The New York-based producer and artist has also simultaneously developed a reputation as a highly sought after sound designer and producer working with Ableton and Splice.com – and she’s the co-founder of Female Frequency, a musical collective dedicated to empowering women and girls in the music industry.
Back in 2019, Julie Kathryn released her I AM SNOW ANGEL sophomore effort MOTHERSHIP. Recorded in a cabin in the wintry Adirondack woods, MOTHERSHIP touched upon themes of isolation, longing, love, paranoia and the paranormal. Since her debut’s release, she has been extremely busy: she gave birth to her first child, collaborated on Sophie Colette’s attention-grabbing “In Love a Little,” released a gorgeous and spectral cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song.”
The New York-based producer and artist recently announced that she will be releasing her third album Lost World later this year. Along with that announcement, Julie Kathryn shared Lost World‘s first single “Twisted Romance.” Co-written with Charles Newman and J.J. Appleton, “Twisted Romance” is a decidedly anachronistic, retro-futuristic bop centered around a motorik groove, glistening synth arpeggios paired with the New York-based producer and artist’s plaintive and ethereal cooing. While possessing an aching nostalgia and longing, the song manages to sonically nod at Kraftwerk and early 80s New Wave.
“‘Twisted Romance’ is a synthpop love story set in a dystopian matrix where people’s memories can be erased — or generated, or recovered — within our vast grid of digitized consciousness,” Julie Kathryn explains in press notes. “Reality and technology are interfused. I’m singing to someone who has either lost memories in the grid (like through a glitch, or even an intentional deletion) or maybe never actually had them (fabricated), and I am desperate to help this person recover the memories of how much we loved each other.”
New York-based synth duo Tempers — Jasmine Golestaneh (vocals) and Eddie Cooper (production) — have diligently carved out their own niche within dark indie, electronica and synth pop circles since their formation. After a series of digital singles released back in 2013, the New York duo began to solidify their sound and approach, a sleek. brooding, nocturnal take on synth pop.
The duo’s forthcoming, self-produced album New Meaning is slated for an April 1, 2022 release through Dais Records. As the duo explain, the album is about navigating the unknown, coping mechanisms and exploring the nature of choice. The album’s ten songs reflect on the creation go meaning as a way to access liberation in times of transition and loss while speculating on the transformative potential that exists alongside the grief of living in a world that is an ongoing state of crisis. Much like their previously released material, New Meaning continues a run of nocturnal music, that’s introspective yet quietly intense.
Late last year, I wrote about “Unfamiliar,” a song that sounded indebted to 80s New Wave while evoking our current moment — living in a world that’s gone even madder and more uncertain than ever before. New Meaning‘s second and latest single “Nightwalking” continues a remarkable run of brooding, hook-driven material, with the song centered around icy synth arpeggios, thumping beats, a relentless motorik groove and Golestaneh’s achingly plaintive vocals floating off into the ether. The song manages to evoke late nights wandering around with your thoughts as your only company.
“I took a lot of long walks at a time when people had abruptly vacated NYC, and left the remnants of their homes on the sidewalks,” Tempers’ Golestaneh explains. “The city’s landscape became very surreal – a ghost town turned inside out. I was thinking about how to stay open, and embrace life derailed. The sky over the city was a real source of mystery, in it’s own world of pink sunsets, and sparkling nights. The contrast of that oblivious beauty amidst the pandemic chaos felt very special, and inspired the song.”
The New York-based duo will be embarking on lengthy national tour that includes a March 31, 2022 stop at Elsewhere’s Zone 1. In May, the duo will be in Europe for a handful of dates. But the word on the street is that Tempers will be announcing some more tour dates in the near future. Until then, tour dates, as always, are below.
Thaïs is an emerging Montreal-based singer/songwriter, who specializes in an atmospheric and delicate pop centered around the French Canadian singer/songwriter’s ethereal vocals. Thematically her work focuses on melancholy, loneliness and dysfunctional and confusing love.
