Category: Video Review

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Say She She Share Gorgeous Visual for Slinky and Shimmering “Astral Plane”

Acclaimed NYC-based disco outfit and JOVM mainstays Say She She — Piya Malik, Sabrina Cunningham and Nya Gazelle Brown — released their critically applauded, eight-song, Sergio Rios-produced full-length debut Prism through Karma Chief Records last year. 

Prism saw the trio quickly establishing a sound that nodded heavily at 70s girl groups — multi-part female harmonies paired paired with funky, disco-inspired arrangements played by a backing band featuring some of New York’s most talented and accomplished players, featuring former members of  Antibalas, Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaries, Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings, The Shacks, Twin Shadow and others. Evoking a distinct Studio 54-era disco nostalgia, their work is imbued with a contemporary thematic grit paired with global dance floor influences.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile both nationally and internationally, the trio’s highly-anticipated sophomore album, the 16-song, Sergio Rios-produced Silver is slated for a September 29, 2023 release through Karma Chief Records. Reflecting on the group’s growth as songwriters, performers and artists as they enter a new phase of their art and careers, Silver derives its name from the element known as the metal of self-confidence and the mirror of the soul. With an emphasis on their now-trademark global disco sound, the JOVM mainstays sophomore album features material that ranges from protest anthems, Hindi-flecked songwriting and feel-good, disco-infused tracks, the album reminds listeners of the beauty in the world while firmly and boldly asserting their respective identities as modern femmes.

Largely written and recorded live-to-tape at Killion Sound Studio in North Hollywood, the analog recording session root the acclaimed trio’s sound in bedrock of old-fashioned, tonal warmth. But cutting the tracks live with their backing band, which also featured members of Rios’ Orgōne, the album captures the deeply special magic of communal creativity in the moment.

The album will feature “C’est Si Bon,” a funky disco love letter and summertime club anthem, built around a sinuous bass line, twinkling keys, space lasers paired with the trio’s gorgeous harmonies, penchant for big, catchy hooks, deep groves and expansive psychedelia-tinged song structures. Thematically, the song reminds the listener to seize the day and make their time count.

The album’s third and latest single “Astral Plane” is a slow-burning, Quiet Storm soul-inspired take on disco built around the trio’s yearning harmonies, sinuous bass lines, a silky, slinky groove and a series of head-nodding hooks. The result is classic love song rooted in craft, love and earnest, lived-in songwriting and performances.

Continuing their ongoing collaboration with director Lisa Schiller, the accompanying video for “Astral Plane” is a stylishly shot, hazy and sultry dream that features the members of the trio dancing on a disco spaceship with a window viewing the planets and other gorgeous natural phenomenon.

Say She She will be embarking on the European leg of the Don’t You Dare Stop Tour, which sees the trio bringing their dance floor friendly sounds across the world. Check out the remaining tour dates below.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: London’s Frances and The Majesties Share Brooding and Trippy “All Of Time”

Led by Francesca Landi (vocals, sax) and Sarah Kershaw (vocals, keys), London-based psych soul septet Frances and The Majesties features members from diverse backgrounds, including Italy, Morocco and elsewhere, and their experiences and backgrounds are reflected in their eclectic sound.

Their forthcoming All Of Time EP reportedly marks a significant departure from the sound they’ve developed on their previously released material: The band moves from a modern take on the 60s sound towards a jazzier, synth-driven sound that retains the melancholy-tinged, cinematic quality they’ve been known for.

All Of Time‘s latest single, the cinematic and brooding EP title track “All Of Time” is an expansive and trippy song built around an arrangement of glistening and fluttering synths, strutting funk guitar, a supple and propulsive bass line and jazz-like drumming serving as a lush bed for Landi’s and Kershaw’s ethereal harmonies. Sonically, bringing JOVM mainstays Ghost Funk Orchestra to mind, “All of Time” encapsulates the disorientating certainty of the passage of time — and is informed by a two year period of uncertainty and unease, which feels palpable throughout the song’s nearly four-minute run.

Emphasizing the song’s brooding air, the accompanying video is shot with a chiaroscuro treatment, as we see a witch-like character dancing and moving through the shadows.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Zilched Shares Shoegazey and Anthemic “Earthly Delights”

23 year-old, Detroit-based singer/songwriter Chloe Drallos is the creative mastermind behind the rising pop recording project Zilched. Started back in 2017, Drallos exploded into the national scene with her full-length debut, 2020’s DOOMPOP, an effort, which saw the Detroit-based artist quickly establishing an eclectic, genre-defying take on pop. 

Drallos’ highly-anticipated sophomore album, the Ian Ruhala and Ben Collins co-produced Earthly Delights is slated for release next Friday through Young Heavy Souls. Earthly Delights is reportedly a testament to the maturation of her uncompromising creative vision that sees the Detroit-based artist adding elements of grunge to her gothic pop-tinged take on art rock. Lyrically, the material is a dazzling display of poetic lyricism that sees Drallos weaving an intricate tapestry of Romantic imagery, metaphor and religious allegory among other things, that manages to soften the blow of her brutal, unflinching honesty. Thematically, the album explores the purgatorial nature of bargaining with an indecisive lover and simultaneously with oneself.

Last month, I wrote about album single “Loveless,” a song that oscillates between shimmering and yearning Kate Bush-like verses and cathartic, rousingly anthemic choruses as the song’s narrator speaks of something that’s fairly universal: the frustration and annoyance of a lover that’s been withholding and indecisive. The song ends with its narrator essentially saying “make up your mind or I’ll make it up for you.” While “Loveless” is a display of slick and seemingly effortless craft, the song feels rooted in bitter, deeply lived-in experience.

“The song is like a conversation between lovers. Contemplating the purgatorial roller coaster that exists between freedom and unity,” Drallos says. 

Earthly Delights‘ third and latest single, album title track “Earthly Delights” derives its name after the Northern Renaissance triptych by Hieronymus Bosch. Built around buzzing guitars and synths, thunderous drumming, layers of vocal harmonies paired with rousing anthemic hooks, the shoegazey “Earthly Delights” is a redemptive narrative that takes place in three perspectival realms — and on in which Drallos finds celebration amidst seclusion and suffering.

