Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Babeheaven and Navy Blue Share Lush and Yearning “Make Me Wanna”

Rising London-based quintet Babeheaven — led by Nancy Anderson (vocals) and Jamie Travis (instrumentation and co-production along with Simon Byrt) can trace their origins back to when Anderson and Travis struck up a friendship while working in shops located on the same street. With their critically applauded, full-length debut Home For Now, the British pop outfit established a sound and approach guided more by mood than message, while thematically reflecting the disengagement that comes from years of uncertainty, fits and stops and crushing disappointment.

Babeheaven’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Sink Into Me is slated for a March 18, 2022 release through Believe. And while the album continues the British pop outfit’s long-held reputation for crating music that is imbued with feelings of loneliness and disconnection, the album’s material is rooted in a central tension: there’s disillusionment sure; but there’s also a yearning for growth and evolution.

Informed by the death of two close family friends of Anderson’s within a year of each other, the album explores love and loss — and the very human desire for comfort and connection. Unlike its predecessor, the members of Babeheave were able to write songs together in the studio, along with Luca Mantero, Milo McGuire and Ned Smith. “It was more organic,” Babeheaven’s Jamie Travis says of Sink Into Me‘s songwriting process, which happened over the course of six months over the course of 2020. “It sounds ridiculous but we hadn’t been able to do that before.”

Reportedly Sink Into Me sees the members of Babehaven making a huge step forward: Sonically, the band sees the band distilling their influences and coming into their own distinct style. “It was a conscious decision to move away from being a trip-hop bedroom-pop band,” says the band’s Travis. “We did that on the last album; now it was time to try something different.” The trip-hop references are still there — but they no longer dominate; rather, the album reportedly finds the band crafting a decidedly widescreen sound that seamlessly meshes elements of pop, R&B, indie rock and electronica.

The end result is an album that sees the London-based act encapsulating the past few years while attempting to make something universal. “We’re not trying to write hits,” says Jamie. “We’re trying to write good songs that people can connect with.”

Sink Into Me‘s third and latest single, the lush “Make Me Wanna” is centered around a glistening production featuring buzzing and swelling synths, boom bap-like drums, shimmering guitars paired with Anderson’s gorgeous vocals expressing an aching and maddening yearning for connection. The song also features a thoughtful and longing response back to Anderson’s narrator from Brooklyn-based emcee Navy Blue. Subtly nodding at the classic soul duets and the hip-hop soul duets of the 90s, “Make Me Wanna” at its core is a sweet, and somewhat old-fashioned love song about missing that someone who may be an ocean away.

 “​​The verses and chorus from this song were taken from two really old demos,” Nancy Anderson explains in press notes. “Listening to it now I was obviously really heartbroken but I find it hard to be direct with my lyrics. The synth swells in this song really pull at my heartstrings and when we were writing the track for this it reminded me of those lyrics and how I felt at that time. I reached out to Navy to see if he wanted to be part of the album and he wrote a verse for this song it really feels like a direct and concise version of what I was trying to say in that moment.”

Directed by Noel Paul, the recently released video for “Make Me Wanna” features Babeheaven’s Anderson taking a seaside walk to presumably clear her head. As she’s walking a former lover/fling/love-interest nicknamed “do not answer” on her phone tries to reach her on her phone — first by Facetime, which she ignores. “do not answer,” turns out to be Navy Blue, who texts her in a rapid flurry the lines of his verses, confessing his thoughts. She eventually answers, listens to Navy Blue for a seconds and with a bitter smile, tosses her phone into the sea.

I’m not sure if I’d do that. But I think we all can get the sentiment — heartache, frustration, longing and exhaustion rolled into one confusing yet familiar ball.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Mama’s Gun Shares a Surreal and Comic “Thriller”-Inspired Visual for “Party For One”

Deriving their name from Erykah Badu‘s acclaimed and beloved album Mama’s Gun, the London-based soul outfit Mama’s Gun — currently, Andy Platts, Cameron Dawson, David Oliver, Terry Lewis and Chris Boot — formed back in 2008. And since their formation, they’ve released four full-length albums: 2009’s Routes to Riches, which broke big in Japan and eventually lead to the British band being the most played international artist on Japanese radio that year; 2011’s Life and Soul; 2014’s Cheap Hotel; and 2018’s Golden Days.

