Although they officially formed in 2012, the Auburn, CA-based electro pop/experimental pop act Sunmonks can actually trace its origins to when the act’s primary members Geoffrey CK and Alexandra Steele met in 2005. And in […]
Tag: experimental pop
New Video: The Stunningly Dramatic Visuals and Sounds of Victoria + Jean’s “Where We Belong”
If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past six years, you’ve likely come across a number of posts about Victoria + Jean, a Stockholm-based avant pop duo, who have a growing international profile across […]
Over the past 15 years, singer/songwriter and musician Jordan Geiger has developed a reputation for being incredibly prolific — he’s been a member of several renowned indie rock acts including Shearwater, The Appleseed Cast, Des Ark and Minus Story, and he’s released three albums with his solo recording project Hospital Ships. Geiger’s fourth full-length Hospital Ships effort, The Past is Not a Flood is slated for a March 11, 2016 release through Graveface Records, and the album features a myriad number of Austin, TX-based collaborators including longtime friend, Swans‘ Thor Harris — and is Geiger’s sixth album with renowned producer John Congleton, best known for his work with St. Vincent, The Walkmen, Modest Mouse and others.
Thematically speaking, The Past is Not a Flood reportedly draws from Geiger’s own battles with mental illness, anxiety and depression, which will arguably make his fourth full-length album his most personal one to date. The album’s first single “You and I” possesses a gorgeous painterly quality as layers of twisting and turning piano chords undulating and chiming percussion and ominously ambient electronics are slowly added like brushstrokes upon a canvas — and then they’re paired with Geiger’s achingly tender vocals expressing vulnerability, shame, regret and confusion over a dysfunctional and fucked up relationship that’s at an impasse. While sonically bearing a resemblance to Amnesiac-era Radiohead, Remember Remember and Mogwai‘s most recent ambient experiments “You and I” manages to feel like a lingering and anxious fever dream.
New Video: The Darkly Surreal and Playful Visuals for Marco Benevento’s “Dropkick”
Over the past (almost) six years or so, Marco Benevento has developed a reputation as an critically acclaimed jazz/jazz fusion/free jazz/experimental jazz/post-rock and jam band pianist and composer, who has collaborated with an impressive and […]
New Video: The Hauntingly Gorgeous and Mournful Visuals for Victoria + Jean’s “Härligt Sverige”
As you can imagine, over the course of the six year history of this site, there have been an increasing number of artists who have become mainstays — including Victoria + Jean, a Stockholm, Sweden-based avant […]
New Video: The Brooding Sounds and Visuals of Vienna’s Hearts Hearts
Comprised of David Österle, Daniel Hämmerle, Johannes Mandorfer and Peter Paul Aufreiter, the Vienna, Austria-based quartet Hearts Hearts specialize in a brooding slow-burning, elegiac sound that meshes elements of classical music and contemporary electro pop in a way that […]
Just in time to close out the year, the members of Radiohead announced that last year, they were approached to write a theme song for the latest James Bond film, Spectre. Knowing that the studio and the film’s director went with Sam Smith‘s “Writing On The Wall,” it’s pretty obvious that someone decided that Radiohead’s “Spectre” just wasn’t going to work out — although to be honest, “Spectre” is a gorgeous,moody and dramatic jazz-inspired composition that sounds as though it could have been on Amnesiac or King of Limbs. To my ears, what makes the song so strange is that Radiohead’s theme song as though it could have been part of an art-house film about consumerism, greed, alienation and regret, while capturing the tone and feel of a Bond film.
