Category: Video Review

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Singapore’s Aisyah Aziz Shares Gorgeous Ballad “janji kita bertemu lagi”

https://youtu.be/szoIpBWhRRE

Aisyah Aziz is a Singaporean singer/songwriter, musician, model and actor with a soulful vocal that effortlessly spans a range of genres — and an ethereal presence on both the theater and concert stage. Aziz quickly established herself as a household name through notable performances both in Singapore and beyond, including Singapore’s National Day Parade, where she performed an original song co-written with longtime friend RHUAN.

The Singaporean artist also expresses herself through fashion, a passion of hers — and more recently through acting: She made her theater debuting a work by Teater Ekmatara commissioned for the Singapore International Festival of Arts.

Back in 2020, Aziz released her first English-language EP, Sugar: The Live Extended Play, which was performed and recorded as a live session. She followed that up with with 2021’s Ying Tan-produced, full-length Pearls. Her earliest work saw the Malaysian-Singaporean artist performing songs that were written for her, and she long thought herself to be a vessel for the music. But that changed when she found a creative community, who inspired her to break out of her shell and come into her own as a collaborator and independent singer/songwriter and producer.

Since then she has collaborated with Charlie Lim, Rizky Febian, YAø and a growing list of others. Adding to a growing profile. she was invited to perform with Malaysian music icon Dato’ Jamal Abdillah during his most recent Aku Jamal . . . My Musical Journey show in Singapore.

Armed with a newfound confidence, the rising Singaporean artist is ready to share what she’s been creating with the world, and is looking forward to releasing new material through various creative projects throughout the year with the hopes to bring her work further into the regional and international market. Aziz’s latest single “janji kita bertemu lagi” is the Malaysian-Singaporean artist’s first English-Malay bilingual song of her growing catalog — and the first single from her forthcoming EP, til death do us part, which is slated for an April 2023 release.

Translated from Malay “janji kita bertemu lagi” means “promise we’ll meet again.” Featuring a sparse arrangement of strummed acoustic guitar paired with Aziz’s breathtakingly gorgeous vocal “janji kita bertemu lagi,” is an achingly bittersweet ballad that captures the heartache and uncertainty, as well as the begrudging acceptance and hope (both real and sometimes delusional) of a breakup.

Directed by Aziz’s best friend Paul Lin, the video was shot from the perspective of a guitar — presumably her guitar. “Having fallen back in love with singing on the guitar, it witnesses everything that happens in my life without judgement. It is simple and it takes everything in as it is. Alhamdullilah I’m beyond stoked to be able to work with Paul, my best buddy, on this video. You don’t need a big team to create something magical.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Kay Young Shares Coquettish and Funky “The Way You Look At Me”

Kay Young is a rising London-based singer/songwriter, emcee, and producer. Back in 2019, Young caught the attention of Jay Electronica on Instagram. Jay Electronica passed some of her short beat videos to friend and collaborator Jay-Z. Before she knew it, she’d been flown out to Los Angeles and signed to Jay-Z’s management company Roc Nation. She has complete creative control of her work from songwriting to production while effortlessly moving between spitting fiery bars and soulful vocals. And throughout, her work is thoughtful, uplifting and playful while drawing from and exploring dance, jazz and soul.

Young’s debut EP, 2021’s This Here Feels Good was written during pandemic-related lockdown and features material that thematically explores familial legacy and cultural relations. The EP was released to critical applause and was supported with opening slots for Jay Electronica, Masgeo and Corrine Bailey Rae, as well as festival sets at The Great Escape and We Out Here. The rising London-based artist was featured on Blue Note’s compilation album Re:Imagined II, breathing new life into Marlena Shaw‘s “Feel Like Making Love.”

In her native UK, she has received airplay from BBC 6 Music personalities Chris Hawkins and BBC Radio 1‘s Huw Stephens, as well as BBC 1Xtra’s Jamz Supernova, recording a live session at Maida Vale. She also performed a star-studded performance of “White Teeth on BBC 4’s Other Voices 20th Anniversary show.

The rising London-based artist starts off the year with “The Way You Look At Me,” the first bit of new material since the release of This Here Feels Good. Rooted in a Motown-era soul-inspired groove with a big brass section paired with Young’s coquettish and self-assured delivery (which sees her alternate between crooning and spitting bars) and an infectious hook, “The Way You Look At Me” tells a classic tale of falling in love with that pretty young thing on the dance floor — but with a modern twist. The song is just a fun, carefree and coquettish bop that captures exactly what young love feels like — new, exciting, hopeful and a little crazy.