Adding to a growing profile, the London-based soul outfit have opened for Level 42, Beverley Knight, Ben l’Oncle Soul and Raphael Saadiq while developing a fanbase across Southeast Asia — in particular South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore.

Now, if you’ve been following this site over the past few weeks, you might recall that the rising London-based soul outfit began the year with the “Party For One”/”Looking for Moses” double A-side single. Released earlier this month, the double A single serves as a teaser for the band’s highly-anticipated fifth album Cure The Jones.

Written and produced during the pandemic by the band’s Andy Platts’ with additional soundscaping from the band’s Chriss Bott, Cure The Jones was recorded direct-to-tape with an array of analog gear at Platts’ home studio in a breakneck three day session. The album, which is slated for an April 1. 2022 release through the band’s Candelion Records with Secretly Group and Colemine Records is reportedly informed and inspired by the spirit of conscious late ’60s and ’70s soul (think Bill Withers and Marvin Gaye) and the turbulence of the past couple of years. While being a lush, nuanced meditation on a world turned upside down, the album thematically explores and touches upon love, loss, and life through the most pressing sociopolitical issues of our day.

Double A-side single and album single “Party For One” is a slow-burning and strutting bit of 70s psych soul and neo-soul centered around the sort of low-slung and wobbling bass line that would make Bootsy Collins proud, a lush horn line, fluttering psychedelic effects and Andy Platts’ dreamy falsetto. “Party For One” points out a bitter irony that even loners and homebodies felt during pandemic-related lockdowns — sometimes, you just want to see and talk to another human adult.

“Lyrically ‘Party For One’ comes from me being a bit of a loner – I like my own company and space to create, think and reflect,” the band’s Andy Platts explains. “I was in my ideal world during the early stages of the pandemic, on my own and with no one around, but I was mourning the company of strangers. There is something in anonymous togetherness that is the stuff of life.” 

Directed and edited by Chip Creative, the recently released video for “Party For One” is a surreal and comic romp featuring the band and their family and friends on a night out that turns into a low-budget Thriller, which includes werewolves and a dance routine.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Rising, Los Angeles-based electronic duo Tonoso — Jacob Grabb and Paul Salerno — met in high school jazz band and started working together in earnest back in 2018. And since their formation, the duo have developed and honed a unique take on contemporary electronic music centered around a cinematic and compositional sensibility.

Interestingly, the Los Angeles-based electronic duo’s music can be heard in a number of different media, including the award-winning film Summertime and the hit video game Cyberpunk 2077. The duo hope to continue upon that momentum with the release of their full-length debut Artificial Dreams later this year.

In the meantime, the duo’s latest single, the lush “Hide” features a blend of organic instrumentation including live drumming, glistening, reverb-drenched guitar, a sinuous bass line paired with an ethereal and deliberately crafted and breezy production centered around driving, skittering beats, atmospheric synth arpeggios and chopped up vocals. The production is roomy enough for Jacob Grabb’s plaintive and yearning vocals to be interwoven within the lush mix — but while adding a brooding quality to the song.

“Our main intention was to create a driving syncopated rhythm section that
beautifully contrasts with luscious textures and hypnotic melodies,” the Los Angeles duo explain. “The lyrics, while seemingly dark and mysterious, are meant to be interpreted by the listener.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Staten Island’s Elaine Kristal Teams up with Produkt and Herve Alexandre on an Earnest and Soulful New Bop

Elaine Kristal is an emerging Staten Island-born and-based singer/songwriter, who can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood: a young music-loving Elaine Kristal took part in school plays at her elementary school — and she sung in the hallways of her school, wearing a bandana and hoop earrings, inspired by Alicia Keys.

She started performing her own music with one of her best friends, Mikey Fuego at a local open mic. The young, Staten Island-born and-based singer/songwriter quickly began to realize that people were coming to see her perform — and were learning the lyrics to her songs. When the entire place started singing along, Kristal realized she needed to seriously pursue music. “It’s a high I will never forget, and one I want to have for the rest of my life,” she says.

