Tag: Chilly Gonzales

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Gorgeous and Brooding Sounds and Visuals of Quietwater

Comprised of  classically trained cello Michelle Elliot Rearick  who has collaborated with a diverse list of acclaimed artists including Adele, Nas, Erykah Badu, and H.E.R. and producer and drummer Colin Ingram, who has worked with Living Legends’ Luckyiam, Terra Lopez and Vast Air among others, the California-based duo Quietwater write moody and ethereal compositions featuring classical cello arrangements over hip-hop like breakbeats. The duo’s debut, self-titled EP is slated for a November 16, 2018, and the EP’s latest single “Overcast,” is a cinematic track that will further cement their reputation as its centered around a gorgeous and melancholy cello arrangement and boom bap-like breakbeats that brings the Detroit-born, Los Angeles-based beatmakers and Chilly Gonzales’ The Unspeakable to mind. 

As the duo’s Colin Ingram says of the song and its inspiration, “I was improvising with a couple friends. One friend on guitar, one friend on drums, I was playing a synth. We recorded it. My friend Cory who was playing drums always talked about how much he loved the song. Cory decided to end his life when he was faced with an overwhelming amount of life’s let downs and depression. When I met Michelle the first thing I wanted to do was remake this song we had recorded and honor Cory in a more complete and cinematic way. This song means so much to me and it gives Cory eternal life as far as I’m concerned.”

Interestingly, the recently released video features cinematically shot landscape footage superimposed with psychedelic imagery that manages to emphasize the song’s brooding nature. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Dreamy and Psychedelic Sounds and Visuals of Brooklyn’s Panteon

Panteon is the recording project of Brooklyn-based Yvonne Ambree, an accomplished singer/songwriter, vocalist and musician, who has toured and worked with a wide range of artists including Sleigh Bells, Little Boots, Lulu Gainsbourg, Eli “Paperboy” Reed, and legendary soul singers, such as Syl Johnson, Ann Sexton and Gwen McCrae. Ambree is also known as one-half of the critically acclaimed duo Take Berlin, whose debut EP Lionize was named one of the “Top 10 EPs of 2013” by The Huffington Post, UK. 

Ambree’s debut as Panteon, Travel Log 1 EP is slated for a January 19, 2018 release, and the material on the EP is reportedly inspired by her travels across Europe and The Americas with each track being an ode to the experience of a particular locale she had been in, making the EP, a soundtrack for traveling, whether it be on the road, through the sea or through the air; but throughout the EP, Ambree weaves narratives of discovery and identity (which, unsurprisingly come up while traveling to some far off place).  Recorded in Berlin, Brooklyn’s Bunker Studio and Manhattan’s Sear Sound and mixed by renowned producer Howie Beck, who has worked with Feist, Jamie Lidell and Chilly Gonzales while featuring some of the New York area’s most notable session musicians including Snarky Puppy’s Jay Jennings contributing flugelhorn to EP single “Ballyvaughan,” and Grant Zubritsky, who has played in the backing band of Nick Murphy, formerly known as Chet Faker and MS MR, contributing bass on the EP’s latest single “White Jaguar,” a track written as a ode to the Kogi of Colombia, an indigenous civilization, who still live in the exact same fashion as they did 400 years ago, and consider themselves as guardians of the Earth. 
The ethereal song feels like a pleasant but half-remembered reverie bubbling up from the surface of the songwriter’s and listener’s subconscious as the song features a shimmering arrangement featuring strummed acoustic guitars, a sinuous bass line, soaring keys and propulsive drumming paired with Ambree’s gorgeous vocals — and while leaning towards the dreamy, retro-futuristic psychedelia of JOVM mainstays Pavo Pavo, the song captures the sense of awe over experiencing something you can never experience back at home. 

