Tag: indie synth pop

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

The acclaimed New York-based electronic duo and JOVM mainstays Sofi Tukker — comprised of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern — have been widely celebrated for an inclusive, global take on electronic music that thematically is centered around self-empower, unity and liberation. The debut single “Drinkee” received a Grammy Award-nomination for Best Dance Recording — and they continued an extraordinary run of success with their full-length debut, Treehouse receiving a Grammy Award-nomination for Best Dance/Electronic Album.
Building upon a growing international profile, the duo’s releases have gone Gold or Platinum on every continent on this planet, excluding Antarctica. They’ve played sold out shows and festival stops across the planet, and they’ve performed on some of the world’s most beloved shows including Italy’s X-Factor, the UK’s Sunday Brunch, Russia’s Late Show and Japan’s BuzzRhythm, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and most recently Good Morning America.  Additionally, the duo have a long-held reputation for being passionate activists, who have raised funds an awarenesses for a number of different causes including Planned Parenthood, The Trevor Project, and March For Our Lives.
Slated for a September 20, 2019 release, DANCING ON THE PEOPLE EP is the duo’s much-anticipated follow-up to their highly-successful full-length debut. And the EP’s latest single “Purple Hat” is a joyous, club banger that stars with a breezy Brazilian Tropicalia intro before quickly turning into a thumping club banger centered around tweeter and woofer rocking low-end, a funky, strummed and looped guitar line, an enormous, crowd pleasing hook and Bhangra-like percussion while Hawley-Weld and Halpern trade vocal lines about a wild and joyous party, in which the attendees let go of pretense and facades and let their freak flags proudly flow. It’s a joyous song that says “come all, be yourself — and most important, shake that ass and show ’em what you working with!” Considering the hate and opposition we’ve been inundated with over the past few years, this song feels necessary.
“We wrote ‘Purple Hat’ the day after our first Animal Talk party,” the duo explains. “We started throwing these parties to bring back the wild and inclusive dancing vibe to the nightclub experience. Tuck was literally wearing a purple hat and a cheetah print shirt, people were climbing on top o people, it was over-sold and sweaty, our favorite people were packed in the booth, everyone was loose AF and feeling themselves. It was wild. Every Animal Talk party since then has been like that, and we wanted to capture that raw feeling in a song. If there was a song that included everything we are about, this would be the one.”
The duo will be embarking on a lengthy North American and European tour that they’ve dubbed The R.I.P. Shame World Tour to support the release of their new EP to close out the year. This tour, Hawley-Weld and Halpern are on “a mission to kill shame one loose dance party at at time.” Up-and-coming Aussie dance pop act Haiku Hands and DJ/producer LP Giobbi will be opening for the acclaimed JOVM mainstays for all of their North American tour dates, which includes an October 24, 2019 stop at Avant Gardner’s Great Hall. You can check out the tour dates below, along with a link to buy tickets. 
This tour finds the duo supporting the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), of the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization decided to building better lives for millions of Americans affected by mental illness and their local affiliates. $1 from each ticket sold during each US stop will go to support NAMI and heir programs and services through PLUS1. For the Vancouver show, $1 from each ticket sold will go to support Urban Native Youth Association (UNYA)’s Native Youth Health and Wellness Centre, providing culturally-relevant, welcoming, accessible health and wellness services to Indigenous youth. The centre is a safe, accessible health clinic, where Indigenous youth can feel comfortable seeking support for their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. And in Calgary, $1 from each ticket sold with go to a local organization that supports mental health initiatives, bringing dignity, equity, and access to communities who need it.
Tour Dates:
North American Headline Tour
10/2: Calgary, AB @ The Palace
10/4: Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
10/6: Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
10/7: Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
10/9: Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater
10/10: Los Angeles, CA @ Shrine Expo Hall
10/13: Tucson, AZ @ The Rialto Theatre
10/15: Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater
10/16: Austin, TX @ Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
10/17: Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall
10/19: New Orleans, LA @ The Joy Theater
10/21: Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
10/23: Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
10/24: Brooklyn, NY @ Avant Gardner Great Hall
11/17: Mexico City, MX @ Corona Capital
European Headline Tour
11/20: Dublin, Ireland @ Vicar Street
11/22: Manchester, UK @ Gorilla
11/23: London, UK @ Electric Brixton
11/25: Frankfurt, DE @ Gibson Club
11/26: Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
11/27: Rotterdam, NL @ Maassilo
111/28: Paris, FR @ Elysee Montmartre
12/1: Hamburg, DE @ Markthalle
12/2:  Cologne, DE @ Carlswerk
12/3: Munich, DE @ Technikum
12/5: Vienna, AT @ Arena Wien
12/6: Bern, Switzerland @ Bierhubeli
12/9: Zurich, CH @ Harterei Club
12/10: Brussels, BE @ Botanique Orangerie
​​​​​​​12/12: Berlin, DE @ Tempodrom
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Led by its Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based creative mastermind, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist  Jordon Zadorozny, Blinker the Star initially began as solo recording project that eventually expanded into a trio that released two albums through A&M Records — 1995’s self-titled debut and 1996’s A Bourgeois Kitten. Throughout that period, the band toured steadily, building up a profile nationally and elsewhere.

