JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontperson Karen O’s 47th birthday.
Tag: electro punk
Throwback: Happy 46th Birthday, Karen O!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O’s 46th birthday.
New Video: Liz Lamere Says Punchy and Defiant “Vibration”
Liz Lamere is a New York-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, who has had a lengthy career playing drums in several local punk bands — and famously for collaborating with her late partner, the legendary Alan Vega on his solo work for the better part of three decades.
Back in 2022, Lamere finally stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist with her full-length debut, Keep It Alive. Written and performed entirely by Lamere, Keep It Alive was recorded in the Lower Manhattan apartment she shared with Vega during COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns — and in the same space where the Suicide frontman constructed his light sculptures. Keeping it a family affair, the album was engineered by Vega and Lamere’s son, Dante Vega Lamere. Keep It Alive was co-produced by Lamere and The Vacant Lots‘ Jared Artaud.
“There’s something very magical about creating music in the same environment where Alan created his visual art,” Liz Lamere says in press notes. “His energy is pervasive and is inevitably infused in the recordings.” She continues “ We were living through unprecedented times and Keep It Alive took adversity and uncertainty and turned it into a message of resilience and empowerment.”
The album’s material coursed with the bold and defiant energy that motivated a young Lamere through her early double life as a Wall Street lawyer by day and a downtown New York musician, before she met and fell in love with Vega. Her relationship with Vega led to her becoming his manager, creative foil and keyboardist on his solo work including albums like Deuce Avenue, Power On To Zero Hour, New Raceion, Dugong Prang, 2007, Station and IT, as well as the posthumously released, lost album Mutator, which led to the Vega Vault, which she curates with Jared Artaud.
After Vega’s death in July 2016, Lamere found it cathartic to write down thoughts and observations in notebooks. Simultaneously, she and Artaud had started working together on overseeing the mastering of IT and the production and mixing of Mutator. During this very busy period, the pair discussed working together on her own solo material.
Keep It Alive is a homage to a song on her late husband’s New Raceion that has a deep and significant meaning for her. It was one of the key lines she would chant on stage, becoming a staple of their live performances together. The main theme and vision of the album is preserving your own inner fire. “Alan always encouraged me to make my own music, and I’ve waited until the time was right as I’ve been dedicated to preserving Alan’s vision and building his legacy,” Lamere says.
Lamere’s sophomore effort, One Never Knows is slated for a June 14, 2024 release through In The Red Records. Much like its immediate predecessor, the album’s material is dedicated to her late partner Alan Vega and sees her continuing a minimalist approach to music that would be clearly in line with the aesthetic that she hoped Vega develop and refine since the late 1980s.
The Jared Artaud co-produced One Never Knows sees Lamere teaming up yet again with her and Vega’s son Dante Vega Lamere and was recorded in their Dujang Prang NYC home studio surrounded by Vega’s spectacular light sculptures. The album’s material was mixed and mastered by Ted Young and Josh Bonati.
The album continues a run of material charged with Lamere’s genre-defying and boundless sonic energy and poetically driven lyrics. Each song balanced the defiant lust for life that motivated the New York-based artist’s early double life as a high-end Wall Street lawyer and Downtown New York punk scene drummer,.who then met Vega and performed, wrote and toured internationally with the post-punk legend from 1985 until his death in 2016. Since Vega’s death, Lamere and Artaud have co-produced two Vega posthumously released Vega album from the vast Vega Vault archives, 2021’s Mutator and the soon-to-be released Insurrection, which will also be released through In The Red Records.
Throughout Vega’s life, the Suicide frontman encouraged Lamere to create her own music. After his death, she began writing as a form of catharsis, which became the inspirational bedrock behind her solo work. “At the end of Alan’s life, he was using the expression ‘one never knows’ to underscore that we don’t know how much time we have in this realm or where this journey will lead us,” Lamere says. “It was a phrase that had resonated so much for me. Alan taught me to go bravely into the unknown; to be fully present in the moment and deeply explore what is already here.”
Thematically, the album as Lamere says . . . “touches on universal themes and variations on those ideas that are very personal to me. I hope it will also resonate with listeners. Knowing we never fully know, accepting the certainty of uncertainty and striving to keep learning and growing is incredibly freeing.”
One Never Know‘s first single “Vibration” is anchored around a motorik-like pulse paired with glistening synth arpeggios, remarkably catchy hooks and Lamere’s punchily upbeat and defiant delivery. “Vibration is about personal empowerment,” Lamere explains. “The pulse represents our life force and the power that comes from within. It’s about commanding that force and manifesting what we want to see in the mirror’s reflection. It’s about believing until the impossible becomes the probable.”
Directed by filmmaker and photographer Jasmine Hirst, the accompanying video captures Lamere dancing to the song with movements that are both calm and violent and harsh, calling back to her longtime love of boxing. “The video intentionally captures the expressions of one’s personal movements within the song,” Lamere says. “Movements that are both poetically calm and violently harsh are juxtaposed to transform into various stages of oneself and the subliminal influences that are contained within the song. The video was shot by Jasmine Hirst in one day in New York City.”
New Video: Montréal’s DVTR Shares Anthemic Ripper “Les flics (sont des sacs à merde)”
Deriving their name as an acronym for the French phrase “D’où vient ton riz?” (Where does your rice come from?), Montréal-based duo DVTR is a new collaborative project featuring two of the city’s most highly acclaimed artists:
- Laurence G-Do, the frontperson of JOVM mainstays Le Couleur, an act that has toured internationally several times, and has opened for Giorgio Moroder, Polo & Pan and others, while amassing over 18 million streams across digital streaming platforms.