“‘Earthly Delights’ is about reclaiming your sacred space in romance and realizing the space you’re sharing feels very wrong. When Eden feels like purgatory.” Drallos continues, “I was fed up with loneliness but didn’t want my solitude taken. I felt as though I needed to reclaim what I deem sacred.”

Fittingly, a song that reminds me so much of 120 Minutes era MTV alt rock, has a hazy, kaleidoscopic, 120 Minutes-like visual.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Robert Finley Shares Swampy and Swaggering “Sneakin’ Around”

 69 year-old Winnsboro, LA-born, Bernice, LA-based singer/songwriter and JOVM mainstay Robert Finley grew up one of eight children in a family of sharecroppers. As a child, Finley as unable to regularly attend school and often worked with his family in the cotton fields. When he was a teenager, he briefly attended a segregated school, but he was forced to drop out in the 10th grade to help the family out financially.

Finley has lived a full, complicated and often messy life: He’s an army veteran. He was also a skilled carpenter. He has survived house fires, a bad accident and went through a divorce. He started to lose his sight in his early 60s as a result of glaucoma. And although, he was forced to retire from carpentry, Finley realized that he now had an opportunity to pursue a lifelong dream — becoming a professional singer and musician.

The Louisiana-born and-based JOVM mainstay believes that his sight was improved by the power of prayer — and that his faith has also helped him focus on launching a music career in his 60s. According to Finley “losing my sight, gave me the perspective to see my true identity.”

Acclaimed musician, producer and Easy Eye Sound label head Dan Auerbach immediately saw Finley’s potential, quickly proclaiming that the Louisiana-born and-based artist is “the greatest living soul singer.” As Auerbach recalls in press notes, “He walked in like he was straight out of the swamp.” He adds, “He had leather pants, snakeskin boots, a big Country & Western belt buckle, a leather cowboy hat and a three-quarter-length leather duster. The final touch was the folding cane the legally blind Finley wore on his hip, in a holster. Basically, he was dressed for national television.” 

Auerbach went on to produce Finley’s 2017 breakthrough sophomore album Goin’ Platinum, an album released to widespread critical acclaim from the likes of the Associated Press, who praised Finley’s ability to lend “instant credibility to any song” and The Observer, who wrote “Finley’s versatile voice ranges from prime Motown holler to heartbroken falsetto croon.” Finley went on to support the album with international touring across 10 countries — with his live show drawing praise from a number of publications, including The New York Times and several others. He was also profiled on PBS NewsHour, which led him to becoming a contestant on the 2019 season of America’s Got Talent, eventually reaching the semi-finals. 

Finley’s third album 2021’s Sharecropper’s Son continued the JOVM mainstay’s successful collaboration with Auerbach, and features songwriting and cowrites from Finley, Auerbach, Bobby Wood and Pat McLaughlin. And much like other Easy Sound releases, the album featured an All-Star backing band of acclaimed players that included Auerbach (guitar); Kenny Brown (guitar), a member of R.L Burnside‘s backing band; studio legends Russ Pahl (pedal steel) and Louisiana-born, Nashville-based Billy Sanford (guitar); Bobby Wood (keys and as previously mentioned songwriting); Gene Chrisman (drums), who’s a Memphis and Nashville music legend; as well as contributions from The Dap Kings‘ Nick Movshon (bass), Eric Deaton (guitar); Dave Roe (bass), who was member of Johnny Cash‘s backing band; Sam Bacco (percussion) and a full horn section. 

Sharecropper’s Son may arguably be the most personal album of Finley’s growing catalog, drawing directly from his life and experience. “I was ready to tell my story, and Dan and his guys knew me so well by then that they knew it almost like I do, so they had my back all the way,” Finley says in press notes. “Working in the cotton fields wasn’t a pleasant place to be, but it was part of my life. I went from the cotton fields to Beverly Hills. We stayed in the neighborhood most of our childhood. It wasn’t really all that safe to be out by yourself. One of the things I love about music is that, when I was a boy growing up in the South, nobody wanted to hear what I had to say or what I thought about anything. But when I started putting it in songs, people listened.”

Finley’s highly-anticipated fourth album, Black Bayou is slated for an October 27, 2023 release through Easy Eye Sound. Black Bayou sees the JOVM mainstay continuing his wildly successful collaboration with Dan Auerbach. Much like its immediate predecessor, the new album’s material is a deeply personal portrait — but this time of Finley’s Louisiana, from an insider, who has lived there all of his life. Sonically, the material coalesces all of the vibrant sounds of the bayou, including gospel, blues, rock and more.

The result is a vivid collection of songs that depicts life in North Louisiana — with Finley playing the role of charismatic and knowledgeable tour guide. “I think that’s one of the biggest things about the album is it tells the truth and the truth will set you free,” Finley told American Songwriter.

“It’s amazing to realize how much of an impact Louisiana has had on the world’s music,” Dan Auerbach says in press notes, “and Robert embodies all of that. He can play a blues song. He can play early rock and roll. He can play gospel. He can do anything, and a lot of that has to do with where he’s from.”

Recorded at Auerbach’s Nashville-based Easy Eye Sound Studio, Black Bayou saw the pair adopting a much different creative process. Rather than write songs beforehand, as they did on 2017’s Goin’ Platinum and 2021’s Sharecropper’s Son, they devised everything in the studio, with Auerbach leading a backing band of some of the world’s best players, including: Auerbach’s Black Keys bandmate Patrick Carney (drums), G. Love & Special Sauce‘s Jeffrey Clemens (drums), Eric Deaton (bass), legendary Hill Country blues guitarist Kenny Brown and vocalists Christy Johnson and LaQuindrelyn McMahon, Finley’s daughter and granddaughter.

They worked quickly, devising their parts spontaneously and usually getting everything in one take. “I started singing, and they started playing,” Finley explains. “That’s how we made the album. It wasn’t written out. Nobody used a pencil and paper. We just sang and played together in the studio.”  The album and its material reveals Finley as a truly original Louisiana storyteller,. who evokes the place and its unique — and deeply influential culture — for the rest of the world.

