Tag: Heavenly Recordings

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Orielles Share Angular “Wasp”

Acclaimed, Manchester, UK-based JOVM mainstays The Orielles — Esmé Dee Hand-Halford (bass, vocals), Sidonie Dee Hand-Halford (drums, vocals) and Henry Carlyle Wade (guitar, vocals) — will be releasing their highly anticipated fourth album, the Joel Anthony Patchett-produced Only You Left through Heavenly Recordings on Friday.

Recorded last summer in two locations — the Greek Island of Hydra and Hamburg — the 11-song Only You Left reportedly sees the band consolidating the bold experimentation of 2022’s Tableau with the more stripped-back, song-driven approach of their earlier releases, channeling a return to the familiar. “There’s nothing more trad than a three-piece,” quips Henry, in reference to the band’s decision to return to their roots as a trio. 

The JOVM mainstays, who originally started out in Halifax first gained attention both nationally and internationally with the release of their full-length debut, 2018’s Silver Dollar Moment, which recently celebrated its eighth birthday. “These things come in like seven year cycles. So we’ve come in like a full circle back to a familiar place, just as different people,” the band says. 

As for the foundations of the forthcoming album, the band’s Henry Carlyle Wade says “You’ve got to die and be reborn between albums.” “It comes naturally, the band’s Esmé Hand-Halford adds, “it’s not something we consciously do.” Interestingly through this process of creative renewal, the JOVM mainstays have managed to weather a pandemic, the fickleness of a trend-driven music industry and somehow emerge with something that’s familiar yet completely different. 

According to Wade, the first ideas for the new album can be traced back to May 2023: Esmé Hand-Halford had purchased a freeze pedal, which allowed her to play around with sustained notes on her guitar. These heavy drones would later form the background of album tracks “Wasp” and “Three Halves.” 

In breaks between tours, the band began to meet up and record their practice room sessions, later analyzing the voice notes with a granular attention to detail. “We recorded everything on our phones, every snippet,” explains Henry Carlyle Wade. “We went so deep into what each song needed or what we wanted to hear from it.”

While the Tableau sessions were semi-improvisational and partially written in the recording studio, Only You Left was fleshed out through a series of intense writing sessions between May 2023 and last summer. Each of the album’s 11 songs were meticulously refined and became its own distinctive work. “It almost felt really novel for us to be writing as a three-piece and really, really crafting these songs,” the band’s Esmé Hand-Halford recalls. “But Tableau gave us that confidence to know we could go into a studio and pull things together in that setting under the time pressure.”

Producer and engineer Joel Anthony Patchett, whom Esmé Hand-Halford dubs the honorary fourth member of the band, has had a massive influence on the album’s sound and approach. “Joel brings an extra level of interpretation and deep listening,” Henry Carlyle Wade says, “and it’s always exciting to explore that.” Sidonie Hand-Halford adds, “He’s constantly talking us through every step of what he’s doing and getting really, really involved with that process as well. And we’re just kind of learning together and making these mistakes and discovering things together.” 

Only You Left will include the previously released “Three Halves,” the double single “You Are Eating Part of Yourself”/”To Undo the World Itself,”Tears Are,” and the album’s latest single “Wasp.”

Anchored around a looping, buzzing and droning guitar line, an angular and propulsive bass line and skittering, off-kilter drumming and percussion, “Wasp” subtly channels In Rainbows while simultaneously evoking a wasp flying in figure 8s and circles higher and higher.

“Taking on another shift in perspective, the lyrics follow a [sic] miniscule wasp as it reaches the height of a mountain, one of nature’s grandest settings,” the band explains. “Inspired by the film Black Narcissus I wanted to capture this feeling of questioning faith, purpose and the self when confronted by such vastness, using a wasp to exaggerate this magnitude even further. In seeing through its perspective maybe we can relate to the plight of the wasp, but the real sting in the tale (hah!) is that ultimately it is nature itself that conditions the wasp to hurt us.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays The Orielles Return with Hook-Driven “Tears Are”

Acclaimed, Manchester, UK-based JOVM mainstays The Orielles — Esmé Dee Hand-Halford (bass, vocals), Sidonie Dee Hand-Halford (drums, vocals) and Henry Carlyle Wade (guitar, vocals) — will be releasing their highly anticipated fourth album, the Joel Anthony Patchett-produced Only You Left through Heavenly Recordings on March 13, 2026. 

Recorded last summer in two locations — the Greek Island of Hydra and Hamburg — the forthcoming, 11-song Only You Left reportedly sees the band consolidating the bold experimentation of 2022’s Tableau with the more stripped-back, song-driven approach of their earlier releases, channeling a return to the familiar. “There’s nothing more trad than a three-piece,” quips Henry, in reference to the band’s decision to return to their roots as a trio. 

Now, as you may remember, the JOVM mainstays, which originally started out in Halifax gained attention both nationally and internationally with the release of their full-length debut, 2018’s Silver Dollar Moment, which will celebrates its eighth birthday this months. “These things come in like seven year cycles. So we’ve come in like a full circle back to a familiar place, just as different people,” the band says. 

As for the foundations of the forthcoming album, the band’s Henry Carlyle Wade says “You’ve got to die and be reborn between albums.” “It comes naturally, the band’s Esmé Hand-Halford adds, “it’s not something we consciously do.” Interestingly through this process of creative renewal, the JOVM mainstays have managed to weather a pandemic, the fickleness of a trend-driven music industry and somehow emerge with something that’s familiar yet completely different. 

According to Wade, the first ideas for the new album can be traced back to May 2023: Esmé Hand-Halford had purchased a freeze pedal, which allowed her to play around with sustained notes on her guitar. These heavy drones would later form the background of album tracks “Wasp” and “Three Halves.” 

In breaks between tours, the band began to meet up and record their practice room sessions, later analyzing the voice notes with a granular attention to detail. “We recorded everything on our phones, every snippet,” explains Henry. “We went so deep into what each song needed or what we wanted to hear from it.”

While the Tableau sessions were semi-improvisational and partially written in the recording studio, Only You Left was fleshed out through a series of intense writing sessions between May 2023 and last summer. Each of the album’s 11 songs were meticulously refined and became its own distinctive work. “It almost felt really novel for us to be writing as a three-piece and really, really crafting these songs,” the band’s Esmé Hand-Halford recalls. “But Tableau gave us that confidence to know we could go into a studio and pull things together in that setting under the time pressure.”

Producer and engineer Joel Anthony Patchett, whom Esmé Hand-Halford dubs the honorary fourth member of the band, has had a massive influence on the album’s sound and approach. “Joel brings an extra level of interpretation and deep listening,” Henry Carlyle Wade says, “and it’s always exciting to explore that.” Sidonie Hand-Halford adds, “He’s constantly talking us through every step of what he’s doing and getting really, really involved with that process as well. And we’re just kind of learning together and making these mistakes and discovering things together.” 

Only You Left will include the previously released “Three Halves,” the double single “You Are Eating Part of Yourself”/”To Undo the World Itself,” and the album’s latest single “Tears Are.” Arguably the track that directly channels elements of their earlier sound, “Tears Are” is anchored around the JOVM mainstays long-held penchant for post punk-like hookiness paired with dreamy vocals. But the track ultimately fades out in a brooding, minor take on the song’s motif. The song evokes an unfinished thought or something left hanging without a sense of closure. The lyrics explore paradoxes with inversions and wordplay — and are intentionally ambiguous for the listener to make their own interpretations.

“ We had this vague imagery of wood versus metal,” the band’s Esmé Dee Hand-Halford says. “Hamburg was metal and Hydra was wood. Everything fell naturally into either category.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Joshua Idehen Shares Euphoric “This Is The Place”

After nearly two decades in London‘s poetry scene, Joshua Idehen found widespread recognition with the viral success of “Mum Does The Washing,” a poignant, witty pice set to music by his creative partner Ludvig Parment, a.k.a. Saturday, Monday. The success of “Mum Does The Washing” led to sold-out shows, major festival appearances — including Glastonbury — and a new chapter in Idehen’s artistic life.

