Tag: Bella Union Records

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of  Nanna Schannong (lead vocals, guitar), Soffie Viemose (lead vocals, laptop), Kasper Staub (synthesisers), Thomas Lund (bass, Moog) and Steffen Lundtoft (drums, percussion), the up-and-coming Danish experimental pop/synth pop quintet Lowly can trace their origins to when the members of the quintet met while studying at the music academy at Aarhus, Denmark. And despite each member studying completely different subjects, they quick found a common musical ground based around what they’ve describe as a restlessly inventive and gorgeously melodic sound paired around an uncompromising songwriting approach in which their material manages to defy  easy categorization.

The Danish quintet’s highly-awaited full-length debut Heba is slated for a February 10, 2017 release through renowned indie label Bella Union Records and building an increasingly buzz for the band and their forthcoming debut, the members of the band recently released the album’s third single “Prepare the Lake,” a lush single that pairs fluttering and shuffling drumming with ethereally shimming synths, swirling and ambient electronics and glistening guitar chords with Schannong’s lilting Dido-like vocals. Interestingly, as the band explains in press notes: “‘Prepare The Lake’ is the oldest of the tracks on the forthcoming album Heba. We’d been playing it for quite some time live before recording it and the form sort of grew out of us during concerts, so perhaps it has more of live feel to it than the other songs on the album.

“The lyrics are inspired by Gertrude Stein’s poetry. She has a very intense way of giving words power because of their surprising or untraditional placement in a sentence. It gives them depth and color and you can almost look at each individual word as a small art installation. It’s not a song that you can say is about a specific subject but it still has something very personal about it. And because the words are so fragmented hopefully, people when they listen can draw their own conclusions to what it means to them.”

“Word,” Heba‘s second single is based around an unusual, prog rock-like song structure in which the song sounds comprised of multiple seemingly unrelated segments held together by a a twisting and turning synth line paired with oddly syncopated drum passages, explosive and buzzing guitar work and Schannong’s lilting soprano in a stormy song that evokes the frustration of not being to say what you needed to say in a relationship, whether from inability or dealing with a blowhard; and the vacillating feelings of self-doubt, hated, uncertainty and longing in a dramatic — and incredibly cinematic track.

As the band’s Kasper Staub adds in press notes “We think of our music and lyrics more like a painting, we think it should all melt together. We’re all interested in developing ourselves as songwriters, and working in new ways, with different ideas.” And as a result, the Danish quintet manages to carefully walk the tightrope between the incredibly challenging and the accessible in a way that may arguably make them among one of the most exciting acts I’ve heard in recent memory.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: New JOVM Mainstays Pavo Pavo Release a Surreal and Old-Timey Video for “Ruby (Let’s Buy the Bike)”

Now, as you may recall the band’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Young Narrator in the Breakers was released last month through Bella Union Records and thematically, the material according to the members of the band describes both the magic and panic of adult life — with the understanding that much like a getting caught in a vicious breaker, you have to stop fighting and ride it out until you can get to shore safely. Interestingly, the album’s latest single “Ruby (Let’s Buy The Bike)” consists of gorgeous falsetto boy/girl harmonies, a strummed and slightly ragged guitar-led melody, off-kilter percussion and soaring synths. And the result is a gorgeous and trippy acceptance of time’s passing and a swooning love song to a beautiful motorcycle named Ruby. Part of the song involves the hopes and plans the narrator has for the bike; some of which picturing himself riding around on the badass bike, potentially getting into a gruesome accident and dying — but saying “man, for the bike, it was fucking worth it.”

The video was shot, directed, produced and edited by the members of the band and as the band’s Oliver Hill explains in press notes about the video “Pavo Pavo’s Oliver Hill talks about the video, saying “There’s a great Kenneth Anger documentary about a biker gang called Scorpio Rising that peers into all the death-obsessed symbology in these gangs, and the whole bizarre environment piqued my interest. For the video we went up to Pleasantville, NY, which is both me and Ian [Romer]’s hometown, and tried to make something that captured that special type of suburban-high-school boredom where groups of friends rove around and try to find little adventures – a sort of reimagined biker gang. We directed it ourselves and shot it on Super 8, which has such a beautiful and cool character – so in a way the whole enterprise was a bit like a group of high school friends, making something on a spare Saturday.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past year or so, you’ve come across a handful of posts featuring the Brooklyn-based experimental/psych pop act Pavo Pavo. Deriving their name from the name of the southern constellation Pavo — Latin for peacock —the members of the band Eliza Bagg (violin, synths, vocals), Oliver Hill (guitar, synths and vocals). Nolan Green (guitar, vocals), Austin Vaughn (drums) and Ian Romer (bass) can trace its origins to when the members of the quintet were studying while at Yale University, and since then individual members have collaborated with the likes of Here We Go Magic, John Zorn, Dave Longstreth, Porches, Olga Bell, Lucius, Roomful of Teeth and San Fermin among others.  Adding to a growing profile, their “Ran Ran Run”/”Annie Hall” 7 inch was praised by a number of media outlets and blogs, including  Stereogum as being “weightless pop music that sounds like it was beamed down from a glimmering utopian future.” And while nodding at 60s psych pop and 80s New Age, just underneath the glimmering surface there’s a hint at unease, anxiety, rot and dysfunction.

