Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Deal Casino Releases a Brooding Single Paired with Cinematically Shot Visuals

I’ve managed to spill a bit of virtual ink covering the Asbury Park, NJ-based indie rock band Deal Casino over the past couple of of years of this site’s almost ten year history. And as you may recall, the Southern New Jersey-based act — childhood friends Joe Parella (vocals), Jon Rodney (bass) and Joe Cowell (keys, guitar)  — formed back in 2013 and released a series of EPs before releasing 2017’s self-titled full-length debut to critical praise from Stereogum, New Noise and others. 

The members of Deal Casino released their sophomore album 2018’s LLC. And from album singles “Happy People,” and “Baby Teeth,” the JOVM mainstays managed to expand upon the sound, approach and thematic concerns that won them attention and praise across the blogosphere with the material walking a tight-rope between lo-fi bedroom recordings and studio polish while thematically focusing on living in a uncertain, horribly fucked up world.  Building upon a growing profile, the band has made appearances at Governor’s Ball, Firefly, Sea.Hear.Now., and The Front Bottoms’ Champagne Jam. Last year, they supported LLC through tours with The Wrecks, Badflower, The Happy Fits, The Parlor Mob and The Technicolors– and it included the band’s first European tour with the aforementioned Badflower. 

2020 began with the release of a cover of Frank Sinatra’s iconic “My Way,” a tour to build up buzz for their then-unreleased five song EP Woof and the release of the EP’s first single “Chicken Head.” Interestingly, while the single retains the hook-driven nature of the band’s previously released work, it reveals a decided change of sonic and thematic direction. Influenced by the members’ lifelong obsessions with Pixies and Radiohead, the material draws from the band’s experiences over the past two years. And as a result, the material may arguably be the most introspective they’ve written and released to date. Interestingly, “Chicken Head” is a slow-burning and brooding track centered around boom bap-like drums, buzzing guitars, atmospheric synths, Parella’s plaintive crooning and an enormous hook. In some way, the track — to me, at least — manages to evoke the uncertainty and unease of current moment, as well as the utter weirdness of being an artist at this juncture.

The recently released, cinematically shot video for “Chicken Head” features the members of the band in a classic, black convertible Oldsmobile with concert amps hooked up to the backseat, driving around suburban emptiness. At some point, we see the band goofing off and doing donuts in an empty parking lot. Of course, through the video, the members of the band look like the coolest dudes on the face of the earth.  

The band recently announced that they’ll be going on a Quarantour, in which they’ll team up with local bands to give fans a unique concert experience through Instagram Live. Of course, merch will be available to help support the bands in a difficult time — and there’ll be the option to donate to Feeding America. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: JOVM Mainstays Corridor on KEXP

Over the past year or so, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the acclaimed and rising Montreal-based indie rock act Corridor. The French-Canadian JOVM mainstay act, which currently features longtime friends and collaborators Dominic Berthiaume (vocals/bass) and Jonathan Robert (vocals/guitar/synths) along with Julian Perreault (guitar), Julien Bakvis (drums) and the band’s newest member Samuel Gougoux exploded across the Francophone world and elsewhere with 2017’s sophomore album Supermercado, which received glowing praise from from NPR and Vice, who referred to the album as “the best French record of 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, 2020 2021 and even 2022 .  . . ”

Building upon a growing profile, the band signed to Sub Pop Records, who released their third album, last year’s excellent Junior, making the band the first Francophone act ever on the world renowned label. Continuing their ongoing and highly successful collaboration with their friend, producer (and occasional roommate) Emmanuel Ethier, the album found the band jettisoning the languorous creative process of its predecessors — out of inspired necessity.  Although the members of the band had only just signed to their new label home at the time, they had firmly committed themselves to releasing a new album worth of material every two years. And the band fully intended on fulfilling their long-held commitment. Naturally, when the folks at Sub Pop were informed of this, they gently warned the band that if they wanted to release new material that fall, they needed to send the label a completed album by early May.

With the ink barely dried on the finalized record contract, the band rushed into the studio and recorded Junior in an inspired and breakneck blitz, finishing the album in mid-April: Six of the album’s 10 songs were conceived in a single weekend — with the album closer “Bang” being written the night before they were to start recording sessions. Reportedly, Corridor’s Jonathan Robert wrote that song’s lyrics while panicking over the possibility of not being able to properly finished what they started.