Last year, the French Canadian artist released the Paradis Artificiels EP, which featured “Boreal,” a track inspired by a trip she took to Iceland that evoked the awe-inspiring sense of being in a gorgeous, natural beauty and taking it all in deeply — and “Sushi Solitude,” an atmospheric and delicate bit of synth pop that brought Washed Out to mind.
Since the release of Paradis Artificiels, the emerging Montreal-based artist signed to Bravo Musique, who released Thaïs’ latest single, “Arrête de danser.” Continuing a run of slickly produced pop centered around glistening and atmospheric synth arpeggios and traplike beats, “Arrête de danser” sees the French Canadian artist seamlessly meshing electro pop and trap; in fact, the song alternating between a syncopated trap-inspired flow for the verses and her ethereal cooing for the song’s hook.
While being club friendly, the song is actually a bitter tell-off to an unhealthy and dysfunctional lover that the song’s narrator knows is wrong for her and yet, she can’t quite get over. Despite her relative youth, the rising Montreal-based artist captures the push-and-pull of fucked up relationships with fucked up people.
Directed by Bobby Leon, the recently released, cinematically shot video for “Arrête de danser” follows an incredibly fashionable Thaïs as she goes to a local mall complex, where she’s haunted by memories of this lover at almost every turn, including a movie theater, that shows a movie that’s suspiciously close to her own life.
Lo Ersare is a Umeå, Sweden-born, Copenhagen-based singer/songwriter, musician, and the creative mastermind behind the emerging indie pop project Lucky Lo. Ersare relocated to Copenhagen in 2014 and quickly made a name for herself as a busker and as an integral part of the city’s underground music scene, performing everything from folk to experimental jazz to improvisational vocal music. Along the way, her love for Japan and its music brought her to the island nation, where she has performed, grown a devoted fanbase and gathered inspiration, which has seeped into her music in various ways.
Ersare’s full-length debut, Supercarry is slated for a March 25, 2022 release through Tambourhinoceros Records. The album will feature previously released single “Heart Rhythm Synchronize,” which was about synching heartbreaks through love and song and album title track “Supercarry,” a sleek and seamless synthesis of Annie Lennox and Peter Gabriel, that thematically finds Ersare quickly establishing a major thematic concern in her work — the transformational power of radical love.
Supercarry’s latest single, “Ever” is a swooning and infectiously optimistic pop song centered around glistening synth arpeggios, a strutting disco-inspired bass line, shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, a rousingly anthemic hook and Ersare’s plaintive pop belter vocals. Arguably, the most dance floor friendly of the album’s released singles, “Ever!” brings Talking Heads, and Annie Lennox to mind paired with the euphoria of Sylvester‘s queer anthem “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).”
Lyrically, the song’s narrator has found a way to transform the hardships of living in a cruel and judgmental world that won’t allow them to be themselves into a deep, sustaining hope and confidence; the sort of quiet confidence to be self-assured in whatever your truth may be. As Ersare explains the song is an anthem for queer love.
The inspiration for the song began deep inside a YouTube rabbit hole. Ersara was binging on Freddie Mercury videos one night. That eventually lead to her researching the AIDS epidemic of the 80s, and the blacklash of homophobia the gay community felt back then.
She came across a video of a gay man, who bravely announced to a reporter that no amount of homophobia could keep gay people from loving each other that struck her as timeless. Since the dawn of society, gay people have been — and will keep on — loving in secret, despite antagonism, until the world eventually accepts them.
This video resonated with the Umeå-born, Copenhagen-based artist, who was then inspired to make a song for “anybody, who feels they are living a truth in secret can listen to, dance to, and feel that they will be accepted. By repeating the motion, it’s going to change the world,” she says.
Animated by Isabelle Friberg, the recently released video is a life affirming love song: We follow the video’s protagonists, who have a meet cute at local bowling alley and fall madly in love. They represent the love that man in the 80s video clip talked about. And while we get a glimpse into their lives and their love, we see Ersare and her band performing the song, while looking like characters straight out of Jem. The video manages to be brightly colored, overwhelmingly positive and a sweet visual that emphasizes the song’s swooning euphoria.
