Tag: Hand Drawn Dracula

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toronto’s Tallies Share Shimmering and Longing “Special”

With the release of 2019’s self-titled, full-length debut, Toronto-based dream pop outfit Tallies — Dylan Frankland (guitar), Sarah Cogan (vocals, guitar) and Cian O’Neill (drums) — exploded into the national and international scenes: The album received praise from the likes of Under the Radar, DIY Magazine, The Line of Best Fit, MOJO, Bandcamp Daily, Exclaim!,  KEXP and others. And adding to a rapidly growing profile, the Toronto-based dream poppers have opened for Mudhoney, Hatchie, Tim Burgess and Weaves. 

The band’s Graham Walsh and Dylan Frankland co-produced sophomore album Patina, which was recorded at Palace Sound, Holy Fuck‘s Baskitball 4 Life and Candle Recording is slated for a July 29, 2022 release through Kanine Records here in the States, Hand Drawn Dracula in Canada and Bella Union in the UK and EU. The album, which was understandably delayed as a result of the pandemic is simultaneously a labor of love and a bold step forward for the Canadian trio: Firmly rooted in their penchant in juxtaposing light and dark, the album continues to see the band drawing from Lush, Beach House and Cocteau Twins, but with a greater emphasis on shimmering guitars, earnest, lived-in songwriting — and a well-placed, razor sharp hook.

The album will feature, the previously released “No Dreams of Fayres,” an ironically upbeat single that sonically brought The Sundays‘ “Here’s Where The Story Ends,” while documenting Sarah Cogan’s struggles with depression — in particular, thee moments, when she was trying to work it out, but just couldn’t find the energy to do so.

“‘No Dreams of Fayres’ is a reflection of thoughts that I remember going through my mind when I stayed still in bed,” Tallies’ Sarah Cogan explains in press notes. “Feeling as though staying still in bed was the only thing that would help the sadness – basically, disconnecting myself from family, friends, and having a life. Finding the way out of depression was hard but possible. ‘No Dreams of Fayres’ is also about the realization of letting yourself feel real feelings but not mistaking them for emotions. I had to learn to get a grip of what I wanted out of life and go for it with no self-sabotage – which was music, as cliché as it sounds. It pulled me out of bed, physically and mentally.”

Patina‘s latest single “Special” continues a run remarkable run of deceptively upbeat shoegazer-inspired jangle pop featuring Cogan’s plaintive vocals, Frankland’s shimmering reverb-drenched guitar lines and O’Neill’s propulsive drumming paired with their unerring knack for razor sharp, anthemic hooks. But despite its breezy nature, the song is underpinned by a an aching and familiar yearning: “‘Special,’ as Sarah Cogan explains “is about longing to be seen and heard by those who matter to you most. Sometimes, feeling invisible is particularly painful when the indifference comes from someone whose opinion means a lot to you.”

Directed by Justis Krar at IMMV Productions, the accompanying video for “Special” features carefully edited stock footage from movies and home videos: The video begins with fingers and toes — dipping into water, or shampooed hair before following a troubled and bored couple, who have deeply unaddressed issues. You can read the pain and heartache in both of their faces, and it further emphasizes the themes at the heart of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay No Joy Teams Up with Arch Enemy’s Alissa White-Gluz on a Feverish Visual for “Dream Rats”

Over the past three years or so of this site’s history,  I’ve written quite a bit about Montreal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer Jasamine White-Gluz, the creative mastermind behind the critically applauded JOVM mainstay act No Joy.  Initially starting out as a series of emailed guitar riffs between White-Gluz and her then-bandmate Laura Lloyd, the project has always been centered around White-Gluz’s penchant for restless experimentation. And throughout the project’s history, it has gone through a number of different sonic permutations with subsequent albums showcasing her love of delay-saturated jangle, industrial distortion and sludgy droning over disco-like beats.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past handful of months, you’d recall that White-Gluz’s Jorge Elbrecht-produced Motherhood is slated for a Friday release through Joyful Noise Recordings and Hand Drawn Dracula in Canada. The album is the Canadian-based artist’s first full-length album album in five years, and reportedly, the album finds her returning to the project’s early, DIY recording, shoegazer roots — but the material finds the JOVM mainstay continuing to expand upon her sound with the incorporation of elements of trip-hop, trance, nu-metal/deathcore and others. Some of the album’s genre-defying approach was inspired by White-Gluz’s many tours with genre-divergent artists: touring with Quicksand, No Joy picked up post-hardcore fans and ambient techno fans while touring with Baths. “As long as people are open minded about music, they can hear different things,” explains White-Gluz, “Maybe because there are a lot of layers.”

