Category: Video Review

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal Art Punks La Securité Share Frenetic Ripper “Anyway”

Montréal-based art punk quintet La Securité features a collection of acclaimed local players, with the band featuring current and past members of Choses Sauvages, Laurence-Anne, Silver Dapple, DATES, Pressure Pin, and others. Since their formation last year. the Canadian quintet have quickly developed and cemented their sound and approach: Meandering around the fringes of punk, New Wave and krautrock, the quintet’s take on art punk pairs jumpy beats, off-kilter arrangements and minimalistic yet melodic hooks, run through an insomniac filter. And while their music is razor sharp and danceable, their lyrical content is rooted in the feminist community-centric ethos of the Riot Grrrl movement. “It’s not just fun and games… it also bites. It’s catchy earworms delivered with a punk attitude,” guitarist Melissa Di Menna says. 

In a relatively short period of time, La Securité has quickly made a name for themselves in both the national and international scene: They’ve been invited to play at SXSW, FME, Phoque Off, Taverne Tour and DISTORSION Psych Fest, and they’ve shared stages with Automatic, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, TVOD, Margaritas Podridas, CIVIC, and Duchess Says. Building upon a growing profile, the French Canadian quintet’s highly-anticipated Samuel Gemme-produced full-length debut, Stay Safe! is slated for a June 16, 2023 release through Mothland.

Recorded at Gamma Recording Studio, Stay Safe! reportedly features songs that manic yet surprisingly laid-back, empowering and urgent, reflective yet melancholy — all while mischievously flouting stylistic form every chance they can get. The album’s latest single “Anyway” is a scorcher built around buzzing and slashing power chords, a chugging motorik groove, bombastic hooks and choruses paired with a cooler-than-you swagger. But underneath the song’s frenetic energy is a song informed by a deeply personal yet universal, and very heavy subject: “This song was written in the early stages of dealing with grief related to miscarriage and pleads a sort of surrender to the strain it can put on a couple processing it,” La Securité’s vocalist Éliane Viens-Symott explains in press notes.

Directed by the members of the band, the accompanying video for “Anyway” was shot on VHS and follows the band in what has quickly become one of my favorite cities in the world. We see the band playing in joints around town, hanging out and goofing around. It’s exuberant, mischievous and stylish as hell. The video and album announcements come on the heels of the band’s SXSW appearance this year. So this year looks to be a big year for the Montréal-based outfit.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ba Banga Nyeck Shares Breezy and Uplifting “Les champions du futur”

Ba Banga Nyeck is a Alsace, France-based, Cameroonian-Ivorian singer/songwriter, musician and producer, who invented a chromatic balafon, a gourd resonated xylophone, with which he traveled across the world, making stops here in the States, Japan, India and South Africa. Of course, during his travels, he saw the degradation of the planet’s environment.

His latest single, the breezy, hook-driven and polyrhythmic percussive bop “Les champions du futur” is rooted in a much-needed message — championing the preservation of our environment, before it’s too late. Adding to the overall message, the song features some instruments made from recycled and reclaimed materials paired with twinkling keys, glistening balafon, guitar and call and response vocals.

The accompanying and delightfully playful video for “Les champions de future” features Nyeck and his backing band performing the song with keyboards, guitar, horns and balafon, along with instruments made from recycled and reclaimed materials. We also see a chorus of young kids, also playing instruments made from recycled and reclaimed materials. Let’s remember that those babies in the video are the future we should be fighting for.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Crocodiles Shares Fuzzy and Anthemic “Upside Down In Heaven”

Crocodiles — Brandon Welchez and Charles Rowell — have had a nearly 25 year history: After initially becoming acquainted at a local Anti-Racist Action meeting, Welchez and Rowell found their respective teenage bands booked on the same bill at a punk gig hosted at a Mexican restaurant in their native San Diego. As their mutual friend Russell Cash, who wrote their bio describes it, “Young Brandon watched in awe as a teenage Charlie clambered up a confused family’s table and proceeded to bash the living hell out of his cheap guitar. When his set was through, young Charlie melted back into the crowd and found himself awestruck as the pubescent Brandon took the ‘stage’ (floor) and proceeded to shriek, croon, howl and spit his way through his own band’s allotted 20 minutes. Once the noise was over, the two found each other, expressed their mutual admiration and over a shared Coca-Cola agreed to dissolve their respective bands and join forces.”

After a few false starts, the duo found their footing with the noise-punk outfit The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower. They spent five years traversing the country, building up a cult following, while playing every backwoods dump that would have them. They met and inspired other like-minded freaks — an occasionally they’d get beaten up by feral rednecks. Eventually, the band imploded in a cloud of poverty and addition. But Charlie and Brandon agreed to keep their partnership going.

