JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Johnny Marr’s 60th birthday.
Tag: indie rock
Led by songwriter and producer Aaro Seppänen, emerging Helsinki-based indie outfit Favourite Colours has quickly developed a unique sound featuring reverb-drenched guitars, lush synths, catchy melodies that draws from ’80s and ’90s dream pop and shoegaze, as well as punk and hip-hop while being rooted in strong emotions, ranging from bittersweet melancholy to heavenly euphoria.
Favourite Colours’ full-length debut, Summer ’13 was released last Friday. The hazy and nostalgia-including album features three previously released singles “Better,” “Through the Night” and “Remember That Day.” The album’s fourth and latest single “Play It Loud” is a brooding yet gorgeous song built around atmospheric and twinkling synths, reverb-drenched shoegazer guitar textures, enormous and rousingly anthemic hooks paired with a plaintive and yearning vocal. Sonically, the song seems to nod at A Storm in Heaven-era Verve, Love Is Here-era Starsailor — with clear nods to Brit Pop.
Through the release of their full-length debut, 2021’s In This Town and last year’s Zoo Avenue EP, the Southeast Ohio-based indie outfit The Laughing Chimes, founded by siblings Evan and Quinn Seurkamp, firmly cemented a timeless sound that draws from American and British jangle pop from the 80s and 90s that could have easily originated in Athens, GA, Dunedin, New Zealand — or Southeastern Ohio.
The Southeastern Ohio-based band share two new, gloomy singles — just in time for the Halloween season. The A-side “A Promise To Keep” is an original that sees the band expanding upon the jangle pop sound that they’ve developed with hints of early R.E.M. and late 70s post punk, with angular yet lyrical bass lines from the band’s newest member Avery Bookman and glistening bursts of synth paired with Evan Seukamp singing lyrics describing abandoned Appalachian towns with cavernous reverb. The result is a haunting anthem of a decaying, slowly dying America that should feel familiar to those who have grown up in small, one-industry towns across the country.
The B-side is a loving and fairly straightforward cover of The Ocean Blue‘s “Ballerina Out of Control,” off 1991’s Cerulean. While retaining the essential elements of the original — in particular, the jangling guitar melody and twinkling keys — The Laughing Chimes version manages to be possess a bittersweet ache that compliments the A-side single, while evoking the chill and gloom of autumn.
New Audio: Kilo Bravo Shares Arena Rock Friendly “Lucinda”
Long Beach, CA-based indie outfit Kilo Bravo will be releasing their sophomore album in early 2024. Their latest single “Lucinda” is an arena rock friendly ripper built around Queens of the Stone Age and Foo Fighters-like power chords and thunderous drumming paired with rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses.
“Lucinda” sees the band known for sentimental tunes exploring new sonic horizons while revealing a band that can play swaggering, fuzzy rippers with the best of them.
New Video: Philly’s Rob Rapp Shares “120 Minutes”-era MTV-like “Dysfunctional Machine”
Philadelphia-based DIY artist Rob Rapp specializes in lo-fi pop that’s steeped in the tradition of 90s indie rock. Influenced by the likes of Guided by Voices and Stephen Malkmus, Rapp looks to carry that tradition well into the modern area.
2023 has been a busy year for the Philadelphia-based lo-fi pop artist. He has released two albums this year: Wires, Liars and Cryers, which was released earlier this year, and the recently released Meanwhile in Collegeville.
Built around fuzzy power chords, big shout-along worthy hooks and choruses paired with Rapp’s ironically detached delivery, Meanwhile in Collegeville‘s latest single “Dysfunctional Machine” wouldn’t be out of place during an episode of 120 Minutes back in the day. Lyrically and thematically, “Dysfunctional Machines” captures the bitterness, malaise, unease and frustrations of modern day life, delving into the mindset and feelings of hardworking Joes and Janes busting their asses thanklessly through the bullshit and lies of everyday life — with as much of their dignity and sanity intact as possible.
The accompanying video features drone-based footage of an abandoned factory site, followed by stock footage of workers making a variety of things in the factory.
Andrew Bishop is a grizzled Vancouver music scene vet, who over the past decade has contributed his talents as a guitarist and/or singer/songwriter to a number of local outfits including Alex Little & The Suspicious Minds, Twin River and his own country-infused solo project White Ash Falls.
The Vancouver-based artist’s latest project WAASH sees him merging his prolific songwriting skills with a passion for expansive shoegaze soundscapes, marking both a culmination of his musical career and a fresh start. Initially started as a solo recording project, WAASH has gradually evolved into a full-fledged live band.
