With the release of his debut single “Breathe,” earlier this year, a track that championed across Ireland, the UK, the European Union and the States through praise from Hotpress Magazine, Euphoria Magazine, Nialler9 and airplay from BBC ATL Introducing, the rising Dublin-based electro pop artist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Christian Cohle quickly established a reputation for a songwriting approach that often finds him walking on the knife’s edge of fuzzy and anthemic electro pop and shoegazing, contemplative electronic music.
“Ghost,” Cohle’s second and latest single off his forthcoming full-length Michael Heffernan co-produced debut Holy Trouble is an atmospheric and melancholic track featuring shimmering and atmospheric synths, a spectral yet percussive beat and Cohle’s soulful and achingly plaintive crooning. But at its core, the song is a brooding and haunting meditation on seemingly unending loss that in some way evokes the horror, unease and confusion that we all feel as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic: in some way we’re all aware that we’ve lost something profound that we’ll never get back.
Founded back in 2017, the duo’s collaboration is a decided change in sonic direction from their previous output as the project finds the Swedish songwriters and producers experimenting with their own unique take on melodic alt-pop, which meshes elements of 70s Americana and Nordic melancholia. Coincidentally, as they started their own attention-grabbing project, the duo received accolades for co-writing Avicii’s “Without You” and “Waiting for Love,” which led to a Swedish Grammy Award win for Composer of the Year. Adding to a growing profile across the international electro pop scene, Al Fakir and Pontare performed their co-written hit “More Than You Know” with Axwell /\ Ingrosso at Coachella — and they played a key role in finishing Avicci’s posthumously released album TIM, contributing on three of the album’s songs.
Last year, I wrote about “Forgot To Be Your Lover,” a carefully crafted pop song that balanced easygoing AM rock, yacht rock breeziness and achingly melancholic nostalgia while sonically the track was centered around atmospheric synths, lush layers of shimmering and twangy, country-styled guitar lines. In some way, the song – to my ears at least – reminded me of Danish JOVM mainstays Palace Winter, but with an ambitious, arena rock feel.
The acclaimed and commercially successful Swedish pop duo’s highly anticipated full-length debut is slated for release at the end of the month. Building upon the growing buzz surrounding them, the duo’s latest single “Someone That Understands Me” continues a run of ambitious, arena rock-like pop. Centered around shimmering acoustic guitar, achingly plaintive vocals, enormous hooks, thunderous drumming and a scorching, Purple Rain-era Prince-like guitar solo from Ludwig Goransson, the song is the contented sigh of a world-weary person, who has stumbled upon one of life’s rare gifts – finding someone like-minded, who truly understands and accepts you for you.
I recently spoke to the duo via email about the new single, which officially drops today, their soon-to-be released album and more. Check out new single and the Q&A below.
____
WRH: How did you get into music?
Vincent Pontare: My father is a singer, so I got my first guitar from him when I was seven years- old.
Salem Al Fakir: I started to play violin and piano when I was three.
WRH: Who are your influences?
VP and SAF: We love all types of music! We have our roots in hip-hop/reggae/70s/60s but get most of the inspiration for VARGAS & LAGOLA from 70s Americana.
WRH: How would you describe your sound to someone completely unfamiliar with you and your work?
WRH:Can you name a couple of Swedish acts that should be getting love outside of Sweden but haven’t yet? And why should we know about them?
VP and SAF: VARGAS & LAGOLA. We feel that our type music is unrepresented out in the world at the moment.
WRH: The band is comprised of two, highly accomplished and incredibly successful solo songwriters and producers. What brought the two of you together to collaborate? And how has working together changed your creative process?
VP and SAF: We had met before through mutual friends and had the same booking agency and later on we shared the same studio for a month and then one day we said: we should try to write a song together!?
And the rest is history. . .
It’s a blessing to be two and in the same boat! When the other one is out of ideas or need a break the other one jumps in
WRH: Both of you have managed to write material for an impressive list of globally known pop artists. Has that work influenced or changed your creative process?
VP and SAF: I think success affects [sic] your compass for what works or not in a good way, you trust your gut feel[ing] and that’s the most important tool we have.
WRH: Your latest single “Somebody That Understands Me” features a guest spot from Ludwig Goransson. How did that come about?
VP and SAF: You might think we already knew him cause we all are Swedes, but we didn’t’! We just fanboyed him up on Instagram and said, “Would you be up for trying a guitar solo on our upcoming single?” And he said “Yes.”
