Tag: dance punk

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Marseille’s Social Dance Shares Upbeat and Funky “Sometimes”

Formed back in 2020, Marseille, France-based electro pop trio Social Dance — Faustine, Thomas and Ange — are best friends and former roommates, who craft uninhibited and absurd pop inspired by their common experiences and complementary music tastes.

Their debut EP 2022’s Rumeurs featured material that was featured in the Netflix series Emily In Paris. As result of their music appearing in the hit Netflix series, the Marseille-based trio toured across Europe and Canada last year, playing over 70 shows.

The trio’s latest single “Sometimes” is their first single of 2024 — and the first bit of new material since their debut EP. “Sometimes” is a feel good slice of dance punk rooted in a euphoric, dance floor friendly groove featuring squiggling bursts of Nile Rodgers-like guitar, punchy, mathematically precise drum machine, angular bass lines paired with glistening synths serving as a sleek and supple bed for dueling bilingual boy and girl vocals that seems to channel LCD Soundsystem, JOVM mainstays Psymon Spine and others — while being remarkably mischievous.

The Wes Anderson-like accompanying video for “Sometimes” is a behind-the-scene look at the filming of the video for “Sometimes,” that begins with the production company ironing and preparing outfits for the trio, styling hair and makeup before they hit the set. During the shooting, we follow the boldly colored outfit trio rocking out and goofing along to the song. The video manages to capture the mischievous air of the trio and of the song — and in a way that’s adorable.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Light Beams Share Tense Yet Funky “Friendly”

Washington, D.C.-based post punk/dance punk outfit Light Beams — Justin Wm. Moyer (vocals), Sam Levine (drums), Arthur Noll (bass), along with newest members Leah Gage (vocals, percussion, samples) and Erin McCarley (vocals, percussion, samples) — will be releasing their third album Wild Life on Friday through legendary indie label Dischord Records in partnership with the band’s own imprint Mud Memory.

Wild Life is the first recorded output featuring the band as a quintet — with Gage and McCarley recruited to augment Lavine’s explosive drumming and Noll’s bass. Thematically, the album finds Moyer attempting to process his experience the protest, demonstrations and ultimately, the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol as a journalist on a Pulitzer Prize-winning team documenting the violent, chaotic and horrific experiences of that day. While being a collection of vignettes of post-Trump life, the album’s material also serves as a grand exploration of our current world at large.

The compulsion to tease meaning out of the everyday has long been the cornerstone of Light Beams’ overall aesthetic. But they also attempt to seek a future for punk in a new, increasingly dystopian century. As Light Beams’ Moyer says: “I can’t just do another guitar band after the genius of Beyoncé and Rihanna.”

The members of Light Beams have crafted a sound that they’ve dubbed “block rock” — their term for the sample-based approach they’ve developed and honed. The DC-based outfit have carved their own path, juxtaposing dark, lyrical themes against upbeat, polyrhythmic, danceable music. Their soon-to-be released album is a dauntless exploration of contemporary American life and reportedly, the most ambitious, fully-realized effort of their catalog to date.

Wild Life‘s latest single “Friendly” is a percussive and funky, ESG-meets-DFA Records-like track paired with shouted, call-and-response vocals. “Friendly” sees the DC-based outfit deftly unease and fear with dance floor friendly, hook-driven funk. The song is inspired by an encounter with a demonstrator, who confronted Moyer, while he was covering a demonstration outside the Supreme Court. The altercation quickly became threatening and physical. However, Moyer was able to defuse rather escalate the situation — hence, the title “Friendly.”

“I was covering a protest at the Supreme Court, interviewing a demonstrator who was very critical of the media. I had taken some photos of the scene and the protester started challenging me – physically challenging me – about my photos,” Moyer explains. “This person was getting very angry, and I was getting very angry. But I realized that the situation could be defused easily by, well, keeping things friendly. So I gave this person my phone and let him delete all the photos he objected to (which weren’t going to be published anyway). I thought this was a good outcome. I’m not always good at dealing with anger and, in a different part of my life, the argument might have ended a different way. This song is about that – and any situation where emotions threaten to get too big for the people experiencing them.”

