Tag: dream pop

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Matthew Messore is an Orlando, FL-born and-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. best known as the creative mastermind behind the rapidly rising bedroom recording project Cathedral Bells. Now, as you may recall since the release of last year’s breakthrough self-titled EP, an effort which received support from David Dean Burkhart and praise from The Line of Best Fit, Messore has released a handful of singles from his highly-anticipated Cathedral Bells full-length debut, Velvet Spirit, which will be released through Good Eye Records on March 6, 2020.

The album’s third and latest single “Ephemeral” continues a run of material centered around ethereal vocals., shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, propulsive drum machine, a motorik-like groove and an infectious radio-friendly hook. And while clearly indebted to 4AD Records glorious heyday, The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy, Chain of Flowers and others, the song is a swooning and urgent fever dream.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

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Sophie Nicole Ellison is a London-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and studio engineer, who has spent the past few years playing drums for a number of local bands and working as as studio engineer. During that same period of time, Ellison began writing material for her solo, dream pop recording project HUSSY.

Since October, Ellison has released three singles that have received praise from the likes of DIY Magazine, So Young Magazine, The Line of Best Fit and Clash Magazine. Adding to a growing reputation as one of the UK’s most exciting and promising alt pop/indie rock acts, Ellison has opened for the likes of FEELS and Lala Lala — and she will be playing the second annual New Colossus Festival in March 2020.

Interestingly, Ellison’s latest HUSSY single “YLMD” is a moody. decidedly hook-driven, New Wave-inspired, shimmering take on dream pop that — to my ears — brings JOVM mainstays Amber Arcades, Gothic Tropic, and Too True-era Dum Dum Girls to mind. And much like those acts, “YLMD” finds Ellison pairing earnest and ambitious songwriting with a slick, radio friendly,  studio sheen. “I really wanted to up what I’ve been doing sonically,” Ellison explains in press notes. “Before now I’d been recording nearly everything at home but went to a proper studio to redo some elements from the original home demo.”

“I could almost say at this stage it has become a love letter to self-empowerment and things going wrong,” the rising British singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and studio engineer says of her latest single. “You can guess once you hear the lyrics, YLMD stands for You Let Me Down. I wrote it a few years ago and feels like it’s almost taken on a new meaning for me now than when I wrote it.

“Originally it was the frustration over seeing loved one’s self-destruction. Ultimately though, it’s a journey of reflection and self-empowerment.”

Adds Ellison, “This song has become a remind of how important trusting yourself is to me.”

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Los Angeles’ The Know Releases a Hazy and Nostalgia Visual for Shimmering “143”

The Know,an up-and-coming Los Angeles-based dream pop/shoegaze act comprised of married duo Daniel Knowles and Jennifer Farmer, can trace they origins to late last year, when Knowles suggested to Farmer, that instead of traveling home for the holidays — the UK and Texas respectively — that they stay put in Los Angeles, and try to write music together, just to two of them. The material that they’d spend writing would be their gift to themselves. 

For the next few weeks, they isolated themselves in their home studio with no real plan — but they shared a mural love of Beach House, Julee Cruise, Ye Ye, The Jesus and Mary Chain, 60s girl groups, Patsy Cline and The National. The first bit of material they wrote together wound up being their latest single “143,” will appear on their forthcoming debut EP. Inspired by Tom Waits’ “(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night,” “143” finds the duo meshing the autobiographical with the fantastical, as the song focuses on a the hazy recollections of a night out. Sonically, the song is an atmospheric fever dream, centered around shimmering synths and guitars, Farmer’s ethereal crooning and a soaring hook. And while seemingly indebted to Beach House and 60s girl groups, the lush song is imbued with a hazy nostalgia and aching longing. 

Directed by the band’s Jennifer Farmer, the recently released video for “143” focuses on a wild night out through a series of hazy, seemingly drug and alcohol fueled recollections of a party and wandering through the neon-lit streets of Los Angeles with a group of friends before ending with a young couple cuddling while watching the sun rise over the city’s skyline. And although its set in Los Angeles, the video captures something intimately familiar — young people hanging out, goofing off and being carefree. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays Still Corners Returns with Two from Abbey Road Studios Live Sessions

With the release of their 2012’s Creatures of an Hour, 2013’s Strange Pleasures and 2016’s Dead Blue the London-based dream pop act Still Corners — vocalist and keyboardist Tessa Murray and multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter Greg Hughes — have developed a shimmering and atmospheric take on dream pop, centered around Murray’s smoky vocals. 