Earlier this year, I wrote about Black Bayou‘s first single “What Goes Around (Comes Around),” a swampy, blues rocker that subtly recalls Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s “Green River” with the song built around an irresistibly funky and shuffling 12 bar blues-driven groove paired around the collaborators’ unerring knack for anthemic hooks and choruses. The song serves as the perfect vehicle for his whiskey soaked gospel-like croons and shouts warning the listener about the weighty impact of karma.

“You gotta reap what you sow… do to another what you would have done to you. Be real, tell the truth. For all those out there hurting, you just have to keep the faith,” the JOVM mainstay says of the song. “I’ve seen it over the years, especially with my career – you got to put joy out into the world and it will come back. It’s never been anything short of the truth for me.” 

Black Bayou’s second and latest single “Sneakin’ Around” is a classic blues and soul tale of deception, deceit and a bit of deserved comeuppance, featuring Finley’s heartbroken yet defiantly proud narrator describing how he found out his lover was repeatedly cheating on him. This is paired with a swampy and gritty, Motown-meets-Muscle Shoals-like groove complete with a big horn line, and a scorching guitar solo.

“Whatever is in the dark is gonna come to the light, so don’t play around,” Finley says.

Directed by Andy M. Hawkes, the accompanying video for “Sneakin’ Around” continues a run of stylishly shot visuals that features the dapper Finley surrounded by a collection of young beauties at the bar, as he tells his tale. We also see Finley performing the song in the bar and in slick studio footage. Throughout, the video, we see Finley as a swaggering, larger-than-life figure with stories to tell.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s Diamond Day Shares Breezy “Fiction Feel”

Montréal-based duo Diamond Day features two highly acclaimed musicians in their own right:

  • Vermont-born Béatrix Méthé was raised with the traditional music of rural Québec. Her family moved to Canada when she was baby, and she grew up acquiring Lanaudiere’s regional repertoire from her father, the founder of legendary folk-trad group Le Rêve du Diable. Her mother, a singer-songwriter and fine arts graduate versed in early digital media, inspired Méthé’s own aesthetic. After spending some time venturing deeper into visual art, Béthé moved to Montréal to study filmmaking, but wound up discovering indie and psychedelic folk music along the way. She cut her studies short in 2015 to pursue music full-time, fronting acclaimed outfit Rosier, whose unique fusion of Québécois folk and indie rock garnered multiple nominations and awards — and lead them to tour across 15 countries with stops at SXSW, NPR’s Mountain Stage and the BBC. 

  • Western Canada-born Quinn Bachand grew up in a home where art was omnipresent and the family’s 40-year-old record collection was on an omnipresent loop. As the son of a luthier, Bachand began playing guitars handmade by his father and was touring internationally by the time he turned 12. After graduating from Berklee College of Music back in 2019 on a presidential scholarship, the Western Canadian-born multi-instrumentalist spent time in the Grammy-nominated band Kittel & Co. His involvement in the US folk scene prompted collaborations with a number of like-minded artists, including Chris Thile. In 2019, Bachand began collaborating with Méthé and Rosier, quickly establishing himself as an influential, genre-bending producer.

That initial successful collaboration with Rosier lead to the duo’s forthcoming full-length debut as Diamond Day, Connect the Dots Slated for a fall 2023 release, the Canadian duo’s full-length debut reportedly sees them crafting a sound that weaves elements of folk, indie rock, electronica, shoegaze and dream pop into a unique take on alt-pop.

Earlier this year, I wrote about Connect the Dots‘ first single “Noisemaker,” which was built around tape-saturated organ echo, fluttering synths, blown out beats, a sinuous bass line and lush, painterly sheogazer-like guitar textures paired with Méthé’s gorgeous vocals. The result — to my ears at least — reminded me of a mix of Beach House and Souvlaki-era Slowdive with a subtle amount of glitchiness.

The album’s second and latest single “Fiction Feel” is a breezy, summertime dream of a song built around a glitch pop soundscape featuring vintage tape recordings, glistening synths and a shuffling organ drum machine before quickly morphing into a lush New Wave/post-punk anthem that brings Cocteau Twins and Violens to mind.

Directed by Natan B. Foisy, the accompanying video is shot in a gorgeous, cinematic black and white an features a collection of Montréal area theater club teens in a school auditorium. We see the teens as they cycle through a series of different emotions in an oddly bipolar yet playful fashion.

“We recorded ‘Fiction Feel’ a few times over the past year or so. Initially, it was very ‘post-punk,'” Diamond Day’s Quinn Bachand explains in press notes. ” I had just watched Converse PURPLE video which featured ‘Cries and Whispers’ by New Order and I was getting into a lot of newer stuff in that vein, especially Cate le Bon’s latest album. Ultimately, we don’t sound anything like that, so the arrangement turned into a bit of a frankenstein. We re-wrote melodies, and added and muted stuff. Before we sent it out to get mixed by Elijah [Marrett-Hitch], we removed tons of unused tracks and weird outdated plugins that were constantly making Pro Tools crash.”

“The song ended up being a little glitchy. Lo-fi thrift store keyboards, cheap classical guitars, archived speech recordings and arena-rocky drums,” the duo’s Béatrix Méthé says.  

“One of our mix notes to Elijah was, ‘Make the drums a bit more douchey, like Eric Valentine,” Bachand adds.

“We wanted it to evolve from tiny and creepy like The Books to big and bombastic like Depeche Mode. But we wanted it to remain catchy and dancey,” Méthé says.

“We love how The Books use extremely edited found sounds to intensify emotional moments and create a really unique feel. There’s so much subtle information–both melodic and rhythmic–packed into speech and these dated home recordings have so much depth,” says Bachand.

“We’re both folk musicians. Slightly jaded ones… [when it comes to folk music] we really only listen to archives now–rare home recordings of musicians in rural areas. There are tons of old reel-to-reel and cassette recordings across the country with this material, anyone can find them, you just have to dig. Quinn and I have a lot of that digitized now. Listening to everything around the music, the stuff the interviewer or engineer didn’t mean to record; that’s the weird stuff,” Méthé explains. “Quinn and I heard an argument on one tape, there was so much tension and urge in their speech. It was perfect… we had to include it in ‘Fiction Feel.’ Connect the Dots (the full record) has a bunch of awkward little archive-chestnuts sprinkled in.”