In 1997, Zadorozny relocated from Montreal to Los Angeles, where he worked with Courtney Love, helping craft songs for Hole’s acclaimed Celebrity Skin. He also began soaking up new influences and became progressively fascinated with production. Signing with Dreamworks in 1999, the band, which featured Zadorozny, Failure’s Kelli Scott (drums), longtime bassist Pete Frolander and a collective of Southern California-based session musicians recorded and released their critically applauded August Everywhere. The band toured across North America with Our Lady Peace, Sloan, Failure and The Flaming Lips. 

Returning to Pembroke in 2002, Zadorozny built his first commercial recording studio and began working with Sam Roberts, producing and contributing drums on Roberts’ breakthrough debut EP The Inhuman Condition. The Pembroke, Ontario-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer also worked on albums by Melisa Auf der Maur, Chris Cornell, Lindsey Buckingham and others.

During the winter of 2013, Zadorozny wrote and recorded Still In Rome as a duo with Kelli Scott. Following a brief tour, he quickly settled into the production side, working on a number of collaborative projects including Digital Noise Academy, SheLoom, Abbey and The Angry Moon. He was also kept busy with production work with an eclectic array of artists.

We Draw Lines was the first Blinker The Star album that Zadorozny wrote and recorded as a solo project in quite some time. He followed We Draw Lines with Songs from Laniakea Beach, a one-off single “Future Fires” the 11235 EP and 2017’s 8 of Hearts. Continuing a run of recent prolificacy, Zodorozny’s latest Blinker The Star album Careful With Your Magic is slated for a September 20, 2019 release.

Careful With Your Magic‘s latest single is the  synth-driven and anthemic “Sweet Nothing.” Centered around a sinuous bass line, twinkling keys, atmospheric synths, blasts of shimmering guitars, a soaring hook and Zadorozny’s plaintive crooning, the song seems indebted to 80s synth pop — in particular Thompson Twins and Tears for Fears immediately come to mind. And while there’s a similar attention to craft, the song comes from a deeply personal and lived-in place, as the song’s narrator recognizes that they’re at a crossroads: do they grow up and take a chance on a relationship that could transform their life — or do they retreat back to single life? At some point, we all face this and the uncertainties of that decision.

“My new single ‘Sweet Nothing’ was written by myself and my good friend Bob Wilcox,” Jordon Zodorozny says in press notes. “The song started as an instrumental track that I completed where I was sort of aiming for a Thompson Twins vibe. Bob heard the music and immediately had melodic and lyrical ideas. Although Bob wrote all of the words, I feel he was tuning into some things that were happening in my life that made it quite easy for me to get behind when the time came to sing it.”