Last year, the London-based JOVM mainstays released their fourth album, the critically applauded Slow Air. Deriving its name from the sultry Texas summer days and nights that they spent writing and recording the album in Austin, TX, the album found the band making a return to early form, with the band leaning heavily towards arrangements centered around electric and acoustic guitar, live drumming and a minimal use of synthesizers. Some of this may have been inspired by the studio Hughes designed and built for the recording sessions — and by a minimalist approach in which they consciously ensured that they didn’t overthink, while using a variety of old and new microphones. 

While in the past there may have been countless takes and overdubs in an attempt to make things absolutely perfect, Murray and Hughes kept the inevitable mistakes to remind the listener of the material’s emotionality — and also to remind the lister that living, breathing, feeling humans made it. 

Additionally, the band recorded and mixed the album in three months, the fastest they’ve ever done, and as a result, the material possesses a previously unheard urgency while retaining the shimmering and moody atmospherics that they’ve long been known for — especially on album single “Black Lagoon.” After completing what may arguably be the biggest world tour, including a memorable stop at Elsewhere, as well as across North America, Europe and Asia, the duo wanted to document their live sound with a live stood recording. As the band’s Tessa Murray says in press notes. “Abbey Road was the first studio we thought of when deciding where to record. It’s a beautiful and iconic place that we’ve always dreamed of. The sound and experimentation that happened there makes up much of the fabric of recording history.””Vintage consoles lined the corridors as we made our way to the Studio 3. We Could feel the weight of walking into the same studio where Pink Floyd recorded Dark Side of the Moon,” Greg Hughes adds. “We used microphones used on many Beatles’ recordings.” 

During their Abbey Road session, the band recorded a live version of one of my favorite tracks off the album, Black Lagoon — and while being a slightly stripped down rendition, the Abbey Road rendition retains the song’s gorgeous melody and shimmering atmospherics, while possessing a road-tested looseness. “We played this for a session at KUTX in Austin and a lot of people mentioned they would like an official audio recording, so we decided to that as well,” Murray says in press notes. 

The other track the JOVM mainstays recorded found the duo tackling Richard and Linda Thompson’s “The Calvary Cross.” As the band’s Greg Hughes explains in press notes, Richard and Linda Thompson’s I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is a personal favorite of the duo — and they covered “The Calvary Cross” during their last tour. And while the original was more of a mid-tempo stomper reminiscent of Neil Young, the Still Corners version is a slow-burning and gorgeously atmospheric take, centered around shimmering country-like guitars and Murray’s smoky vocals.  

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Lunar Twin Releases a Brooding Late Night Visual for Trip Hop-like “Leaves”

Deriving their name from a scientific theory that suggests that Earth may have had a second moon, a twin moon that was destroyed in a massive collision during the earliest moments of our solar system, Lunar Twin, which is comprised of vocalist Bryce Boudreau and multi-instrumentalist and producer Chris Murphy can trace their origins back to 2011’s Denver Underground Music Festival when Boudreau joined Murphy’s goth band Nightsweats as a guest vocalist. And by 2013, the duo started collaborating together full-time.

With the release of their debut, 2014’s self-titled EP and 2017’s Night Tides EP, the duo which is currently split between Hawaii and Salt Lake City have developed a unique take on chill wave/dark wave that draws from and possesses elements of synth pop, shoegaze, dream pop and others. A couple of years have passed since I’ve written about Lunar Twin — and as it turns out, the duo’s Chris Murphy has been busy sharing the stages with a growing list of acclaimed and renowned artists including Grimes, Bonnie Prince Billy and Peaches through other projects he’s worked in. But the duo have also been working on their long-awaited third EP Ghost Moon Ritual, which is slated for a February 16, 2020 release through  the band’s own imprint, Tropical Depression/Desert Heat. 

Ghost Moon Ritual reportedly finds the duo expanding upon the sound that caught the attention of this site and elsewhere with some of the material nodding at psych folk and desert noir-themed late night moon music. The EP’s latest single, the moody and atmospheric “Leaves” is centered around Boudreau’s sonorous, Mark Lanegan-like baritone, layers of buzzing and shimmering synths and thumping beats. And while simultaneously nodding at trip hop and dream pop, the song evokes — for me, at least — a a specific late night loneliness I’ve known — wandering a new town, a new country on your own, as a stranger, a man from far away. 

