more richly detailed music rooted in a distinct rhythm pulse that recalls post-punk’s own classic era of meshing dance and rock textures. 

For the acclaimed Montréalers and their fans, Mimi will feel like a fresh break — even for a band that has established themselves as being forward-thinking. Much like its immediate predecessor, Mimi sees Corridor being impossible to pin down from song to song; however, whereas the elastic guitar rock of Junior came together quickly — or as the band’s Jonathan Robert describes the process ” in a rush” — the steady-as-they-go creative pace of Mimi marked a desire to break from the “exhausting” work ethic that birthed Junior. 

“The goal was to work differently, which is the goal we have every time we work on a new album—to build something in a new way,” Robert explains. “This time, we took our time.” During the summer of 2020, the members of the band — Jonathan Robert (vocals, guitar), Dominic Berthiaume (vocals, bass), Julien Bakvis (drums) and multi-instrumentalist Samuel Gougoux — holed away in a cottage to engage in the sort of creative experimentation that would lead to Mimi‘s material. “We went there to write, and a lot of ideas came from that retreat,” Berthiaume explains. “We didn’t end up with songs as much as we did ideas, so the result is a collage of the ideas.”

After that productive writing retreat, the band continued to tinker with the songs’ raw parts digitally and remotely over the next few years with co-producer Joojoo Ashworth leading their own specific talents in the theoretical booth. This process was naturally a byproduct of not having access to their rehearsal space as the COVID-19 pandemic faded into public view, but it was also a result of the band leaning harder into incorporating electronic textures than previously. 

“For a long time, we identified as a guitar-oriented band, and the goal of making this whole record was trying to get away from that,” Berthiaume says, but while admitting that the band encountered their own challenges as a result: “We had to figure out how to make new songs without having the chance to play together. It was complicated sometimes.” 

Some of the album’s new energy and life may be owed to Samuel Gougoux joining the band full-time, after pitching in on live performances in the past. “I come more from a background of electronic music, so it was nice to involve that with the band more,” he explains. 

In the lead-up to the album’s release later this week, I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

  • “Mourir Demain,” a song built around brightly shimmering and chiming guitars, soaring synths and post-punk-like angular rhythms that served as a lush, velvety and somewhat uneasy bed for Robert’s plaintive delivery, which sees him ruminating on his looming mortality with a brutally unvarnished yet fearful realism. “I wrote it when my girlfriend and I were shopping for life insurance,” Corridor’s Robert says with a laugh. “With our little daughter growing up, we also considered making our will. I said to myself, ‘Oh shit, from now on I’m slowly starting to plan my death.”
     

  • “Mon Argent,” which features the sort of electronic glitch and squiggle that reminds me of VHS fuzz and badly tuned TVs with rabbit ears paired with jangling and chiming bursts of angular guitars, a remarkably steady and propulsive backbeat serving as a lush and shimmering bed for Robert’s plaintive delivery to bitterly muse about the role of money in his — er, the narrator’s — life. And of course, fittingly enough, the sense of shame and failure that money, and the lack of money creates with all of us. Certainly, as a writer and photographer, this is a familiar and remarkably bitter aspect of my life that I can relate to. 

Mimi‘s latest single “Jump Cut” is a hook-driven song built around angular guitar bursts, a relentlessly propulsive motorik pulse and glistening synth oscillations that — to my ears, at least — playfully nod at Who Are You-era The Who.

Directed by award-winning filmmaker and designer Winston Hacking, the accompanying video for “Jump Cut” is a truly bonkers mix of edited found and stock footage, collage and animation that’s playfully surreal and GIF-tastic.

“Our video reflects the song’s theme of grappling with the overwhelming influence of technology and feeling adrift in its wake. Using AI to enhance archival footage resulted in a deliberate distortion, symbolizing the potential consequences of our intertwined relationship with it,” Hocking says of the video. “It invites reflection on how technology blurs the lines of our identities and infiltrates every aspect of our lives.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Fat Dog Shares Euphoric Trance Banger “Running”

Led by Joe Love, the rapidly rising London-based electronic act Fat Dog — Love (vocals, production), Chris Hughes (keys, synths), Ben Harris (bass), Johnny Hutchinson (drums) and Morgan Wallace (keyboards and sax) — can trace its origins back to 2021, when Love decided to form a group and take the demos he’d be making as a way to keep himself during lockdown out into the world. Initially, Love had two simple rules: Fat Dog was going to be a healthy band, who looked after themselves and there would be no saxophone presence in their music. But those two simple edicts have long-since been broken.