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Jude Woodhead is a London-based electronic music producer and electronic music artist, who emerged into the national scene with release of his first two singles “Beautiful Rain” and “For The Birds,” both of which revealed a young, upstart producer whose sound was compared favorably to the likes of Floating Points, Four Tet, Joy Orbison, and RJD2. But since the release of those two earlier singles, Woodhead started a new recording project Saint Jude, which was partially inspired by the tinnitus he developed while spending his formative years as a DJ and club-goer. And as a result, Woodhead turned from the euphoria and strobe light of the dance floor and towards the bedroom, where he began working on much more intimate material.

Woodhead’s forthcoming, self-titled Saint Jude debut is a decided sonic evolution that finds the up-and-coming British producer moving from the loop-heavy EDM-styled production for a sound that may recall Caribou and others — propulsive rhythms paired with shimmering guitar lines. The EP’s first single “Deaf Ears, Blind Years” is centered around hushed, reverb-drenched vocals ethereally floating over a lush and moody production featuring shimmering guitars, twinkling keys, four-on-the-floor like beats — and while recalling Paracosm-era Washed Out, the track evokes an aching nostalgia for a rapidly-passing youth full of excitement and waywardness. In press notes, Woodhead describes the song as “a bit of breakthrough for me in terms of songwriting: I was writing about real stuff rather than abstract ideas.”

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Arron Davey is British multi-instrumentalist, electronic music producer, electronic music artist and DJ, best known for his acclaimed and attention-grabbing solo recording project Astronomyy. Interestingly, Davey first made a name for himself with one of his earliest singles “Don’t Need U,” which quickly established his sound — guitars fused to R&B styled beats. With the track going viral, the British multi-instrumentalist, electronic music producer, electronic music artist and DJ landed a major label deal. And although, it wasn’t the right fit for him, signing to a major label allowed him to build a home studio, where he recorded his first two EPs, There For U and When I’m With You. His own original material has received praise from Noisey, The Line of Best Fit, IndieShuffle, Earmilk and countless others while amassing over 40 million streams. Simultaneously, Davey developed a reputation as a highly sought-after collaborator. He co-wrote the triple-platinum, international smash hit “Never Forget You” for Zara Larsson and MNEK. He also released a remix of Billie Eilish‘s “Ocean Eyes,” which eventually amassed over 100 million streams.

After the release of 2017’s “Rest in Paradise” 12 inch, Davey decided to take a sabbatical. “I was overwhelmed by the industry,” he admits. “I never got into this for money; I just love creating. I decided to put my head down and lock myself away in the studio for as long as it took to re-ignite the fire. I had to ignore other people and really feel it for myself. My life was imbalanced, and I needed to focus my headspace.  I started physically working out. I feel like a much more balanced person now. I’m finally I’m ready.”

“I’m focusing on moods now,” Davey continues. ““Before, I was trying to paint a perfect picture. I wasn’t allowing the chaos to exist in my songs, but I’ve welcomed the contrast. There’s a yin and yang. The new music has duality. There are a lot of raw and natural performances. There’s variety in tone. It’s wavy and it has more depth. It just comes with trusting my instinct and my ears. If you strip something of its flaws and fix every blemish, you take away the character, so I backed off from the polished sound.”

“Flamingo” is the first bit of new material from Davey in over two years. Centered around layers of shimmering and arpeggiated synths, a sinuous bass line, stuttering beats, Davey’s plaintive falsetto, stuttering beats, and an infectious hook, the new single is one part 80s synth R&B and one part Teddy Riley New Jack Swing-like jam. And while the brooding track manages to possess a breezy and nostalgic quality that’s befitting for a late summer, club banger the song is underpinned by several layers of irony. “I had the side somebody can be like a flamingo,” Davey explains. “A flamingo is very pretty, but if you try to cage it, you realize it’s a live animal and shouldn’t be contained. It’s also tough-in-cheek and pokes fun at people in Britain, because ‘bird’ is a slang word for ‘girlfriend.’ It’s the first song I wanted to share with the world in a couple of years, because it’s got so many elements that represent me. It’s moody, it’s broody, it’s weird, it’s funky, it’s textured and it’s also quite pretty.”