Initially drawn to film, Idehen’s poetic journey began after being captivated by Dizzee Rascal‘s Vexed on Channel U. Inspired by Scroobius Pip, he began poetry with music, collaborating with the likes of LV, Benin City and Sons of Kemet. His career as a singer/songwriter/performer alongside a series of personal channels, including a divorce and mental health struggles. Relocating to Stockholm during the COVID-19 pandemic gave him space to reflect and begin anew.

That period of rebirth led to Idehen’s highly-anticipated debut album, I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got To Try. Slated for a March 6, 2026 release through Heavenly Recordings. Made with his longtime collaborator Parment, the album is a sonic embrace for the weary, mixing house-tinged beats, choral flourishes and lyrical meditations on hope, self-worth and collective resilience. The album will feature the previous released “It Always Was” and “Don’t Let It Get You Down.”

I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got To Try‘s third and latest latest single “This Is The Place” is a euphoric bit of Larry Levan-inspired house featuring glistening and woozy synth arpeggios and skittering beats serving as a lush bed for Idehen’s poetic meditations on the club being much like a church with music and dancing as a form of connection with yourself and others and as a form of freedom from your daily struggles, from the harshness of our world, from your own self-doubt and the like. It’s a much-needed joy bomb in a desperate, uneasy time — and a reminder that joy is a form of resistance.

“The way I squealed when Ludvig sent this beat over! When I heard it, I was taken back to bouncing in-between rooms early morning in Fabric, on one of those weekend nights that felt so non-special at the time ‘just another average night out’ but were a quiet healing, a ordinary burst of joy, and I wanted to capture that feeling,” Idehen explains. “‘This is the place where I pick all my pieces up; was the first line, and everything else flowed after that.”

Directed by PREHUMAN, the accompanying video is an elegant yet joyfully minimalist visual that begins with a person on the street style interview that quickly becomes a joyous dance session.

PREHUMAN adds: “Joshua is an unusually compelling performer — put him in front of a camera and much of the work is already done. The video itself is deliberately stripped back, with no distractions. I wanted the feeling of a shared space, like a club: bodies moving together, connection through rhythm.

The treatment is clean and minimal, but the movement is intentionally angular and imperfect. I love the line ‘everyone’s a bit broken here.’ Those ’90s white cyc music videos with fisheye lenses were a strong reference point throughout. Ludvig on the old MPC3000 was the icing on the cake.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The Orielles Shares Two Dreamy and Expansive Tunes

Acclaimed, Manchester, UK-based JOVM mainstays The Orielles — Esmé Dee Hand-Halford (bass, vocals), Sidonie Dee Hand-Halford (drums, vocals) and Henry Carlyle Wade (guitar, vocals) — will be releasing their fourth album, the Joel Anthony Patchett-produced Only You Left through Heavenly Recordings on March 13, 2026. 

Recorded last summer in two locations — the Greek Island of Hydra and Hamburg — the forthcoming, 11-song Only You Left reportedly sees the band consolidating the bold experimentation of 2022’s Tableau with the more stripped-back, song-driven approach of their earlier releases, channeling a return to the familiar. “There’s nothing more trad than a three-piece,” quips Henry, in reference to the band’s decision to return to their roots as a trio. 

Now, as you may remember, the JOVM mainstays, which originally started out in Halifax gained attention both nationally and internationally with the release of their full-length debut, 2018’s Silver Dollar Moment, which will celebrate its eighth birthday this upcoming February. “These things come in like seven year cycles. So we’ve come in like a full circle back to a familiar place, just as different people,” the band says. 

As for the foundations of the forthcoming album, the band’s Henry Carlyle Wade says “You’ve got to die and be reborn between albums.” “It comes naturally, the band’s Esmé Hand-Halford adds, “it’s not something we consciously do.” Interestingly through this process of creative renewal, the JOVM mainstays have managed to weather a pandemic, the fickleness of a trend-driven music industry and somehow emerge with something that’s familiar yet completely different. 

According to Wade, the first ideas for the new album can be traced back to May 2023: Esmé Hand-Halford had purchased a freeze pedal, which allowed her to play around with sustained notes on her guitar. These heavy drones would later form the background of album tracks “Wasp” and “Three Halves.” 

In breaks between tours, the band began to meet up and record their practice room sessions, later analyzing the voice notes with a granular attention to detail. “We recorded everything on our phones, every snippet,” explains Henry. “We went so deep into what each song needed or what we wanted to hear from it.”

While the Tableau sessions were semi-improvisational and partially written in the recording studio, Only You Left was fleshed out through a series of intense writing sessions between May 2023 and last summer. Each of the album’s 11 songs were meticulously refined and became its own distinctive work. “It almost felt really novel for us to be writing as a three-piece and really, really crafting these songs,” the band’s Esmé Hand-Halford recalls. “But Tableau gave us that confidence to know we could go into a studio and pull things together in that setting under the time pressure.”

Producer and engineer Joel Anthony Patchett, whom Esmé Hand-Halford dubs the honorary fourth member of the band, has had a massive influence on the album’s sound and approach. “Joel brings an extra level of interpretation and deep listening,” Henry Carlyle Wade says, “and it’s always exciting to explore that.” Sidonie Hand-Halford adds, “He’s constantly talking us through every step of what he’s doing and getting really, really involved with that process as well. And we’re just kind of learning together and making these mistakes and discovering things together.” 

Only You Left will feature the previously released “Three Halves,” a track that derives its title from when the band’s Wade stitched together three recordings on Abelton and needed a working title. What initially began as a temporary placeholder quickly became a theme for Esmé Hand-Halford to riff on and a metaphor for the trio and their deeply shared connection.

Today, the JOVM mainstays shared the double single, “You Are Eating Part of Yourself”/”To Undo the World Itself.” “You Are Eating Part of Yourself” is a slow-burning and minimalist tune anchored around a looping, strummed guitar figure, dreamy vocal that gradually becomes a glitch-driven tide of feedback and cacophony before closing with a slow, piano-driven fade out. Seemingly nodding at OK Computer and Amnesiac-era Radiohead, “You Are Eating Part of Yourself” conveys a bittersweet acknowledgment of time irrevocably racing by before your eyes. “To Undo the World Itself,” is a expansive post-rock-like tune featuring reverb-drenched vocal melody ethereally floating over a propulsive, shoegaze-meets-dream pop arrangement of guitar, bass and drums.

Accompanied by a video directed by Neelam Khan Vela, which spans both tracks, the band said: “‘You are Eating a Part of Yourself’ began when a durational guitar loop was released from the archive of improv’s recorded in Henry’s bedroom. The title, which comes from a video artwork dating 1996, captures the darkness emanating from the original recording, and reflects the clarity to be able to define that feeling some years later. Through music (and some words) we unfurled the emotion captured back then, as we put our ears up to the organs of the body orchestrating their own symphony and dissonance.

Closing track of the album ‘To Undo the World Itself’ sings of rebirth and reversal, or outstanding finality, depending on the impression that ‘Only You Left’ leaves you with. The cathartic crescendo meant that this was a favourite to play in the various live rooms that we wrote / recorded in, where it was trialled against the backdrops of thunderstorms and peaceful sunsets alike.”

“After almost a decade of collaborating with The Orielles, we share a connection that makes our creative process completely intuitive, like a long rally where ideas are passed back and forth without needing to be spoken,” Neelam Khan Vela adds. ” The band filmed with Lewis and Giulia in Manchester, and from that starting point I let the emotional pull of the tracks guide the edit, completing the video through what the music evoked and what the evolving images seemed to ask for.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Orielles Share Expansive “Three Halves”

Acclaimed, Manchester, UK-based JOVM mainstays The Orielles — Esmé Dee Hand-Halford (bass, vocals), Sidonie Dee Hand-Halford (drums, vocals) and Henry Carlyle Wade (guitar, vocals) — will be releasing their fourth album, the Joel Anthony Patchett-produced Only You Left through Heavenly Recordings on March 13, 2026.

Recorded last summer in two locations — the Greek Island of Hydra and Hamburg — the forthcoming, 11-song Only You Left reportedly sees the band consolidating the bold experimentation of 2022’s Tableau with the more stripped-back, song-driven approach of their earlier releases, channeling a return to the familiar. “There’s nothing more trad than a three-piece,” quips Henry, in reference to the band’s decision to return to their roots as a trio.

