Tag: indie rock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rising Irish Trio Adore Share Mosh Pit Friendly Ripper “Can We Talk”

Rising Irish outfit Adore — Lara Minchin (vocals, guitar), Lachlann Ó Fionnáin (bass, vocals) and Naoise Jordan Cavanaugh (drums) — hail from Dublin, Donegal and Galway respectively. Influenced by The Breeders, Elastica, Echobelly, The Undertones, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Sleeper, the Irish bonded over a mutual passion for melody and message, while developing a sound that pairs crunchy power chords and a driving rhythm section with incisive, thought-provoking lyrics that delve into pressing societal issues.

Since the release of their debut single, last year’s “Postcards,” the band has made the rounds of the Irish live circuit, opening for the likes of The Scratch, 86TVs, The Bug Club, Cardinals and SPRINTS. They’ve also played at Electric Picnic Festival and Whelan’s Ones To Watch 2024 showcase. Adding to a growing profile, across both Ireland the UK, the Irish trio have received coverage from the likes of So Young Magazine, DIY Magazine, Clash Magazine, The Line of Best Fit, Dork, Rough Trade and Nailler9, as well as airplay from BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq and Radio X’s John Kennedy — with just a handful of singles under their collective belts.

Hot on the heels of September’s “Supermum!,” the rising trio’s latest single, the Daniel Fox-produced “Can We Talk” is a 90s alt rock/riot grrl-inspired ripper anchored around crunchy power chords, a chugging rhythm section, enormous mosh pit friendly hooks paired with Minchin’s delivery, which alternates between indignation and wry humor. For the old heads out there, this one will remind you a bit of 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock — but with a decidedly post-punk air.

“‘Can We Talk’ revolves around a pattern of abuse where one is picked up when broken, broken down even farther and is moulded into something subservient, meek and willing to please,” Adore’s Laura Minchin explains. “There is an awareness that one doesn’t get into these situations from a good start. In my experience there has been something unhealed in me that has made me lean into control in the past.

“It begins with not being allowed to disagree with small things, until dangerous patterns of behaviour come to the front and you are so beaten down and made to feel so worthless that you feel like there is no conceivable way you can leave.

It’s sort of like a horror film, where the threat is always there; it presents with small poltergeist acts, a glass is smashed, the dog keeps barking at seemingly nothing, until the force gains more and more power as it feeds from your livelihood. It’s only when it gets genuinely frightening that you realise that the threat has always been there.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Los Angeles’ Jawdropped Shares Fuzzy Power Pop Anthem “Star”

Los Angeles-based outfit Jawdropped — Roman Zangari (vocals, guitar), Kyra Morling (vocals, tambourine), Sam Edwards (bass) and Joe Fastigi (drums) — features grizzled scene vets, who each come to their newest project together from a trail of previous projects, including Alms, The Shaking Hands, jerseygirl, Destiny Inn and others. Connecting through their involvement run the local DIY scene and their mutual respect and admiration for each other’s work, the band has quickly built up buzz for pairing tongue-in-cheek lyrics with catchy hooks and melodies in a way that recalls early 90s alt rock.

Adding to the growing buzz surrounding the band, they’ve opened for Chanel Beads, Fish Narc, PHF and others. And they recently signed to Fire Talk Records‘ imprint Angel Tapes, who also released their debut single “Star.” “Star” is a Dinosaur, Jr.-like bit of power pop featuring fuzzy, distortion pedaled power chords, thunderous drumming, big catchy hooks and saccharine sweet boy-girl harmonies. And while nostalgia-inducing for the old heads out there, the song is rooted in a subtly modern sensibility, much like bands like Glimmer and others.

“Star” presents the age-old tale of small-town girl moving to the big city to follow her dreams. But she swept up in the city’s seedy underbelly, partying and strung out on coke — like a star!

Directed by Jack Dione of untitled (halo), the accompanying video is a shot on supersaturated and grainy VHS-styled visual that captures the band’s goofy, freewheeling energy while following them through the streets of their hometown.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bella Deer Shares Anthemic Shipwreck Coast”

Back in 2021, acclaimed Geelong, Australia-based singer/songwriter and musician Bella Deer released pop hit tune “Care Too Much,” which was a finalist in that year’s APRA AMCOS Vanda & Young Global Songwriting Competition and last year’s Nashville-based International Songwriting Competition.