As for an August 30 release Davey says, “I’ve always been obsessed with space and as I’ve spent the last two years rebalancing myself and my sound, it seemed only right to release the first single under a new moon. Which also happens to be a super black new moon.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Beiju is an up-and-coming French-American musician, who splits her time between New York and Paris. Her latest single “Lost at the Beach” is centered around the French-American musician’s sultry, jazz-like inflection gliding over a glitchy and brooding production consisting of jagged pulses of arpeggiated synths and off-kilter syncopation. And while sonically bearing a resemblance to JOVM mainstays Bells Atlas and the acclaimed Hiatus Kaiyote, the song manages to possesses a breezy nostalgia.

The song as Beiju says in press notes is inspired by and reflects upon a recent weekend at the Rockaways with two of her friends. “Like many people, I can get caught up and anxious in such an intense urban environment as New York,” Beiju explains. “Getting back to basics by being with loved ones, playing music for pure enjoyment, and being carefree in the ocean made us feel gratitude for aspects of life, which we sometimes take for granted. That feeling of being reminded and aware is one to which I wanted to hold on and put into a song.”

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past few years, I’ve written a lot about the Toronto, ON-born, Los Angeles, CA-based JOVM mainstay and electronic music producer and electronic music artist Robert Alfons, best known for his acclaimed recording project TR/ST. So far Alfons has released two critically applauded and commercially successful albums — 2012’s self-titled debut and 2014’s sophomore effort, Joyland. But interestingly his first two albums found Alfons taking risks and playing with his sound and approach: his self-titled TR/ST debut was largely considered dark, kinky and defiantly queer electronica while Joyland was bright and upbeat electronic dance music.

Five years have passed since the release of Joyland and during that period, Alfons wrote and recorded material in a secluded farmhouse in Southern Ontario and in Los Angeles, where he has since relocated. The recording sessions, which eventually became his two album effort Destroyer 1 and Destroyer 2 finds Alfons collaborating former bandmate, electronic music producer and electronic music artist Maya Postepski, who co-wrote and co-produced six of the entire project’s songs. Lars Stalfors and Damien Taylor were also enlisted to further refine the album’s overall sound — at parts industrial, at parts intimate and ambient.

Interestingly, one of the key ingredients behind the Destroyer‘s material was patience. “The environment I work in has always guided me. But it took a long time to submit to the kind of patience these songs were asking of me. I was getting glimpses of what I wanted to achieve with the album,” he says. “But it wasn’t feeling cohesive; things weren’t aligning in a clear direction.” Alfons realized it was a question of patience and perseverance. “My first two records were put out so close to one another that I think of them as one,” he says, “They just poured out of me.” With Destroyer, the process was entirely different. “It was so much more careful. I found myself seeking spaces of absolute quiet; I needed them in order to hear what was going on inside.”

And while both parts of the project sound different from one another, there’s a central theme throughout — the deconstruction of shame, expressed in raging industrial and machine-like clang and clatter, atmospheric and eerie quiet paired with introspective lyricism. “I think the biggest reason it took five years to write and rework so much material, is that I finally had to confront these feelings of shame that I had somehow been able to push aside for so many years, which explains why the album is so tumultuous” Alfons explains in press notes.

Slated for a November 1, 2019 release, Destroyer 2 as I mentioned earlier is a decided sonic departure from both its immediate predecessor and from his previously released work as the material consists of delicate, earnest and shimmering pop songs. “I think I took so many more risks sonically and emotionally on Part 2 of this record, for that reason this release has much more importance to me. I’ve spent much of the past five years writing and re-working these songs to get them to the state they are in” Alfons says in press notes.