Now, as you may remember, the JOVM mainstays, which originally started out in Halifax gained attention both nationally and internationally with the release of their full-length debut, 2018’s Silver Dollar Moment, which will celebrate its eighth birthday this upcoming February. “These things come in like seven year cycles. So we’ve come in like a full circle back to a familiar place, just as different people,” the band says.

As for the foundations of the forthcoming album, the band’s Henry Carlyle Wade says “You’ve got to die and be reborn between albums.” “It comes naturally, the band’s Esmé Hand-Halford adds, “it’s not something we consciously do.” Interestingly through this process of creative renewal, the JOVM mainstays have managed to weather a pandemic, the fickleness of a trend-driven music industry and somehow emerge with something that’s familiar yet completely different.

According to Wade, the first ideas for the new album can be traced back to May 2023: Esmé Hand-Halford had purchased a freeze pedal, which allowed her to play around with sustained notes on her guitar. These heavy drones would later form the background of album tracks “Wasp” and “Three Halves.” 

In breaks between tours, the bands began to meet up and record their practice room sessions, later analyzing the voice notes with a granular attention to detail. “We recorded everything on our phones, every snippet,” explains Henry. “We went so deep into what each song needed or what we wanted to hear from it.”

While the Tableau sessions were semi-improvisational and partially written in the recording studio, Only You Left was fleshed out through a series of intense writing sessions between May 2023 and last summer. Each of the album’s 11 songs were meticulously refined and became its own distinctive work. “It almost felt really novel for us to be writing as a three-piece and really, really crafting these songs,” the band’s Esmé Hand-Halford recalls. “But Tableau gave us that confidence to know we could go into a studio and pull things together in that setting under the time pressure.”

Producer and engineer Joel Anthony Patchett, whom Esmé Hand-Halford dubs the honorary fourth member of the band, has had a massive influence on the album’s sound and approach. “Joel brings an extra level of interpretation and deep listening,” Henry Carlyle Wade says, “and it’s always exciting to explore that.” Sidonie Hand-Halford adds, “He’s constantly talking us through every step of what he’s doing and getting really, really involved with that process as well. And we’re just kind of learning together and making these mistakes and discovering things together.”

Only You Left‘s first single “Three Halves” derives its title when Wade stitched together three recordings on Ableton and needed a working title. What began as a temporary placeholder soon became a theme for Esmé Hand-Halford to riff on, a metaphor for the trio and their deeply shared connection.

At points noisy and driving and dreamlike and mediative in others, “Three Halves” is an expansive study in contrasts that’s experimental yet accessible while anchored by the razor sharp hooks that the Manchester-based outfit had been known for.

“Citing ideas that we took interest in during the early stages of writing the new record, ‘Three Halves’ flips between its absurd contrasts as the name suggests,” the band says. “Built upon a soundscape of droning organs, guitar, and cello it floats between noise and emptiness, precision, and catharsis, welcoming each half leads into the next.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Mildlife Performs “Future Life”

Released last month through Heavenly Recordings, Mildlife‘s highly-anticipated third album Chorus may arguably be their most optimistic effort while serving as a sort of sonic testament to their unwavering adoration or 70s psychedelic and cosmic sounds. But if you delve a bit deeper, you’ll hear references to Polish jazz, Italo disco and a sprinkling of contemporary electronic sounds.

During its most human moments, the album’s material luxuriates in the velvety embrace of Tom Shanahan’s bass lines, Adam Halliwell’s luminous guitar riffs, Kevin McDowell’s hushed and alluring vocals, Jim Rindfleish’s intricate percussive tapestries and the spiritual rhythms of regular collaborator Craig Shanahan. Swept up in the chorus, the lines between individual and ensemble blur. 

“It’s knowing that all the pieces of our own puzzles can slot neatly into a bigger one,” the band’s Tom Shanahan says. The album sees the members assurance growing — both individually and as a band. On their previously released material, Kevin McDowell was the primary vocalist but Chorus sees each member having a moment of expression, highlighting their own choral visions, while forging a new unified openness and humanity to their sound. 

“We had this idea that we wanted to create a kind of disparate ecosystem of living things,” the band’s Tom Shanahan continues. “We liked the idea of creating a small metaphor of moving through space. You see moments of things and sounds that may not emerge again, until everything around you starts to unify.” 

The album sees the members of Mildlife thematically linking microcosmic personal meaning with a macro view from on high. “Chorus is about a coming together of disparate elements. Not in some sort of utopian aesthetic where everything works perfectly, but in the natural flow and state of things,” shares the band’s Jim Rindfleish. “It’s about cosmic compatibility and chemistry: what makes things work? Not just what makes the band work, but what makes good music, art or love? It’s the rhythm of nature.”

In the lead-up to the album’s release last month, I wrote about three of the album’s singles:

  • “Return to Centaurus,” the acclaimed Aussie outfits first bit of new material since 2020’s Automatic and first single off the album. Clocking in at a little over 10 minutes, “Return to Centaurus” opens with droning synths and leads into Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd-meets-space rock-like introduction, with Kraftwerk-like vocoders. By around the 2:40 mark, the song quickly morphs into some hook-driven acid funk with loping yet supple bass lines, shimmering funk guitar riffs, glistening space-age synths, bursts of fluttery flute and intricate yet propulsive drum patterns. Rooted in the Aussie outfit’s love of 70s psychedelic and cosmic sounds, the new single serves as a reminder of their seemingly effortless mastery of mind-bending and unhurried trippy grooves. 

  • “Musica,” a track built around a groove that’s one-part motorik, one-part glittery Giorgio Moroder-era Italo disco paired with squiggling, Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar, glistening synths and a supple bass line paired with McDowell’s hushed, gently vocodered vocal and propulsive congo-driven percussion with a spacey, Wish You Were Here-like synth solo. While seeing the band further cement their retro-futuristic sound, “Musica” reminds the listener — both new and familiar — that the Aussie outfit are modern masters of trippy, mind-bending grooves that draw from and effortlessly mesh elements of funk, jazz fusion, prog rock, komische musik and more. 

  • “Yourself” is a slinky yacht rock-meets-funky jazz fusion bop that sounds — to my ears, at least — as though it could have been a B-side to Hall and Oates‘ “I Can’t Go For That (Say No Go)” or on Jaco Pastorius‘ self-titled debut. Thematically, the song is about radical and meaningful self-acceptance and the joy to be found in shared purpose. It’s arguably one of the most uplifting and optimistic songs of the Aussie outfit’s growing catalog. 

Today, the acclaimed Aussie JOVM mainstays an announced a 16-date headlining US and Canada tour this October that includes an October 19, 2024 stop at Brooklyn Bowl and ends with a set at Live Oak, FL’s Hulaween Festival on October 25, 2024. Presale tickets for the tour are available through the band’s site and started at 10:00am local time and ends April 4, 2024 at 11:59pm local time (password: CHORUS). The general public on sale begins Friday April 5, 2024 at 10:00am. As always tour dates are below.

I caught them at Baby’s All Right back in March 2022, and they’re a must see live act. So don’t lose out on an opportunity to catch them, huh? In the meantime, the band shared a live video for album track “Future Life.” Starting with a slinky and strutting bass line, “Future Life” is anchored around a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon/Wish You Were Here-era synth line, squiggling and dexterous over-drive and reverb-drenched jazz funk guitar line, a funky and strutting four-on-the-floor serving as a lush bed for McDowell’s and Halliwell’s dreamily delivered harmonies paired with bursts of vocodered vocals. This is the sound of 2024, as envisioned in 1975.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Slated for a March 1, 2024 release through Heavenly Recordings, Mildlife‘s highly-anticipated third album Chorus is reportedly their most optimistic effort, serving as a sonic testament to their unwavering adoration for 70s psychedelic and comic sounds. But delve deeper, and you will hear references to Polish jazz, Italo disco and a sprinkling of contemporary electronic sounds. The album is the dance of an endlessly expanding and contracting universe — its groove is forever and always, cyclical and evolving. During its most human moments, the album’s material luxuriates in the velvety embrace of Tom Shanahan’s bass lines, Adam Halliwell’s luminous guitar riffs, Kevin McDowell’s hushed and alluring vocals, Jim Rindfleish’s intricate percussive tapestries and the spiritual rhythms of regular collaborator Craig Shanahan. Swept up in the chorus, the lines between individual and ensemble blur. 

