Tag: David Bowie Station to Station

Video by William Ruben Helms

New VIdeo: Follow St. Vincent on a Gritty 70s Inspired Heist

Initially starting her professional career as a member of The Polyphonic Spree and as a touring member of Sufjan Stevens’ touring band, the Tulsa-born, New York-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Annie Clark stepped out into the limelight as a solo artist and frontperson with her acclaimed project St. Vincent. Since the release of 2007’s full-length debut Marry Me, Clark’s work has continued to grow in stature and complexity with her self-titled fourth album winning a 2014 Grammy for Best Alternative Album, making her only the second female artist to ever win in that category.

Along with her work as a solo artist, Clark has collaborated with the legendary David Byrne on 2012’s Love This Giant, performed with the living members of Nirvana at the 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony and da 2019 Grammy Awards duet with Dua Lipa.

Clark collaborated with co-producer Jack Antonoff on 2017’s critically applauded, smash hit album MASSEDUCATION, an album that landed on both the US and UK Top 10 Charts while landing at #1 of the Best of 2017 list of The New York Times and The Guardian — and placing high on the Best of 2017 lists of The AV Club, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, Mashable, New York Daily News, NME, Paste, Pitchfork, Q, Stereogum, USA Today and a length list of others. 2018’s MassEducation found Clark collaborating with pianist Thomas Bartlett: Recorded over two nights in August 2017, the effort found Clark stripping back MASSEDUCATION’s material to its bare bones, revealing the vulnerable and earnest songwriting at their core.

MASSEDUCATION’s title track won a Grammy for Best Rock Song with the album winning another Grammy for Best Recording Package in 2019. As she was celebrating an enviable run of critical and commercial success, Clark’s father was released from prison. Clark began writing a new batch of materials which would become her soon-to-be released seventh album, Daddy’s Home. Daddy’s Home thematically closes the loop the loop on a journey that began with her father’s incarceration back in 2019 — and it ultimately led her back to the vinyl records her dad had introduced her when she was child — the gritty and sleazy rock records written and recorded in New York between 1971-1975.

Interestingly, Daddy’s Home’s latest single, “Down” is centered around a groove that’s simultaneously sultry and anxious with the track evoking images of the legendarily sleazy New York: in this case, a coke and booze fueled bender that starts at the local bar, features a stop at CBGB’s or Max’s Kansas City to see Blondie or Ramones before heading off to Studio 54. Warhol is somewhere in this picture, right? Now, while some critics have compared the album’s overall aesthetic and sound to Young Americans-era Bowie and Prince, “Down” to my ears reminds me more of Station to Station and Lodger-era Bowie. It’s far more anxious and murkier with a bit of menace seeping through.

Co-directed by Clark and Bill Benz, the recently released video features Clark in Candy Darling-like regalia through an anxious chase that’s one part French Connection and one part drug-fueled, paranoid fever dream. It fits the song’s careening and glitchy groove perfectly.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Blinker The Star Goes on a Cosmic Dance Off

Throughout the course of this year, I’ve managed to spill quite a bit of a virtual ink covering Blinker The Star, led by its Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind, Jordon Zadorozny.

As you may recall after completing a short run of live shows last fall, Zadorozny began working on new Blinker The Star material at this Skylark Park Studio. Interestingly, the solitude of his immediate environment helped informed the material, which eventually comprised his soon-to-be released ninth album Juvenile Universe. “Because the scent of my last album was still fresh in the air, I had been thinking of this album as sort of a continuation of the last one, but when I played it for friends, they all thought it was definitely a step forward,” the Pembroke-born and-based JOVM says in press notes.

So far, i’ve written about four of the album’s previously released singles: The Station to Station-era David Bowie-like “Way Off Wave,” the jangling, 70s rock-like “Only To Run Wild,” the 80s New Wave-like “Silent Types,” and the psych rock-like “Cairo,” which features a gorgeous string arrangement by Chris Church.

Building up buzz for the soon-to-be released album, Zadorozny recently released Juvenile Universe’s fifth and latest single, the brooding yet radio friendly New Wave-inspired “Terror of the Heart.” Centered around shimmering guitars, a propulsive and angular bass line and an decidedly 80s inspired drum sound, “Terror of the Heart” evokes the anxiousness and uncertainty of love — and the inevitable fear of heartbreak and rejection.

