Tag: Beck

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Featuring core members, founder and creative mastermind Isaac Flynn (vocals), who comes from a family of musicians and whose parents own Lawrence, KS‘ well-regarded guitar store, Mass Street Music; Eric Davis (keys, synths) and Garrett Childers (guitar, vocals), the Kansas City-based indie rock act Hembree received regional and national attention with the release of “Can’t Run Forever,” a shimmering and slickly produced, dance-floor friendly track that simultaneously nods at 80s New Wave, St. Lucia, and Interpol simultaneously.

Building upon the success of “Can’t Run Forever,” a track that has seen as of this post, over 500,000 Spotify and YouTube streams, the members of the Kansas City-based band went to record new material at Los Angeles-based Sunset Sound Studios with Chris Coady, who has worked with Beach House, Future Islands and Yeah Yeah Yeahs; but when Flynn returned home to Kansas City, he decided that those sessions should be tabled, and that it was time for the band to take a much different approach. “After ‘Can’t Run Forever’ came out, I was feeling the pressure to make our second single bigger and better, and found myself putting limitations on my writing,” Flynn explained in press notes.. “After being frustrated for several months, I decided to record whatever I want; just let it all pour out.” And with that mindset, Flynn, his bandmates Davis and Childers recorded their latest single “Holy Water,” with Foreign Fields’ Eric Hillman contributing additional production and Joe Visciano, who has worked with The Kills, Jamie xx and Beck mixing the proceedings.

“Holy Water” is a decided change in sound, as the swaggering and propulsive track nods at Kasabian and Primal Scream as the band pairs an an arena rock and dance floor-friendly hook with a slick production featuring layers of undulating synths, twinkling keys, enormous, tweeter and woofer rocking beats with a “we’re ready to take over the world right this fucking moment” feel. Interestingly, part of the song’s anthemic nature stems from the song’s overwhelmingly positive message. As Flynn says of the song, “The song started with me making a conscious decision to stop letting the bad win. It was time to start embracing the obstacles and then doing my best to overcome them. I really just want to be true to myself and good to others, and I want the same for other people. Perhaps that’s the message from this song.” Certainly, considering how maddening and dire everything seems on a daily basis, any positive message seems desperately necessary.  Unsurprisingly, since the single’s release at the end of last year, the song has seen regular rotation on 10 Midwestern radio markets including Columbus, OH; St. Louis, MO; and the Kansas City area — and the track has seen over 250,000 Spotify steams as of this writing.

 

 

The band will be going on a run of tour dates in the Midwest, with the first show of the tour, finding the band opening for Cold War Kids. Check out the tour dates below.

TOUR DATES
3/25 Columbus, Express Live
3/27 Omaha, Reverb
3/28 Iowa City, The Mill
3/29 Des Moines, Vaudeville Mews
3/30 St. Louis, Blueberry Hill
4/24 Omaha, Reverb
4/25 Davenport IA, Raccoon Motel
4/26 Des Moines, Vaudeville Mews
4/27 St. Louis, Blueberry Hill
4/28 Kansas City, Record Bar
4/29 Columbia MO, Rose Music Hall
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Ginger Snaps is a British psych rock/psych pop artist, who has received quite a bit of attention across the UK for a mischievously genre-defying as you’ll hear on the Odelay-era Beck channeling new single “Phat Kids,” which features shimmering guitar chords, tweeter and woofer rocking 808-like beats, swirling electronics, bleeps, bloops and cosmic-sounding effects, and a rousingly anthemic, Brit pop-like hook in a swaggering, breezy and mischievous track.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting this site for the past couple of months, you may recall coming across a post or two about Tucson, AZ-based multi-instrumentalist, electronic music artist and producer Dmitri Manos, whose solo recording project American Monoxide has quietly built a profile for specializing in analog electronic instrumentals that manage to be somewhat abrasive, trashy and funky as hell such as on “Hot Lava Express,” the first single off his sophomore full-length Web Content. Sonically speaking, Manos paired industrial clang and clatter, boom-bap beats, tumbling electronic bloops, beeps and bleeps, scorching synths and Nile Rodgers-inspired funk guitar chords in an offbeat funky song that reminded me quite a bit of Tobacco.

Web Content‘s latest single “Get Into My Way” is a wobbling, shuffling and buzzing song with the sort of twangy alt-country, alt-folk, experimental pop sound reminiscent of Odelay-era Beck — but in this case, as though Beck had recorded the album on old, warped cassette tape, with a breezily narcoleptic feel and an incredibly catchy hook.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Yeasayer’s Surreal, Claymation Visuals for “Silly Me”

The recently released visuals for Yeasayer’s “Silly Me” employs the use of classic-leaning stop-motion Claymation that focuses on a duo on an alien and unfamiliar world, dancing anthropormophic animals and weird rock-like creatures, who stalk and dance over the horizon. Strangely enough, the video also subtly nods at Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer,” “Big Time” and “Digging In The Dirt.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Yeasayer’s Ethereal and Psychedelic New Single