Because of the quickened nature of the Junior sessions, the material features fewer expansive jams and less reliance on overdubs. Even the album’s artwork managed to come about in the nick of time. In spite of other more meticulous and gorgeous artwork they received as potential album art, Robert’s “shitty last minute” collage of an egg saying hello was the one his bandmates wound up approving.  “Part of the beauty of the thing is that we didn’t have time to think about it,” the band’s Berthiaume says of the Junior recording sessions.

Album tracks like Topographe,” “Pow,” album title track “Junior” “Goldie” and Domino” manage to reveal a wide range of influences: a bit of post-punk here, a little bit of XTC over there, a little bit of The Beatles, a dash of The Beach Boys here and so on. And with some deft craftsmanship and musicianship, they manage to whimsically and mischievously create something novel out of the familiar.

Late last year, the Montreal-based JOVM mainstays went on a West Coast tour, and during their tour they made a stop at Seattle’s KEXP where they performed songs off Junior in one of the better live sessions I’ve seen in some time — and it the session included “Agent Double,” the gorgeous krautrock-like album title track “Junior’ (one of my favorite tracks on the album), the brooding “Grand Cheval” and the explosive and jam-based “Domino.” Of course, like most of the KEXP sessions, there’s a playful  interview with the band, in which they reveal that the album and its title is a loving homage to their guitarist and friend Julien Perreault. They also talk a bit about the band’s formation and their creative process — while touching upon how they came about their unique sound. It’s a fascinating look into a band that personally has stolen my heart quite a bit. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Montreal’s Dave Chose Releases a Hook Driven Power Pop/Grunge Rock-Inspired Single

Dave Chose is a L’Ascension-De-Notre-Seigneur, Quebec-born, Montreal-based singer/songwriter, whose work is thematically  focuses on poetry of the mundane with material that celebrates the taste of convenience store iced tea, and the pleasure of knowing how to roll your own cigarettes among other things.  Playing with a judiciously loud backing band, Chose’s work sonically is a sort of sensitive pop punk. Building upon a growing profile in his native Quebec, Chose wrote the theme song for Puisqu’on se tue toujours trop tard, a short film directed by Jean-Martin Gagnon

Last week, Chose released a double single, which featured two very personal and distinctive tracks — “Poffes” and “De l’inconvénient d’être nê,” which were recorded his backing band and longtime collaborators Nicolas Beaudin, Jonathan Bigras and Benoit Bouchard. “Poffes,” the latest release off the double single was originally written while he was working on his first album — but after some time and perspective, he revised the song, pushing the song and its sound to where he felt it needed to go. Centered around fuzzy power chords, forceful drumming, an unerring knack for infectiously melodic and enamors hooks, Chose’s latest single reminds me quite a bit of early Foo Fighters — in particular, their self-titled debut and The Colour and the Shape. But interestingly enough, the song features paradoxical lyrics that deal with self-destruction and the urgency of living. Simply put, the song fucking rips. Nuff said, folks. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the “120 Minutes” era MTV-like Sounds of Auckland’s Lexytron

Lexy is a Manchester, UK-born, Auckland, New Zealand-based singer/songwriter and guitarist who claims Greek, Persian and English heritage — or as she described herself as a young girl, “Half Greek, half Persian, half English.”Much like countless other musicians, her passion for music was stoked when she learned piano and violin as a girl.The British-born, Kiwi-based singer/songwriter and musician is the creative mastermind behind the emerging recording project Lexytron. 

Lexytron’s full-length debut Something Blue was recorded in London with City Reign’s Mike Grice and the album reportedly finds the emerging singer/songwriter crafting material with roaring riffs, lush strings and soaring choral arrangements in a  way that seamlessly meshing rock and classical music — while being an an indie rock girl’s guide to love, loss and lust. The album’s latest single “Blue” is a decidedly 120 Minutes-era MTV-like alt rock song centered around jangling power chords, soaring strings and the British-born, Kiwi-based artist’s plaintive vocals. 