Directed by Rémi Frechette, the recently released video for “Terror of the Heart” stars Camille Cloutier as a gorgeous, sun-bather and Blinker The Star’s Jordon Zadorozny as an interstellar astronaut, who have a meet-cute and trippy cosmic dance off after Zadorozny’s spaceship crash lands. The video ends with another spaceship that comes to beam our interstellar traveler up and out.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Blinker the Star · Cairo

Over the past handful of months, I’ve written quite a bit about Jordon Zadorozny, the Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind acclaimed indie rock recording project Blinker The Star. Now, as you may recall, Zadorozny initially started the project as a solo recording project that quickly expanded into a full-fledged band for their first two albums 1995’s self-titled debut and 1996’s A Bourgeois Kitten, which were released through A&M Records. And during those first few years, Zadorozny and company built up a national profile through steady touring.

Back in 1997, Zadorozny relocated from Montreal to Los Angeles, where he worked with Courtney Love, helping craft songs for Hole’s acclaimed and commercially successful album Celebrity Skin. While in Los Angeles, Zadorozny began soaking up new influences and became increasingly fascinated with production. Signing with Dreamworks in 1999, the band, which at the time featured Zadorozny, Failure’s Kelli Scott (drums), longtime bassist Pete Frolander and a rotating cast of Southern California-based session musicians recorded and released their critically applauded third album August Everywhere, which they supported with touring across North America with Our Lady Peace, Sloan, Failure and The Flaming Lips. 

Returning back to Pembroke in 2002, Zadorozny built his first commercial recording studio and began working with Sam Roberts, contributing drums and producing Roberts’ breakthrough debut EP The Inhuman Condition. Zadorozny also worked on albums by Melisa Auf der Maur, Chris Cornell, Lindsey Buckingham and others. During the Winter of 2003, Zadorozny wrote and recorded Blinker The Star’s fourth album Still In Rome as a duo with Kelli Scott. Following a brief tour to support the album, the Pembroke, Ontario-born multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter quickly settled into the production side of the things working with an electric array of artists, including collaborative projects like Digital Noise Academy, SheLoom,  The Angry Moon, and others.

2012’s fourth album, We Draw Lines was the first Blinker The Star album that Zadorozny wrote and recorded as a solo recording project since he started the project over a decade earlier.  And interestingly enough, We Draw Lines began a rather prolific period that included 2013’s Songs from Laniakea Beach, a one-off single “Future Fires,” 2015’s 11235 EP, 2017’s 8 of Hearts and last year’s Careful With Your Magic.

After completing a short run of shows last fall, Zadorozny began working working on new material at his Skylark Park Studio. The solitude of his environment helped inform his forthcoming Blinker The Star album Juvenile Universe, which is slated for release this summer. So far I’ve written about three of the album’s singles: the Station to Station-era David Bowie-like “Way Off Wave,” the jangling, 70s rock-like “Only To Run Wild,” and the 80s New Wave-like “Silent Types.” Juvenile Universe‘s fourth and latest single is the, anthemic  “Cairo.” Centered around jangling power chords, an enormous hook and a shimmering string arrangement and droning “Cairo” continues an incredible run of deliberate crafted yet ambitious material — but while arguably being the most psych leaning song of the Blinker the Star catalog.

Much like the rest of Juvenile Universe‘s material, the basic tracks were completed alone at Skylark Studio before they were sent to string arranger Chris Church. “I asked Chris if he’d ever heard any Egyptian orchestral music, like the kind you might hear in the back of a cab in Montreal at 4am. Quite virtuosic stuff. I was floored with what he came up with,” Zadorozny says in press notes. “‘Also present on the track via home studios are Bob Wilcox and The Posies‘ Ken Stringfellow on backing vocals, SheLoom bandmate Filippo Gaetani on Melotron, and Jarek Leskiewizc contributing ambient done guitar.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Blinker the Star · Silent Types

I’ve written quite a bit about Jordon Zadorozny, the Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind acclaimed indie rock recording project Blinker The Star over the past few months. Zadorozny initially started the project as a solo project but by the time the  act signed to A&M Records, the project expanded into a full-fledged band for their first two albums — 1995’s self-titled debut and 1996’s A Bourgeois Kitten. During those early years, the band built up a profile nationally and elsewhere through steady touring.

