Tag: Captured Tracks

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Widowspeak Share Lush and Mesmerizing “No Driver”

New York-based indie outfit Widowspeak — Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas — are one of many bands to crop up in the busy local scene around the time I started this site, almost 16 years ago. They started out shuffling their gear between now, long-shuttered — and deeply beloved — venues like Glasslands, Cake Shop, 285 Kent, Death By Audio and a lengthy list of others, and their practice space at Monster Island Basement, which now is a Trader Joe’s. New York has fucking changed, y’all. Speaking of changes: the duo is now a married couple, working day jobs in their own off-season. Thomas is a carpenter, Hamilton a waitress.

Recently, the duo announced that their highly-anticipated seventh album, Roses will be released June 5, 2026 through Captured Tracks. Deeply informed by their respective day jobs, Roses isn’t populated with dramatic overtures, but with the backdrop of the minutiae and repetition of daily acts. There’s the small observations before, during and after work: the ritual-like act of pouring water or coffee for customers, the bemusement and frustration of catching a cold on your only day off. Maybe you’re daydreaming about your life if you won the lottery — or maybe realizing that you already won.

The 10-song Roses was recorded last January at the Old Carpet Factory on the Greek Island of Hydra, a studio located in an old house, tucked into the village’s steep hills. During the winter, without the rush of tourists, it’s quiet. Longtime touring members Willy Muse, John Andrews and Noah Bond were the session backing band.

The album’s material was then taken home and slowly, lightly tinkered with before being mixed by Alex Farrar at Drop of Sun Studios and mastered by Greg Obis at Chicago Mastering.

Throughout the album, intimate spaces and stages of love are captured with a nostalgic, almost sepia-toned, vaseline coated lens. As always, the beating heart of their work is the interplay between Hamilton’s languid, dreamy and textured delivery and Hamilton’s bluesy, visceral guitar work.

Roses‘ will include the previously released “If You Change,” and the album’s second and latest single “No Driver.” “No Driver” is a lush, cinematic tune anchored around earnest, seemingly lived-in lyrics and the seemingly effortless craftsmanship that the band has long been known for. Of course, as always the stars of the show are Hamilton’s gorgeous, dreamily mesmerizing vocal and Thomas’ soulful, Crazy Horse-era Neil Young-like guitar work.

The song “is about knowing and loving people, who seem to thrive being on autopilot, at least for a while. It’s written from the perspective of trying to be supportive, and knowing it can be kind of magic when you’re in it, but also just waiting patiently for whenever they’re ready to move on from destructive behavior,” says Widowspeak’s Molly Hamilton. “I also kind of wrote it to my younger self. I’m 1000% on the other side of my wilder years (quit drinking almost seven years ago and now have a baby) but I definitely felt aimless for a long time. I care now, and caring about things and people and having a reason… is the whole point.”

“The video riffs on ‘Jesus take the wheel’; that’s it, that’s the concept,” Hamilton says of the accompanying video. “We have our friend Gary Canino from Dark Tea playing a Driver who’s kind of feeling the weight of the world, and Jesus (Johnathan Chriest) takes over as he goes about his night, dropping off the Mysterious Business Lady (Moira Spahić) and then picking up a couple other passengers. Kind of a ragtag group of people, Jesus driving them home.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JayWood Shares Swaggering, Genre-Defying “ASSUMPTIONS”

Jeremy Haywood-Smith is a Winnipeg-born, Montréal-based, singer/songwriter, musician and creative mastermind behind the acclaimed, boundary pushing project JayWood. Though he was nominated for a Polaris Music Prize, the Canadian artist currently has a day job as a postal worker, which is arguably the least interesting thing about him.

Haywood-Smith’s third JayWood album Leo Negro is slated for a September 5, 2025 release through Captured Tracks. Much like previously released tracks “UNTITLED (Swirl)” and his collaboration with Tune-Yards, “BIG TINGS,” Leo Negro will further cement his reputation for refusing to be easily pigeonholed.