After a year years experimenting with their songwriting and sound and trying out various lineups and names, they decided to kick out the half-committed losers and jokers they were working at the time, and replaced them for a beat up, old drum machine. Immediately, they set to work on the batch of songs that would become Crocodiles debut album, 2009’s Summer of Hate.

Over the course of the band’s 15 year history, they’ve released seven albums and a handful of EPs while going through a flurry of changes: Their recorded output has seen them change their sound — art punk, psych rock, 60s-inspired pop and trashed-out glam. They’ve changed personnel several times, starting out as a duo, then they were a quintet, then they were a duo again and more recently as a quartet. They’ve also relocated multiple times — residing in San Diego, New York, Paris, Mexico City, London, and Los Angeles. But two things have remained the same: they’ve toured incessantly, bringing their unique brand of rock to fans in almost every corner of the globe — and the band’s core duo have never wavered on their teenage mission to help each other escape a life of drudgery, boredom and expectation through music, art, friendship and of course, adventure. After all, why not do something really fucking interesting and perhaps kind of crazy with your best friend, right?

Crocodiles’ eighth full-length album, the Maxime Smadja-produced Upside Down In Heaven was released yesterday through Lollipop Records. After a prolonged hiatus, the band finally reconvened at St. Jean de Luz, France’s Quicksilver Studios to put their eighth record on wax. Atef Aouadhi (bass) and Diego Dal Bon (drums) were recruited to flesh out the material for teh sessions. The album sees the band continuing in their long-held fashion to zig-zag cohesively from one style to the next and back again. As Russell Cash describes the album’s material, “The songs are direct, cut to the chance and leave listeners thirsting for more.”

Upside Down In Heaven‘s third and latest single, album title track “Upside Down In Heaven” is a pop-inspired anthem, rooted in the duo’s unerring knack for pairing melody, scuzzy guitars. and razor sharp hooks with lyrics that express heartache, regret with a weary and bitter, lived-in burn.

“Maybe I was chasing that elusive Stiff Records sound or simply trying something that would make Westerberg smile,” Crocodiles’ Charles Rowell says of the single. “Either way it’s pure pop for heads who appreciate lyrics and melody. It’s a little sad but triumphant and true. If you’ve ever felt like you’re a little too far from home, like you’ve chased the dream until it’s turned into a nightmare, then here’s another song burning with regret and wasted wisdom.”

Directed by Sam Macon, the accompanying video for “Upside Down In Heaven” starts off with an old Pizza Hut commercial and quickly takes the viewer to an 80s-influenced tele-evangelist show featuring the band’s Brandon Welchez as a Jim Baker-type preaching to folks as they get the Holy Spirit. Naturally, our preacher has an angel and a devil on both shoulders whispering to him (the band’s Charles Rowell). But eventually Welchez’s preacher listens to the devil, and things take a playfully satanic turn — as it should!

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Stimmerman Shares Eerie “Mirror”

Eva Lawitts is a New York-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, grizzled local scene veteran and JOVM mainstay: Lawitts began her career with a 14-year run with local, prog rock shredders Sister Helen. Since Sister Helen’s break-up, she has developed a reputation as a go-to session and touring musician, working with Vagabon, Princess Nokia, and others.

Lawitts aslo co-runs Brooklyn-based recording studio, Wonderpark Studios, where she’s a producer and engineer. Adding to a busy schedule, the Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer played bass on Oceanator‘s Things I Never Said. 

Her recording project Stimmerman — which is simultaneously a band and a solo project — was founded back in 2017 after her previous band Sister Helen split up. “I wanted a project that was all mine and so I picked a family name long-changed for the purposes of assimilating into American Society (what a concept)- Stimmerman,” Lawitts explains in press notes. 

Lawitts’ Stimmerman debut, 2019’s Goofballs which featured “It Shows” and “Dentist vs. Pharmacist.” was ” . . . more or less about loss and survivor’s guilt: it’s a meditation on a friend’s fatal overdose at a young age through that lens.”

Lawitts’ latest album Undertaking is slated for a May 26, 2023 release through Worry Records. The album reportedly sees Lawitts further cementing her reputation for creating boundary pushing work inspired by an eclectic array of music that aims to hold a cathartic space for the listener/audience.

Undertaking‘s latest single “Mirror” is built around a brooding and eerie production featuring twinkling keys paired with sparse skittering beats, swirling guitar textures and Lawitts’ comforting and self-aware crooning. While “Mirror” sonically brings a sleek synthesis of Beacon and Sylvan Esso with a playful nod to lullabies, the song lyrically is an self-aware yet unvarnished and unafraid baring of the soul — and its deepest desires and thoughts.