Building upon a growing international profile, the rising Aussie artist has opened for the likes of Mia Dyson and Thirsty Merc. She has also made the rounds of the international touring schedule, playing at Ferrara Buskers Festival.

The Aussie artist’s latest single “Shipwreck Coast” pairs her attention grabbing, powerhouse vocal with a lush and anthemic arrangement featuring twinkling and arpeggiated synths, arena rock friendly hooks and choruses and enormous power chords. While revealing an artist, who can craft a remarkably catching 80s-inspired hook, “Shipwreck Coast, is inspired by the Aussie state of Victoria’s coastline, which features shipwrecks near Loch Ard Gorge. But it also talks about how the Geelong-based artist feels called by the state’s coastline.

“I was driving one night and felt drawn to the coast. When I feel overwhelmed, I find myself there,” Bella Deer says. “Coastlines in Victoria hold a strange power, although they’re wild and fierce they’re also healing and a perfect place for contemplation.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Laura Carbone Shares Brooding “Red Velvet Fruit”

Berlin-based singer/songwriter, guitarist, photographer and JOVM mainstay Laura Carbone‘s third album The Cycle was released earlier this year. The album, which debuted on North American college radio at #19 on the NACC Top Adds Chart, is a concept album that explores the emotional turmoil, triumphs and transformative experiences that the album’s protagonist experiences through the course of the passing seasons of a year. 

Each song of the represents an experience or inspiration associated with that particular season and the story of the album’s protagonist. 

Over the past handful of months, I’ve written about three of the album’s singles:

  • “Horses,” a slow-burning song built around lush and shimmering acoustic guitar, Carbone’s expressive and yearning delivery, paired with a supple bass line and dramatic drumming. Sonically bringing PJ Harvey’s “You Said Something” to mind, the song is set in the fullness of summer. The song’s protagonist is experiencing the heat, humidity and passion of the season — when fields become gold and heatwaves and wildfires turn them into ash. But there’s a reminder that Mother Earth will restore and reclaim burnt ground in time. 

  • “The Good,” a breathtakingly gorgeous song featuring shimmering and reverb soaked guitar, a supple and sinuous bass line, gently padded drumming and bursts of soaring organ serving as a lush bed for Carbone’s expressive vocal. At its core, the song is rooted in the lived-in personal experience and hard-fought, harder-won wisdom of someone who has lived a full, messy and complicated life. And a result the song is profoundly empathetic and understanding examination of human behavior that seems to say “I’ve been there, too.” Carbone explains that the track looks at our puzzling capacity for denial — not just of the truth, but of the embrace and love we owe ourselves. 

  • “Silver Rain,” a bittersweet ballad anchored around a propulsive rhythm section, shimmering reverb-soaked guitars, a cathartic hook serving as a lush bed for Carbone’s expressive, soulful vocal. While seemingly channelling Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea-era PJ Harvey, “Silver Rain,” as Carbone explains explores the relief a break-up can bring and the room in our hearts that such a bittersweet letting go creates.

The Cycle‘s latest single “Red Velvet Fruit” is a slow-burning, hauntingly gorgeous track anchored around a brooding and dramatic piano melody that seems locked in a velvety embrace with Carbone’s resonant yet ethereal delivery, which express the longing, frustration, heartache and shame that come about when one submits to temptation. But at its core, is the tacit understanding that the temptation may lead to one’s own demise — whether literally or figuratively.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Blue Herons Share Gorgeous “ladybug”

Swiss-based musician Andy Jossi, a member of The Churchhill Garden and American-born singer/songwriter and musician Gretchen DeVault, a member of The Icicles, Voluptuous Panic, The Francine Odysesys, and Hero No Hero started their transatlantic collaboration The Blue Herons back in 2020. And in a short period of time, the duo began quickly crafted a sound that draws inspiration from C86 and Sarah Records heyday — think of bands like Even As We Speak and Heavenly — and contemporaries like Alvvays and Hatchie.