Directed by Dylan Hayes, the accompanying video features the rising London-based artist and her backing band performing the song in late 60s-early 70s-styled garb and in front of psychedelic-tinged backgrounds. They all look like they’re about to perform on Soul Train back in about 1972 or so.

Young’s forthcoming, sophomore EP is slated for release later this year. Be on the lookout for more news.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Pattern Primitive Shares Eerie “I Know Your Thoughts”

French duo Pattern Primitive — Andrew Richards and Severin Stancler — create a hypnotic and meditative soundscape, comprised of lo-fi noise particles, melancholic memories floating in the air and gentle melodic breaths caressing the back of the listener’s neck.

“Know Your Thoughts,” the French duo’s eerie and hypnotic, latest single is rooted around swirling and wobbling synth textures, layers of skittering beats and glitchy electronics paired with processed ethereal vocals. The song manages to feel like an uneasy fever dream, fueled by a creeping malevolence, just out of reach.

The accompanying video begins with colored oils being dripped into water and following the patterns they create, followed by trippier footage of a robe wearing, candy skull-looking character in the woods and more.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Chiara Foschiani Shares Sultry “Sabotage”

Rising Paris-born-and-based singer/songwriter and pianist, Chiara Foschiani can trace the origins of her music career to when she started piano lessons at eight. The Parisian singer/songwriter and musician started singing when she was 13. She joined a number of local bands, performing on small stages and local music festivals before she started writing her own songs.

Back in 2021, Foschiani released her debut single Trouble Maker featured:

  • “Queen of Disaster”

  • “My Glass of Wine,” a remarkably Portishead-like track

  • “God Damn,” a sickly produced, straightforward pop confection rooted in earnest and lived-in lyricism that belies her relative youth

The young Parisian artist’s sophomore EP is slated for a May release. The EP’s first single “Sabotage” is a bold step forward for Foschiani. Featuring wobbling low end, skittering beats, glistening synth arpeggios and enormous, shout-along worthy hooks paired with the young Parisian artist’s self-assured and sultry delivery, “Sabotage” may the most dance floor friendly song she has released to date. But under the slick production is a deeply personal, lived-in story of a narrator who, much like the song’s creator, experienced terrible harassment, survived — and has been trying to regain their confidence and power.

Directed by Mephisto, the accompanying video further emphasizes the song’s central themes: We see Foschiani getting molested and oppressed by dark, murky characters and forces beyond her understanding. But much like the Phoenix, she goes through a fiery rebirth.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Taleen Kali Shares “120 Minutes”-Era MTV-like “Crusher”

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering Los Angeles-born and-based singer/songwriter, guitarist, poet, essayist, visual artist, Dum Dum Records founder, and JOVM mainstay Taleen Kali. Kail (she/they) has made a carer out of writing romantic punk songs that are simultaneously cosmic, dreamy and defiant, and informed by her Armenian heritage and her parents’ birthplaces of Lebanon and Ethiopia. But the material is underpinned by Kali’s desire to seamlessly fuse her cultural heritage and identity with the sounds of the modern countercultures she grew up embracing and exploring as a musician and singer/songwriter. 

Kali’s music career started with a stint in Los Angeles-based band TÜLIPS. After TÜLIPS closed up shop in 2016, she stepped out into the limelight as a solo artist, eventually touring across the US with Ex Hex, Alice Bag and Seth Bogart. 

The Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstay’s solo debut, 2018’s Kristin Kontrol-produced Soul Songs EP was recorded at Hollywood-based Sunset Sound Studios. The EP, which found Kali’s long-held riot grrl ethos maturing into a multifaceted punk sound and approach with elements of noise pop and New Wave was released to praise from BUST Magazine and Stereogum, who likened her sound to a contemporary Blondie. Soul Songs was also included in Pitchfork‘s Guide to Summer Albums and LA Weekly‘s Best Indie Punk Albums. 

Kali along with her backing band followed up with an unplugged version of Soul Songsand covers of The Supremes‘ “Baby Love” and Garbage‘s “#1 Crush.” She also recorded a two-song pandemic project called Changing with her TÜLIPS-era producer Greg Katz.

Taleen Kali’s Jeff Schroeder and Josiah Mazzaschi-co-produced full-length debut Flower of Life is slated for a March 3, 2023 release through Kali’s Dum Dum Records. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the rising Los Angeles further cementing her fuzzy and noisy take on psych punk paired with vocals that run the range of femme punk and shoegaze siren. 

