Skip to content
The Joy of Violent Movement
Independent Music with an International Focus
Electro Pop, Indie Electro Pop, Indie Synth Pop, music video, New Video, Synth Pop, Video, Video Review, women who kick ass Video
by William Ruben HelmsDecember 14, 201913:05December 14, 2019

New Video: Rituals of Mine’s Dream-like Meditation on Grief and Loss

 

Initially formed in 2009 as Sister Crayon, the acclaimed Los Angeles, CA-based electro pop duo Rituals of Mine — singer/songwriter Terra Lopez and percussionist Adam Pierce — have received attention and praise for a sound that possesses elements of 90s trip hop, footwork and downtempo R&B, and for years of relentless touring up and down the West Coast, playing house shows, DIY venues and basements with the likes of The Album Leaf, Built to Spill, Antemasque, Le Butcherettes, Maps & Atlases, Doomtree, and others. Adding to growing profile, the act’s first two albums — 2011’s Bellow and 2013’s Cynic — were released to critical acclaim.

2015 was a profoundly harrowing and difficult year for Lopez: her father committed suicide and several moths later, her best friend Lucas Johnson tragically died in an accident. Reeling from the grief of such  inconsolable and unexpected loss, Lopez in a period of deep reflection felt the need to reassess her life and her work in Sister Crayon. She decided to put the Sister Crayon name to rest, moving forward with a new moniker  — Rituals of Mine. As Terra Lopez wrote at the time, “It was a mantra that I repeated under my breath on a daily basis when the loss I was experiencing felt too heavy at times. Music, the act of creating, performing, touring, writing, singing, experimenting – all the rituals we have created to get through life.”

After years of obscuring her own story and emotions through metaphorical lyrics, Lopez felt a sudden confidence to write much more directly about her experiences and life as a queer woman of color. Lopez began fleshing out the material on what would become her Rituals of Mine debut Devoted with her longtime collaborator and producer Wes Jones, who helped turn her heartfelt writing on her trauma and personal growth into urgent and pulsating electronic tracks. Lopez then enlisted Adam Pierce to play drums, knowing that their background in metal percussion would provide an intensity that could match her own.

Last year was a very busy year for Lopez and Pierce. They opened for a handful of dates for The Afghan Whigs and Built to Spill’s co-headliing tour, including a Chicago area stop last April. They also opened for Garbage during the multi-plantium Grammy Award-winning band’s US tour. They also went on their first UK tour with JOVM mainstay Geographer and The Seshen.

Building upon that momentum, the duo’s latest effort, the Wes jones and Neal Pogue co-produced follow-up to Devoted, Sleeper Hold EP features the urgent and fiery anti-Trump Administration anthem “No Time To Go Numb,” and the glitchy, Timbaland electro R&B-like “Burst” and the EP’s latest single “Heavyweight.” Centered around a sleek and modern production featuring glitchy electronics, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and Lopez’s soulful yet plaintive vocals. Unlike, its immediate predecessors, the song is much more mournful, as it carries the enormous weight of heartache and grief  — but while continuing to be driven by Lopez’s commitment to unvarnished and unfiltered emotional honesty, at all costs. “I made a promise to myself that I’m no longer going to play small or hide behind metaphors, that I’m going to really lean into self-confidence, self-reliance and take up space,” Lopez said in a statement to Billboard.

Interestingly, the recently released video for “Heavyweight” is a gorgeously shot, contemplative yet surreal and intimate visual inspired by the effects of grief and trauma on the mind, body and soul — particularly Lopez’s own, after her father’s suicide and the tragic death of her best friend. Lopez was approached by Pitch Her Productions, an organization that focuses on promoting womxn-identified filmmakers. Pitch Her Productions then paired the act with Ecuadorian-born, New York-based artist/filmmaker Domenica Garcia. Nearly the entire cast and crew of the video were womxn-identified and are womxn of color.

“We wanted to create a video that depicts the weight that grief imposes on anyone that experiences it; the ways in which we have to deconstruct, contort and carry grief with us in our day to day,” Lopez explains in press notes. “At the start of the video you see three womxn holding their cumbersome grief and traumas, having to learn how to move in the world with it. As the video goes on, you see that same grief and trauma decrease in size as the womxn learn how to navigate their world with it. That was the theme we wanted to focus on: we will all have to experience grief at some point in our lives, unfortunately. So, how do we learn how to cope? Grief never leaves you entirely but if you do the work and learn to move through it, you can see beyond it one day.”