With Hughes, Harris, Hutchinson and Wallace, Love found like-minded mavericks to help bring the dream home. “A lot of music at the moment is very cerebral and people wonʼt dance to it,” says Hughes. “Our music is the polar opposite of thinking music.” The band’s Chris Hughes should know. He was originally a fan of the band, who at that point had been making a name for themselves with a series of exhilarating and/or wonky shows across South London before he joined.

Those early gigs formed the bedrock of what the rapidly rising British outfit were all about: seizing the moment, drinking too much with the moment, going home separately from the moment, but making up with the moment again the next day. Naturally, the rising British outfit quickly developed a following — and it helped that every show across London had become a huge upgrade on the last.

There’s something far deeper going on with the band. “Thereʼs a sense of community about Fat Dog,” says Hutchinson. And after completing their first shows in the US, including a set at a taco joint, the band has quickly built up a following Stateside. Building upon the buzz in their native UK, the Londoners will tour the UK next month and November, as well as make a run of the European festival circuit, playing sets at festivals in the UK and Europe over the summer.

Amazingly, the band’s breakthrough year or so, has come as the result of only two official singles under their collective belts: “King of the Slugs” and “All The Same,”  propulsive, club rocking, industrial-inspired banger built around glistening synth arpeggios, and orchestral sample-driven hit, industrial clang and clatter paired with skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling boom bap, enormous shout along worthy hooks and a plaintive vocal delivery.

Fat Dog’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, WOOF is slated for a September 6, 2024 release through Domino Recording Co. Produced by the band’s Love, Jimmy Ford and Jimmy Robertson, WOOF‘s material is influenced by Bicep, I.R.O.K., Kamasi Washington and the Russian experimental EDM group Little Big. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the London upstarts firmly establishing music for letting go, anchored around a blend of electro punk, snarling rock, techno soundscapes, industrial electronica and rave euphoria. The sound that Fat Dog makes, according to Love is “screaming-into-a-pillow music.” He continues, “I wanted to make something ridiculous because I was so bored. I don’t like sanitized music. Even this album is sanitized compared to what’s in my head. I thought it would sound more fucked up.”

WOOF‘s latest single “Running” is a hook-driven bit of club rocking trance, built around glistening, razor sharp synth arpeggios, relentless four-on-the-floor, thumping club beats and shouted vocals. But underpinning the club friendly euphoria is a tense, paranoid unease that befits our corporate sponsored hellscape.

Directed by Stephen Agnew, the accompanying video for “Running” is a surreal, breathtakingly cinematic visual with hints to Ken Russell, Ingmar Herman and others that reveals the true origins of the cult of Fat Dog and their real leader.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Wine Lips Share Breakneck Ripper “Stimulation”

Toronto-based outfit Wine Lips started back in 2015 as a part-time project between its founding members Cam Hilborn (vocals, guitar) and Aurora Evans (drums). But with the release of 2017’s self-titled debut, the band quickly amassed international attention, which resulted in tours across North America, followed by an unexpected tour of Hong Kong and China in 2018.

2019’s sophomore album Stressor was released to critical praise. Multiple album tracks charted on North American and European radio, with several being featured in broadcast and Netflix series. Building upon a growing profile, the Canadian outfit embarked on some rather relentless touring.

Much like everyone else, the COVID-19 pandemic threw a monkey wrench into the band’s plans and aspirations. The Canadian band used the enforced downtime to fully dedicate themselves to crating and writing their third album 2021’s Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party, which was released to widespread critical praise across 35 countries. The album has amassed over 20 million streams on Spotify — and the vinyl release is currently in its seventh pressing with nine different color variants. The album’s lead track “Eyes” was licensed to a bevy of films, series and video games, including ABC’s The Rookie, Hockey Night in Canada (I guess stereotypes are true) Population 11 and a lengthy list of others. Much more relentless touring to support the album ensued, and the venues were the largest they ever played — and mostly sold-out.

The Toronto-based outfit’s latest album Super Mega Ultra was recorded by Simon Larochette at Ontario-based studio, The Sugar Shack. Super Mega Ultra is the band’s most ambitious album to date, and it sees the band exploring new thematic territory while firmly cementing a sound and approach that meshes psych rock, garage rock and punk rock.

“It’s tough writing a new record when you’re always on tour,” Wine Lips’ Cam Hilborn says in press notes. “The previous album seemed to be doing really well and at times I felt like I was hitting a wall creatively. Long story short, I think this album turned out great. Simon always brings a good vibe at the Sugar Shack and we were able to try some new ideas and capture the energy without straying too far from our roots. Excited to see where these songs take us in the future.” 