The Canadian artist explains that the album’s title ” . . .came from the main concept of the album which is identity. I asked myself the question of ‘What are some things that make me who I am, no matter what changes occur in life?’ and funnily enough, I was getting really into astrology at the time due to fact that 70% of my friends are queer femmes. I was trying to understand what it means to be a Leo. On the other hand, I’m moving through life as a black man in spaces that don’t always understand me or will try to categorize me.”

He adds, “I know the main identifier for Leos is that they’re super confident and massive social magnets and leaders, but in recent years, I’ve had a harder time leaning into that specific energy, so I started to just dismantle the idea of confidence and leadership by doing somewhat of the opposite. I started to get more vulnerable and share more things about myself: insecurities, fears, anxieties, my scarier truths and my experiences as a black person. Through that, I weirdly started to feel a little more confident. Which brings me to my last point about the title. I now live in Montreal and one thing I realized while trying to learn the language is that the descriptions of things are at the end. For example ‘black cat’ would be ‘chat noir,’ and if I look at my album title, it kinda translates to ‘black confidence’ in my mind.”

Leo Negro‘s latest single “ASSUMPTIONS” is a mind-melting, defiantly genre-agnostic track that sees the Montréal-based artist meshing a swaggering and braggadocio-fueled hip-hop production and neo-soul while subtly hinting at Pharrell‘s “Happy.” While seemingly recalling Tyler, the Creator, Stereolab and Men I Trust among others, “ASSUMPTIONS” showcases a mischievously forward-thinking producer and songwriter, who can pair social commentary and deep introspection within a catchy, deceptively fun bop.

“‘ASSUMPTIONS’ feels like it’s giving myself permission to step into some new sonic territory,” Haywood-Smith explains. “It’s fun and playful while still being pretty focused and lyrically consistent, which is new for me. It’s also one of the funniest songs I’ve ever written. It’s literally about my crippling imposter syndrome but at the same time, I’m staking my claim as a solid artist and a producer.”

Directed by Trent Wayne, the accompanying video is a playful, unpredictable mix of cartoons and live action footage at an equally cartoon colored party, in which he plays his new song. Much like the accompanying song, the video touches on feelings of imposter syndrome, feeling under appreciated yet knowing deep down that you’re fucking dope.

The video’s director, Trent Wayne, while speaking on the production said “JayWood set the tone for us—playful, unpredictable, and musically rich— making a great foundation for the video. Inspired by the song’s genre-blending, we built a narrative to match: starting in a comically chaotic party scene, drifting into a Yo Gabba Gabba!-inspired graveyard, and featuring a cartoon version of Jay performing created by Pete Though, which was sent through a VCR for added analog grit. Our production designer, Sophia Kotowski, built a functional CD-player gravestone that became a psychedelic centerpiece. Collaborating with Captured Tracks to spotlight innovative artists like JayWood is a real privilege for our team.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: GIFT Shares Euphoric “Light Runner”

Earlier this year, Brooklyn-based JOVM mainstays GIFT — TJ Freda (vocals, guitar), multi-instrumentalist Jessica Gurewitz, Kallan Campbell (bass), multi-instrumentalist Justin Hrabovsky and Gabe Camarano (drums) — signed to Captured Tracks, who will be releasing their highly-anticipated sophomore, 11-song album Illuminator on August 23, 2024.

Illuminator reportedly sees the JOVM mainstays firmly cementing their sound with a remarkably mature, self-assuredness for a relatively young band.
Professionally, the members of the rising Brooklyn-based outfit are firmly enmeshed in the local scene as talent buyers, photographers, DJs, audio engineers, art directors, and in the case of Campbell, the owner of Bushwick-based DIY venue Alphaville. The continued melting pot of their combined skills and experiences helps to make the album an even more cohesive listening experience while seeing increasing contributions from each of the band’s members: Gurewitz, a relative newcomer to making music, contributed a host of lyrics and vocal melodies. Hrabovsky, who previously engineered at Asheville, NC-based Drop of Sun Studios and Echo Mountain Recording shared production duties with Freda. And Camarano’s drumming provided the crucial rhythmic underpinning of the album’s material. 

