Tag: John Carpenter

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: El Michels Affair’s Soulful and Cinematic Take on the Wu-Tang

Comprised of founding member, bandleader and primary arranger Leon Michels (saxophone), Homer Steinweiss (drums), Nick Movshon (bass), Thomas Brenneck (guitar), Sean Solomon (guitar), Tobias Pazner (keyboards), Michael Leonhart (trumpet) and Todd Simon (trumpet), the El Michels Affair is a Brooklyn-based All-Star, instrumental soul act featuring members from several renowned, locally-based acts including The Arcs, Menahan Street Band, The Shacks, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, and Lee Fields and the Expressions. After the release of their 2005 debut Sounding Out the City, the band was paired with Raekwon for a concert organized by Scion and it eventually led to a tour that featured several members of the Wu-Tang Clan. And interestingly enough, touring with the members of the Wu inspired the El Michels Affair’s sophomore effort Enter the 37th Chamber, soul-based, instrumental interpretations of the material off Wu-Tang’s seminal debut Enter the 36 Chambers.

Unsurprisingly, Enter the 37th Chamber has proven to be the band’s most commercially successful album to date, introducing the band to a much wider audience. It’s been several years since the band has released new material, as the members of the band have been extremely busy with their primary gigs, they had some time to reconvene to write and record Return to the 37th Chamber, their breakthrough sophomore effort’s long-awaited follow up. And much like its predecessor, the material will further cement the band’s reputation for soul music interpretations of the Wu Tang’s material for a live band, while paying homage to RZA’s imitable, hazy production; in fact, Michels in his role as producer, recorded the album straight to analog tape, sometimes hitting six generations of tape before it was ready for mixing. Adding to the album’s overall sound, the material possesses the occasional psychedelic flourish, John Carpenter-like synths, power chord-friendly guitar work, the enormous horn sections and traditional Chinese instrumentation in place of most of the vocals and guest spots from Lee Fields and The Shacks’ Shannon Wise. Essentially, while being a tribute to one of hip-hop’s most interesting, challenging producers and artists and his sound, the album finds the members of El Michels Affair picking up on and expanding the cinematic aspects of RZA’s production.

Of course, while Enter the 37th Chamber paid tribute to Enter the 36 Chambers, the El Michels Affair tackles some of the Wu’s beloved classics such as “4th Chamber” and “Wu Tang Ain’t Nuthin ta Fuck Wit,” as well as deeper cuts like Ol’ Dirty Bastard‘s “Snakes,” Raekwon’s “Verbal Intercourse,” and Wu-Tang’s contribution to St. Ide’s legendary early 90s ad campaign, “Shaolin Brew.” Now, as you may remember earlier this month, I wrote about Return to the 37th Chamber’s first single “Tearz.” And that single, which featured guest spots from the aforementioned Lee Fields and Shannon Wise managed to sound as though it paid equal respect to the Wendy Rene original song from which the song’s backing sample came from as it did to the Wu Tang’s own use of the sample — but with subtly psychedelic flourishes.

Return to the 37th Chamber’s latest single “Iron Man” is a cinematic reworking of “Iron’s Theme (Interlude)” off Ghostface Killah’s Supreme Clientele, that expands upon the original’s groove to make it a full-length song — but with martial arts and psychedelic film sound effects.

Directed by artist El Oms, who met Leon Michels though The Arcs and has become a fan of the El Michels Affair, the animated video is a fittingly a martial arts, revenge saga, complete with a couple of trippy flashbacks and a shit ton of bloody mayhem — and I bet it would be make Quentin Tarantino proud. As El Oms explains in press notes “Making this video really brought me back to my younger days. I grew up watching martial art movies and listening to Wu-Tang and when I heard El Michels Affair’s Enter The 37th Chamber I was blown away by the way the album captured those elements and still sounded original. So being able to work on Return To The 37th Chamber was truly amazing. I try to capture those same elements on the ‘Iron Man’ video and give it this originality but still have the old traditional martial arts movie feel to it.”