Directed by Lexy and Mike Grice, the recently released video is an intimate, DIY video of the emerging singer/songwriter on the shore of Lake Pukaki, located on the New Zealand’s South Island. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
Mike Slott is an acclaimed singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, beatmaker, and producer who has released material as as solo artist under his own name, as well as a member of the mediative project Mirror Mirror, Heralds of Change with Hudson Mohawke and Lesser Pieces with collaborator Diane Badie. As a solo artist, his Lucky 9Teen EP has been considered one of the most seminal releases in the post-Dilla age of instrumental beat music, while establishing his sound and approach: delicate and ethereal electronics with quivering samples.
Slott’s forthcoming solo effort Vignettes EP can trace its origins back to 2011: Slott first wrote the material as part of a live re-scoring of Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev’s 2003 debut film The Return, which he performed at that year’s Edinburgh International Festival.  Serving as Slott’s return to his old label home, LuckyMe Records and his first release on the label in over a decade, the EP places the material in a different context — but without stripping it of its mesmerizing and shimmering beauty and its cinematic quality. The EP’s first single is the slow-burning and atmospheric “Simple Dreams for Simple Days.” Centered around shimmering and slowly morphing synths, “Simple Dreams” manages to bring Brian Eno to mind while evoking  peaks of springtime warmth and sun slowly appearing through icy cracks.
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially created as a solo project by its Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based creative mastermind, multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Jordon Zadorozny, Blinker The Star eventually expanded into a trio by the time they signed to A&M Records, who released the project’s first two albums — 1995’s self-titled debut and 1996’s A Bourgeois Kitten. During that period, the band toured steadily, building a profile nationally and elsewhere.

In 1997, Zadorozny relocated from Montreal to Los Angeles, where he worked with Courtney Love, helping craft songs for Hole’s acclaimed Celebrity Skin. While in Los Angeles, Zadorozny began soaking up new influences and became increasingly fascinated with production. Signing with Dreamworks in 1999, the band, which at the time featured Zadorozny, Failure’s Kelli Scott (drums), longtime bassist Pete Frolander and a rotating cast of Southern California-based session musicians recorded and released their critically applauded third album August Everywhere, which they supported with touring across North America with Our Lady Peace, Sloan, Failure and The Flaming Lips. 

Returning back to Pembroke in 2002, Zadorozny built his first commercial recording studio and began working with Sam Roberts, contributing drums and producing Roberts’ breakthrough debut EP The Inhuman Condition. Zadorozny also worked on albums by Melisa Auf der Maur, Chris Cornell, Lindsey Buckingham and others.

During the Winter of 2003, Zadorozny wrote and recorded Blinker the Sky’s fourth album Still In Rome as a duo with Kelli Scott. Following a brief tour to support the album, the Pembroke, Ontario-born multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter quickly settled into the production side of the things working with an electric array of artists, including collaborative projects like Digital Noise Academy, SheLoom, and Abbey and The Angry Moon.

2012’s fourth album, We Draw Lines was the first Blinker The Star album that Zadorozny wrote and recorded since he started the project — and it began a rather prolific period that included 2013’s Songs from Laniakea Beach, a one-off single “Future Fires” 2015’s 11235 EP, 2017’s 8 of Hearts and last year’s  Careful With Your Magic. Interestingly, after completing a short run of shows last fall, Zodorozny began working on new music at his Skylark Park Studio. The solitude of his environment helped informed his forthcoming Blinker The Star album Juvenile Universe, which is slated for release this summer.

Juvenile Universe‘s first single “Way Off Wave.” Centered around a dense arrangement of shimmering guitars, sinuous bass lines, a blazing, distortion pedal-fueled guitar solo, atmospheric and droning synths and an enormous, arena rock friendly hook “Way Off Wave” brings Station to Station-era David Bowie to mind. “The song touches on the things we do and think to ourselves after a period of great change: our impulse to seek out new external realities, while internationally returning to stuck patterns and thoughts, which inhibit growth and acceptance,” as the Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based multi-instrumentalist, producer and singer/songwriter explains in press notes. “It is almost a dreamlike state we find ourselves in trying to move forward while mentally sloshing about in the past, looking for new answers that will never appear.”