“It’s knowing that all the pieces of our own puzzles can slot neatly into a bigger one,” the band’s Tom Shanahan says. The album sees the members assurance growing — both individually and as a band. On their previously released material, Kevin McDowell was the primarily vocalist but Chorus sees each member having a moment of expression, highlighting their own choral visions, while forging a new unified openness and humanity to their sound. 

“We had this idea that we wanted to create a kind of disparate ecosystem of living things,” the band’s Tom Shanahan continues. “We liked the idea of creating a small metaphor of moving through space. You see moments of things and sounds that may not emerge again, until everything around you starts to unify.” 

The album sees the members of Mildlife thematically linking microcosmic personal meaning with a macro view from on high. “Chorus is about a coming together of disparate elements. Not in some sort of utopian aesthetic where everything works perfectly, but in the natural flow and state of things,” shares the band’s Jim Rindfleish. “It’s about cosmic compatibility and chemistry: what makes things work? Not just what makes the band work, but what makes good music, art or love? It’s the rhythm of nature”.  

Last year, I wrote about Chorus‘ two previously released singles:

  • “Return to Centaurus,” was the acclaimed Aussie outfits first bit of new material since 2020’s Automatic and first single off the forthcoming album. Clocking in at a little over 10 minutes, “Return to Centaurus” opens with droning synths and leads into Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd-meets-space rock-like introduction, with Kraftwerk-like vocoders. By around the 2:40 mark, the song quickly morphs into some hook-driven acid funk with loping yet supple bass lines, shimmering funk guitar riffs, glistening space-age synths, bursts of fluttery flute and intricate yet propulsive drum patterns. Rooted in the Aussie outfit’s love of 70s psychedelic and cosmic sounds, the new single serves as a reminder of their seemingly effortless mastery of mind-bending and unhurried trippy grooves. 
  • “Musica,” a track built around a groove that’s one-part motorik, one-part glittery Giorgio Moroder-era Italo disco paired with squiggling, Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar, glistening synths and a supple bass line paired with McDowell’s hushed, gently vocodered vocal and propulsive congo-driven percussion with a spacey, Wish You Were Here-like synth solo. While seeing the band further cement their retro-futuristic sound, “Musica” reminds the listener — both new and familiar — that the Aussie outfit are modern masters of trippy, mind-bending grooves that draw from and effortlessly mesh elements of funk, jazz fusion, prog rock, komische musik and more. 

Chorus’ third and final pre-release single “Yourself” is a slinky yacht rock-meets-funky jazz fusion bop that sounds — to my ears, at least — as though it could have been a B-side to Hall and Oates‘ “I Can’t Go For That (Say No Go)” or on Jaco Pastorius‘ self-titled debut. Thematically, the song is about radical and meaningful self-acceptance and the joy to be found in shared purpose. It’s arguably one of the most uplifting and optimistic songs of the Aussie outfit’s growing catalog.

“’Yourself’ is emotionally very positive, uplifting and bright; especially the chorus has this uplifting ascension in the chords,” the band’s Kevin McDowell explains. “I remember sitting on that and feeling like we were all happy. I think we’d maybe matured to the point where these are the kind of brighter sounds that we probably should embrace just out of a sense of freshness, and even just for our own curiosity.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Mildlife Shares Mind-Bending and Glittery “Musica”

Melbourne-based psych jazz/jazz funk/jazz fusion outfit Mildlife — multi-instrumentalists Jim Rindfleish, Adam Halliwell, Kevin McDowell and Tom Shanahan — exploded into the national and international scenes with the release of their critically applauded 2017 full-length debut Phase, a mind-bending mesh of jazz, jazz fusion, krautrock and 70s psychedelia rooted in their now long-held penchant for trippy grooves. Phase received praise from  Resident Advisor, Uncut, The Guardian and others, while landing several award nominations including Best Album at the 2018 Worldwide FM Awards,  Best Independent Jazz Album at the 2018 AIR Awards and a Best Electronic Award nomination and win at the Music Victoria Awards.

Fittingly, the album became a word-of-mouth sensation among open-minded, crate-digging DJs searching for that perfect, seemingly undiscovered — or little-known funky groove. And adding to a growing profile, the Aussie psych jazz outfit won fans with a loose-limbed, free-flowing and improvisational-driven live show that led to touring with Stereolab, JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard and Harvey Sutherland. 

Building upon that momentum, Mildlife’s first national headlining tour was sold-out, and they quickly followed up with a ten-date UK and European Union tour. 

Mildlife’s sophomore album, 2020’s Automatic was a stylistic shift for the acclaimed Aussie outfit. The album’s material was much more danceable, but while continuing their unerring knack for knowing when to let a track luxuriate and stretch out — without being self-indulgent. The album received critical applause internationally while earning the Aussie outfit an ARIA Award win. 

Unable to play shows in person in front of living, breathing, sweating and dancing humans because of the pandemic, the band traveled by boat to a long-abandoned 19th century fort on South Channel Island, just outside of Melbourne, where they performed material from both Phase and Automatic for a 70-minute concert film and live album, Live from South Channel Island. 

Slated for a March 1, 2024 release through Heavenly Recordings, the acclaimed Aussie outfit’s highly-anticipated third album Chorus is reportedly their most optimistic effort, serving as a sonic testament to their unwavering adoration for 70s psychedelic and comic sounds. But if you delve deeper, the listener will hear references to Polish jazz, Italo disco and a sprinkling of contemporary electronic sounds. The album is the dance of an endlessly expanding and contracting universe — its groove is forever and always, cyclical and evolving. During its most human moments, the album’s material luxuriates in the velvety embrace of Shanahan’s bass lines, Halliwell’s luminous guitar riffs, McDowell’s hushed and alluring vocals, Rindfleish’s intricate percussive tapestries and the spiritual rhythms of regular collaborator Craig Shanahan. Swept up in the chorus, the lines between individual and ensemble blur. 

“It’s knowing that all the pieces of our own puzzles can slot neatly into a bigger one,” the band’s Tom Shanahan says. The album sees the members assurance vocally growing — both individually and as a band. On their previously released material, Kevin McDowell was the primarily vocalist but Chorus sees each member having a moment of expression, highlighting their own choral visions, while forging a new unified openness and humanity to their sound.

“We had this idea that we wanted to create a kind of disparate ecosystem of living things,” the band’s Tom Shanahan continues. “We liked the idea of creating a small metaphor of moving through space. You see moments of things and sounds that may not emerge again, until everything around you starts to unify.” 

The album sees the members of Mildlife thematically linking microcosmic personal meaning with a macro view from on high. “Chorus is about a coming together of disparate elements. Not in some sort of utopian aesthetic where everything works perfectly, but in the natural flow and state of things,” shares the band’s Jim Rindfleish. “It’s about cosmic compatibility and chemistry: what makes things work? Not just what makes the band work, but what makes good music, art or love? It’s the rhythm of nature”.  

Earlier this year, I wrote about Chorus‘ first single,” Return to Centaurus,” which was also their first bit of new material since 2020’s Automatic. Clocking in at a little over 10 minutes, “Return to Centaurus” opens with droning synths and leads into Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd-meets-space rock-like introduction, with Kraftwerk-like vocoders. By around the 2:40 mark, the song quickly morphs into some hook-driven acid funk with loping yet supple bass lines, shimmering funk guitar riffs, glistening space-age synths, bursts of fluttery flute and intricate yet propulsive drum patterns. Rooted in the Aussie outfit’s love of 70s psychedelic and cosmic sounds, the new single serves as a reminder of their seemingly effortless mastery of mind-bending and unhurried trippy grooves. 

The album’s second and latest single “Musica” is built around a groove that’s one-part motorik, one-part glittery Giorgio Moroder-era Italo disco paired with squiggling, Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar, glistening synths and a supple bass line paired with McDowell’s hushed, gently vocodered vocal and propulsive congo-driven percussion with a spacey, Wish You Were Here-like synth solo. While seeing the band further cement their retro-futuristic sound, “Musica” reminds the listener — both new and familiar — that the Aussie outfit are modern masters of trippy, mind-bending grooves that draw from and effortlessly mesh elements of funk, jazz fusion, prog rock, komische musik and more.