Centered around twinkling keys, atmospheric synths and electronics, thumping drum programming and Alfons’ plaintive vocals, Destroyer 2‘s first single “Destroyer” is an achingly tender and intimate song that’s one part introspective and soulful confession and one part hook-driven, slickly produced pop.

Alfons will be embarking on a lengthy tour throughout the fall — and each of these tour stops will find him playing in much bigger venues than before. The tour includes a November 15, 2019 stop at The Knockdown Center. Check out the tour dates below.

 

Tour Dates

28 Sept Mexico City, MX – CMD_F

31 Oct San Diego, CA -The Observatory North Park

1 Nov Los Angeles, CA – The Novo

3 Nov Denver, CO – Summit Music Hall

4 Nov Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf

6 Nov San Antonio, TX – Paper Tiger

8 Nov Houston,TX – White Oak Music Hall Downstairs

9 Nov Austin, TX – Levitation

11 Nov Atlanta, GA – Terminal West

12 Nov Durham, NC –  Motorco Music Hall

13 Nov Baltimore, MD – Ottobar

15 Nov Maspeth, NY – Knockdown Center

EUROPE

20 Nov London – Heaven

21 Nov Brussels – Botanique

23 Nov Bern – Saint Ghetto

24 Nov Paris – Le Trianon

26 Nov Amsterdam – Paradiso Noord

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Napoleon Gold Releases a Hazy and Surrealistic Video for 80s Inspired Pop Confection “Love Don’t Cut Me Down” feat. Haiva Ru

Born Antoine Honorez, the Luxembourg City, Luxembourg-born French electronic music producer and artist Napoleon Gold received attention across the European electronic music scene and elsewhere for as a solo artist, whose ambient electronic production work is generally centered around bewitching arrangements, warm, low-pitched vocal samples and rousing percussion — and for a series of remixes and collaborations with Sun Glitters and Monsoonsiren. Building upon a growing profile across the European Union, Honorez toured across the European Union’s festival circuit, making appearances at Liverpool Soundcity Festival, Nordik Impakt, Galapagai Festival, Rock A Field and others.

After signing to New York-based electronic labels 13 Audio and Cinematic Music Group last year, Honorez released an attention grabbing collaborative EP,  A New Colour with T-Pain. However, 2019 may be a breakthrough year for the Luxembourg City-born producer: his highly anticipated full-length debut Sunset Motel is slated for a September 20, 2019 release. Deriving its title from a fictitious place, where the producer takes refuge from his life-long struggles from insomnia — and the thoughts, desires, regrets and dreams that come during the late night hours, the album thematically is about the inspiration he feels late at night. The album will also further cement his reputation for being an expert curator of collaborative talent, as the album finds him working with an eclectic array of up-and-coming artists including Haiva Ru’s Annie Merrill, Anna Majidson, Madge, Jesus Honcho, PH Trigano, Raquel, Kimberly Tell and Jalen Santoy. 

The album’s first single “Love Don’t Cut Me Down,” a collaboration with Haiva Ru is a decidedly 80s synth R&B two-step centered around thumping beats, layers of arpeggiated synths, brief blasts of Nile Rodgers-like guitar, a funky bass line, a sinuous and infectious hook and Haiva Ru’s Allie Merrill’s tender and plaintive vocals. And while sonically speaking, the song manages to recall Cherrelle, and even contemporaries like ACES, the song expresses a mix of yearning, longing and desperate hope that seems all too common in any romantic relationship. “I think I associate my first encounters with insomnia to a period of my childhood when my parents were constantly listening to this Belgian radio station called RTL2, on which they’d always play this kind of music. The songs trigger emotions linked to my childhood and they really speak to me. I wanted to add similar textures and vibes into this album” Honorez says in press notes. 