Rising Brooklyn-based synth pop trio and JOVM mainstays Nation of Language — Ian Richard Devaney (vocals, guitars, percussion), Aidan Noell (synth, vocals) and Michael Sue-Poi (bass) — can trace their origins back to 2016: Devaney and Sue-Poi were members of The Static Joys, a band that became largely inactive after the release of their sophomore album. And as the story goes, Devaney was inspired to start a new project after hearing OMD‘s “Electricity,” a song he had listened to quite a bit while in his father’s car.
What initially started out as Devaney fooling around on a keyboard eventually evolved to Nation of Language with the addition of Noell and Sue-Poi. Between 2016-2019, the Brooklyn-based synth pop trio released a handful of singles that helped to build up a fanbase locally and the outside world.
Late last year, the Brooklyn-based JOVM mainstays released their critically applauded sophomore album A Way Forward, which featured lead album single “Across That Fine Line.” Featuring glistening synth arpeggios, a relentless motorik groove, Devaney’s plaintive vocals and an enormous, rousingly anthemic hook, “Across That Fine Line” continues the band’s remarkable run of decidedly 80s synth pop inspired material. Certainly, as a child of the 80s, the song reminds me of the aforementioned A Flock of Seagulls, as well as Thomas Dolby, Howard Jones and a few others — and much like the sources that inspired it, the song is centered around earnest, lived-in songwriting.
“‘Across That Fine Line’ is a reflection on that moment when a non-romantic relationship flips into something different,” Nation of Language’s Devaney explains in press notes. “When the air in the room suddenly feels like it changes in an undefinable way. It’s a kind of celebration of that certain joyous panic, and the uncertainty that surfaces right after it.
“Sonically, it’s meant to feel like running down a hill, just out of control. I had been listening to a lot of Thee Oh Sees at the time of writing it and admiring the way they supercharge krautrock rhythms and imbue them with a kind of mania, which felt like an appropriate vibe to work with and make our own.”
Stella Mar is a Seattle-based singer/songwriter and pop artist, who makes music that’s inspired by and informed by the challenges and hurdles she’s cleared throughout her life; or as she puts it “pop bangers for the languidly queer.”
As the story goes, when she was 13, Mar was told by professionals that she’d never be a good singer with her vocal tone and range, and that she should give up her lifelong dream of being a performer. She could have been discouraged and quit; but instead, she pushed harder to make her dream come true. Eventually Mar started to play shows in Portland and Seattle.
Mar’s full-length debut, last year’s White Noise was a concept album that featured a blend of electronic production and acoustic guitar — and the album received praise from local and regional press with outlets and podcasts describing the Seattle-based artist and her voice as “part-Jeff Buckley, part-Arlo Parks.”
Building upon a growing profile, Mar worked with Seattle music industry veterans Matthew Wolk and Nic Casey on “The Way” and “Mean to You,” the follow-up to her full-length debut. The Nicholas KZ-produced “The Way” is a crafted pop banger centered around glistening synth arpeggios, thumping beats, a rousingly anthemic, shout-along worthy chorus paired with Mar’s achingly plaintive vocals, which simultaneously drip with heartache and bitter spite. The song calls out, a fuckboi and wannabe player, who’s playing games with the song’s earnest and devoted narrator.
In the song’s chorus, Mar’s narrator begs this person to “show her the way” to their heart. But as the song suggests, the narrator begins to catch on that he’s duplicitous, manipulative, scheming and flat out toxic. As Mar explains, the song is for anyone, who has ever been played and might have given in to the temptation of a toxic personality. The song’s universality paired with its accessibly is part of its charm: if you’ve been there, the song speaks to you deeply and personally, as it’s a much-needed, cathartic tell off.
Brooklyn-based psych pop/dance pop act Psymon Spine — Noah Prebish, Sabine Holler, Brother Michael Rudinski, and Peter Spears — can trace its origins back to when its founding duo of Noah Prebish and Peter Spears met while attending college. Bonding over mutual influences and common artistic aims, Psymon Spine’s founding duo toured the European Union with Prebish’s electronic project Karate. And as the story goes, while in Paris, Spears and Prebish wrote their first song together. By the time, they arrived in London, they were offered a record deal.