The recently released visuals for the song features gymnasts and dancers performing — but from old grainy negatives, which emphasizes the dreamy nature of the song, while adding to its aching nostalgia. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Tense, Paranoid Visuals and Sounds of Boys Noize’s “Mayday”

The album’s latest single, album title track “Mayday” has the internationally renowned producer pairing layers of glitchy and stuttering cascading towards the listener, industrial clang and clatter, enormous tweeter and woofer rocking, boom bap beats, wobbling and tumbling low end and a wild array of vocal samples in a swaggering, club banger that feels tense and paranoid, as though its creator was aware of the fact that he’s being monitored every single moment of his life, whether he noticed or wanted it. Interestingly, along with scoring the soundtrack to Oliver Stone’s latest major motion picture Snowden, about the controversial Edward Snowden, who revealed a complicated and invasive governmental surveillance, “Mayday” is featured in the movie and the recently released video, which was created by collaborators LIL INTERNET and Susboy combines footage from Snowden with public global surveillance camera footage and some sobering facts about the NSA and their surveillance program. It should frighten the shit out of you.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the course of the six year history of this site, Berlin, Germany-based producer, electronic music artist, DJ and Boys Noize Records label head Alex Ridha, best known as Boys Noize has become one of this site’s earliest mainstay artists; in fact, his Out of the Black landed at number 8 on the site’s Best of List back in 2012. And since then, Ridha has been remarkably prolific as she’s collaborated in musical projects with internationally recognized mega-hit producer, electronic music artist and DJ Skillex and renowned pianist, composer, experimental pop artist and emcee Chilly Gonzales. Additionally, his label recently celebrated its tenth anniversary with a series of collaborative efforts featuring the work of a number of up-and-coming and renowned contemporary electronic music artists and producers including Tiga, Johnny Sack, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Atom TM, Pilo SCNTST and others.

Earlier this year, Ridha released “Overthrow,” a single that revealed the German producer, electronic music artist and DJ has expanded upon his signature sound — in this case, glitchy and chopped up samples, tweeter and woofer rattling bass and beats and enormous drops were paired with industrial clang and clatter and ominously swirling electronics in a song that stomped, strutted, swaggered and threw a vicious haymaker or two. “Euphoria,” which was released last month, sounded as though it drew from the legendary house music pioneer Larry Levan as a looped vocal sample was paired with skittering and propulsive drum programming and glitchy keyboard keys in a song that evoked a woozy rush of blood to the head. “Starchild,” a collaboration with indie electro pop sensation Poliça pairs vocalist Channy Leaneagh’s sultry and plaintive vocals with glitchy and stuttering beats, gentle cascades of twinkling and shimmering synths in what may arguably be Ridha’s moodiest and most pop-leaning single he’s released to date.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Hip-Hop and Classical Music Sounds of The Bay Area’s Ensemble Mik Nawooj

Formed and fronted by classical trained Korean composer and pianist JooWan Kim, the Bay Area-based hip-hop collective Ensemble Mik Nawooj  have received attention and praise from several media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, SF Weekly and East Bay […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

London-born, Birmingham-based producer and electronic music artist, Joe Flory. Flory’s musical career began with his first musical project, Primary 1. With the release of Primary 1′s No Thrills, Flory had a growing profile across the European Union as he had toured as a backing drummer with Chilly Gonzales and The Kaiser Quartett. His solo production and recording project. Amateur Best started in earnest when Flory relocated to Birmingham to fully concentrate on sharpening his songwriting and production skills.

So far, Flory’s solo recording project has been praised by the British blogosphere for a sound that compares favorably to  electro pop duo Cassius, the soundtrack work of Michael Nyman, as well as The Avalanches, David Sylvian and Ryuchi Nakamoto — although as I’ve mentioned from the release of “They Know,” the first single off his recently released The Gleaners and the recently released second single, “White Noise,” Flory’s sound reminds me much more of Barbarossa, as both singles pair Flory’s plaintive and ethereal vocals singing deeply confessional lyrics over skittering and propulsive beats, cascading and chiming synths and swirling electronics to craft material that sounds as though it’s delving deep into the fractured psyche of its narrator, who seems crippled by his own insecurities and doubt; however, in the case of “White Nose,” the song also manages to express an aching and urgent vulnerability, that you hear in Flory’s vocals — with hopeful air that belies the song’s existential dread.