The accompanying video for “Mirror” was animated and edited by Max McDaniel-Neff features footage of bodies of water with line drawings depicting the song’s lyrics superimposed over the water.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Pink Mexico Shares Brooding and Bruising “Dungeonhead”

After stints playing drums for acclaimed singer/songwriter Shilpa Ray and a list of other bands, Robert Preston Collum (guitar, vocals) stepped out into the spotlight with his solo project Pink Mexico. Preston self-released his 2013 full-length debut Pnik Mxeico, which caught the attention of Austin-based label Fleeting Youth Records, who then re-released the album the following December.

Collum relocated to Brooklyn in the fall of 2014 to begin recording what would be his sophomore album. Following countless Brooklyn shows during the course of 2015, the project extended into a full-fledged band with the addition of Grady Walker (drums, vocals) and Ian Everall (bass). Collum’s Pink Mexico sophomore album, 2016’s Fool was released through Burger Records and French label Big Tomato Records. He and his bandmates supported the album with an opening spot for Honus Honus (a.k.a Mam Man) during that artist’s November 2016 tour.

Pink Mexico’s third album 2019’s DUMP was released through Burger Records and Little Dickamn Records. Unlike the previously released albums, where Collum played all the instruments, DUMP is the first album that features Everall and Walker on their respective instruments.

The band’s fourth album, 2020’s Idiot Piss Illiterate was released through San Francisco-based label Broken Clover Records.

Earlier this year, Pink Mexico announced their signing to Quiet Panic Records, who will be releasing their fifth album, Mirrorhead. Slated for a May 19, 2023 release, Mirrorhead was written and recorded during the period of its predecessor’s release. But while Idiot Piss Illiterate‘s material rode on a frantic garage rock undercurrent, the forthcoming album reportedly swaps out ragged pace for bruising waves of heavy sound, interspersed with moments of stripped back exposure. Thematically, the album’s material is rooted in a recollection of memories and experiences woven through the reconstruction oft he self and a bold sense of experimentation.

Mirrorhead‘s first single “Dungeonhead” is a 120 Minutes MTV-era alt rock-inspired aural assault centered around layers of reverb-drenched, fuzzy and distorted power chords and thunderous power chords paired with Collum’s plaintive and ethereal lead vocal. But under the ironically detached delivery and enormous hooks, is a song that evokes a palpable sense of unease.

Pink Mexico’s Robert Preston calls “Dungeonhead,” “a track about never feeling comfortable in one’s own skin while reflecting on the obscurities of life during a time when the regular version of confusing and fucked up is even more fucked up and confusing.”

Directed by Steven Ungureanu, the brooding and uneasy accompanying video for “Dungeonhead” was shot across my home borough of Queens. I recognize a number of significant locations including Ridgewood, Jackson Heights, Forest Park, Ridgewood Reservoir, Far Rockaway and more.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Alice Phoebe Lou Shares Dreamy and Summery “Shelter”

Cape Town-born, Berlin-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and JOVM mainstay  Alice Phoebe Lou grew up in an intensely creative home: her parents were documentary filmmakers, who took a young Lou to piano lessons. As a teenager, Lou taught herself guitar.

When she turned 16, the JOVM mainstay went on a life-altering trip to Paris to visit her aunt. Armed with an acoustic guitar, Lou wound up meeting some of the city’s buskers and street performers — and she was instantly hooked. She even learned poi dancing from some of them. Upon completing her studies, Cape Town-born, Berlin-based artist returned to Europe, where she quickly developed a reputation as a highly-regarded busker — and for a fiercely DIY approach to her career.

Lou self-released her debut EP, 2014’s Momentum. She followed that up with her full-length debut, Orbit, which was released to widespread critical applause, including a Best Female Artist nomination at that year’s German Critics’ Awards. The Cape Town-born, Berlin-based artist closed out a whirlwind year with three, sold-out multimedia shows at the Berlin Planetarium. Those Berlin Planetarium shows were so popular and in such high demand that additional shows had to be added to her tour schedule in 2017. 

In 2018, the live version of “She” amassed over four million streams on YouTube and was featured in Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story — before the studio version of the single had been recorded or released. Lou then spent the bulk of that year or so, writing and recording the material, which would comprise her sophomore album, 2019’s critically applauded, Noah Georgeson-produced Paper Castles. According to Lou, the album was “about nostalgia, about growing into a woman, about the pain and beauty of the past, about feeling small and insignificant but finding that to be powerful and beautiful, about acknowledging that childhood is over but bringing some of it with you.”

2021 saw Lou, much like countless others readapting her way of working. The result was her third album, 2021’s self-released David Parry-produced Glow, an album of visceral, glittering songs in which the JOVM mainstay articulated her deepest thoughts and emotions with her trademark unvarnished honesty. With touring at a standstill throughout the bulk of that year, Lou focused on writing and recording another album. The JOVM mainstay, along with her friends and collaborators Ziv and Daklis traveled to British Columbia to work with David Parry. Employing a simple and intuitive process, which allowed the songs to grow into themselves, the material they worked on was recored on 8-track tape machine, the end result was her fourth album and second of the that year, Child’s Play.