Last year, R&B singer Tank launched the “Can We Talk Challenge” on Tik Tok. The challenge required participants to sing the hook to Tevin Campbell‘s 1993 hit single. Kristal, refused to sit on the sidelines, knowing she could contribute to the challenge while making one of her favorite vocalists proud. Her contribution quickly amassed over 40,000 views with the video being favorited over 400 times.

Naturally, the Staten Island-born and-based vocalist was ecstatic by the positive response she received. Then a Tik Tok user questioned the young, emerging artist’s talent and ability in the comments. She responded swiftly, singing the hook to “Can We Talk” a cappella while pounding her fist on a stage platform. “When I saw the comment my first reaction was “Oh word”, he really went there?” explained Elaine. “I take this VERY serious and my pride couldn’t let it go so I just walked over to this stage located in the studio complex I record in and just started pounding my fist while I sang a cappella.” Kristal continues, “Here I am with limited hours in a day trying to divide my time between recording new music, promoting recently released tracks, and preparing for the release of my new new single ‘Nasty In The Morning’ and now I’m replying to thousands of comments on my page.”

In the past year, the #CanWeTalkChallenge has become a viral sensation with thousands of entries across the world and over 20 million views of the hashtag. The Staten Island-based artist has 250,000 of those views, with over 3,000 comments, 48,000 likes — and has seen a 500% growth in followers on the platform. In fact, she’s in the Top 10 of the challenge, alongside X Factor USA season one winner Melanie Amaro and rapper Joyner Lucas while surpassing established artists like Lil Mama, Anthony Hamilton, 112‘s Q and Bobby Valentino. “2021 was hard for so many people including myself, but there were also many developments that made it tough to see last year end” Kristal says.

Elaine Kristal hopes to build upon the momentum of the #CanWeTalkChallenge. Her latest single “Love Over Living” is a slickly produced, radio and club friendly bop that features a soulful saxophone by Herve Alexandre, looping acoustic guitar and skittering, tweeter and woofer rocking trap beats. The Staten Island-based artist’s easy-going vocals effortlessly glide over a production that nods at Mary J. Blige and Alicia Keys-like hip-hop soul, contemporary pop and trap. Interestingly, underneath the contemporary production is a sweet, old-school love song in which the narrator expresses the age old “us against the world, baby” sentiment. Local emcee and labelmate Produkt contributes a couple of lovestruck verses describes how he feels about his “round-the-way girl,” who keeps it real — and is ride or die. It’s honestly, the sort of earnest love song that you don’t hear that you don’t hear too often these days.

As the emerging artist explains the song offers a simple yet profound message of how the power of love can get us through the darkest moments of our lives.

The recently released video for “Love Over Living” portrays the young Staten Island artist as a down-to-earth, round the way girl. We follow the two artists as they drive around town in a gorgeous, turquoise speedster — notably on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the FDR Drive and the West Side Highway. We also see them stop by a neighborhood bodega.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jenny Stevens and The Empty Mirrors Share a Trippy and Nostalgia-Inducing Visual for “No, I Wouldn’t Call It Love”

Jenny Stevens, a.k.a. The Ukelele Girl is a Welsh-born, Finnish-based singer/songwriter and musician, and the creative mastermind behind Jenny Stevens and The Empty Mirrors, a songwriting project that finds the Welsh-born, Finnish-based artist pairing dark alt-pop with quirky visuals.

Last year, Stevens released the The Distance Between Us EP, an effort that featured “The River Rolls On,” which paired Stevens’ yearning vocals with a slow-burning and atmospheric arrangement that seemed indebted to Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Cocteau Twins.

The Welsh-born, Finnish-based artist begins 2022 with the more uptempo “No, I Wouldn’t Call It Love.” Centered around glistening synths and shimmering, reverb-drenched guitars, “No, I Wouldn’t Call It Love” features a decidedly 4AD Records-like sound paired with Stevens’ achingly yearning vocals singing lyrics about a perfect moment through the lens of nostalgia and longing.