Directed by Jonathan Howard, the accompanying video for “Friendly” features intimately shot footage of the band performing the song while on tour and in studio, and captures the band behind the scenes with long pans outward.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s Choses Sauvages Share Icy and Uneasy “Pression”

With the release of their Emmanuel Ethier-produced 2018 self-titled, full-length debut, Montréal-based dance punks Choses Sauvages — Totalement Sublime‘s Marc-Antoine Barbier (guitar), Theirry Malépart (keys), Tony Bélisle (keys), Philippe Gauthier-Boudreau (drums) and La Sécurité‘s Félix Bélisle (vocals) with Foreign Diplomats‘ and Frais Dispo‘s Charles Primeau (bass) as a touring member — exploded into the local and provincial scenes. The album was a critical and commercial success with the album topping Independent Radio Charts across Québec while receiving widespread critical applause. In 2019, the Montréal-based outfit landed Association Québécoise de l’industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video (ADISQ) Félix Award nominations for Alternative Album of the Year and Indie Rock Album of the year, with a Félix Award win for Indie Rock Album of the Year.

Over the course of 2019, the quintet along with touring bassist Charles Primeau supported their full-length debut with a relentless touring schedule across the province. And through this tour, the band quickly developed a reputation for a must-see live show that they’ve since brought across the global festival circuit, including stops at Reeperbahn, MaMA, FIMPRO, SXSW, Le Printemps de Bourges and Wide Days.

2021’s Choses Sauvages II saw the French Canadian outfit boldly pushing their sound more towards electronic dance music and nu-disco influences like L’Imperatice and Lindstrøm while still drawing from their love of funk, Bowie and Bee Gees while balancing a rigorous and meticulous songwriting approach with a rebellious spirit.

The acclaimed Montréal-based outfit’s latest single “Pression” (“pressure” in French) sees them continuing a new trend of pushing their sound into new directions. Sonically, “Pression” features a unique blend of their long-held disco punk sound with glistening and icy techno-like synth oscillations and subtle LCD Soundsystem/New York 00s indie dance punk scene nods. While being rooted in a dance floor friendly groove, the song possesses an underlying tense, unease air that should feel familiar to those prone to overthinking and self-doubt.

“At its core, ‘Pression’ is all about the anxiety and the sense of paranoia that accompanies it whenever you’re looking to prove yourself,” the band explains. “It’s that sense of feeling like you try and try but never quite succeed to hit that nail on the head. Even with how amazing this year has been, from making quite a bit of buzz at SXSW 2023 to embarking on our first-ever large-scale tour in the United States, that anxiety-induced ‘pressure’ still lingers.”

Directed by Philippe Beausejour, the accompanying video for “Pression” employs a distinct style through the application of several different animation techniques — i.e. paper cutouts, computer graphics, hand drawings and rotoscoping — and then processing the final video onto VHS, which creates a dated feel while translating the song’s anxious air into visual unsteadiness.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past year or so, emerging London-dance punk/post-punk duo Shelf Lives — Sabrina Di Guilio and Jonny Hillyard — have released a handful of singles that have seen them quickly earn comparisons to Le Tigre, CSS, Sleigh Bells and others.

The British duo’s latest single “Off The Rails” is a dance punk/post punk ripper built around a frantic and propulsive beat, squiggly synths, scorching, angular guitar attack paired with Di Guilio’s sultry cooing and feral shouts. It’s a winning and irresistible mix of sultry and sleazy reminiscent of Is Is EP-era Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Ting Tings but rooted in incisive, satirical social commentary.

“In our current era, we stand fully aware that consumerism fails to fullfil our genuine needs,” the members of Shelf Lives explain. “Despite this knowledge, we remain fiercely hooked, unable to let go. The notion that was intended to make us feel exceptional actually leaves us feeling ordinary and in this perpetual cycle of wanting more. The track is that moment of realisation that we can’t ‘fall off the rails’ because despite all of the ‘stuff’ we buy into we’re still ‘none in a million’ The problem is we hesitate to be the first to abandon the obsession in fear that we’ll be the only one and end up feeling isolated anyway.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Sécurité Shares Defiant Feminist Anthem “Hot Topic”

Montréal-based art punk quintet La Sécurité features a collection of acclaimed local players, with the band featuring current and past members of Choses Sauvages, Laurence-Anne, Silver Dapple, DATES, Pressure Pin, and others. Since their formation last year, the Canadian quintet have quickly developed and cemented their sound and approach: Meandering around the fringes of punk, New Wave and krautrock, the quintet’s take on art punk pairs jumpy beats, off-kilter arrangements and minimalistic yet melodic hooks, run through an insomniac filter. And while their music is razor sharp and danceable, their lyrical content is rooted in the feminist community-centric ethos of the Riot Grrrl movement. “It’s not just fun and games… it also bites. It’s catchy earworms delivered with a punk attitude,” guitarist Melissa Di Menna says. 