When Psymon Spine’s founding duo returned to the States, Spears recruited Micheal “Brother Micheal” Rudinski and their Karate bandmates Devon Kilbern, Nathaniel Coffey to join their new project. And with that lineup, they fleshed out out the demos, which wold eventually comprise their full-length debut, 2017’s You Are Coming to My Birthday. The band went out to support the effort with immersive art and dance parties like their Secret Friend party series across Brooklyn and through relentless touring.
Prebish was also splitting his time with rising Brooklyn-based dream pop act Barrie and around the same time, Barrie began to receive attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere as a result of a handful of buzz-worthy singles, and 2019’s full-length debut, Happy to Be Here. Interestingly while with Barrie, Prebish met his future Psymon Spine bandmate, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Sabine Holler.
The rising Brooklyn-based outfit’s sophomore album, Charismatic Megafauna was released earlier this year through Northern Spy to critical applause from the likes of Paste Magazine,FLOOD, Brooklyn Vegan, Under the Radar and NME. The album and its material was added to a number of playlists including NPR Music, Spotify‘s New Music Friday, All New Indie, Undercurrents and Fresh Finds, Apple Music‘s Midnight City and Today’s Indie Rock and TIDAL‘s Rising. And the album received airplay internationally from BBC, KEXP and KCRW among others. The album explores the complicated feelings and catharsis involved in the dissolution of human relationships through hook-driven, left-of center electronic dance meets psych pop.
In the lead up to Charismatic Megafauna‘s release, I managed to write about three of the album’s released singles:
“Modmed,” an Andrew VanWyngarden-produced and cowritten, strutting disco-tinged track that’s captures the ambivalent and confusing mixture of frustration, doubt and relief of a relationship that had long petered out and finally wound down to its inevitable conclusion. Interestingly, the song is inspired and informed by personal experience: Prebish and Holler’s difficult decision to leave Barrie to focus on Pysmon Spine full-time.
“Confusion,” a hazy and lysergic banger centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, a wobbling bass line and looping guitar solo paired with Prebish’s plaintive vocals and a trippy, spoken word-delivered break that sonically reminded me of Tame Impala‘s Currents.
Psymon Spine caps off a big 2021 with the digital 7 inch release, “Mr. Metronome”/”Drums Valentino.” “‘Mr. Metronome’ and ‘Drums Valentino’ were among the first song ideas we came up with when first starting our sophomore record” says founding member Noah Prebish. “We wrote them near the end of a two year hiatus which was spent pursuing various other projects by the individuals in the band. Following the break, we were all feeling hungry to make a new Psymon Spine record and we quickly began exploring the new sounds that would ultimately define the album. This process left us with two tracks which were a bit too crazy for Charismatic Megafauna, but too good not to finish.”
“Mr. Metronome” may arguably be the most straightforward, club friendly track of the band’s growing catalog. Featuring a German vocal hook sung by Sabine Holler, which translates to “I saw your message, I have to go work,” followed by a repeated refrain of “my schedule, my schedule,” “Mr. Metronome” is centered around tweeter and woofer rocking beats, glistening synth arpeggios and a relentless, motorik groove. Inspired by Kraftwerk, Soulwax and others, the song’s lyrics features musings on dating and social dynamics while reflecting the band’s restlessness and desire to quit all unfulfilling obligations to focus on what really matters to them — music.
“Drums Valentino” is a New Wave-like single featuring industrial clang and clatter, shimmering guitars, glistening synths and an off-kilter yet dance floor-friendly groove. Sonically, the song helps to emphasize the song’s lyrics, which talk about feeling uneasy and uncertain with a psychological precision.
New York-based synth duo Tempers — Jasmine Golestaneh (vocals) and Eddie Cooper (production) — have diligently carving their own unique niche within dark indie, electronica and synth pop circles since their formation. After a series of digital singles released back in 2013, the New York duo began to solidify their sound and approach, a sleek. brooding, nocturnal take on synth pop.