Over the past year or so, I’ve written about the following album singles: 

  • Album title track “Flower of Life,” a grungy psych punk ripper centered around fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming, soaring organ chords and Kali’s sneering delivery paired with mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses that sonically was a bit of a synthesis of My Bloody Valentine and riot grrl punk. “‘Flower of Life’ was a spiritual concept I held onto for a long time before writing this song,” Kali explains in press notes. “The flower is a fractal, a cycle, ever blooming, ever decaying. 

  • “Trash Talk“, a jangling Brit Pop-inspired anthem centered around a chugging motorik-like groove, fuzzy power chords, Kali’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and a sneering “fuck off” attitude towards haters, trolls and toxic bullshit that almost anyone can relate to. 

  • “Fine Line,” a Too True-era Dum Dum Girls-like confection centered around shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, a forceful and driving rhythm section paired with Kali’s plaintive delivery and her unerring knack for well, placed, rousingly anthemic hooks. 

  • “Tomorrow Girl,” a shimmering Too True-era Dum Dum Girls-meets shoegaze-like pop confection featuring shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, Kali’s gorgeous and achingly plaintive delivery paired with a driving rhythm section and enormous hooks. Much like its predecessors, “Tomorrow Girl” is rooted in personal, lived-in experience and hard-won wisdom. 

Flower of Life‘s latest single “Crusher” is a swooning, 120 Minutes alt rock-like shoegazer them featuring swirling guitar textures, relentless four-on-the-floor and Kali’s unerring knack for enormous hooks paired with heart-proudly-worn on-sleeve earnestness and a blazing solo from Smashing Pumpkins’ Jeff Shroeder. “Crusher” manages to evoke the sweet ache of having a desperate crush. “Crusher’ is our ultimate shoegaze love song. You ever crush so hard you’ve been brought to your knees? This song is about all those impossible feelings, taking inspiration from some of the greats: Chapterhouse, Lush, Ride, and Curve,” Kali explains. “This song has always been our band favorite and it features a guitar solo from Jeff Schroeder of Smashing Pumpkins so we’ve been saving the best for last…”

Fittingly, the accompanying video for “Crusher” draws from 120 Minutes-era MTV and features romantic imagery — guitars played with roses, roses bursting into flames, shot through kaleidoscopic filters.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Silver Moth Shares Slow-Burning and Cinematic “Mother Tongue”

Silver Moth is new collective featuring a celebrated cast of musicians and artists, including Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite singer/songwriter and electro pop artist Elisabeth Elektra, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Evi Vine, Abrasive Trees‘ Matthew Rochford, Burning House‘s Ash Babb, Steven Hill and Prosthetic Head’s Ben Roberts, who has also worked with Abrasive Trees and Evi Vine. The collective can trace its origins back to a Twitter exchange between Matthew Rochford and Elisabeth Elektra about the Isle of Lewis. A couple of Zoom meetings would subsequently lead to Rochford, Elektra, Vine, Braithwaite, Hill, Babb and Roberts visiting Black Bay Studios on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, a dramatic location, where they recorded the collective’s full-length debut, Black Bay.

Slated for an April 21, 2023 release through Bella Union, Black Bay reportedly is a testament to connectivity and receptivity and captures a union of disparate minds committing to something to something greater than the sum of its individual parts. Capturing the sound of seven storied musicians yielding to shared goals, the album ranges between hushed incantations and molten guitars, 15-minute noise rock epics and healing psalms.

“Mother Tongue,” Black Bay‘s first single is a slow-burning and sprawling song centered around swirling shoegazer-like guitar textures, twinkling reverb-drenched keys, ethereal and plaintive vocals paired with jazz-like drumming. While sounding like a synthesis of A Storm in Heaven and Dark Side of the Moon, the band explains that  “Mother Tongue is a song about women and other marginalized people rising up in the face of oppression.”

Directed by Maddie Burton, the accompanying video features the gorgeous scenery of the Isle of Lewis superimposed with footage of women and other marginalized groups protesting and standing up in the face of oppression and cruelty across both time and space. “We were really excited as a band to work with video director Maddie Burton for the accompanying visuals.Maddie’s work is so beautiful, textural and evocative, all the members of Silver Moth felt her art harmonized with our music perfectly, ” the band says of the accompanying video. “Evi Vine had the idea for Maddie to include archival footage from feminist marches around the world in the video, and Maddie then overlaid the march footage with archival footage of the island of Lewis where we recorded the album. Maddie also wove in other images of nature, which felt like it added an extra layer of meaning considering the climate emergency we are all currently navigating”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Dream Wife Shares Tongue-in-Cheek Ripper “Hot (Don’t Date a Musician)”

Deriving their name from a pointed criticism of society’s objectification of women, the acclaimed London-based JOVM mainstays Dream Wife — Rakel Mjöll (vocals) (she/her), Alice Go (guitar, vocals) (she/her) and Bella Podapec (bass, vocals) (they/them) — can trace their origins back to 2015 when the trio started the band as a art project, rooted in a unique concept: a band born out of one girl’s memories of growing up in Canada in the 1990s.