So far I’ve written about two of Motherhood’s singles —  “Birthmark,” which managed to be a seamless and trippy synthesis of Brit pop, shoegaze, trip-hop and shoegaze with a soaring hook and the Amoral-era Violens-like “Four.” “Dream Rats,” Motherhood’s third and latest single features White-Gluz’s sister Alissa White-Gluz, a member of deathcore supergroup Arch Enemy. Centered around thunderous drumming, synth choirs, twinkling strings, power chord shredding and soaring hooks, the song is a maximalist fever dream that recalls the aforementioned Violens while being a radio friendly 3.35.

“I’ve never collaborated musically with my sister before,” Jasamine White-Gluz says in press notes. “When we were kids we would sing and play music together but as we’ve both become adults and touring musicians we’ve never had a chance to work together. This is the heaviest song on this record so it felt fitting to have her on there. There is something special about her being on this album, specifically because it’s an exploration of family and motherhood.”

Directed by Beatrice Scharf-Pierzchala, the recently released video stars the White-Gluz sisters and a duck named Success, who’s something of a local celebrity in Montreal. (I just looked up the backstory behind Success and it’s adorable. And if you want to see a picture that will make your heart melt, there’s a picture of the bird on the Montreal metro.)

While the video is something of a surreal fever dream, the White-Gluz sisters bigger purpose was to spotlight the Le Nichoir Wild Bird Rehabilitation Centre, a non-profit organization located in Hudson, Quebec. Their mission is to conserve wild birds as part of Canada’s natural heritage. For more information and to donate, check out the following: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/le-nichoir-wild-bird-rehabilitation-centre/

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays No Joy Follows Up-and-Coming Artist Ashley Diabo in her Home in Playful Visual for “Four”

I’ve written quite a bit about Montreal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jasamine White-Gluz over the course of the past handful of years. Gluz is the creative mastermind of the critically applauded JOVM mainstay act No Joy.  Starting over a decade ago as a series of emailed riffs between White-Gluz and Laura Lloyd, the project has been centered around White-Gluz’s restless experimentation — and since its formation, No Joy has gone through a number of different sonic permutations with subsequent albums showcasing her penchant for delay-saturated jangle, industrial distortion and sludgey drones over disco-like beats. 

Back in 2018 White-Gluz collaborated with Spacemen’s 3 Pete Kember, (a.k.a. Sonic Boom) on a collaborative EP that saw her trading the guitars she had long been known for, for modular synths — with the effort’s material seemingly indebted to Kid A and Amnesiac-era Radiohead.

Slated for an August 21, 2020 release through Joyful Noise Recordings and Hand Drawn Dracula in Canada, the Jorge Elbrecht-produced Motherhood is White-Gluz’s first No Joy full-length album in over five years. Reportedly, the album’s finds White-Gluz returning to the project’s early, DIY recording, shoegazer roots — but while continuing to expand upon her overall sonic palette with the incorporation of elements of trip-hop, trance and nu-metal-like power chords among others. Interestingly, some of the album’s sound was inspired by the Montreal-based JOVM mainstay’s tours with genre-divergent artists: while touring with Quicksand, No Joy picked up post-hardcore fans and ambient techno fans while touring with Baths. “As long as people are open minded about music, they can hear different things,” explains White-Gluz, “Maybe because there are a lot of layers.”

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Birthmark,” Motherhood’s first single. Centered around atmospheric synths, propulsive boom-bap beats, muscular percussion, shimmering blasts of guitars and a soaring hook, the song was a seamless and trippy synthesis of Brit Pop, shoegaze, trip-hop and house music. “Four,” the album’s latest single continues the album’s  experimental bent a bit further: Centered around sizzling power chords, atmospheric electronics, wobbling synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and an enormous hook, “Four” manages to recall Amoral-era Violens — but while possessing a mischievous, yet boldly feminine energy. 

Directed by Jodi Heartz, the recently released video for “Four: follows Kanienʼkehá꞉ka (Mohawk) visual artist Ashley Diabo at her home in Kahnawake, Quebec. Diablo’s primary medium is makeup  — and her work is deeply inspired by her home, family, Pennywise and nature. She has worked with Dazed Magazine, King Kong Magazine and brands like SSENSE and trans model, actress, and activist, Hunter Schafter. Diabo’s life is seemingly that of a prototypical suburban young woman: we see her putting on the vibrantly colored make up, she wears through the video, playing with and caring for her dog and cat, goofing off and daydreaming and swimming in her pool. And she does all of this with an infectious and warm smile and a playful energy that is — well, simply put, endearing. I couldn’t help but like this young woman and I think you will too. 