Super Mega Ultra‘s latest single is a breakneck ripper anchored around scorching riffage, enormous mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses paired with punchily delivered vocals. Play loud, headbang with your friends — or better yet, open up that pit, y’all!

“I started writing ‘Stimulation’ during our break in 2020,” the band’s Cam Hilborn explains..”I might have put it on the shelf for a bit but one day the chorus just poured out of me and the rest of the song started to make more sense and came more naturally. It was the first song I demoed for the new record and it kind of became the benchmark.”

Direted by Ciarán Downes, the accompanying video for “Stimulation” starts with the band desperately seeking out a tambourine player. The first few tambourine players just don’t seem to work out for the band. They initially dismiss the third one they meet, but when he turns into a mix of The Incredible Hulk and Firestarter, inspired by the rejection and mockery of his closest ones, the band relents, partially out of fear — and partially because that fire thing is pretty fucking cool.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s Grand Public Shares Shimmering “Clap”

Grand Public is a Montréal-based indie rock outfit and JOVM mainstay act that features a collection of the city’s most accomplished musicians: Gregory Paquet, the band’s founder and frontman has played with The Stills, Alvvays‘ Molly Rankin and Peter Peter. The band also features three childhood friends, who have played together in several local bands, including Reviews, an act that has shared stages with  Omni, JOVM mainstays Corridor, and others. 

Last year’s four-song Dominic Vanchesteing-produced debut EP Idéal Tempo featured “Lundi normal,” and “Goutte á goutte,,” two tracks that seemingly recalled Junior-era Corridor to mind with nods to 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock and 60s psych rock. 

Building upon a growing profile, the Montréal-based outfit’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, the recently released Sensations Diversions sees the band blending some dexterous guitar acrobatics with dazzling melodies and ironic reflections on the charm and madness of the art scene and the entertainment economy — but while also being a refinement of the sound they’ve developed on Idéal Tempo EP.

The album features the previously released single “Lisbonne, Paris La Sorbonne” is a krautrock-like song featuring shimmering and angular guitars and an explosive guitar solo before a slow fade-out. Channeling Corridor and XTC but with a decidedly post punk edge, the song’s career-orientated narrator is desperately figuring out the right moves to advance his ambitions — and at seemingly any cost. 

The album’s latest single “Clap” is a decidedly post punk-meets-art rock built around chiming guitar tones, propulsive and angular drum rhythms and punchily delivered impressionistic lyrics.

Directed by Joé Pelletier, the accompanying video for “Clap” follows the band’s members on a hang-out session at the sort of swap meet/arcade/food court that you’d see in New England. Throughout the day, the band talks about film, art and music with a winking nostalgia and pretense that seems –well familiar, and somehow missed.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Permanent Moves Teams Up with Jessie Shelton on Gorgeous “Don’t Forget Us”

Formed back in 2016, Brooklyn-based indie electro folk/rock outfit Permanent Moves features two highly acclaimed artists:

Julia Sirna-Frest: Fest is a Brooklyn-based musician, performer and director, who has a number of credits to her name, including [Porto] (WP Theater, The Bushwick Starr); Lunch Bunch (PlayCo, Clubbed Thumb); Seder (Hartford Stage); A Tunnel Year (The Chocolate Factory); The Offending Gesture (Mac Wellman); Comfort Dogs: Live from the Pink House (JACK). She’s a founding member of the Obie Award-winning Half Straddle Company, which has produced a handful of plays including Ghost Rings (TBA/PICA); Ancient Lives (The Kitchen); Seagull (Thinking of you) (The New Ohio, International Tour); In the Pony Palace/Football (The Bushwick Starr, International Tour); Nurses in New England (The Ohio); The Knockout Blow (The Ontological).

Frest is also a founding member and co-frontperson of Doll Parts, Brooklyn’s premiere Dolly Parton cover band and a founding member, songwriter and frontperson of Permanent Moves.

Shane Chapman: Chapman is a Brooklyn-based composer and musician. As a computer, he has written scores for film, theater and podcasts, Silent Forests, Emily Black is a Total Gift (Daaimah Mubashir, Fisher Center), Comfort Dogs (William Burke, JACK) and Cleopatra Boy (A Host of People, National Tours).

As a musician, he has performed and recorded with The Peter Ulrich Collaboration and is the music director of Doll Parts. Chapman is a member of the local rock band Anacortes, with whom he has released two albums. And he’s a co-founder and songwriter with Permanent Moves.