In 1997, Zadorozny relocated from Montreal to Los Angeles, where he worked with Courtney Love, helping craft songs for Hole’s acclaimed and commercially successful album Celebrity Skin. While in Los Angeles, Zadorozny began soaking up new influences and became increasingly fascinated with production. Signing with Dreamworks in 1999, the band, which at the time featured Zadorozny, Failure’s Kelli Scott (drums), longtime bassist Pete Frolander and a rotating cast of Southern California-based session musicians recorded and released their critically applauded third album August Everywhere, which they supported with touring across North America with Our Lady Peace, Sloan, Failure and The Flaming Lips. 

Returning back to Pembroke in 2002, Zadorozny built his first commercial recording studio and began working with Sam Roberts, contributing drums and producing Roberts’ breakthrough debut EP The Inhuman Condition. Zadorozny also worked on albums by Melisa Auf der Maur, Chris Cornell, Lindsey Buckingham and others.

During the Winter of 2003, Zadorozny wrote and recorded Blinker The Star’s fourth album Still In Rome as a duo with Kelli Scott. Following a brief tour to support the album, the Pembroke, Ontario-born multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter quickly settled into the production side of the things working with an electric array of artists, including collaborative projects like Digital Noise Academy, SheLoom,  The Angry Moon, and others.

2012’s fourth album, We Draw Lines was the first Blinker The Star album that Zadorozny wrote and recorded as a solo recording project since he started the project over a decade earlier.  Interestingly, We Draw Lines began a rather prolific period that included 2013’s Songs from Laniakea Beach, a one-off single “Future Fires,” 2015’s 11235 EP, 2017’s 8 of Hearts and last year’s Careful With Your Magic.

After completing a short run of shows last fall, Zodorozny began working working on new material at his Skylark Park Studio. The solitude of his environment helped inform his forthcoming Blinker The Star album Juvenile Universe, which is slated for release this summer. So far, I’ve written about two of the album’s singles — the Station to Station-era David Bowie-like “Way Off Wave,” and the jangling, 70s rock-like “Only To Run Wild.” The album’s third and latest single, “Silent Type” is a decidedly 80s New Wave-inspired track, featuring shimmering synth arpeggios, glistening and angular guitars, a propulsive bass line and an enormous hook that reminds me a little bit of  Yes‘ “Owner of Lonely Heart.” But under the slick radio friendly production, the track continues a run of ambitious and deliberately crafted material.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Blinker The Star’s Glitchy and Trippy Visual for Anthemic “Only To Ruin Wild”

Over the past couple of months, I’ve written about the Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind acclaimed indie rock recording project Blinker The Star, Jordon Zadorozny. Initially started as a solo project. Zadorozny’s Blinker The Star expanded into a trio by the time they signed to A&M Records, who released the band’s first two albums — 1995’s self-titled debut and 1996’s A Bourgeois Kitten. During those early years, the band built up a profile nationally and elsewhere through steady touring. 

In 1997, Zadorozny relocated from Montreal to Los Angeles, where he worked with Courtney Love, helping craft songs for Hole’s acclaimed and commercially successful Celebrity Skin. While in Los Angeles, Zadorozny began soaking up new influences and became increasingly fascinated with production. Signing with Dreamworks in 1999, the band, which at the time featured Zadorozny, Failure’s Kelli Scott (drums), longtime bassist Pete Frolander and a rotating cast of Southern California-based session musicians recorded and released their critically applauded third album August Everywhere, which they supported with touring across North America with Our Lady Peace, Sloan, Failure and The Flaming Lips. 

Returning back to Pembroke in 2002, Zadorozny built his first commercial recording studio and began working with Sam Roberts, contributing drums and producing Roberts’ breakthrough debut EP The Inhuman Condition. Zadorozny also worked on albums by Melisa Auf der Maur, Chris Cornell, Lindsey Buckingham and others.

During the Winter of 2003, Zadorozny wrote and recorded Blinker The Star’s fourth album Still In Rome as a duo with Kelli Scott. Following a brief tour to support the album, the Pembroke, Ontario-born multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter quickly settled into the production side of the things working with an electric array of artists, including collaborative projects like Digital Noise Academy, SheLoom,  The Angry Moon, and others. 