WAASH’s self-titled debut Colin Stewart co-produced EP is slated for a November 20, 2023 release. The EP’s five meticulously crafted tracks showcase Bishop’s departure from his long-held, conventional songwriting process: Instead of relying on guitar, he explored beats and baselines as starting points. For him, this approach allowed him to delve into minute details, crafting lyric and melodies that intricately fit each song. The EP was recorded with Bishop’s Alex Little & The Suspicious Minds bandmates at Afterlife Studios and further refined at The Hive with Colin Stewart. Over in East Vancouver, Bishop added ethereal keyboards, harmonies from Louise Burns and perfected the EP’s reverb-soaked aesthetic.
Earlier this month, I wore about “There’s Never Enough Voices,” a song built around glistening, reverb-soaked guitars, and a tight motorik groove paired with Bishop’s plaintive delivery and carefully crafted, anthemic hooks and choruses. But brooding despair, confusion, regret and unease swirl just underneath the sleek, arena rock friendly surface. As Bishop explains the song is about trying to come to an understanding about the intentions within your actions and the realization of your past mistakes.
The self-titled EP’s second and latest single, the upbeat and anthemic “It Goes On” is built around reverb-soaked, swirling shoegazer-like guitar textures and Bishop’s laconic and plaintive delivery paired with his penchant for rousing and infectious hooks and choruses. Seemingly indebted to 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock with a slick modern touch, “It Goes On,” as the Canadian indie outfit explains “is about moving on, learning to let go and not really listening to what others have to say. Sometimes relationships get to a point when both people don’t really care anymore. The writing’s on the wall, and everyone around you knows this is coming. You just have to take a moment, reflect and allow yourself time to breathe.”
New Audio: Lucius Arthur Shares Swooning, Heartbroken “Scarlet Tears”
Lucius Arthur is a mysterious, emerging singer/songwriter and musician. His latest single “Scarlet Tears” is a slow-burning, lo-fi inspired, guitar pop ballad built around strummed acoustic guitar, skittering, blown-out boom bap-like beats paired with Arthur’s achingly tender delivery. While sonically drawing from Radiohead, “Scarlet Tears” is “a personal song about a recent break up,” as Arthur explains.
New Video: Eleanor Kelly Shares Sleek and Anthemic “Sentiments”
Eleanor Kelly is a New York-based singer/songwriter and musician, who has spent stints in Belgium and Israel. “Fueled by coffee, cat cuddles, 80s synth and metal,” Kelly has been writing and performing songs from a young age. Those songs have frequently featured lyrics inspired and informed by her personal life and her immediate environment — especially in a politically-charged environment like Israel.
When Kelly turned 13, she submitted a song to Eurovision Song Content. That song received positive feedback but was eventually declined because it was deemed “too political.”
After playing a variety of roles in a number of different music projects throughout her life, Kelly stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist with the release of her debut single “Daisy Chain” earlier this year, which showcased an artist influenced by Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Garbage, Deftones with subtle nods to European and Middle Eastern music.
Kelly is currently working on her debut EP, which is slated for release next year. She’s also preparing for a series of live shows around the New York Metropolitan area. But in the meantime, her latest single “Sentiments” is a sleek and slinky number built around a sinuous bass line, swirling shoegazer-like guitar tones and glistening synth oscillations paired with Kelly’s sultry delivery and an enormous, remarkably catchy hook. Sonically, “Sentiments” channels a synthesis of It’s Blitz-era Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Garbage and Dum Dum Girls among others, while displaying a seemingly effortless craftsmanship.
Created using AI, the accompanying video uses 90s Anime and follows a female protagonist desperately trying to survive through a series of evil and bad scenarios and cartoon baddies.
“‘Sentiments’ was written as a song of empowerment. I originally wrote these lyrics as an outlet for my frustration with the current state of the world, which also has a major impact on my personal life as a young woman on this planet (as well as that of many others),” Eleanor Kelly explains. “The lyrics deal with a faltering reality, where it seems hard to find the positive things to hold on to, and to find the ability to make a change. When it came to the instrumentation, the writing started out with a funky bassline and was built from there. I wanted the listener to feel more energized and empowered as the song went on. To do so I chose to use various synths, fuzzy guitars, a deep bass, and loud drums, building up to the last chorus, which is layered to produce the most energizing moment in the composition. While all my previous songs have been produced solely by me, I worked with co-producer, Harper James, on the final stages of this song. Harper also mixed and mastered the track.
“When thinking about the music video, I wanted to emphasize the message that ‘Sentiments’ presents,” Kelly adds. “Using AI, which is currently a controversial topic in most creative fields, I decided to present the lyrics in the form of a 90’s vintage Anime – an ode to my childhood, which felt like a simpler and more innocent time. The story follows a lead female character, haunted by various bad scenarios in her existence on Earth, which are represented by the shifting characters that chase her through space and time. Fed up with this reality, she decides to fight back, eventually destroying the bad with her own inner power. The ability to do so through animation, which unfortunately, I do not have the power to do in real life, complemented the empowering aspect of the song.”
