Tag: LADYGUNN

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of Oceans EP, Blonde Maze, the acclaimed recording project of New York-based singer/songwriter. electronic music artist and producer Amanda Steckler received attention from this site and elsewhere across the blogosphere for slickly produced synth pop centered around earnest lyricism, documenting her experiences, feelings and thoughts. Since Oceans EP, Steckler has released a handful of singles including “Antartica,” “Thunder” and others to praise from Billboard Pride, DJMag, XLR8R, Impose Magazine and many others, as well as love and support from BBC1, MrSuicideSheep, and MTV Radar.

Adding to a growing profile, Steckler’s material has landed on several Spotify and Apple Music playlists, including Spotify’s US Viral 50, as well as landing at #1 on Hype Machine‘s No Remixes chart. LADYGUNN named her an “artist you should’ve seen at SXSW 2018″ — and she’s opened for the likes of The Shadowboxers, Elderbrook and Vallis Alps. During that same period of time, the JOVM mainstay also released collaborations with a number of established and up-and-coming electronic music producers including including the Iowa City, IA-born, Duluth, MN-based electronic music artist and producer Kyle Stern, best known as Attom. 

The New York-based electronic music artist, electronic music producer and JOVM mainstay begins her 2021 with a cover of Mazzy Star‘s beloved, 1993 smash hit “Fade Into You.” While replacing the jangling guitars, twinkling keys and tambourine of the beloved original with shimmering and atmospheric synths, synth click and skittering beats, the Blonde Maze cover retains both vocal melody and the swooning and urgent yearning of the original — but the end result is more of a contented sigh.

“IMO it’s kind of a blissful/happy take on the beautifully yearning original,” Steckler wrote to me in an email. “I’ve been listening to the original for years — probably a decade now — and still love it. Hope Sandoval and David Roback really created a gem.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Jacque Ryal is an an emerging singer/songwriter, keyboardist and pop artist, who first emerged into the local scene as a vocalist and keyboardist in pop act Strip Darling before boldly going forward as a solo artist. Ryal began her solo career crafting Portishead-inspired trip-hop. Interestingly, her latest project RYAL which finds her collaborating with producer and songwriter Aaron Nevezie has received attention from The Best Line of Best Fit, Time Out New York, LadyGunn, Popdust and elsewhere for work that has been compared favorably to Little Dragon and Portishead.

Anna Azarov Photography

 

RYAL’s latest single is the atmospheric and slow-burning “Where Did All The Love Go.” Centered around Jacque Ryal’s heavily vocoder’ed and auto-tuned vocals, stuttered beats,  shimmering synth arpeggios and an infectious hook, the song is an achingly bittersweet lament that focuses on a relationship with hot and heavy beginnings that has slowly and inexplicably cooled off. Throughout the song, its heartbroken narrator is fighting to find answers and keep the relationship intact — but on a certain level, there’s tacit understanding that this valued relationship is bound to end. Certainly, we’ve all been there and it’s an embittering and wrenching experience.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Los Angeles-based Indie Act Polartropica Releases a Swooning, Queer Meet Cute

Led by its Taiwanese-born, Los Angeles-based creative mastermind Ihui (pronounced as Eeway) Cherise Wu and featuring Andrew Lessman, Graham Chapman and Alexander Noice, the Los Angeles-based indie act Polartropica has received attention locally and elsewhere for an ethereal and spacey taken dream pop that’s centered around organic and synthetic instrumentation, quickly pop melodies and classical string arrangements. Musically, Wu aims to allow listeners to let their imaginations run wild, with the hopes that her work is a little escape from the harshness of reality — if even just for a little bit. “I wanted to create a healing, inspiring and empowering space with just the right amount of disco-party,” Wu says. 

Last year, Wu and company were named LA Weekly’s Best Indie Pop Band of 2019 and received praise from Billboard, LADYGUNN and others. Polartropica’s recently released, full-length debut Dreams Comes True further cements the band’s attention grabbing sound while building upon a rapidly growing profile. Thematically, the album draws from stories of people she knows, world news and Wu’s experiences as a queer Asian-American living in California, which imbues the material with a deeply personal air. “In Another Life,” Dreams Come True’s latest single is a perfect example of the band’s genre-mashing, difficult to pigeonhole sound and approach. Centered around a sinuous and strutting, disco-styled bass line, shimmering and atmospheric synths, four-on-the-floor drumming, Wu’s ethereal vocals and an infectious hook, the song is a swooning and dreamy yet dance floor friendly take on dream pop. Thematically, the song focuses on karmic love, and the heart falling into your stomach feeling when meeting someone for the first time and yet it feels like you’ve known them forever. 

Written by Wu and directed by Stephanie Kim, the recently released video for “In Another Life” is the first part of a video trilogy — and it’s a boldly queer fever dream that plays on Grease and James Dean movies, complete with an adorable meet cute between the video’s protagonists.