The London-based outfit’s 2018 self-titled debut was released to widespread critical acclaim, and led to the the trio opening for Garbage, The Kills and Sleigh Bells, as well as playing that year’s SXSW. Building upon a growing international profile, the members of Dream Wife also went on a series of headlining tours across the European Union and the States, which included a Rough Trade stop with New York-based genre-defying artist Sabri. 

Dream Wife’s 2020 Marta Salogni-produced So When You Gonna . . . saw the JOVM mainstays writing and recording their most urgent and direct material to date. Thematically touching upon abortion, miscarriage and gender equality, the album’s material is fueled by a “it’s-now-or-never” immediacy. The album’s material seemed to be a call to action to the listener, to get up off their ass and do what they can to get things right. The album was a critical and commercial success, especially in the UK: The album landed at #18 on the UK Albums Chart, making it the only album in the Top 20 to be produced by an all womxn/non-male production and engineering team — and the only non-major label release to chart that high. 

Dream Wife’s highly-anticipated third album, Social Lubrication is slated for a June 9, 2023 release through Lucky Number. Throughout their career, the band has managed to be remarkably adept at merging the political and the playful, and the forthcoming album continues upon that reputation. Forcefully vital statements are hidden within hot and heavy dance floor anthems about making out, having fun, staying curious. In the band’s words, the album is: “Hyper lusty rock and roll with a political punch, exploring the alchemy of attraction, the lust for life, embracing community and calling out the patriarchy. With a healthy dose of playfulness and fun thrown in.”

That sense of fun and openness about everything is central to the albums material. “There is a sense of fun and openness that is central to Social Lubrication, as well. “There’s a lot of lust in this album and taking the piss out of yourself and everyone you know,” Dream Wife’s Rakel Mjöll says. “It’s almost quite juvenile in that way.”

Interestingly, more than ever before, the live show is at the core of the album. “The live show is the truth of the band,” Alice Go says. “That’s at the heart of what we do and of the statements we’re making.” That energetic, pedal-to-the-metal sound explodes through the album’s material — and you can hear it through the loud, dirty riffs and choruses specifically built for dancing and shaking asses together in shared spaces. For the band’s Go, who produced the album, it was important to bottle this joyful, frenetic feeling within each other. “We wanted to get that rawness and energy across in a way that hadn’t been done before,” she says.

The live show is where the band and fans come together in shared moment of community. And to that end, the album is a celebration of community and a big ol’ middle finger to the societal barriers enforced to sever connection, playfulness, curiosity and even sexual empowerment. “Music is one of the only forms of people experiencing an emotion together in a visceral, physical, real way,” says Go. “It’s cathartic to the systemic issues that are being called out across the board in the record. Music isn’t the cure, but it’s the remedy. That’s what Social Lubrication is: the positive glue that can create solidarity and community.” 

“The album is speaking to systemic problems that cannot be glossed over by lube,” the band’S Bella Podpadec says. “The things named in the songs are symptoms of f-ed up structures. And you can’t fix that. You need to pull it apart.”

Late last year, I wrote about “Leech,” an urgent, post-punk inspired ripper that saw the band’s Mjöll alternating between spoken-word-like delivery for the song’s verses and feral shouting for the song’s choruses. Mjöll’s vocal delivery is paired with an alternating song structure that features looping and wiry guitar bursts for the song’s verses and explosive, power chord-driven riffage for the song’s choruses. While the song is a tense, uneasy and forceful, mosh pit friendly anthem for our uncertain, fucked up time, “Leech” addresses the inherent double standards of power — while urgently calling for more empathy.”