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of founding member, bandleader and primary arranger Leon Michels (saxophone), Homer Steinweiss (drums), Nick Movshon (bass), Thomas Brenneck (guitar), Sean Solomon (guitar), Tobias Pazner (keyboards), Michael Leonhart (trumpet) and Todd Simon (trumpet), the El Michels AffairT is a Brooklyn-based All-Star, instrumental soul act featuring members from several renowned acts including The Arcs, Menahan Street Band, The Shacks, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, and Lee Fields and the Expressions. After the release of their 2005 debut Sounding Out the City, the band was paired with Raekwon for a concert organized by Scion  and it eventually led to a tour that featured several members of the Wu-Tang Clan. Interestingly, touring with the members of the Wu-Tang led to the band’s sophomore effort Enter the 37th Chamber, an effort that consisted of soul-based, instrumental interpretations of the Wu-Tang Clan’s influential debut Enter the 36 Chambers. 

Unsurprisingly, Enter the 37th Chamber has introduced the band and its members to a much wider audience, while being their most commercially successful effort to date. Although the members of El Michels Affair had been busy with their primary gigs, they reconvened to record Return To The 37th Chamber, the highly-anticipated follow- up to Enter the 37th Chamber — and reportedly while reinterpreting and arranging Wu-Tang songs for a live band, Return to the 37th Chamber also pays homage to RZA‘s imitable, hazy production; in fact, Michels in his role as producer, recorded the album straight to analog tape, sometimes hitting six generations of tape before it was ready for mixing. Adding to the album’s overall sound, the material possesses the occasional psychedelic flourish, John Carpenter-like synths, power chord-friendly guitar work, the enormous horn sections and traditional Chinese instrumentation in place of most of the vocals — or in other words, the material balances RZA’s imitable and influential aesthetic with El Michels Affair’s burgeoning reputation for cinematic and swaggering soul.

As far as the material on the new album, the renowned instrumental soul act tackles some of the Wu’s beloved classics such as “4th Chamber” and “Wu Tang Ain’t Nuthin ta Fuck Wit,” as well as deeper cuts like Ol’ Dirty Bastard‘s “Snakes,” Raekwon’s “Verbal Intercourse,” and Wu-Tang’s contribution to St. Ide’s legendary early 90s ad campaign, “Shaolin Brew.” And unlike the previous album, the band invites some of their Big Crown Records labelmates to contribute guest spots; in fact, the first single off the “Tearz”/”Verbal Intercourse” 7 inch — and first single off the forthcoming album features Lee Fields and The Shacks’ Shannon Wise contributing vocals for the El Michels Affair rendition of “Tearz,” a rendition that pays as much homage to the Wendy Rene sample as it does to the Wu Tang while being subtly psychedelic.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of OWSLA’s Phonat, The Young Punx‘s Hal Ritson and Ali Jamieson, the production and electronic music artist trio Heavy Disco Soundystem recently released a slick and glittering Italo-disco remix of Kyle Dixon’s and Michael Stein’s “Kids,” off the Stranger Things Soundtrack that retains a portion of the original’s analog synth melody but adds  propulsive drum beat, cascading layers of shimmering synths turning the moody, John Carpenter-like original into a thumping, club-friendly track that sounds indebted to Giorgio Moroder and 90s house music.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past 18-24 months or so,  Berlin, Germany-based producer, electronic music artist and DJ Lennart Richter, a prolific artist and producer, who has released a series of singles through a number of renowned electronic music labels including Sleazy G, East Project, G-Mafia Records, GUN PWDR, Ensis Records, Blue Dye, Mondal Recordings and others has become one of a long list of this site’s growing mainstay artists — all while further cementing his reputation across Europe and elsewhere for composing, writing and releasing singles that explored the gamut of electronic music subgenres such as deep house, nu-disco and others with a slick, crowd-pleasing, club-rocking production. And unsurprising, Richter had several Beatport Top 25 releases under his belt, including his Berlin Brawling EP landing at  #10 on the Beatport Indie Dance/Nu Disco Charts.