“Musica” was crafted after hours of improvisation, touring and studio time, and honed over 100-plus shows across 23 countries over the past year alone; at the end of each night of the tour, the band would dedicate space in their legendary extended encores to lengthy improvisational passages, out of this “Musica” eventually coalescing from those jams.

From those origins, the track came to assume particular significance for guitarist Adam Halliwell, whose Italian heritage manifested in the lyrics. “When my Nona passed away, I realized I didn’t really know anything about my culture,” he says, having begun learning Italian since her passing a few years ago. “‘Musica’ started with ‘mi da la carica’, which means ‘gives me energy’. Some of the lyrics were written in Italian and then translated back to English a bit askew – almost like writing a song for Eurovision where the lyrics are not quite right”. 

Directed by Hayden Somerville, the accompanying video for “Musica” is a cinematically shot surreal visual that’s seemingly one-part Coen Brothers and part film noir oddball odyssey set in rural Australia — with nods to the Autobahns of Mildlife’s long-held krautrock influences. There’s also a character who may be — or at least believes — that they’re part-human, part-machine, part keyboard. It’s fittingly as mind-bending as the song it accompanies.

“Listening to the track, the ‘part machine part human’ elements throughout ‘Musica’ were so fun to mess around with,” Somerville says. “Both of those worlds play against each other in a really pleasing way in the song. I think that’s where ‘Keyboard Arm’ came from. The thought of growing your own little instrument and having a jam with friends was lovely and the whole clip grew from there.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The Orielles Share Glitchy “Tableau 002”

When all of Halifax, UK-based JOVM mainstays The Orielles‘ live dates to promote 2019’s Disco Volador were scrapped as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the trio — siblings Sidonie B. Hand-Halford (drums) and Esmé Dee Hand-Halford (vocals, bass) and their best friend Henry Carlyle (guitar, vocals) —spent 2020 working on  La Vita Olistica, a high-concept art film written and directed by the Hand-Halford sisters, which they toured in cinemas during the following year. The film was the beginning of a series of creative breakthroughs that led to the band’s fourth album, last year’s Tableau.

The band was booked to host a monthly show on  Soho Radio. The broadcasts quickly became impromptu research and development sessions for the ideas that would form the album. “Doing that monthly meant we had a reason to meet up and bring two hours of music between us which we’d play, discuss, hold physically and share,” the band’s Henry Carlyle says in press notes. “We were listening to much more contemporary music than before,” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford adds. That was one breakthrough for the band.

The band was recruited to remix another band’s track in a Goyt, UK-based studio. While working on that remix, they would wind up creating what the band dubbed the Goyt method, a central part of the album’s creative process. “To Goyt it” Sidonie B. Hand-Halford explains, “that’s getting all these pieces and rearranging them. We had vocal melodies and ideas that we’d then run through and sample, and play them on sample pads. We were being editors, really.”

The trio also completely revamped their long-held creative process: Where they had previously only gone into the studio once songs had been tightly crafted and perfected at the demo stage, they began to develop new practice and techniques in line with the contemporary sound they were aspiring to create. They relied less on demos and more on improvisation. They employed experimental 1960s-era tape looping and Autotunes. The material sees them drawing from the likes of Burial and Sonic Youth. And for the first time, no outside producer — but the band collaborated with friend and producer Joel Anthony Patchett. 

Mostly recorded during the summer of 2021, while the band was holed away in Eastbourne, UK, the album not only sees the band quickly adopting contemporary production, but concepts from the art world and minimalism, as well. Sidonie B. Hand-Halford researched the graphic scoring method of Pulitzer Prize-nominated trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith. They also used Oblique Strategies, the playing cards designed to aide creativity created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt in the early 1970s. “We’d been speaking about wanting to use them for ages, and then we found a set of cards at the studio in Eastbourne,” explains Sidonie, “before each song, we’d pick out a card and that would be our motif for playing that take.”

Released last year as a double album meant to reward serious immersion, the material is simultaneously complex and diverse. And while the album boldly challenges preconceptions, this is something that the band suggests they’ve had to do throughout their career anyway. “All through our whole career we’ve had to prove ourselves so, so much” Carlyle says. “You can’t disconnect the age and the gender thing either” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford says. “People belittle your age because they see women in the band. Whereas lad bands, if they’re eighteen it’s apparently exactly what people want to see.” Being from a small town in West Yorkshire may have added to that also, but Sidonie counters that “being from Halifax has also been a blessing, it’s kept our egos in check.”

Of course along with that, the album is also the product the product of the unique telepathy between three singular musicians that have grown in symbiosis for over a decade — and the three of them vibing and trading ideas together in a room. “As creators, for the fact we’ve produced it ourselves, it feels like a starting point” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford suggests, “even though everything that’s going previously has counted, this now feels like Ground Zero.” For the future, now, it’s all gates open.

Slated for a May 26, 2023 release through Heavenly Recordings, the five-track The Goyt Method EP features brand new songs constructed from randomly chosen parts of tracks from last year’s Tableau. “Our concept for The Goyt Method was birthed from our interest in cybernetics, improvisation and experimental electronic music,” the JOVM mainstays explain. “We wanted to zoom out of Tableau and disconnect all the pieces, rearranging them in new ways to create variations of songs, which encapsulate the whole record. We left this part of the process completely down to chance, adopting an online roulette wheel to choose our stems. This way of creating music was familiar to us from spending a lot of time remixing and record collecting, gaining an invested interest in deep listening and avant-garde electronic music. 

The name itself comes from the initial location in which we remixed with Joel Patchett, a wintery and freezing cold Goyt Mill. From here, we coined the term ‘Goytism’ or ‘to Goyt’ which was basically our way of describing the process of repurposing and resampling acoustic sounds through digital production, making them unrecognizable from their original source.The photograph on the sleeve was taken in winter 2020, our first visit to the Mill studio, our first Goyt session.”

The Goyt Method EP‘s glitchy first single “Tableau 002” is a forward-thinking and mind-bending reconstruction of Tableau‘s material and of their sound. Built around skittering trap beats, broodingly cinematic strings, reverb-drenched, chopped up vocal samples, twinkling synth arpeggios, “Tableau 002” sounds like a eerie yet slick synthesis of drum ‘n’ bass, techno house, alt pop and hyper pop.

Directed by Beck Cooley, the accompanying video for “Tableau 002” was shot in noisy and glitchy black and white and is creepy and unsettling. “We met up with Beck Cooley to discuss a collaboration in making a video for a Goyt Method track and instantly hit it off with our adoration for janky electronic IDM and experimental sci-fi and body horror film,” the JOVM mainstays explain. “We’d all recently watched Tetsuo: Iron Man and suggested Beck watch it and it was here that the video concept was born. We loved the stop motion and the lo-fi noisy aesthetic of the film, the man meets machine ideology particularly appealed. The way in which we remixed tracks from Tableau for this EP was very much inspired by a collaboration with AI and letting online randomisation choose the stems for us to pull into the track. We felt this was pretty apt and decided to pay homage to Tetsuo in a ‘man meets machine’ collision of metal and computers.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The Orielles Share Woozy “The Room”

Since forming in Halifax, UK over a decade ago, while their members were still in their teens, JOVM mainstays The Orielles — siblings Sidonie B. Hand-Halford (drums) and Esmé Dee Hand-Halford (vocals, bass) and their best friend Henry Carlyle (guitar, vocals) — have released three critically applauded albums, 2017’s Silver Dollar Moment, 2020’s Disco Volador and last year’s La Vita Olistica, which has seen the band move from lo-fi DIY indie rock to Stereolab and A Certain Ratio-inspired avant pop. 

When all of the band’s live dates to promote their sophomore album were scrapped as a result of the pandemic, the JOVM mainstays spent 2020 creating La Vita Olistica, a high-concept art film written and directed by the Hand-Halford sisters, which they toured in cinemas during the following year. This was the beginning of a series of creative breakthroughs that would result in Tableau, the band’s forthcoming album. 