“It’s an anthem for empathy. For solidarity,” the JOVM mainstays explain. “Musically tense and withheld, erupting to angry cathartic crescendos. The push and pull of the song lyrically and musically expands and contracts, stating and calling out the double standards of power. Nobody really wins in a patriarchal society. We all lose. We could all use more empathy. As our first song to be released in a while, we wanted to write something that feels like letting an animal out of a cage. It’s out. And it’s out for blood…”

The album’s second single “Hot (Don’t Date A Musician)” is a hilarious, Gang of Four-like, tongue-in-cheek ripper inspired by Mjöll’s grandmother’s sage advice — despite the fact that she herself, dated many musicians in her day — while wryly poking fun at musicians and the music adjacent, the band included. “Dating musicians is a nightmare,” Mjöll explains. “Evoking imagery of late night make-outs with fuckboy/girl/ambiguously-gendered musicians on their mattress after being seduced by song-writing chat. The roles being equally reversed. Having a laugh together and being able to poke fun at ourselves is very much at the heart of this band. This song encapsulates our shared sense of humour. Sonically it is the lovechild of CSS and Motorhead. It has our hard, live, rock edge combined with cheeky and playful vocals.”

Directed by Bethany Fitter and featuring a concept by Fitter and the members of Dream Wife, the accompanying video employs the use of the classic, follow the bouncing ball to sing along technique, split with someone swiping on profiles on a Tinder-like app. It’s a send up on dating app life that feels — well, familiar.

Video by William Ruben Helms

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

Montréal-based indie outfit Grand Public features a collection of accomplished local players: The band’s frontman and founder Gregory Paquet has played with The Stills, Alvvays‘ Molly Rankin and Peter Peter. The band’s other members, are three childhood friends, who have played together in several bands, including Reviews, an act that has played with JOVM mainstays Corridor, Omni, and others.

Grand Public took advantage of pandemic enforced downtime to refine their sound and write material, including their four-song Dominic Vanchesteing-produced mini album Idéal Tempo. Slated for a March 24, 2023 release, Idéal Tempo reportedly sees the Montréal-based outfit pairing angular guitar textures, ethereal melodies and hypnotic rhythms with explosive release of tension.

The mini EP’s second and latest single “Lundi normal” features reverb-drenched, angular guitar attack, ethereal vocals and rousingly anthemic hooks paired with a propulsive rhythm section. “Lundi normal” sonically recalls Junior-era Corridor but rooted in surrealistic, seemingly stream-of-consciousness lyrics.

Shot in Nouveau Système Beaubien, a famous, old-fashioned Montréal-based greasy spoon, the accompanying video captures the band’s members hanging out and bullshitting on a regular and seemingly cold Monday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Nicholas Allbrook Shares Shimmering “Jackie”

Nicholas Allbrook is an acclaimed Western Australian-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist. painter and producer. Since starting his artistic career, Allbrook has brought community and collaboration to the forefront of his artistic and creative method — both as a solo artist and with POND. Allbrook has also collaborated with Aussie and international acts alike. including King Krule, Cate Le Bon, Cuco and Holy Fuck among others.

Through his career, Allbrook has shown a deep understanding of the human experience and the importance of art in modern society. His fourth solo album, the Allbrook and Nathaniel Hoho (a.k.a. HOKO) co-produced Manganese is slated for a July 9, 2023 release through Spinning Top Music . The album reportedly is a psyche pop wonderland that captures the sound of a musician with a symphony in his back pocket, a thorough history of 80s Oz-rock in his rearview mirror and modern Australia in his sights.

“Jackie,” Manganese‘s latest single is a mid-tempo, swooning ballad centered around twinkling synths, strummed guitar, a sinuous bass line and a rousingly anthemic hook paired with Allbrook’s plaintive vocal. Seemingly indebted to 80s pop, “Jackie” is a bittersweet song that grapples with loss, grief and hope for peace in the afterlife — or whatever is beyond this.

“This song is about my friend (whose name isn’t Jackie) who died in 2021,” Allbrook explains. “She was fantastic and the news left me with familiar feelings of guilt and regret and ‘why didn’t I do more or know better?’ I don’t usually get hit with creative bolts while running, but by the canal once in London I was struck with the hopeful image of her rowing away from the earth that had been so hurtful and hard, on a black lake surrounded by stars, finally finding peace and silence. It felt nice to think about death like that, bathed in pale silver light rather than just cold. I got lots of instrumental help from Nathaniel Hoho, who bizarrely and brilliantly put in the nature documentary voice about the giant panda which should never work but somehow does.”