Earlier this year, the Berlin, Germany-based producer, electronic music artist and DJ released an incredibly slick remix of Yes‘ “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” which retained the original vocal track but paired with a densely layered production that featured handclap-led percussion, slowly cascading synths — and while retaining something of the song’s original feel and spirit, turning the song into a mid-tempo club banger. Richter’s latest single “Still Hawt” is a retro-futuristic, 80s-inspired synth rock instrumental track that has the German producer and electronic music artist employing the use of shimmering layers of cascading analog synths paired with some blistering guitar work by Slync. Sounding as though it could have been part of a John Carpenter movie soundtrack, the duo manage to pay homage to a familiar sound while possessing a subtle yet contemporary slickness.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Deriving their name from the computing term “soft error” — or a fault occurrence in a digital memory system that changes an instruction in a program or a data value, Soft Error is an accomplished production and DJ duo of Tim and Rupert, who have been well-regarded in electronic music scenes and composition for film, theater and TV respectively. Their full-length debut Mechanism which is slated for a January 6, 2017 through Village Green Records was recorded at Valgeir Sigurðsson’s renowned Greenhouse Studios in Reykjavik, Iceland and draws from 1907s Krautrock, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Cliff Martinez, John Carpenter and Jon Hopkins — while also dimly nodding at the likes of Kraftwerk  and contemporary acts like Collapse Under the Empire.

“You Caught Up,” the duo’s cinematic and retro-futuristic debut single and first single off their forthcoming full-length was written and recorded in Paris, arranged in London and mixed in Iceland, consists of layers of shimmering and cascading synths, a sinuous bass line and propulsive drumming and a gorgeous wind section arrangement. Interestingly, the composition reveals a painterly nature, as each note and each chord adds a bit of texture and color like a brushstroke upon a canvas — while sounding as though it should be part of a soundtrack to a futuristic thriller.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps more popularly known as a co-founder of renowned indie electro pop act M83, Nicholas Fromageau, who left the project after the release of the act’s seminal album Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts, Fromageau (vocals, guitar) founded his own project, Team Ghost recruited fellow French musicians Christophe Guérin (vocals, guitar),  Benoit de Villeneuve (vocals, guitar, keys), Félix Delacroix (drums), and Pierre Blanc (bass) to flesh out the project’s overall sound. Following the release of several EPs, 2013’s full-length debut Rituals, tours with Crystal Castles and a set the inaugural Pitchfork Paris Festival, the members of the band found themselves in a bit of a creative rut before they ultimately found inspiration in an old analog synthesizer, along with the Blade Runner soundtrack and Kanye West‘s Yeezy among other things while blending it a bit with elements of feedback-filled guitar chords played through effects pedals, inspired by Sonic Youth and Slowdive. And the end result is the retro-futuristic and cinematic “The Riser,” the first single off the band’s forthcoming self-titled sophomore effort, slated for a December 2, 2016.

While possessing an icy and abrasive feel, and vocals fed through layers of vocoder, the song not not manages to be larger-than-life and anthemic, it simultaneously manages to nod at Chateau Marmont, Milemarker, Kraftwerk, and John Carpenter soundtracks while evoking an Orwellian, post-apocalyptic world of cyborgs, clones, nuclear waste, pollution, deprivation and unending strife. However, just underneath the icy and uneasy surface, there’s an aching and human yearning for much more — for another world in which the song’s narrator could truly be free.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Cinematic Sounds and Trippy Visuals of Sudden Beach’s “The Beast”

Sudden Beach is Guren’s solo side project of sorts and as he explained to me by email, the music he has created with the project, evokes suddenly coming upon a beach while traveling on a desert road. The project’s first single “The Beast” reminds me quite a bit of John Carpenter’s retro-futuristic soundtracks and Pink Floyd’s “On The Run” as the single consists of layers of undulating synths, cascading shimmering synths and samples of children yelling and talking.