The duo’s forthcoming, self-produced album New Meaning is slated for an April 1, 2022 release through Dais Records. As the duo explain, the album is about navigating the unknown, coping mechanisms and exploring the nature of choice. The album’s ten songs reflect on the creation go meaning as a way to access liberation in times of transition and loss while speculating on the transformative potential that exists alongside the grief of living in a world that is an ongoing state of crisis. Much like their previously released material, New Meaning continues a run of nocturnal music, that’s introspective yet quietly intense.
New Meaning‘s first single is the brooding “Unfamiliar.” Centered around Golestaneh’s sensual and emotive vocals, glistening synth arpeggios, shimmering and reverb-drenched bursts of guitar, a hypnotic, motorik groove, and an incredibly infectious hook, “Unfamiliar” sounds indebted to 80s New Wave while evoking our current moment — a world gone even madder and uncertain than ever before.
“’Unfamiliar’ explores the idea of progress, and what qualities might be needed to actualise it,” Tempers’ Jasmine Golestaneh explains in press notes. “So often change is just a rebranding of the same structures and conventions, history repeating itself. But also on a personal level, it’s hard not to repeat mistakes, habits are so seductive. I was thinking about the power of liminal space, and how building a tolerance to unfamiliarity might be a revolutionary act.”
“All Mine” and “You” and “Waste My Time,” which I wrote about last month will all appear on the duo’s nine-track mixtape A001, which is slated for a February 1, 2022 release. The mixtape’s latest single “Your Eyes” is a mid tempo bop centered around glistening synth arpeggios, a relentless motorik groove, a steady backbeat with hand clapped accents, shimmering guitars, an infectious, two step-inducing hook and Brown’s aching and wearied delivery describing an exhausting and dysfunctional relationship that they’re beginning to question — and beginning to regret.
“This was inspired by a close friend’s dysfunctional relationship and observing its constantly messy nature with arguments over nothing,” ARPE’s Charlie Brown explains. “Being in a relationship can sometimes be the loneliest time in your life, when the other person is reluctant to work with you to nurture it and care for it, but it’s the scariest prospect realising that in the long-term you would be better off without them. It’s a leap of faith not many are willing to take.”
Carole Cettolin is a Paris-born and-based singer/songwriter, whose career started in earnest with the her acclaimed, solo recording project Et Maxence. And with Et Maxence, Cettolin won the 2010 Crédit Mutuel Young Talent Revelation Award in the French song category. Cettolin also caught the attention of Edith Fambuena, who produced material off Cettolin’s Et Maxence debut EP. And with a growing profile, Cettolin eventually opened for La Grande Sophie and Sia.
A meeting with Nicklaus Rohrback allowed the Paris-born and-based singer/songwriter to pursue a new, synth-based sound — under her own name. The end result is Cettolin’s debut under her own name, the five-song EP Un Garçon. Thematically, the EP touches upon reconnecting with one’s inner child, haunting images and stubborn ghosts.
In the lead-up to the EP’s release, I wrote about, the breezy pop number “Tant que le temps est radieux.” Centered around glinting synth arpeggios, shimmering strings, thumping beats and Cettolin’s yearning vocals, the song is a bit hedonistic while reminding the listener to cherish every moment of life –and those, who are dear to us. But underneath the breeziness is a melancholy awareness that nothing is guaranteed.
The EP’s latest single “Vaille que Vaille” is a swooning bit of synth pop centered around glistening synth arpeggios, skittering beats and Cettolin’s achingly plaintive vocals. At its core, the song’s narrator expresss something very rare — a contented sigh of someone who has finally found that deep, meaningful, real love. Lucky and rare are those who find it.
The recently released video for “Vaille que Vaille” is comprised from 30s and 40s movies now in the public domain and was edited to tell queer love stories that we wouldn’t have seen at the time.
Emerging Maltese indie outfit Relikc — currently Remy Azzopardi (vocals), Luke Greck (guitar), Ivan Giordano (bass), Jospeh Axiak (keys) and Martin Caruana drums) — can trace its origins to its founding members being lifelong friends, who started playing music together while in school. As teenagers, the band played at every single school event, eventually moving on to clubs and festivals as soon as they were of legal age.