“We had a lot more confidence going in,” Freda says. “The main goal was to take a big swing, embrace the pop sounds we love and clear the mist and clouds surrounding the last record to make it a lot punchier.”

Illuminator will feature the previously released:

“Wish Me Away,” a track anchored around a dreamy and hook-driven shoegazer soundscape of glistening, reverb-drenched guitars, woozy synths and a motorik groove paired with propulsive rhythms serving as a lush bed for Freda’s plaintive falsetto, “Wish Me Away” is continuation of the overall aesthetic they established on Momentary Presence and a decided sonic push forward, showcasing where the band is going next. The song also sees the band exploring and expressing a complex array of emotions with a lived-in specificity. 

“‘Wish Me Away’ is about giving into the feeling of everything slipping away,” GIFT’s TJ Freda explains. “Just take it all away, put me out of my misery, wish me away. While this all seems daunting and sad, there’s a feeling of optimism in this song, holding on for dear life and refusing to give up hope.”

After nearly losing a loved one, Freda found himself grappling with the fleeting nature of life, and understandably with the inevitability of mortality. “‘Wish Me Away,’ ruminates on the fear and freedom that can come knowing it can all slip away. The line ‘wish me away’ kept coming up, as in ‘take me, not them,’” Freda adds. 

“Going In Circles,” an Evil Heat-era Primal Scream take on shoegaze, built around a motorik groove, glistening and atmospheric synths, swirling reverb-soaked guitar textures and Freda’s dreamily plaintive delivery paired with the quintet’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and chorus. But underneath the euphoria-inducing nature of the song is a bitter lament of a relationship gone a bit awry. 

“This was the first song I wrote for Illuminator that helped me realize the direction of the album,” GIFT’s TJ Freda says. “I wrote the chorus while passively playing guitar and rushed to record the idea. At that moment, something clicked and I realized where the album was going. At our shows from the Momentary Presence tour, people would stand in the crowd wide-eyed without moving. We wanted to get people moving with the new album, so we were really inspired by bands like Primal Scream, Oasis, and Massive Attack. It’s our psych-rock tribute to U.K. rave culture in the ‘90s.

“The song is about the endless cycle of a relationship,” Freda adds, “the back and forth in both euphoria and doubt. The chorus ‘I never told you why’ is about never being able to say how you really feel, not having closure and the cycle continuing.” 

The Jessica Gurewitz and TJ Freda co-written “Later,” which may arguably be one of the most brooding and uneasy song of the band’s growing catalog — while also being the most straightforward shoegazer track of the album. Anchored around a swaggering motorik groove, the track finds the band pairing glistening and reverb drenched guitars with Freda’s plaintive falsetto and the band’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses.

“While writing Illuminator I found myself clinging to intense emotions, reluctant to release them. ‘Later’ stands out as one of the darkest songs I’ve made,” Freda explains. “Making it was cathartic, diving into darker themes. The song explores surrendering to the overwhelming sensation of life slipping away before my eyes.” 

“Light Runner,” Illuminator‘s fourth and latest single sounds — to my ears, at least — like a mind-bending and slickly produced synthesis of Madchester scene, breakbeats, Ray of Light-era Madonna and shoegaze anchored around enormous, buzzy and euphoria inducing hooks and choruses. “Light Runner” also sees the band crafting a hook-driven sound that’s simultaneously dance club and arena rock friendly while retaining the widescreen quality that has won them accolades.