New Video: SPELLES Shares Brooding and Uneasy “Night Terrors”
SPELLES is a mysterious Los Angeles-based band that has released two EPs, 2015’s self-titled EP and 2021’s Machete, as well as a standalone single, 2017’s “Dead in the Water.” Their material has amassed over 5 million streams across DSPs while being praised by the likes of Consequence, CLASH, BBC, NME, NPR and others. And adding to a growing profile, they’ve had songs appear on shows like Good Girls, Pretty Little Liars and several others.
Their full-length debut, Diving Into the Arms of the Divine is slated for a November 15, 2023 release. The Los Angeles-based outfit’s latest single, the anthemic and brooding “Night Terrors” sees the bad pairing powerhouse soulful vocals with a bluesy bass synth riff and propulsive, pulsating drums. The song’s choruses feature glistening organ textures and eerie string, which emphasize a creeping and uneasy sense of dread throughout. Sonically, the song sounds like a trippy synthesis of The White Stripes, The Black Angels, Amy Winehouse and Suicide while rooted in seemingly lived-in lyricism.
As the band explains, the song touches upon a familiar dichotomy: “the feelings of hope and hopeless that one inevitably experiences when chasing an elusive dream.”
Fittingly, the accompanying video features occult and creepy imagery, stock imagery of eclipses, the band’s lead vocalist being chased by an unseen and elusive attacker and more.
New Video: JOVM Mainstay MAGON Shares Intimate and Introspective “Chasing Dreams”
Over the past couple of years, I’ve managed to spill quite a bit of ink on the remarkably prolific, Israeli-born, singer/songwriter, musician and JOVM mainstay MAGON. Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site during that period, you might recall that shortly after the release of his fifth album A Night in Bethlehem, the Israeli-born JOVM mainstay, along with his partner and young daughter relocated to Costa Rica, where he continued upon his long-held reputation of being prolific, and released his sixth album Did You Hear the Kids?
Did You Hear The Kids? featured what may arguably have been the broadest and most expansive sonic palette of any of his previously released work — and a collaboration with Paris-based indie duo SOS Citizen.
The Israeli-born, Costa Rican-based artist recently found creative and musical simpatico with local indie rock outfit Las Robertas, which led to his latest single, “Chasing Dreams,” the album title track of his forthcoming seventh album, Chasing Dreams.
Chasing Dreams reportedly sees the JOVM mainstay continuing a slow-burn expansion of his sound with the addition of string arrangements, which helps add a lush quality to the material.
Built around strummed acoustic guitar, shimmering pedal steel, gentle drumming paired with Magon’s dreamily laconic delivery, the JOVM mainstay’s latest single continues a run of material that sonically sounds a bit indebted to Exile on Main Street-era Rolling Stones and Harvest-era Neil Young with the song featuring nods to country, folk and psych rock. Much like the material on his latest two albums, “Chasing Dreams” is rooted in the deep, heartfelt introspection informed by getting older and living a life well-lived with the song touching upon themes of maturation, love and cherished family bonds.
The accompanying video for “Chasing Dreams” features tender and lovingly shot family footage filmed in Sinai, Egypt. The video offers an intimate look into the artist’s life and his personal journey.
Chasing Dreams is slated for a December 1, 2023 release.
New Audio: Sleaford Mods Give RVG’s “Nothing Really Changes” a Dance Floor Friendly Remix Treatment
Acclaimed and rising Aussie outfit and JOVM mainstays RVG — currently Romy Vager (vocals, guitar), Gregor’s and Hearing’s Reuben Bloxham (guitar), Rayon Moon‘s Marc Nolte (drums), and Isabelle Wallace (bass) — have released three critically applauded albums:
- 2017’s A Quality of Mercy, which was recorded live off the floor at Melbourne’s iconic rock ‘n’ roll pub, The Tote Hotel. Initially released to little fanfare, the album, much to their surprise received critical acclaim both nationally and internationally, landing on a number of end-of-year Best of Lists.
- 2020’s Victor Van Vugt-produced Feral was released by Fire Records globally, excluding Australia and New Zealand, where it was released by Our Golden Friend. The album received breathless praise nationally and internationally, with Rolling Stone Australia calling the album “the record of a lifetime.”
- Their third album Brain Worms, which was released earlier this year through Fire Records globally and Our Golden Friend in Australia and New Zealand.
In the lead up to the album’s release, I wrote about four of the album’s released singles:
- “Nothing Really Changes,” an angular, 80s New Wave-inspired track rooted in enormous arena rock friendly riffage, paired with the Aussie outfit’s long-held penchant for anthemic hooks and choruses and Vager’s lived-in, heart-worn-on-sleeve lyricism: The song features a narrator desperately missing someone while confronting the lingering ghosts of their relationship — with frustration, despair, anger and a begrudging acceptance. As the band’s Vager explains, the song “started off as a songwriting experiment to write something catchy with an obnoxious riff, a cross between Divinyls and ‘Smoke on the Water.‘ It’s a song about missing someone but protecting yourself from being hurt.”