 

 

 

 

 

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • More
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Tagged with: Antemasque Bulit to Spill Chicago IL Domenica Garcia DOOMTREE electro pop Garbage Geographer Heavyweight indie electro pop indie synth pop Le Butcherettes Los Angeles CA Maps & Atlases music music video New Video New Video: Rituals of Mine's Dream-like Meditation on Grief and Loss Pitch Her Productions Rituals of Mine Rituals of Mine Burst Rituals of Mine Devoted Rituals of Mine Heavyweight Rituals of Mine No Time To Go Numb Rituals of Mine Sleeper Hold EP Sister Crayon Sister Crayon Bellow Sister Crayon Cynic synth pop The Afghan Whigs The Album Leaf The Joy of Violent Movement: New Video: Rituals of Mine's Dream-like Meditation on Grief and Loss The Seshen Timbaland video Video Review Video Review: Heavyweight Video Review: Rituals of Mine Heavyweight women who kick ass

William Ruben Helms

All posts

I'm a music blogger, critic and photographer, who has had articles and photos published in Downbeat, Premier Guitar Magazine, Brooklyn Magazine, The New York Press, New York Magazine's Vulture Blog, Ins&Outs Magazine, The Noise Beneath the Apple, Glide Magazine, The Whiskey Dregs Magazine and others. Check out The Joy of Violent Movement Shop: https://www.joyofviolentmovement.com/shop Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement

  • The Joy of Violent Movement
  • Facebook Fan Page

iThere are no comments

Add yours

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Ads by

William Ruben Helms on Instagram

Man Down, Coney Island,
Seahorse Coney Island,
Light Through The Fog, Coney Island,
Thunderbolt, Coney Island,
Soft and Hard . . . William’s Candy Shop Coney Island, Brooklyn, NYC #williamscandyshop #coneyislandbrooklynnyc #coneyislandbrooklyn #brooklynnyc #brooklyn #nyc #coneyisland #coneyislandbeachboardwalk #photographyourcity #nofilter #unedited #fullframe #canon6dmarkii #canonphotography #canonphotographer #24mm105mmf4l @coney.island.usa @coneyislandfun
William’s Candy Shop Coney Island, Brooklyn, NYC #williamscandyshop #coneyislandbrooklynnyc #coneyislandbrooklyn #brooklynnyc #brooklyn #nyc #coneyisland #coneyislandbeachboardwalk #photographyourcity #nofilter #unedited #fullframe #canon6dmarkii #canonphotography #canonphotographer #24mm105mmf4l @coney.island.usa @coneyislandfun
Deno’s Wonder Wheel Coney Island, Brooklyn, NYC #denoswonderwheelamusementpark #coneyislandbrooklynnyc #coneyislandbrooklyn #brooklynnyc #brooklyn #nyc #coneyisland #coneyislandbeachboardwalk #photographyourcity #nofilter #unedited #fullframe #canon6dmarkii #canonphotography #canonphotographer #24mm105mmf4l @coney.island.usa @coneyislandfun @denoswonderwheel
Deno’s Wonder Wheel Coney Island, Brooklyn, NYC #denoswonderwheelamusementpark #coneyislandbrooklynnyc #coneyislandbrooklyn #brooklynnyc #brooklyn #nyc #coneyisland #coneyislandbeachboardwalk #photographyourcity #nofilter #unedited #fullframe #canon6dmarkii #canonphotography #canonphotographer #24mm105mmf4l @coney.island.usa @coneyislandfun @denoswonderwheel
Coney Island, Brooklyn, NYC #gamesgamesgames #testyourluck #coneyislandbrooklynnyc #coneyislandbrooklyn #brooklynnyc #brooklyn #nyc #coneyisland #coneyislandbeachboardwalk #photographyourcity #nofilter #unedited #fullframe #canon6dmarkii #canonphotography #canonphotographer #24mm105mmf4l @coney.island.usa @coneyislandfun
Don’t Postpone Joy, Coney Island, Brooklyn, NYC #dontpostponejoy #coneyislandbrooklynnyc #coneyislandbrooklyn #brooklynnyc #brooklyn #nyc #coneyisland #coneyislandbeachboardwalk #photographyourcity #nofilter #unedited #fullframe #canon6dmarkii #canonphotography #canonphotographer #24mm105mmf4l @coney.island.usa @coneyislandfun

Support This Site by Becoming a Patron

Become a Patron!

Flickr Photos

IMG_0205IMG_0203IMG_0204IMG_0201IMG_0202IMG_0198IMG_0199IMG_0200IMG_0196IMG_0197
More Photos

The Joy of Violent Movement on Facebook

The Joy of Violent Movement on Facebook

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets
Jetpack

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,888 other subscribers

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Patch by PixelGrade.
Footer navigation
  • Contact Us
  • About
  • Shop

Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Press Esc to cancel.

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: