Tag: London UK

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays White Lies Share Funky and Incisive “Trouble In America”

Acclaimed London-based post-punk act and JOVM mainstays White Lies — Harry McVeigh (vocals, guitar), Charles Cave (bass, vocals) and Jack Lawrence-Brown (drums) — released their sixth album, the Ed Bueller and Claudius Mittendorfer co-produced As I Try Not To Fall Apart earlier this year.

Recorded over two breakneck studio sessions, As I Try Not To Fall Apart features what may arguably be White Lies’ most expansive material to date with the songs possessing elements of arena rock, electro pop, prog rock and funky grooves paired with their penchant for enormous, rousingly anthemic hooks. 

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the course of this year, you might recall that I’ve written about four of As I Try Not To Fall Apart singles

  •  “As I Try Not To Fall Apart,” a rousingly anthemic yet psychologically precise character study of a desperate man, who feels hopelessly stuck in a socially prescribed “appropriate” gender role, while also trying to express his own vulnerability and weakness. 

  • “I Don’t Want To Go To Mars,” one of the most mosh pit friendly, guitar-driven rippers the band has released in some time that tells a story of its main character being sent off to a new colonized Mars to live out a sterile and mundane existence. The band goes on to say: “Fundamentally the song questions the speed at which we are developing the world(s) we inhabit, and what cost it takes on our wellbeing.” 

  • “Am I Really Going To Die,” a glittery, glam rocker centered that seemed inspired by Roxy Music and Duran Duran, but thematically touches upon mortality and the uneasy acceptance of the inevitable 

  • “Blue Drift,” an expansive prog rock-like song centered around the rousingly anthemic hooks that White Lies has long been known for, a relentless motorik groove, Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar, thunderous drumming and glistening synths paired with McVeigh’s yearning delivery. The song captures a narrator, who’s a gaping wound of heartache and despair, uncertain of their footing and on the verve of a breakdown.

The London-based JOVM mainstays latest single “Trouble In America,” was recorded during the As I Try Not To Fall Apart sessions, but was ultimately cut from the album. However, “Trouble In America,” along with three other songs recorded during the AITNTFA sessions will appear on a bonus edition of the album that [PIAS] will release on October 21, 2022.

Centered around a John Taylor-like disco-friendly bass line, glistening and squiggling synths, thunderous drumming and a bombastic cock rock-meets-arena rock chorus paired with some incisive and politically charged lyrics about the current state in America that may remind folks a bit of American Psycho.

“We gave up on b-sides years ago, and went into making an album with the sole aim to fit the most cohesive 40mins of music onto two sides of a 12″ that we could,” White Lies explains. “Unfortunately, that means some music is sidelined at the final hurdle. ‘Trouble In America’ was the hardest song to leave off. It was written a couple of days after ‘Am I Really Going to Die’ and lives in the same world and energy. Desperation Funk? In this song we jump between the mind of a serial killer, and his good Christian teenage daughter as she realizes who…or what her father is and always has been. ‘My old man’s making trouble in America! Oh, lord, take the weight off me!’ she pleads over a cock-rock, Todd Rundgren-esque chorus. We have a history of bonus tracks becoming live favorites, and we’re putting a bitcoin on this horse to keep up tradition.”

Directed by the band’s Charles Cave, the accompanying video for “Trouble In America” is split between some surreal and disturbingly edited stock footage and the band’s McVeigh in what appears to be a coffin. Much like the song, the video happens to be an incisive critique on America and American capitalism.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Vacant Lots Share Slow-Burning and Brooding “Consolation Prize”

With the release of 2020’s Interzone through London-based psych label Fuzz Club, the Brooklyn-based psych duo The Vacant Lots — Jared Artaud (vocals, guitar, synths) and Brian McFayden (drums, synths, vocals) — crafted an album’s worth of material that saw the duo blending dance music and psych rock while maintaining the minimalist approach that has won the band acclaim across the international psych scene. 

The duo’s highly-anticipated fourth album Closure is slated for a September 30, 2022 release through Fuzz Club. Written during pandemic-related lockdowns, the eight-song Closure clocks in at 23 minutes and continues the Brooklyn-based duo’s established “minimal is maximal” ethos — all while being a soundtrack for a shattered, fucked up world. 

“During the pandemic the two of us were totally isolated in our home studios,” The Vacant Lots’ Jared Artaud says. “I don’t think the pandemic directly influenced the songs in an obvious way, but merely amplified existing feelings of alienation and isolation. We found ourselves writing in a more direct and vulnerable way than ever before.”

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

“Chase:” Written on a Synsonics drum machine and a Yamaha CS-10 synthesizer, “Chase” is firmly rooted in their long-held “minimal is maximal” ethos but while seeing the Brooklyn-based duo pushing their sound in a club friendly direction while still being lysergic. Arguably one of their most dance floor friendly songs, “Chase” is centered around what may be the most vulnerable and direct lyrics of their growing catalog with the song subtly suggesting that at some point we will all need to dance away our heartache — if only for a three or four minutes. 

“‘Chase’ is a song about longing, about the struggle of love across time zones,” The Vacant Lots’ Brian MacFayden explains in press notes. “It’s about the desire to close that gap of separation, but also the anticipation and excitement that builds between each encounter. It’s about a sense of knowing how it should be before it is.” The band’s Jared Artaud adds, “‘Chase’ has this duality that strikes a balance between wanting to dance and taking a pill that plunges you on the couch.”

“Thank You,” a dance floor friendly banger centered around a relentless and angular, arpeggiated baseline paired with a four-on-the-floor drum machine pattern, glistening synths, angular guitar buzz and sneering vocals. But while being a New Order-like banger, “Thank You” is a bitter tell-off to a people (and situations) that have wasted valuable time. 

“‘Thank You’ was built in the framework of simplicity,” The Vacant Lots Brian MacFayden says. “It has a relentless pace driven by an angular arpeggiated bassline and drum machine pattern. A Juno-6 was used for chords throughout, a Korg M500 for the leads, and the track is brought to another level with guitars layered on top. The process of crafting this song was done entirely remotely due to the pandemic and the layers over time became more and more refined until we were satisfied with each sound source.”

“Consolation Prize,” Closure‘s third and latest single continues the Brooklyn-based duo’s long-held minimal is maximal ethos but while leaning heavily towards industrial goth with the track being centered around droning synths, wiry bursts of guitar, some efficient thump paired with vocals expressing aching heartbreak and frustration. Sonically, the song sounds like a narcotic synthesis of Suicide, Iggy Pop, and New Order.

Filmed and edited by Alexander Schipper, the accompanying video follows a leather jacket-clad Katerina Samar walking through a park. Shot in grainy Super 8 black and white film, the video employs kaleidoscopic filters and old film stock to give the proceedings a slow-burning yet trippy air.

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Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Creedence Clearwater Revival Perform “Proud Mary” at Royal Albert Hall 4/14/70

When the members of Credence Clearwater Revival stepped onto the stage at London‘s Royal Albert Hall on April 14, 1970 — coincidentally, just days after The Beatles announced their breakup — the California band had arguably just become the biggest rock band in the world. In the preceding year, CCR had five Top 10 singles and three Top 10 albums — Bayou Country, Green River and Willy and the Poor Boys — on the American charts, outselling The Beatles. They had appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and played to over a million people across the country, including Woodstock. 

The band’s Southern fried, “swamp rock” sound” permeated global airwaves throughout 1969: “Proud Mary,” “Green River,” “Fortunate Son,” and “Down on the Corner” were in the Top Ten across Europe, North America and Australasia, while “Bad Moon Rising: hit #1 in the UK and New Zealand. The band managed to be both commercially and critically successful: Rolling Stone named them the “Best American Band.” The band started out the next year (and decade) with a hometown show at the Oakland Coliseum. Less than four months later, in April, CCR embarked on their first European tour, an eight show run that included stops in The Netherlands, Germany, France and Denmark. 

The members of CCR considered their two sold-out London shows to be a test of sorts, to measure the success of their first European tour. The first night of the two-night run, they opened with “Born on the Bayou.” And as they closed out the show with “Keep on Chooglin’.” the band was met with a 15-minute standing ovation from the the crowd. The next day, they received rave reviews from The Times and NME, who at the time, wrote “Creedence Clearwater Revival had proved beyond a doubt that they are, in more opinions than mine, the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World. In their capable hands, not only is the true spirit of rock music alive and well, but it is kicking like a mule.”

Just two years later, the band split up. But speculation around a live recording of the Royal Albert Hall show began to permeate through their fanbase in 1980. That same year Fantasy Records released a live album by the band, mistakenly titled The Royal Albert Hall Concert. But it was quickly discovered that the audio was from the Oakland Coliseum show a few months earlier. The label was forced to quickly sticker the album with corrections — and then they renamed the the January 1970 show, The Concert for later production runs. 

Interestingly as it turns out, those rumors about a long-lost recording of the Royal Albert Hall show are indeed true. Craft Recordings will be releasing the long-awaited live album Credence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall on 180-gram vinyl, CD and cassette tape on September 16, 2022. Select retailers will offer a variety of exclusive color variants on vinyl — Walmart will sell “Tombstone Shadow” colored vinyl, while Target will sell “Green River” colored vinyl. The album will also be available across the digital platforms. including in hi-res and Dolby ATMOS immersive audio formats. After spending almost 50 years in storage, the original multitrack tapes were meticulously restored and mixed by the Grammy Award-winning team of producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell, who have worked on The Beatles’ 50th-anniversary editions of Abbey Road and Sgt, Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and countless others. The LP was masted by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios using half-speed technology for the highest-quality listening experience. 

The live album presents the Royal Albert Hall show in its entirety while capturing CCR at the apex of their career. The set features:

  • A rollicking, live version of “Bad Moon Rising”

  • A furiously breakneck, live rendition of “Fortunate Son,” which features hard-hitting, incisive social commentary that still resonates 50 years after its release. And as a special peak of the documentary, live footage of the band performing the song at Royal Albert Hall was released.

The live album’s latest single is al loose and jammy rendition of CCR’s smash-hit “Proud Mary” paired with more live footage from the forthcoming documentary.

Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall will also be released concurrently with the Bob Smeaton-directed documentary concert film Travelin’ Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall. Narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Jeff Bridges, the film takes viewers from the band’s earliest years in El Cerrito, CA through their rise to fame. Featuring a treasure trove of previously unseen footage, Travelin‘ Band culminates with the band’s Royal Albert Hall show — marking the only known live concert footage of the original CCR lineup. 

By the way, on November 14, 2022 both the album and the film will be released in a Super Deluxe Edition Box Set. The 2-LP/2-CD/1-Blu-ray collection includes Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall on two 45-RPM 180-gram vinyl LPs as well as on CD. A second CD features music from the film, including formative recordings from the band’s earliest incarnations (including Tommy Fogerty and the Blue Velvets and The Golliwogs). The Blu-Ray offers the complete documentary film, plus the digital album in hi-res and Dolby ATMOS immersive audio. Limited to 5,000 copies globally, each individually numbered set is housed in a 12″ x 12″ box, with embossed gold foil detail and includes a reproduction of the original 1970s tour program, a 17″ x 24″ and a 16-page booklet, featuring an excerpt of Bridges’ voice-over script. 

The pre-order for the album and the various packages is here: https://craftrecordings.com/pages/creedence-clearwater-revival-at-the-royal-albert-hall

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rival Consoles Shares Glistening and Thumping “World Turns”

Ryan Lee West is a critically acclaimed, London-based electronic music producer, best known as Rival Consoles. Over the course of his 15-year career, the London-based electronic music producer’s work has diversified from the challenging electronic output of his early EPs to gradually become more conceptual and metamorphic: 2020’s Articulation used drawings and sketches to imagine and developed each track while last year’s Overflow explored themes of the human and emotional consequences of life surrounded by advancing technologies, including social media that was composed for choreographer Alex Whitley‘s contemporary dance production of the same name. 

West’s consistent desire to create a more organic, humanized sound often sees the acclaimed British producer often developing early ideas on guitar or piano; forming pieces that capture and evoke a sense of songwriting behind the electronics. His eighth album Now Is, is slated for an October 14, 2022 release through Erased Tapes. Reportedly featuring some of the most playful and melodic material of his catalog in some time, the album draws on music, as well as art, film, colors, shapes and human emotions. 

“The title of the record Now Is interests me because it is the beginning of a statement, but it is incomplete. I like art that is open and suggestive of ideas even if they are inspired by very specific things,” West explains. “With my previous record Overflow being very dark, heavy and almost dystopian, I wanted to escape into a different world with this music and ended up creating a record which is a lot more colorful and euphoric.”

Earlier this year, I wrote about the Autobahn-era and Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk-like album title track “Now Is,” track that was centered around a relentless motorik pulse and glistening synth arpeggios that evoked prismatic bursts of color exploding before the listener’s eyes.

“World Turns,” Now Is‘ third and latest single continues a remarkable run of material featuring a relentless motorik pulse — built from a propulsive bass line, glistening synths, and tweeter and woofer rattling, industrial thump — paired with a gently morphing song structure in which tempo and tone shift throughout its run time. It’s soulful, thoughtful electronic music with a human soul and beating heart.

“The essence of ‘World Turns’ is built around this pendulum-like bass, that constantly drives the piece forward,” West describes. “I like having parts in music which are repetitive but everything else is changing around it, almost like a kind of hidden structure, because the repetition becomes more subliminal.” 

“I think of this music as being like industry, the industry of stuff having to be made. The world carrying on doing things whether or not it is good or bad, relentlessly moving forward — sometimes chaotic, sometimes more ordered.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Hong Kong-based shoegazers outfit JOVM mainstays Lucid Express — Kim (vocals, synths), Andy (guitar), Sky (guitar), and siblings Samuel (bass) and Wai (drums) — can trace their origins back to 2014: the then-teenagers started the band, initially known as Thud, in the turbulent weeks before the Umbrella Movement, the most recent in a series of tense pro-democracy protests against the increasingly brutal state-led suppression in the region. Amidst the constant scenery of tear-gassed, bloodied and beaten protestors, politically-targeted arrests and death threats from government officials, the five Hong Kong-based musicians met in a small practice space in the remote, industrial Kwai Hing neighborhood. 

Despite the ugliness of their sociopolitical moment, the Hong Kong-based outfit manages to specialize in an ethereal and shimmering blend of indie pop, dream pop and shoegaze with their practice space being someplace where they could escape their world. “At that time, it felt like we have [sic] a need to hold on to something more beautiful than before. Like close friendships, the band, our creation,” the band’s Kim says in press notes. 

The band’s current name can be seen as a relatively modest mission statement describing the band’s intent: their use of the word lucid is in the poetic sense of something bright and radiant. Essentially, Lucid Express operates as the service to take the listener on a journey through their lush, dreamy and blissful sound. Interestingly, their material often manages to evoke the mood of its inception: with the band’s members working late-night shifts, their rehearsal and recording schedules found the band playing, writing and recording material between midnight and 4:00AM — and then crashing for a few hours in the studio, before heading back to their jobs. 

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past year or so, you might recall that the Hong Kong shoegazers released their 10-song, self-titled, full-length debut last year. The album’s material thematically touched upon being young, being in love and maneuvering through heartache in difficult and desperate times.

In the lead-up to the self-titled debut’s release, I wound up writing about four of the album’s singles:

  • “Wellwave,” a sculptured and lush soundscape centered around Kim’s ethereal vocals, glistening synths, skittering four-on-the-floor and a motorik groove — with the end result being a song that reminded me quite a bit of Lightfoils, Palm Haze and Cocteau Twins but while feeling like a lucid fever dream. 
  • “Hollowers” the only collaborative track on the album as it features The Bilinda Butchers‘ Adam Honingford, who contributes his baritone to the song’s chorus. Interestingly, the track found the Hong Kong-based outfit pushing their sound towards its darkest corners. While prominently featuring shimmering synth arpeggios and shimmering guitars, the song’s emotional heftiness comes from its stormy, feedback driven chorus. 
  • “Hotel 65” a song that alternates between shimmering and ethereal verses and anthemic choruses featuring thunderous drumming and feedback drenched power chords. And while evoking a brewing storm on the horizon, the song lyrically name drops the guesthouse where Lucid Express’ frontperson Kim Ho stayed in while visiting the UK — and speaks of a relationship that should have never happened between two strangers, who both know that their time together will only be brief moment. 
  • “North Acton,” the album’s opening track and fifth single, which continued a run of lush, sculptured and painterly soundscapes but paired with a propulsive and energetic four-on-the-floor. And while seemingly nodding at 4AD Records beloved heyday, “North Acton” serves as the perfect introduction to the band and their sound while arguably being one of the album’s most upbeat and hopeful singles. 

Several years before, their full-length debut, the Hong Kong-based JOVM mainstays, then-known as Thud released an EP, 2015’s Floret. The EP made an instant splash among local music lovers — and in a short period of time, they landed coverage from the likes of international publications like Time Out and NME. As a result of a growing national and international profile, the JOVM mainstays opened for the likes of Nothing, The Cribs, and Beach Fossils.

Floret was the first bit of original material that the JOVM mainstays wrote during a period that was understandably turbulent, both personally and politically. Surrounded by increasing politically-fueled violence and threats, an oppressive and weighty depression spread to the music scene. And with shows being canceled and releases stalled, Floret EP quietly slipped offline.

For the first time in years, Floret EP is set to return. Pressed onto vinyl for the first time, the EP’s material is fully remastered, repackaged with new artwork and expanded with remixes from some of the band’s favorite artists. The remixes bring an international flair to an EP originally tracked in Hong Kong with remixes of from Austin-based Ringo Deathstarr frontman Elliott Frazer, New York-based Orchin, Tokyo‘s For Tracy Hyde, Bavaria’s The B.V.’s and London-based Yuck‘s Max Bloom.

The expanded and reissued EP’s first single, EP opener “Lime” is a lush and dreamy bit of shoegaze featuring reverb-drenched guitar jangle, glistening, ambient synth arpeggios, and a motorik groove paired with ethereal vocals and an expansive, hook-driven song structure. Sonically, “Lime” may remind some listeners of Slowdive‘s 2018 self-titled album meeting Lightfoils’ 2014 effort Hierarchy — with the end result being a song with a gorgeous yet vulnerable song with enormous hooks.

Ringo Deathstarr’s Elliot Frazier’s remix of “Lime” removes the ambient guitar textures and gives the song a gritty feel by dialing up the bass into an insistent, warm crunch. The end result leaves Kim’s vocals exposed in the vocals, giving the song a visceral vulnerability, just as the song’s explosive choruses come.

The JOVM mainstays will be embarking on a lengthy Stateside tour — with most of the dates, opening for fellow JOVM mainstays Blushing. The tour includes an October 21, 2022 stop at Berlin Under A. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

10/21 | NYC, NY @ Berlin Under A
10/22 | Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie
10/23 | Ann Arbor, MI @ Blind Pig
10/24 | Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
10/25 | Memphis, TN @ Growlers
10/26 | TBA
10/27 | TBA
10/28 | San Antonio @ TBA
10/30 | Austin, TX @ LEVITATION (Empire)
10/31 | El Paso, TX @ MONA
11/1 | Phoenix, AZ @ Linger Longer
11/2 | Los Angeles, CA @ Resident

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Creedence Clearwater Revival Performs “Fortunate Son” at Royal Albert Hall 4/14/70

When the members of Credence Clearwater Revival stepped onto the stage at London‘s Royal Albert Hall on April 14, 1970 — coincidentally, just days after The Beatles announced their breakup — the California band had arguably just become the biggest rock band in the world. In the preceding year, CCR had five Top 10 singles and three Top 10 albums — Bayou Country, Green River and Willy and the Poor Boys — on the American charts, outselling The Beatles. They had appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and played to over a million people across the country, including Woodstock. 

The band’s Southern fried, “swamp rock” sound” permeated global airwaves throughout 1969: “Proud Mary,” “Green River,” “Fortunate Son,” and “Down on the Corner” were in the Top Ten across Europe, North America and Australasia, while “Bad Moon Rising: hit #1 in the UK and New Zealand. The band managed to be both commercially and critically successful: Rolling Stone named them the “Best American Band.” The band started out the next year (and decade) with a hometown show at the Oakland Coliseum. Less than four months later, in April, CCR embarked on their first European tour, an eight show run that included stops in The Netherlands, Germany, France and Denmark. 

The members of CCR considered their two sold-out London shows to be a test of sorts, to measure the success of their first European tour. The first night of the two-night run, they opened with “Born on the Bayou.” And as they closed out the show with “Keep on Chooglin’.” the band was met with a 15-minute standing ovation from the the crowd. The next day, they received rave reviews from The Times and NME, who at the time, wrote “Creedence Clearwater Revival had proved beyond a doubt that they are, in more opinions than mine, the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World. In their capable hands, not only is the true spirit of rock music alive and well, but it is kicking like a mule.”

Just two years later, the band split up. But speculation around a live recording of the Royal Albert Hall show began to permeate through their fanbase in 1980. That same year Fantasy Records released a live album by the band, mistakenly titled The Royal Albert Hall Concert. But it was quickly discovered that the audio was from the Oakland Coliseum show a few months earlier. The label was forced to quickly sticker the album with corrections — and then they renamed the the January 1970 show, The Concert for later production runs. 

Interestingly, those rumors about a long-lost recording of the Royal Albert Hall show are indeed true. Craft Recordings will be releasing the long-awaited live album Credence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall on 180-gram vinyl, CD and cassette tape on September 16, 2022. Select retailers will offer a variety of exclusive color variants on vinyl — Walmart will sell “Tombstone Shadow” colored vinyl, while Target will sell “Green River” colored vinyl. The album will also be available across the digital platforms. including in hi-res and Dolby ATMOS immersive audio formats. After spending almost 50 years in storage, the original multitrack tapes were meticulously restored and mixed by the Grammy Award-winning team of producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell, who have worked on The Beatles’ 50th-anniversary editions of Abbey Road and Sgt, Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and countless others. The LP was masted by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios using half-speed technology for the highest-quality listening experience. 

The live album presents the Royal Albert Hall show in its entirety while capturing CCR at the apex of their career. Of course, the set features their now, classic hits like “Proud Mary,” a rollicking, live version of “Bad Moon Rising” and a furiously breakneck, live rendition of “Fortune Son,” a song centered around hard-hitting and incisive social commentary that still resonates 50 years after its release. It shouldn’t be surprising that bands like U2, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Rise Against, and countless others have covered it.

Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall will also be released concurrently with the Bob Smeaton-directed documentary concert film Travelin’ Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall. Narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Jeff Bridges, the film takes viewers from the band’s earliest years in El Cerrito, CAthrough their rise to fame. Featuring a treasure trove of previously unseen footage, Travelin‘ Band culminates with the band’s Royal Albert Hall show — marking the only known live concert footage of the original CCR lineup.  So to build up a little buzz for the album and the documentary, the label and the director shared some live footage of Credence Clearwater Revival’s original lineup performing the song at Royal Albert Hall.

By the way, on November 14, 2022 both the album and the film will be released in a Super Deluxe Edition Box Set. The 2-LP/2-CD/1-Blu-ray collection includes Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall on two 45-RPM 180-gram vinyl LPs as well as on CD. A second CD features music from the film, including formative recordings from the band’s earliest incarnations (including Tommy Fogerty and the Blue Velvets and The Golliwogs). The Blu-Ray offers the complete documentary film, plus the digital album in hi-res and Dolby ATMOS immersive audio. Limited to 5,000 copies globally, each individually numbered set is housed in a 12″ x 12″ box, with embossed gold foil detail and includes a reproduction of the original 1970s tour program, a 17″ x 24″ and a 16-page booklet, featuring an excerpt of Bridges’ voice-over script. 

The pre-order for the album and the various packages is here: https://craftrecordings.com/pages/creedence-clearwater-revival-at-the-royal-albert-hall

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Flossing Shares Sultry and Menacing “All We Are”

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck and sideswiped everything, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician Heather Elle found themselves thrown from touring with buzz-worthy post-punk outfit The Wants (f.k.a. as BODEGA) and into a dizzying state of long overdue decompression. Aching to artistically progress, Elle felt the need to completely untether from both personal and professional entanglements: They left The Wants and a long-term relationship and quickly began writing and recording songs in their new bachelorette pad.

Elle dug up five-year old songs and song ideas written on the road and unexpectedly wrote last year’s confessional and hedonistic “Switch,” which pushed the Brooklyn-based artist to take their Flossing project further. Elle’s Flossing debut, Queen of the Mall EP was released to critical praise with critics describing the Brooklyn-based artist as a “mischievous pop poet” and the “newly appointed master of psychological provocative.”

Building upon growing buzz, Elle’s sophomore EP World Of Mirth is slated for an August 26, 2022 release through London-based Brace Yourself Records. The soon-to-be released EP continues the Brooklyn-based artist’s for being enigmatic and provocative, while excavating and proving into the self even further than before.

World Of Mirth‘s latest single, the smoldering “All We Are.” Centered around densely layered, tweeter and woofer rattling, Nine Inch Nails-meets-ADULT.-like industrial production paired with Elle’s alternating cooing and howling, “All We Are” is possess a sultry yet menacing quality that’s simultaneously irresistible and uneasy.