Starring Haiva Ru’s Allie Merrill, the recently released video is a hazy, languid and surrealistic dream that has Merrill in a hotel room that’s both decadent and dilapidated. We see her intimate moments, dancing to a song and reminiscing — before bathing with her clothes on. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

IMUR is a Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based trio, comprised of Jenny Lea (vocals, keys), Mikey J. Blige (production, guitar, DJ) and Amine Bouzaher (electric violin, bass, production) — and with the release of their debut EP, 2015’s Slow Dive, the Canadian trio received attention across Vancouver’s underground scene and elsewhere for an attention-grabbing sound that draws heavily from 90s R&B and soul, electro pop, electronica and experimental pop.

The members of IMUR released their full-length debut, 2017’s Little Death, an album that thematically explored and discussed drugs, heartache, strength, vulnerability and intimacy with a fearless lack of inhibition. The album amassed millions of streams across the planet, eventually landing on the Spotify Global Viral Charts — perhaps as a result of the album’s material being featured in ad campaigns by Patagonia and Lululemon and on TV shows like Wynnona Earp and Workin’ Moms. Building upon a rapidly growing national and international profile, the trio played Bumbershoot Festival‘s main stage, sharing with the likes of Jorja Smith, Solange and Lorde. And they closed out the year with a Western Canadian Music Award nomination for Electronic/Dance Artist of the Year and Best Electronic Song Award in the Canadian Songwriting Competition.

Since then, the act has released Little Death‘s follow-up, last year’s Thirty33 EP and a single, “Fever,” which was released earlier this year. The trio’s latest single “Lips, Tongue and Teeth” is a sultry and unapologetically sexual club banger, centered around shimmering and wobbling synths, thumping beats and an infectious hook that seems to draw equally from R&B, contemporary electro pop and classic house music. Interestingly, the song is a defiantly feminist anthem that generally says women should proudly be sexual beings, getting the pleasure they desire and need.

As the trio explain in press notes, the song’s unapologetically sexual nature in some way represents Jenny Lea’s personal and artistic journey in which she went from conservative banker to confident, world-taking badass. The song was penned as the first of a series of songs focused on female empowerment and autonomy  — with this particular song having an audacious and brash message of defiant sexual expression.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Formed back in 2010, the acclaimed Baltimore-based dream pop act Lower Dens can trace its origins to when its primary songwriter and founding member Jana Hunter had grown tired of touring and decided to take a hiatus. For what was supposed to be their final tour as a solo artist, Hunter recruited a backing band which featured Geoff Graham, Abram Sanders and Will Adams. Finding that playing with a band was much more enjoyable to them than playing as a solo artist, helped Hunter form Lower Dens. “During that tour, I realized that it wasn’t the touring life that I hated, but more so that the kind of music I wrote as a solo artist wasn’t something I felt entirely comfortable sharing in performance setting. Lower Dens then was the eventual result of the decision to make music with the specific intention of sharing and enjoying it with others,” Hunter said at the time.

Lower Dens’ full-length debut, Twin Hand Movement was released to critical praise from the likes of Pitchfork, who compared Hunter’s vocals to those of PJ Harvey and Beach House’s Victoria Legrand and Dusted Magazine, who praised the album’s lyrics for being “delivered without irony, yet self-aware enough to appreciate the obviousness.” While touring to support Twin Hand Movement, the band began writing on the road — but the limitations of writing on the road forced Hunter to work through a laptop and keyboard rather than a guitar, which lead to an increasing presence of synths on what would become their sophomore album Nootropics.

After they completed their tour, the band chose to record their sophomore album at The Key Club Recording Company in Benton Harbor, MI.  Hunter cited the studio’s remote location as an imperative part of the writing and recording process. Geoff Graham added that the amount of time spent in the studio allowed them to add extra dimensions to the material to make it lusher and thicker. Largely influenced by Kraftwerk‘s Radioactivity, Fripp and Eno and David Bowie‘s production on Iggy Pop‘s The Idiot, Nootropics was released to critical praise from the likes of Pitchfork. Rolling Stone and Spin. 