The accompanying video for “Light Runner” was directed by the band’s TJ Freda. “The album and song ‘Ray of Light’ by Madonna was a massive inspiration while recording Illuminator – I wanted to pay homage to the brilliant music video directed by one of my favorite directors Jonas Åkerlund. ‘Light Runner’ celebrates the triumph of emerging from a dark time while acknowledging the transformative power of overcoming it. It’s a testament to the euphoria of personal achievement.In 2023, during our first European tour, we were enthralled by the origins of 90s UK bands like Primal Scream, Massive Attack, and Oasis. Following a show in Glasgow, the promoters treated us to an underground Jungle/DnB rave, blowing our minds wide open.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays GIFT Shares Brooding “Later”

JOVM mainstays GIFT — TJ Freda (vocals, guitar), multi-instrumentalist Jessica Gurewitz, Kallan Campbell (bass), multi-instrumentalist Justin Hrabovsky and Gabe Camarano (drums) — formed just before the COVID-19 pandemic. And although 2020 wasn’t exactly the most ideal time to start a band, especially for a group of musicians with varying and diverse roots and professional backgrounds, Freda assembled the band by cherry-picking members of some of his favorite local bands, crossed his fingers and hoped for the best. Professionally, the members of the rising Brooklyn-based outfit are firmly enmeshed in the local scene as talent buyers, photographers, DJs, audio engineers, art directors, and in the case of Campbell, the owner of Bushwick-based DIY venue Alphaville. 

The JOVM mainstays signed to Captured Tracks, who will be releasing their highly-anticipated sophomore, 11-song album Illuminator on August 23, 2024. The album reportedly sees the quintet firmly cementing their sound with a remarkably mature, self-assuredness for a relatively young band. The continued melting pot of their combined skills and experiences helps make the album an even more cohesive listening experience. The album sees increasing contributions from the band’s members: Gurewitz, a relative newcomer to making music, contributed a host of lyrics and vocal melodies. Hrabovsky, who previously engineered at Asheville, NC-based Drop of Sun Studios and Echo Mountain Recording shared production duties with Freda. And Camarano’s drumming provided the crucial rhythmic underpinning of the album’s material. 

“We had a lot more confidence going in,” Freda says. “The main goal was to take a big swing, embrace the pop sounds we love and clear the mist and clouds surrounding the last record to make it a lot punchier.”

Illuminator will feature:

“Wish Me Away,” a track anchored around a dreamy and hook-driven shoegazer soundscape of glistening, reverb-drenched guitars, woozy synths and a motorik groove paired with propulsive rhythms serving as a lush bed for Freda’s plaintive falsetto, “Wish Me Away” is continuation of the overall aesthetic they established on Momentary Presence and a decided sonic push forward, showcasing where the band is going next. The song also sees the band exploring and expressing a complex array of emotions with a lived-in specificity. 

“‘Wish Me Away’ is about giving into the feeling of everything slipping away,” GIFT’s TJ Freda explains. “Just take it all away, put me out of my misery, wish me away. While this all seems daunting and sad, there’s a feeling of optimism in this song, holding on for dear life and refusing to give up hope.”

After nearly losing a loved one, Freda found himself grappling with the fleeting nature of life, and understandably with the inevitability of mortality. “‘Wish Me Away,’ ruminates on the fear and freedom that can come knowing it can all slip away. The line ‘wish me away’ kept coming up, as in ‘take me, not them,’” Freda adds. 

“Going In Circles,” an Evil Heat-era Primal Scream take on shoegaze, built around a motorik groove, glistening and atmospheric synths, swirling reverb-soaked guitar textures and Freda’s dreamily plaintive delivery paired with the quintet’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and chorus. But underneath the euphoria-inducing nature of the song is a bitter lament of a relationship gone a bit awry. 

“This was the first song I wrote for Illuminator that helped me realize the direction of the album,” GIFT’s TJ Freda says. “I wrote the chorus while passively playing guitar and rushed to record the idea. At that moment, something clicked and I realized where the album was going. At our shows from the Momentary Presence tour, people would stand in the crowd wide-eyed without moving. We wanted to get people moving with the new album, so we were really inspired by bands like Primal Scream, Oasis, and Massive Attack. It’s our psych-rock tribute to U.K. rave culture in the ‘90s.