Lou’s latest single “Shelter” is the first single off her forthcoming fifth album, which from my understanding will be announced soon. But in the meantime, “Shelter” is a decidedly 70s album rock-inspired tune featuring glistening and arpeggiated keys, strummed guitar, a sinuous bass line and a propulsive backbeat paired with Lou’s achingly yearning vocal, bathed in a bit of distortion and reverb. While the song evokes warmly nostalgic thoughts about summer, the song’s narrator seemingly finds herself at an uncomfortable, uneasy balance: Although she points out that underneath her armor is a tender and vulnerable soul, she readily admits a need to put herself first.

Shot on 8mm film and edited by Andrea Ariel with additional footage from Jasha Hase and Alice Phoebe Lou, the accompanying video for “Shelter” features behind-the-scene footage of the acclaimed artist while on tour last year. Capturing Lou at her most playful and beguiling, the video is rooted in sweet, sun-kissed memories.

The acclaimed Cape Town-born, Berlin-based artist will be embarking on a lengthy international tour to build up buzz and support the new album. The tour will kick off with a May 9. 2023 stop at The Sultan Room. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Sophia Habib Performs “Lifeline” with Cloud Orchestra

Sophia Habib is a rising, Rotterdam-based singer/songwriter, classically trained musician and producer, whose work draws from her love of ’00s pop, R&B and her classical training throughout her life and at the prestigious Rotterdam Conservatory of Music. While her sound is features a maturity and sophistication that seemingly belies her youth, her work tackles themes that touch on relatable, everyday life experiences with a lived-in, heart-worn-on-sleeve earnestness.

Following the release of her full-length debut, last year’s Fragile, Habib recently shared three live tracks, featuring the rising Rotterdam-based artist performing with her backing band and Cloud Orchestra. Two of the songs are off the album — “Lifeline” and “We Can’t Work This Out,” while the third song is a new song “Thank You.” Performing alongside Cloud Orchestra allows the Rotterdam-base artist’s love of classical music — and her classical background — to shine brightly. “To work with an orchestra was a dream I just had to fulfill,” Habib says in press notes. “I called Anton de Bruin and asked if he wanted to do another collaboration with Cloud Orchestra. And that’s how it started!”

The live version of “Lifeline” pairs a stunningly cinematic string arrangement with a slick, hook driven production featuring wobbling, retro-futuristic synth arpeggios, skittering trap-like beats and Habib’s soulful, pop star-like delivery, expressing yearning, confusion, and then self-awareness, followed by defiant pride. “Lifeline” captures a narrator, who initially is desperately and stupidly in love with someone, who may not be worthy of them. And by the end of the song, its narrator recognizes their own self-worth and self-love. If the song sounds like women you know, there’s a good reason: the song is written from the perspective of a very modern woman, discovering her own worth and power — even if it’s in an indirect fashion.

“‘Lifeline’ speaks of desperately wanting someone to love you, even though you know they’re no good for you, but ultimately realising that you don’t need the approval of anyone to be loved,” Habib explains.

Directed by Eloi Genrich and Rebecca Weltner and filmed by Maric Dam, the video for “Lifeline” was shot in a beautiful, hauntingly minimalist location, allowing the focus to be on Habib, the other performers and the music — without lights, explosions and other distractions. The video’s cinematography features warm, golden hues gently blended with shadows, which helps add a subtle emotional cue to the song’s narrative.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: PRIORS Shares Riotously Upbeat “Daffodil”

Led by singer/songwriter, creative mastermind, and producer, Chance Hutchinson, Montréal-based punk outfit PRIORS have been wildly prolific, dropping six releases, including three full-length albums since 2017. Each of those efforts have seen the Canadian punk outfit firmly cementing a melodic and dynamic punk sound. During that same period, PRIORS have developed a reputation for a wildly energetic live set that they’ve toured across Canada, the States and Europe, while sharing stages with The Mummies, Oblivians, Quintron, and Simply Saucer.

Adding to a growing profile across the indie and punk scene, the members of PRIORS have made the rounds of the international festival circuit with stops at Goner Fest and M for Montréal. (Their M for Mothland showcase set at last year’s M for Montréal was a personal highlight of a week-long trip of highlights.)

The Canadian outfit’s Max Deshernais co-produced Daffodil is slated for a June 2, 2023 release through Mothland. Serving as the band’s seventh release and fourth album overall, the album which features Sonic Avenues‘ Sebastien Godin (guitar), The Famines‘ Andrew Demers (drums) and Tabarnak’s Alan Hildebrandt (bass) is reportedly one of their most hopeful and uplifting efforts to date. Sonically, incisive rhythms serve as the basis for clever arrangements centered around fuzzy guitars, propulsive bass lines and analog synths are paired with Hutchinson’s punchily delivered vocals fed through a bit of reverb, and occasional sax blasts from CIVIC’s and The Steve Adamyk Band‘s Dave Forcier.