With an initial batch of singles that quickly garnered attention and acclaim, the duo experienced a growing profile across the international jangle pop and indie rock scenes. Building upon a growing profile, the transatlantic duo’s full-length debut, Go On, which was released to a limited run through Subjangle Records earlier this year, is a compilation of the band’s acclaimed singles over the past couple of years, remastered and remixed, along with two previously unreleased singles. Sonically, the album’s material is rooted around catchy melodies, soaring vocals and shimmering guitar riffs.

The album’s latest single “ladybug” is a nostalgia-inducing bit of jangle pop, anchored around shimmering layers of Jossi’s Johnny Marr-like guitar, a propulsive rhythmic groove and some remarkably catchy hooks paired with DeVault’s gorgeous and expressive delivery. The song’s narrator is offering warning to its subject, that if they continue being a two-timing fool that they’ll lose their chance with a truly special woman. If you’ve been in that situation, this song will hit close to home.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Soccer Mommy Shares Lush and Swooning “Abigail”

Acclaimed Nashville-based singer/songwriter and musician Sophie Allison will be releasing her fifth Soccer Mommy album Evergreen on Friday through Loma Vista Recordings.

Allison’s career started in earnest as a teenager, sharing near-demo form tracks on Bandcamp. The past handful of years, have found her employing the use of synthesizers and experimental production techniques, thanks to the endless studio resources she newly found at her fingertips. But when she started to write the material that would become Evergreen, Allison knew they called for different touch.

Songwriting has always been the acclaimed Nashville-based artist’s way to sort through life and to ground herself. And she was crafting the album in the wake of a profound and personal loss, it felt important to her to keep the material raw and relatable, unvarnished and honest. So, she opted for a much more organic production, which helped to shine a spotlight on her songwriting. The Ben H. Allen III-produced album was recorded at Atlanta’s Maze Studios and is a sonic return to the project’s roots, but recast on a cinematic scale through the use of acoustic guitar and lush string and flute arrangements.

Allison’s intention for the album was “to feel like you’re laying outside, eyes closed, the sun is on you, and you can feel the warmth & flowers & trees.” It’s appreciation that even in your darkest place, a sunny day can wash over you and lift your spirits. And with that as inspiration, this week Allison will be sharing an exclusive early first listen of Evergreen with fans, who can get to a lush outdoor location, like a backyard or a park. Starting tomorrow, Soccer Mommy fans can head to their nearest park and click open this link to access the early album listening experience.

The album’s final pre-release single “Abigail” is a lush and swooning love song that captures the desire, longing and hope of a newfound love — in this case, Allison’s purple-haired wife in the game Stardew Valley — with a lived-in earnestness.

The ConcernedApe-inspired music video, features Allison’s Stardew Valley avatar trying to court her true love.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Jack Manley Returns with Grunge Rock-Influenced “Grow Up”

Jack Manley is a grizzled veteran music, whose career has proven to be the embodiment of resilience and rebirth: He has played in a number of projects, including Cosmonaut, The Jennifer Shop, and Spires. While touring in those projects, Manley struggled with depression and addiction. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck and the world came to a grinding halt, Manley spiraled downward. Two near-fatal overdoses served as a wake-up call that propelled him back to music. In the confines of a Poughkeepsie hospital room, armed with a broken guitar and sheer determination, Manley began to craft melodies from the threads of his experiences. 

Fueled by a hard-won, newfound clarity, Manley reunited with his childhood friend, classically trained guitarist Billy Pierson. Andy Idol (bass), Josh Eppard (drums) and Noah Sonenstein (drums) were recruited to be the grizzled indie artist’s backing band and collaborated. Since then, Manley and his backing band play regularly for audiences in and around Woodstock, NY.

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Save Your Own,” a remarkably catchy song that nodded at The Beatles, Elvis Costello and the like while revealing a slick combination of earnestness and lived-in experience. Building upon the momentum of “Save Your Own,” Manley returns with “Grow Up,” a 90s grunge-like anthem that recalls Pablo Honey-era Radiohead featuring distortion pedaled power chords, enormous raise-your-beer-in-the-air-and-shout-along worthy hooks and choruses paired with Manley’s plaintive delivery.