- “Squid,” a rousing arena rock friendly anthem that brings Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen and Starfish-era The Church to mind: Swirling and shimmering guitar textures are paired with angular guitar attack, thunderous drumming, shout-along worthy hooks and choruses. But while rooted in an absurd, Kafkaesque-like nightmare in which the song’s narrator imagines what might happen if they were to go back in time, step on something and become a squid, Vager’s delivery is so desperately earnest and urgent that it feels very real.
- “Midnight Sun,” an urgent, hurtling ripper built around Vager’s defiant, furious delivery, jangling guitars, and a thunderous and propulsive rhythms action paired with the band’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses Fittingly, the song deals with matters of disbelief, and what it feels like to live in a culture — and a world — that often prefers to argue about semantics rather than save the world from burning. If it hits close to home, it fucking should. It’s our current hellscape, where we constantly deal with a seemingly unending and pervasive, cynical, self-serving stupidity and myopia.
- “Common Ground,” a shimmering and anthemic ballad rooted in heart-worn-proudly-on-sleeve earnestness and lived-in personal experience. And at the center, Vager’s commanding presence, delivering the song’s lyrics with a mix of heartache, weariness, resignation, yearning, acceptance that can only come with the recognition of a relationship being irrevocably and irreparably over. “Common Ground” is in many ways about heartache and those moments of begrudging acceptance in our lives; but it’s also about the resolve to defiantly and proudly dust yourself off and figure out what’s next. If you’ve been there — and I have been many times in my life — the song speaks of the experience with a profound wisdom, unvarnished honesty and deep sense of hope.
As the acclaimed Aussie JOVM mainstays are in the middle of a headlining national tour, rising British duo Sleaford Mods give “Nothing Really Changes” the remix treatment. But before, I talk about the single, some much-needed background on the band. The British duo have become one of the UK’s cult bands of the moment, known for being unapologetic champions of working-class anger in a post-Brexit, austerity-era landscape. They’ve had three UK Top 10 albums in the last four years. And building upon a growing profile, they’ve collaborated with Leftfield and The Prodigy, while making Iggy Pop one of their highest profile fans.
With their remix, Sleaford Mods slow the tempo down a bit and turn the song into a funky dance floor friendly bop that transforms the original’s heartbreak and despair into something a bit more hopeful, upbeat — and dare I say, blissful. “This is a brilliant song. From a brilliant album. It’s been more than an honour to be associated with it in some way,” Sleaford Mods say.
The rising British outfit’s remix is the first single from the Nothing Really Changes (Remixes) EP slated for an October 20, 2023 release through Ivy League Records.
Throwback: Happy 55th Birthday, Thom Yorke!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Thom Yorke’s 55th birthday.
New Video: Toronto’s SWiiMS Shares Fuzzy and Swooning “All I Die For”
Toronto-based indie outfit SWiiMS — founding duo Mai Diaz Langou (vocals)and Colin Thompson (guitar) along with Cian O’Ruanaidh (bass) — can trace their origins back to 2018 when the band’s founding duo began writing songs together that blended Thompson’s fuzzy and jangling guitar swirl with Diaz Langou’s textured melodies and languid vocal. When O’Ruanaidh joined the band, he brought a unique blend of influences and hooky bass lines.
Sonically, the Canadian trio draw from a diverse spectrum of artists and elements including 80s New Wave, 90s Shoegaze, indie rock, Brit Pop and Dream Pop to create a sound that’s uniquely theirs.
SWiiMS’ debut EP, 2019’s Through Waves was released to critical praise and landed on the North American College and Community College (NACC) charts. Building upon a growing profile, the trio’s full-length debut, Into The Blue Night is slated for a November 10, 2023 release through Mint 400 Records.
Into The Blue Night‘s latest single, the swooning “All I Die For” sees the Toronto-based indie outfit firmly cementing their sound as fuzzy and swirling guitar textures are paired with glistening synth arpeggios, a propulsive rhythm section and languid vocal melodies to create a song that’s simultaneously dreamily uplifting and moody. While channelling 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock, the song as the band explains is about “the beginning stages of a relationship, and how you try to make yourself more intriguing or impressive than you are in order to keep that person interested. It also describes the feeling of hopefulness, bliss and loss of control that the start of any new relationship brings.
The accompanying stylishly shot video for “All I Die For” features the band in a local park with Diaz Langou brooding in a climbable structure and with her bandmates on a swing behind her, stylishly shot footage of the band playing the song and footage of Toronto at night.