In a relatively short period of time, La Securité has quickly made a name for themselves in both the national and international scene: They’ve been invited to play at SXSW, FME, Phoque Off, Taverne Tour and DISTORSION Psych Fest, and they’ve shared stages with Automatic, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, TVOD, Margaritas Podridas, CIVIC, and Duchess Says. Building upon a growing profile, the French Canadian quintet’s highly-anticipated Samuel Gemme-produced full-length debut, Stay Safe! is slated for a Friday release through Mothland. 

Recorded at Gamma Recording Studio, Stay Safe! reportedly features songs that are manic yet surprisingly laid-back, empowering and urgent, reflective yet melancholy — all while mischievously flouting stylistic form every chance they can get. 

In the lead-up to the rising Canadian outfit’s highly-anticipated fully-length debut, I’ve managed to write about two singles:

  • “Anyway,” a scorcher built around buzzing and slashing power chords, a chugging motorik groove, bombastic hooks and choruses paired with a cooler-than-you swagger. But underneath the frenetic energy is a song informed by a deeply personal yet universal and super heavy subject: “This song was written in the early stages of dealing with grief related to miscarriage and pleads a sort of surrender to the strain it can put on a couple processing it,” La Securité’s vocalist Éliane Viens-Synnott explains in press notes. 

  • “Serpent,” a track that sees the Montréal-based post punk outfit quickly locking into the sort of dance punk groove that brings Echoes-era The Rapture and early LCD Soundsystem to mind paired with insistent shaker-driven percussion, twinkling keys, the collective’s unerring knack for dance floor friendly hooks and choruses and lyrics — in French — describing friend group drama. The song is a cheeky and sarcastic ode to complicated friendships that despite the language is very familiar. As the band puts it, “The person it is directed towards loves dancing. It’s a pretty dancy song. We hope they dance to it.” 

Stay Safe‘s third and latest single “Hot Topic” is built around a lurching yet dance floor friendly, DEVO-like grove paired with slashing bursts of guitar, twinkling bursts of keys and off-kilter percussion paired with Viens-Synnott’s defiant yet wry, shouted vocals — presumably at a clueless cis-het dude, who can’t quite get the hint.

The song’s arrangement was initially written to score an extended avant-garde dance piece also titled “Hot Topic,” choreographed by the band’s Viens-Synnott and shot in a single, continuous take. “The concept was to choreograph a dance piece to be shot as a sequence to capture the ephemeral elements present in performing arts,” Viens-Synnott explains in press notes. “Drawing influences from the Riot Grrrl movement, I created a dance piece where five women take up all the space on a dancefloor, unapologetically. We can dress how we want, enjoy our night out however that looks for us and we don’t care what you think.”

After completing the piece, the band edited down the song into the version that ultimately appears on their soon-to-be released debut. And the accompanying video is also, an abridged version of the original dance piece. (For this post, the music video is above the main text of this post, the short film is below the main text. Both are a trippy experience.) The song, the short film and the video are a testament to the Montréal-based band’s unique nature as a collaborative, artistically open group with varied and differing creative ambitions and entanglements — and in a fashion seemingly similar to that of JOVM mainstays La Femme.
 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Dream Wife Shares Furious Dance Punk Anthem “Social Lubrication”

London-based punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Dream Wife — Rakel Mjöll (vocals) (she/her), Alice Go (guitar, vocals) (she/her) and Bella Podapec (bass, vocals) (they/them) — will be releasing their highly anticipated and long-awaited third album Social Lubrication through Lucky Number on Friday.

Throughout their career, the trio has been remarkably adept at merging the political and the playful, and Social Lubrication further cements that reputation. Forceful, vital statements are hidden within hot and heavy dance floor friendly anthems about making out, having fun and staying curious. In the JOVM mainstay act’s words, the album is: “Hyper lusty rock and roll with a political punch, exploring the alchemy of attraction, the lust for life, embracing community and calling out the patriarchy. With a healthy dose of playfulness and fun thrown in.”