One of those breakthroughs came about when the band was booked to host a monthly show on Soho Radio. Those broadcasts quickly became impromptu research and development sessions for the ideas that would feed into the album. “Doing that monthly meant we had a reason to meet up and bring two hours of music between us which we’d play, discuss, hold physically and share,” the band’s Henry Carlyle says in press notes. “We were listening to much more contemporary music than before,” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford adds. 

Another breakthrough came while remixing another band’s track in a studio in Goyt, UK. This wound up becoming what the band dubbed the Goyt method, a central creative process behind the forthcoming album. “To Goyt it” Sidonie B. Hand-Halford explains, “that’s getting all these pieces and rearranging them. We had vocal melodies and ideas that we’d then run through and sample, and play them on sample pads. We were being editors, really.”

The JOVM mainstays also completely revamped their long-held creative process: Where they had previously only gone into the studio once songs had been tightly crafted at the demo stage, the band began to consider new practices in line with the contemporary sound they were aspiring to craft. No demos, and a lot of improvisation. They also used experimental 1960s-era tape looping and Autotunes. The album also sees them drawing from the likes of Burial and Sonic Youth. And for the first time, no outside producer — but the band collaborated with friend and producer Joel Anthony Patchett. 

Mostly recorded during last summer while the band was holed away in Eastbourne, UK, the album not only sees the band quickly adopting contemporary production, but concepts from the art world and minimalism, as well. Sidonie B. Hand-Halford researched the graphic scoring method of Pulitzer Prize-nominated trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith. They also used Oblique Strategies, the playing cards designed to aide creativity created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt in the early 1970s. “We’d been speaking about wanting to use them for ages, and then we found a set of cards at the studio in Eastbourne,” explains Sidonie, “before each song, we’d pick out a card and that would be our motif for playing that take.”

Slated for an October 7, 2022 release through Heavenly Recordings, Tableau is a double album that reportedly rewards serious immersion, because it’s both complex and diverse. And while the album will likely challenge preconceptions, this is something that the band suggests they’ve been doing throughout their career anyway. “All through our whole career we’ve had to prove ourselves so, so much” Carlyle says. “You can’t disconnect the age and the gender thing either” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford says. “People belittle your age because they see women in the band. Whereas lad bands, if they’re eighteen it’s apparently exactly what people want to see.” Being from a small town in West Yorkshire may have added to that also, but Sidonie counters that “being from Halifax has also been a blessing, it’s kept our egos in check.”

Of course along with that, the album is also the product the product of the unique telepathy between three singular musicians that have grown in symbiosis for over a decade — and the three of them vibing and trading ideas together in a room. “As creators, for the fact we’ve produced it ourselves, it feels like a starting point” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford suggests, “even though everything that’s going previously has counted, this now feels like Ground Zero.” For the future, now, it’s all gates open.

Last month, I wrote about Tableau‘s expansive first single “BEAM/S.” Clocking in at 7:53, “BEAM/S” is an shapeshifting and cinematic bit of dream pop-meets-avant-garde jazz/pop featuring twinkling and fluttering synths, jangling and chugging guitars, ethereal vocals and a soaring string arrangement. Sonically, the song evokes continuous and unending change and uncertainty — while continuing the band’s genre-bending approach with the song revealing nods to dream pop, slowcore, avant-garde pop and even Afrobeat. 

“This is a song that has travelled, grown and adapted with us through all of the seasons,” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford explains. “This is why the lyrics kind of reflect that, the song reflects the changing of conditions. The warping of time, memories and relationships that you foster along the way. The original track was jammed at practice, Henry would bring his recording gear and it came about in quite an off the cuff way. I can’t remember how we really began jamming that. We further developed it whilst jamming at Eve Studios. We added distortion pedals and made it really big, but then going into the studio months later, maybe a year or more, we pared it back slightly. The majority of the song is just us in a room, a big room at that, which did the track a lot of justice. We wrote a visual score inspired by Wadada Leo Smith for this one, and then in the later half you hear the group percussion which is the final fallout of the song, and has nods to Afrobeat, where the majority of the song is taking this slowcore, emo feel to it. The track was originally titled ‘Brian Emo.’

Tableau‘s second and latest single “The Room” is a breakneck and woozy synthesis of drum ‘n’ bass, Larry Levan-like house and post punk centered around a propulsive and supple bass line, glistening synth arpeggios, wiry bursts of guitar and skittering beats. Interestingly, “The Room” feels like it may arguably be among the more jammy and free-flowing tracks on the entire album.

“This was the first track for this record, completely randomly and not part of the album sessions,” The Orielles’ Sidonie B. Hand-Halford explains. “It was recorded in Autumn/Winter of 2020, at Eve Studios. We had spent a day there, just jamming ideas. Obviously we’d spent the past five or six months in lockdown, not really able to spend much time with one another, so we were all bursting with ideas and hadn’t jammed together in so long. Obviously the way we write is very jammy, very reactionary with each other, and we really missed that. Putting us together in this room at Eve Studios, it was magical really. I feel like we wrote, or sketched ideas, for the majority of the record within an hour or two. We were just in this room at Eve with keyboards, modular synths, everything you could ask for, and just wrote loads of ideas. The lyrics were written line-by-line by each of us, randomly, so we muddled them up and picked them up at random. The first lyric was ‘the moon is in the room’, and I believe she got that from a Clarice Lispector novel? The whispering was definitely inspired by bands like Portishead or Art of Noise.“

Directed by the band, and shot on Super-8, the accompanying video features an almost line-by-line interpretation of the song’s lyrics and meaning — with an entirely playful, DIY spirit.

“‘The Room’ video is perhaps a visual representation of the way in which the song itself was written,” the band explains. “Providing ourselves with limitations and instruments that are more unfamiliar to us (in the video’s case, the Super-8). We thought that the lyrics and the vocal delivery lent themselves well to quite a literal video, we broke the song down line-by-line to create interpretations of the words and their meanings together. We really like the simplicity of this video, inspired by a lot of Agnes Vardas early works as well as Peter Tscherkassky’s more avant-garde films.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The Orielles Share Expansive and Mind-Bending “BEAM/S”

Since forming in Halifax, UK over a decade ago, while their members were still in their teens, JOVM mainstays The Orielles — siblings Sidonie B. Hand-Halford (drums), Esmé Dee Hand-Halford (vocals, bass) and their best friend Henry Carlyle (guitar, vocals) — have released three critically applauded albums, 2017’s Silver Dollar Moment, 2020’s Disco Volador and last year’s La Vita Olistica, which has seen the band move from lo-fi DIY indie rock to Stereolab and A Certain Ratio-inspired avant pop.

When all of the band’s live dates to promote their sophomore album were scrapped as a result of the pandemic, the JOVM mainstays spent 2020 creating La Vita Olistica, a high-concept art film written and directed by the Hand-Halford sisters, which they toured in cinemas during the following year. This was the beginning of a series of creative breakthroughs that would result in Tableau, the band’s forthcoming album.

One of those breakthroughs came about when the band was booked to host a monthly show on Soho Radio. Those broadcasts quickly became impromptu research and development sessions for the ideas that would feed into the album. “Doing that monthly meant we had a reason to meet up and bring two hours of music between us which we’d play, discuss, hold physically and share,” the band’s Henry Carlyle says in press notes. “We were listening to much more contemporary music than before,” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford adds.

Another breakthrough came while remixing another band’s track in a studio in Goyt, UK. This wound up becoming what the band dubbed the Goyt method, a central creative process behind the forthcoming album. “To Goyt it” Sidonie B. Hand-Halford explains, “that’s getting all these pieces and rearranging them. We had vocal melodies and ideas that we’d then run through and sample, and play them on sample pads. We were being editors, really.”

The JOVM mainstays also completely revamped their long-held creative process: Where they had previously only gone into the studio once songs had been tightly crafted at the demo stage, the band began to consider new practices in line with the contemporary sound they were aspiring to craft. No demos, and a lot of improvisation. They also used experimental 1960s-era tape looping and Autotunes. The album also sees them drawing from teh likes of Burial and Sonic Youth. And for the first time, no outside producer — but the band collaborated with friend and producer Joel Anthony Patchett.