Building upon a growing profile, Lower Dens opened for Beach House and indie rock legends Yo La Tengo at the Baltimore stop of the legendary act’s  2013 Fade tour. And the following month, they released “Non Grata” on a split 7″ with Baltimore-based band Horse Lords, an effort that was released as part of the Famous Class LAMC series, which benefited VH1’s Save The Music Foundation. 

2015 saw the release of the band’s third album Escape from Evil, which continued a run of critically applauded albums. Since then the band has gone through a series of lineup changes — with the band now being a duo featuring its founding member and primary songwriter Jana Hunter and Nate Nelson. And during that period, the members of Lower Dens had been working on their highly-anticipated follow up to Escape from Evil, The Competition.

Slated for a September 6, 2019 release through their longtime label home Ribbon Music, and the album is reportedly a pop album with an emotionally and politically urgent concept at its core. Competition, by design is the driving force of modern capitalism and the title is Hunnter’s term for a socio-psychological phenomenon that competition generates — a kind of psychosis that accelerates and amplifies our insecurities and anxieties to the point of overload. And as a result our intimacies, our communities and even our senses of self are corroded and distorted. “The issues that have shaped my life, for better or for worse, have to do with coming from a family and a culture that totally bought into this competitive mindset.  I was wild and in a lot of pain as a kid; home life was very bleak, and pop songs were a guaranteed escape to a mental space where beauty, wonder, and love were possible. I wanted to write songs that might have the potential to do that.”

Interestingly, The Competition‘s third and latest single is the atmospheric and slow-burning synth pop “Galapagos.” Centered around shimmering and arpeggiated synths, a motorik-like groove, a soaring hook, four-on-the-floor drumming and Hunter’s achingly tender vocals, the song evokes an unfulfilled and plaintive longing while sonically recalling Kate Bush and Siouxsie and the Banshees. And it may arguably be one of the most cinematic-leaning songs the act has released to date.

The members of Lower Dens recently announced that they’ll be hitting the road to support their new album. They’ll be opening for Of Monsters And Men for most of the tour with the exception of a three special album releases shows in Los Angeles and Baltimore. The tour will include a September 5, 2019 stop at Radio City Music Hall. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

 

Tour dates – all dates opening for Of Monsters And Men except where noted:
08/31/19 Baltimore, MD @ Rituals *

09/01/19 Baltimore, MD @ Rituals *

09/04/19 Washington, DC @ The Anthem

09/05/19 New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall

09/08/19 Boston, MA @ Rockland Trust Bank Pavilion

09/10/19 Philadelphia, PA @ Metropolitan Opera House

09/11/19 Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage

09/13/19 Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom

09/14/19 Minneapolis, MN @ Surly Brewing Festival Field

09/16/18 Denver, CO @ The Mission Ballroom

09/17/19 Ogden, UT @ Ogden Twilight

09/19/19 Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl

09/20/19 Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room *

09/22/19 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Palladium

09/24/19 Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater

09/26/19 Seattle, WA @ WaMu Theater

09/27/19 Troutdale, OR @ McMenamins Edgefield

09/28/19 Vancouver, BC @ Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre

10/19/19 Maspeth, NY @ Pitchfork Octfest ^

11/01/19 Houston, TX @ Axelrad Beer Garden *

11/02/19 Mexico City, MX @ RadioBosque Festival ^

* Lower Dens headline show

^ without Of Monsters And Men

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay RALPH Releases a Sassy Tell Off to an Obsessed Ex

Over the better part of the past year, I’ve written a bitt about Raffa Weyman, a Toronto-born and-based singer/songwriter, best known as RALPH. Weyman quickly emerged into both the national and international pop scene with the release of her bittersweet, disco-inspired debut single “Trouble” in 2015. Building upon a rapidly growing profile. Weyman released a series of attention-grabbing singles that found the Canadian pop artist restlessly bouncing around different genres and styles — i.e., the country and western-tinged “Young Hearts Run Free” and “Girl Next Door. ” a radio friendly hip-hop/pop crossover track.

