Tag: instrumental

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Offline Returns with Breezy Yet Uneasy “Les amis”

Hamburg-born and-based photographer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Felix Müller is the creative mastermind behind the rising cinematic soul project The Offline. The German photographer, composer and multi-instrumentalist can trace the origins of The Offline to his travels along the Atlantic coastline of southern France with an analog camera, capturing beach life. Upon his return to Hamburg, he started writing compositions as the sonic counterpart to his photography.

Müller’s full-length The Offline debut, last year’s Timor Litzenberg co-produced La couleur de la mer was inspired by the work of Francois de Roubaix, and saw him creating a soundtrack to an imaginary film. The album’s material evoked images of manorial, fog-swept villas at the ocean’s edge, silhouetted sailing boats and cigar-chomping villains attempting to thwart the mission of the imaginary film’s hero. The album experimented with themes and atypical song structures, moving from dramatic cues to fragile romanticism while incorporating psychedelia, retro soul and hip-hop, inspired by and informed by his extensive record collection. 

His forthcoming Les Cigales EP reportedly builds upon the head-nodding blend of hip-hop and 70s soul jazz that he developed on his full-length debut. The EP takes it sonic tunes from the structure of film and TV music from the 1960s and 1970s, channeling the influences of film composers like Francois de Rouabix and David Axelrod while also seemingly sitting between the chilled out, summery grooves of Surprise Chef and Robohands. As the EP unwinds, its narrative reflects a love story full of longing, melancholy and drama, connecting with the story of Cyptis and Protis — the founding myth of Marseilles — whose love broke convention and welcomed the arrival of foreigners on French soil. 

EP track “Fumée” introduced the first part of Les Cigales‘ narrative, an effort that reflects upon life on the Mediterranean during the summer months. Anchored around an arrangement featuring a gorgeous and expressive Rhodes-driven melodic theme, a brooding horn line and squiggling wah wah pedaled funk guitar paired with a subtly reggae-like drum groove, the track features alternating light and dark sections. 

“Fumée” continues a run of material that seems to recall Bob James while setting up the EP’s narrative, introducing the soon-to-be star-crossed protagonists, as they hungrily search for one another, while situating the listener in and around Marseille. 

“As some may know, Hamburg is not known for the best weather, especially the winters, with little daylight, cold winds and rain lashing down on your face,” Müller says. “Maybe that’s why this longing for light, warmth and the sea is always a big part of my music – by composing the songs, I can be in these places.”

The EP’s latest track “Les amis” is a breezy yet subtly uneasy track featuring a glistening guitar, a shuffling and laid-back groove with bursts of twinkling vibraphone, brooding horns and woodwinds. The track continues the EP’s narrative with the track representing growing familiarity and intimacy between two friends, before taking a tense turn, hinting that all isn’t as it seems. A meet-cute gone somewhat wrong, perhaps?

Throwback by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms shares John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 91st Birthday, Wayne Shorter!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 91st anniversary of the birth of Wayne Shorter.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Offline Shares Summery and Cinematic “Fumée”

Felix Müller is a Hamburg-born and-based photographer, composer and creative mastermind behind the cinematic soul project The Offline. Müller can trace the origins of The Offline to his travels along the the Atlantic coastline of southern France with an analog camera, capturing beach life. Upon his return to Hamburg, he started writing compositions as the sonic counterpart to his visuals. 

The German-born artist’s full-length debut, last year’s Timor Litzenberg co-produced La couleur de la mer was inspired by the work of Francois de Roubaix — and saw him creating a soundtrack to an imaginary film. The album’s material evoked images of manorial, fog-swept villas at the ocean’s edge, silhouetted sailing boats and cigar-chomping villains attempting to thwart the mission of the imaginary film’s hero. The album experimented with themes and atypical song structures, moving from dramatic cues to fragile romanticism while incorporating psychedelia, retro soul and hip-hop, inspired by and informed by his extensive record collection. 

Müller’s forthcoming Les Cigales EP reportedly builds upon the head-nodding blend of hip-hop and 70s soul jazz that he developed on his full-length debut. The EP takes it sonic tunes from the structure of film and TV music from the 1960s and 1970s, channeling the influences of film composers like Francois de Rouabix and David Axelrod while also seemingly sitting between the chilled out, summery grooves of Surprise Chef and Robohands. As the EP unwinds, its narrative reflects a love story full of longing, melancholy and drama, connecting with the story of Cyptis and Protis — the founding myth of Marseilles — whose love broke convention and welcomed the arrival of foreigners on French soil.