Now, as you may recall the band’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Young Narrator in the Breakers is slated for a November 11, 2016 release through Bella Union Records and thematically, the material according to the members of the band describes both the magic and panic of adult life — with the understanding that much like a getting caught in a vicious breaker, you have to stop fighting and ride it out until you can get to shore safely. Interestingly, the album’s latest single “Ruby (Let’s Buy The Bike)” consists of gorgeous falsetto boy/girl harmonies, a strummed and slightly ragged guitar-led melody, off-kilter percussion and soaring synths, and the result is a gorgeous and trippy acceptance of time’s passing and a swooning love song to a beautiful motorcycle named Ruby that the song’s narrator stumbled on to at a bike show. Part of the song involves the hopes and plans the narrator has for the bike; some of which picturing himself riding around on the badass bike, potentially getting into a gruesome accident and dying — but saying “man, for the bike, it was fucking worth it.”

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Gorgeous and Surreal Visuals and Sounds of Pavo Pavo’s “Ran Ran Run”

If you have been frequenting this site, you may have come across a couple of posts about the band when they released their “Ran Ran Run”/”Annie Hall” 7 inch, an effort that was also praised by the folks at Stereogum as “weightless pop music that sounds like it was beamed down from a glimmering utopian future,” while nodding at the psych pop sounds of the mid 60s; but just underneath the gleaming surface, there’s a bit of unease, anxiety and rot. In my mind, the song strikes me as a feverish yet whimsical dream of simmering synths and ethereal harmonies that skip about the song’s instrumentation like a pebble being tossed across a placid lake.

The band’s long-awaited full-length debut Young Narrator in the Breakers is slated for a November 11, 2016 through Bella Union Records and to celebrate the album’s upcoming release, the band released a gorgeous and artful music video for the album’s first single “Ran Ran Run.” Directed by artist collective SWIMMERS, the video features the bandmembers in a series of surreally staged scenarios that emphasize the song’s ethereal and surreal nature. As the band’s Eliza Bagg explains of the song and the video, “‘Ran Ran Run’ is a song about the joys and sorrows of growing up, the awareness of impermanence and change — ‘time is a hole in my waterbed!’ In the video we pass through some kind of portal into a completely manufactured reality — a space that is intense but also playful, full of stark contrasts and extremes (of color, texture, mood). We’re somewhere between children and adults, literally dressing up, playing, play-acting, trying on the guises of who we might be. Actually a theme throughout this record is that the whole prospect of becoming an adult involves a little bit of fantasy — reaching for a possible world or possible self, and aiming for magic, for something over the top, fantastical.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Gorgeous, Surreal and Absolutely Insane Visuals for Doomsquad’s “Pyramids on Mars”

Comprised of  siblings Allie, Jaclyn and Trevor Blumas, Toronto, ON/Montreal, QC-based electro pop act Doomsquad initially began as an acoustic-leaning folk act but with their shared admiration and love of electronic music, electronic dance music and electro pop, the […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their 2010 self-titled EP and their 2012 full-length debut Differance, South Korean trio Jambinai, comprised of   Bongi Kim (haegum — a Korean fiddle-like instrument), Ilwoo Lee (guitar and piri — a Korean flute, made of bamboo) and Eun Young Sim (geomungo, a Korean zither), the trio have developed a rapidly growing national and international reputation for an intense, adventurous, headbanging worthy take on traditional Korean instrumental music. As the story goes, the trio met while studying traditional music at Korea National University of Arts, and they quickly bonded over a desire to present traditional music in a new way, “to communicate with the ordinary person, who doesn’t listen to Korean traditional music,” as the band’s principle composer and writer Ilwoo explains in press notes. Interestingly, Jambinai’s approach eschews several generations of Korean modernists and post-modernists, who Lee notes have based their sound and approach around Western classical music, jazz, jazz fusion to create a prog rock/experimental rock sound.

And while shocking Korean audiences, the trio have also been critically and commercially successful as their full-length Differance was nominated for Best Crossover Album and Best Jazz and Crossover Performance at the 2013 Korean Music Awards, and won Best Crossover Album — and as a result, the band used the album’s success as a springboard for several international tours as a quintet featuring  Jihoon Ok (bass) and Jae Hyuk Choi (drums) that have seen praise from a number of major Western outlets including The Guardian and others.