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing Emerging French Rapper ACHIM

ACHIM is an emerging French emceee, who hails from Marseille, France’s La Castellane neighborhood. Initially built as a council estate in the 1960s for French refugees of the Algerian War, the neighborhood is now home to roughly 7,000 residents, who are mostly second-generation French citizens. The neighborhood is plagued by high unemployment, drug trafficking, prostitution and arms smuggling. Naturally, the emerging artist’s work draws from life in La Castellane — and is a portrait of life in a hardscrabble neighborhood, struggling to survive.  (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Marseille is known for being especially corrupt and brutal to its poor.) 

“Mets dans l’assiette,” ACHIM’s debut single is some twitter and woofer rattling trap, centered around an eerie looped sample of a twinkling piano figure, stuttering beats and an enormous hook, paired with the emerging French rapper’s effortlessly self-assured flow. Frankly, this cat may have a big future ahead of him. From what I understand, the song is actually pretty deep. Thematically the song focuses on the paradoxes of our world. 

Co-directed by the emerging artist and his friend Alexandre Lhote, the recently released video references Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, Botticelli’s map of hell and several other paintings, while being centered around contradictions and paradoxes. Sometimes ACHIM is alone, sometimes he’s with his crew — and the result is trippy. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Mexico’s Glass Cristina Releases a Mesmerizing New Single

Led by founding members Bernardo Castilla and Lorenzo Engell, the rapidly rising Mexican electro pop act Glass Cristina was formed in Barcelona in 2016. Their five song, debut EP Circle Line, which featured attention grabbing singles like “La Reina De España” and “Dancing With the Devil” received attention in their native Mexico and elsewhere — despite the fact the material was unmastered and mixed at home, because the duo couldn’t afford to pay for professional mixing. But their debut EP established their sound: lush and atmospheric textures paired with soulful melodies while drawing from neo-sou, funk and electro pop. 

The band was on a hiatus when its founding members were living in different countries but in 2017, the band reconvened and expanded with the addition of Enzo Aquino (bass, synths, backing vocals), who has helped the band achieve a more organic live set. Last year the band performed at Sziget Festival with the likes of The 1975, Jungle, Twenty One Pilots, Foo Fighters and others. Along with that, the trio have been busy writing and recording their forthcoming album Nudity, Slated for a May 22, 2020 release through Vegan Caníbal Records, an imprint of Blanco y Negro, one of Spain’s most successful indie record labels.  Reportedly, the album is a result of a period of profound self-discovery through incessant work and composition — while showcasing the trio’s dedication to evolving their sound and identity. 

Nudity’s latest single, “Bali” is an atmospheric yet club friendly song centered around shimmering synths, blasts of Nile Rodgers-like guitar, a sinuous bass line, tweeter and woofer rocking beats an an enormous hook — and while arguably being one of the most hypnotic tracks on the album, it possesses a subtle jungle vibe that reminds me of early Doomsquad and others.  Interestingly, the song is a brooding ode to heartbreak and betrayal as the song essentially sets up a story about the swooning first pangs of a new relationship and its inevitable accompanying heartache. But instead of wallowing too deeply in bitterness, the song is meant to inspire the listener to get up and to dance, dance, dance it all away. 

The recently released and incredibly cinematic lyric video for “Bali” is fittingly set on Bali and features two masked figures dancing seductively in lush and verdant forests — and the result is something truly mesmerizing, 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Birmingham AL’s Wray Releases a Brooding Visual for Shimmering and Cinematic “Jogging/Neon Forming”

Wray is a critically applauded Birmingham, AL-based indie trio — David Bown (bass, vocals), David Swatzell (guitar, vocals) and Blake Wimberly (drums)  — that can trace its origins to its members’ shared decade-plus history in Birmingham’s indie and underground scenes. Interestingly, with the act’s first two albums — 2014’s self-titled debut and 2016’s Lynn Bridges and Wray co-produced sophomore album Hypatia, the Birmingham-based trio received praise from the likes of The New York Times and Mojo for their adventurous, genre-defying sound and approach. Adding to a growing profile, they’ve also made appearances on MTVu and Daytrotter. 