Directed by San Francisco-based Zoey Nyguen, the recently released video is set in a raw, late night, neon cityscape — her neighborhood of Russian Hill. ” I wanted to embody the song with visuals from my within my neighborhood and local surroundings and to include basically a collage of clips from different time periods and eras of the City,” Nyguen says in press notes. “I made the video as a simple Creative Commons project and then approached the group about a possible collaboration and then filmed them performing to add to the story I had built around their song into something more” 

“Collaboration with a new person is always a surprise creatively and I thought her vibrant and imaginative approach visualizing the song to be just right .. to curate this version of this songs story,” Bryce Boudreau says of the video. “Her choice of imagery really melds with the track. I’m very happy with the way the video develops and encapsulates everything we are trying to express musically” Chris Murphy adds in press notes. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Kiwi Sibling Duo Purple Pilgrims Release a Feverish and Haunting Visual for “Sensing Me”

Purple Pilgrims is a New Zealand sibling duo, comprised of Valentine and Clementine Nixon. The sibling duo tracked their full-length debut 2016’s Eternal Delight in the wilds of Tapu, New Zealand. Interestingly, the duo’s sophomore album, Perfumed Earth, which was released earlier this year through acclaimed indie label Flying Nun Records found the duo returning to the same wooded sanctuary in Tapu, but according to the duo in a  calmer, more contemplative headspace. “Internal white noise subsided and we really started to appreciate the peace of our environment,” the duo says of the recording process of an album that they’ve described as “kind of like a rebirth.”

Perfumed Earth found the Nixon Sisters fashioning what they’ve dubbed “a very modern/mobile band” that combined local recordings with inspired long-distance overdubs from a vaster cast of collaborators that included their frequent collaborator Gary War, who contributed bass and synths from hotel rooms while he was touring America with John Maus; Jimmy Mac, Lorde’s keyboardist, contributed drums; Joshua Kennedy, former Surf City guitarist contributed guitar work; improvisational experimentalist Jeff Henderson contributed saxophone on “Delphiniums In Harmony / Two Worlds Away”; and Roy Montgomery contributed expressionistic guitar work on “Ruinous Splendour.” The material was then mixed by Thomas Healy, utilizing his sizable collection of vintage tape machines to create an overall sound that’s spacious and sensual, swooning and spellbound while being a major sonic step forward for the Kiwi sibling duo.  

Perfumed Earth’s latest single is the atmospheric  “Sensing Me.” Centered around twinkling keys and synths, shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, subtly twinkling keys and simple yet dramatic percussion the song is spacious enough for the Nixon Sisters gorgeous harmonies, which manage to mesmerize, seduce and soar through the arrangement — while expressing an aching yearning and longing.  

Directed by W.A.M. Bleakley, the recently released video for “Sensing Me” was shot on 16mm Kodak film, and the end result is a moody yet gorgeous fever dream featuring the Nixon Sisters. “’Sensing Me’ is a Love Magic incantation and telepathic ritual,” the Kiwi sibling duo say of the song and its accompanying video. “Through hyperbolic emotional shorthand we regard the grey area between love and obsession, fantasy and reality. A claustrophobic dream of elation, desperation, regret and double meanings. The video was directed by the wonderful W.A.M Bleakley and shot on 16mm Kodak film. The characters become more and more disarrayed as internal clashes overwhelm them – becoming divided within and against themselves, and ultimately disembodied. When psychological boarders on supernatural – both tongue-in-cheek and deadly serious all at the same time.”

indie rock by William Ruben Helms

Founded back in 2014 by Jessica Louise Dye (vocals, guitar) and Jono Bernstein (drums), the New York-based JOVM mainstays High Waisted have received attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere for a sound that draws from surf rock, garage rock, dream pop, Riot Grrl punk and punk rock among others and for their long-running and very popular DIY concert showcase/booze cruise High Waisted at Sea.

The band’s Bryan Pugh-produced full-length debut On Ludlow further cemented their reputation for scuzzy, party ’til you drop rock — but just under the surface, the material revealed vulnerability and ache.  Since the release of On Ludlow, the the band contributed “Firebomb,” a scuzzy, ass-kicking, power chord-driven Lita Ford and Motley Crue-like single to a split single with The Coax, toured with the likes of Hundred Hounds, Beechwood, played a handful of live shows across town and been periodically working on a bunch of new material. And they’ve done all of that while going through a series of lineup changes but one thing has remained: they’re a non-stop party machine.

Throughout their history, the JOVM mainstays have released an ongoing, psychedelic mixtape series, Acid Tapes and like the preceding three other editions, the fourth edition, which will drop on Friday finds the New York-based act covering an eclectic variety of beloved songs. Naturally, the covers reveal the band’s impressive and wide ranging tastes   with the fourth edition featuring the band’s unique take on songs by the likes of The Zombies, 10cc, Kacey Musgraves, The Troggs and others. As the band explains in press notes, the covers allow them to  “dissect songs we love, throw everything we know about them away and rebuild something entirely new.” The band’s frontwoman Jessica Louise Dye adds “It changes the gravitational pull in my creative mind, often spawning a big writing period of new High Waisted material as well.” Along with covers, there are a handful of rare, previously unreleased originals.