“The song is about the endless cycle of a relationship,” Freda adds, “the back and forth in both euphoria and doubt. The chorus ‘I never told you why’ is about never being able to say how you really feel, not having closure and the cycle continuing.” 

Illuminator’s third and latest single is the Jessica Gurewitz and TJ Freda co-written “Later.” Arguably one of the more brooding and uneasy songs of the JOVM mainstays’ growing catalog, “Later” is anchored around a swaggering motorik groove, glistening and reverb drenched guitars paired with Freda’s plaintive falsetto and the band’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses. But interestingly enough, the new single may also be the more straightforward shoegazer track of the album, as well.

“While writing Illuminator I found myself clinging to intense emotions, reluctant to release them. ‘Later’ stands out as one of the darkest songs I’ve made,” Freda explains. “Making it was cathartic, diving into darker themes. The song explores surrendering to the overwhelming sensation of life slipping away before my eyes.” 

Co-directed by Sophia Feuer and the band’s Jessica Gurewitz, “the accompanying video for “Later” continues a remarkable run of cinematic and surreal visuals. We follow the band’s Gurewitz as she embarks on a lengthy journey by foot through the woods, a struggling and run down city — and in some way through time, thanks to the use of some flashbacks with stock footage, old photos and more.

“I wanted to explore the internal confusion that comes with the passage of time. I was reading a lot of horror stories while we shot this and I wanted to bring those to the screen by exploring unknown places and questioning timelines,” Gurewitz says. “Working with Sophia Feuer (Director, DP, Editor) was amazing and she made it possible to bring this vision to life.“

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays GIFT Shares Rousingly Euphoric “Going In Circles”

Brooklyn-based psych rock quintet GIFT — TJ Freda (vocals, guitar), multi-instrumentalist Jessica Gurewitz, Kallan Campbell (bass), multi-instrumentalist Justin Hrabovsky and Gabe Camarano (drums) — formed just before the COVID-19 pandemic. And although 2020 wasn’t exactly the most ideal time to start a band, especially for a group of musicians with varying and diverse roots and professional backgrounds, Freda assembled the band by cherry-picking members of some of his favorite local bands, crossed his fingers and hoped for the best. Professionally, the members of the rising Brooklyn-based outfit are firmly enmeshed in the local scene as talent buyers, photographers, DJs, audio engineers, art directors, and in the case of Campbell, the owner of Bushwick-based DIY venue Alphaville.

Inspired by Ram Dass’ 1971 spiritual guide and countercultural landmark Be Here Now, the JOVM mainstays full-length debut, 2022’s Momentary Presencewas a meditation on working through the anxiety and self-doubt that we all, at some point or another, carry. Specifically conceived, written and recorded with the idea of a full-length album being a fully contained work of art, the songs on Momentary Presence featured dense layered productions that feel and sound self-assured, complete, definitive and impermeable. This is rooted in the band’s belief that each moment has richness, complexity and singularity. And once it’s gone, it can’t be recaptured or repeated. 

The album asked the listener several key questions: Can you truly be present? Can you open yourself up and appreciate life in its fullness — the ugliness and confusion, as well as the beauty and joy? The members of GIFT believe that the listener can. And their full-length debut is a chronicle of that chase, and a celebration of the eternal now. 

The band leaned on their collective experiences in the behind-the-scenes and non-performing aspects of the music business as part of settling on a bold sound — a dizzying blend of early shoegaze, 90s alt rock and modern pop. The album quickly caught the attention of hungry shoegazers and cognoscenti looking for the new thing across the States, Europe and elsewhere.

The JOVM mainstays signed to Captured Tracks, who will be releasing their highly-anticipated sophomore, 11-song album Illuminator on August 23, 2024. The album reportedly sees the quintet firmly cementing their sound with a remarkably mature, self-assuredness for a relatively young band. The continued melting pot of their combined skills and experiences helps make the album an even more cohesive listening experience. The album sees increasing contributions from the band’s members: Gurewitz, a relative newcomer to making music, contributed a host of lyrics and vocal melodies. Hrabovsky, who previously engineered at Asheville, NC-based Drop of Sun Studios and Echo Mountain Recording shared production duties with Freda. And Camarano’s drumming provided the crucial rhythmic underpinning of the album’s material.