The recently released video emphasizes the longing and nostalgia at the core of the song: The video focuses on the passing of time, the changing of the seasons, and the song narrator’s loneliness and regret.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Laufey Performs “Like The Movies” on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

Laufey Lin is a rapidly rising, 21 year-old Chinese-Icelandic singer/songwriter, cellist and pianist, best known as Laufey. Spending much of her childhood in Reykjavik, Lin grew up influenced by classical music and jazz, and by the time she was 15, she performed with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Interestingly, despite her deep and abiding love of the music that has served as musical foundation, she yearned to express herself by creating music that blended her classical and jazz background with more modern and contemporary influences.

While attending Berklee College of Music, Lin began collaborating with some of her peers and recording her debut single “Street By Street,” a blend of jazz melodies with slow-burning R&B grooves. Making the best of the unexpected downtime as a result of the pandemic, Lin decided to release “Street By Street” through social media. The song, along with a collection of covers and originals quickly went viral. Eventually, “Street By Street” hit #1 on the Icelandic charts — and she began to amass a massive following that includes Billie Eilish, Willow Smith, dodie, and others.

Adding to a breakthrough year, the Reykjavik-born artist landed her own music series on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds. She won Best New Artist at the Icelandic Music Awards. Amazingly, those accomplishments took place before the release her acclaimed debut EP Typical of Me, which has amassed over 10 million streams across all digital streaming platforms.

Last week, the rising, young Icelandic artist made her late night, Stateside TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where she performed Typical of Me track “Like The Movies.” The old-timey, jazz-standard-inspired song — and it’s gorgeous arrangement — continues a run of classic Hollywood-inspired ballads with modern sentiment: in the case of “Like The Movies,” the song’s narrator recognizes that the old movies she loves has distorted her ideas of what love is and can be. Besides that, the song reveals a songwriter and vocalist, who displays a maturity and sensibility beyond her relative youth.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Thaïs Shares a Trippy and Cinematic Visual for “Arrête de danser”

Thaïs is an emerging Montreal-based singer/songwriter, who specializes in an atmospheric and delicate pop centered around the French Canadian singer/songwriter’s ethereal vocals. Thematically her work focuses on melancholy, loneliness and dysfunctional and confusing love.

Last year, the French Canadian artist released the Paradis Artificiels EP, which featured “Boreal,” a track inspired by a trip she took to Iceland that evoked the awe-inspiring sense of being in a gorgeous, natural beauty and taking it all in deeply — and “Sushi Solitude,” an atmospheric and delicate bit of synth pop that brought Washed Out to mind.

Since the release of Paradis Artificiels, the emerging Montreal-based artist signed to Bravo Musique, who released Thaïs’ latest single, “Arrête de danser.” Continuing a run of slickly produced pop centered around glistening and atmospheric synth arpeggios and traplike beats, “Arrête de danser” sees the French Canadian artist seamlessly meshing electro pop and trap; in fact, the song alternating between a syncopated trap-inspired flow for the verses and her ethereal cooing for the song’s hook.

While being club friendly, the song is actually a bitter tell-off to an unhealthy and dysfunctional lover that the song’s narrator knows is wrong for her and yet, she can’t quite get over. Despite her relative youth, the rising Montreal-based artist captures the push-and-pull of fucked up relationships with fucked up people.

Directed by Bobby Leon, the recently released, cinematically shot video for “Arrête de danser” follows an incredibly fashionable Thaïs as she goes to a local mall complex, where she’s haunted by memories of this lover at almost every turn, including a movie theater, that shows a movie that’s suspiciously close to her own life.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Maggie Gently Shares Anthemic and Earnest “Worried”

Maggie Gently is a San Francisco-based singer/songwriter and queer woman, whose identity is very important to her and to the community she creates and participates in. And with the release of her debut EP, 2020’s Good Cry and singles like “Where My Time Went” and “Bitter Pills,” Gently’s work explored heartbreak, attempts at healing, learning things the hard way, establishing boundaries and protecting your heart. Sonically, her work is generally inspired by Snail Mail, Lala Lala, Tancred and Clairo, as well as Meg Hayertz’s “Make It Mean It” tarot-focused. guided meditations, lesbian romance novels and the Enneagram of Personality. As a result, her work is often melody-driven and heartfelt.