The fourth installment of Acid Tapes may arguably find the JOVM mainstays at their best sounding. The guitars shimmer and glisten while the band’s Jessica Louise Dye sounds at her very best, beginning with a gorgeous and Patsy Cline-like take of The Zombies,” “The Way I Feel Inside,” a Pretenders-like original, “Modern Love,” a stunningly accurate 60s and dexterous take on The Lively Ones  instrumental composition “Surf Rock,” a dream pop-like take of Kacey Musgraves’ “High Horse” that nods at Still Corners‘ gorgeous Slow Air, the slow-burning, Quiet Storm-like original “Dream Sea,” and a slow-burning, straightforward take on 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love” closes out the tape’s A Side. The tape’s B side features the anthemic and alt rock meets alt country ballad “Eyes Crying,” which manages to recall Pearl Jam‘s “Dissident” to my ears, a Cars meets Phil Spector Wall of Sound-like take on Wreckless Eric‘s “Whole Wide World” before ending with a heartbreakingly gorgeous cover of Julie London‘s “Cry Me a River.” It’s a wildly eclectic grouping of songs but the mixtape reveals the JOVM mainstays’ ridiculous versatility paired with a deep emotional connection to the material.

“Our recording process has come a long way from the first cassette. Acid Tape, Vol. 1 was recorded while were on acid, all in one go, in a haunted house in Nashville. A buddy of ours threw a room mic over the chandelier and ran it through the tape deck and away we went.  Now the recording process is more deliberate, articulated and better executed.” the band explains in press notes. Vol 4 was recorded entirely in our new studio which Jono Bernstien and Stephen Nielsen built in Bed Stuy. We’re mixing digital and analog gear with vintage instruments and a little magic.”

The band is celebrating the release of  Acid Tape, Vol. 4 with a release show at Mercury Lounge with Yella Belly and Songs for Sabotage. You can check out ticket info and purchase here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/high-waisted-acid-tapes-vol-4-release-party-tickets-69052520949?aff=efbeventtix&fbclid=IwAR1c18aYR2lwka706043Xe4Wu5DGHXUerQf3xwlTVR9BVzl4Asu6z36VUC0

You can purchase the pre-release of the limited edition mixtape here: https://www.highwaisted.party/merch/acid-tape-vol-4

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Bailey Crone is an Atlanta-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, best known for playing bass in Atlanta-based pop rock act VYB (pronounced “vibe”). Interestingly, her solo recording project Bathe is a dream pop act is driven by her desire to create songs that you can “lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling to,” as she says in press notes.
Crone’s Bathe debut Last Looks is slated for release in 2020 and the album will reportedly feature songs relating to struggling with loss. “Not breakup songs, but concept of loss as a whole,” Crone explains in press notes. Interestingly, Last Looks‘ latest single, the Damon Moon-produced “The Silence” is centered around seemingly endless layers of shimmering guitars, stuttering drumming, a sinuous bass line, Crone’s ethereal vocals  and a soaring hook — and the song finds the Atlanta-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist crafting a gorgeous yet achingly lonely track that recalls both 4AD Records and Beach House among others.
“For the song The Silence, I would like for it to lyrically be able to fit any one person’s image of loss and loneliness and the quietness that always comes hand in hand with the concept of absence,” Crone says in press notes. “I relate to the lyric ‘Guess it took yourself a while to become the one that yo know you can count on’ in many different ways.  It could be talking about my past history with panic attacks where I struggle with anxieties of being alone, how I had to rely on myself to follow my passion with creating music, losing a loved one, or anything really.”
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Last year, I wrote about the Orlando, FL-born and-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matthew Messore. And as you amy recall, after spending a period of time traveling across the country, Messore returned to his hometown to work on music with his solo, bedroom recording project Cathedral Bells.

Since the release of last year’s breakthrough self-titled EP, which received support from David Dean Burkhart and praise from the likes of The Line of Best Fit, who likened the project’s sound to “an exploration of the smudged reds of The Cure, hazy pinks of Chromatics and gluey browns of DIIV,” Messore has been busy releasing new material, including his latest single, the gauzy and swooning “Heavy Rain.” Centered around seemingly unending layers of shimmering guitars, propulsive drum machine-driven beats and Messore’s plaintive and ethereal vocals, the track sonically meshes the classic 4AD Records sound with shoegaze in a way that feels warmly familiar yet novel.