As White-Gluz explains, the aim of the Heartz-directed video was “to appreciate Ashley at home, hoping to inspire all to embrace the love and inspiration of their home, the way Ashley reminds us every day. She has a special gift to make the everyday more and better and magical.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: No Joy Releases a Trippy Visual for Shimmering and House Music-Leaning “Birthmark”

Jasamine White-Gluz is a Montreal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, best known as the creative mastermind behind the critically applauded recording project No Joy. Starting over a decade ago as a series of emailed riffs sent back and forth between White-Gluz and Laura Lloyd, the project has been centered around White-Gluz’s  restless experimentation, going through a number of different sonic permutations through the years with subsequent albums showcasing a penchant foe delay-saturated jangle, industrial distortion and sludgey drones over disco beats. 

In 2018, White-Gluz collaborated with Spacemen’s 3 Pete Kember, a.k.a. Sonic Boom on a collaborative EP that saw the Montreal-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist trading the guitars she was best known for, for modular synths on an effort that seemed indebted to Kid A and Amnesiac-era Radiohead. Interestingly, Motherhood, the first No Joy full-length effort in five years, is reportedly sort of return to form with the material echoing the project’s early shoegazer roots, while expanding the overall sonic palette with nods at trip hop, trance and with the reincorporation of guitars, nu-metal.

Slated for an August 21, 2020 release through Joyful Noise Recordings and Hand Drawn Dracula in Canada, the Jorge Elbrecht co-produced Motherhood is the culmination of several years writing outside of White-Gluz’s comfort zone and a return to DIY recording with a growing and deepening expertise in production. 

Touring with genre-divergent artists has helped the Montreal-based artist’s genre-defying sound and approach: while touring with Quicksand, No Joy picked up post-hardcore fans and ambient techno fans while touring with Baths. “As long as people are open minded about music, they can hear different things,” explains White-Gluz, “Maybe because there are a lot of layers.” “Birthmark,” Motherhood’s first single features atmospheric synths, propulsive boom-bap like beats further emphasized with muscular bongos and other percussion, shimmering blasts of guitars centered around a sng alternating loud and quiet sections and a soaring hook. Sonically, the song is a trippy yet seamless synthesis of Brit Pop, shoegaze, trip hop and house music.

Directed by Jordan “Dr. Cool” Minkoff, the recently released video was shot adhering to social distancing guidelines and features footage that White-Gluz shot at her home and stars Diavion Nichols, a dancer that the Montreal-based artists found on Instagram and a goat named Piquette.  “We made this video while in quarantine. I filmed myself at home and asked my very talented friend Jordan to help build a world around the footage,” White-Gluz says of the recently released video. “Diavion had been dancing to No Joy on his instagram and I was a huge fan so reached out and asked him to choreograph a routine for this song. While in the studio, I wanted to keep the energy fun and throw any ideas at the wall. We ended up watching the video for ‘Puff Puff Give’ by Hannah’s Field, pulled out some bongos, a broken clarinet, drank 12 bottles of sake and did group chants.”

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Beliefs Dark and Moody Cabaret-Inspired Visuals for “1994”

Although they’ve gone through a series of lineup changes and are currently constituted as a duo featuring its founding members and primary songwriters Jesse Crowe and Josh Korody, the Toronto, ON-based indie rock duo Beliefs have released two well-regarded full-length albums over the course of their seven years together — 2013’s self-titled debut and 2015’s Leaper; but the band can trace their origins to a shared love of late 80s and early 90s noise pop and shoegaze. Interestingly, the Canadian duo’s forthcoming third full, length effort Habitat was produced and engineered by the band’s Josh Korody and mixed by Holy Fuck’s Graham Walsh, who’s also mixed albums by Preoccupations, Alvvays and METZ, and features Leon Tahenny, who’s played with Austra, Death From Above 1979 and Owen Pallet on drums, finds the band completely destructing, remaking and remodeling their self-conscious shoegazer-like origins in pursuit of an uncompromising new sound in which the duo has stopped being defined by the sum of its influences and finds their own unique voice and sound — and that period can often be one of most exciting and pivotal periods for a band. “I hope that’s the case,” says Crowe. “That’s always how I feel about bands, too – when you listen to something and it seems like it’s leading to a whole other element of a band, when you feel like you’re in the hallway about to open the door to a whole other space that this band is creating. And I hope that that’s what happens with us. We have no real plans at this point. We don’t want to be a ‘shoegaze’ band anymore.”

