JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Carole King’s 84th birthday.
Tag: Carole King
Born to an English father and Italian mother, the emerging Paris-born and-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, electronic music producer and electronic music artist, Frank Woodbridge grew up in a passionate, musical household: at an early age, the Woodbridge family spent their evening listening to their vinyl record collection in front of their huge stereo. “My father loved The Kinks, The Beatles, The Bee Gees and Al Jarreau. My mother introduced me to Stan Getz, Carole King and the romantic refrains of the crooners that reminded her of her childhood,” Woodbridge recalls fondly in press notes. “From the age of ten, I was already deep into The Cure, Depeche Mode, U2. My teenage neighbor had decided to perfect my musical education. And then, Bernard Lenoir on Inter, the many weekends in London . . . I was an indie kid, that was my life.”
After spending many years in rock and electro pop groups as a singer/songwriter and self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Woodbridge has spent the past few years focusing on composing and composition for films, the web, TV games, sound design for events and stage music for theater. Currently, the French composer, multi-instrumentalist, electronic music producer and electronic music producer works with Andre Manoukian on his daily chronicle for the Daphne Burki-hosted TV show,. Je T’aime, ETC — and he wrote a comic book Inversion, which follows its composer protagonist.
Centered around layers of shimmering synth arpeggios, thumping beats, Woodbridge’s latest single, the cinematic “Lola dans le bus” recalls JOVM mainstays Uppermost and M83— but with a dreamy yet melancholy air. Woodbridge explains that the track is an electronic track he composed to drive or daydream along with. He adds that the song is about running into an ex-girlfriend he lost contact with: he saw her on a bus and waved at her but she didn’t see him. So as a result the song has the sensibility of a missed connection that you’ll never get back — and of unfinished business.
I’ve written quite a bit about the acclaimed, Swedish Grammy-winning, Gothenburg, Sweden-based singer/songwriter Sarah Klang, and as you may recall, with the release of “Sleep,” and “Strangers,” Klang received praise across the blogosphere for crafting heartbreaking and achingly sad material that meshed Americana, country and pop and was frequently compared to Roy Orbison and Jeff Buckley.
Building upon a growing profile, Klang released her critically applauded full-length debut Love In The Milky Way last year, which she supported with touring across Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the US. Adding to a breakthrough year for her, she also played sold-out shows at Gothenburg Concert Hall and Stockholm’s Södra Teatern.
The Gothenburg-based singer/songwriter and JOVM mainstays highly-anticipated, forthcoming sophomore album is slated for release later this year and the album was written and recorded during what was arguably one of the busiest years of her young career. The album’s slow-burning and swooning, Dolly Parton meets Carole King-like first single “Call Me,” was centered around twinkling piano, a shimmering string arrangement and Klang’s achingly tender vocals — and as the Swedish JOVM mainstay explained in press notes, the song was “about the love that only happens once. It might not last for long, but you’ll remember it forever.” The album’s second single, the slow-burning and spectral “Endless Sadness” was centered around shimmering and twangy bursts of steel pedal guitar, twinkling organ and a soaring hook, which made it the perfect setting for what I think is one of the most gorgeous and heartbreakingly saddest voices I’ve come across in recent memory.
The album’s third and latest single “New Day Coming” effortlessly meshes 70s troubadour pop and AM Rock with Dolly Parton-like country as it features an uncannily period specific arrangement consisting of a shimmering stringiest arrangement, twinkling piano, strummed guitar and a soaring hook, and it’s roomy enough for Klang’s aching vocals to express hope that in the fact the most difficult and darkest periods don’t last forever — that a bright new day and a new start are often just over the horizon. While continuing a spectacular run of gorgeous singles, Klang’s latest single may actually be the most hopeful of her growing catalog — while rooted in hard-fought, lived-in experience.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve written a bit about the acclaimed Gothenburg, Sweden-based singer/songwriter Sarah Klang. With the release of “Sleep,” and “Strangers,” Klang received praise across the blogosphere for crafting aching and heartbreakingly sad material that some critics compared to the likes of Roy Orbison and Jeff Buckley — although interestingly enough, the Gothenburg-based singer/songwriter has publicly cited Barbra Streisand and ambient electronica as major influences on her work.