Directed by Alex Haygarth, the accompanying video for “Jackie” is split between Allbrook in full Thin White Duke mode, playing acoustic guitar while bathed in spotlight with flecks of starlight around him. We also see drag performance artist Ash Baroque expressively dancing and lip synching to the song, making the video seem as though it’s a duet between two dear friends — one just departed, one still here in the mortal coil.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JJUUJJUU Shares Trippy “Nowhere”

Phil Pirrone is a Los Angeles-based musician and co-founder of Desert Daze. In 2011, after spending ten years as a touring bassist, Pirrone borrowed an SG and DL4 and began his exploration of recording looped based music with JJUUJJUU. Pirrone’s JJUUJJUU debut, 2013’s FRST EP and the follow-up standalone single “Bleck” helped build up buzz about the project. Throughout that period, the lineup and instrumentation of the JJUUJJUU moved in step with the project’s ethos of ephemera and flux with the project touring in several different configurations with Pirrone at the center, sharing stages with The Claypool Lennon Delirium, Tortoise, Allah-Lahs, Temples, Tinariwen and others.

Pirrone spent the next few years recording material in various spaces around California. Those sessions included collaborations with Vinyl Williams, members of Lumerians, Dahga Bloom and others. That material eventually comprised Pirrone’s JJUUJJUU full-length debut, 2018’s Zionic Mud. The albums release was accompanied by alternate versions of the tracks remixed or reimagined by many of the band’s most notable fans and supporters, including J. Mascis, Warpaint‘s jennylee, Liars, METZ, and Autolux. JJUUJJUU supported the album by opening for Primus, Mastodon, Kikagaku Moyo, and Earhtless, as well as festival sets at Pickathon, Nelsonville, M3F and others.

Pirrone and his collaborators went on to record two follow-up efforts to Zionic Mud during the height of the pandemic. With extra time on his hands, Pirrone taught himself how to record material, and then sent tracks to longtime band members Ian Gibbs and Joseph Assef. The tracks were then sent around to Boogarins, METZ’s Alex Adkins and a collection of friends that will be revealed in the future. When it was safe to do so, the band wound up at Rancho De La Luna with Dave Catching and Jon Russo and put finishing touches on the material.

In the meantime, the act shares its first single of the year, “Nowhere.” Featuring a relentless motorik pulse, rolling drum beats, bursts of feedback and distortion paired with wailing vocals buried in the mix, “Nowhere” brings Connect the Dots-era Toy, Deleters-era Holy Fuck and others to my mind.

The accompanying video for the track was created for Micah Buzan, who has worked on videos for Adult Swim and for a variety of bands including Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Flaming Lips, and The Claypool Lennon Delirium. Fittingly the video employs the use of psychedelic imagery and hand-drawn animation that undulates in time with the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Boris Shares Surreal and Nightmarish Video for Spectral “michikusa”

Formed back in 1992, Japanese, experimental heavy rock outfit Boris ((ボリス, Borisu) — currently core members Takeshi (vocals, bass, guitar), Wata (vocals, guitar, keys, accordion and echo) Atsuo (vocals, drums, percussion and electronics) with Mucho (drums) — settled on their current lineup in 1996. Since then, the members of Boris have tirelessly explored their own genre-defying take on heavy music.

In an effort to sublimate the negative energy surrounding everyone and everything in 2020, Boris wrote and recorded NO, one of the most extreme albums of their widely celebrated and lengthy career. The band self-released the album during the height of pandemic-related lockdowns, desiring to get the album out as quickly as possible. Interestingly, they intentionally titled NO‘s closing track “Interlude,” and then set out to plan NO‘s follow up.

Last year’s W saw the band creating material that stylistically ranged from noise to New Age, further continuing their long-held reputation for sonically adventurous and dynamic work. While being remarkably disparate, W is held together by a melodic deliberation through each song that helps the band accomplish their ultimate goal with the material — eliciting deep sensations.

NO and W were conceived to weave together to form NOW, a pair of releases that respond to each other: The band followed one of their hardest albums with an effort that’s sensuous, lush yet thunderous. The result is a continuous circle of harshness and healing that seems more relevant — and necessary — now than ever. 

Further continuing their long-held reputation for being incredibly prolific, the Japanese heavy outfit released two more albums last year.

Last August’s 10-track Heavy Rocks (2022), another installment of their Heavy Rocks series that saw the members of Boris channelling 70s proto-metal and glam rock through their own unique lens.

They closed the year out with fade, an album informed by the massive sounds of drone metal that’s “. . . not bound by concepts of rock and music in general but could rather be said to be a documentary of the world plunged into the chaotic age of boris moving forward,” the band says.

They continue, “Break into the present, post-pandemic era. Memories of the world wrapped in disorder and uncertainty already bring feelings of nostalgia. Every individual was cut off from society, but now have returned as one.