“Natan B. Foisy also directed this visualizer. He and Béatrix (and most of the video team) are from a region north of Montreal called Lanaudière,” Bachand says of the video. “Last winter, we were able to utilize a local high school in the region for some video.”

“The song is a little nerdy and bipolar and Natan did a great job of capturing that in the visualizer. He got teenagers from the school to play with the camera, cycling through different emotions and expressions as the song develops. And it’s all in black & white to contrast those dynamics,” Méthé says of the video.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Elisapie Shares Gorgeous Rendition of The Rolling Stones “Wild Horses”

Acclaimed Montréal-based singer/songwriter, musician, actor and activist Elisapie was born and raised in Salluit, a small village in Nunavik, Québec’s northernmost region. In this extremely remote community, accessible only by plane, she was raised by an extended, yet slightly dysfunctional adoptive family. Growing up in Salliut, she lived through the loss of cousins who ended their lives, experienced young love, danced the night away at the village’s community center and witnessed first hand, the effects of colonialism — i.e., poverty, hopelessness, alcoholism, suicide, and more. 

Much like countless bright and ambitious young people across the world, the Salliut-born artist moved to the big city — in this case, Montréal to study and, ultimately, pursue a career in music. Since then, her work whether within the confines of a band or as as solo artist constantly displays that her unconditional attachment to her native territory, its people, and to her language, Inuktitut is at the core of her work. Spoken for millennia, Inuktitut embodies the harshness of its environment and the wild yet breathtaking beauty of the Inuit territory. Thematically, her work frequently pairs Intuit themes and concerns with modern rock music, mixing tradition with modernity in a deft, seamless fashion. 

She won her first Juno Award as a member of Taima, and since then her work has received rapturous critical acclaim: 2018’s The Ballad of the Runaway Girl was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, and earned her a number of Association du disque, de l’industrie du spectacle Québeécois (ADISQ) Felix Awards and a Juno Award nod. She followed up with a performance with the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal — at the invitation of Grammy Award-winning maestro Yannick Nézet Séguin — at Central Park SummerStage, a NPR Tiny Desk Session and headlining or festival sets both locally and internationally. 

In her native Canada, she is also known as an actor, starring in the TV series Motel Paradis and C.S. Roy’s experimental indie film VFC, which was released earlier this year. She has also graced the cover of a number of magazines including Châtelaine, Elle Québec and a long list of others. And as a devoted activist, she created and produced the first nation-wide broadcast TV show to celebrate National Indigenous People’s Day. 

Slated for a September 15, 2023 release through Bonsound, her fourth solo album Inuktiut features inventive re-imaginings of songs by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Blondie, Fleetwood Mac, Metallica and more. Each of the acts and artists covered have warmly given their blessing to receive the acclaimed Canadian artist’s unique treatment. Fittingly, each song is imbued with depth and purpose, as the album’s material is an act of cultural re-appropriation that reinvigorates the poetry of these beloved songs by placing them within Inuit traditions.

Through the album’s 10 songs, the acclaimed Inuk tells her story and offers these songs as a loving gift to her community, making her language and culture resonate well beyond the borders of the Inuit territory. But the album is also a testament to the power and remarkable universality of pop music, a reminder of the universality of human life, and fittingly an ode to the experiences, memories, places and people, who have shaped us.

So far, I’ve written about two of the album’s released singles:

“Taimangalimaaq (Time After Time),” a gorgeous and fairly faithful Inuktiut adaptation of Cyndi Lauper‘s 1983 Rob Hyman co-written smash hit “Time After Time” that retains the familiar beloved melody of the original paired with a percussive yet atmospheric arrangement and the Salliut-born, Montréal-based artist’s gorgeous, achingly tender delivery. 

“Taimangalimaaq (Time After Time)” was inspired by a childhood memory of Elisapie’s aunt Alasie and her cousin Susie:
 

“I was able to get through my pre-teen years, thanks to my Aunt Alasie, as my mother had neither the knowledge nor the experience to give me a crash course on puberty, fashion or social relationships,” Elisapie recalls. “In addition to entering a new chapter in my life, we were in the midst of the 80’s and modernity was shaking up our traditional methods. My mother’s generation had lived in Igloos, and the cultural changes were too swift. 

“Despite her struggles, my aunt ensured I felt accepted and exposed me to new and modern things like TV, clothes, dancing, Kraft Dinner and make-up! 

 Whenever I went to my aunt’s house, I was in awe of my older girl cousins. They were all so cool and stylish, and they loved pop music and the crazy makeup of the 80s and early 90s.  One of my favorite memories is listening to the radio with them and hearing Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’ for the first time. It was like a lightning bolt, and I couldn’t separate the song or the artist from my older cousin Susie. For me, the song was all about her search for beauty, connection, love, and rising above pain.”

“Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven)” is a hauntingly gorgeous, dream-like re-imagining of Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” that retains the song’s familiar melody but featuring an arrangement of traditional drums and flute and acoustic guitar paired with the acclaimed Canadian artist’s equally gorgeous, yearning delivery, some brooding synths and the incorporation of Inuktiut throat singing.

“Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven)” finds the acclaimed Canadian artist paying tribute to the Inuit men of Salliut and nodding to the time she interviewed Metallica’s Kirk Hammett in the early 90s:

“When I was 14 years old, I applied for a job at TNI, the first Inuit TV-radio broadcaster, and I was thrilled when I was chosen for the position! Everyone at the station dreamed big, and they put in a request for an interview with Metallica. The band was so loved in Salluit that we had to give it a shot. Metallica accepted only two interviews on their Québec tour, and TNI was chosen. In my boys’ eyes, I was the coolest!