Building upon a growing profile, Klang released her critically applauded full-length debut Love In The Milky Way last year, which she supposed with tours across the US, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Adding to breakthrough year, Klang played a sold-out shows at Gothenburg Concert Hall and Stockholm’s Södra Teatern — and she won a Swedish Grammy.
Written and recorded during one of the busiest year’s of Klang’s young career, her forthcoming sophomore full-length album is slated for release later this year. Now, as you may recall, “Call Me,” the album’s slow-burning, Dolly Parton meets Carole King-like first single was centered around twinkling piano, shimmering strings and Klang’s achingly tender vocals — and as Klang explained in press notes, the song was “about the love that only happens once. It might not last for long, but you’ll remember it forever.” And as a result, the song’s narrator expressed a bitter and swooning despair and begrudging acceptance over the loss of her love.
Continuing in a similar vein as its predecessor, the album’s second and latest single “Endless Sadness” is centered around a slow-burning and hauntingly spectral arrangement featuring bursts of steel pedal, twinkling organ and a soaring hook is a perfect setting for one of the most unique and saddest voices in contemporary indie music. And much like its immediate predecessor, the song is infused with a deeply bitter sense of despair and loss.
New Video: Pale Mara Releases a Sepia-Toned Bit of Nostalgia Focusing on the Passing of Time and Mortality
Earlier this year, I wrote about Pale Mara, an indie duo comprised of Lee Godleski and Allison Robinson. The duo’s soon-to-be released self-titled album is slated for release on Friday, and from “Bird,” the album’s first single, the duo specializes in an old-timey 70s AM rock sound — with the single recalling The Carpenters and Carole King and others.
The album’s latest single is the sepia-toned, nostalgic, “Not Like I Used To,” a track that focuses on life’s inevitable transitions — particularly, friends, family members and associates dying; of time rushing by and getting older; of uneasily facing your own mortality; and of dreamily looking back at “simpler” times of seemingly endless and careless youth. Sonically though, the song finds the duo’s sound recalling The Band and others — and while possession a hazy, autumnal vibe, the song reveals a similar, careful attention to craft.
Edited by Jeff Wenzel, the recently released video further emphasizes the song’s sepia-toned nostalgia as it features old album covers from jukeboxes, pictures of long lost family members and friends, while also capturing life on the road as a working musician.
Pale Mara is an indie duo comprised of Lee Godleski and Allison Robinson and from the “Bird,” the first single off their forthcoming self-titled album, which is slated for a December 14, 2018 release, the duo specialize in an old timey sort of sound that brings to mind 70s AM rock — in particular, “Bird” recalls The Carpenters and Carole King among others. However, they do so without being a mere time period-based mimicry; in fact, underneath the autumnal vibes and careful attention to craft there’s a quietly self-assured sense of purpose that set it apart.
Comprised of founding member, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mathew Ajarapu, Khayle Hagood (bass), Khori Wilson (drums) and Cam Cunningham (guitar), the Chicago, IL-based soul outfit The Devonns (pronounced De-Vaughns) can trace their origins to when Ajarapu dropped out of med school, and found himself unemployed and aimlessly drifting through his life. As the story goes, at the time, Ajarapu was listening to music constantly and found himself drawn to the classic soul sounds of the late 1960s-early 1970s, best known for steady grooves, carefully crafted songwriting, impeccable production and gorgeous arrangements.