- JC Tellier, who has played with Gazoline, an act that has received multiple ADISQ and GAMIQ award nominations. Tellier has also played with Kandle, Xavier Caféine, Gab Bouchard and a lengthy list of other well-regarded artists in Québec.
With the release of their debut EP BONJOUR, the French Canadian duo have been burning up the Canadian indie scene: The EP amassed a plethora of rapturous reviews, landed on a number of Best of 2023 Lists and earned the duo a handful of awards in Québec.
The acclaimed and rising French Canadian duo celebrate their first full year of the project with their latest single “Les flics (sont des sacs à merde),” which translates into English as “The cops (are shitbags)” has quickly become a staple of their live set. Anchored around a supple and propulsive bass line, G-Do’s punchy delivery, buzzing power chords, and a steady four-on-the-floor, “Les flics” brings Ting Tings’ “That’s Not My Name” to mind — but while rooted in an unequivocal message that protestors and countless others rally behind: ACAB! Throughout the song, the duo excoriate and ridicule cops, referring them as a violent, brainless bullies and a shit ton more.
The computer animated video by Romy Côté further emphasizes its accompanying song’s themes: The video begins with an out-of-shape cop driving in a police car. Fittingly, the cop looks like a clown. As he drives around town, he comes across two people vandalizing some property. After a chase, the two young vandals overtake the cop and replace his shit for brains for an actual brain.
New Video: The C.I.A. Shares Menacing “Bubble”
The C.I.A. are a indie all-star trio featuring Denée and Ty Segall and Emmett Kelly. The trio’s newest album Surgery Channel is slated fora a Friday release through In The Red. Written in 2021, the album was recorded Mike Kriebel at Ty Segall’s Harmonizer Studios, and is reportedly an astute observation and blunt critique — both inward and outward. It’s also an exploration into how harshly intimate that process can be.
Surgery Channel also sees the band crafting an electrified, pulsating, metallic playpen that will get listeners strutting and moving. Essentially, the album shows punks a new way to move while remaining loyal to the punk traditions of catharsis and social commentary.
Late last year, I wrote about Surgery Channel‘s second single, “Inhale Exhale.” Centered around buzzing and slashing bass attack, skittering beats and rattling thump, electronic pulse and Denée’s punchy shouting. Seemingly meshing elements of industrial electronica, classic punk and old school hip-hop, “Inhale Exhale” is confrontational and abrasive yet accessible — and mosh pit friendly.
Just ahead of the album’s release, the trio share the album’s latest single, “Bubble.” Featuring buzz and slashing dual bass attack, metronomic-like beats, malevolent atmospherics paired with Denée’s sultry cooing. The song tells a tale of dysfunctional, anxiety-driven desire — the sort that drives the song’s main character to self-destruction.
Directed by Joshua Erkman, the accompanying video features the members of The C.I.A. dressed entirely in white for much of the video — with Denée Segall appearing like a crazed Nurse Hatchett. We see the band in front of a white tiled wall, stuffing themselves with a messy and gluttonous abandon.
New Audio: The C.I.A. Share Abrasive Ripper “Inhale Exhale”
The C.I.A. are a new indie all-star trio featuring Denée and Ty Segall and Emmett Kelly. Their latest album Surgery Channel is slated for a January 20, 2022 release through In The Red was written last year and was recorded with Mike Kriebel at Ty Segall’s Harmonizer Studios. The album is reportedly is an astute observation and blunt critique — both inward and outward. It’s also an exploration into how harshly intimate that process can be.
Surgery Channel also sees the band crafting an electrified, pulsating, metallic playpen that will get listeners strutting and moving. Essentially, the album shows punks a new way to move while remaining loyal to the punk traditions of catharsis and social commentary.
Surgery Channel‘s second and latest single “Inhale Exhale” is centered around buzzing and slashing guitars, skittering beats and rattling thump, electronic pulse and Denée’s punchy shouting. Seemingly meshing elements of industrial electronica, classic punk and old school hip-hop, “Inhale Exhale” is confrontational and abrasive yet accessible — and mosh pit friendly.
New Video: Acclaimed French Electro Punk Act Kat Bambino Releases VHS-Styled Video For Rousingly Anthemic Single
Comprised of Caroline Martial (vocals) and Orion Bouvier (electronics, production), the Bordeaux, France-based electro punk act Kat Bambino formed back in 2001, and since their formation they’ve released four full-length albums that includes, 2002’s Love, 2006’s Zero Life Night Vision, 2009’s Blacklist and 2012’s Devotion, a handful of singles and an exciting and uncompromising live show. And as a result, they’ve been featured in NME, Another Magazine, Dummy Mag and Dazed & Confused Magazine — and they’ve played at a number of festivals, including ZXZW/Incubate, Dot to Dot and SXSW.
Slated for an April 12, 2019 release through Because Music, the French electro punk duo’s fifth, full-length album Dust, Fierce, Forever features 12 tracks that reportedly nod at Eurodance and hardcore. The album’s latest single is the brash and anthemic “Erase.” Centered around propulsive and thunderous beats, layers of arpeggiated and undulating synths, industrial squealing and squawking and Martial’s shouted vocals. Sonically speaking, the song reminds me quite a bit of Atari Teenage Riot and Nine Inch Nails, complete with rousing and enormous hooks.
The recently released video is a decidedly lo-fi affair, as it prominently features the duo performing the song and captures their energy, while being shot on grainy VHS-like tape and through some old school effects and fade outs. Essentially, it’s an appropriately abrasive, in-your-face vibe.
BLXPLTN (pronounced Blaxploitation) is an Austin, TX-based trio comprised of TaSziin Muerte (electro drums and vocals), Javelin Hortsmann (bass, synth and vocals) and Lil K Big Q (guitar and vocals) have developed a reputation for […]