Tag: Green Witch Recordings

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Pearl Earl Makes Evil Fun in “Evil Does It”

Currently splitting her time between Los Angeles and Denton, TX, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is the creative mastermind and frontperson of the rising psych rock project Pearl Earl. Originally started as a bedroom project on Harley’s laptop while she was in college, the project has seen several different iterations, and now consists of a rotating cast of original lineup and touring members including Bailey K. Chapman, Stefanie Lazcano, Chelsey Danielle, Teddy Georgia Waggy and Leeza V.

Once described as “Pink Floyd in the sunlight,” Pearl Earl’s material makes heavy nods to spacey prog and golden era glam rock, but while seeing the band carve their own take. The band has also developed a reputation for a live show that’s captivating and euphoric with an ominous, impish grin. And adding to a growing profile, they have shared bills with the likes of JOVM mainstays Death Valley Girls, The Black Angels and Frankie and The Witch Fingers, Oh Sees, Post Animal, Acid Dad and Black Lips. They’ve also made the run of the national festival circuit with sets at LEVITATION and SXSW among others.

Recorded at Tomas Dolas at Studio 22, and released last month through Green Witch Recordings, Pearl Earl’s sophomore It’s Dread thematically explores existential crisis in an apocalyptic, doomed world plagued by a capitalistic, patriarchal society captivated and ruled by celebrity worship and blind consumerism. And yet, despite the fact that most of the album’s material was written during the COVID-19 pandemic, “there is an underlying glimmer of help and resolution throughout its subversive demeanor,” Pearl Earl’s Ariel Hartley says.

It’s Dread‘s first single “Evil Does It” is built around woozy synths, a reverb-soaked, drunken rhythmic swing, buzzing guitars paired with Hartley’s punchy delivery and an infectious hook. The song manages to be menacing and uneasy yet somehow mischievous — and sort of campy. Evil can be so delightful, y’all!

Directed by Sara Mosier, the accompanying video for “It’s Dread” is set in a drug-addled, consumerism hellscape much like our own — and features mind-bending Bob Fosse-like sequences in a suburban home with several Versailles-like rooms, a Broadway-like set and ends with its protagonists in the endless conflagration of hell. And the Grim Reaper makes an appearance.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Lauren Lakis Shares Yearning “Take My Hand”

Lauren Lakis is a Baltimore-born, Austin-based singer/songwriter and musician, who specializes in a brooding and churning take on shoegaze centered around authentic, honest lyricism. Lakis and her backing band have extensively toured across the West Coast, sharing bills with Ringo Award-nominated rocker Tracy Bonham. She has also played in front of sold-out crowds at Doug Fir Lounge and at Santa Cruz’s The Catalyst.

During the pandemic, Lakis performed several live-streamed shows, partnering with Bandsintown, Jam in the Van, B-Side TV, Rock to End Rape Culture, KXLU, ACLU and JuJu Live.

Recorded at Seahorse Sound, the Baltimore-born, Austin-based artist’s Billy Burke-produced Daughter Language was released by Green Witch Recordings in 2021 to critical acclaim from Flaunt, Wonderland, Earmilk, Ladygunn, Buzzbands LA, Grimy Goods, Atwood Magazine and more.

Daughter Language‘s highly-anticipated follow-up, the Carey McGraw-produced A Fiesta and a Hell was recorded in Austin and is slated for a Fall release through Green Witch Recordings. The album’s first single “Take My Hand” is a brooding and stormy bit of shoegaze built around an alternating quiet and loud sections featuring glistening guitar textures for the verses and swirling, stormy power chord-driven choruses paired with Lakis’ achingly yearning vocal. The single, as Lakis explains is about “forgetting what you thought you knew, letting go, bravely opening your mind to something radically different. She adds “What if you were wrong? Are you able to admit it? Can you shift with the ever-changing landscape of reality, or are you stuck in your ways? I found myself stepping into the unknown in many ways the past few years, forced to entertain the notion that maybe I didn’t know everything, and in that I found freedom.” 

Shot in Rapid City, South Dakota and Badlands National Park, the accompanying video follows the rising singer/songwriter hanging out with a large tortoise, going through a dinosaur park, dancing on a dinosaur statue and more. It’s a surreal yet highly symbolic romp through the wilderness — both natural and constructed.

Lakis will be playing at next week’s The New Colossus Festival. I’lm looking forward to catching her.