As a teenager, I only wanted to hang around the gang of boys in my village. We would all go to my cousin’s house and smoke weed while listening to Metallica. The band’s music allowed us to delve into the darkness of our broken souls and feel good there. Men’s roles in our territory had been challenged by colonization, and it had become confusing what life was supposed to look like for a man. My boys were seeking new roles, and subconsciously, I allowed them to be my bodyguards so they could feel strong. Looking back, I was trying to give them the strength to find their place.
 

“‘Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven)’ incorporates throat singing, known as katajjaq in Inuktitut. It felt like katajjaq was so appropriate, says Elisapie. It is Inuit women who throat sing. Inuit women, mothers and grandmothers had to be the nurturing ones during the hard times, as men were struggling emotionally due to colonialism. Through this song, I wanted the feminine strength to balance the men’s challenges.”

Inuktitut‘s latest single is an adaptation of the classic Rolling Stones tune, Wild Horses, translated into the acclaimed Canadian artist’s native Inuktitut. “Qimmijuat (Wild Horses)” retains the original’s yearning and tender ache but places the beloved melody in a moving and hauntingly sparse arrangement by her longtime collaborator Joe Grass that features a plaintive piano melody by Leif Vollebekk, a gorgeous, bluesy guitar solo and striking drumming from Robbie Kuster. Elisapie’s yearning delivery ethereally floats over the arrangement.

The song is a tribute to a childhood friend of Elisapie who had a difficult home life due to his parent’s separation and a strained relationship with his father. “Wild Horses became a source of comfort for him and his obsession with it was palpable, as if he was riding away from all his problems on the back of this song,” explains Elisapie.

Directed by Phillipe Léonard, the accompanying video for “Qimmijuat (Wild Horses)” uses footage shot by Jean-Phillipe Sansfaçon in Inukjuak and Salliut, Nunavik, Québec. The video showcases the people, who live in these remote Inuit villages through intimate and sensitive tableaux and scenes of community life.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ohio’s SUMMORE Shares Eerie and Brooding “Magic Pill”

Central Ohio-based synth pop duo SUMMORE — Julie (vocals, lyrics) and Justin (synths, production) specialize in a a brooding and hypnotic sound: Their brighter sounds are often laced with hidden meanings and darker interpretations just beneath the surface. Their darkest and most bleak material often have brief moments of optimism that help to create an emotional balance that opens them up to a state of meditation, self-reflection and healing.

Last September, after playing a packed house at an intimate venue in Columbus, the duo stopped for a late night bite. As they sat parked, a drunk driver lost control, became airborne and hit them like a missile. The impact blasted the drop from one side of the parking lot to the other within a second and changed their lives — except for one constant: their love and dedication for creating music.

They boldly continued. In spite of everything, including long-term injuries both physical and emotional, they found enough strength through their recovery to chronicle their harrowing personal experience on their sophomore album New Pain.

New Pain‘s latest single is the brooding and atmospheric “Magic Pill.” Featuring glistening synth oscillations, atmospheric electronics, skittering trap triplets, “Magic Pill” is an eerie soundscape built for Julie’s plaintive and ethereal vocal. The result is a song that brings Soft Metals‘ 2013 effort Lenses to mind but full of palpable unease.

Directed by the duo, the accompanying video features the duo brooding and longing for a magic pill that would take their pain — both physically and mentally — away forever.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Friendship Commanders Share An Earnest and Anthemic Ripper

Nashville-based melodic heavy duo and JOVM mainstays Friendship Commanders‘ forthcoming Kurt Ballou and Friendship Commanders co-produced third album MASS is a concept album about time, memory and Massachusetts based on Buick Audra’s personal experiences of leaving someplace one no longer feels comfortable or welcome.

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

“Fail,” a grunge-inspired ripper built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming and enormous mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses paired with Buick Audra’s expressive, Ann Wilson-like delivery. “Fail” manages to simultaneously evoke a cry for help and a desperate attempt to connect with another that just seems to fall a bit short.

The duo explained that the song was written to honor the memory of Spore‘s and Sunburned Hand of the Man‘s Marc Orleans, who committed suicide in June 2020. “We chose to make the song energetic, dissonant, and big, just as he would like it. Bit of a departure for us from our usual doomy vibe, but it’s still the same band, we think,” the band says. 

“High Sun,” a 120 Minutes-era MTV alt-rock/shoegazey-like single that’s a a bit of a departure from the doom-influenced heaviness that they’re best known for. But “When I moved away from Boston, I hauled an enormous amount of shame along with me. I had experienced these weird, high-impact moments that were not only troubling on their own, but the aftermath saw me painted as an outcast in my former social groups,” Friendship Commanders’ Buick Audra explains. “And I was young enough to believe that I was the problem. I had been in one controlling relationship in which being different was treated as disobedient, and I was punished for it—publicly. Being a person who was wired to take on blame, I absorbed it. But now when I look at the story, I see the manipulation, the dynamics that repeated themselves. They were experts at making people feel like outsiders, experts at deflecting responsibility. I wanted to drag it all out into the daylight with this big, fuzzy song. I’ve been waiting a long time to say this.”

“Vampires,” MASS‘ latest single continues a run of earnest, arena rock-like anthems — with the new single being built around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming, enormous shout-along worthy hooks. Much like its predecessors, “Vampires” is informed by and fueled by deeply embittering and at times humiliating personal experience. And as a result, the hurt and disdain at the core of the song is visceral.

“There was a season at the end of my time in Boston where I was being turned into The Problem by someone who wanted to control me and couldn’t; it was a moment where I could have played small and gone along with what she wanted, as I had once done,” Audra explains in press notes. “But I didn’t. I played big. I kept what was mine instead of giving it away—which included parts of my identity. And while the result was a scorched earth reality that impacts my sense of self to this day, it also ended the whole thing. I learned a valuable lesson in that season: don’t fuel the narcissists. Keep your power for yourself. It’s what they hate. And if they’re going to drag your character out in front of everyone you know, you might as well burn it all down for the warmth.”