New Video: The Surreal and Nightmarish Sounds and Visuals for Crown Larks’ “Chapels”
Crown Larks – “Chapels” – Music Video from Emily Esperanza on Vimeo. Chicago, IL-based quartet Crown Larks have steadily built up a both a local and national reputation with praise from the likes of Stereogum, […]
New Video: Field Music Muses on Aging and Being Cool in Video for “The Noisy Days Are Over”
Comprised of its creative masterminds, sibling duo Peter and David Brewis, along with the contributions of Kev Dosdale, Andrew Lowther, Ian Black, Liz Corney, Andrew Moore, Damo Waters and a rotating casts of collaborators, the Sunderland, […]
Comprised of Susie Wedderburn, Rick David, Jana Tyrrell, and Hannah Ashman, the London-based alternative electro pop quartet Liskka have developed a reputation across the UK for a sound that draws from electro pop, contemporary R&B, glitch, dub step and other electronic music genres while managing to sound nothing like any of them. The British quartet’s latest single “Keep Me Awake” pairs warm blasts of horn, oboe and piano with glitchy synth stabs, stuttering kick drum and drum programming, swirling electronics, layers of vocals fed through vocoder and other effects with soulful vocals in a song that sounds inspired by Timbaland‘s influential production work with Missy Elliott think of a song like “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly),” Aaliyah‘s “Try Again,” Justin Timberlake’s “Rock Your Body” and others — but somehow even more futuristic, as though the song was produced in the year 2321.
The song manages to possess an eerie and otherworldly quality that stems from an overall sound that’s dense and yet incredibly delicate. To my ears, the instrumentation and the vocals sound as though they could snap if you were to put gentle pressure on them.
Finish electronic music act Husky Rescue have developed a reputation across both their native Finland and Scandinavia for a songwriting approach that focuses on restless experimentation — and for material that sonically and aesthetically walks a very careful tightrope between anxious tenseness and childlike innocence. The band’s last album The Long Lost Friend will be re-issued worldwide on December 11 as a double album — the first album is comprised of original album’s eight previously released tracks; however, since the initial recording sessions and release of Long Lost Friend, vocalist Johanna Kalén left the band because of health issues, so the second album consists of material written by Marko Nyberg (vocals and production), and Antony Bentley (composer and musical director).
Now if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past month, you may recall that I’ve written about Husky Rescue and Long Lost Friend‘s first single “Deep Forest Green.” But some backstory may be a little necessary: According to press notes, there actually is a real story of a long lost friend that informs the material on original album. As the story goes, the long lost friend in question was someone Nyberg was particularly close to throughout most of his childhood — in fact, the two played music together and had a deep mutual understanding that comes from very close friendships. Sadly, the two friends lost touch with each other through most of their twenties, but while Nyberg was writing the songs on Long Lost Friend, he had regained contact with this dear friend. Reportedly, the material as a whole blends the literal and metaphorical, so the material manages to be about more than just one individual friendships — but varying states of emotional intimacy and how difficult and confusing it is to attain them.
Whereas album single “Deep Forest Green” seemed to sound as though it owed a sonic and thematic debt to the work of Bjork, Talking Heads and others, the album’s latest single “Far From The Storm,”pairs Kalén’s lovely yet ethereal vocals with gently strummed guitar chord sample, twinkling keys and gently undulating synths. The song concludes with coda that’s one part psychedelic and one part ominous as it features a towering and buzzing guitar solo. Sonically and structurally, the song seems as though it draws from Moonbabies fantastic Wizards on the Beach and Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” — or in other words, cinematic dream pop with an even breezier nature and catchy hooks.
New Videos: Yassou’s Hauntingly Gorgeous and Dream-like Multimedia EP
Hopefully, if you’ve been frequenting JOVM enough, especially over the past three or four months or so, you may recall that I’ve written about the San Francisco-based quintet Yassou. Originally named Yassou Benedict, the quintet comprised […]
New Audio: The Dreamy and Futuristic Sounds of Midday Veil’s “Babel”
Comprised of co-founders Emily Pothast and David Golightly, along with Timm Mason, Jayson Kochan, Garrett Moore and Sam Yoder, the Seattle,WA-based sextet Midday Veil have developed a reputation for crafting material that’s subtle and incredibly nuanced, […]
New Audio: Introducing Portland, OR’s Mothertapes and Their Anthemic Yet Swooningly Romantic Sound
Comprised of Pete Bosack and Tommy Franzen, the Portland, OR-based duo Mothertapes can trace their collaborative efforts to the duo’s first musical project, Wax Fingers which they co-founded. Zac Jacobsen, was recruited to flesh out […]
New Video: The Breezy Yet Mournful Psychedelia of Astronauts etc.’s “I Know”
When we look back at our own lives, it can seem that there was only one path we were meant to go but in reality, there were often countless paths, in which any number of […]