WRH: Speaking of “Somebody That Understands Me,” the track is one of those big, arena rock-friendly sentimental pop tunes with the sort of hook that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. In some way, the song kind of reminds me of Purple Rain and 1999-era Prince. So who and what influenced the song? Is it influenced by personal experience?
VP and SAF: We both have a soft spot for 90s arena rock, so we wanted to please ourselves for a second. Who doesn’t love a 12-string guitar riff!???
The song is about the beauty in finding like-minded people and a homage to thinking outside of the box in life in general. All types of music or genres we’ve been obsessed of comes from an underdog or rebellious perspective. So we wanted to get a little bit of that feeling into the lyrics and the production
WRH: Your highly anticipated full-length debut is slated for release at the end of the month. What should we expect from the album?
VP and SAF: We want to give our fans a more nuanced palette of our musical landscape, so The Butterfly Effect is a piece in that puzzle.
WRH: What’s next for you?
VP and SAF: Promotion, touring and writing more music.
I’m currently writing this at the bar/restaurant at the gorgeous Hotel Monville in downtown Montreal, Quebec, drinking coffee and having an amazing breakfast. (So far, the food I’ve had has been amazing — but more on that later because I haven’t had poutine yet.) Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past week or so, you’d recall that I’m in town for the M for Montreal Festival. I’ll be posting as much as I can — and if I’m bleary eyed and exhausted, so be it. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
So let’s get to the business at hand, right?
After the release of last year’s critically applauded album ATW, the Nashville-based psych rock act All Them Witches went through a massive lineup change, which has resulted in the band’s most pared down lineup in their entire history — Charles Michael Parks, Jr (bass, vocals), Ben McLeod (guitar, vocals) and Robby Staebler (drums, vocals). And although it’s stereotypically expected for a bands with pared down lineups to release more restrained and even quieter work, All Them Witches’ latest standalone single, the self-produced “1X1” finds the band employing a muscular, prog rock-like leaning sound, complete with scorching guitars, thunderous drumming, distorted vocals and enormous arena rock friendly hooks. Interestingly, the track may arguably be one of the heaviest of the band’s growing catalog.
Directed, filmed and edited by the band’s Robby Staebler, the recently released video for “1X1” features starring roles by the entire band and a cameo from Sons of Anarchy’s Drea de Matteo in a hallucinogenic and menacing occult world reminiscent of Soundgarden.
After the release of last year’s critically applauded album ATW, the Nashville-based psych rock act All Them Witches went through a massive lineup change, which has resulted in the band’s most pared down lineup in their entire history — Charles Michael Parks, Jr (bass, vocals), Ben McLeod (guitar, vocals) and Robby Staebler (drums, vocals). And although it’s stereotypically expected for a bands with pared down lineups to release more restrained and even quieter work, All Them Witches’ latest standalone single, the self-produced “1X1” finds the band employing a muscular, prog rock-like leaning sound, complete with scorching guitars, thunderous drumming, distorted vocals and enormous arena rock friendly hooks. Interestingly, the track may arguably be one of the heaviest of the band’s growing catalog.
Founded back in 2017, the duo’s collaboration is a decided change in sonic direction from their previous output as the project finds the Swedish songwriters and producers experimenting with their own unique take on melodic alt-pop, which meshes elements of 70s Americana and Nordic melancholia. Coincidentally, as they started their own attention-grabbing project, the duo received accolades for co-writing Avicii’s “Without You” and “Waiting for Love,” which led to a Swedish Grammy Award win for Composer of the Year. Adding to a growing profile across the international electro pop scene, Al Fakir and Pontare performed their co-written hit “More Than You Know” with Axwell /\ Ingrosso at Coachella — and they played a key role in finishing Avicci’s posthumously released album TIM, which they contributed on three of the album’s songs.
The duo’s latest single “Forgot To Be Your Lover” is a carefully crafted pop song that finds the duo balancing an easy-going AM rock meets yacht rock breeziness with an achingly melancholic nostalgia. Sonically, the track is centered around atmospheric synths and lush layers of shimmering and twangy, country-styled guitar lines — and in some way, the track reminds me of Danish JOVM mainstays Palace Winter, complete with an soaring and infectious hook.
“It’s a story of neglected love, as well as reflection of what love really means if one person drags the other one down in the gutter,” the duo explain in press notes. “We wrote it while searching for a melancholic piece in Vargas & Lagola’s musical puzzle. With it, we created our own space to experiment with and express what’s on our minds.”
