Category: World Music

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: JOVM Mainstay Mariaa Siga Teams up with FissBassBeats on a Banger

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering Senegalese-born and-based singer/songwriter, musician and JOVM mainstay Mariaa Siga.

So far this year, she has released two singles which I’ve written about:

  • “Le murmure des anges,” a track that saw her collaborating with Artikal Band, who contribute a shuffling and buoyant reggae riddim paired with a slow-burning and soulful guitar solo and the Senegalese-born and-based artist’s expressive delivery. “Le murmure des angels” is a song that does two things — give thanks to the enteral while reminding listeners that they should listen to the little voice inside of us, which arms us with much-needed confidence; that voice that frequently says “You know, you got this. You know you’re dope.” 

  • “Ni Mama,” which in her native Diola means “I’m Leaving” sees the JOVM mainstay continuing her ongoing collaboration with Artikal Band, who contribute a shuffling and breezily upbeat reggae riddim paired with wah wah pedalled guitar, shimmering keys serving as a supple bed for the Senegalese artist’s effortlessly soulful and earnest vocal. “Ni Mama” features lyrics in both her native Diola and in French that discuss a familiar sensation for many of us — the need to escape things when daily pressure and stress becomes overwhelming.

The JOVM mainstay’s latest single “Daaray Dunya,” was produced by FissBassBeats and sees the Senegalese artist singing and rhyming about the difficulties young people, who struggle to get by in a mad, mad, mad world, and yet continue to believe that they have a bright future. FissBassBeats contributes a tweeter and woofer rattling drill production featuring looped guitar, skittering beats and deep low end. While “Daaray Dunya” is a bit of a sonic departure from her previously released singles, it continues the Senegalese artist’s unique meshing of the ancient and the modern.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: DVTR Shares a Furious and Incisive Ripper

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

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

  • JC Tellier, who has played with Gazoline, an act that has received multiple ADISQ and GAMIQ award nominations. Tellier has also played with Kandle, Xavier Caféine, Gab Bouchard and a lengthy list of others. 

Last week, I wrote about the duo’s debut single “DVTR,” a breakneck, blistering and incisive ripper built around scorching riffage, a relentless motorik-like groove, a shouted mantra-like chorus and mosh pit friendly hooks paired with G-Do’s feral shouts. The result is a song that kind of sounds like a wild yet seamless synthesis of Wild Planet-era The B-52s and La Femme’s “Foutre le bordel.“

The Canadian duo’s second and latest single “Vasectomia” is another breakneck ripper built around scorching guitar riffage, G-Do’s shouted vocals and a relentless groove paired with the duo’s penchant for wildly catchy hooks, anthemic choruses. But underneath the attention to slick craftsmanship, is furious and incisive criticism of the modern condition, delivered with zero fucks given. With the song, it feels as though G-Do would shout “fuck you!” to every man she passes by while suggesting that if men don’t want unwanted pregnancies or truly concerned about overpopulation that maybe they should get a vasectomy.

The accompanying video is set in a hospital room from hell and features the band’s G-Do in a medical gown and in stirrups, happily eating out of a carton of ice cream while her bandmate, playing the role of demented doctor works on her, occasionally taking breaks to sing his parts in the song.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: JOVM Mainstays L’Impératice Teams Up with Cuco on a Woozy Bop

Rising Paris-based electro pop sextet L’Impératice — founder Charles de Boisseguin (keys), Hagni Gown (keys), David Gaugué (bass), Achille Trocellier (guitar), Tom Daveau (drums) and Flore Benguigui (vocals) — formed back in 2012. And in a relatively short period of time, they quickly developed a reputation for being extremely prolific: Within their first three years together, they released 2012’s self-titled debut EP, 2014’s Sonate Pacifique EP and 2015’s Odyssée EP. 

Back in 2016, the Parsian sextet released a re-edited, remixed and slowed down version of Odyssée, L’Empreruer, inspired by a fan mistakenly playing a vinyl copy of Odyssée at the wrong speed. L’Impératice followed that up with a version of Odysseé featuring arrangements centered around violin, cello and acoustic guitar. During the summer of 2017, the Parisian electro pop act signed to microqlima records, who released that year’s Séquences EP. 

Their full-length debut, 2018’s Matahari  featured “Erreur 404,” which they performed on the French TV show Quotidien. They followed that up with an English language version of Matahari and 2021’s Renaud Letang co-produced sophomore album Taku Tsubo.

Deriving its name from the medical term for broken heart/takutsubo syndrome ((蛸 壺, from Japanese “octopus trap”). The condition usually manifests itself as deformation of the heart’s left ventricle caused by severe emotional or physical stress — i.e., the death of a loved one, an intense argument with someone you care about, a breakup, a sudden illness or the like. An untreated broken heart can actually kill you.