“We had a lot more confidence going in,” Freda says. “The main goal was to take a big swing, embrace the pop sounds we love and clear the mist and clouds surrounding the last record to make it a lot punchier.”

Illuminator will feature the previously released single “Wish Me Away.” Anchored around a dreamy and hook-driven shoegazer soundscape of glistening, reverb-drenched guitars, woozy synths and a motorik groove paired with propulsive rhythms serving as a lush bed for Freda’s plaintive falsetto, “Wish Me Away” is continuation of the overall aesthetic they established on Momentary Presence and a decided sonic push forward, showcasing where the band is going next. The song also sees the band exploring and expressing a complex array of emotions with a lived-in specificity. 

“‘Wish Me Away’ is about giving into the feeling of everything slipping away,” GIFT’s TJ Freda explains. “Just take it all away, put me out of my misery, wish me away. While this all seems daunting and sad, there’s a feeling of optimism in this song, holding on for dear life and refusing to give up hope.”

After nearly losing a loved one, Freda found himself grappling with the fleeting nature of life, and understandably with the inevitability of mortality. “‘Wish Me Away,’ ruminates on the fear and freedom that can come knowing it can all slip away. The line ‘wish me away’ kept coming up, as in ‘take me, not them,’” Freda adds. 

“Going In Circles,” Illumiunator‘s second and latest single is an Evil Heat-era Primal Scream take on shoegaze, built around a motorik groove, glistening and atmospheric synths, swirling reverb-soaked guitar textures and Freda’s dreamily plaintive delivery paired with the quintet’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and chorus. But underneath the euphoria-inducing nature of the song is a bitter lament of a relationship gone a bit awry.

“This was the first song I wrote for Illuminator that helped me realize the direction of the album,” GIFT’s TJ Freda says. “I wrote the chorus while passively playing guitar and rushed to record the idea. At that moment, something clicked and I realized where the album was going. At our shows from the Momentary Presence tour, people would stand in the crowd wide-eyed without moving. We wanted to get people moving with the new album, so we were really inspired by bands like Primal Scream, Oasis, and Massive Attack. It’s our psych-rock tribute to U.K. rave culture in the ‘90s.

“The song is about the endless cycle of a relationship,” Freda adds, “the back and forth in both euphoria and doubt. The chorus ‘I never told you why’ is about never being able to say how you really feel, not having closure and the cycle continuing.” 

Directed by Dannah Gottlieb, Alexander Baumann and Robert Ruth features some dreamily hazy and intimately shot footage of the band performing the song in a studio. The video becomes increasingly hallucinogenic affair with the band’s members and their instruments morphing and twisting seemingly at will.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of 2019’s critically applauded full-length debut, Useless Coordinates, Leeds-based experimental outfit Drahla — currently Luciel Brown (vocals, guitar), Ewan Barr (guitar), Rob Riggs (bass) and Mike Ainsley (drums) — exploded into the UK post punk and experimental rock scenes.

The British quartet’s long-awaited sophomore album angeltape is slated for an April 5, 2024 release through Captured Tracks. Recorded with Matthew Benn and Jamie Lockhart last year, angeltape is reportedly an avant-garde document oft he events that unfolded over the course of the five-year gap between albums, which saw a variety of changes — both good and bad — that steered their professional and personal lives down unfamiliar territories.

Of course, instead of succumbing to adversity, the band’s sophomore album sees the band re-emerging sounding creatively rejuvenated with deeply reflective perspectives. Over the last few years, the band’s members have suffered devastating losses and yet have expanded upon their sound with the addition of their newest member Ewan Barr.