As Guren explains of the video, “To feed the feeling of the music I’ve created, I’ve manipulated the footage taken from the cult documentary Koyaanisqatsi, the pictures of empty buildings without any human. I’ve added some sounds from the amazing Stranger Things, like human breath or playing children to this unmanned atmosphere and tried to emphasize to the past and the memory; to the life before the buildings were demolished. ”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Renowned Director and Composer John Carpenter Returns with an Eerie and Cinematic New Single Paired with Equally Creepy Visuals

Lost Themes II’s latest single “Utopian Facade,” is a moodily atmospheric and cinematic composition consisting of throbbing and insistent bass, cascading layers of shimmering synths, and a staccato, string-based sample in what may arguably be Lost Themes II’s most haunting and eeriest single while nodding at Carpenter’s imitable and familiar sound.

Produced and directed by Gavin Hignight and Ben Verhulst, the recently released video for “Utopian Facade,” is the story of an android’s nightmare, hidden in dark, murky forests, set in an uneasy yet relatively near future that feels and looks dimly familiar. As Hignight explains in press notes “We were instantly haunted upon hearing ‘Utopian Façade’. It conjured images of jagged tree branches, dark woods and things that go bump in the night. Our goal was to explore these feelings combined with the visuals of the electronic synth driven world established in the ‘Night’ video from the prior album.” Unsurprisingly Hignight and Verhulst manage to further emphasize the slowly creeping dread and horror within the song, while hinting at the dystopian future that seems almost inevitable.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

With the 2015 release of his debut effort Patterns, the now, Berlin-based electronic music artist and producer Mark Dobson and his solo recording project Ambassadeurs has received both national and international attention for a sound that draws from house music, hip-hop, dub, trip-hop, jazz and drum ‘n’ bass in a unique fashion. And as a result of his signature sound, Dobson quickly became a go-to producer, with the prolific producer and electronic music artist releasing work through a number of renowned labels including Tru Thoughts, Ninja Tune, Moshi Moshi, Fat Cat, Wah Wah 45s, Universal, and Rough Trade, while heading his own label, Lost Tribe Records and releasing a number of free singles for his rapidly growing fanbase.

Now, if you were frequenting this site towards the end of last year, you may recall that I wrote about “Halos,” a song that was written and recorded during a vacation in the country — and in some way, that vacation deeply influenced the track and its sound, as it was arguably one of the more organic singles the British producer has released to date as swirling electronics, soulful vocal samples and warm bursts of strings and twinkling keys were paired together in a song that seemed to be equally influenced by Peter Gabriel‘s  “Shock the Monkey” and “Biko,” as it is by house music as the song managed to be atmospheric and melodic, while possessing a cinematic quality.

Although Dobson is reportedly in the studio working on the highly-anticipated follow-up to 2015’s Pattern, he recently released the “Higher”/”Rapture” single reveals a producer and artist who has boldly pushed his sound into new and interesting directions. “Higher” is a slick and propulsive, house music-leaning production that pairs swirling electronics, gently chopped up vocal samples ethereally floating over dense and cascading layers of synths, skittering and stuttering drum programming and wobbling, tweeter and woofer rocking beats to craft a song that feels simultaneously intimate and cinematic, gorgeous yet hauntingly eerie. “Rapture” may be the most straightforward house music song the now Berlin-based producer has released to date as dense layers arpeggio synth stabs are paired with an eerie melody reminiscent of John Carpenter and Kraftwerk, along with propulsive, cymbal clap-led drum programming and a soulful vocal sample bubbling up and through the mix. Interestingly, sonically speaking “Rapture” reminds me quite of an uptempo version of Snap!‘s “Rhythm Is A Dancer” and Octo Octa‘s “Please Don’t Leave,” “His Kiss,” and “Work Me” which I think will further cement Dobson’s reputation for crafting thoughtful, dance floor-friendly house music.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Check Out This Live Studio Footage of John Carpenter Performing “Distant Dream”