There is a sense of fun and openness that is central to Social Lubrication, as well. “There’s a lot of lust in this album and taking the piss out of yourself and everyone you know,” Rakel Mjöll says. “It’s almost quite juvenile in that way.”

“The album is speaking to systemic problems that cannot be glossed over by lube,” Dream Wife’s Bella Podpadec says. “The things named in the songs are symptoms of f-ed up structures. And you can’t fix that. You need to pull it apart.”

Perhaps more than ever, the live show is at the core of the album and its material. “The live show is the truth of the band,” Alice Go says. “That’s at the heart of what we do and of the statements we’re making.” For the members of Dream Wife — and of any band, really — the live show is where the band and fans can come together in a shared moment of community. And to that end, the album is a celebration of community and a big ol’ middle finger to the social barriers that are enforced to sever connection, playfulness, curiosity and sexual empowerment. “Music is one of the only forms of people experiencing an emotion together in a visceral, physical, real way,” says Go. “It’s cathartic to the systemic issues that are being called out across the board in the record. Music isn’t the cure, but it’s the remedy. That’s what Social Lubrication is: the positive glue that can create solidarity and community.” 

An energetic, pedal-to-the-metal sound explodes through the album’s material. And you can hear it the loud, dirty riffs and shout-along worthy choruses specifically crafted for shaking asses, bouncing around and yelling joyously in shared spaces with friends and strangers. For the band’s Go, who produced the album, it was important to capture and bottle that joyful, frenetic feeling the band’s members all felt. “We wanted to get that rawness and energy across in a way that hadn’t been done before,” she says. 

 In the lead-up to Social Lubrication‘s release next month, I’ve written about four of the album’s released singles to date: 

  • “Leech,” an urgent, post-punk inspired ripper that saw the band’s Mjöll alternating between spoken-word-like delivery for the song’s verses and feral shouting for the song’s choruses. Mjöll’s vocal delivery is paired with an alternating song structure that features looping and wiry guitar bursts for the song’s verses and explosive, power chord-driven riffage for the song’s choruses. The song is a tense, uneasy and forceful, mosh pit friendly anthem for our uncertain, fucked up time, that addresses the inherent double standards of power — while urgently calling for more empathy.” 

  • “Hot (Don’t Date A Musician),” a Gang of Four-like, tongue-in-cheek ripper inspired by Mjöll’s grandmother’s sage advice — despite the fact that she herself, dated many musicians in her day — while wryly poking fun at musicians and the music adjacent, the band included. “Dating musicians is a nightmare,” Mjöll explains. “Evoking imagery of late night make-outs with fuckboy/girl/ambiguously-gendered musicians on their mattress after being seduced by song-writing chat. The roles being equally reversed. Having a laugh together and being able to poke fun at ourselves is very much at the heart of this band. This song encapsulates our shared sense of humour. Sonically it is the lovechild of CSS and Motorhead. It has our hard, live, rock edge combined with cheeky and playful vocals.”

  • “Orbit,” a dance punk ripper. built around a a propulsive disco-inspired post punk rhythm, bursts of wiry guitars paired with enormous hooks and Mjöll’s sultry rock goddess-like delivery that recalls Fever to Tell-era Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Echoes-era The Rapture and LCD Soundsystem among others. Much like its predecessor, the song is fun and rooted in a sense of youthful adventure and possibility. “Written through the joy of jamming together and locking into the groove like a multi limbed space age organism, ‘Orbit’ has a dance rock edge from the early noughties of bands like New Young Pony Club and Yeah Yeah Yeahs,” the band explains. “Lyrically, it was inspired by post-lockdown London coming back to life and sharing a space through friendship and community. And how each day you never know what’s in store for you or how a stranger can become someone close to you – for a day, a heartbeat, a phase, or a lifetime.” 

  • “Who Do You Wanna Be” the album’s fourth single continues a remarkable run of scuzzy post punk rippers built around slashing power chords, relentless four-on-the-floor and rousingly anthemic, shout-along worthy choruses paired with Mjöll’s delivery, which sees her alternating between flirty and bitterly sarcastic within a turn of a phrase. The song sees the band taking on capitalism and faux-activism — with a lived-in annoyance and bemusement. As they explain, the song is “about running on the capitalist treadmill and falling face first on the pavement. Hollow slogans, social media activism without action, leftist infighting, monetising feminism, ‘girl boss,’ all soul crushing nonsense. Capitalism consumes everything. We should tear down the unreachable, anxiety filled idea of perfectionism, and move from hyper individualised narrative to collective action to create hopeful, rebellious, collective, systems of care. This is a call to arms for change.” 