“I’d say Daffodil is a pop-heavy punk record with a lot of positive outlooks. I have spent the last six releases kicking the shit out of myself and it was time for a new vibe. A little sprinkle of positivity amongst the angst,” PRIORS’ Chance Hutchinson explains in press notes.

Daffodil‘s latest single, album title track “Daffodil” is built around a chugging and insistent buzzing electric guitar, strummed acoustic guitar, and blasts of wobbling Farfisa paired with an insistent backbeat and Hutchinson’s distorted and punchily delivered vocal. Although it’s more of a bounce and shout-along with the band sort of song, “Daffodil” manages to retain a feral yet joyous mosh pit friendly energy that’s infectious.

“’Daffodil’ is one of those songs that happened very quickly,” Hutchinson recalls. “All the parts just kind of wrote themselves including the vocal ideas. In the studio we opened it up a little more with the Vox Jaguar and acoustic guitar and Max added that wild ‘beach sound’ ending with the birds which I really feel pulls it all together.”

Directed by Studio Del Scorpio and featuring additionally photography by Billy Riley, the accompanying video for “Daffodil” captures a behind-the-scenes look at life on the road, including footage of the band playing sweaty, riotous shows across Canada, the incredibly same looking hotel rooms and roads and more.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: FACS Shares Menacing and Uneasy “Constellation”

In 2013, Chicago-based post-punk act Disappears — founding member Brian Case (vocals, guitar) along with  Noah Leger (drums), Jonathan van Herirk (guitar) and Damon Carruesco (bass) — released two somewhat related yet very different efforts that have remained in my album rotation — the atmospheric and tempestuous Kone EP and the tense, raging Era. 

Carruesco left the band in 2017. The remaining members — Case, Lager and van Herrik — eventually decided to continue onward, but under a new name, new songwriting approach and sound as FACS. And with 2018’s full-length debut, Negative Houses, the trio quickly established themselves as a heavy band, although they don’t necessarily feel or seem like one in the traditional sense.

Since Negative House, the Chicago-based trio have released three more albums, including 2021’s Present Tense. Each of those albums have seen the band perfecting their unique brand of intense, catharsis-inducing post punk while pushing their sound and approach in increasingly further and newer directions.

Recorded by Sanford Parker at Chicago’s renowned Electrical Audio Recording, FACS’ fifth album Still Life in Decay is slated for a Friday release through Trouble In Mind Records. The album sees bassist Alianna Kalaba, who joined the band after the release of Negative Houses making her amicable last stand with the group. The album’s material sees the band’s rhythm section dancing and twisting around each other, much like a double helix, in which they collectively approach rhythm from outside the grove, rather than inside it, creating a lattice in which Case weaves his guitars in and around.

The album reportedly sees the band at their most solidified and focused: The apocalyptic chaos that defined its immediate predecessor is pushed away in favor of examination with a remarkable and unsettling clarity — but while still being a sort of addendum to Present Tense.

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

  • “When You Say,” an uneasy track built around the propulsive lockstep rhythm held between Leger and Kalaba, and Case’s reverb-soaked guitar slashes. The song’s narrator shouts repeated phrases with a desperate urgency, as though trying to hold on to something — anything, really before it falls out of his grasp. The song’s stream of consciousness-like free-form lyrics touch upon the themes of resignation, cynicism, classism and the search for identity and meaning in a fucked up, crumbling society. The end result is a song that savagely pulls the bandages off to expose the rot, grime and ugliness of our world to the sunlight.

  • “Slogan,” a brooding track built around shimmering, meditative guitar lines, a forceful and insistent rhythm section paired with Case’s reverb-drenched vocal and a soulful, aching guitar solo. The song features a a narrator meditating on the connection between identity and memory, repeating the phrase “I had it in the palm of my hand,” like a sad, desperate slogan.

“Constellation,” Still Life in Decay‘s third and latest single begins with a squall of white noise and distortion that quickly collapses into the song’s lumbering and thunderous groove. Case’s guitar has a spectral presence, appearing and disappearing in gauzy feedback throughout. The song’s narrator continues an uneasy meditation on memory, the past, the present and fate, sounding like a man striking out desperately against forces bigger than him.