Anchored around a classic grunge song structure of alternating quiet verses and loud choruses, the song is arguably one of the most personal song Manley has ever written: The song sees the Kingston, NY-based artist reflecting on his life’s journey through young adulthood, addiction and loss. Thematically, the song explores Manley’s need to desperately take control of his life, a message directed at himself as he continues to navigate adulthood and sobriety. Initially dismissed as a rambling note to himself, the song’s words resurfaced after Manley’s father died from COVID in 2022. And in some way, the song unexpectedly echoes his feelings of grief and loss.

Ultimately, the song captures the complexity of adult life, of maneuvering through a life of sobriety and the grief of loss with lived-in bitterness, heartache and resolve.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Manchester UK’s TTSSFFU Shares Woozy “Studio 54”

Tasmin Nicole Stephens is a Manchester, UK-based producer, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind the emerging and rising DIY shoegaze solo recording project TTSSFU (pronounced phonetically as T-T-S-S-F-U). With TTSSFU’s debut EP, Me, Jed and Andy, which was released earlier this year, Stephens quickly established an enormous and atmospheric sound that according to some deftly combines the dreamy and eerie qualities of The Cure with the breakneck BPMs of bands like The Strokes and The Drums.

Me, Jed and Andy EP features “I Hope You Die,” a track that is nearing one-million plays on YouTube. Stephens has begun to make the rounds of the British festival circuit, playing sets at Green Man, Bristol Sounds and Manchester Psych Fest, as well as opening slots for acclaimed JOVM mainstay Soccer Mommy and Mannequin Pussy during those two acts’ UK tours. Adding to a growing profile, Stephens recently signed to Partisan Records, the label home of PJ Harvey, IDLES, Cigarettes After Sex, Blondshell and more. The label will be releasing the rising British artist’s forthcoming new material next year, a scheduled EP and a full-length studio debut.

“Partisan is a label that holds a lot of the bands I’ve looked up to for years, and for them to see enough potential in me to be signed was just mind blowing,” the rising Manchester artist says of her recent signing to Partisan. “I’m so grateful to be taken on by such a kind group of people who care about my music and future and are totally on board and patient with me. Biggest thank you goes to Matthew at Partisan who found me in the first place. Without him none of this would have happened x.”

And to close out a massive year, the Manchester-based artist will be opening for English Teacher during their upcoming November UK tour. But in the meantime, Stephens’ latest single off the Me, Jed and Andy EP “Studio 54” is a brooding and uneasy bit of sheogaze featuring an angular bass line, layers of eerie, reverb-drenched vocals and gently buzzing guitars that serve as a woozy bed for for the British artist’s ethereal, achingly tender lead vocal. “Studio 54” reminds me a bit of the big, reverb-soaked sound of My Gold Mask but with an eerie, dreamy quality. It’s slick synthesis of goth and shoegaze that sounds almost as though it could have been released during 120 Minutes MTV-era alt rock days — but subtle, modern sheen.

“‘Studio 54’ is about how Andy Warhol got swept up with the New York party scene and how it eventually pushed his partner Jed Johnson away,” Stephens explains. “Andy let Jed down many times, the drugs made him uncomfortable, and Andy seemed to care more about partying and hanging out with his famous friends. Jed eventually had enough and left him for someone else which ultimately broke him. The story resonated with me because sometimes I don’t recognise what I’ve got when I’ve got it and take things for granted.”

Directed by Seth Lloyd, the accompanying video follows Stephens as she prepares for and heads to a drug and booze-filled party that also features couples hooking up, fighting and breaking up in a seemingly infinite pattern.
“The video was super exciting to make with my good friend Seth,” the Manchester-based artist says. “It was amazing to create the vision that’s been sitting in my head for a while now and bring it to life with such a talented team. We also had some amazing extras who were so fun and helpful all night.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Seafoam Walls Shares Dreamily Unsettling “Rapids”

Formed back in 2016, the acclaimed Miami-based indie quartet Seafoam Walls — Jayan Bertrand (vocals, guitar), Josh Ewers (bass), Josue Vargas (electronic drums) and Dion Kerr (guitar) — quickly caught the attention of underground music and art communities across South Florida with a unique sound that they dubbed “Caribbean Jazzgaze,” a mesh of jazz, shoegaze, rock, hip-hop and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. 