Currently comprised of founding members Josh Landau (guitar, vocals) and Jeff Murray (drums) along with their newest member, Nashville Pussy‘s and Chelsea Girls‘ Corey Parks, the Los Angeles-based metal act The Shrine can trace their origins to their hometown warehouse skate parties and guitar shops — and since their formation the band has rapidly built up a national profile with multiple appearances at Ozzfest, opening slots for the likes of Slayer, Ghost and Dinosaur Jr., as well as several headline tours across Australia and Japan. Adding to a growing profile, the band have an official Dogtown Skateboard, a signature Converse shoe and an appearance on Ride with Norman Reedus.
Slated for a May 3, 2019 release through Eliminator Records, the act’s forthcoming Cruel World EP reportedly finds the band drawing from 70s and 80s metal — in particular Black Sabbath and ZZ Top — but with a subtly modern take. The EP’s first single “Dance On a Razor’s Edge” is pure, unadulterated, Headbangers Ball-era metal: enormous, power chord-based riffs, thunderous drumming and arena rock hooks, delivered with a sleazy, boozy sneer.
Comprised of Arthur Onion, Fredrik Differ, Oliver Boson, and Alex Ceci, the up-and-coming, Stockholm, Sweden-based indie rock quartet Mankind have developed a local and national profile for crafting anthemic and bluesy, garage rock reminiscent of The Black Keys, Winstons, and others; however, they set themselves apart from their cohorts with material that not only thematically focuses on heavy and dark subjects — namely nihilism, mourning the lost of loved ones, the contemplation of the passing of time and getting older, love, death and extinction while making references to the work of What Whitman, French graphic novels, Tin Pan Alley classics, the Biblical story of Lazarus, and several different religious scriptures on death without being pretentious or purposely difficult; in fact, “Ghost” off the Swedish indie rock quartet’s recently released Death EP focuses on something that will feel and sound familiar — the lingering ghosts of a relationship that have haunted and taunted the song’s narrator, and it evokes someone who has been torturing himself with the “what if’s” and the “if i had known then what i know nows” and so on while desperately trying to accept the fact that it’s over and it’s a part of his past. And in some way, the song’s narrator has to accept the death of a relationship as an actual death.
If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past five years or so, you’ve likely come across a handful of posts featuring the Melbourne, Australia-based indie folk/indie rock act Husky. Initially formed as a quartet featuring founding members and primary songwriters Husky Gawenda (vocals, guitar) and Gideon Preiss (keys, vocals) with Tweedie (bass, vocals) and Luke Collins (drums) filling out the band’s original lineup, the band quickly received national acclaim after winning Triple J’s Unearthed Contest and playing at The Push Over Festival, one of Australia’s biggest music festivals. Adding to a growing profile, the band opened for severally internationally known touring acts including Devendra Banhart, Noah and the Whale, The Shins, and Gotye.
As the story goes, the band’s remarkably self-assured and gorgeously lush full-length debut Forever So was released globally through Sub Pop Records but it was actually recorded in a lovingly DIY fashion with old recording gear in an abandoned bungalow near Husky Gwenda’s house. The band’s sophomore effort Ruckers Hill further cemented the act’s reputation for incredibly crafted songs that possessed elements of folk, pop and indie rock, along with some gorgeous melodies and rather anthemic hooks; however with up until the release of “Late Night Store” late last year, the band revealed a change in thematic and sonic direction that was influenced by a massive lineup change that left the band’s founding duo as its sole members — and from the year that Gawenda and Preiss spent living in Berlin. Whereas the material off their first two albums was melody- driven, “Late Night Store” was much more hook-driven and featured the band employing the use of synths, keys and electric guitar in what may arguably one of the more rousingly anthemic songs they’ve released. Thematically, the song captured the wild array of sensations and emotions most commonly felt when you’re far away from home — in particular, awe, reinvention, danger, of being in the words of Paul Salopek “a traveler, a man from far away” — while evoking the sensation of wandering around all hours of the day and night from jet lag, excitement, boredom and loneliness from hotel room to cafe, from cafe to bar, from bar to nightclub, observing everyone and everything around you; the strange and profound bond you have with others, who are like you, far away from home and are wandering around with the exact same thoughts and feelings reverberating in their heads.
“Ghost,” the second and latest single off the band’s third full-length effort Punchbuzz, slated for a June 2, 2017 continues in a similar vein as its preceding single as it features shimmering arpeggio synths, a propulsive bass line, thundering drumming and a rousingly anthemic hook — and while being an ambitious and contemporary, indie rock-leaning take on the sound that won them international attention, both singles manage to be among the most personal songwriting of Gawenda’s career. Interestingly, as Gwenda explained to the folks at Clash, “‘Ghost’ is about a process of coming to terms with this half-asleep, half-awake, somewhere between the haunted past and the sunlit possibility of tomorrow, mid-air, mid-dream state. Put simply, I was searching for a way to get free. Free of the past. Free of the future. Free of myself. Whatever that means.” And as a result, the song possesses an urgent yearning for something that’s not quite there in front of you while hinting at the regrets, mistakes and experiences that accumulate to create a messy, lived-in life.
