Tag: Coldplay

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Up-and-Coming Leeds, UK-based Band Koyo Returns with an Arena Rock-Friendly New Single

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the first few months of this year, you may recall a post featuring the Leeds-based indie rock quintet KOYO. Comprised of Kettering, UK-born, Leeds-based founding members Huw Edwards (lead vocals, guitar) and Jacob Price (synths and samplers) along with Seb Knee-Wright (guitar), Dan Comlay (bass) and Tom Hingham (drums). the up-and-coming British indie rock act have received attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere for a sound that reportedly draws from n across the blogosphere for a sound that draws from 90s grunge and alt rock and from Edwards’ and Price’s parents’ classic rock and prog rock-heavy record collections, as well as the electronica and post rock sounds of Floating Points, JOVM mainstays Mogwai and Brian Eno — but manages to sound as though it nodded at the work of Tame Impala, Wish You Were Here and The Wall-era Pink Floyd, 90125-era Yes and Radiohead as you would have heard on “Tetrochromat,” the album title track and first single off the band’s forthcoming full-length debut Tetrochromat.

The album’s latest single “Lost in the Kingdom” continues in a similar vein as its preceding single as it clearly draws from prog rock and art rock while being remarkably accessible, thanks in part to a rousingly Brit Pop-like hook; however, “Lost in the Kingdom” may arguably be one of the most ambitious and adventurous songs the up-and-coming British band may have written and released to date. In fact, the song sounds as though the band actively were trying to write an arena rock anthem that nodded at the likes of U2, Coldplay and others, while retaining a buzzy psychedelia.

Filmed and edited by Barry Hoffman at Soundyoucansee with additional footage by Joseph Burn and Joseph Burn Video Production and Kayla Cosgrove at Loving Lotus, the recently released music video for “Lost in the Kingdom” employs kaleidoscopic footage shot in the desert, superimposed with footage of the band performing the song, followed by other surreal and dream like imagery — and it’s done in a way that sort of reminds me Candlebox’s “Far Behind” and others.

World Music by William Ruben Helms

Preview: Secret Solstice Festival 2017

With its inaugural run back in 2014, Reykjavik, Iceland’s Secret Solstice Festival has quickly become one of Iceland’s largest music festivals, featuring a diverse and eclectic array of established and internationally recognized artists, locally renowned acts and up-and-coming artists from all over the globe, performing in one of the most unique backdrops in the entire world – the roughly 72 hour period of near constant daylight Iceland experiences during the Summer Solstice, because of its proximity to the Arctic Circle. (After all, Reykjavik is the northernmost capital and administrative region of the northernmost country in the entire world.) Building upon its growing reputation as one of the world’s most unique music festivals, the fourth edition of the festival may arguably be one of the biggest and most diverse lineups to date as it includes Foo Fighters, Rick Ross, the UK electronic act The Prodigy, The Verve’s former frontman Richard Ashcroft, Pharoahe Monch, Chaka Khan, Foreign Beggars, Dubfire, Novelist, Rhye, Dusky and Chicago house music artist Kerri Chandler. Along with those artists, some of Iceland’s renowned acts, including Högni, Úlfur Úlfur, Amabadama, Emmsjé Gauti, GKR, Tiny, Aron Can, KSF, and Alvia Islandia will be performing. And adding to the 72 hour party vibe, the festival’s organizers have planned a series of electronic dance music takeovers and showcases featuring some of the world’s best party crews – including Ibiza’s Circoloco, Above & Beyond Records’ deep house imprint Ajunadeep Records’ dance floor collective Crew Love, ATG and Dubfire’s SCI+TEC among others.
Interestingly, for the second consecutive year, Secret Solstice is currently the only major music festival in the world to be certified CarbonNeutral®, as the festival sources almost all of their power needs from the use 100% renewable geothermal energy, hybrid vehicles provided by Toyota Iceland – and from offsetting any residual emissions through the purchase of high quality, verified carbon credits. Unlike any other festival I’ve attended or heard of, festivalgoers and artists alike can know that they’re being environmentally responsible while partying and catching some of the world’s most interesting artists. Of course, during a multi-day festival like Secret Solstice, it’s difficult and damn near impossible to catch everyone and everything, so consider me as a helpful guide – with some information on artists I’d love to catch while in Reykjavik.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: JOVM Mainstay Nick Murphy Performing “Fear Less” at Brixton Academy

Over the past couple of years, I’ve written quite a bit about the Melbourne, Australia-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and producer Nick Murphy, who for the first few years of his tremendous run of internationally acclaimed success went under the moniker Chet Faker. Last year, Murphy announced that after a lengthy run with Chet Faker, he felt it was time to retire it — and to record new material that reflected a change in sonic direction. Interestingly, with the atmospheric “Fear Less,” shimmering arpeggio synths, stuttering drumming, an insistent and throbbing bass line and an anthemic hook form a chilly and dramatic bed, with which Murphy’s plaintive and tender falsetto floats above. And whereas his previously released material drew heavily from soul and electro pop, “Fear Less” draws from the likes of Coldplay, U2 and others — while retaining the deeply personal and visceral songwriting that has won him international attention.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Haunting Visuals and Sounds of Tinariwen’s “Tenere Taqqal” Captures a Rapidly Disappearing Way of Life

Interestingly, Tinariwen’s forthcoming full-length effort Elwan (which translates into English as The Elephants) is slated for a February 10, 2017 release, and the album thematically focuses both on the disappearing traditions of the Tuareg people and of being forced into exile — oddly enough as the members of the band were touring the world. And the album’s gorgeous first single “Tenere Taqqal” possesses an understated longing for a way of life and for a home, which as Thomas Wolfe wisely suggested they can never return to and will never get back. And yet there’s a tacit acknowledgment that life must continue onward and that they have a profoundly important duty of ensuring that something of the old traditions can be preserved and passed on to future generations. As a result, the single while being slow-burning and brooding also manages to possess an understated, quiet urgency — all while feeling older than time itself. Every time, I’ve listened to this track I can picture sitting among the Tuareg or the Bedouins at a campfire, as they tell tales of creation or of the great mystics and teachers, who have led flocks of faithful . .