Eager for success, the members of Relikc would bounce back and forth between writing and releasing songs to cramming their schedules with as many gigs as they could. Back in 2016, they committed themselves to writing and recording their full-length debut, 2017’s The Code of Antics, which paired heartfelt lyrics with a sound that meshed rock, funk, soul and electro pop.
Although the album was a success, the band went through a significant lineup change. After a year in which the band spent reinventing their identity and their sound, the band released “Hate That I Love You,” which saw the Maltese indie act move towards a electro pop-tinged rock sound, influenced by the bandmembers shared love of rock, funk and 80s synth pop.
The Maltese indie outfit’s latest single “Would You Ever” sees the band pushing their sound further in the electronic direction. Centered around glistening synth arpeggios, a throbbing, funky bass line and Azzopardi’s plaintive vocals singing heartfelt and lived-in lyrics, an infectious hook, and a fittingly 80s inspired bit of riffage, “Would You Ever” is a slickly produced bop that brings St. Lucia, Haerts, and others to mind while detailing a new and tumultuous relationship on the brink.
Directed by Matthew Muscat Drago, the recently released video for “Would You Ever” is an incredibly 80s inspired visual follows a passionate artistic couple as their fight and make-up throughout while creating inspired art.
Formed back in 2018, the emerging Bangalore, India-based synth pop duo Us and I — Bidisha Kesh (vocals) and Guarav Govilkar (production) — features members who come from very different backgrounds, who bonded over the fact that they share similar musical sensibilities: As the story goes, when they started to work together, Kesh and Govlikar quickly realized that they shared a unique way of crafting songs with deeply personal lyrics paired with the melancholia of the orange and yellow colors leaking from the sounds of their synthesizers.
The duo spent the next two years developing and honing a sound that they believe will act as a bridge between the synth-driven work of Chromatics and the slow-burning, dream pop of Beach House — with subtle nods to darkwave and post-punk. Thematically, the duo’s material generally draws from everyday life and the relationships around them.
As a result of the pandemic, the Bangalore-based duo played a few online, live-at-home livestream sessions. which helped the band gain attention for their debut EP Loveless, which was released earlier this year. Thematically, Loveless focuses on a universal subject, love — in particularly, a past love and how the nostalgia and grief of that past love can hit us like waves. Now, as you may recall, I wrote about Loveless single “Fragile,” deliberately crafted, textured pop centered around glistening synth arpeggios, sinuous bass lines, thumping beats and Kesh’s gorgeous vocals in a song that reminded me quite a bit of Dead Blue-era Still Corners.
The EP’s latest single “First Love” is slow-burning ballad centered around an atmospheric arrangement of twinkling piano, glistening synth arpeggios and Kesh’s achingly plaintive vocals. While sonically “First Love” strikes me as being a bit like Still Corners meets Tales of Us era Goldfrapp, the song as the duo explains is about “the nostalgic longing to be near someone that is distant, or that has bene loved and then lost — ‘the love that remains.'”
Fittingly, the recently released video for “First Love” is nostalgic and brims with an aching and unresolved longing for a time, place, and situation that can’t be recovered. And as a result, ghosts linger and taunt throughout.
Toronto-based indie outfit Dilettante can trace their origins back to 2016. During the spring, mutual dog lovers Natalie Panacci and Julia Wittman started a band so their dogs could hang out more. Along with The Black Cats’ Zachary Stuckey; Said the Whale’s, Iskwe’s, The Recklaws’ and Scott Helman’s Bradley Connor; and Candice Ng, they formed as For Jane, a “dog’ rock pop band with a Kate Bush meets Sinead O’Connor sensibility that prominently featured Panacci’s and Wittman’s contrasting vocals and mesmerizing harmonies.
As For Jane, the Canadian indie act released their debut EP, 2018’s Married with Dogs, which featured “Car,” a track featured on CBC Music and The Edge. Earlier this year, the act announced a change in name, seemingly influenced by a massive lineup change that has left Panacci and Wittman as its creative core, as well as a decided shift in sonic direction.