Slated for a June 5, 2020 release through their longtime label home Communicating Vessels Records, the band’s long-awaited, self-produced dual record Stream of Youth/Blank World thematically is an exploration of personal dichotomies: hope and pessimism, wildness and composure, joy and pain. Recorded at Communicating Vessels Birmingham area studio, the band experimented, wrote, revised and recorded the material at their own pace. Sonically, the material further establishes the band’s reputation for crafting a shimmering New Wave-like take on shoegaze that seems indebted to NEU!, Faust, Can, Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, and even The Cure. 

“Jogging/Neon Forming,” Stream of Youth/Blank World’s brooding and cinematic latest single is a perfect example of the sound that has won them acclaim: centered around a motorik groove, shimmering synth arpeggios, plaintive vocals and a rousingly anthemic hook, the song feels like an ethereal yet lingering fever dream. At its core is an achingly wistful nostalgia for a past that we simply can’t get back — and considering the current state of the world, the song’s overall feel and vibe feels powerfully relevant. 

Created by Barbara Baron, the recently released video for “Jogging/Neon Forming” was hot on a grainy VHS-like tape and features a lonely woman in a laundromat and briefly in a park — and throughout there’s a sense of loss. 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Stockholm’s I Break Horses Releases a Shimmering and Cinematic New Single

Led by frontwoman Maria Linden and featuring Fredrik Balak, the Stockholm-based indie act I Break Horses have released two critically applauded albums: 2011’s full-length debut Hearts received praise from Pitchfork, The Guardian, NME, The Independent and others for material that possessed luxurious grandeur and 2014’s Chiaroscuro, which found Linden crafting ambitious material with a cool, self-assuredness. Building upon a growing profile, Linden wound up touring with M83 and Sigur Ros– and U2 played “Winter Beats” before their stage entrance during 2018’s Experience + Innocence tour. 

Slated for a May 8, 2020 release through Bella Union, I Break Horses’ long-awaited third album Warnings is reportedly centered around Linden’s desire to take the time to make something different — by crafting material with an emphasis on instrumental, cinematic music. As she watched a collection of her favorite films on her computer with the sound mute, she began to make her own soundtrack sketches, with those sketches gradually evolving into songs. “It wasn’t until I felt an urge to add vocals and lyrics,” says Lindén, “that I realized I was making a new I Break Horses album.”

Sonically, the album’s material is centered around lush and sumptuous soundscapes — dreamy mellotrons, haunting loops, analog synths and layered lyrics paired together to create an immersive, dramatic tension on multiple levels. “It’s not a political album,” says Lindén, “though it relates to the alarmist times we live in. Each song is a subtle warning of something not being quite right.”  Interestingly, the album’s creative process involved several different dramas on its own right: “It has been some time in the making. About six years, involving several studios, collaborations that didn’t work out, a crashed hard drive with about two years of work, writing new material again instead of trying to repair it. New studio recordings, erasing everything, then recording most of the album myself at home…” Linden says in press notes.

Warnings also finds Linden collaborating with producer and mixing engineer Chris Coady, who has worked with the likes of Beach House and TV on the Radio. But his experience and expertise with dense and cinematic sound wasn’t the only reason Linden recruited him to mix the album. “Before reaching out to Chris I read an interview where he said, ‘I like to slow things down. Almost every time I love the sound of something slowed down by half, but sometimes 500% you can get interesting shapes and textures.’ And I just knew he’d be the right person for this album.”

Adds Linden, “Nowadays, the attention span equals nothing when it comes to how most people consume music,” Lindén says. “And it feels like songs are getting shorter, more ‘efficient’. I felt an urge to go against that and create an album journey from start to finish that takes time and patience to listen to. Like, slow the fuck down!”

“Neon Lights,” Warnings’  third and latest single is a lush and cinematic track centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, a motorik groove, thumping beats, a rousingly anthemic hook and Linden’s plaintive and expressive vocals. And while recalling Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk and the Stranger Things soundtrack, the song has a much-needed we’re-in-this-together air. The track as Linden explains is “anthem for all of us who have ever felt like we didn’t fit in. It is trying to give a glimpse of hope to all outsiders who feel like they can’t find their way and to show the world that being a ‘misfit’ is a beautiful thing, not something to be pushed aside.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tel Aviv’s Red Axes Releases a Hook-Driven Club Banger

Red Axes is an acclaimed Tel Aviv, Israel-bass electronic music production, electronic music artist and DJ duo of Dori Sadovnik and Niv Arzi. Over their decade together, the Israeli duo have specialized in a sound that they’ve dubbed punk-electronica, influenced by their backgrounds in rock and their enthusiasm for contemporary club sounds. Interestingly, throughout their run together, the duo have developed a reputation for restless experimentalism: they’ve released deep house material on Crosstown Rebels Records and Permanent Vacation Records and have even performed live sets with a 12 member band while releasing two albums and dozens of 12 inches. They’ve also released material throughI’m A Cliche Records and their own Garzen Records. 