Mostly recorded during last summer while the band was holed away in Eastbourne, UK, the album not only sees the band quickly adopting contemporary production, but concepts from the art world and minimalism, as well. Sidonie B. Hand-Halford researched the graphic scoring method of Pulitzer Prize-nominated trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith. They also used Oblique Strategies, the playing cards designed to aide creativity created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt in the early 1970s. “We’d been speaking about wanting to use them for ages, and then we found a set of cards at the studio in Eastbourne,” explains Sidonie, “before each song, we’d pick out a card and that would be our motif for playing that take.”

Slated for an October 7, 2022 release through Heavenly Recordings, Tableau is a double album that reportedly rewards serious immersion, because it’s both complex and diverse. And while the album will likely challenge preconceptions, this is something that the band suggests they’ve been doing throughout their career anyway. “All through our whole career we’ve had to prove ourselves so, so much” Carlyle says. “You can’t disconnect the age and the gender thing either” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford says. “People belittle your age because they see women in the band. Whereas lad bands, if they’re eighteen it’s apparently exactly what people want to see.” Being from a small town in West Yorkshire may have added to that also, but Sidonie counters that “being from Halifax has also been a blessing, it’s kept our egos in check.”

Of course along with that, the album is also the product the product of the unique telepathy between three singular musicians that have grown in symbiosis for over a decade — and the three of them vibing and trading ideas together in a room. “As creators, for the fact we’ve produced it ourselves, it feels like a starting point” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford suggests, “even though everything that’s going previously has counted, this now feels like Ground Zero.” For the future, now, it’s all gates open.

Clocking in at 7:53, Tableau‘s expansive first single “BEAM/S” is a shapeshifting and cinematic bit of dream pop-meets-avant-garde jazz/pop featuring twinkling and fluttering synths, a jangling and chugging guitars, ethereal vocals and a soaring string arrangement. Sonically, the song evokes continuous and unending change and uncertainty — while continuing the band’s genre-bending approach with the song revealing nods to dream pop, slowcore, avant-garde pop and even Afrobeat.

“This is a song that has travelled, grown and adapted with us through all of the seasons,” Esmé Dee Hand-Halford explains. “This is why the lyrics kind of reflect that, the song reflects the changing of conditions. The warping of time, memories and relationships that you foster along the way. The original track was jammed at practice, Henry would bring his recording gear and it came about in quite an off the cuff way. I can’t remember how we really began jamming that. We further developed it whilst jamming at Eve Studios. We added distortion pedals and made it really big, but then going into the studio months later, maybe a year or more, we pared it back slightly. The majority of the song is just us in a room, a big room at that, which did the track a lot of justice. We wrote a visual score inspired by Wadada Leo Smith for this one, and then in the later half you hear the group percussion which is the final fallout of the song, and has nods to Afrobeat, where the majority of the song is taking this slowcore, emo feel to it. The track was originally titled ‘Brian Emo.’

Co-directed by the band and Mackenzie AJ Thompson, the accompanying video for “BEAM/S” is a surreal fever dream, chock-filed with some stunningly cinematic imagery.

New

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Working Men’s Club Share a Hook-Driven Banger

Led by frontman Syd Minksy-Sargeant, the rising British outfit Working Men’s Club exploded into the national and international scene with the release of 2020’s self-titled, full-length debut. Featuring some songs written when Minsky-Sargeant was 16, the album saw the Working Men’s Club frontman processing a teenage life in Todmorden in England’s Upper Calder Valley. “The first album was mostly a personal documentation lyrically, this is a blur between personal and a third-person perspective of what was going on,” Minsky-Sargeant explains in press notes.

Working Men’s Club highly-anticipated Ross Orton-produced sophomore album Fear Fear is slated for a July 15, 2022 release through Heavenly Recordings. Featuring songs created in the shadow of terror and loss, the album bristles, crackles and pops with defiance while exploring juxtaposition: life and death, acceptance and isolation, hope and despair, environment and humanity, the real world and the digital world. And while Fear Fear reportedly documents the past two years with all its bleakness and uncertainty, the album’s material is rooted in hope and empathy. “I like the contrast of it being happy, uplifting music and really dark lyrics. It’s not a minimal record, certainly compared to the first one,” Minsky-Sargeant says. “That’s because there’s been a lot more going on that needed to be said.”

Fear Fear‘s latest single “Ploys” has received praise internationally from BrooklynVegan, Northern Transmissions, Vanyaland, NME and a lengthy list of others. And that’s not surprising. The song is a decidedly 80s New Order inspired banger, centered around a dense layered production featuring tweeter and woofer rattling 808s, glistening synth arpeggios, a relentless groove and Minsky-Sargeant’s irony-drenched vocals paired with an enormous hook.

But despite the retro sound and feel, the song is rooted in a deeply modern sense of disconnection, uncertainty, crippling insecurity and anxiety; the song essentially is the theme song to a Tinder/Hinge/OKCupid date gone terribly off to the point of not being salvageable.

The accompanying video follows a determined woman in the gym as she dead lifts. But it’s shot through a grainy and glitchy VHS-like fuzz and effects that find the weights being dropped in unison with the 808s of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Acclaimed Melbourne-Based Act Mildlife Performs “Citations” on South Channel Island

2017 was a breakthrough year for the now-acclaimed Melbourne-based outfit Mildlife — multi-instrumentalists Jim Rindfleish, Adam Halliwell, Kevin McDowell and Tom Shanahan: Their full-length debut Phase, a mind-bending mix of jazz, krautrock and trippy grooves quickly became a word-of-mouth sensation among open-minded DJs and crate-diggers searching for that perfect, as-of-yet undiscovered-but-incredible beat. Their emergence — and their profile — was solidified by some extensive touring that demonstrated a loose-limbed live approach that thrilled and won over new fans, including the BBC’s Gilles Peterson.

By the end of 2017, the album received critical praise from  Resident Advisor, Uncut,and The Guardian, as well as airplay on BBC Radio 6. Adding to a growing profile, the album landed a handful of award nominations including Best Album at the 2018 Worldwide FM Awards,  Best Independent Jazz Album at the 2018 AIR Awards and Best Electronic Award nomination and win at the The Age Music Victoria Awards. DJ Harvey also included album track “Magnificent Moon” on his Pikes compilation Mercury Rising, Vol. II.

The Melbourne-based quartet have also opened for Stereolab, JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Harvey Sutherland. Their first national headlining tour was sold out, and they immediately followed up with a ten-date UK and European tour, which was culminated with a homecoming set at Meredith Music Festival.

Mildlife released their sophomore album Automatic through Heavenly Recordings late last year. The album, which debuted at #10 on the Aussie charts, saw the band crafting much more danceable material, centered around tightly structured arrangements that allow room for melodic improvisation paired with ethereal vocals. Interestingly, the album manages to further cement the Aussie outfit’s approach and reputation for effortlessly gliding between live performance and studio songwriting. Capping off the year, Automatic won an ARIA Award for Best Jazz Album.

Unable to play shows in person and in front of living, breathing, sweating and dancing humans, the mebmers of Mildlife travelled by boat to a long-abandoned 19th Century island fort on South Channel Island to play for fairy penguins and abalone poachers.

The end result: Live from South Channel Island, a 70 minute concert film and live album, in which the band recreate their live show while framed by Port Philip Bay. Live from South Channel Island is slated for an April 29, 2022 release through Heavenly Recordings/[PIAS] — and the band shared the album’s first single, an expansive live rendition of the Wish You Were Here era Pink Floyd meets jazz fusion-like “Citations,” which appears on Automatic. Of course, the accompanying live footage is at simultaneously eerie and jaw-dropping.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The Parrots Release a Rousingly Anthemic Ode to The Modern Worker

Aclaimed Madrid-based indie rock/garage rock act and JOVM mainstays The Parrots was founded by Diego García (vocals, guitars), Alex de Lucas (vocals, bass) back in 2014. With a handful of independently released singles, the band which, at the time featured Garcia, de Lucas and Daniel “Larry” Balboa (drums) nosily burst into the scene, receiving attention for establishing a boozy, raucous and mischievous sensibility to their overall sound and approach.