Frest and Chapman’s work together in Permanent Moves has seen them create a unique blend of eclectic arrangements and soaring harmonies inspired by the likes of Neko Case, Sufjan Stevens and Elbow that has seen them perform in a variety of configurations — from a 15 member band down to a duo. Lyrically, their material is often based on found texts.

The pair’s full-length debut, Don’t Forget Us: A Chekhovian Song Cycle was released last week, draws from the work of famed Russian playwright Anton Chekhov features guest spots from Hadestown‘s and 36 Question‘s Jessie Shelton, Karl Blau, Starr Busby and a list of others.

“For the past 7 years we have been working on and performing these songs in a myriad of ways from a 16 person band at Ars Nova to a duo set in a living room in Vancouver, Canada. We have both been drawn to Chekhov’s work because it speaks to the questions we often sit around talking about,” Frest and Chapman explain. “What are the lives not lived? How does one survive the monotony of everyday life? Failure, living up to one’s potential, longing for a bigger life. You know, the hits of the human condition.

“This album feels very ripe for this moment because the past few years has led many people to reassess their lives, to question whether they’ve made the right choices,” the Brooklyn based duo continue. “For us in the performing arts, the entire industry was yanked away and it feels like a chance to ponder our existence, a very Chekhovian thing to do. His work reminds us that life is lived in the in-between moments. Huge things happen in a Chekhov play, people die, love is lost, a gun might go off but the focus is watching the characters muck through it as we all must do. We’re hoping to give people a good soundtrack for their personal mucking. We can all be uplifted by a good horn section, right? As Charles McNulty put it so elegantly: ‘Chekhov’s art doesn’t seek to correct but merely to point out that as we’re dreaming of better days our real lives are quietly unfolding.'”

Don’t Forget Us: A Chekhovian Song Cycle‘s latest single, album title track “Don’t Forget Us” is a gorgeous and anthemic ballad featuring Jessie Shelton’s powerhouse delivery full of longing and ache, and anchored around a lush, folk-meets-country/country-meets-folk arrangement. The duo explain that the song is “emblematic of both the mood and lyrical themes of the album. The song is for anyone who’s ever feared that someday would arrive too soon only to find that you are the same person you’ve always been.”

Shot at Mark Fox‘s studio, the accompanying video features the duo and Shelton performing the song in the artist’s paint and picture-strewn studio.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Taxidermy Shares Unsettling and Uneasy “Rot”

Copenhagen-based experimental noise/post-punk outfit Taxidermy — Osvald Reinhold (vocals, guitar), Toke Brejning Frederiksen (guitar), Joachim Lorch-Schierning (bass) and Johan Knutz Haavik (drums) — have quickly established a sound that draws from math rock, No Wave, post-hard and emo.

Thematically, the Danish quartet’s work sees them exploring the unease and disquiet of contemporary existence through delving into the cryptic and disorientating, the claustrophobic and the surreal. Crafting material anchored around unpredictable arrangements, raw and visceral textures, broad dynamic range and intense emotional delivery, the members of the Copenhagen-based outfit actively challenges the listener to confront the discomfort of the unknown.

“Rot,” the first single from Taxidermy’s forthcoming EP is a slow-burning bit of noisy post-punk that evokes the narrator’s sanity fraying at its edges as its built around an arrangement of intricate layers of dissonant guitars, swirling feedback paired with a propulsive rhythm section serving as an uneasy and stormy bed for Reinhold’s desperate wailing. Sonically, seeming to channel Disappears/FACS, as well as Radiohead and The Smile, “Rot” not only captures a narrator who’s drowning in their own vacillating and self-flagellating doubt and hatred, but one who does so in a world that’s mad and cruel to him, as he is to himself.

Directed by Lasse Vivid, the accompanying video for “Rot” is split between shots of the gorgeous Danish countryside, surreal imagery including some gorgeous bound books and footage of a man who seems to be slowing losing his sanity. Much like the song, it’s eerie and unsettling.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Denmark’s Animaux Animé Shares Club and Arena Friendly “The Master”

With the release of a handful of singles and 2019’s self-titled debut EP, which have received praise from Bands of Tomorrow, Passive/Aggressive, HQ Music and airplay from Danish national radio station P6 Beat, emerging Danish outfit Animaux Animé have quickly established a sound that sees them mesh elements of synth pop, industrial rock and theatrical performance art into a sound and aesthetic that’s distinctly unique.

The band has played across the Danish festival circuit, including playing sets at SPOT Festival and BlueBridge Festival. And building upon a growing profile nationally, the band is gearing up to release their full-length debut, Imprisoned Love Scenes (Sensational Creation — Act I).