The Toronto-based act’s self-titled, full-length debut is slated for a Spring 2022 release — but they’ve also recently released the album’s first single, “Bonnie,” an 80s New Wave inspired, synth pop confection featuring glistening synth arpeggios, wiry post-punk guitars fed through a bit of reverb, an angular bass line and the duo’s achingly plaintive and mesmerizing vocals. The end result is a song that to my ears reminds me a bit of Til Tuesday‘s “Voices Carry” but with a sultry, coquettish air.
During the course of this site’s 11-plus year history, I’ve spilled a lot of (virtual) ink covering the acclaimed indie synth pop outfit Yumi Zouma. Last year, the JOVM mainstay act, which features members residing in New Zealand, the States and the UK signed to Polyvinyl Record Co, who released their critically applauded, self-produced, third album Truth or Consequences, an album that thematically focused on distant — both real and metaphorical; romantic and platonic heartbreak; disillusionment and feeling (and being) out of reach.
Of course, if you really follow and love music, you’re well aware of the fact that touring is often the most important — and necessary — part of the promotional camping for an artist’s or a band’s new release. Before they hit the road, that artist or band will figure out how to re-contextualize their new material and some previously released material for a live setting, imagining how a crowd will react to what — and how — they’ll play in a live a set. Like countless acts across the world, who were touring — or about to tour — as COVID-19 struck across the world, the members of Yumi Zouma were forced to cut their tour short and head home, leaving scores of their fans without the opportunity to hear the new album in a live setting.
Last October the JOVM mainstays released Truth or Consequences (Alternate Versions), an album conceived as the band’s response to the lost opportunity to re-contextualize and explore the boundaries of the original album’s material through live engagement with fans. Interestingly, since the release of Truth or Consequences (Alternate Versions), the members of the acclaimed indie pop outfit have been busy: Earlier this year, they released the standalone single “Give It Hell,” an essentially classic Yumi Zouma track featuring wistful and melancholy lyrics `paired with breezy arrangement featuring glistening synth arpeggios and a gentle yet persistent motorik groove. But underneath the song’s bittersweet air is a subtle celebratory note, a reminder that even in the most difficult of circumstances, we need to be grateful for being here now — and as an old song once said “all things will pass.”
“Mona Lisa,” the second single of 2021 by the acclaimed indie pop outfit may arguably be the most expansive song of their growing catalog: Beginning with an introduction featuring acoustic guitar, rapid fire drumming and Simpson’s imitably ethereal vocals, the song morphs into a breezy pop confection that nods at New Order and Bruce Springsteen — in part to a sultry saxophone-led coda. The song’s expansive and unusual arrangement evokes a shifting and complicated emotional state, seemingly influenced by our incredibly uncertain moment.
“’Mona Lisa’ came to us gradually over a long period of time – so its story has changed and shifted, developing new relevance with each new phase of our lives,” Yumi Zouma’s Christie Simpson explains in press notes. “It’s a song that ruminates on conflicting, shifting uncertainty – of wanting someone that maybe you can’t have – of uncertain boundaries, of confusing interactions, misunderstanding, yearning. Trying to forget an obsession – or shifting between losing all hope and giving in to the obsession – lured back by the excitement and promise – the moments of feeling so alive. The terror and joy of a big crush. And so we wanted the video to feel like a mirror to all those emotions along the passage of time – except in isolation. A year stuck inside (as we have been), alone with the big feelings, the big highs, and the low lows – dancing around your bedroom, losing it a little bit. Moving in, making it yours, moving out again. The strange phase we’ve been existing in, trying to thrive in (occasionally succeeding, but often not). The joy, the sadness, the conflict, the chaos – without ever really leaving your bedroom.”
The self-directed and recently released video for “Mona Lisa” stars the band’s Christie Simpson and is informed by real life events — namely, the jubilation, claustrophobia and mayhem of months in lockdown in both the UK and her native New Zealand: Simpson had just moved back to New Zealand after making the fortuitous decision to head to London the week before the outbreak of COVID-19. And in the video, which was filmed in Lyttleton, New Zealand, we see Simpson move into the studio apartment, make it her own and gradually lose her mind. Interestingly. the room was built by the band to match the artwork for the single.