Directed by Jonathan Chong, produced by Dropbear Digital and featuring animation by Clem Stamation, the recently released video for “Ghost” features crocheted animation of Gawenda and Preiss as clownish, hobo-looking skeletons, the Grim Reaper ferrying souls to the underworld across a literal river of dead, a train that runs on ghosts — and while being mischievous, the video possesses a dark, dream-like logic.
If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past five years or so, you’ve likely come across a handful of posts featuring the Melbourne, Australia-based indie folk/indie rock act Husky. Initially formed as a quartet featuring founding members and primary songwriters Husky Gawenda (vocals, guitar) and Gideon Preiss (keys, vocals) with Tweedie (bass, vocals) and Luke Collins (drums) filling out the band’s original lineup, the band quickly received national acclaim after winning Triple J’s Unearthed Contest and playing at The Push Over Festival, one of Australia’s biggest music festivals. Adding to a growing profile, the band opened for severally internationally known touring acts including Devendra Banhart,Noah and the Whale, The Shins, and Gotye.
As the story goes, the band’s remarkably self-assured and gorgeously lush full-length debut Forever So was released globally through Sub Pop Records but it was actually recorded in a lovingly DIY fashion with old recording gear in an abandoned bungalow near Husky Gwenda’s house. The band’s sophomore effort Ruckers Hill further cemented the act’s reputation for incredibly crafted songs that possessed elements of folk, pop and indie rock, along with some gorgeous melodies and rather anthemic hooks; however with up until the release of “Late Night Store” late last year, the band revealed a change in thematic and sonic direction that was influenced by a massive lineup change that left the band’s founding duo as its sole members — and from the year that Gawenda and Preiss spent living in Berlin. Whereas the material off their first two albums was melody- driven, “Late Night Store” was much more hook-driven and featured the band employing the use of synths, keys and electric guitar in what may arguably one of the more rousingly anthemic songs they’ve released. Thematically, the song captured the wild array of sensations and emotions most commonly felt when you’re far away from home — in particular, awe, reinvention, danger, of being in the words of Paul Salopek “a traveler, a man from far away” — while evoking the sensation of wandering around all hours of the day and night from jet lag, excitement, boredom and loneliness from hotel room to cafe, from cafe to bar, from bar to nightclub, observing everyone and everything around you; the strange and profound bond you have with others, who are like you, far away from home and are wandering around with the exact same thoughts and feelings reverberating in their heads.
“Ghost,” the second and latest single off the band’s third full-length effort Punchbuzz, slated for a June 2, 2017 continues in a similar vein as its preceding single as it features shimmering arpeggio synths, a propulsive bass line, thundering drumming and a rousingly anthemic hook — and while being an ambitious and contemporary, indie rock-leaning take on the sound that won them international attention, both singles manage to be among the most personal songwriting of Gawenda’s career. Interestingly, as Gwenda explained to the folks at Clash, “‘Ghost’ is about a process of coming to terms with this half-asleep, half-awake, somewhere between the haunted past and the sunlit possibility of tomorrow, mid-air, mid-dream state. Put simply, I was searching for a way to get free. Free of the past. Free of the future. Free of myself. Whatever that means.” And as a result, the song possesses an urgent yearning for something that’s not quite there in front of you while hinting at the regrets, mistakes and experiences that accumulate to create a messy, lived-in life.
With the release of her previous single “Ghost,” up-and-coming Gothenburg, Sweden-based singer/songwriter, indie electro pop artist and producer Mira Aasma has quickly received national attention in her native Sweden, as well as attention across the UK for a sound that’s been compared favorably to the likes of Florence and the Machine as Aasma’s earliest releases possess a maturity and self-assuredness that belies her relatively young age of 19. Aasma’s latest single “Whale Song” off her self-produced, forthcoming EP Stereoscope pairs the Swedish pop artist and producer’s coolly self-assured vocals with dramatic, thumping industrial beats, swirling electronics, shimmering cascades of synths in a sweeping and cinematic pop song that sounds indebted to early Depeche Mode — in particular think “People Are People” — but with a sense of introspection and perspective that can only come from profound and hard-fought experience.