The accompanying video by Nick Ciontea features lighting patterns that pulse and undulate in time to the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tel Aviv-Born, Brooklyn-based Romi O Shares Woozy and Shapeshifting “M2M”

Deriving her stage name from her love of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romi O is an emerging Tel Aviv-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter who has been making music as long as she can remember. Initially writing and singing songs in Hebrew, the emerging Brooklyn-based artist eventually switched to writing and singing in English. Her earliest forays into songwriting saw the Tel Aviv-born artist leaning towards bittersweet and melancholy ballads. Her struggles with her own gender identity were accompanied by insecurity, self-doubt and self-hatred, which manifested as an aversion to the genre strictures and rules she found herself in, that she saw “too sweet, too girly.”

When she turned 22, the Tel Aviv-born, Brooklyn-based artist relocated to Brooklyn, where she sought a fresh start in music: She wound up joining JOVM mainstay act Ghost Funk Orchestra, contributing her vocals to three albums — 2019’s A Song For Paul, 2020’s An Ode to Escapism and last year’s A New Kind of Love. She’s also the co-founder of PowerSnap, which sees her and her bandmates specializing in a high-octane punk and garage rock-influenced sound, informed by a desire to break the stigmas she held of herself. With PowerSnap, she desired to ditch the soft persona of a “female singer/songwriter” — and pave the way for women, who didn’t want a traditional view of femininity to be the main attraction to their work. A couple of years ago, as part of a spiritual awakening, she rediscovered her feminine side, as she witnessed her sweet and heartfelt ballads touching listeners.

Romi O will step out into the spotlight as a solo artist with her forthcoming solo debut album, which will feature material that reportedly sounds as though it were influenced by TunE yArDs, Kimbra, Charli XCX, Dead Rituals, Trent Reznor and Bjork — but while not trying to ride someone else’s wave.

The album’s second and latest single, the Daniel Bloch-produced “M2M” is a woozy and mind-bending song featuring elements of alternative pop, singer/songwriter pop and doom punk built around a hypnotic and insistent groove, skittering beats and the Tel Aviv-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s self-assured, powerhouse vocals. While revealing an artist with a playful, forward-thinking sound and approach, the song according to Romi “deals with the idea of always being ready to question life choices and decisions and approaching everything without the fear of taking things too seriously,” to not “make a mountain out of a molehill,” as the song says.

Directed by Margot Bennet, the accompanying video features Romi O in a bare studio, shot from the shoulders up. But throughout subtle details and differences in her appearance manage to reveal elements of her personality, desires and even how she expresses herself and gender.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Thunder Bae Shares Brooding and Atmospheric “Numb”

Thunder Bae is an emerging and rapidly rising singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and self-described “analog girl in a digital world.” Influenced by Pink Floyd, Sade, Kurt Cobain, Dire Straits, and Elton John, the rising artist aims to create a difficult to pigeonhole sound.

Her latest single, “Numb” is a slow-burning and brooding track built around atmospheric synths, a brief Dark Side of the Moon nod, a reverb-soaked beats paired with the rising pop artist’s sultry pop belter delivery and soaring, shout-along worthy hooks and choruses. Sonically, “Numb” reminds me quite a bit of JOVM mainstay ACES and others, while being rooted in lived-in, personal, yet deeply universal experience that’s lyrically captured with a disarming precision and honesty.

Written when the rising pop artist was going through a period of feeling numb, she intended to capture the essence of the experience. As Thunder Bae explains, the song carries a message “that numbness is not necessarily a good or bad feeling, since it deprives one of emotions. It’s a complex emotional state that deserves understanding and recognition.” She believes that listeners will find solace in the song, because it speaks directly to — and about — deep-seated emotions that they may be experiencing right this moment, while acknowledging that numbness is normal to feel at times. She adds that she hopes the song will empower the listener to emerge stronger from their struggles.

Directed by Agnieszka Oginski, Sönke Schmidt, and Natalie-Isabel Knopps, the accompanying video for “Numb” features the rising artist in the midst of a deep emotional and psychological struggle, helping to ground the song’s theme and lyrics in psychological realism.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: MAGON Shares Lush and Introspective “Onie Was A Kid”

Over the past handful of years, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the wildly prolific Israeli-born. Costa Rica-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and JOVM mainstay MAGON. 

Last year, the JOVM mainstay released his fourth album, A Night in Bethlehem, which featured three singles I wound up writing about:

  • “Halley’s Comet,” a dreamy bit of glam-like psych pop featuring glistening and reverb-drenched, post punk-inspired guitars, a simple back beat and fluttering and spacey feedback. Thematically, the song touched upon the immensity of historical and cosmic time: the narrator wonders how life and humanity will be the next time Halley’s Comet passes by our section of the cosmic neighborhood in 2061. 

  • “A Night in Bethlehem,” the album’s title track and second single, which featured a chugging, motorik groove paired with angular bursts of guitar, a razor sharp hook, intergalactic feedback and Magon’s ironically detached vocals. Thematically, the song explored the surrealist fringes of mysticism. 