While sonically and aesthetically drawing influence from the work of The Impressions, Leroy Hutson, The Bar-Kays, Carole King, Raphael Saddiq and Jamie Lidell, the band’s primary focus was on exploring the elements of songwriting, arrangement and production made popular from about 1965-1973 or so. The act’s debut single “Come Back” was released earlier this year through Italian soul label Record Kicks Records — the label home of Hannah WIlliams and the Affirmations, Marta Ren and the Groovelets an others, and was reportedly written in 10 minutes on a $300 Danelectro singlecut guitar. Recorded at Chicago’s Kingsize Sound Labs, the track features arrangements by Paul Von Martens, who has worked with Mavis Staples, Paul McCartney, and Elton John, and the guitar work and percussion of multi-instrumentalist Ken Stringfellow, who has worked with R.E.M. “Come Back” received attention across soul music circles, and building upon a growing profile, the Chicago-based soul act’s latest single “Think I’m Falling in Love,” is breezy and up beat track centered around a gorgeous string arrangement, a bluesy guitar line and a classic horn line, and while the song and its arrangement is heavily y indebted to Smokey Robinson, The Impressions and Leroy Hutson, the song also will remind some listeners of Mayer Hawthrone. According to the band’s Mathew Ajjarapu, “The song actually came to me pretty quickly; I was driving to work one day and suddenly the entire guitar lead riff popped into my head, along with the bass line and chords. I instantly knew it was kind of special.”
Currently, the band is in the studio with Paul Von Martens working on their highly anticipated full-length album, which will also be released through Record Kicks next winter.
Comprised of Nick Rose and Dan Griffin, the Toronto-based pop duo Teen Ravine can trace their origins to a series of apartment-based studio collaborations begun back in the spring of 2016. Since then, the duo has specialized in work that they describe as thematically focusing on Gen Y’s struggle between the desire for and the fear of intimacy that ironically has explored through material they wrote and recorded in their bedrooms. We all want to get close to another — but not too close, out of a fear of getting hurt, an inability to discern our true desires or for some other more dysfunctional reason. And while the duo claim that it’s a particular struggle for their generation, I can tell you from experience that unfortunately, it’s not; it’s frustratingly part of the human condition.
Rose and Griffin’s full-length debut is slate, and for release at the end of this month, and the album’s latest single “Bad Dream” sonically draws from 70s AM Rock and late 70s and early 80s singer/songwriter pop centered around a hook-laden, breezy yet soulful arrangement of Rhodes piano, fuzzy synths, a sinuous bass line, propulsive drumming and as a result the song recalls Billy Joel’s heyday — think “Movin’ Out,” and “Captain Jack,” Carole King and list of others. And much like those songs, the duo’s latest single focuses a bit on seeking comfort and pleasure in sadness, because — well, it’s yours; but underneath that is the sense that the song’s narrator has spent his time obsessively picking at emotional scabs until they’re left raw and oozing, instead of taking time to let them heal in any significant way.
New Video: Introducing the Classic Soul Channeling Sound of Nottingham UK’s Georgie
Influenced by Fleetwood Mac, Carole King, Janis Joplin, The Pretenders, Crosby Stills and Nash, Carly Simon, The Mamas and the Papas and First Aid Kit, Georgie is a 21 year-old, up-and-coming, Nottingham, UK-based singer/songwriter, who caught the attention of the folks at Spacebomb Records — the label home of Natalie Prass and Julien Baker — for a vocal style that sounds straight out of the mid 1960s and for a lyrical bent that belies her years. Her debut single “Company of Thieves” pairs her husky and soulful vocals with a wah-wah pedaled guitar, a strutting horn arrangement, a sinuous bass line, a steady backbeat and an infectious hook in a carefully crafted song that will remind most listeners of Amy Winehouse, Nancy Sinatra and others.
//player.theplatform.com/p/NnzsPC/widget/select/media/3aNSpuy_7d2L?carouselID=144391 With the release of her self-titled debut earlier this year, the Nashville, TN-based (by way of Cleveland, OH and Virginia Beach, VA) Natalie Prass has quickly become a blogosphere darling. “Why Don’t You Believe […]