If you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the better part of the past year, the renowned director, screenwriter, producer, editor and composter John Carpenter has quickly become a mainstay artist after last year’s critically and commercially successful album […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Retro-Futuristic Visuals and Sounds of Toronto’s Princess Century

Maya Postepski is a grizzled Toronto, ON music scene veteran, who is arguably best known as being a member of renowned electronic music act Austra, a prolific DJ and remixer, and for her work collaborating […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Last year, the renowned director, screenwriter, producer and composer John Carpenter released his first album of non-soundtrack-based music, Lost Themes to critical praise from an impressive array of major media outlets including The Guardian, The New York Times, The Times, Uncut, The Wire, The Los Angeles Times, NPR, Pitchfork, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, Artforum, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone and others. And as a result, the album was one of the most commercially successful albums released in Sacred Bones Records history, as the album debuted on the  Top 100 Charts in both the UK and US. Unsurprisingly, the album, which was recorded with Carpenter’s son Cody Carpenter and his godson Daniel Davies strongly confirms what cinephiles, sci-fi fans and Carpenter files have asserted for countless years — that the director’s work was not only years ahead of its time but that his work has managed to continually influence contemporary electronic music. In fact, artists like Red Traces and Umberto have released works that frequently seem indebted to Carpenter and his film scores.

Building on the buzz and success that Carpenter and Sacred Bones Records received after the release of Lost Themes, the director and the indie record label released Lost Themes Remixed, an album that featured remixes from the likes of  Zola Jesus, Silent Servant, Foetus‘ JG Thirwell, Skinny Puppy‘s ohGr, PAN Records‘ Bill Kouligas, and Uniform. (In fact, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few months, you might recall that I wrote about Uniform’s dance-floor ready remix of Carpenter’s “Vortex” and Zola Jesus and Dean Hurley’s techno-leaning rework of “Night.” But interestingly enough, Carpenter has been incredibly prolific, as Sacred Bones and Carpenter will be releasing a sequel to Lost Themes,  Lost Themes II on April 15.

The material on Lost Themes II is inspired and informed by a change in the creative process with Cody Carpenter, Daniel Davies and the acclaimed producer writing, working revising and recording in the same studio — and with all three collaborators working together, the result was a more focused effort, completed on a compressed schedule, in a similar fashion to Carpenter’s earliest films. Additionally, the material is much more nuanced and lush, as the trio of collaborators added acoustic and electric guitar to flesh out the material, as well as add texture. Last month, I wrote about Lost Themes II‘s first single,  “Distant Dream” pairs John Carpenter’s unmistakable minimalist synths with live drums, bursts of angular guitar and bass chords, and swirling electronics in a moody and tense composition that sounds as though it could be part of a taut, psychological thriller set in a dystopian future. Lost Themes II‘s second and latest single “Angel’s Asylum” pairs layers of dramatic and twinkling and undulating synths and ambient electronics with buzzing power chords and four-on-the-floor drumming in a composition that has the trio quickly building upon a theme but with subtle variations until a gently strummed acoustic guitar section paired with ambient electronics and synths and a gentle layer of twinkling synths form the composition’s coda. In many ways the song goes from an extremely dark and rock-like intensity to an ethereal beauty that arches heavenward at the end.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

John Carpenter is a director, screenwriter, producer, editor and composer most commonly known for working in some of the most beloved and influential, horror and science fiction films of the 70s and 80s, including Dark Star (1974), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Halloween (1978),The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981)The Thing (1982), Christine (1983), Starman (1984), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Prince of Darkness (1987), and They Live (1988) — with the Halloween theme being one of the most recognizable themes in movie history.