To celebrate their tenth anniversary together, the duo will be releasing their forthcoming, self-titled album through Dark Entries Records. Slated for a May 8, 2020 release, the album is reportedly their first batch of material specifically conceived and written as an album-length listening experience with the songs flowing through a variety of stylistic and sonic detours. highlighting their ears as keen and adventurous listeners and DJs. The album’s first single is the swaggering. late 90s-early 00s electronica banger “Sticks and Stones.” Featuring a vocal contribution from Adi Bronicki, who rhymes and sings with an in-your-face swagger, the song is centered around a slick production featuring buzzing guitars, thumping beats and layers of electronics. Sonically, the track may remind some listeners of Tweekend-era The Crystal Method, The Chemical Brothers and others. 

Directed by Sergei Rostropovich, the recently released, cinematically shot video follows Lea Prinz on a wild, booze-fueled night throughout town with stops at several bars, several liquor stores with a cathartic ending at an enormous club. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Juana Molina’s “Cara de Espejo (Home Session)”

Throughout the site’s almost ten year history, I’ve spilled quite a bit of ink covering the Buenos Aires-born and based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, actress and JOVM mainstay Juana Molina. Her father was renowned tango vocalist Horacio Molina and her mother was beloved actress Chunchuna Villafane, and as a child, Molina grew up in a intensely musical home: when she was five, her father taught her guitar and her mother introduced a young Molina to the family’s extensive record collection. 

After the military coup of 1976, Molina’s family fled Argentina and lived in exile in Paris for several years — and during her time in France, Molina’s musical tastes were vastly expanded by regularly listening to a number of French radio stations known for programs that spun music from all over the globe. When she was in her early 20s, her family returned to Argentina. Naturally, as a young woman, Molina was determined to be independent and pursue a musical career — and like many young people, her initial aspirations were to earn some decent money for a few hours of work a day while having enough time to write songs, record them and play live shows. The Buenos Aires-based JOVM mainstay had a talent for imitations and impressions and while looking for a gig, she auditioned for a local TV program. Based on the strength of her impressions and imitations, she got hired on the spot. 

Molina quickly became one of her country’s most popular comedic actors, and within a few years of that initial auction, she had starred in her own show, Juana y sus hermanas, a Carol Burnett-like variety show, in which she created a number of beloved characters. Her show, which was syndicated across Argentina and its neighboring countries was wildly popular. While pregnant, the Buenos Aires-based JOVM mainstay’s show was on hiatus and with a lot of free time of her hands, she found herself reflecting on her rise to stardom. Despite the massive success she attained, Molina couldn’t help but think that she wasn’t doing what she really wanted to do. So Molina quit acting to focus on her lifelong passion — music. 

Her decision to quit her popular show was one that many Argentines bitterly held against for a number of years. Her full-length debut, 1996’s Rara was critically panned by journalists, who resented her career change. Fans of her TV show would show up to her live shows, expecting to see her pay homage to her TV work but instead they found they couldn’t understand this new “folk singer character” that sung strange songs without any obvious jokes. Feeling dejected by the criticism and feeling misunderstood but wanting to continue onward with music, the Buenos Aires-born singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and actress relocated Los Angeles, where her work as much better received. And while in Los Angeles, she began experimenting and familiarizing herself with electronics. 

After spending time licking her metaphorical wounds and honing her songwriting and sound, Molina returned to Buenos Aries, where she wrote, recorded and produced her sophomore effort Segundo, which started a critically applauded run of material in which she meshed organic, rock-based arrangements with electronic production — typically layered and sampled loops of acoustic sounds with beats and synths. Her breakthrough, third album, Tres Cosas was championed by David Byrne, Will Oldham, and others and landed on The New York Times‘ Top Ten Records list.