The San Francisco-based artist’s full-length debut, the Eva Treadway-produced Peppermint is slated for a March 18, 2022 release through Refresh Records. Recorded at San Francisco’s El Studio the album features a backing band that includes Treadway (lead guitar), Gently’s brother Joey Grabmeier (drums) and Sinclair Riley (bass). Peppermint‘s nine songs focus on the personal yet deeply universal questions of commitment and love, the terrifying possibility of being vulnerable and known, and ultimately trusting something enough to let yourself get swept away in it.

Peppermint‘s latest single “Worried” is an anthemic bit of 90s alt rock-inspired pop featuring chugging guitars and thunderous drumming paired with earnest and lived-in songwriting, Gently’s plaintive vocals and an enormous, sing-along worthy hook. The song is written from the perspective of an uneasy and anxious person desperately trying to hold on to the things and people who she believes she can’t afford to lose.

Peppermint‘s latest single “Worried” is an anthemic bit of 90s alt rock-inspired pop featuring chugging guitars and thunderous drumming paired with earnest and lived-in songwriting, Gently’s plaintive vocals and an enormous, sing-along worthy hook. The song is written from the perspective of an uneasy and anxious person desperately trying to hold on to the things and people who she believes she can’t afford to lose; but ironically she may lose anyway.

The lyric video follows the rising San Francisco-based artist on what may arguably be the longest Uber ride ever taken.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Basement Revolver Shares Cathartic “Circles”

Formed back in 2016, Hamilton, Ontario-based dreamgaze outfit Basement Revolver — currently, Nimal Agalawatte (bass, keys), Chrisy Hurn (vocals, guitar), Jonathan Malström (guitar) and Levi Kertesz (drums) — can trace their origins back quite a bit earlier, to the longtime friendship between Hurn-Morrison and Agalawatte.

The band hit the ground running with the 2016 release of breakout single “Johnny Pt. 2,” which led to the band signing to British label Fear of Missing Out and later, Canadian label Sonic Unyon Records. The Canadian dreamgazers closed out that year with their self-titled EP. Over the next couple of years, Basement Revolver were remarkably prolific with the release of 2017’s Agatha EP, 2018’s full-length debut Heavy Eyes and 2019’s Wax and Digital EP. The band supported their recorded output with touring across Ontario, the States, the UK, and Germany.

2020 was a tumultuous year for much of the world — and unsurprisingly, it was tumultuous year for the Canadian quartet: They had written and recorded a bunch of songs. They had gone through a lineup change in which one member left and was replaced by another. But because of the pandemic and pandemic-related restrictions, they couldn’t rehearse or record in the way they had been long accustomed. And of course touring was completely off the table for much of 2020 and 2021.

The gap between their work and being alone, naturally resulted in serious introspection for the members of the band — including a reconsideration of who and what the band was. According to the band’s Agalawatte, the band had planned on making their sophomore album last year. But they wound up waiting and working out what to do, eventually making changes to what they had written. “The world was shifting around us – and there was some global trauma – with that, we decided we wanted to fully express ourselves. So far we had kind of held off sharing political views, but we were realizing that our silence was actually just violence. We realized that to be who we are fully and authentically, we needed to share our voice.”

For the band’s members, they felt the need to share things in public, that they had long held private: Agalawatte came out. Hurn came out. According to Hurn-Morrison, the pair came out against what she describes as homophobic and transphobic environments, much like Redeemer University, a private Calvinist university, which has been the birthplace of countless local acts.

Back in 2020, Redeemer University announced a policy that would discipline students for any sexual behavior outside heterosexual marriage. “While we were in the studio, the CBC released an article about Redeemer University, and their homophobic and transphobic policies. I realized then and there, I had to come out. I had to share my experience with being bi,” Hurn-Morrison explains.

Basment Revolver’s sophomore album Embody is slated for a February 18, 2022 release through Sonic Unyon Records. Thematically, the album sees the band wrestling with questions of identity, sexuality, faith and mental illness in an explicit, honest, and self-aware fashion. Sonically, the album’s material reveals a much deeper sound paired with a crisper production. And while arguably being the most personal album of their growing catalog to date, the album’s material is rooted in hope and hopeful waiting — to physically be with your friends, to tour and to engage with the world with this newfound understanding of yourself and your place within the world.

