Tag: Isolation

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: French Post-Punk Outfit Isolation Shares Brooding and Uneasy “Sanism”

With their Eliott Selwood-produced debut EP Creature Lies, the Rouen/Paris-based indie outfit Isolation — We Hate You Please Die‘s former frontman Raphaël Balzary, Julien, Lounès and Cheap Teen‘s Cyprien — have crafted material that draws from punk, pop, garage rock and post-punk. Thematically, the EP’s material takes a look at society’s perception of mental illness and the loneliness, ostracizing that can often result from suffering from mental illness.

Creature Lies EP‘s latest single “Sanism” is a sleek and brooding synthesis of post-punk, New Wave, goth and shoegaze anchored around angular guitar stabs, swirling synth textures paired with Balzary’s desperate howls. The song captures a narrator desperately trying to keep it together in a mad, mad, mad world — out of fear of reprisal, retribution and recrimination.

The accompanying video features still photos of the band, of someone on a medicine routine while on our stitched together to create a glitchy and unsettling bit of animation.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

CHAD · Isolation

Emerging Portland, OR-based indie act CHAD  — founding members Sarah Lane and  Trevor Greely along with Zach Whiton and Alex Widner — can trace its origins to the split up of its founding members’ previous band. Now, as you may recall, the Cameron Spies-produced “I Got Time” found the band quickly establishing a signature sound with Lane’s gorgeous vocals effortlessly weaving through layers of shimmering guitars, a sinuous bass line and boom bap-like drumming. Of course, beyond that, the song was centered around a delicious and playful irony: the song’s narrator may be saying that she has time but in there’s a tacit recognition that in reality, she doesn’t; time is rushing by — and she’s sort of dithering around.

“Isolation,” the Portland-based act’s latest single is a slow-burning bit of 80s inspired,  dream pop centered around shimmering and and arpeggios synths, a sultry, Quiet-storm like bass line and Lane’s come-hither cooing. And while revealing a band that has been expanding upon their sonic palette in a way that recalls Beach House, the song as the band mentions via email is “the social distancing ballad we didn’t know we needed” — with the song evoking the unease and profound loneliness that so many of us are suffering through right now.

 

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

The KVB originally started as the solo project of Nicholas Wood back in 2010. And the first recorded effort, The Black Sun was on a limited edition cassette tape released by FLA Records. In 2011, […]