2012’s fourth album, We Draw Lines was the first Blinker The Star album that Zadorozny wrote and recorded as a solo recording project since he started the it. We Draw Lines began a rather prolific period that included 2013’s Songs from Laniakea Beach, a one-off single “Future Fires” 2015’s 11235 EP, 2017’s 8 of Hearts and last year’s Careful With Your Magic.

After completing a short run of shows last fall, Zodorozny began working working on new material at his Skylark Park Studio. The solitude of his environment helped inform his forthcoming Blinker The Star album Juvenile Universe, which is slated for release this summer. Now, as you may recall, last month I wrote about the album’s first single “Way Off Wave,” a Station to Station-era David Bowie-like track with an enormous, arena rock friendly hook that according to Zodorozny “touches upon the things we do and think to ourselves after a period of great change: our impulse to seek out new external realities, while internally returning to stuck patterns and thoughts which inhibit growth and acceptance. It is almost a dreamlike state we find ourselves in trying to move forward while mentally sloshing about in the past, looking for new answers that will never appear.”

“Only To Run Wild” Juvenile Universe’s second and latest single continues a run of seemingly 70s rock inspired singles, centered around a jangling guitars, a shimmering and expressive guitar solo, a soaring hook and an unerring melodicism. But interestingly enough, it may be the most boldly ambitious Blinker The Star song I’ve heard. 

“There was a moment after New Year’s when the studio suddenly fell silent for the first time in weeks. I found myself pacing mindlessly so I sat down at my 1972 Heinzman upright piano and the first 4 chords that fell out are the first chords you hear in this song,” Zodorozny explains in press notes. “It is a paean to those who must live free and roam this earth alone, perhaps not fearlessly but with a stubbornness of will and imagination, all chips on the table, never to be caught in limbo or treading water. To flow like an eternal spring.”

The recently released video is centered around digitally massaged and trippy visuals by Victor Malang. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially created as a solo project by its Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based creative mastermind, multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Jordon Zadorozny, Blinker The Star eventually expanded into a trio by the time they signed to A&M Records, who released the project’s first two albums — 1995’s self-titled debut and 1996’s A Bourgeois Kitten. During that period, the band toured steadily, building a profile nationally and elsewhere.

In 1997, Zadorozny relocated from Montreal to Los Angeles, where he worked with Courtney Love, helping craft songs for Hole’s acclaimed Celebrity Skin. While in Los Angeles, Zadorozny began soaking up new influences and became increasingly fascinated with production. Signing with Dreamworks in 1999, the band, which at the time featured Zadorozny, Failure’s Kelli Scott (drums), longtime bassist Pete Frolander and a rotating cast of Southern California-based session musicians recorded and released their critically applauded third album August Everywhere, which they supported with touring across North America with Our Lady Peace, Sloan, Failure and The Flaming Lips. 

Returning back to Pembroke in 2002, Zadorozny built his first commercial recording studio and began working with Sam Roberts, contributing drums and producing Roberts’ breakthrough debut EP The Inhuman Condition. Zadorozny also worked on albums by Melisa Auf der Maur, Chris Cornell, Lindsey Buckingham and others.

During the Winter of 2003, Zadorozny wrote and recorded Blinker the Sky’s fourth album Still In Rome as a duo with Kelli Scott. Following a brief tour to support the album, the Pembroke, Ontario-born multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter quickly settled into the production side of the things working with an electric array of artists, including collaborative projects like Digital Noise Academy, SheLoom, and Abbey and The Angry Moon.

2012’s fourth album, We Draw Lines was the first Blinker The Star album that Zadorozny wrote and recorded since he started the project — and it began a rather prolific period that included 2013’s Songs from Laniakea Beach, a one-off single “Future Fires” 2015’s 11235 EP, 2017’s 8 of Hearts and last year’s  Careful With Your Magic. Interestingly, after completing a short run of shows last fall, Zodorozny began working on new music at his Skylark Park Studio. The solitude of his environment helped informed his forthcoming Blinker The Star album Juvenile Universe, which is slated for release this summer.