Since then, Weyman received an IHeartRadio’s Much Music Video Awards Best New Canadian Artist nomination and released her RALPH full-length debut A Good Girl. , “I wrote ‘A Good Girl’ over the course of a year, maybe a little more…and a lot happened in that year,” Weyman explained in press notes. “Because I use songwriting as a type of therapy and a way to explore my feelings, the songs naturally began to reflect everything that was happening in my life. Sometimes I was hurting, other times I was the one hurting someone else, and then to make it more complicated, sometimes I’d be both, like in the last song ‘Cereal’. The album name is a tongue in cheek way of reflecting upon the tracks and their stories, because they represent a multi-faceted character who is good hearted but makes mistakes – no one is ever one thing, we’re not good or bad and shouldn’t feel guilty about it. ​​​​​​”

Now, as you may recall Weyman’s highly-anticipated follow-up to her full-length debut is slated for release later this year. And “Gravity,” the first official single off that forthcoming release was a club-friendly and loving house music homage that brings Daft Punk and others to mind. “No Muss No Fuss,” the EP’s second and latest single is a sassy brush off of a creepy ex, whom she can’t seem to get rid off, centered around thumping beats, shimmering and arpeggiated synths an infectious, ear worm of a hook and Weyman’s self-assured and coquettish vocals. 

Directed by longtime collaborator Gemma Warren and shot on 16mm film, the video follows RALPH exuberantly singing and dancing along to the song in some 90s-inspired club outfits in a variety of different locations. “We just wanted a feeling of effortless fun to translate. We didn’t overthink the shoot,” Weyman says of the video’s filming. “We scouted the day before and drove through Gem’s favorite neighbourhoods (Atwater Village, Silver Lake, Echo Park), just taking pics of interesting looking spots. We wanted vivid colours and weird landscapes that would pop on film – like the golden yellow straw and the stacks of rubber tires. The song has a bounciness to it that makes you want to move, so we wanted to focus on organic, quirky movements instead of actual choreographed dances — playing with hand motions and kicks and spins. The lyrics in the track aren’t supposed to be mean, they’re just honest and a little sassy, so that was the mood we tried to capture.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

David Halsey is an up-and-coming Bay Area-based singer/songwriter and electro pop artist, who grew up listening to his parents recording collection, which included Madonna, Depeche Mode and Soft Cell. His brothers introduced him to Bay Area hip-hop. Unsurprisingly, both of those things managed to heavily influence his attention-grabbing solo recording project Petticoat, a musical project that finds Halsey meshing early 80s New Wave, experimental club music and bubblegum bass into a unique, futuristic-leaning take on electronic music. “I love the music from eras that have had an eye towards futurism,” Halsey says. “Things like 2000s RnB and modern club/pop music.”

Earlier this year, the Bay Area-based producer and electronic music artist released a Pharrell Williams-inspired rework of Internet pop sensation Slayyter‘s “Mine,” and building upon a rapidly growing profile, his latest single “Fantasy” is an swooning and flirty, 80s synth pop and synth funk-inspired bop centered around shimmering synths, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, a sinuous bass line and a big, infectious hook. And while sonically recalling the likes of I Feel For You-era Chaka Khan, Cherelle’s “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On,” and Beverly Girl, the song possesses a familiar, retro-futuristic air.

“Fantasy,” as Haley describes in press notes is “a song centered around the act of presenting through dating apps and websites. The lyrics play into the consequences of shallowness and miscommunication through online profiles. I chose to go with 80s New Wave mixed with dance pop for the instrumental. To me, that era of 80s synth pop was inherently futuristic for its time with its synthesizers, experimental voice mixing, and subject matter. It was a perfect match to get across the feeling and message of modern love; like an eye towards the future through a lens of retrospection.”