Cuco is a Hawthorne, CA-based electronic music producer and artist, whose early stage, earnest bedroom pop aesthetic seemed to immediately connect with audiences online. Home-recorded and then shared through Bandcamp and SoundCloud, his self-released efforts 2016’s Wannabewithu and 2018’s Chiquito EP featured relatable and catchy material in both English and Spanish that openly defied genre restraints with elements of mariachi, R&B and psychedelia helped him win over first generation Latin Americans and young fans of indie singer/songwriters.

As the play counts and stream counts increased, there was a greater demand for him to play live shows in front of increasingly larger crowds on tour and at festivals. “It’ll always be surreal to me,” he says. “I never take it for granted if I see so many people at one show, you know, I don’t know the next day that I’m gonna see that again; it’s always appreciated.”

With massive buzz surrounding him, Cuco wound up signing with Interscope, who released his full-length debut, 2019’s Para Mi. His sophomore album, last year’s Fantasy Gateway sees him pushing the envelope of his sound, presenting a new chapter of the young producer/artist’s career in which he takes risks to great results.

The Parisian JOVM mainstays recently teamed up with the rapidly rising producer and artist on “Heartquake,” a collaboration that can be traced back to when they all met during last year’s Coachella. “Heartquake” is a woozy yet breezy bop built around an expansive, mind-melting arrangement that begins with glistening and wobbling synth oscillations, twinkling keys and trap-like beats before briefly morphing into a slinky bit of disco funk before closing out with glistening and wobbling synth oscillations and trap beats . Throughout the song L’Impératice’s Flore Benguigui sings English lyrics with a bemused yet sultry sense of longing and desire.

“It’s the story of someone completely disconnected from their emotions who is on their usual peaceful bus ride one morning. And then, someone sits across from them, and suddenly, their brain freezes, and they fall to their knees, struck by a thunderbolt, a kind of Tako tsubo,” the members of L’Impératice explain. “It’s a sensation that shakes them to the core, and they’re not sure if they can survive it, but they desire it.” Cuco adds: “It’s a pleasure and honor to be working with my friends in L’Impératrice.” 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: AURUS Shares Breathtakingly Beautiful “Strange Stone”

Bastien Picot is a rising Réunion Island-born singer/songwriter, producer and creative mastermind behind AURUS, a rising electronic music project that specializes in an orchestral-leaning take on electro pop that has drawn comparisons to Nakhane, Woodkid, Peter Gabriel and a list of others. 

With the release of 2019’s “The Abettors,” which featured Sandra Nkaké, Picot exploded into the French scene: The track thematically raised awareness of a system that exploited and took the living for granted. He started off 2020 with sets at  MaMA Festival and Bars en Trans Festival, opening for Vendredi sur Mer at L’Olympia, and being named a “revelation” of Chantier des Francos. 

2020 also saw the release of Picot’s AURUS self-titled debut EP. Building upon that momentum, 2021’s full-length debut, Chimera was conceived, written and recorded between Réunion Island and Paris. The album’s material is an intuitive and tribal journey in which, what may seem irreconcilable meets and merges. Sonically, the songs mesh brooding atmospheric textures, tribal beats, military rhythms, trance, pop ballads and more, while featuring lyrics sung in English and Reunion Island Creole.

I wrote about three of Chimera‘s singles:

  • The brooding and cinematic, Security-era Peter Gabriel-like “Momentum” The yearning, Amnesiac-era Radiohead meets contemporary alt pop-like “AWOL.”

  • “Horus,” a brooding yet mesmerizing and difficult to pigeonhole song built around Picot’s unerring knack for infectious hooks paired with devastatingly earnest lyricism

“Strange Stone” is the first bit of original material from the Reunion Island-born artist since Chimera, and it’s a decided sonic departure from his previously released work. Built around strummed acoustic guitar and atmospheric electronic textures, paired with Picot’s yearning falsetto, “Strange Stone” is a breathtakingly gorgeous song that stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it.

Much like his previously released work, the new single is rooted in deeply personal experience: Feeling as though his heart was slowly calcifying and on the verge of giving up, Picot returned to Reunion Island. The trip was profoundly restorative: He found the strength to awaken his own beating heart. “Strange Stone” is a tribute to “the strange, magical energy that pulsates through both AURUS and his homeland; a journey of self-discovery and inner healing where the strangest stones can awaken the deepest passions.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Single: DJ Moderno Shares Club Banging “Esa Habitación”

German Ormaechea is a Spanish-born and-based musician, electronic music producer, remixer and DJ, best known as DJ Moderno. As a musician, the Spanish artist has played at a number of clubs and festivals. He has also spent several years releasing remixes of a number of indie bands.

Back in 2020, the Spanish artist began to produce and release material as a DJ Moderno, starting with a batch of critically applauded singles between October 2020 and October 2021. Since then, his material has landed on the indie charts of TIDAL, Deezer, and Apple Music in Spain while receiving airplay on Spain’s Radio 3.

The Spanish artist created a live band to play the material live. The band features DJ Moderno (vocals, synths and bass), Alpha Circle‘s Alberto “Berty” Garcia (guitar, synths) and Isabel Borbolla, a.k.a. Isa Atòmica (vocals). Live, the trio have toured across Spain, playing in venues and festivals like Cadavra, Sirocco, Acalá Suena, Barbeira Fest, Primera Fila Fest, Backstage, WegowLive and a lengthy list of others.

