Tag: Flaunt Magazine

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Victoria + Jean Releases a Cinematic and Documentary-Styled Visual for Brooding “Imbecile”

With the release of their critically applauded full-length debut, 2016’s Divine Love, the  Swedish-Belgian duo and married couple Victoria + Jean received attention across Scandinavia, the European Union and the States internationally recognized media outlets like Noisey, Nowness, Konbini, The Line of Best Fit, Flaunt Magazine and others, including this site, for a slinky, seductive and explosive sound that meshes elements of indie rock, experimental pop, experimental rock, the blues and others that at points brings PJ Harvey  and others to mind. 

The duo’s long-awaited sophomore Henrik Alsér-produced album UNDERDOG is slated for release during the Spring — and the album’s first single is the brooding and menacing “Imbecile.” Centered around an atmospheric arrangement featuring sinister and propulsive bass line, insistent beats, slashing guitar lines, Victoria’s expressive vocals, a guest vocal turn from Eiffel’s Romain Humeau and an enormous hook, the song is full of bitter and accusatory resentments, the bile taste of failure and frustration, the disappointment and anger of betrayal, the gnawing sense of self-about and self-flagellation. It’s arguably, the angriest song they’ve released to date — and it’s fueled by personal experience. 

“After the release of the first album, we found ourselves in debt and lost our home,” Victoria + Jean’s Victoria explains in press notes. “We were left on our own, and were much disappointed by humans and by some of our close friends’ reactions. And it’s at those moments, you know who are the friends you can trust, and those you can’t. ‘Imbecile’ came to us as a result of what are the real faces of people, just t be truthful and to say ‘you know I’m not imbecile, I know you are thinking.’ Or just to say — your’e a bloody fucking imbecile!” Unsurprisingly, the song was also partially inspired by and was coincidentally written during world events — particularly, the humanitarian and legal crisis at the American/Mexican border, Brexit and so on. 

Directed by Sebastien Alouf, the recently released video for “Imbecile” is a cinematically shot, documentary-styled visual that follows the duo through a couple of days of their lives in Bristol that pulls back the curtains to reveal how their romantic and creative lives are intertwined and are one in the same. And throughout, the viewer sees that when the couple are together they’re in their own perfect world of art and love. “It has been several years since i met Victoria and Jean, and ever since I have episodically followed their adventures, life projects and music,” Alouf explains in press notes. “I have long been looking for a pretext to return to immerse myself in the intimacy of this couple, tell the reverse side of the scenery, the little strings that bind these two hypersensitive, hyper-creative and fusional beings. I wanted to make a sensitive fragment of their existence. . .”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site throughout the course of its seven year history, you may have come across a post or two featuring the up-and-coming New York-born and now Los Angeles-based pop artist and multi-instrumentalist  Beca. Receiving classical training at Juilliard, the New York-born, Los Angeles, CA-based pop artist forged her own path away from her formal training as she sought out opportunities to explore avant garde electronic music, compose for amplified string instruments and NYC’s underground club culture — all of which had been influences on her and her later work.

Since 2012, Beca has released two EPs through British label This Is Music Music, Ltd., self-released her full-length debut Ecliptic in 2015 and worked with Midnight Magic‘s Morgan Wiley. Beca has received praise from the likes of Flaunt, Galore Magazine, Lucky Magazine, received airplay from over 50 stations nationally including NPR’s “The Essentials” and KCRW, and she’s had her work remixed by the likes of Ashley Beedle, Klic, Night Drive and others.  Along with that, Beca was once a finalist in the International Songwriting Competition and the John Lennon Songwriting Contest. And adding to a growing profile, the up-and-coming artist has played at CMJ, SXSW, Miami Fashion Week, Sundance Film Festival, POP Montreal and NXNE and she’s toured across the US, Europe and Mexico.

Beca’s latest effort, the Blake Robin and Fabian Ordorica-produced, six song EP, In Deep Love is slated for release on September 15, 2017 and the album finds the up-and-coming New York-born, Los Angeles-based artist further cementing her reputation for crafting material that draws from 80s and 90s synth pop paired with lyrics influenced by mythology, classical music, film, art, romantic stories and her own personal life. EP title track and lead single “In Deep Love” is a shimmering and propulsive, club-banger that sonically seems indebted to Giorgio Moroder-era disco and 80s freestyle but while dance floor friendly, the song is under-pinned by a bitter heartbreak — the realization that you may have to let go of someone you love and accept the idea that there won’t be a future with that person. And while it may be painful, it’s the best thing for both people involved.