“Fumée,” introduces the first part of Les Cigales‘ narrative, an effort that reflects upon life on the Mediterranean during the summer months. Anchored around an arrangement featuring a gorgeous and expressive Rhodes-driven melodic theme, a brooding horn line and squiggling wah wah pedaled funk guitar paired with a subtly reggae-like drum groove, “Fumée” features alternating light and dark sections.

The new single continues a run of material that seems to recall Bob James while setting up the EP’s narrative, introducing the soon-to-be star-crossed protagonists, as they hungrily search for one another, while situating the listener in and around Marseille.

“As some may know, Hamburg is not known for the best weather, especially the winters, with little daylight, cold winds and rain lashing down on your face,” Müller says. “Maybe that’s why this longing for light, warmth and the sea is always a big part of my music – by composing the songs, I can be in these places.”

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms
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Live Concert Photography: Elsewhere Festival: Day 2: 6/22/24 Feat. Vince Staples, BADBADNOTGOOD and Sudan Archives

Live concert photography of Elsewhere Festival’s second day feat. Vince Staples, BADBADNOTGOOD and Sudan Archives.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Two Cumbia-Inspired Bops from JOVM Mainstays Los Bitchos

Earlier this year, acclaimed London-based instrumental outfit and JOVM mainstays Los Bitchos — Australian-born, Serra Petale (guitar); Uruguayan-born Agustina Ruiz (keytar); Swedish-born, Josefine Jonsson (bass) and London-born Nic Crawshaw (drums) — announced that their highly-anticipated sophomore album, the Oli Barton-Wood-produced Talkie Talkie will be released through City Slang on August 30, 2024.

Deriving its name from a fictional club of the same name, Talkie Talkie is a late-night paradise, brimming with freedom and possibility; a place where partygoers can escape reality by getting caught in the groove and dancing it all away or daydream along to the invigorating soundscape. 

Recorded over a short but intense month-long series of sessions at London’s RAK Studios and Lightship 95, sonically, the album will transport the listener into a world where funk, disco, Latin and Turkish rhythms collide in a euphoric fusion fueled by adventurous experimentation and their endearingly puckish spirit. If 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin was the rowdy build up to the big night out with your homies, Talkie Talkie is the equivalent of rocking out to the groove on the dance floor. 

The album’s material is anchored in a vivid cinematic universe that takes inspiration from the band’s favorite aesthetic era — the ’80s. Think less self-serious men, gated reverb and more campy, hi-fi pop songwriting that glistens with moxie and verve. The quartet especially wanted to tap into the sonic innovation of the period, where analog and digital techniques collided to create polished texture and depth. 

The album will feature the previously released:

  • “La Bomba,” a hook-driven 80s Turkish psych pop-inspired bop anchored around a shuffling dance floor rhythm, a twangy and looping guitar line, a disco-influenced bass line, some video game-like beats paired with glistening synths and ecstatic shouts. 

  • “Don’t Change,” a breezy and blissful jam anchored around a languid and reverb-drenched Spanish-tinged, psych rock-inspired guitar line, stomping percussion, glistening and atmospheric synths and an arpeggiated, funky synth bass line. It’s the perfect soundtrack for frolicking at the beach, of dreaming of heading to the beach with your best pals — or for riding a ferry and dreaming that you were on a super expensive yacht drinking mimosas. 

Today, the acclaimed London-based outfit shares the dual single “Kiki, You Complete Me” and “1K!.” Both tracks see the band reveling in the shimmering guitar tones and shuffling guacharaca rhythms of cumbia — but in mischievously different directions: “Kiki, You Complete Me” has a clean, 80s studio polish-like sound and a cinematic quality that evokes the opening sequence of Nintendo video games like Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda or Blades of Steel — or of an incredibly cheesy but wildly entertaining action movie starring Carl Weathers, Bill Duke or someone like that, complete with a blazing guitar solo.