Directed by the band, the accompanying video for “Vampires” is split between footage of the band performing the song, the band’s Audra first dancing with — and then killing the vampires that have been terrorizing her.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Clementine Valentine Shares Haunting “The Rope”

Kiwi-based sibling duo Clementine and Valentine Nixon have had music and performing embedded in their lineage: Traveling musicians and performers go back hundreds of years on their maternal side — and was documented on recordings such as 1968’s The Traveling Stewarts. As children, the Nixon Sisters were taught to sing traditional balladry by their grandmother, the daughter of revered Traveller musician Davie Stewart, who was recorded by Alan Lomax.

Professionally, the sibling duo have made a career our of music that draws from that nomadic family heritage and conjures a series of contrasts: ancient and modern, beauty and brokenness, the ritual and the fleeting and more. Raised itinerantly between New Zealand and Hong Kong, the Kiwi-based sibling duo cut their teeth performing in renegade gallery spaces and rogue music venues across Hong Kong’s abandoned industrial section, eventually amassing both national and international attention with their acclaimed experimental noise and futuristic noise pop project Purple Pilgrims.

Their Purple Pilgrim material was frequently self-produced and released through a series of labels including beloved Kiwi label Flying Nun Records. With their latest project Clementine Valentine, Clementine and Valentine Nixon write, record and perform with a fusion of their birth names. Sonically, the project sees the sibling duo refining their craft into a more fully realized and sophisticated sound than ever before.

Their Randall Dunn-produced Clementine Valentine full-length debut The Coin That Broke the Fountain Floor is slated for an August 25, 2023 release through Flying Nun Records. The album reportedly marks a pivotal moment in the pair’s creative evolution: The material sees them transposing their keyboard-and-guitar driven demos to cello, pedal steel, 12 string guitar and a collection of vintage synthesizers. Matt Chamberlain, who has worked with David Bowie, Lana Del Rey and Fiona Apple contributed percussion for the recording sessions.

The result is material that’s lush, shimmering and softly orchestral while being an accumulation of songcraft that has stretched back generations within their family.

Last month, I wrote about album single “Time and Tide,” a single built around the duo’s gorgeous and expressive vocal range, soaring hooks and choruses, dramatic percussion, strummed guitar and atmospheric synths. Sonically nodding at Kate Bush, “Time and Tide” aims for the celestial and the timeless, while being one of the more optimistic-leaning songs of their career to date.

“We thought we were only capable of writing sad songs — but found optimism creeping in during the writing of this album,” Clementine and Valentine Nixon explain. “Without ruining the mystery, ‘Time and Tide’ is about the release that comes in too brief moments of relinquishing overthinking, fret and regret. It’s coloured with melancholy, but cheerful by our measure.” 

The Coin That Broke the Fountain Floor‘s second and latest single “The Rope” is a haunting siren song that pulls the listener in, much like the old Greek myths — but whether it’s to safety or your demise is ultimately up to the listener. The Nixon’s sisters’ unncaily breathtaking harmonies ethereally float over a sparse arrangement of their vocals, strummed guitar and gentle percussion. Unlike it’s immediate predecessor, “The Rope” is clearly informed and inspired by a deep understanding and love of folk tradition.

“The rope acts as a motif to connect us to our ancestors – we wanted it to feel as though it could be both ancient and of now,” the Nixon Sisters explain. “A feeling we call ‘ancient futurism’ – something we’ve been chasing in our songs for years now. We were reaching for a feeling simultaneously sinister and comforting as, to us, so many ancient songs are.   

“We’ve always listened to a lot of new music, but the core of our creative expression has always come directly from our deep familial folk music traditions. This is something that has not always been easily identifiable, perhaps due to the fact that we’ve never been interested in making ‘folk revival music’ — there’s no finger picking on any of our family records. The folk element in our songs is on a DNA level, stretching back beyond the 1960s wave that folk music is commonly associated with.   

Having felt for a long time that pop, and (more importantly to us) lo-fi or bedroom produced music, to now be the true music of the people (accessible to all) — we finally decided we wanted to use more acoustic and ‘traditional’ instrumentation to express this feeling of modernising relics.   Although our personal tradition of using an excess of synthesizers is still very much present all over this album, ‘The Rope’ is very stripped back for us and tells the story of our family music in a way we never have before.”

Directed by PICTVRE — the directorial and creative duo of Veronica Crockford-Pound and Joseph Griffen — the gorgeously cinematic, black and white visual for “The Rope” is inspired by 1960s noveau vague film — in particular Jean-Luc Godard’s sci-fi/noir Alphaville and Ingmar Bergman’s psychological drama Persona.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Gotts Street Park Shares Funky “Fuego”

With the release of a handful of singles the rising neo-soul and hip-hop outfit Gotts Street Park— Josh Crocker (bass, production), Tom Henry (keys) and Joe Harris (guitar) — quickly amassed fans and acclaim while working with Rejje Snow, Kali Uchis, Cosima, Yellow Days, Chester Watson, Celeste, Rosie Lowe, and a growing list of others. 

2021’s Diego EP, which featured a collection of compositions informed by the raw energy of being together and creating in the same room, a cinematic batch of gongs inspired by The Godfather and Yasujirō Ozu.

The British outfit’s highly-anticipated full-length debut On The Inside is slated for an October 13, 2023 release through Blue Flowers. The 12-song album is reportedly a window into the band’s world, a world that’s been expanding since the band’s formation several years ago. What initially began as an outlet for their shared love of 60s Motown quickly became one of Leeds’ most successful and acclaimed bands, while amassing over 69 million Spotify streams.

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Got To Be Good,” an effortless, vintage soul-inspired strut built around skittering boom bap-like drumming, glistening Rhodes, burst of funk guitar and a sinuous and supple bass line paired with Pip Millett‘s yearning delivery.

“’Got To Be Good’, came together pretty fast. Whenever we’ve been in the room with Pip, it’s pretty free and fruitful,” the members of Gotts Street Park explain. “When a song comes together like this, we don’t overthink it or alter the final take too much and just hope to have the same energy come through to the listener as we felt in the room creating it.” 

“’Got To Be Good’ is about pulling yourself out of the darkness,” Pip Millett adds. “You have to really want for a change in order to pull away from that sadness, and that’s what I was writing about.”