Imprisoned Love Scenes (Sensational Creation — Act I)‘s latest single “The Master” is a mesh of industrial rock and synth pop anchored around tweeter and roofer rattling industrial thump, bursts of twinkling synths, angular and reverb-soaked guitars serving as a brooding bed for a big baritone vocal expressing yearning and longing. While sonically channeling Depeche Mode, The Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division and others, “The Master” is a club friendly, arena rock banger that reveals a band with an uncanny knack for pairing catchy hooks with slick production.

The accompanying video is a creepily surreal romp through madness, obsession and implied torture that wouldn’t be out of place in Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films.

The band is currently working on the follow-up to their full-length debut, Sensational Creation — Act II and are collaborating with Kolding Egnsteater on a play that’s slated to run next year.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Chicago’s Clubdrugs Share a Dance Floor Anthem for the Heartbroken

Chicago-based, self-described goth pop duo Clubdrugs have developed a reputation both locally and regionally for a genre-defying sound and for captivating live performances. The duo’s latest single, the recently released “Waiting” is a sleek and slickly produced, hook-driven and club friendly bop featuring glistening synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rattling thump and a sinuous and propulsive bass line that serve as a lush bed for Maria’s yearning vocal to ethereally float over. It’s the sort of song that’s perfect for the lovelorn and heartbroken to dance while crying their hearts out on the dance floor.

While being a dance floor anthem, the song as the duo explain is a love song — but at its core, a sad one. “‘Waiting’ tells the story of that excruciating, kick in the chest love can be sometimes be — where the heartbreak takes over all of your senses, all your thoughts, every moment of the day.” Clubdrugs’ Maria adds “You lay in bed at night, begging for sleep to come, but the pain and regret just reverberates inside your head — pleading desperately for relief.”

The accompanying self-directed video for “Waiting” encapsulates the set up of a live Clubdrugs set — the duo performing in front of fuzzy yet slickly edited stock footage from old movies, advertisements, art and of the band themselves.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: GIFT Ruminates on Mortality in Brooding “Wish Me Away”

Brooklyn-based psych rock quintet GIFT — TJ Freda (vocals, guitar), multi-instrumentalist Jessica Gurewitz, Kallan Campbell (bass), multi-instrumentalist Justin Hrabovsky and Gabe Camarano (drums) — formed just before the COVID-19 pandemic, and recorded their remarkably self-assured full-length debut 2022’s Momentary Presence during pandemic associated lockdowns and isolation.

Inspired by Ram Dass’ 1971 spiritual guide and countercultural landmark Be Here Now, Momentary Presence was a meditation on working through the anxiety and self-doubt that we all, at some point or another, carry. Specifically conceived, written and recorded with the idea of a full-length album being a fully contained work of art, the songs on Momentary Presence reportedly tease something seismic coming around the corner, while featuring dense layered productions that feel and sound self-assured, complete, definitive and impermeable. This is rooted in the band’s belief that each moment has richness, complexity and singularity. And once it’s gone, it can’t be recaptured or repeated. 

The album asks the listener several key questions: Can you truly be present? Can you open yourself up and appreciate life in its fullness — the ugliness and confusion, as well as the beauty and joy? The members of GIFT believe that the listener can. And their full-length debut is a chronicle of that chase, and a celebration of the eternal now. 

Sonically, the album saw the band establish an uncanny knack for crating soundscapes that are simultaneously turbulent and gorgeous rooted in a dizzying blend of early shoegaze, 90s alt rock and even modern pop that quickly caught the attention of listeners here in the States, across Europe and elsewhere.

The rising Brooklyn-based JOVM mainstays signed to Captured Tracks, who just released the quintet’s newest single “Wish Me Away,” the first bit of new material from the band in over 18 months. Anchored around a dreamy and hook-driven shoegazer soundscape of glistening, reverb-drenched guitars, woozy synths and a motorik groove paired with propulsive rhythms serving as a lush bed for Freda’s plaintive falsetto, “Wish Me Away” is continuation of the overall aesthetic they established on Momentary Presence and a decided sonic push forward, showcasing where the band is going next. The song also sees the band exploring and expressing a complex array of emotions with a lived-in specificity.

“‘Wish Me Away’ is about giving into the feeling of everything slipping away,” GIFT’s TJ Freda explains. “Just take it all away, put me out of my misery, wish me away. While this all seems daunting and sad, there’s a feeling of optimism in this song, holding on for dear life and refusing to give up hope.”