“This track feels like the opening sequence of a comic book series,” the JOVM mainstays say. “The tom sounds we went for are outrageous, like the ‘pows’ and ‘thwacks’ of a comic strip punctuating the music… think Batman meets Bitchos! Towards the end of the song we extended this chuggy, tension building section and brought out a guitar solo before ending on the comic/video game theme vibe refrain.”

Directed by Tom Brewins, the accompanying video for “Kiki, You Complete Me” follows the quartet as they go to an arcade, where they play a video game called Los BItchos Miami Drive, which features their 16 bit video game counterparts in a a car racing game that brings back memories of Pole Position.

“We’ve leaned into the 16 bit video game aesthetic for the video,” Los Bitchos explain. “Serra has always dreamed of writing music for video games.. We’ve started playing this song live at festivals this year and it’s definitely one of the songs we’re all most enjoying playing.”

“1K!’ is a shimmery, summery yet somewhat straightforward take on cumbia that evokes lazy-because-of-the-intense-heat summer afternoons and early evenings, anchored around a languid guitar line and stripped back, traditional-inspired percussion.

“This is a really shimmery, summer tune. There’s even a can of drink being opened at some point, you can feel the heat and carefree vibes,” the band says. “I imagine a gathering with friends, maybe a BBQ, some drinks, people popping by. The drums are quite stripped back for this track, more percussion led.”

Shot by Madeline Northway on grainy Super 8, the accompanying video for “1K!” captures the quartet’s endearingly puckish spirit and best gal pal vibes, as they head off to a local pool to hang out, drink a cold Coca Cola and bullshit, giggle and attempt to stay cool on a hot summer day.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

London-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Oscar “Sholto” Robertson grew up with a deep and abiding love of jazz, soul, krautrock and 60s and 70s soundtracks. Initially known as being one-half of indie outfit Sunglasses for Jaws, Robertson honed his production skills under the guidance and tutelage of Allah-Las‘ Nick Waterhouse and Inflo.

Four years ago, Robertson stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist with his latest project SHOLTO, which sees him crafting a unique take on instrumental, psychedelic soul. Last year was a big year for the rising London-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer: He signed to Deep Matter imprint Root Records, who released his SHOTOL debut, The Changing Tides of Dreams EP. 

The rising British artist’s work has received airplay from Jazz FM‘s Tony Minvielle and BBC Radio 6‘s Huey Morgan, Deb Grant and Gilles Peterson. Building upon a rapidly growing national profile, Robertson’s latest track “Ligurian Storm” continues a run of gorgeous and mischievously anachronistic material that seemingly channels The Ironsides, Mildlife, Adrian Younge/The Midnight Hour, David Axelrod and Quincy Jones — but with a cinematic quality.

Conceived on a stormy train ride from Milan to Liguria, the compositions blend of swelling and building harp, strings, vibraphone and synths evoke the build up on a growing storm swallowing and overwhelming a beautiful landscape.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy Belated 82nd Birthday, Dr. Lonnie Smith!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates the 82nd anniversary of Dr. Lonnie Smith’s birth.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Laurent Squarta Shares John Carpenter Soundtrack-Like “The Dark Wave of The Blob”

Laurent Squarta is a Toulon, France-born multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer, who like countless young folks across the globe, became obsessed with music around the time he turned 13. His earliest musical loves were Depeche Mode, The Cure and New Wave.

When he turned 16, he became more rebellious and developed an interest in skateboarding and skateboarding culture, as well as harder music, like Metallica, Megadeth and Sepultura.

Hypnotized by these sounds, Squarta desperately wanted to make his own music. Earning money from small jobs, he brought a guitar and an amp — and with two friends, he started a punk rock band called ElectroGene. He also took lessons at Bordeaux’s Rock School Barbey, where he planed to play with other bands at small, local shows.

Back in 2012, following an installation in Rochefort, France, Squarta set up a music studio next to his house. He had received training in recording techniques and music production software, while becoming obsessed with the sonic possibilities offered by synthesizers. He brought new gear and found his sound inching closer to John Carpenter and the Stranger Things soundtrack.

After a few years of experimenting with his sound and approach and some rather strange personal experiences, the French artist gradually landed on Darkwave, seemingly inspired by horror and sci-fi films. Over the last handful of years, Squarta has reached out to horror movie critic YouTubers and short filmmakers to collaborator on soundtrack work.