Inspired and informed by their recent experiences — collective and individual — the album features a considerably darker, tonally more complex and conceptual sound. The addition of Barr signaled a significant shift in the band’s dynamic and ultimately reshaped the way they approached their angular arrangements, with the band being feeling the freedom to experiment with form more than ever before. Brown, in particular embraced the opportunity to find different ways to inhabit her contemplative lyrics. Naturally, because of the band’s new lineup, there was a readjustment period when they convened to write angeltape — but it helped to kickstart a renewed creative approach. “There was an uncertainty and anxiety in not knowing how to rekindle what we had, and what we did have just didn’t exist in the same format,” Brown explains. “I feel this is apparent in the music; the constant changes, opposing ideas and structures, the overall energy and drive of the songs. I think there’s also the sense of reconnection, encouragement and freedom, too. There’s excitement borne from us finding something together again.”

The album also draws some inspiration from the work of experimental rock outfit This Heat, but the band primarily found that their greatest motivation came from listening to and following one another throughout the writing and recording sessions. “I think the process and inspiration for this album has been way more experimental and insular than taking on any external musical references,” says Brown, “This record feels like it was built on a foundation of insular inspiration.” The band’s Rob Riggs adds, “When the four of us are in a room, we each bring separate things to the table. Sometimes, a session would start a little bit disjointed but then we find a way where we could all interlock together for a moment in a song and then disperse again.”

Sonically, the album’s material is rooted in the interplay of driving bass riffs and charged drum patterns provide an uneasy yet captivating contrast to Brown’s melody sing-songy spoken delivery. The material is also heightened by searing saxophone contributions from the band’s longtime collaborator Chris Duffin.

angeltape‘s third and lates single, the wild and expressionistic freakout “Grief In Phantasia” is a No Wave-inspired take on post punk — or maybe a post-punk-inspired take on No Wave — built around angular and scuzzy guitar lines, primal saxophone skronk and off-kilter yet forceful percussion serving as a tumultuously and uneasy bed for Brown’s melodic sing-songy and punchily melodic delivery.

According to the band: “This song was informed by others on the record and those we’d written in the past. It felt like the closing track when we wrote it, as though it summarised the chaos and the calm of the album.”

Drahla will also head out on tour across the EU and UK through May and June; their first since their European dates in 2023. Their reputation as a fervent live act is ever-growing, having toured across the world and shared stages with the likes of Parquet Courts, Ought, Buzzcocks, and several others. Tour dates are below.

Drahla – Confirmed Tour Dates

03/30 – Leeds, UK – Jumbo Records (in-store performance)

05/02 – Wakefield, UK – The Establishment

05/03 – Brighton, UK – The Hope & Ruin

05/04 – Brussels, BE – Les Nuits Botanique

05/07 – Cologne, DE- Bumann & Sohn

05/08 – Mainz, DE – Schon Schön

05/09 – Hamburg, DE – Hafenklang

05/10- Leipzig, DE – Ilses Erika

05/11 – Berlin, DE – Urban Spree

05/13 – Dresden, DE – Blechschloss

05/14 – Krakow, PL – Green ZOO Festival

05/15 – Prague, CZ – Underdogs

05/16 – Vienna, AT – Arena

05/17 – Munich, DE – Kafe Kult

05/18 – Bologna, IT – DEV

05/19 – Montecosaro, IT – Teatro delle Logge

05/21 – Clermont Ferrand, FR – Cooperative de Mai

05/22 – Toulouse, FR – Metronum Music Box

05/23 – Barcelona, ES – Sala Taro

05/24 – Madrid, ES – Sala Specka

05/25 – Porto, PT – Plano B

05/26 – Lisbon, PT – ZDB

05/27 – Vigo, ES – Radar Estudios & Mondo Club

05/30 – San Sebastian, ES – Dabadaba

05/31 – Bordeaux, FR – IBoat

06/03 – Paris, FR – Point Ephemere

06/04 – Lille, FR – L’AERONEF

06/06 – London, UK – Shacklewell Arms

06/07 – Bristol, UK – Dareshack 

06/08 – Margate, UK – Where Else?