Along with Hinds and Los Nastys, The Parrots brought Madrid’s garage rock scene into the international arena, eventually signing to London-based label Heavenly Recordings, who released their critically applauded full-length debut, 2016’s Los Niños Sin Miedo. Since then, the members of The Parrots have been busy with a relentless touring schedule, winning fans across the world with their sweaty and raw punk rock-inspired ferocity. But in that time, they’ve also managed to released a collection of singles that have found the act pushing the boundaries of their sound — while going through a lineup change.

Slated for an October 29, 2021 release through their longtime label home, the Madrid-based JOVM mainstays’ highly-anticipated Tom Furse-produced sophomore album, DOS reportedly represents a new phase for the newly-constituted duo: while revealing an act that has gained a bolstered sense of confidence in their creative processes and taking pride in surrounding themselves with those they love and those who inspire them, the album’s material sonically is a decided change of sonic direction.

“Most of the album was recorded in Wilton Way Studios in Hackney in periods between summer 2019 and the start of 2020. Because of lockdown, it ended up getting finished in Madrid with Harto Rodriguez,” the duo explain in press notes. “Recording at home was really nice because it meant we could call on some of our very talented friends to join us in the studio. Most of the record was written before the lockdown but that unexpected pause in all of our lives made us rethink some of it and finish bits off in a different way. Also, when we knew we couldn’t go back to London to finish it, we decided to invite a lot of our friends back home to the studio. That made recording feel almost like a celebration. Everyone we knew was fine; even with the global pause we could still find the bright spots and stay together.

“Most of the album was recorded in Wilton Way Studios in Hackney in periods between summer 2019 and the start of 2020. Because of lockdown, it ended up getting finished in Madrid with Harto Rodriguez,” the duo explain in press notes. “Recording at home was really nice because it meant we could call on some of our very talented friends to join us in the studio. Most of the record was written before the lockdown but that unexpected pause in all of our lives made us rethink some of it and finish bits off in a different way. Also, when we knew we couldn’t go back to London to finish it, we decided to invite a lot of our friends back home to the studio. That made recording feel almost like a celebration. Everyone we knew was fine; even with the global pause we could still find the bright spots and stay together.

Even though garage rock is kind of the core of all our influences, in the last few years we’ve been listening to lots of stuff that we’d kind of relegated to a second position,” the duo continues. “We rediscovered a lot of artists that we listened back when we first fell in love with music — bands like LCD Soundsystem and Gang of Four, lots of mutant disco. Tom really helped us there, he made sense out of the chaotic mashup of influences that we brought into the studio. And because we’ve always loved hip hop, we followed a different approach to putting songs together, using samples and sampling ourselves a lot. Beastie Boys, ESG, Devo, Los Zombies (the Spanish band) were all a very big influence on the tone of the record. Also the Spanish music scene has been changing a lot in the last years and listening to a lot of new Spanish artists has helped us break down some walls and made us create music in a more free way.”

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Maldito,” DOS’ a single that found Garcia and de Lucas retaining a great deal of the scuzzy and distorted guitar driven-sound and the rousingly anthemic hooks that have won them fans globally, but giving it a slick studio polish that included a dash of autotunes on the song’s particularly punchy hook. But underneath the slick polish, the song is a bittersweet meditation on the nuanced and conflicting feelings involved in letting someone go — including longing, regret, the uneasy acceptance of the difficult decision made and the consequences of that decision on you and others. Adding to the new, forward thinking sonic direction that they’ve taken, the song features a guest spot from the commercially successful Spanish emcee C. Tangana. 

ttle over four-and-a-half minutes, and is centered around a relentless motorik groove, angular blasts of guitar, shimmering synth arpeggios and a rousingly anthemic, chant/shout-along hook. And while arguably being one of the most expansive and boldly arena friendly songs of their catalog, “You Work All Day And Then You Die” is fueled by a growing dissatisfaction and disgust with the lines of bullshit about work and adult responsibility that we’ve been sold — and are either untrue or impossible to achieve. It’s an urgent wake up call that says busting your ass and working at a job you hate to barely survive, to buy shit that won’t make you happy when the world is on fire is laziness at best, lunacy at worst.

“We wanted to write this song for a long time. The sounds, the epic in it were something that we had wanted to express for a long time and couldn’t have done it without the help of our amazing producer, Tom Furse,” Garcia and de Lucas explain. “On the lyrical side, we’ve been feeling that people are settling and giving up their dreams for the ones people post on social media, we wanted to express that lack of individuality, how it’s easier to copy other models of success rather than follow your own. With this song we wanted to punch that trend (or feeling) in the face and remind people and ourselves that success has more to do with personal feelings and self care than social acceptance. We’ve always felt very comfortable being treated as outsiders in most circles and we are proud of that, fight back, don’t kneel and don’t try to be liked by everyone. Some things work for you but others may not. Why are people so worried about communism and stuff when it’s capitalism itself which tries to make us all exactly the same, boring with the same dreams and motivations?”

Directed by Joaquin Luna, the recently released video for “You Work All Day And Then You Die” follows four hemmed-in and abused workers, struggling with their shitty realities, at points going through their days like automatons fueled by stress, desperation, financial necessity and lack of better options. It shouldn’t be surprising that the video’s protagonists work soulless and degrading work — we see a cleaning woman, a line chef/busboy type, a store clerk and two suit wearing office workers. Eventually we see each of these workers become increasingly fed up and in a familiar yet somewhat absurd catharsis, act out in what little liberation from their hell that they can.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Temples Release a Dance Floor Friendly and Kaleidoscopic Sean Ono Lennon-Produced Single

Kettering, Northamptonshire, UK-based indie rock/psych rock act Temples — currently founding members James Bagshaw (vocals, guitar) and Tom Walmsley (bass) with Adam Smith — can trace their origins back to 2012 when its founding members started the band as home-baed studio project, featuring two musicians, who had known each other through their hometown’s scene. 

Bagshaw and Walmsley uploaded four self-produced tracks, which caught the attention of Heavenly Recordings founder and label head Jeff Barrett, who signed the band and agreed to release their debut single “Shelter Song” later that year. Shortly after signing to Heavenly Recordings, Bagshaw and Walmsley recruited Samuel Toms (drums) and Adam Smith to flesh out the band’s live sound — and to complete the band’s first lineup. Since then the band has released two critically applauded and commercially successful albums — 2014’s Sun Structures, which landed at #7 on the UK Charts and 2017’s Volcano.  Building upon a growing profile, the British psych rock act has made appearances across the UK, European Union and North American festival circuits. They’ve shared stages with the likes of Suede, Mystery Jets, Kasabian and The Vaccines among others — but over the past few years, they’ve transitioned into a headlining act that has also made Stateside national television appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

2018 saw a number of major changes for the band: Samuel Toms left the band to focus on his solo recording project Secret Fix, and later joined the equally acclaimed Fat White Family. Temples also left their longtime label home Heavenly Recordings and signed with ATO Records, who released last year’s Hot Motion, which they supported with a busy touring schedule that included a stop at the Desert Daze Festival. The members of Temples caught their labelmates The Claypool Lennon Delirium’s set and shortly after they found themselves chatting about music with them band’s frontman Sean Ono Lennon. 

Several months later, ATO Records asked the band about releasing a previously unreleased Hot Motion sessions track as a single, and they immediately thought of Lennon and asked him to produce the track. “We couldn’t think of any greater mind than his to create with on this track,” the band’s Tom Walmsley says.  “When I first heard the demo for ‘Paraphernalia’ I knew they had a great tune,” says Lennon, who enlisted Dave Fridmann to mix the track.  “Paraphernalia” is a slick and kaleidoscopic synthesis of psych pop and disco pop featuring a sinuous and propulsive, dance floor friendly groove, shimmering guitars, twinkling keys, soaring strings and an anthemic hook paired with Bagshaw’s plaintive vocals. Sonically, the track reminds me of Fantasm-era Starlight Girls  but as the band explains the song is about the disconnect between reality and the online world. “In an age of constant distraction, we all strive to find focus and a sense of calm. ’Paraphernalia’ questions the depth of ‘real’ connections in a digital world,” the band says.