His latest single is a song inspired by 1988’s Kurt Russell-starring The Blob. And fittingly, the eerie and brooding John Carpenter-like soundtrack-like “The Dark Wave of The Blob” features industrial clang and clatter, glistening synth oscillations, a relentless motorik groove and a blazing guitar line. The song perfectly compliments the accompanying edited film footage.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Dave Guy Shares Cinematic and Strutting “7th Heaven”

Raised in the East Village, acclaimed and highly sought-after trumpeter Dave Guy was surrounded by hip-hop and the hustle that seemed to define the city in the 90s. During those formative days, he and his playing style were influenced by the likes of Donald Byrd and Hugh Masekela, but also by A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul.

His time at LaGuardia Performing Arts High School furthered this path. Guy remembers sharing playing time with Big Crown Records co-founder Leon Michels and highly sought-after drummer Homer Steinweiss. “Being in the All-City Jazz Big Band, I would see them rehearsing all the time,” the New York-born and-based musician recalls. “They were already doing things with The Dap-Kings back then—which was crazy.”

His voice as a player began to take shape and continued to be refined through his studies at The Manhattan School of Music and The New School — and then playing with Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Charles Bradley and Menahan Street Band, The Sugarman 3 and more. He has played on albums from the likes of Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson, Pharrell Williams, Lee Fields, the legendary Al Green — er, correction, the Rev. Al Green — and a lengthy list of others. And adding to a growing profile, Guy currently plays with The Roots live and on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Guy finally steps out into the much-deserved spotlight with his full-length debut, Ruby. Slated for a September 20, 2024 release through Big Crown Records, the 12-song album sees the highly sought-after NYC scene mainstay exploring New York jazz and pushing the boundaries of the style by incorporating elements of hip-hop and soul in a way that’s both unique and modern.

As fate would have it, a classic case of “when one door shuts, another opens” was really what got the ball rolling on the album. “I never wanted to force my own project,” Guy explains. “There was always a lot going on between things—the timing was never right.” But when The Tonight Show went on hiatus during last year’s Writers’ Strike, there was an unexpected free moment.

Within days, Guy started recording sessions with Steinweiss and Nick Movshon (bass). What initially started out as a just an opportunity to create music, quickly took shape and direction when they ended up laying down something that felt wildly special and authentic. The result is an album that captures different moods and serves as an invitation to the world as Dave Guys sees it and feels it.

Ruby‘s first single “7th Heaven” is a anchored around a a bed of twinkling and dancing keys, a strutting bass line from Movshown, boom bap-like drums from Steinweiss and ethereal backing coos from Clairo/Claire Cottrill serving as a funky and anthemic bed for Guy’s regal and soulful horn melody. The result is a composition that’s swaggering yet cinematic, while capturing the energy and vibe of a day — or night — in and around New York.

“It has a groove and is more in line with what the guys and I are known for with Menahan Street Band, but it is also in-your-face and catchy,” Guy says. “It’s a bit of an ode to Tijuana Brass too, a Herb Alpert-esque track with a tight horn line and has that energy that pops.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Los Bitchos Share Blissed Out Beach Bop “Don’t Change”

Acclaimed London-based instrumental outfit and JOVM mainstays Los Bitchos — Australian-born, Serra Petale (guitar); Uruguayan-born Agustina Ruiz (keytar); Swedish-born, Josefine Jonsson (bass) and London-born Nic Crawshaw (drums) — can trace their origins to meeting at various late-night parties and through mutual friends. Inspired by their individual members’ different upbringings and backgrounds, the acclaimed British outfit have firmly established a genre-blurring, retro-futuristic sound that playfully blends elements of Peruvian chica, Argentine cumbia, Turkish psych, surf rock, and the music each individual member grew up with: 

  • The Uruguayan-born Ruiz had a Latin-American music collection that the members of the band fell in love with

  • The Swedish-born Jonsson “brings a touch of out of control pop,” her bandmates often joke

  • Aussie-born Petale is deeply inspired by her mother’s 70s Anatolian rock records

  • And the London-born Crawshaw played in a number of local punk bands before joining Los Bitchos

“Coming from all these different places,” Los Bitchos’ Serra Petale says, “it means we’re not stuck in one genre and we can rip up the rulebook a bit when it comes to our influences.”