Interestingly, Habitat was the first time that the band’s founding duo had written an album together, and as Crowe continues, “and we wrote 80% of it in a room in four days wth no previous material. It’s as spontaneous as can possibly be” — with material being derived from extensive jam sessions. Adding to the spontaneous nature of the material, the album was recorded and tracked in 16 days and was recorded with no grand design or plan at play; however, interestingly enough the material manages to be influenced by each individual member’s unique interests and obsessions while gravitating towards unfamiliar instruments and instrumentation. Lately, Korody has had an increasing interest in modular synths and avant industrial  sounds, partially influenced by his solo recording project Nailbiter while Crowe had been listening to a great deal of 90s hip-hop — in particular, Portishead’s Third.  “It’s a dark record, for sure,”  Crowe says of their new album. “I feel like we were drawing a lot more from, like, me being a Goth teenager and Josh only wanting to listen to Aphex Twin and me only wanting to listen to Portishead’s Third for the last year and stuff like that. But also it was time to embody the elements of being a ‘wall-of-sound’ band with some space and the idea of being able to be quiet when you should be quiet, and you can’t do that with three guitars. There’s no space. It just becomes all push and no pull.”

Habitat, the band’s third full-length effort is slated for a September 22, 2017 release through Hand Drawn Dracula Records and Outside Music and the album’s latest single “1994” is reportedly a sort of sequel to Leaper’s “1992” and is a sleek and atmospheric track featuring ominously cascading synths, shimmering and angular guitar chords and propulsive drumming — and while allowing enough room for Crowe’s husky vocals to float and dart around the mix, the track sonically reminds me of Xiu Xiu, Antics-era Interpol, and others but with an eerily spectral vibe; as though the track was possessed by the lingering ghosts of one’s life. And they manage to do so within a song that eschews discernible or traditional song structures; in fact, much like Antics, the song is focused on creating and sustaining a particular mood than whether a chorus should be placed in a particular part of the song or not. 

Produced and edited by Christopher Mills, the video features Crowe and Korody performing in a dark room cabaret style –but the video manages to bear the appearance of old VHS tape, as it possesses a grainy quality in between cuts, nodding at the quality of the video for “1992.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

If you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past couple of years, you’ve likely come across several posts on Toronto, ON/Montreal, QC-based electro pop act Doomsquad. Comprised of  siblings Allie, Jaclyn and Trevor Blumas, the electro pop act initially began as an acoustic-leaning folk act but with their shared admiration and love of electronic music, electronic dance music and electro pop, the Blumases began increasingly experimenting with electronic beats, synthesizers, electronic drums and contemporary electronic music production techniques. The trio won attention won both national and Stateside attention with the release of their full-length debut Kalaboogie, a downtempo electro pop-leaning effort that evoked what art, life and music would sound like post-apocaylpse as stark minimalist beats, shimmering synths and alternating chanted and call and response vocals.

The Blumases followed Kalaboogie with 2015’s Pageantry Suite EP and EP singles Apocalypso,” and “Two Way Mirror” revealed a group that relentlessly experimented with their sound as they employed Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar lines, African and Caribbean-inspired polyrhythms, ambient electronics, shimmering synths and sinuous bass lines were paired with half spoken, half sung vocals leading a call and response harmonized vocal section at the song’s hook, which interestingly enough pushed their sound a bit closer Talking Heads’ Speaking in Tongues and Fear of Music. And much like those two albums, the material on Pageantry Suite evoked a neurotic anxiousness over an impending doom that may — or may not happen.

 

Doomsquad’s sophomore full-length effort, Total Time is slated for an April 29, 2016 release through renowned indie label Bella Union Records globally and Hand Drawn Dracula Records throughout Canada. Reportedly inspired by some of the trio’s favorite artists — Georges Bataille, Richard Tuttle, Tanya Tagaq, and Genesis P-Orridge, Total Time was largely recorded in the New Mexico desert and thematically, the material was specifically written to lead the listener to a genderless experience of transition — from owning time, losing time and becoming timeless while making you move your ass.  Interestingly, the album’s second and latest single “Pyramids On Mars” manages to continue on the sonic path of Pageantry Suite as the song begins with an ambient intro of gently undulating synths and off-kilter vocals and quickly becomes a propulsive and shimmering dance-floor ready track that pairs shimmering synths, wobbling low end, chanted and call and response vocals, African and Caribbean-inspired vocals, funk guitar — and much like their most recent tracks sounds as though it could have been released as a B-side to a Talking Heads single.