On The Inside‘s latest single “Fuego” sees the trio returning to their instrumental roots. Featuring an irresistibly funky, El Michels affair-meets-classic soul-like groove, “Fuego” is built around a shape-shifting arrangement of twinkling keys, squiggling funk guitar and relentless boom-bap snares. The song sees the acclaimed British trio crafting a mischievously anachronistic jam that’s perfect for lounges and for crate diggers looking for deep, hypnotic grooves.

Directed by Kumara Vision, the accompanying video for “Fuego” offers a rare snapshot into the band’s inner workings with hazy, mind-bending footage of the band working in the studio.

“’Fuego’ started as a quick jam one afternoon during our June 2022 residency at Laylow,” the rising British trio explain.”It was super hot in London that day, and we were sweating it out in the top floor studio. The riff came about as we were letting off steam in between writing and developing ideas with a vocalist. Josh hit on the bass riff first and it kinda flowed from there.   

“When we’re in a session writing with someone, we can end up playing the same chords round and round for a few hours – and ideas like ‘Fuego’ come about when we’re letting loose and being super playful after being so restricted.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Detroit’s Zilched Shares Yearning “Loveless”

23 year-old, Detroit-based singer/songwriter Chloe Drallos is the creative mastermind behind the rising pop recording project Zilched. Started back in 2017, Drallos exploded into the national scene with her full-length debut, 2020’s DOOMPOP, an effort, which saw the Detroit-based artist quickly establishing an eclectic, genre-defying take on pop.

Drallos’ highly-anticipated sophomore album, the Ian Ruhala and Ben Collins co-produced Earthly Delights is slated for an August 11, 2023 release through Young Heavy Souls. Reportedly a testament to the maturation of her uncompromising creative vision, Drallos’ sophomore album sees her adding grunge elements to her gothic pop-tinged take on art rock. While being a dazzling display of poetic lyricism that sees the Detroit-based artist weaving an intricate tapestry of Romantic imagery, metaphor and religious allegory that softens the blow of her brutal honesty, the album explores the purgatorial nature of bargaining with an indecisive lover and with oneself.

“Loveless,” Earthly Delights‘ latest single oscillates between shimmering and yearning Kate Bush-like verses and cathartic, rousingly anthemic choruses as the song’s narrator speaks of something that’s fairly universal: the frustration and annoyance of a lover that’s been withholding and indecisive. The song ends with its narrator essentially saying “make up your mind or I’ll make it up for you.” While “Loveless” is a display of slick and seemingly effortless craft, the song feels rooted in bitter, deeply lived-in experience.

“The song is like a conversation between lovers. Contemplating the purgatorial roller coaster that exists between freedom and unity,” Drallos says.

Directed by Chloe Drallos, the accompanying video for “Loveless” sees Drallos and her band performing in a bare studio in a lush swatch of red and blue lighting as a sparse crowd of mysterious onlookers dispassionately watch. “As for the video, I was inspired by disco TV performances and Giallo horror,” Drallos explains.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Punt Shares a Fuzzy, Mosh Pit Friendly Anthem

New York-based duo Punt — Eli Frank (vocals, bass) and Bill Michel (drums) — can trace their origins back to the 2010s, when they were introduced by a mutual friend. And in a short time, the band burnt out: The pair set out to write and record their full-length debut, 2015’s Oil in a week. Soon after the album’s release, Frank and Michel went their separate ways.

During a sweltering New York Metropolitan Area summer back in 2015, the duo were drawn back together to write and record their long-awaited sophomore album, the aptly titled The Heat. Slated for a September 22, 2023 release through Trash Casual, the album reportedly drags listeners through New York’s grimy underbelly and explores the “random terrible thoughts” running through Frank’s brain. Sonically, the material sees the duo crafting a fuzzy and riff-driven salute to everything noir. (Or in my book — a decided hell-fucking-yes!)

The album’s latest single “I’m Bad” is swaggering, grungy and power chord-driven anthem built around fuzz distortion pedaled-bass, thunderous and propulsive drumming and a burst of 60s psych rock organ arpeggios paired with mosh pit friendly hooks and Frank’s howled delivery. But underneath the mosh pit friendly swagger, the song as Punk’s Eli Frank explains is “about not knowing how to get what you want, but you know you’re meant to be doing big shit. It probably won’t happen, but fuck it ‘cuz it’s all about the ride away. That ride into the pits of hell, baby.”

Directed by Chris Warner, the accompanying video for “I’m Bad” is shot in a noir-ish black and white, and follows the duo as they play the song in an abandoned, graffitied train track somewhere.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: SANDS Shares Buoyant and Energetic “Transmission”

Andrew Sands is a London-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind rising shoegaze project SANDS. Influenced by Neil Young, David Bowie, The Smiths, David Lynch, Talk Talk, Echo and the Bunnymen and a long list of others, Sands’ own music sees him seamlessly blending rock, psych rock and elements of pop.

Since starting the project back in 2017, the London-based artist has released a handful of EPs and singles, including 2017’s S/T EP and “Let’s Run”/”Echoes,” 2018’s Waves Calling EP and “Tomorrow’s Gone”/”Burning Man” and 2019’s Nothing Can Go Wrong EP.

Sands’ highly-anticipated full-length debut, The World’s So Cruel is slated for an October 13, 2023. The album’s first single “Transmission” was written and produced at several London studio locations, including Hackney, South Bermondsey and his apartment. Built around glistening synths, buzzing guitar riffs, a relentlessly propulsive rhythm, a rousingly anthemic series of hooks and choruses paired with Sands’ plaintive delivery, the high energy “Transmission” manages to bring The Stone Roses and the Madchester sound to mind — but with a subtly modern take.

“Transmission” is inspired by the busy and eclectic Northeast London neighborhood that Sands once lived in. The lyrics capture the restless energy and activity of the neighborhood in a way that feels very familiar to me as a native New Yorker. And it does so in a way that feels a bit like a contented sigh of being home, and of awe of everything going on around you.