Embody‘s fourth and latest single “Circles” is a slow-burning and expansive bit of shoegazy dream pop featuring swirling layers of shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, atmospheric synths, Hurn’s achingly plaintive vocals and a driving rhythm section. And while sonically bearing a resemblance to A Storm in Heaven era The Verve and The Sundays, “Circles” is a deeply personal song in which it’s narrator openly struggles in the aftermath of being raped, and — sadly — informed by Hurn-Morrison’s personal experiences.

According to Chrisy Hurn, the song captures the feeling of “trying to do everything in your power to get better, but there is just that one thing that it always comes back to — knowing that it is a slow and long journey.

“As much as it is about this heavy, shitty thing that happened, I feel resilient. I feel a little bit stronger every time I hear it — a little bit more like I can stop hiding parts of myself.” Of course, while being cathartic for the band’s Hurn, she has the hope that it will help listeners, who may be going through similar experiences.

The recently released video is split between symbolic imagery of Hurn struggling with depression and anxiety — and seemingly gathering the courage to perform such a devastatingly honest song with her bandmates. The video’s color palette capture the brooding and serious nature of the song.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Toronto-based post-punk quartet Hollow Graves are inspired by the second British invasion and with their recently released debut album Mid-Century Modern, the Canadian outfit quickly establishes a sound that features elements of dream pop, New Wave and post-punk.

Fittingly, the album’s material was inspired by life events both before and during the pandemic. Songs touch on the loneliness of being secluded, relationship and personal struggles, while also offering glimpses of hope and enjoyment.

“Borderline,” Mid-Century Modern‘s latest single is an infectious, hook-driven bop centered around glistening and reverb drenched guitar, a driving bass line, stuttering four-on-four and plaintive vocals. But just under the surface is an uneasy anxious tension that feels familiar, with the song asking the question of “when do you let go of someone, who might be struggling and can’t — or is unwilling — to help themselves.

As the band explains in press notes, “‘Borderline’ is a story about a person whose personal struggles are being spread to friends and family in a negative way.” They add “even though you may try to help a struggling friend, you might not be able to effect positive change until they can help themselves first.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: the bird and the bee Share a Gorgeous, Animated Visual for Expansive “Lifetimes”

Acclaimed Los Angeles-based indie pop act the bird and the bee — singer/songwriter Inara George and eight-time Grammy Award-winning producer and multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurstin — can trace their origins back to when they met while working on George’s 2005 solo debut All Rise.

Bonding over a mutual love of 80s pop and rock, the duo decided to continue collaborating together in a jazz-influenced electro pop-leaning project. With the release of 2006’s Again and Again and Again and Again EP and 2007’s self-titled, full-length debut, George and Kurstin quickly established a reputation for crafting pop songs with a breezy elegance.

Since the debut album, the bird and the bee have released three albums, as well as two volumes in their Interpreting the Masters series, in which they re-arranged and re-imagined the music of Hall & Oates and Van Halen in their playful and breezy style.

2020’s Christmas album Put Up the Lights was written and recorded remotely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Lifetimes,” is the first bit of new material since the release Put Up the Lights — and interestingly enough the song marks two big occasions for the the duo:

  • the first time they were able to work together at Kurstin’s Hollywood-based No Expectations Studio in years
  • and the duo celebrating the 15th anniversary of their self-titled debut, released through Blue Note Records

“It was really nice to be back in each other’s company and working on music together. No matter who you are, there’s always something unique that happens when you are able to collaborate with someone in the same space,” the bird and bee’s Inara George says in press notes. “Since the beginning of the bird and the bee, Greg and I have always had a very easy and fun time collaborating. I think it’s what keeps us playing music together. We have a kind of unspoken understanding and such a creative ease. Being back together inspired this song about our first musical collaboration.”

“Lifetimes” is centered around an expansive and elegant arrangement that starts with angular post-punk guitar that slowly builds up to include blown out beats, twinkling keys, fluttering synths, a dreamy Bossa nova and jazz-like bridge, and an anthemic coda. While telling the tale of the duo’s first collaboration together, the song is also a meditation on the passing of time, and a celebration of a deep and abiding friendship rooted in an unusual understanding of the other.