Last year, Carpenter released his first album of non-soundtrack based music, Lost Themes to critical praise from an impressive array of major media outlets including The Guardian, The New York Times, The Times, Uncut, The Wire, The Los Angeles Times, NPR, Pitchfork, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, Artforum, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone and others. Additionally, the album was one of the most commercially successful albums released in Sacred Bones Records history, as the album debuted on the Top 100 Charts in both the UK and US.

Unsurprisingly, the album, which was recorded with his son Cody Carpenter and the fameddirector, producer and composer’s godson Daniel Davies, the album confirms the fact that John Carpenter’s sound and aesthetic was not only ahead of its time but manages to be timeless and powerfully influential — with the work of artists like Red Traces, Umberto and others being deeply indebted to John Carpenter and his film scores. Now interestingly enough Carpenter closed out the last half of 2015 with the release of Lost Themes Remixed, an album that featured remixes from the likes of Zola Jesus, Silent Servant, Foetus‘ JG Thirwell, Skinny Puppy‘s ohGr, PAN Records‘ Bill Kouligas, and Uniform.

The incredibly prolific Carpenter will be releasing a sequel to Lost Themes,  Lost Themes II which is slated for an April 15 release through Sacred Bones Records. The material on Lost Themes II is inspired by a change in the creative process with Cody Carpenter, Daniel Davies and the acclaimed producer writing, working revising and recording in the same studio — and with all three collaborators working together, the result was a more focused effort, completed on a compressed schedule, in a similar fashion to Carpenter’s early films. Additionally, the material is much more nuanced and lush, as the trio of collaborators added acoustic and electric guitar to flesh out the material, as well as add texture.

Lost Themes II‘s first single “Distant Dream” pairs John Carpenter’s unmistakable minimalist synths with live drums, bursts of angular guitar and bass chords, and swirling electronics in a moody and tense composition that sounds as though it could be part of a taut, psychological thriller set in a dystopian future.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Roland Clark is a renowned Atlanta, GA-based house music producer, songwriter and vocalist who has recorded and released material under several different aliases including Houseboy, Keita, Jesus Jackson, People, Roland Clark Presents: Digital Pimps, Dark Clark and South Street Player, as well as releasing material under his own name. Clark has also been a member of Leviticus and Urban Soul — and has collaborated with Bob Sinclair, Todd Terry, Roger Sanchez and Fatboy Slim; in fact, “Song for Shelter,” borrows a sample from DJ Le Roi’s “I Get Deep” featuring Clark.

However, at their heyday Urban Soul was not just influential, they were commercially successful — the act had hit the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play Charts seven times during the 90s. And if you were in a club in the early 90s, you’d likely know of “Alright” one of Urban Soul’s biggest song. Skittering drum programming, thick, cascading synth chords and soulful yet ethereal vocals bubbling and floating over the mix. Although the song is now 25 years old, it manages to sound as though it could have been released within the few years — as though someone like 100% Silk Records.

Electronic music producer and artist Alexander Technique is best known for his time helping pioneer both the term and idea of the “mash up” with Princess Superstar when they launched DJs Are Not Superstars Records, where they both mixed rock, techno and 90s hip-hop, as well as releasing material under several genres and subgenres of electronic music including the work of Larry Tee, Harvard Bass, Etienne De Crecy, Zoo Brazil, Sia and others. Technique is also the co-founder of Drop Ready Records. The renowned producer, remixer, electronic music artist and label head recently remixed Urban Soul’s classic “Alright.” And as Technique explains in press notes “”The remix was originally about 7 minutes long but after playing it for Todd Terry and my label partner Pedro, they both suggested that I make it longer. Todd even got in and played some keys towards the end…”

Interestingly, the Alexander Technique remix pushes the song towards the 21st century as it pairs Clark’s soulful and sensual crooning with a dense and super slick production that sounds as though it channels both a John Carpenter soundtrack, if filtered through hyper modern European house music as layers of shimmering synth, layers of buzzing synth, are paired with explosive flashes of cymbal and skittering drum programming.