After nearly losing a loved one, Freda found himself grappling with the fleeting nature of life, and understandably with the inevitability of mortality. “‘Wish Me Away,’ ruminates on the fear and freedom that can come knowing it can all slip away. The line ‘wish me away’ kept coming up, as in ‘take me, not them,'” Freda adds.

Directed by Andrew Gibson, the accompanying video is a woozily surrealistic fever dream that takes place in the sort of mansion that would be the perfect setting of an Edgar Allan Poe novel. But throughout there’s an uneasy sense of mortality and the fleeting nature of life.

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Gluts Return with Bruising “Fight”

Milan-based punks The Gluts will be releasing their highly-anticipated fifth album Bang! through Fuzz Club on May 31, 2024. The album reportedly sees the band balancing between punchy, breakneck punk and noisy experimentalism while accurately capturing a distilled sense of the fierce energy and power of their notoriously wild live shows, which they’ve taken internationally across the global festival circuit through stops at The New Colossus Festival, The Great Escape, Eurosonic and others, and through shows across the European Union, South Africa and the States.

Last month, I wrote about Bang!‘s first single “Cade Giù.” Clocking in at a little over two minutes, “Cade Giù” is a searing and punchy blast of psych punk power chord-fueled feedback, thunderous drumming and howled vocals — in Italian. While sonically channeling JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers, as well as Dion Lunadon, My Bloody Valentine and others, “Cade Giù” is the first song that the band has ever written, sung and recorded in their native Italian. The song, as the band explains speaks about the blurry reminiscences of a typical after-show party while on tour, and focuses on a particularly wild night with their friend and booking agent. You can picture the friends heading from bar to bar to bar, the copious beers, shots, gin and tonics, acting like drunken louts through town — and the vertigo-like disorientation of being fucked up out of your mind. But goddamn it, you’re having the time of your life!

Bang!‘s second and latest single “Fight” is a bruising ripper with elements of psych rock, stoner rock, punk and post-punk anchored around fuzzy and distorted power chords, wailing feedback, a propulsive rhythm section and howled vocals. While continuing the overall aesthetic pulse of its immediate predecessor, “Fight” is arguably among their most sociopolitically charged tracks of their growing catalog.

The accompanying video borrows liberally from late 80s and 90s fighting video games, including Mortal Kombat and others, interspersed with fuzzy psychedelic colored negatives of the band playing a rousing live set.

“’Fight’ is the second single from our new album Bang! and blends the main genres that we take inspiration from, spanning from post-punk and noise to neo-psych and stoner. The song tries to convey all those feelings of daily life struggle. Sometimes we wish it was all like a videogame – especially the 80s and 90s ones that are used in the video – but it is the harsh truth.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays METZ Share Woozy and Anthemic “Superior Mirage”

Toronto-based JOVM mainstays METZ‘s fifth studio album Up On Gravity Hill is slated for a Friday release on Dine Alone Records in Canada and on Sub Pop for the rest of the world. The album, which is the JOVM mainstays’ first album in four years was engineered by Seth Manchester and features guest appearances from Black Mountain‘s Amber Webber and string arrangements by composer Owen Pallett. 

Long known for blowing out eardrums with explosively loud songs of joyous rage, the Canadian JOVM mainstays — Alex Edkins (vocals, guitar), Chris Slorach (bass) and Hayden Menzies (drums) — have, over the course of their past couple of albums have begun exploring ways of turning abrasiveness into atmospherics. The evolution of their sound is not only a reflection of the band’s maturity as humans and as musicians, but also a changed world that demands much more nuance and compassion to comprehend and survive. Up On Gravity Hill reportedly finds the band continuing to bend the raw power of rock music to its most delicate, intricate ends. The album’s material may arguably be their deepest, detailed and unyieldingly personal batch of songs — and their most beautiful to date. 

In the lead up to the album’s release later this week, I’ve written about three of its singles. The band specifically spotlighted the evolution of their sound and approach through the release of its first two contrasting singles:

“99,” a stomping and noisy motorik chug of a song built around their long-held penchant for shout along worthy, mosh pit friendly hooks choruses that sounds subtly informed by Edkins’ work with Noble Rot. “Entwined (Street Light Buzz),” a woozy and swooning song that sees the trio retaining their penchant for power chord-driven, enormous, shout along friendly hooks and choruses with a gorgeous and meditative shoegazer-like bridge. 