Among that disorder like a primitive scenery, did you have fear? Did you doze off? Or in an extreme state of mind, did you even feel some comfort in the solitude?

Among that disorder, did you make eye contact with yourself, or did you not experience such a moment?

Now, wrapped in a thunderous roar, your whole body will be caressed on the way to awakening.

Morning comes.”

fade was released digitally last December through Bandcamp and finally sees its release on double LP today. The deluxe, 180g vinyl release comes in pink and black variants with laminated gatefold jacket. The albums were manufactured by Third Man Pressing, released by fangsanalsatan, and are available for pre-order through Sacred Bones.

In the meantime, fade‘s latest composition “michikusa” is a slow-burning shoegazer-like composition rooted in swirling guitar squall and droning textures that gently ebbs and flows like waves hitting the shore.

Directed by award-winning director, animator and painter Nalani Williams. Through Williams’ career, she has crafted surrealistic stories and imagery, seamlessly implementing stop motion, hand drawn animation and painting in a distinctive style of her own. The accompanying video for “michikusa” is set in a surreal and hellish, microscopic landscape seemingly made of skin and bone. And in this landscape, mysterious and weird beings battle for dominance in the unending cycle of life and death — or something in between.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Chicago’s FACS Shares Tense and Propulsive “When You Say”

https://youtu.be/9r7WAqzHgLs

Back 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 related yet very different efforts that I love quite a bit –the atmospheric and tempestuous Kone EP and the tense, ranging Era. Era‘s material featured narrators, who rapidly vacillated between anxiousness, dangerously unhinged obsession, self-loathing, envy, unadulterated blind rage directed both at oneself and at the entire world. And much like the interior monologues of Underground Man in Notes from the Underground or of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, Era captures the dark and frightening recesses of a wounded psyche — and a furious roar into a cold and indifferent void.

In 2017, Carruesco left the band. The remaining members — Case, Lager and van Herrik — eventually decided to continue onward, but under a new name, and new sonic direction and songwriting approach as FACS. With 2018’s full-length debut, Negative Houses, the trio have quickly establish themselves as a heavy band, although they don’t necessarily feel like one: Case’s fluttering and wiry melodic guitar lines are paired with an insistent, rhythmic pulse.

Since Negative Houses, the Chicago-based outfit has released three more albums, including 2021’s Present Tense. Each of those albums have seen the members of FACS perfercting their unique brand of intense, catharsis-inducing art rock/post-punk, while pushing their sound and approach in new directions. The Chicago-based outfit’s fifth album, Still Life In Decay was recorded by Sanford Parker at Electrical Audio Recording and is slated for an April 7, 2023 release through Trouble In Mind Records. Bassist Alianna Kalaba, who took over for founding member Jonathan van Herik after the release of Negative Houses makes her amicable last stand with the group. Alongside Leger, the band’s rhythm section dance and twist around each other like double helix in which collectively they approach rhythm from outside the groove, rather than inside it, creating a lattice in which Case can weave his guitar lines in an around, like creeping vines.

Reportedly, Still Life in Decay is a decidedly focused effort that sees the band at their most solidified. The apocalyptic chaos of that defined their previous album is pushed away in favor of examination with a remarkable clarity — while being a sort of addendum to Present Tense.

“When You Say,” Still Life in Decay‘s uneasy first single is centered around the propulsive rhythmic lockstep between Leger and Kalaba that’s punctured with Case’s reverb-drenched and slashing bursts of guitar. Throughout, Case shouts repeated phrases with a desperate urgency, as though desperately trying to hold on to something — to anything, really — while the freeform lyrics touch on themes of resignation, cynicism, classism and a search for identity and meaning in a crumbling society. But at its core is a primal and forceful meditation on the exposed ugliness, inequities and divides within our “post pandemic” lives and world.

Directed by Joshua Ford, the accompanying video for “When You Say” performing the song in silhouette in a red-lit studio. Three cathode ray TVs of varying sizes are behind them, full of VHS-era fuzz and distortion — including close-up footage of the band’s members playing their instruments. The video captures the band at their tightest and most forceful.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Object of Affection Returns with Anthemic “Con-Man”

Los Angeles-based post punk outfit Object of Affection features members of acclaimed local acts Death Bells, LOCK, and Fury. The project sees its members tapping into the primitivism of their diverse projects while elevating their capacity for both atmosphere and melody. While hints of gloomy punk, brooding New Wave and down-and-out Regan-era alt rock reverberate in their sound and approach, it’s not in pastiche; but rather in a sort of sonic kinship to the austerity and fatalism embedded in the previous generation’s dejected anthems. Plus. holy shit, things are really fucked.

