Tag: Fuzz Club

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Vacant Lots Share a Motorik Groove-Driven Bop

With the release of 2020’s Interzone through London-based psych label Fuzz Club, the Brooklyn-based psych duo The Vacant Lots — Jared Artaud (vocals, guitar, synths) and Brian McFayden (drums, synths, vocals) — crafted an album’s worth of material that saw the duo blending dance music and psych rock while maintaining the minimalist approach that has won the band acclaim across the international psych scene. 

The duo’s highly-anticipated fourth album Closure is slated for a September 30, 2022 release through Fuzz Club. Written during pandemic-related lockdowns, the eight-song Closure clocks in at 23 minutes and continues the Brooklyn-based duo’s established “minimal is maximal” ethos — all while being a soundtrack for a shattered, fucked up world. 

“During the pandemic the two of us were totally isolated in our home studios,” The Vacant Lots’ Jared Artaud says. “I don’t think the pandemic directly influenced the songs in an obvious way, but merely amplified existing feelings of alienation and isolation. We found ourselves writing in a more direct and vulnerable way than ever before.”

Last month, I wrote about Closure‘s first single “Chase.” Written on a Synsonics drum machine and a Yamaha CS-10 synthesizer, “Chase” is firmly rooted in their long-held “minimal is maximal” ethos but while seeing the Brooklyn-based duo pushing their sound in a club friendly direction while still being lysergic. Arguably one of their most dance floor friendly songs, “Chase” is centered around what may be the most vulnerable and direct lyrics of their growing catalog with the song subtly suggesting that at some point we will all need to dance away our heartache — if only for a three or four minutes.

“‘Chase’ is a song about longing, about the struggle of love across time zones,” The Vacant Lots’ Brian MacFayden explains in press notes. “It’s about the desire to close that gap of separation, but also the anticipation and excitement that builds between each encounter. It’s about a sense of knowing how it should be before it is.” The band’s Jared Artaud adds, “‘Chase’ has this duality that strikes a balance between wanting to dance and taking a pill that plunges you on the couch.”

Closure‘s second and latest single “Thank You” is a dance floor friendly banger centered around a relentless and angular, arpeggiated baseline paired with a four-on-the-floor drum machine pattern, glistening synths, angular guitar buzz and sneering vocals. But while being a New Order-like banger, “Thank You” is a bitter tell-off to a people (and situations) that have wasted valuable time.

“‘Thank You’ was built in the framework of simplicity,” The Vacant Lots Brian MacFayden says. “It has a relentless pace driven by an angular arpeggiated bassline and drum machine pattern. A Juno-6 was used for chords throughout, a Korg M500 for the leads, and the track is brought to another level with guitars layered on top. The process of crafting this song was done entirely remotely due to the pandemic and the layers over time became more and more refined until we were satisfied with each sound source.”

Directed by Alexander Schipper, the accompanying video brings Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground to mind as it features two impossibly cool people in sunglasses smoking and swaying to music, shot in grainy black and white.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Lyon, France’s Ashinoa Releases A Trippy Visual For Mind-Bending “Disguised in Orbit”

With the release of their full-length debut, 2019’s Sinie Sinie, the Lyon, France-based experimental synth act Ashinoa quickly exploded into the national and international scene: Sinie Sinie saw the French act establishing a minimalist krautrock approach.

The members of the Lyon-based act supported the album with tours around France opening for JOVM mainstays METZ and Flamingods, Warrmduscher, Bo Ningen, Kikagaku Moyo and others. Ashinoa’s forthcoming sophomore album L’Orée is slated for a March 25, 2022 release through Fuzz Club, and the album reportedly sees the band building upon the minimalist karutrock of their debut while taking the listener on a journey through the wilderness through shape-shifting, psychedelic electronics.

Although centered around a largely synthesizer-driven soundscape, L’Orée‘s material sees the members of Ashinoa exploring a much more natural, organic sound than their previously released work, a sound that at times is percussive and dance floor friendly and other times hypnotic and expansive — thanks in part to the environment it was written and recorded in. Recorded in a house, tucked away in the French countryside, which bordered on a surrounding forest, the band recalls that the album sessions were spent soaking up their immediate surroundings with a number of collaborators coming in and out to play on the record:

“The house we recorded the album in was kind of in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by Douglas Pine trees. From this proximity to the forest, we wanted to take our soundscapes to a place we’ve never been before,” the members of the French-based experimental act explain. “Before we were surrounded by concrete, and then far from it. We were looking for a new listening place, to discover new intriguing sounds. We had laid down the basis of the album and then musician friends that would visit us at the time were invited to participate in the making of the album, each one of them bringing a touch of their own.”

L’Orée‘s first single “Disguised by Orbit” is banger centered a trance-inducing, trippy groove, polyrhythmic breakbeats and undulating synths. The end result — to my ears — is a slick synthesis of L’eclair and Mildlife-like cosmic grooves, old school boom bap and Brit Pop swagger.

“This song feels like those beautiful night skies,” the members of Ashinoa explain. “You’re feeling tipsy, a bit high maybe. When the colours surrounding you aren’t really what they seem. Everything sparkles like crazy as if everything was disguised.”