A Hermitage, the trio’s forthcoming sophomore effort and Bella Union Records debut is slated for a June 17 release, and the album’s latest single “They Keep Silence” is a tense, throbbing and furious song full of angular and stabbing chords paired layers upon layers of feedback and distortion in a composition that consists of downtuned and punishing power chord-heavy sections and brief and quite sections of respite and introspection. Sonically, the song sounds as though it draws from Tool and Ministry  — or simply put it kicks ass, takes names and kicks more ass just to ensure that you got the point. In fact, the song seems to tape into a universal feeling of anger and isolation of people, who are growing both impatient and suspicious of the forces that are controlling and influencing their daily lives.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

If you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past couple of years, you’ve likely come across several posts on Toronto, ON/Montreal, QC-based electro pop act Doomsquad. Comprised of  siblings Allie, Jaclyn and Trevor Blumas, the electro pop act initially began as an acoustic-leaning folk act but with their shared admiration and love of electronic music, electronic dance music and electro pop, the Blumases began increasingly experimenting with electronic beats, synthesizers, electronic drums and contemporary electronic music production techniques. The trio won attention won both national and Stateside attention with the release of their full-length debut Kalaboogie, a downtempo electro pop-leaning effort that evoked what art, life and music would sound like post-apocaylpse as stark minimalist beats, shimmering synths and alternating chanted and call and response vocals.

The Blumases followed Kalaboogie with 2015’s Pageantry Suite EP and EP singles Apocalypso,” and “Two Way Mirror” revealed a group that relentlessly experimented with their sound as they employed Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar lines, African and Caribbean-inspired polyrhythms, ambient electronics, shimmering synths and sinuous bass lines were paired with half spoken, half sung vocals leading a call and response harmonized vocal section at the song’s hook, which interestingly enough pushed their sound a bit closer Talking Heads’ Speaking in Tongues and Fear of Music. And much like those two albums, the material on Pageantry Suite evoked a neurotic anxiousness over an impending doom that may — or may not happen.

 

Doomsquad’s sophomore full-length effort, Total Time is slated for an April 29, 2016 release through renowned indie label Bella Union Records globally and Hand Drawn Dracula Records throughout Canada. Reportedly inspired by some of the trio’s favorite artists — Georges Bataille, Richard Tuttle, Tanya Tagaq, and Genesis P-Orridge, Total Time was largely recorded in the New Mexico desert and thematically, the material was specifically written to lead the listener to a genderless experience of transition — from owning time, losing time and becoming timeless while making you move your ass.  Interestingly, the album’s second and latest single “Pyramids On Mars” manages to continue on the sonic path of Pageantry Suite as the song begins with an ambient intro of gently undulating synths and off-kilter vocals and quickly becomes a propulsive and shimmering dance-floor ready track that pairs shimmering synths, wobbling low end, chanted and call and response vocals, African and Caribbean-inspired vocals, funk guitar — and much like their most recent tracks sounds as though it could have been released as a B-side to a Talking Heads single.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Alela Diane and Ryan Francesconi’s Gorgeous Duet “The Sun Today”

Currently based in Portland, OR and originally from Nevada City, CA, Alela Diane is critically acclaimed singer/songwriter who has previously released four albums — 2007’s The Pirate’s Gospel, 2009’s To Be Still, 2011’s Wild Divine and […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their debut single “Droplet,” last year, the Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK-based trio Tessera Skies were breathlessly praised by the likes of Q Magazine and The Guardian as one of Northeast England’s bands to look out […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Irish-born and currently London-based sisters Hannah and Colette Thurlow are the founders and creative force of the indie pop act 2:54 – and with the release of their 2012 debut effort, the Thurlow sisters and their backing band […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Irish-born and currently London-based sisters Hannah and Colette Thurlow perform as the duo 2:54 — and with the 2012 release of their debut effort, the duo not only won international attention, they toured with the likes of the xx, Wild […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Australian act, The Trouble With Templeton began in 2011 as the brainchild of 23 year old singer/songwriter Thomas Calder. And by 2012, the band had expanded to a quintet that not only helped fleshed out, it manages […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

The Trouble With Templeton began in 2011 as the brainchild of the 23 year old singer/songwriter Thomas Calder. And by 2012, the band had expanded to a quintet that not only helped fleshed out, it […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

London’s Veronica Falls’ 2011 self-titled debut was released to generally favorable critical reviews for a sound that had been described by many of my colleagues and fellow critics as goth-tinged pop. The release of the band’s […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

a Q&A with Veronica Falls’ James Hoare

London’s Veronica Falls’ 2011 self-titled debut was released to generally favorable critical reviews for a sound that had been described by many of my colleagues and fellow critics as goth-tinged pop. The February 19th release […]