Yeasayer, the New York-based experimental/psych/electro pop trio comprised of Chris Keating (vocals, songwriting and production), Ira Wolf Tuton (vocals, songwriting and production) and Anand Wilder have been blogosphere darlings for the better part of a decade […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Neon Bright and Surreal Visuals for Deep Sea Diver’s “See These Eyes”

Perhaps best known as an accomplished side person, who has spent several years as a touring member of The Shins, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Spoon and Beck‘s backing band, the Seattle, WA-based multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jessica […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Surreal and Hilarious Visuals for Sophie and the Bom Bom’s “Appetite”

As you might remember, last December I wrote about Sophie Stern, the Los Angeles-based creative mastermind behind the (mostly) solo recording project Sophie and the Bom Boms. Initially, Stern’s career began behind the scenes as a songwriter, who was […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Yeasayer’s Infectiously Upbeat New Single

  Comprised of Chris Keating (vocals, songwriting and production), Ira Wolf Tuton (vocals, songwriting and production) and Anand Wilder, the New York-based experimental/psych pop/electro pop trio Yeasayer have been blogosphere darlings since playing at SXSW […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Last December, I wrote about Sophie Stern, the Los Angeles-based creative mastermind behind the (mostly) solo recording project Sophie and the Bom Boms. Initially, Stern’s career began behind the scenes as a songwriter, who was signed to mega-hit producer and songwriter Dr. Luke’s camp. After spending couple of years as a go-to songwriter, Stern decided that it was time for her to go out on her own as a solo artist.

 

Inspired by a diverse array of artists including diverse array of artists including Erykah Badu, Tom Tom Club and a lengthy list of others, Stern began collaborating with two rather renowned producers, David Elevator, who won 3 Grammys for his work on Beck‘s Morning Phase and Dan Dare, who’s best known his work with Marina and the Diamonds, Charli XCX and M.I.A. for her debut EP. The EP’s first single “Big Girls” was a breezy and infectious pop confection that paired big boom-bap beats, cascading synths, anthemic hooks and Stern’s effortlessly soulful vocals in a way that was reminiscent of Nu Shooz‘s “I Can’t Wait” while sounding remarkably contemporary.

The EP’s second and latests single “Appetite” will further cement Stern’s reputation for crafting incredibly infectious, breezy and anthemic pop as you’ll hear boom bap beats, handclaps, twinkling synths and an anthemic, hashtag worthy hook paired with Stern’s ballsy and bratty vocals in a song that’s a tell off to fuckboys, deadbeats, drama kings and queens and parasites everywhere — with the sort of sense of humor that would likely remind you of things you may have heard or said back in the schoolyard.

Sonically and thematically speaking the song manages to nod at Australian-born, Berlin-based indie pop artist Phia, Gwen Stefani‘s “Ain’t No Holla Back Girl,” and TLC‘s “No Scrubs” as it possesses the same “girl power/girl, drop that loser/girl, drop that deadbeat friend” air but backed by slick, modern production techniques.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Sophie Stern, the Los Angeles-based creative mastermind behind the (mostly) solo recording project Sophie and the Bom Boms originally started her career as a pop songwriter, who was signed to mega-hit producer and songwriter Dr. Luke’s camp. After spending a couple of years writing songs for several major stars, Stern, who was inspired by a diverse array of artists including Erykah Badu, Tom Tom Club and others, decided that she should go out on her own as a solo artist.

Stern collaborated with two renowned producers, David Elevator, who won 3 Grammys for his songwriting/production work on Beck‘s Morning Phase and Dan Dare, who’s best known his work with Marina and the Diamonds, Charlie XCX and M.I.A. for her forthcoming debut EP. The EP’s first single “Big Girls” is breezy and infectious pop confection that pairs big, boom-bap beats, cascading synths, anthemic hooks and Stern’s effortlessly soulful vocals. Sonically, the song draws from 80s synth pop and R&B (for example think of Nu Shooz‘s “I Can’t Wait“) while sounding remarkably contemporary — the production behind the song is incredibly slick without removing the song’s sense of fun or Stern’s larger-than-life confidence.

 

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of the Berlin-based Sash and the Boston, MA-based Dana Colley (formerly of Morphine), The Deltahorse’s self-titled debut EP received quite a bit of attention across the blogosphere as its sound was compared by many […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Written in Hamilton, ON and produced by Tony Hoffer, best known for his work with Beck, the Kooks and M83, High Noon, the Arkells’s latest effort may arguably be the band’s most unabashedly earnest to date. The album’s latest single “11:11” continues where […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Written in Hamilton, ON and produced by Tony Hoffer, best known for his work with Beck, the Kooks and M83, High Noon, the Arkells’s latest effort may arguably be the band’s most unabashedly earnest to date. […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Now based in Birmingham, AL, producer and singer/songwriter Armand Margjeka originally grew up in communist Albania, and although his native country’s regime was brutally oppressive, a young Margjeka grew up on American music — in […]