“Esa Habitación,” was released earlier this year, and it’s a club friendly banger built around techno and house beats, enormous hooks and glistening synth oscillations paired with shimmering guitars from Garcia, backing vocals from Isa Atòmica, and DJ Moderno’s dreamy delivery. While sonically sounding like a synthesis of From Here to Eternity-era Giorgio Moroder and New Order, “Esa Habitación” describes a traumatic hospital room experience that’s rooted in lived-in horror.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: LavBbe Shares A Sultry, Genre-Defying Banger

LavBbe is a rising Romanian-born, British-based artist, who can trace her passion for music and dance to her childhood growing up in a performing household: She received her first bellydancing costume as a special present from her grandmother — and she quickly began to show her talent to everyone around her. Her father was a singer, and she grew up surrounded by an eclectic array of music including rock, jazz and soul — with Amy Winehouse and Sade being major inspirations.

When she turned 16, LavBbe relocated from Romania to Newcastle to continue her studies. Inspired by some of the world’s great dancers and performers, she attended classes in contemporary dance, acting and singing for a year.

Upon graduation, she became a flight attendant at Virgin Atlantic. She wound up taking a break from her dancing routine but when the pandemic broke out back in 2020, she started to create dance videos on TikTok, dancing from morning to evening. In a few months, she quickly amassed over one million followers and became a highly sought-after influencer, with a deep love of Afrobeats. Her dance videos, which reveal effervescent dance moves went viral, and she has now amassed over 4.6 million followers on TikTok, and tens of millions of comments.

After the lockdown, she traveled to New York, Los Angeles and Nigeria for work, but her music career began in earnest a few months ago, when multiple Grammy-nominated, Romanian producer Costi Ionita discovered her on TikTok. “Lavbbe is talented, valuable and multilaterally developed, with a a great voice which impresses me”, Ionita says.

LavBbe’s second and latest single, the Ionita-produced, Ionita, LavBbe and Silviu Dimitriu-co-written “Pumping” seamlessly meshes elements of Afrobeats, reggaeton, Balkan, pop and dance music in slick, club friendly production that serves as the perfect vehicle for the Romanian-British artist’s sultry, self-assured delivery. I’m certain of one thing: this artist is a certified global star, and we’ll be hearing more about her in the future.

Directed by Alex Ceaușu, the accompanying video for “Pumping” follows the Romanian-British artist through a variety of brightly colored backdrops while revealing her playful yet self-assured and undeniable sex appeal.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s DVTR Shares a Breakneck Ripper

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

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

  • JC Tellier, who has played with Gazoline, an act that has received multiple ADISQ and GAMIQ award nominations. Tellier has also played with Kandle, Xavier Caféine, Gab Bouchard and a lengthy list of others.

The duo’s debut single “DVTR” is a breakneck, blistering and incisive ripper built around scorching riffage, a relentless motorik-like groove, a shouted mantra-like chorus, mosh pit friendly hooks paired with G-Do’s feral shouts. The result is a song that kind of sounds like a wild yet seamless synthesis of Wild Planet-era The B-52s and La Femme’s “Foutre le bordel.“

Directed by Jean-Vital Joliat, the wildly kinetic accompanying video features the members of DVTR, acting as a paramilitary force in a pickup truck, driving in a suburban parking lot as they pull off a heist — of a 5LB bag of rice.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Acclaimed Inuk Artist Elisapie Shares Hauntingly Gorgeous Rendition of Metallica’s “The Unforgiven”

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. 

A teenaged Elisapie began performing on stage with her uncles, who were members of Sugluk (also known as Salliut Band), a famous and well-regarded Inuit rock band. She also worked at TNI, the village’s radio station, which broadcast across the region. And while working for the radio station, the teenaged Issac managed to secure an interview with Metallica. 

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 Issac’s 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. Along with that, all of the album’s songs are linked to a loved one, to her community or is rooted to an intimate story that has shaped Issac as her a person and as an artist, giving the material a deeply personal touch.

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.

The album’s first single “Uummati Attanarsimat (Heart of Glass),” caught the attention of the legendary Debbie Harry. And if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past handful of months, you might remember that I wrote about “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 Issac’s gorgeous, achingly tender delivery. 

Much like her previous single, “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,” Isaac 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.”

Inuktiut‘s third and latest single “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 Issac’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.”

Directed by Phillipe Léonard, the accompanying video for “Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven)” was shot in Nunavik abroad a canoe, using a camera attached to end of a pole, much like a fishing rod. “The footage oscillates between the emerald seabed bursting with light and the deep blue sky, which makes the sensual silhouettes of the tundra mountains stand out,” explains the director.
 
The acclaimed Canadian artist will be playing an extensive series of tour dates to support the forthcoming album. Sadly, the tour doesn’t currently include any Stateside dates as of yet. But if you’re in Québec, you should catch her.