The JOVM mainstays’ Alex Kapranos-produced, critically applauded, full-length debut, 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin! was recorded at Gallery Studios, and saw the band cementing their reputation for crafting playful, lysergic yet party friendly grooves. 

The quartet capped off a breakthrough year with two Serra Petale and Javier Weyler-co-produced singles “Tip Tapp” and “Los Chrismos,” their first Christmas-themed composition. Fittingly, “Los Chrismos” is a celebratory party-starting romp built around a psych rock-inspired, dexterous and looping guitar line, atmospheric synths, cumbia rhythms paired with holiday appropriate cheers and shouts. Simply put, the song is a much-needed hope and joy bomb in desperate, uneasy time. 

Building upon a growing profile internationally, the London-based JOVM mainstays released 2023’s PAH! EP, a two-track effort that featured a mischievously, rowdy and downright boozy cover of The Champs‘ oft-covered “Tequila,” a song that has become a fan favorite during the band’s live shows and a reworking of King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard‘s “Trapdoor.” 

Today, the London-based instrumental outfit announced that their highly anticipated sophomore album, the Oli Barton-Wood-produced Talkie Talkie is slated for an August 30, 2024 release through City Slang. Deriving its name from a fictional club of the same name, Talkie Talkie is a late-night paradise, brimming with freedom and possibility; a place where partygoers can escape reality by getting caught in the groove and dancing it all away or daydream along to the invigorating soundscape.

Recorded over a short but intense month-long series of sessions at London’s RAK Studios and Lightship 95, sonically, the album will transport the listener into a world where funk, disco, Latin and Turkish rhythms collide in a euphoric fusion fueled by adventurous experimentation and their endearingly puckish spirit. If 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin was the rowdy build up to the big night out with your homies, Talkie Talkie is the equivalent of rocking out to the groove on the dance floor.

The album’s material is anchored in a vivid cinematic universe that takes inspiration from the band’s favorite aesthetic era — the ’80s. Think less self-serious men, gated reverb and more campy, hi-fi pop songwriting that glistens with moxie and verve. The quartet especially wanted to tap into the sonic innovation of the period, where analog and digital techniques collided to create polished texture and depth.

The album will feature the previously released “La Bomba,” a hook-driven 80s Turkish psych pop-inspired bop anchored around a shuffling dance floor rhythm, a twangy and looping guitar line, a disco-influenced bass line, some video game-like beats paired with glistening synths and ecstatic shouts. “‘La Bomba’ is a burst of energy and power! It’s just such a fun song – we started playing it at festivals last summer and the energy felt so good!” The band says in press notes. 

“The beginning stabs are what came to me (Serra) first as I was cooking in my kitchen. There’s something quite heroic and powerful about the opening guitar tone and the stabs underneath them. The twangy guitar tone cuts through the chaotic landscape of claps, pumping disco bassline and dreamy swirling synth sounds. The disco era influence is quite evident in this song, and I think the bassline sets the tone perfectly for this. Structurally the song delivers straight into a chorus (as Nile Rodgers said, ‘why wait?’). We wanted to keep this as close to a classic pop structure as possible, everything straight to the point. 

“The cherries on top are the little ping pong drum sounds (think Ring My Bell, Anita Ward) – they just make the track go off and totally emulate the feelings of euphoria and pure energy running through it.”

Talkie Talkie’s second and latest single “Don’t Change” is a breezy and blissful jam anchored around a languid and reverb-drenched Spanish-tinged, psych rock-inspired guitar line, stomping percussion, glistening and atmospheric synths and an arpeggiated, funky synth bass line. It’s the perfect soundtrack for frolicking at the beach, of dreaming of heading to the beach with your best pals — or for riding a ferry and dreaming that you were on a super expensive yacht drinking mimosas.

Directed by Tom Mitchell, the accompanying video for “Don’t Change” is a deliriously fun joy bomb that captures the band — fittingly — frolicking in paradise while seemingly on vacation. Can I join y’all?

“‘Don’t Change’ is a pure bliss track; think holiday vibes with ice creams, beach balls, sunsets and margaritas,” the band says of the song and its accompanying video. “It’s feel-good, with sun soaked melodies, vibrant arpeggiator synth bass, and layers of percussion. We had such a fun time making the video, making up little dances and frolicking about in the sand and sea!”