The Miami-based outfit exploded into the larger, international scene following a secret, all-ages matinee show with DC-based hardcore photographer Susie J. and Sonic Youth‘s Thurston Moore. Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the band released 2018’s R-E-F-L-E-C-T EP and 2019’s one-off “Root.”

2021’s full-length debut, XVI, which featured the A Storm in Heaven-meets-TV on the Radio-like “Program” was released through Thurston Moore’s The Daydream Library Series. 

The Miami-based outfit’s sophomore album Standing Too Close To The Elephant In The Room is slated for a Friday release through Dion Dia. The album’s title is partially derived for a metaphor for the often overlooked but significant challenges and complexes that people face in their lives. But it also is a warning about getting caught up in the details — at the risk of missing the bigger picture. “Everyone has an elephant in the room; an obvious problem in their life that everyone, including the person affected, knowingly looks past,” the band’s frontman Jayan Bertrand explains. “BUT, I say that one is standing too close, because the problem is more complex and their vision is too obstructed to see the bigger picture. So viewers are providing their skewed perspectives of the same problem. It’s an illustration of the areas in which intersectionality fails to meet.”

Standing Too Close To The Elephant In The Room reportedly represents a new chapter for the band: The album’s material not only showcases the band’s evolution as musicians, but it also solidifies their reputation as bounding-pushing artists, inviting the listener to a Technicolor mist of experimental influences and instrumentation. Continuing their commitment to full artistic autonomy, the band’s members took production duties, shaping an album that will reward those who will revel in its sweeping soundscapes, as thematically the material delves deeper into questioning the trappings of modern society and all of its contradictions. 

Last month, I wrote about album single “Humanitarian Pt. II,” a song anchored around glistening guitar melodies, a relentless motorik groove and bursts of whirring synths. The arrangement serves as a lush and dreamy bed for Bertrand’s meditative vocal to sing philosophical lyrics that examines the motivation that makes us choose our paths — and how we go about those paths. Some people are drawn to the attention or superficial perks of an occupation, without understanding what it really entails. Through the song, the listener must face the very shitty reality that only certain efforts, from certain people get rewarded. Certainly, whether as a musician, a writer or a photographer, these observations are familiar, especially when you see others seemingly being much more successful at what you do, than you are. 

“Before I picked up a guitar, I was simply a fan of music,” the band’s Bertrand explains. “Then, I began learning about the oppressive tactics of governments worldwide, and my world shattered. The entities of authority that assured me that everything they did was just were actually a key part of the problem. I started to believe that art was the only safe space in this cruel world. ‘Humanitarian Pt. II’ is about disillusionment. 
 
“I jumped into the music scene headfirst without realizing that the same tactics would exist. I then made it my mission to call out such tactics and question our societal norms like my favorite artists before me.
 
I’m still looking for an answer to all of my pressing questions, but it helps to be grouped with people with a similar mindset who have practical solutions. I gravitated towards Dion Dia records for our latest and upcoming releases because while everyone I admired raised great questions and awareness, Dion Dia presented a hopeful alternative.”

Standing Too Close To The Elephant In The Room‘s last pre-release single “Rapids” is built around a chugging, aqueous-like groove that pushes murkily sung yet hypnotic mantra-like vocals. The song manages to sound simultaneously comforting and deeply unsettling — and in a way that’s a bit difficult to pin down. “‘Rapids’ is short for white water rapids. A fast-moving body of water that cares or waits for no living being. I see time in a similar way,” the band’s frontman Jayan Bertrand explains. “Society will progress without you if you get stuck in your ways. It helps to be as fluid as the times allow.”

The accompanying video continues upon a developed glitchy and noisy VHS-driven aesthetic while focusing on bodies of water and slices of Miami life.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: slo/tide Shares Rousingly Anthemic “Rather Be Blind”

Perhaps best known for being the frontman of the Grammy-nominated outfit Underoath, Spencer Chamberlain is the creative mastermind behind the Underoath side project slo/tide. Chamberlain collaborated with alt rock darlings Sir Sly on the project’s debut “Neck High.”