“These two songs couldn’t be more stylistically and thematically dissimilar,” METZ’s Alex Edkins says. “‘Entwined (Street Light Buzz)’ is a song about the deep connection humans can foster with one another and how we carry people with us forever, even after death. ‘99’ is about the scourge of corporate greed and bottom-line thinking that runs rampant in modern society. Anything for a buck is the message being sent to younger generations.”

“Light Your Way Home,” a slow-burning shoegazer-like ballad built around the band’s long-held penchant for feedback-driven power chords, thunderous drums, enormous raise-your-beer-in-the-air-and-shout-along worthy anthemic choruses serving as a dramatic and stormy vehicle for Edkins’ achingly yearning delivery and backing vocals from Black Mountain‘s and Lighting Dust’s Amber Webber. “Light Your Way Home” finds the Toronto-based outfit at their most forcefully earnest with hearts worn proudly on their sleeves, expressing the understandably deep longing for your loved ones — presumably while living the rock n’ roll live on the road. Sonically, the track is a subtle departure from their established sound that sees the band proverbially stretching themselves upward. 

“’Light Your Way Home’ is definitely one of our favorites from Up On Gravity Hill. I was listening to lots of Jesu and Low (as I do most winters) when writing this one,” the band’s Alex Edkins says in press notes. “Lyrically, it’s about missing your loved ones to the point of losing your grip on reality. We distorted and added a mechanical slap back to the drums to create a wild and huge sound. I love how big we got the production on this one. It’s like nothing we’ve ever made before, sonically or lyrically. Amber Webber (Black Mountain, Lightning Dust) was so great to work with, and her voice just takes this song to another stratosphere. I think the video by Colin Medley perfectly captures the vibe and intent of the song.”

Up On Gravity Hill’s fourth and latest single, “Superior Mirage” sees the acclaimed Canadian JOVM mainstays pushing their sound into a bold new direction. Anchored around a propulsive boom bap-like beat, reverb soaked bursts of angular guitar and glistening synth oscillations, “Superior Mirage” is a woozy track that sees the band seamlessly blending post-punk, shoegazer textures with their long-held penchant for enormous, rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses. The result is a song that’s still mosh pit friendly yet but arguably one of the more melodic and dreamier songs of their catalog.

“It’s definitely new territory for us, and I really love the sounds we were able to achieve. We blended a Linn Drum with some homemade samples and made this ad-hoc junkyard drum sound that propels the song along,” METZ’s Alex Edkins says of the new single. “We really tried to make the backbeat the defining trait of the song. The lift on the chorus is pretty huge, too. We wanted the wall of guitars to knock you sideways.”

Directed by John Andrews, the animated video for “Superior Mirage” follows two devils speeding through the desert. After stopping to party, they come across a portal to another dimension, where they encounter the members of METZ ripping hard. Evil hasn’t been this childlike or this fun in a while, y’all!

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: L’Impératice Shares Brightly Colored and Playfully Animated Visual for “Danza Marilú”

Acclaimed Paris-based electro pop sextet and JOVM mainstays L’Impératice  will be releasing their highly-anticipated, self-produced third full-length album Pulsar through microqlima records on June 7, 2024.  Pulsar is an album, where the band — founder Charles de Boisseguin (keys), Hagni Gown (keys), David Gaugué (bass), Achille Trocellier (guitar), Tom Daveau (drums) and Flore Benguigui (vocals) — made every decision while capturing the band’s spirit both onstage and off. 

Fittingly, the album reportedly radiates with the energy and wisdom of an outfit that has helmed countless dance parties around the world on the way to find itself and its sound. Throughout the album’s material, the Parisian JOVM mainstays move freely and authoritatively among the sounds they love, bridging hip-hop, kosmiche and modern pop with their most unabashed embraces of French Touch and international house of their growing catalog. Pulsar is also the first album of their catalog to feature guest vocalists, including acclaimed folk/pop artist Maggie Rogers and rapper/producer Erick the Architect among a list of others. 

The album sees the acclaimed pop outfit trying a new creative approach: They split into two teams of ever-interchanging members to explore new ideas, led by the band’s founder Charles de Boisseguin. It was a way of incorporating every voice into the songwriting process like never before, pulling from idiosyncratic upbringings and enthusiasm. They then passed tracks to lead vocalist Flore Benguigui, a longtime jazz singer, who would sometimes write two-dozen vocal melodies for a song, just to see which one fit best. It was an arduous and exciting process that saw the band go from writing through recording in about nine months. For L’Imperatice, this was the sort of self-determination they’d longed for and now found. 