06/09 – Liverpool, UK – Quarry

06/10 – Manchester, UK – YES

06/12 – Glasgow, UK – The Old Hairdresser’s

06/13 – Coventry, UK – The Tin Music and Arts

06/14 – Hebden Bridge, UK – Hebden Bridge

06/15 – Leeds, UK – Belgrave Music Hall

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Thus Love Shares Angular and Anthemic “In Tandem”

Brattleboro, Vermont-based outfit Thus Love — multi-instrumentalists Echo Mars (she/her) and Lu Racine (he/him) and bassist Nathaniel van Osdol (they/them) — is a rising indie trio with a bond cemented by their individual and collective experiences as outsiders looking in: They’ve ascribed to a DIY ethos that not only reflects their musical vision but their very existence as three self-identifying trans artists.

The band can trace its origins to Mars’ and Racine’s serendipitous meeting at a local print show back in 2018, when the multi-instrumentalists agreed to collaborate on a new musical project. The band’s lineup was finalized when Mars and Racine were finally able to convince their roommate van Osdol to join the band in 2019.

From the band’s inception, its members have lived together under the same roof, designed and produced their own merch, and even created their own recording studio from scratch. “I realize that most artists don’t live this way,” Thus Love’s Echo Mars says. “But for us, it was never really a choice. The art we make is so tied to who we are and the community we’re a part of, that this is the only way we can possibly do it.”

The trio was just starting to regularly headline renowned local venue The Stone Church when the pandemic struck and everything came to a sudden and screeching halt. “The pandemic hit everyone hard, but I think it was especially difficult for new artists like us that rely on live shows to spread the word,” Thus Love’s Lu Racine says. “At that point, we had a couple of demos and we weren’t sure what the future would hold.”

Rather than idly wait, the band decided to take their future in their own hands. Armed with their innate curiosity and a ton of YouTube videos, Mars constructed a makeshift studio in their downtown Brattleboro apartment and the band set to work recording during the odd hours when their next-door neighbors were out and about.

The end result is the rising band’s full-length debut Memorial. Slated for an October 7, 2022 release through Captured Tracks, Memorial is reportedly a remarkably self-assured and accomplished album, considering the circumstances surrounding its creation. While sonically, the album’s material draws heavily from classic post-punk and indie rock, the band manages to tap into that sound and approach and find a way to find their own voice — and to tell their story.

Looking back now, Mars is glad the band decided to forge ahead. “I obviously would never want to go through a pandemic again, but I’m pretty confident in saying that this album would not be coming out in 2022 if we hadn’t had the forced downtime.”

While the album does deal with grief and loss, the band’s Racine suggests that working through those feelings are a necessary prerequisite to true and meaningful healing. He points to his own process of transition as proof. “I was in a dark place for a long time even when we were making this record. I knew what I had to do, but it didn’t make it any easier. There was a long period of mourning.” Racine completed top surgery last September, an important step in a years-long journey to embrace his true self. “Even though I was struggling at the time, the happiness I feel now makes it all worth it. I will always have positive associations with this record.”

“In Tandem,” Memorial‘s latest single is centered around angular, reverb-drenched guitar attack, glistening and atmospheric synths and a relentless, motorik punch paired with a rousingly anthemic chorus. While sonically “In Tandem” brings 4AD Records‘ heyday to mind, the song is simultaneously rooted in bitterness, heartache and hope. As the the band explained to the folks at FLOOD, “Written in 12 hours of digestion of emotional turmoil, ‘In Tandem’ is a sonic promise to hold awareness of a fundamental truth: we are nothing but star-dust.”

Directed and edited by Erin Vassilopoulos, the accompanying video for “In Tandem” is simultaneously nightmarishly surreal and playful as it follows the band performing the song — and as a John Waters diva-esque monsters posing for pictures and eating breakfast at a divey diner.

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