Chamberlain’s latest slo/tide single “Rather Be Blind” is crowd-pleasing synthesis of indie rock, shoegaze, indie pop and emo anchored around big power chords, twinkling synths even bigger hooks paired with Chamberlin’s plaintive falsetto. Sonically, seemingly to draw from Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd, Tame Impala, Radiohead and others, “Rather Be Blind,” as Chamberlain explains “was a cry for help. We often struggle mentally, appearing to be at our “best” while feeling far from it. I wrote this in the throes of the hell I was in. It’s a bit different than my other band Underoath.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Spiral XP Shares “120 Minutes” MTV Alt Rock-like “Window Room”

Back in early 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic caused the world ground down to a halt, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Max Keyes abandoned a short-lived move to Philadelphia and returned home to Seattle. The false start helped to spark a sort of existential crisis, and he quickly moved back north to Bellingham, WA, where he’d grown up, hoping the sense of home might provide some much-needed grounding. Perhaps best known for drumming with the acclaimed noise rock outfit Versing, Keyes began hammering out his own songs during this quieter and slower time, approaching the guitar for the first time with serious intention. “It was good to have a couple of years just writing and becoming more confident,” he reflects.

Keyes’ latest project Spiral XP initially started out as a lo-fi solo project with his debut EP, 2021’s Drop Me. He followed that up with last year’s It’s Been A While and this year’s TVXP EP, a collaboration with Seattle-based band TV Star. After those EPs, Keyes recruited scene vets Lena Farr-Morrisey (bass, vocals), Jordan Mang (guitar), Kyle McCollum (guitar) and Daniel Byington (drums) to augment the material, which would become the now, full-fledged band’s, JooJoo Ashworth-produced full-length debut, I Wish I Was A Rat, as they saw fit. “They ended up taking on a life of their own,” he explains, “that’s a little scary but also thrilling to me.”

Recorded entirely in analog at The Unknown, the legendary Anacortes, WA-based studio Phil Elverum helped construct in an abandoned church, the 12-song I Wish I Was A Rat reportedly documents the band at their purest, embracing happy accidents and gritty recording artifacts. “It goes back to that search for authenticity,” says Keyes, “It has a lot of limitations and it makes recording harder, but those limitations make the process so much more meaningful and deep.” While the material shows a reverence for the likes of Yo La Tengo, the material is indebted to a number of influential Pacific Northwest bands like Broken Water, Unwound and Beat Happening. The album’s material sees the band crafting a singular distillation of grunge, indie and slacker rock. Thematically the material explores meaning, truth and value under capitalism while navigating late-twenties existential ennui.

I Wish I Was A Rat’s latest single “Window Room” is a 120 Minutes-era MTV-like anthem anchored around crunchy and fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming paired with enormous hooks and choruses and soaring falsetto vocals. But at its core is a mix of boredom and longing that should feel familiar.

“I was inspired to write the lyrics while sitting in an enclosed porch one day and examining the window reflections,” the band’s Lena Farr-Morrissey says. “Making plans of nothing and carving out time that is intentionally left blank, I found myself wondering what can bloom from recycled thoughts and memories. On the inside looking out, ‘Window Room’ carries a longing for being at peace with the unknown.”

Directed by Lauren Rodriguez, the accompanying video for “Window Room” featured saturated Super 8 footage of a woman daydreaming at the shore and a ferry. Fittingly, the video manages to match the 120 Minutes MTV aesthetic of its accompanying song.

I Wish I Was A Rat is slated for an October 18, 2024 release through Danger Collective Records.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: S.C.A.B. Shares Expansive and Brooding “Caught My Eye”

Led by Sean Carmago (vocals guitar), Queens-based indie outfit S.C.A.B. — currently Carmago, Cory Best (guitar, backing vocals), Alec Alabado (bass, backing vocals), Evan Eubanks (drums, percussion), Jordan Rich (synth, piano, production) and Sean Brennan (cello) — will be releasing their first batch of new material in two years with the October 25, 2024 release of the five-song Rose Colored Glasses EP. 