Directed by Simona Mehandzhieva and Norbert Garab, the recently released animated video for “Lifetimes” follows the song’s story as a swooning platonic love story and a sort of Vulcan mind-meld between two very different yet oddly similar people.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Stimmerman Shares a Trippy and Unsettling Visual for New Ripper “Geek”

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

Lawitts also 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 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.” And if you were following JOVM back then, you might recall that Goofballs featured the Bleach-era Nirvana meets PJ Harvey-like “It Shows” and the expansive math rock meets shoegaze meets acid rock-like “Dentist vs. Pharmacist.”

“Geek” is the first bit of original material from Lawitts since Goofballs. Clocking in at about 65 seconds, the new Stimmernan single manages to simultaneously be an expansive and yet breakneck ripper, featuring grungy power chords, thunderous drumming and fluttering synths and feedback paried with Stimmerman’s surrealistic yet visceral lyrics.

Directed and animated by Elenor Kopka, the recently released video features a series of amoeba-like humanoid faces that morph, bend, and melt throughout the video. Interestingly, each face seems marked by some unspoken fear or worry.

“Geek” will appear on Stimmerman’s sophomore album, which is slated for release later this year.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Lucky Lo Releases a Swooning and Euphoric Anthem to Queer Love

Lo Ersare is a Umeå, Sweden-born, Copenhagen-based singer/songwriter, musician, and the creative mastermind behind the emerging indie pop project Lucky Lo. Ersare relocated to Copenhagen in 2014 and quickly made a name for herself as a busker and as an integral part of the city’s underground music scene, performing everything from folk to experimental jazz to improvisational vocal music. Along the way, her love for Japan and its music brought her to the island nation, where she has performed, grown a devoted fanbase and gathered inspiration, which has seeped into her music in various ways.

Ersare’s full-length debut, Supercarry is slated for a March 25, 2022 release through Tambourhinoceros Records. The album will feature previously released single “Heart Rhythm Synchronize,” which was about synching heartbreaks through love and song and album title track “Supercarry,” a sleek and seamless synthesis of Annie Lennox and Peter Gabriel, that thematically finds Ersare quickly establishing a major thematic concern in her work — the transformational power of radical love.

Supercarry’s latest single, “Ever” is a swooning and infectiously optimistic pop song centered around glistening synth arpeggios, a strutting disco-inspired bass line, shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, a rousingly anthemic hook and Ersare’s plaintive pop belter vocals. Arguably, the most dance floor friendly of the album’s released singles, “Ever!” brings Talking Heads, and Annie Lennox to mind paired with the euphoria of Sylvester‘s queer anthem “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).”

Lyrically, the song’s narrator has found a way to transform the hardships of living in a cruel and judgmental world that won’t allow them to be themselves into a deep, sustaining hope and confidence; the sort of quiet confidence to be self-assured in whatever your truth may be. As Ersare explains the song is an anthem for queer love.

The inspiration for the song began deep inside a YouTube rabbit hole. Ersara was binging on Freddie Mercury videos one night. That eventually lead to her researching the AIDS epidemic of the 80s, and the blacklash of homophobia the gay community felt back then.

She came across a video of a gay man, who bravely announced to a reporter that no amount of homophobia could keep gay people from loving each other that struck her as timeless. Since the dawn of society, gay people have been — and will keep on — loving in secret, despite antagonism, until the world eventually accepts them.

This video resonated with the Umeå-born, Copenhagen-based artist, who was then inspired to make a song for “anybody, who feels they are living a truth in secret can listen to, dance to, and feel that they will be accepted. By repeating the motion, it’s going to change the world,” she says.