“Sometimes, loneliness can feel like it’s raining down on you and there’s such a storm of emotion, you wonder if anyone can understand,” Messore told FAULT Magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

With the release of their full-length debut Colors, the Galveston, TX-based act El Lago — Lauren Eddy, Jacob Villarreal, Charles Eddy and Jaron Hal — quickly established an unhurried and reverb-drenched take on dream pop, which resulted in a lengthy tour that included stops across the national festival circuit, sharing stages with the likes of Stereolab‘s Laetitia Sadier, JOVM mainstays Sylvan Esso, The Black Angels and Blushing, Holy Wave and Crumb.

Slated for release later this year through Wallflower Records, El Lago’s forthcoming sophomore effort Pyramid reportedly finds the band’s sound and approach evolving in  new direction as they increasingly incorporated elements of post-punk and New Wave into the dream pop and shoegazer-like sound that won them attention, essentially adding a darker element to their sound.  Interestingly, Pyramid‘s latest single “Endless” is centered by the prerequisite layers of fuzzy and distorted guitars and ethereal vocals of shoegaze within an expansive song structure — but with a muscular and forceful insistence.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Shana Falana Releases a Dazzlingly Gorgeous Visual for “Come and Find Me”

Over the past few years, I’ve written and photographed the California-born, Upstate New York-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and JOVM mainstay Shana Falana. And as you may recall, Falana can trace the origins of her music career to her involvement in San Francisco‘s D.I.Y. scene in the 90s, where she also had a stint in a local Bulgarian women’s choir. In the early 00s, she had relocated to New York. And as the story goes, by 2006 Falana had been struggling through drug addiction and financial woes, when she lost part of an index finger in a work-related accident.

Under most normal circumstances, the accident would be considered extremely unlucky and tragic; however, Falana received settlement money, which provided a much-needed period of financial stability — and it also allowed her to get sober and find a new focus in her life and music. Her sophomore album, last year’s Here Comes the Wave was conceptualized and written during two disparate parts of her life — while she was struggling with drug addiction and desperately trying to get sober ad the subsequent years of sobriety. Understandably, much of that album’s material was rewritten and revised with the growing sense of perspective and awareness that comes as you’ve gotten older and a bit a wiser. Thematically, that album touched upon transformation as as a result of emotional and spiritual turmoil; the necessary inner strength, resolve and perseverance to overcome difficulties; the eventual acceptance of aging, time passing and of one’s own impending mortality.

Slated for an October 25, 2019 release through Arrowhawk Records, Falana’s third album Darkest Light has been playfully described by its creator as “druggy music by sober people” but at its core, the album is naturally full of mystery, contract and paradox. The Kingston, New York-based singer/songwriter and guitarist has worked deep in her own niche in the psych rock, shoegaze and ethereal punk worlds and on the forthcoming album reportedly finds her converting weird, magical and occasionally nasty energy into  authentic messages of personal empowerment, rebirth and redemption. “I’ve been around a while,” Falana says. “I was an addict. I worked on the fringe of the sex industry in New York City for two years. I know that even in the darkest lives, everyone still has their light. People still shine. Darkest Light is an album of mantras.”

The album finds Falana continuing her ongoing collaboration with drummer Mike Amari and producer D. James Goodwin, who has worked with the likes of Kevin Morby, Wand, Heather Woods Broderick and others. Reportedly, the trio build manage to construct a sound that at points is stormy, heavy and harrowing and at other points delicate without overwhelming Falana’s delicate and vocals.  Interestingly, the album’s first single is the sparse and hauntingly gorgeous “Come and Find Me.” Centered around Falana’s delicate vocals and strummed guitar, the song expresses a plaintive and aching longing, making it arguably one of the most heartbreaking songs of her growing catalog. 

“This is the only song on the record that is not ‘new,'” Falana says of the new single. “I wrote it while still living in BK over a decade ago, and at the time (not yet sober) I thought I was waiting for my love, my prince, my savior to come to me. But since then I’ve realized it was a plea to myself. It took me years to get to a place where I felt I could put this song out, and perform it regularly. It’s from the deepest, quietest part of my heart. When we decided to put this on the record I knew it needed to be the first single . . . so it could stand on its own for a while.” The song does what we all do at some point, as we get older — look back at our past selves with a mix of shame, pity and empathy for all the things we somehow didn’t know, all the things we lost, but with the innate understanding that we wouldn’t be who we are now without those younger and more foolish selves. 

Directed and shot by D. James Goodwin, the recently released video is a an appropriately stark and intimate visual featuring Falana, neck deep in water, with a small bit of light on her face, reflected back into the water. It’s a dazzlingly gorgeous visual for a gorgeous and heartfelt song.