  • “This Man,” another bit of glam-inspired psych featuring Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie groove paired with a steady yet propulsive backbeat, some lysergic guitar solos, a supple bass line and Magon’s imitable, ironically detached deadpan. But at its core is a narrator, who yearns for something deeper, more profound and more true in a mad, mad, mad world. 

Immediately after the release show for A Night in Bethlehem, MAGON, along with his girlfriend and daughter relocated to Costa Rica. He closed the year with “Simple Mind,” a song that saw the JOVM mainstay gently refining his sound yet again with hints of surf rock and jangle pop while retaining the hook-driven nature of his previously released material. Written during a major life transition, ‘Simple Mind” features a narrator, who’s closing a major chapter of his life — and perhaps career, as well — and is moving on to a new start, new possibilities, and new horizons.

Continuing his reputation for being wildly and restlessly prolific, MAGON’s fifth album Did You Hear The Kids? reportedly features a broader and more expansive sonic palette than ever before. The forthcoming album’s first single, the lush and laid-back “Onie Was A Kid” sounds as though it meshes elements of 60s psych rock, lo-fi singer/songwriter pop and contemporary indie rock paired with lyrics that are simultaneously auto-biographical and introspective. The song also features a guest spot from Paris-based indie duo SOS Citizen, who contribute shimmering guitar work and soaring backing vocals.

The accompanying video for “Onie Was A Kid” features some trippy animation by Hugo Tran and title cards by Titouan Pouliquen that are heavily influenced by the song’s lyrics.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Bristol’s King Heron Shares Funky and Soulful “Stasis” feat. Andrew Neil Hayes

Bristol-based jazz fusion trio King Heron — Jacob Houghton (guitar), Cerith Evans (guitar) and Cameron Macdougall (drums) — features three different and distinct musical personalties, who through a modern jazz sensibility and a focus on tight grooves, mesh disparate influences into a unique, difficult to pigeonhole style.

The trio supported their debut EP, last year’s Troika with regular shows at Bristol’s grassroots and indie venues, including Trinity Centre, Thekla, The Gallimaufry and The Jam Jar. Building upon a growing profile, the trio went on to play bars, clubs and art centers across the UK, opening for the likes of Oscar Jerome, Mdou Moctar, and Lydian Collective. They’ve also played at Bristol Harbour Festival.

The rising Bristol trio’s first single “Stasis” is the first bit of new material since the release of Troika EP — and it also marks the first in a series of singles that the band plans to release this year. Featuring a guest appearance from Andrew Neil Hayes on sax, “Stasis” is rooted in the trio’s penchant for a trippy and insistent grooves paired Hayes’ soulful horn solo in a composition that seems to draw from funk, dub and jazz fusion in a seamless fashion. While displaying the musicians dexterous musicianship, the composition also manages to display the their instinctual ability to know when to lead, when to follow and when to make space.

“It was a real honour to record with Andrew — he’s a bit of a Bristol legend and someone that I’ve looked up to for a long time,” King Heron’s Jacob Houghton says. “He came in and blew our heads off. Playing with someone of his calibre made everyone raise their game, and created a special energy in the room.”

The accompanying video captures the Bristol-based trio and Hayes in the studio performing the song. And it captures the instant simpatico held by each of the musicians in the room.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Vancouver’s FRANKIIE Shares Gorgeous “Visions”

Vancouver-based dream pop/psych pop outfit FRANKIIE — founding members Francesca Carbonneau (vocals, guitar) and Nashlyn Lloyd (vocals, synth, guitar), along with Trevor Stöddärt (drums) and Jody Glenham (bass) — can trace their origins back to 2013: The band’s first lineup, which featured Carbonneau and Lloyd with Samantha Lancaster and Zoe Fuhr, met and rehearsed for what was initially meant to be a one-off gig that December. But each of the band’s members at the time felt such an instant and undeniable creative chemistry that they decided they needed to go at it full-time. Within a relatively short period of time, they wound up touring across much of North America, including opening for The Charlatans on the East Coast.

The band’s Jason Corbett full-length debut, 2019’s Forget Your Head featured “Compare,” a lush and shimmering track with the sort of anthemic hooks that reminded me of 80s New Wave and JOVM mainstays Wax Idols.

Slated for a June 2, 2023 release through Paper Bag Records, the Vancouver-based outfit’s long awaited sophomore album, the Jason Corbett-produced Between Dreams reportedly weaves elements of reverb-soaked dream pop, vintage classic rock, bedroom psych and beachy shoegaze into a seamless soundscape meant to evoke a world in which dreams and reality are part of one continuum, where there are no borders, and magic abounds — seemingly everywhere.

Between Dreams explores our lived experiences in a world constantly shifting and twisting abruptly around us. “What is the dream and what’s reality? What’s normal anymore and does it really matter because you’re just experiencing it all anyways,” the band’s Nashlyn Lloyd says in press notes. “I think that’s all we’re trying to do: just be in this experience and embrace it fully.”