Since the release of the project’s 2020 self-titled, debut EP, they’ve been busy: They’ve released “Through and Through” through Suicide Squeeze — and they’ve already shared stages with the likes of Ceremony, Fiddlehead, Special Interest, Gulch, and a growing list of others. Building upon a growing profile, the members of Object of Affection signed to Profound Lore, who will release their highly-anticipated full-length debut, the ten-song, Alex Newport-produced Field of Appearances on March 3, 2023. 

Field of Appearances reportedly sees the band expanding upon their sonic palette with the addition of drum machines, synths, acoustic guitar and auxiliary percussion, highlighting their evolution — and a growing sense of experimentalism. Each of the album’s ten songs are part of a cohesive and complete statement, while standing part on their own, with the material exploding in character, contract and excitement. Thematically, the album’s material touches upon reflection, insufficiency and Déjà vu among others. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about the album’s lead single, album opener “Half Life,” an anthemic track that’s one-part angular post-punk, one-part mosh-pit friendly grunge with rousing hooks and a forcefully propulsive rhythm section. Bearing a bit of a resemblance to Ceremony‘s In The Spirit World Now, “Half Life” is rooted in an uneasy and palpable sense of existential dread right around the corner The song thematically touches upon the inevitable passage of time and the aching effects of hopelessness — both are which are often a weird part of life. 

“Con-Man,” Field of Appearances‘ latest single continues a run of material that meshes elements of of post-punk and grunge: Centered around a quiet-loud-quiet song structure featuring angular guitars, propulsive drumming and rousingly anthemic hooks, paired with a feedback-driven bridge, “Con-Man” is a remarkably accessible, almost pop-leaning track that throbs with palpable disgust — and a sense of betrayal. The song as the band explains is about “being ripped off and how we deal with wounded pride in the aftermath.”

Employing the use of silhouettes, strobe lights to create a sense of brooding unease.

You can pre-order and/or pre-save the forthcoming album here: https://linktr.ee/objectofaffection

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Faute Shares Haunting “Blue Girl Nice Day”

Peggy Messing is a Winnipeg-born, Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and visual artist, best known for her solo recording project La Faute. The Winnipeg-born, Toronto-based artist’s work sees her exploring several different themes including surface vs. depth, longing, betrayal, mourning and desire.

Creating her sound with tenor eclectic guitar and obsolete hardware samplers, Messing released her debut EP just before the pandemic put a halt on everything. She chose to pause live performing due to her health, and returned to focusing on creating music, finding workarounds to the problem of isolation. She connected with fellow artists and producers in France, the UK, Canada and the States — and most recently, Los Angeles-based producer, Topher Mohr, who produced her forthcoming La Faute self-titled debut album.

“Blue Girl Nice Day,” the self-titled album’s atmospheric first single features strummed acoustic guitar, twinkling keys, Messing’s gorgeous and expressive vocal paired with swirling synths and military-influenced drumming. Sonically, “Blue Girl Nice Day” is blends classic, guitar-driven folk with shoegazer-like textures.

Messing explains that “Blue Girl Nice Day” was inspired by the Milgram Experiments of the 60s. Subjects were told to give ever-increasing series of electric shocks to a “learner,” who had to repeat word pairs” Blue/Girl, Nice/Day, Slow/Dance, Sweet/Taste, and so on. In the experiment, the “learner” was an actor, who purposely made mistakes. The subject had to decide if they should obey orders and potentially give a lethal electric shock to a person, who was crying out in the next room — or to refuse. Subjects were shaken to find that most people would obey the authority figure and give what they thought were lethal shocks to the learner, even against their own conscience.”The song reflects on how easily we can betray and hurt each other, and how we don’t necessary know ourselves and what we are capable of,” the Canadian artist says.

The accompanying video follows Messing outside in a field near power lines and on a hospital bed with a cold wind blowing around her. It’s hauntingly eerie.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Donna “La Mulatta” Shares Swaggering “Get Away From Me (Freestyle)”

Donna “La Mulatta” is an emerging, underground Paris-based artist. In a freestyle accompanied by a chilled out and psych jazz-influenced production by Lille, France-based producer Fair’Son, the Parisian artist spitting bars full of mischievous wordplay with a swaggering, self-assuredness reminiscent of Rapsody and Lady of Rage. Simply put, I thought this was fire. And I’m looking forward to hearing more from the Parisian artist.

The accompanying video follows the emerging Parisian through a variety of urban settings.