Juvenile Universe‘s first single “Way Off Wave.” Centered around a dense arrangement of shimmering guitars, sinuous bass lines, a blazing, distortion pedal-fueled guitar solo, atmospheric and droning synths and an enormous, arena rock friendly hook “Way Off Wave” brings Station to Station-era David Bowie to mind. “The song touches on the things we do and think to ourselves after a period of great change: our impulse to seek out new external realities, while internationally returning to stuck patterns and thoughts, which inhibit growth and acceptance,” as the Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based multi-instrumentalist, producer and singer/songwriter explains in press notes. “It is almost a dreamlike state we find ourselves in trying to move forward while mentally sloshing about in the past, looking for new answers that will never appear.”

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Introducing the Dance Floor Friendly Noir of Montreal’s TEROUZ

Karim Terouz is a Cairo-born illustrator and singer/songwriter, who in 2008 relocated to Montreal, where he founded, fronted and managed the award-winning, brass folk/rock quintet The Rising Few,  an act that released two albums — 2014’s Sinners On St-Laurent and 2017’s Adult Entertainment.

Last year Terouz decided to re-invent himself and his music starting his latest project TEROUZ, a project which incorporates dancehall beats and synths and finds him employing a Bowie-esque vocal to create a refreshingly unique variation of hypnotic and moody noir that he describes in an email as “like Cohen on a treadmill.”His latest single is the swaggering,  “Outstanding.” Centered round a muscular and insistent groove centered by a sinuous bass line by guitarist/bassist Andre Galamba, thumping beats, sultry horn lines and shimmering and shimmering synths, the track sonically reminds me of I Will Set You Free-era Barry Adamson, Station to Station-era Bowie, Roxy Music and Black Strobe — in particular, “Boogie in Zero Gravity.” (In other words, it’s a moody and sultry dance floor banger.)

Directed by Alexandre Desrochers-Coderre, the recently released video for “Outstanding” is shot in a gorgeously, cinematic black and white and set in a boxing gym. And while we see a few local boxers train and spar in a lonely gym — in a kinetic and rapid fire fashion, no less. We also see a dapper looking Terouz in a black suit singing the song and caught in the song’s groove. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Co-founded by Brian Harding and Amalie Braun back in 2011, indie pop duo Ex-Cops became blogosphere darlings with the release of their first two albums True Hallucinations and Daggers; in fact, the duo receive praise from the likes of Pitchfork, Vogue, MTV, Stereogum, Billboard, CNN, Gawker, Interview, Nylon, and Rolling Stone. Adding to a growing profile, the duo has had their music appear in a number of renowned TV shows including Shameless, Stalker, All Saints and others. And as a result of the attention the band has received over the years, Harding and Braun have worked with Ariel Pink, Daniel Johnston, and Billy Corgan, among others.

Harding’s solo side project Blond Ambition is a bit of a sonic departure as you’ll hear on the project’s debut single “Shasta.” As I was told in press notes, the project’s sound is a sugary confection of E.S.G., slinky Liquid Liquid and 77 Dead — and although that may well be true, to my ears I hear quite a bit of Station to Station and Low-era Bowie and 70s funk as congo-led percussion is paired with slinky bass line, bursts of ambient synths, a loose and boozy guitar solo with Harding’s falsetto. And while being breezy, percussive and summery, the song manages to be a sultry come on  to a object of affection/desire/lust.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Publicly claiming Arcade Fire and Talking Heads as major influences and with each member having musical backgrounds in a number of different genres including rock, country, jazz and electronica, New York-based indie rock quintet AMFM — comprised of David Caruso (vocals, guitar), Harper James (guitar, synth, keys), Gian Stone (drums), Dan Shuman (bass) and Steve DeVito (guitar) — have started to receive attention for a sound that draws equally from contemporary indie rock and classic rock as you’ll hear on the band’s latest single “Heroes,” a rousing and anthemic single about the desire to live life your way and only your way, with no regrets.

Sonically, the New York-based quintet pair anthemic and infectious hooks with shimmering guitar chords, a propulsive Station to Station-era Bowie-like rhythm section, an uncanny sense of melody and harmony and punchily delivered lyrics, which remind me quite a bit of New Radicals‘ “You Get What You Give” but while subtly evoking the desperate desire to change the course of one’s life — and of hitting the road with intention of leaving everything behind.