Directed by Jeremy Labarre and Matteo Fabri, the recently released video for “Disguised by Orbit” follows a mutton chop wearing man as she angrily walks through a damp European downtown before encountering a gorgeous robe that encourages him to strut, vamp and dance through town. We also see a woman in the same rob, dancing in the desert.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Milan’s The Gluts Return with a Furious, New Ripper

Milan-based punk rock outfit The Gluts — Claudia Cesana (bass/vocals), Bruno Bassi (drums) and Nicolò Campana (vocals, synths) and Marco Campana (guitar) — derive their name from an age-old term often used to denote unsold, surplus goods. For the Milanese quartert, they’ve taken it to symbolically express a surplus of energy, much like the energy that has long driven their own work. Interestingly, since the band’s formation, the Milanese punks have established and honed an explosive and psychedelic-leaning take on noise and thrash punk with the release of their first three albums, 2014’s Warsaw, 2017’s Estasi and 2019’s Dengue Fever Hypnotic Trip. 

de Wit-produced fourth album Ungrateful Heart is slated for an October 8, 2021 release through Fuzz Club. Reportedly, the album sees the Italian quartet making a decided sonic departure from their previously released work. Ungrateful Heart’s material is deeply indebted to 70s punk, 80s hardcore and post punk — in particular, Fugazi, Gang of Four, Sex Pistols, Public Image, Ltd. and the Campana brothers’ obsession with Italian and American hardcore punk.

Recorded over a tireless week in which the band and their producer essentially lived and worked side-by-side in the studio around the clock, the Ungrateful Heart sessions were fueled by a forceful intensity and uncompromising fierceness. “Bob’s contribution to this album was essential. He pushed us beyond our limits. It was difficult, we can’t hide it, but it really was worth it,” the members of The Gluts say in press notes. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about album track “Love Me Do Again,” a slick and uncanny synthesis of Never Mind the Bollocks-era Sex Pistols and Mission of Burma rooted in unadulterated hedonism. Written by the band’s Bruno Bassi while in pandemic-related lockdown, the song was “inspired by the different versions of the myth of Dionysus (the Greek god of wine, pleasure, madness and frenzied ecstasy) and an unexpected excitement caused by imagining how great it would be to be all together again,” the band explains.

Heart’s latest single, “Mashilla” is a furious and muscular aural assault featuring scorching and angular riffage, thunderous drumming and vocal cord ripping howling. And while indebted to 70s punk and 80s hardcore, the song is centered around an alternating grunge rock-like song structure featuring hypnotic verses and ferocious mosh-pit starting choruses.

Continuing their ongoing collaboration with Brace Beltempo, the recently released video is a stylish and frenetically shot visual featuring the members of the band performing the song in an abandoned office space, along with some hallucinogenic sequences during the song’s hypnotic passages.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Venice, Italy’s New Candys Release a Dark and Brooding Single

Formed back in 2008, the Venice-based post punk/shoegazer act New Candys — currently Fernando Nuti (vocals, guitar), Andrea Volpato (guitar, vocals), Alessandro Boschiero (bass) and Dario Lucchesi (drums, sample) — developed a sound that they’ve dubbed dark, modern rock ‘n’ roll as it combines noisy, brooding sounds with distinct melodies. Additionally, they’ve managed to display a dynamic and symbiotic connection between their music and their visual aesthetic.

2012 saw the release of the Italian post punk/shoegazer outfit’s full-length debut, Stars Reach The Abyss, which they supported with a tour of the UK and Italy. Adding to a rapidly growing international profile, album single “Meltdown Corp.” was included on that year’s The Reverb Conspiracy compilation released by Fuzz Club and The Reverberation Appreciation Society. Their sophomore album 2015’s As Medicine was released through Picture In My Ear and Fuzz Club — and distributed by The Committee To Keep Music Evil. Over the next two years, the members of New Candys toured across Europe three times, playing at Secret Garden Party and Liverpool Psych Fest.

Their third album, 2017’s Bleeding Magenta was released by Fuzz Club and re-pressed in the US by Little Cloud Records. The Italian act supported the album with a European tour and a stop at SpaceFest in Gdańsk, Poland. 2018 began an extremely busy period for the band: they toured Australia, headlining Sydney Psych Fest, now and Melbourne Psych Fest now known as Bad Vibrations, as well as a set at Adelaide Fringe Festival. Then they went on a US-Mexico tour, which included a stop at Seattle’s KEXP for a live session. In 2018 they went on and completed a back-to-back tour of 50 shows across Europe, the US and Canada with stops at Desert Stars Festival, Milwaukee Psych Fest, Los Angeles’ The Echo, Austin, TX’s Hotel Vegas and The Mercury Lounge. And they ended the year with a full European tour with The Warlocks and The Dandy Warhols that also included a stop at Levitation France. And just before the pandemic wrecked havoc across the world, New Candys went on their first tour of the Balkans.Adding to a growing international profile, New Candys have had songs appear on several episodes of Showtime’s Shameless.

The band’s fourth and latest album Vyvyd officially dropped today through Little Cloud Records and Dischi Sotterranei with a exclusive vinyl edition through Fuzz Club — and the album, which was recorded at Venice’s Fox Studio by the band’s Andrea Volpato is the first recorded output with their current lineup. Thematically, the album finds the band exploring and toying with the idea of duality throughout its ten songs. And to celebrate the release of the album, the and released two singles, including “Factice.” Centered around a densely layered and sculpted soundscape featuring thunderous drumming, shimmering guitars, crunchy bass lines within an expansive song structure, the song sonically bears a resemblance to My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins and the like, while detailing its narrator’s desperate attempts to escape a slow-burning descent into madness.