Album title track “Social Lubrication” is the final single ahead of its release on Friday. Built around wiry guitar blasts, relentless four-on-the-floor and a driving, forceful rhythm section paired with Mjöll’s fed up delivery and the JOVM mainstay’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic, shout-along worthy hooks, “Social Lubrication” continues the album’s overall dance punk with social message aesthetic. In the case of the new single, it’s meant as a rallying call against the patriarchy while they call out unsolicited advice and gendered violence.

“Exhausted. Done with being polite, done with sugar coating, placating, and pandering to patriarchal bullshit. Wanting to just exist, in this body without being pigeon-holed or judged for the bodies we exist in. Do the job well. Show up. Not play other people’s games. You can’t fix something rotten to the core – we need revolution not reform,” the JOVM says of the new track.

The single is accompanied by a self-made video from the band that’s features influences spanning from their album art to the opening sequence from Yellow Jackets and more. And as a result, the video possesses an absurdist, almost Public Access TV-like air that fits the grainy VHS-styled quality of it all.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Choses Sauvages Share Mind-Bending Visual for Trance-Inducing and Funky Bop “Conseil solaire”

With the release of their Emmanuel Ethier-produced 2018 self-titled, full-length debut, the Montreal dance punk outfit Choses Sauvages — Totalement Sublime‘s Marc-Antoine Barbier (guitar), Theirry Malépart (keys), Tony Bélisle (keys), Philippe Gauthier-Boudreau (drums) and Félix Bélisle (vocals, bass) — exploded into the local and provincial scenes: The album was released to widespread critical applause across the province while landing a a Félix Award nomination for Alternative Album of the Year at the 2019 Association Québécoise de l’industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video (ADISQ) and winning a Felix Félix Award for the Indie Rock Album of the Year. The album also topped the Independent Radio Charts across the province. 

The following year, the quintet along with friend and touring member, Foreign Diplomats‘ Charles Primeau (bass), supported their self-titled album with a relentless your schedule that saw them literally playing every joint and festival stage across the province. But by doing so, they developed a reputation for an explosive live show. And adding to a growing profile across the province, the Montreal-based dance punk outfit toured with acclaimed act Half Moon Run. 

Choses Sauvages sophomore album, Choses Sauvages II was released last year, and the album saw the rising French Canadian outfit boldly pushing their sound towards electronic and nu-disco influences, like L’Imperatice and Lindstrøm while still drawing from their love of funk, Bowie and Bee Gees. The album’s material also sees the band balancing a rigorous and meticulous songwriting approach with their long-held rebellious spirit.

Last year, I wrote about album single “Chambre d’écho” is a slinky Duran Duran meets Talking Heads banger centered around squiggling Nile Rodgers-like guitar, handclaps, a sinuous bass line, glistening synths, propulsive four-on-the-floor and an enormous, arena rock friendly hook. It’s the sort of song that will make you long for strobe-lit dance floors and sweaty clubs dancing the night — and your concerns — away. 

Just before the rising French Canadian outfit is about to jet off to Paris for this year’s MaMA Festival, the band shared a video for “Conseil Solaire,” a sleek, trance-inducing bop centered around glistening synth arpeggios, wah wah pedaled guitar, bursts of gorgeous flute, and a motorik groove paired with dreamy and ethereal vocals and the band’s unerring knack for infectious hook. To my ears “Conseil Solaire” seems like a slick and breezy synthesis of Kraftwerk, DBFC, and Duran Duran — but perhaps even more dance floor friendly.

Directed by the band’s Marc-Antoine Barbier, the accompanying video mixes reality and fantasy in a seamless fashion: “Inspired by the natural monoliths of the St. Lawrence archipelagos, the clip takes place in a river environment where we follow the sectarian dance of a group celebrating the sun,” Barbier explains. The small group of followers perform a jerky dance routine while the members of Choses Sauvages look on passively, until the explosive climax of the ceremony.