Carmago’s lyrics see him searching for distortions and distractions from the truth, and the interplay between truth and love. And over the pat give years, the band’s work has slowly developed to reflect a worldview created from an awareness of the interplay between truth, love and illusion — and the great comedy of it all. The new EP thematically focuses on love, the uneasy nature of reality, depression, songwriting and being severely, acutely alive.

Last month, I wrote about “IDK New Reality,” a woozy,  120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock-like track track anchored around jangling and distorted guitars, a driving groove paired with rousingly anthemic hooks and Carmago’s earnest croon. 

The EP’s latest single “Caught My Eye” sees the Queens-based outfit crafting a song that synthesizes elements of shoegaze,  120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock, post punk and post-punk and contemporary pop and trap glitch anchored around Carmago’s earnest croon and the band’s penchant for remarkably catchy hooks.

The band’s Carmago offers some reference points for the new single: “Noticing your own wandering eye. Exploring shame. Asking for a lot with little in return. Sharing a song with you. Non-monogamy. Fear of being seen. Thinking about someone else. FaceTime. Unemployment.”
 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s APACALDA Shares Cinematic and Woozy “She’s Not Coming”

Cassandra Angheluta is a Romanian-born, Montréal-based singer/songwriter and the creative mastermind behind the solo recording project APACALDA. Deriving its name from the Romanian word for “warm water,” Angheluta’s solo project is both a reflection of her movement through her art and life, and a reminder to reconnect with the warmth that can calm and ground her, despite the chaos and unpredictability of outside circumstances.

Much like countless other artists, the Romanian-Canadian artist has found that through creating music, she can process and alchemize emotional traumas from throughout the course of her life, while giving her a sense of peace. Her work typically touches upon themes of devastation and transcendence.

With 2022’s self-titled, debut EP, which featured collaborations with Robert Robert; FHANG‘s Luca Fogale‘s and Half Moon Run‘s Sam Woywitka; FHANG’s, Patrick Watson‘s and TEKE :: TEKE’s Mishka Stein; Half Moon Run’s Isaac Symonds and the Esca Quartet, Angheluta quickly established a fresh take on indie rock, electro pop and New Wave/post-punk, crating a sound that has been described as melancholic, dreamy, enigmatic and hauntingly beautiful.

The Romanian-Canadian artist’s Miskha Stein and Sam Woywitka co-produced full-length debut, There’s a Shadow In My Room and It Isn’t Mine is slated for release next year. Thematically, the album delves into mental illness, obsession, jealousy and deceit.

The album’s first single “She’s Not There” features distorted and churning guitar tones, skittering and propulsive beats, atmospheric synths serving as a woozy and uneasy bed for Anghuleta’s achingly plaintive yet defiant delivery, evoking the turmoil and restlessness of its narrator. According to the Montréal-based artist, “She’s Not Coming” tells the story of a woman, who chooses to end her life, despite her outward devotion to God. While capturing the hidden struggles behind its narrator’s stoic exterior, the track sheds light on the pervasive nature of suicide. “I write these songs as an extension of healing—I want to be a medium. I often feel others’ pain and I want to express it in honour of them,” Angheluta says.

Directed by Mallis, a Montréal-based filmmaker, art director and production designer, known for visually rich storytelling, the accompanying video for “She’s Not Coming” was funded by The MVP Project and shot in Georgia, not too far from Angheluta’s homeland. While anchored in the themes of its accompanying song, the video follows the final journey of Louisa, an elderly woman, who ends her life, and is based on the true story of a friend, whose mother’s death was suspected to be a suicide. The friend’s mother was a deeply religious woman, who ultimately chose to leave the church. This lead to her exclusion from her religious community.

The friend’s mom was known to walk along the shores of a beach near her home. One morning, local news outlets reported that a woman’s body washed ashore. The friend knew it was his mother, realizing that he’d never speak or see her again. “Through her story, we really wanted to emphasize the impact of community on someone’s mental and emotional well-being,” the director and artist explain.