Throughout the album’s material, the band’s Benguigui boldly sings of self-empowerment, shirking beauty standards, ageism and drag normalcy throughout the album’s material. These are apt messages for incandescent anthems of experience, of fully being yourself, instead of anyone else’s version of it. 

The album will feature, “Me Da Igual,” a sleek and elegant, hook-driven Giorgio Moroder-era-disco-meets-French touch tune anchored by a strutting bass line, a squiggling Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar line and glistening synths serving as a sinewy and silky bed for Flore Benguigui’s sultry and ethereal delivery. Further cementing the French outfit’s reputation for crafting infectious, sensual, dance floor friendly bops, “Me Da Igual” features lyrics sung in Spanish and French while being a call to free ourselves from the injunctions to please at all costs, to reclaim your body by abandoning yourself to the euphoria of strobe lights and the dance floor — and listening to the sensations that movement and sound provides you. 

The album’s second and latest single “Danza Marilú” features Italian vocalist Fabiana Martone. Continuing a bit where its immediate predecessor left off, “Danza Marilú” is a sleek, hook-driven, Giorgio Moroder-era-Italo-disco-meets-French touch bop anchored around glistening synth arpeggios, squiggling funk guitar, a supple and sinuous bass line and thumping beats. Inspired by and written as a rebuttal to Serge Gainsbourg‘s “L’Homme á tête de chou,” Pulsar‘s latest single is a defiantly feminist anthem for women of all ages, encouraging them to get on that dance floor and to be freely themselves — in spite of the looks that may ensue by insecure haters of all stripes. 

Directed by Arthur Sevestre and featuring animation by Gabrielle Selnet, Vincent Albert, Armand Goxe and May Taraud with color by Laura Passalacqua, the animated video for “Danza Marilú” boldly advocates for a world in which all ages and body types can take up space and express themselves through dance and movement — as best as they can.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Berlin’s Nando the Native Shares a Tale of Heartbreak and Betrayal

Nando the Native is an emerging Nicaraguan-born, Berlin-based R&B/indie pop artist, whose career started in earnest as a member of acclaimed, award-winning R&B outfit A Song For You, led by Noah Slee. And as member of A Song For You, the Nicaraguan-born artist has shared stages with the likes of JOVM mainstay Nick Hakim, Kelvyn Colt and Annahstasia while collaborating with Carhatt, Dr. Martens, and Levi’s.

The Nicaraguan-born, Berlin-based artist stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist. His music as a solo artist serves as a genuine reflection of his innermost thoughts and emotions, inviting listeners into his world with raw honesty and vulnerability. Although he cites Frank Ocean, Miguel and a list of other artists as influences on his overall sound and approach, having grown up straddling two contrasting cultures have informed his vocal and musical versatility while being a testament to wholly embracing one’s own identity.

Rejecting the confines of traditional labels and genre boundaries, the Nicaraguan-born, Berlin-based artist has forged his own path, creating music that draws from his heritage and the cosmopolitan energy of Berlin’s rich creative scene.

In a relatively short period of time, Nando the Native has made a name for himself in the Berlin R&B scene through collaborations with a collection of local and international artists and producers including Jonny Wood and Axel Benamar.

Released last month, his six-song solo debut EP Nothing But A Lesson thematically touches upon the complexities of heartache, toxic relationship, love, fetishization and more. The effort sees Nando the Native pairing poignant, lived-in lyricism with velvety-smooth production while showcasing an old-school inspired vocal prowess and attention to craft. “Nothing But A Lesson is a collection of songs I wrote during a time I was still learning how to set boundaries in relationships,” the Berlin-based artist explains. “This EP is a little reminder for me not to fall into something toxic again.”

Nothing But A Lesson‘s latest single “Honest” is a vibey bit of R&B anchored around a production featuring skittering beats and a looping arpeggiated acoustic gutter sample serving as a lush, satiny bed for the Berlin-based artist’s soulful, heartbroken croon. Written from the lived-in perspective of someone who has been fetishized for being of color, the song addresses the fetishization of BIPOC folks from whites and others, who fixate on the seeming exoticness of someone’s ethnicity or skin color — and not on who they actually are as a person. And throughout the song’s narrator expresses a sense of betrayal, hurt and confusion, as well as the sense of foolishly taking part in their own fetishization.

The accompanying video as Nando the Native explains portrays the situations described in the song: The love interest in the video seems to get off on having Nando speak Spanish all the time, but for the rising artist, there’s a sense that he feels a bit like an accessory. Later, we see the same girl at a party full of BIPOC folks, flirting with another guy. Towards the ends of the night, she’s calling Nando but little does she know he knows she’s up to no good.