The recently released animated video was directed by Axel Digoix and it vividly depicts the desert’s harshness, cruelty and beauty, and the profound spiritual and physical connection that the Tuareg people have towards it, while pointing out that their traditions and their world is being violently torn apart.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Founded by Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, Tinariwen can trace their origins back to the mid and late 1970s when Alhabib, who had been inspired to learn the guitar from an old Western film, in which a cowboy played a guitar, joined other Tuareg rebels living in refugee camps in Libya and Algeria, who were exploring the radical chaabi protest music of Moroccan groups like Nass El Ghiwane and Jil Jilala; Algerian pop rai; and western artists like Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, Carlos Santana, Dire Straits, Jimi Hendrix, Boney M, and Bob Marley.

While in Tamanrasset, Algeria, Ag Alhabib started a band with Alhassane Ag Touhami and brothers Inteyeden Ag Ablil and Liya Ag Ablil, and they began playing the traditional sounds of the Taureg people at weddings and parties across Algeria and Libya. Interestingly, when they started, the band had no official name but people began calling them Kel Tinariwen, which in the Tamashek language translates roughly as “The People of the Deserts” or “The Desert Boys.”

In 1980, Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi released a decree inviting all young Tuareg men, who were living illegally in Libya to receive full military training, as part of his dream of forming a Saharan regiment, comprised of the best young Tuareg fighters to further his territorial ambitions in Chad, Niger, and elsewhere across Northern Africa. Al Alhabib and his bandmates answered the call and received military training. They answered a similar call in 1985, by leaders of the Libyan Tuareg movement and wound up meeting fellow musicians Keddou Ag Ossade, Mohammed Ag Itlale (aka “Japonais”), Sweiloum Ag Alhousseyni, Abouhadid Ag Alhousseyni, and Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni — all who had sang and played guitar. The musicians joined together in a collective — now known across the world as Tinariwen — in order to write songs about the issues facing their people, built a makeshift stood and vowed to record music for free for anyone who supplied a blank cassette tape. And naturally, as a result their homemade cassette tape series  were highly sought after, and were traded throughout Saharan Africa. (It’s also incredibly punk — perhaps more punk, than anything most Western artists could ever come up with.)

In 1989. the members of the collective had left Libya and relocated to Ag Alhabib’s birthplace of Tessalit, Mali; however, by the next year Mail’s Tuareg population revolted against the Malian government, with some members of the collective participating as rebel fighters. After a peace agreement known as the Tamanrasset Accords were reached in early 1991, the  members of Tinariwen left the military and devoted themselves to music full-time — and by 1992, some of the members of the collective were to Abidjan, Ivory Coast to record a cassette at JBZ Studios, and they occasionally played gigs for far-flung Tuareg communities throughout Saharan Africa, which helped the band gain word-of-mouth popularity among their people.

Tinariwen started to receive international attention after they had began collaborating with the renowned French world music ensemble Lo’Jo — with the result being the highly acclaimed 2001 Festival au Desert in Essakane, Mali. Greater attention came to the band when the play their first UK performance at that country’s largest, free African festival, Africa Oye. And the year was topped by the release of their full-length debut, The Radio Tisdas Sessions, their first recording to be released outside of their native Northern Africa. Coincidentally, this has gone on as the collective has gone through some lineup changes, incorporating a younger generation of Tuareg musicians, musicians who didn’t live during some of the military conflicts of the older generation, including bassist Eyadou Ag Leche, percussionist Said Ag Ayad, guitarist Elaga Ag Hamid, guitarist Abdallah Ag Lamida, and vocalists Wonou Walet Sidati and the Walet Oumar sisters.

As the collective has started to see greater international attention, they’ve toured regularly across the European Union, North America, Japan and Australia, often playing at some of the world’s biggest and highly renowend music festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella, Roskilde, Les Vieilles Charrues, WOMAD, FMM Sines and Printemps de Bourges. And they’ve won over an incredible list of celebrity fans and champions including Carlos Santana, Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, U2‘s Bono and The Edge, Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke, Coldplay‘s Chris Martin, Henry Rollins, Brian Eno, and TV on the Radio, among others. And it shouldn’t be surprising because of their hauntingly gorgeous music rooted in the poetry and traditions of the tough, rebellious people of Northern Africa — and in some way, the material captures the vast expanse of the desert as their sound seems to arch heavenward . . .

At the end of last year, the members of Tinariwen played a show in Paris and invited the legendary grand dame of Tamashek culture, Lalla Badi, one of Tuareg culture’s beloved master of the tinde, which is both a percussive instrument covered by taut goatskin, played by women and a poetic repertoire sung at ceremonies and special and intimate occasions. Not only is she considered the paradigm of Tuareg femininity, she has also long been an outspoken advocate for Tuareg culture and causes, as well as being a mentor to the members of Tinariwen in their early incarnation. The end result was a live recording of their Paris show, Live in Paris slated for a November 20 release through Anti- Records.

The first single off the live album “Tinde Final Tinariwen” is a hauntingly gorgeous track that begins with droning guitar chords, propulsive percussion and a collection of male vocals crying and chanting before Badi’s regal vocals joining in on a composition that marries ancient traditions with contemporary sound. Indeed, there’s a forcefulness to the composition but it arches heavenward with lilting, trance inducing beauty that’s awe-inspiring.