Halo, Molins’s seventh album further established the Buenos Aires-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist. producer and actor’s long-held reputation for being restlessly experimental — and arguably one of South America’s most innovative artists. Interestingly, last year’s Forfun EP is an exuberant and decided sonic left turn, inspired by when they were forced to play a set of material at a major festival without some of their gear, because their airline lost their luggage. And as a result, the material is imbued with a punk rock and garage rock-like DIY ethos and spirit.

Recently, Molina released a new rendition of Halo album track “Cara de Espejo,” which was recorded and filmed at Molina’s home studio near Buenos Aires. Similarly to the material on the Forfun EP, the new rendition of “Cara de Espejo” features a decidedly post-punk arrangement and air, centered around later of squiggly synths, shimmering synths and a driving motorik groove. Filmed by New York-based multidisciplinary arts platform Kabinett, the live session is intimate, playful and mysterious, as it features the band playing in murky shadows. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Moaning Releases a Brooding and Introspective Single

Throughout the past handful of years of this site’s almost ten year history, I’ve managed to spill a lot of virtual ink covering rapidly rising Los Angeles-based post-punk trio and JOVM mainstays Moaning. Now, as you may recall the members of the band — ean Solomon (vocals, guitar), Pascal Stevenson (keys, bass) and Andrew MacKelvie (drums) — have been friends and collaborators in Los Angeles’ DIY scene for the better part of a decade through music and other creative pursuits in different media: Solomon is also a noted illustrator, art director and animator while Stevenson and MacKelvie have played in or produced and engineered acclaimed and rapidly rising acts like Cherry Glazerr, Sasami and Surf Curse.

With the release of 2018’s self-titled, full-length debut, the JOVM mainstays received attention from a number of nationally and internationally known media outlets including The Fader, The Guardian, DIY Magazine, Stereogum, and others for a moody and angular post-punk sound that — to some ears — recalled the likes of Joy Division, Interpol and Preoccupations. The trio’s highly-anticipated Alex Newport-produced and  engineered sophomore album Uneasy Laughter is slated for release tomorrow through Sub Pop Records. Reportedly, the album is a much more collaborative effort than their self-titled debut, and the material find site band brightening the claustrophobic and uneasy sound of their debut a bit, by replacing guitars for synths and beats.

Thematically, the album focuses on the everyday anxieties of being a somewhat functioning human in the madness of our current century — with the material touching upon the deeply personal and the universal. “We’ve known each other forever and we’re really comfortable trying to express where we’re at. A lot of bands aren’t so close,” the band’s Andrew MacKelvie says in press notes. Sean Solomon, who celebrated a year of sobriety during the Uneasy Laughter sessions adds “Men are conditioned not to be vulnerable or admit they’re wrong. But I wanted to talk openly about my feelings and mistakes I’ve made.”

Over the past couple of months I’ve written about three of the album’s previously released singles: the brooding, 80s New Order-like single “Ego,” the cynical A Flock of Seagulls-like “Fall In Love,” and the bleak yet explosive, guitar-driven ripper “Make It Stop.” “Connect the Dots,” Uneasy Laughter’s fourth and latest single is a brooding and atmospheric track, centered around shimmering synths, a soaring hook, Solomon’s achingly plaintive vocals, squiggling blasts of guitar, and an angular and expressive guitar solo. And while continuing a run of New Wave-like material, “Connect the Dots” may arguably be the most personal and introspective songs of the album. “The song is about realizing you need help and being brave enough to ask for it. It’s a misconception that asking for help is a sign of weakness. In reality it’s one of the hardest things you can do,” the band’s Sean Solomon explains in press notes.

Directed by Campbell Logan, the recently released video for “Connect the Dots” uses some mind-bending computer animated graphics. “I created this video with the intention of inspiring self-forgiveness, something I think we should all practice,” Logan says. “Making it gave me the opportunity to practice an approach that I like to call Filmmaking Simulation, which is a process of doing film production using virtual cinematography, set design and performance. The result is photorealistic and mimics live action. We had an extremely quick turnaround on the video, but were able to complete it in a little over a month, and despite these hurdles I’m so proud of it!”