Francesca Carbonneau explains that the boundary-free feeling emerged when the band started writing thea album’s material during pandemic enforced lockdown and thereafter. “It was this weird ‘between dreams’ state because nothing was normal, or at least not how it was and we just had to carry on like everyone else,” Carbonneau says. Naturally, that influenced an overall attitude in which control and power were relinquished to some degree; whatever happened creatively would be explored. “These songs were following a sense of intuition, and not really trying to have them be anything but what instinctively came out. There was no attempt to stick to a certain genre, or take ourselves too seriously.”

Most of Between Dreams‘ material was written at the band’s dark, moldy jam space in East Vancouver, with extra pieces written at home or on writing retreats to the British Columbia’s rural areas. Some of the album’s songs were written with a rotation cast of collaborators, including previous bassist Vickie Sieczka, new bassist Jody Glenham and drummer Trevor Stöddärt, while others were written with the help of a drum machine they nicknamed “Chad.” (“Chad’s so great, he always shows up on time,” Lloyd quips.)

Eight of the album’s tracks were recorded with producer Jason Corbett at Jacknife Sound and two with Connor Head at Victoria, BC-based Catalogue Studio. As the band explains, the recording sessions were full of fresh energy and vision: Glenham and Stöddärt lent new angles to the album’s material, while the world’s standstill allowed the band the time to build out the album’s sonic world. (Lloyd had to figure out how sing while nine months pregnant.)

Jeremy Wallace Maclean, best known for his experience composing for film and TV, mixed the album, giving the material a broad, cinematic scope. For Lloyd and Carbonneau, the record marks an attainment of a sound they’ve been chasing for years. Carbonneau quotes Miles Davis: “Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself…and this is the closest we’ve gotten so far,” she adds with a laugh.

Between Dreams‘ latest single, album opening track “Visions” is rooted in an old-school attention to craft: a laid-back Laurel Canyon/Fleetwood Mac-like groove is paired with a shimmering and breathtakingly gorgeous melody and Carbonneau and Lloyd’s soaring harmonies. The song — to me, at least — evokes a half-remembered, waking dream; the sort in which you have a lingering and unshakable sense of déja vu that you can’t put your finger on.

“‘When dreams and memories entangle with our present moment, we can begin to question our entire reality. ‘Visions’ is about that feeling, about sensing something beyond what’s happening right in front of you…as if right below the surface, anything you’ve ever lost is there; waiting for you to reach out your hand and grab it back,” FRANKIIE’s Carbonneau explains. “Like déja vu, which is something I experience frequently, a single moment can feel surreal, strange and yet strikingly familiar all at once.“

Directed by Brandon Fletcher, the accompanying video for “Visions” is fittingly a hazy and gorgeously shot, romantic dream: We see the band brooding and vamping in a suburban house at golden hour, lush superimpositions and more. The video manages to further emphasize the video’s dreamy air.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: FRIDAY Shares Grunge Pop Anthem “Dear God”

Nicole Daddona is a multidisciplinary creative powerhouse:

Music has been a lifelong passion for the multidisciplinary artist. Dadonna began writing music at a very young age, and during the pandemic began remotely writing and producing original music in her bedroom with her music project FRIDAY. After relocating from Los Angeles to rural Upstate New York, she began to further hone her music skills.

Inspired by Marc Bolan, Jeff Lynne, George Harrison, and others, Daddonna specializes in hook-driven tracks with playful melodies that bring a sense of nostalgic fun to the material, while capturing different aspects of the human experience. With FRIDAY, Daddona’s music ranges from empowering dance music to emotive ballads.

Her latest single “Dear God” is a grunge pop song built around an alternating quiet-loud-quiet song structure, fuzzy power chords that starts out as a syrupy and narcotic ballad that builds up into a 120 Minutes-era MTV mosh pit friendly anthem. “‘Dear God’ is a grunge-pop song with deep emotions that delves into the themes of self-sabotage and sacrifice,” Daddona says. “It explores the concept of willingly setting oneself up for disaster, even if it causes pain, in order to protect yourself or someone else. The song acknowledges the difficulty of doing the right thing, which often requires walking away from someone or something you love and trusting the unknown. Sometimes, making a mess and looking like a fool is necessary to move forward. The lyrics read like a personal diary entry, expressing the sadness and emotional aftermath of a tough decision. My hope is that the song provides a cathartic outlet for those moments when you need to release some pent-up anger or sadness – ideally over In-N-Out Burger.”

The accompanying video by Daddona’s production company Magic Society Pictures features Daddona dressed up a a messy, tear-stained, cigarette-smoking clown that takes over an empty indoor children’s entertainment facility, playing by herself.