Animated by Isabelle Friberg, the recently released video is a life affirming love song: We follow the video’s protagonists, who have a meet cute at local bowling alley and fall madly in love. They represent the love that man in the 80s video clip talked about. And while we get a glimpse into their lives and their love, we see Ersare and her band performing the song, while looking like characters straight out of Jem. The video manages to be brightly colored, overwhelmingly positive and a sweet visual that emphasizes the song’s swooning euphoria.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: JOVM Mainstays Nation of Language Perform “Across That Fine Line” on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”

Rising Brooklyn-based synth pop trio and JOVM mainstays Nation of Language — Ian Richard Devaney (vocals, guitars, percussion), Aidan Noell (synth, vocals) and Michael Sue-Poi (bass) — can trace their origins back to 2016: Devaney and Sue-Poi were members of The Static Joys, a band that became largely inactive after the release of their sophomore album. And as the story goes, Devaney was inspired to start a new project after hearing OMD‘s “Electricity,” a song he had listened to quite a bit while in his father’s car.

What initially started out as Devaney fooling around on a keyboard eventually evolved to Nation of Language with the addition of Noell and Sue-Poi. Between 2016-2019, the Brooklyn-based synth pop trio released a handful of singles that helped to build up a fanbase locally and the outside world.

Nation of Language’s full-length debut, Introduction, Presence was released to critical praise, landing on the Best Albums of 2020 lists for Rough Trade, KEXP, Paste, Stereogum, Under The Radar and PopMatters. The Brooklyn-based pop trio capped off the year with the “A Different Kind of Light”/”Deliver Me From Wondering Why” 7 inch, which featured the A Flock of Seagulls meets Simple Minds-like “Deliver Me From Wondering Why.” 

Late last year, the Brooklyn-based JOVM mainstays released their critically applauded sophomore album A Way Forward, which featured lead album single “Across That Fine Line.” Featuring glistening synth arpeggios, a relentless motorik groove, Devaney’s plaintive vocals and an enormous, rousingly anthemic hook, “Across That Fine Line” continues the band’s remarkable run of decidedly 80s synth pop inspired material. Certainly, as a child of the 80s, the song reminds me of the aforementioned A Flock of Seagulls, as well as Thomas Dolby, Howard Jones and a few others — and much like the sources that inspired it, the song is centered around earnest, lived-in songwriting.

“‘Across That Fine Line’ is a reflection on that moment when a non-romantic relationship flips into something different,” Nation of Language’s Devaney explains in press notes. “When the air in the room suddenly feels like it changes in an undefinable way. It’s a kind of celebration of that certain joyous panic, and the uncertainty that surfaces right after it.  
 
“Sonically, it’s meant to feel like running down a hill, just out of control. I had been listening to a lot of Thee Oh Sees at the time of writing it and admiring the way they supercharge krautrock rhythms and imbue them with a kind of mania, which felt like an appropriate vibe to work with and make our own.”

Recently, the JOVM mainstays made their late night, national TV debut on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The band performed “Across That Fine Line” in a segment taped at Baby’s All Right.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Rising Swiss production duo Bogart. can trace their origins back to when the pair met in an employment program at the employment office and quickly bonded over their shared music tastes. In the past year, the Swiss duo have quickly established themselves in the global, lo-fi hiphop and beatmaking scenes with a prolific series of releases through labels like O-Nei-Reic Tapes, Vinyl Digital, Pueblo Vista, Kick A Dope Verse! and Sofarockers, who released “Desire,” a track that has amassed over 190,000 streams.

The duo’s full-length debut Reality Check will be released through Vinyl Digital. They explain the album is the most personal and versatile effort of their careers to date. And with Reality Check, the duo hope to further establish themselves as beatmakers, while reminding the world that producing dope beats is still “a matter of honor and that the ingredients are passion, love for the culture and good craft.”

“Whipped Cream,” Reality Check‘s latest single is centered around a lush and dusty Pete Rock meets DJ Devastate-like production featuring woozy strings, twinkling Rhodes, old-school boom bap and scratching. The production is roomy enough for Man of Met‘s densely worded bars, full of complex inner and outer rhyme schemes to flow effortlessly within the song’s 88 second runtime.

Throughout the song, Man of Met’s bars see him honestly discussing his financial struggles, his dreams of making it big — but on his own terms. Ultimately, it means keeping it uncompromisingly real and crafting the music that’s true to him. While being a contemporary take on the classic hip-hop sound that I’ve grown up with and loved, the song is fueled by an earnestness and hunger that’s endearing and infectious.