The lyric video is shot at a Northeast London market and captures some of that thrumming activity from a seemingly endless array of people coming and going, of money and goods changing hands.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Frankie and The Witch Fingers Share Furious, DEVO-Like Ripper “Futurephobic”

Since initially forming in Bloomington, IN well over a decade ago, the acclaimed Los Angeles-based psych rock outfit Frankie and The Witch Fingers — currently founding duo Dylan Sizemore (vocals, guitar) and Josh Menashe (lead guitar, synth), along with Death Valley Girls‘ Nikki “Pickle” Smith (bass) and Mike Watt’s Nick Aguilar (drums) — have a long-held reputation for restless experimentation rooted in the multiple permutations of their lineups, and for a high-powered and scuzzy, garage punk meets thrash punk take on psych rock paired with absurdist lyrics, frequently fueled by dreams, hallucinations, paranoia and lust. And as a result, their material can be simultaneously mischievous, menacing and dreamlike. 

Slated for a September 1, 2023 release through Greenway Records/The Reverberation Appreciation Society, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays’ forthcoming seventh album, Data Doom is built around the cerebral yet viscerally songwriting of the outfit’s co-founders, while marking the first written and recorded material featuring Smith and Aguilar.

In crafting what may arguably be their most rhythmically complex work to date, the band drew heavily from each member’s distinct sensibilities: Smith tapped into her extensive background in West African drumming, an art form she first discovered through her music instructor parents. Aguilar leaned into formative influences like longtime Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen.

Self-produced by the proudly DIY-minded band and recorded direct to tape by the band’s Menashe, Data Doom ultimately took shape through countless sessions in their Southeast L.A.-based rehearsal space, with the band allowing themselves unlimited time to explore their gloriously strange impulses. “There was no pressure and no real time constraint for this record, and because of that the creativity flowed in a very free way that probably wouldn’t have happened if we’d been on the clock in a studio,” Frankie and the Witch’s Dylan Sizemore says in press notes. “It showed us that the more we take the time to communicate and share our ideas with each other, the more it feeds our creative energy and helps us to make something we’re all really excited about.”

While showcasing the expansive and eccentric musicality of past efforts like 2020’s Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters . . ., Data Doom reportedly features nine high-wattage songs built with both dizzying intricacy and completely unfettered imagination. 

Last month, I wrote about “Mild Davis,” an expansive, stream of consciousness-driven song that sees the acclaimed JOVM mainstays cycling through a whirlwind of rhythms and textures with dexterous guitar work, froggy synths and a series of mind-bending solos. Seemingly drawing from Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo-era DEVO, acid jazz freakouts, garage psych and space rock, the song is actually inspired by Miles Davis‘ early 70s electric period, “Mild Davis” — and may arguably be the one of wildest, face-melting rippers I’ve heard this year.

Data Doom‘s latest single “Futurephobic” is a Freedom of Choice-era DEVO-like ripper but around scorching power chord-driven riffs, Sizemore’s punchy delivery, buzzing synths, woozy synths and the JOVM mainstays unerring knack for crafting mosh pit friendly hooks paired with hellish, seemingly stream of consciousness lyrics that describe our endlessly online world with disgust and horror.

“The main riff was an idea we came up with during the writing process for our album Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters… but we kept it in our back pockets, as it wasn’t quite fitting in with the theme of that album,” the band explains. “When we started writing Data Doom, it reemerged very organically and everyone latched onto the idea surprisingly fast and ran with it. We expanded on the main riff and came up with the other parts and overall arrangement while writing with our new lineup in our studio in LA. The whole process went surprisingly smoothly. We added backing vocals and overdubs while on tour last year in Europe, doing all the passes to complete the song from various apart-hotels, attics in France and Amsterdam.”

Directed by Slim Reaper, the accompanying video for “Futurephobic” seems to draw from Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, The Buggles‘ “Video Killed The Radio Star” and DEVO — and set in a nightmarish realm that features a mad, sadistic Ronald McDonald-like clown, who tortures a young women, while others watch eating burgers. It fits with the album’s dystopian sci-fi vibe.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Pearl Earl Makes Evil Fun in “Evil Does It”

Currently splitting her time between Los Angeles and Denton, TX, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is the creative mastermind and frontperson of the rising psych rock project Pearl Earl. Originally started as a bedroom project on Harley’s laptop while she was in college, the project has seen several different iterations, and now consists of a rotating cast of original lineup and touring members including Bailey K. Chapman, Stefanie Lazcano, Chelsey Danielle, Teddy Georgia Waggy and Leeza V.

Once described as “Pink Floyd in the sunlight,” Pearl Earl’s material makes heavy nods to spacey prog and golden era glam rock, but while seeing the band carve their own take. The band has also developed a reputation for a live show that’s captivating and euphoric with an ominous, impish grin. And adding to a growing profile, they have shared bills with the likes of JOVM mainstays Death Valley Girls, The Black Angels and Frankie and The Witch Fingers, Oh Sees, Post Animal, Acid Dad and Black Lips. They’ve also made the run of the national festival circuit with sets at LEVITATION and SXSW among others.

Recorded at Tomas Dolas at Studio 22, and released last month through Green Witch Recordings, Pearl Earl’s sophomore It’s Dread thematically explores existential crisis in an apocalyptic, doomed world plagued by a capitalistic, patriarchal society captivated and ruled by celebrity worship and blind consumerism. And yet, despite the fact that most of the album’s material was written during the COVID-19 pandemic, “there is an underlying glimmer of help and resolution throughout its subversive demeanor,” Pearl Earl’s Ariel Hartley says.

It’s Dread‘s first single “Evil Does It” is built around woozy synths, a reverb-soaked, drunken rhythmic swing, buzzing guitars paired with Hartley’s punchy delivery and an infectious hook. The song manages to be menacing and uneasy yet somehow mischievous — and sort of campy. Evil can be so delightful, y’all!

Directed by Sara Mosier, the accompanying video for “It’s Dread” is set in a drug-addled, consumerism hellscape much like our own — and features mind-bending Bob Fosse-like sequences in a suburban home with several Versailles-like rooms, a Broadway-like set and ends with its protagonists in the endless conflagration of hell. And the Grim Reaper makes an appearance.