“Inspired by binge-watching Steven Soderbergh’s medical drama series The Knick at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — which is set in an ER in turn-of-the-century New York City — the song invokes themes of metaphysics, existentialism, pride, competition, and legacy,” Elle explains in press notes. “‘This is all we are,’ is the final line from the lead surgeon as he operates upon himself in front of a stadium of colleagues and doctors, attempting to outsmart death.”

Directed by Dylan Brannigan, the accompanying video for “All We Are” is shot through grainy VHS fuzz and emphasizes the song’s sultry yet menacing air.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Carla dal Forno Shares Hazy and Dreamy “Come Around”

Over the better part of the past decade or so of moving, writing, recording and touring out of Berlin and London, singer/songwriter, musician and Kallista Records label head Carla dal Forno relocated to Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia, where she wrote and recorded her third album Come Around.

Slated for November 4, 2022 release through her own Kallista Records, Come Around reportedly sees dal Forno grappling with ideas of home, disorder and insomnia with self-assured, enlightened songwriting and pop hooks.

Come Around‘s first single, album title track “Come Around” is a narcoleptic, meandering, dub-like take on indie pop featuring reverb and delay-drenched guitar and drums paired with dal Forno’s inviting, easy-going delivery. Centered around a seemingly effortless melodic simplistic and an unerring knack for a well-placed, infectious hook, “Come Around” feels like an open-ended invitation to stop by and stay awhile, to make yourself at home . . .

“’Come Around’ was inspired by a guy I used to play in a band with,” dal Forno explains. “I really admired the way he played guitar. He had this laid back strum that was effortless and cool. I was mucking around at home one day trying to imitate the way he played and I wrote ‘Come Around.’” Further adding: ”I wrote the song during a carefree springtime and I loved working on it while recording this album. There’s a lightness and openness to it, which I feel quite liberated by. It reminds me of a life I once had with very few responsibilities.”

The accompanying video by Ludovic Sauvage is red-hued — and despite dal Forno’s clothing, evokes lazy, hazy summer afternoons of daydreaming and hanging out without a particular plan.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Marion Belle is a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, who over the better part of the past decade, has released material as a solo artist, with late, longtime collaborator Sam Mehran, Yves Tumor’s Sean Bowie, and with his primary gig, Fatal Jamz.

With Fatal Jamz, Belle has toured with Sky Ferreira, Smiths Westerns, Lemon Twigs and Christopher Owens and a lengthy list of others. Back during the fall of 2018, Belle was closing out a raucous two year record cycle supporting his full-length debut Coverboy, an album that i-D called “a glam rock Romeo & Juliet.”

Returning to Los Angeles with a batch of new songs and fans craving more music, Belle was looking for ways to produce another album. Around that time, he met Sam Mehran, a London-based musician and producer, who quickly achieved fame, as a co-founder of Test Icicles, a band that he started with his friends Dev Hynes and Rory Atwell. Mehran was an obsession to all who knew him: At once kind, generous and warm, hilarious, brilliant, he would frequently vanish into a world of his own. As it turned out, he was used to being alone, or with his guitar, since he left home at 18.

One night, while in his secret world, Mehran hoped on a flight to Portland, OR, slipping out of the UK and out of Test Icicles forever. By the time, he had answered an email introduction and met Belle outside an East Los Angeles lockout, Mehran’s myth and work had traveled through a decade’s worth of talismanic lo-fi albums released under a variety of handles.

Upon his return to Los Angeles — and the neighborhood he called his spiritual home, the British-born producer and musician had tapped into a wildly prolific period, producing Samantha Urbani’s Policies of Power EP, Puro Instinct‘s Autodrama and Ssion’s 2018 full-length 0.

“He was tapped at the time we met,” said Belle. “He was like, man I’m tired of sitting behind laptops and doing this (mimics typing.) He was like, ‘I don’t care man.’” Spiritually wiped and struggling to come out of a painful place, and feeling cast aside, he and Belle found shared ground. “In my own way I was in a similar place. But we started writing right away because for both of us making music, the process of it, was always the solution, it was always the answer. 

Between February and late July wrote about ten tracks. “Promenade,” was written the first day they met. “I told Sam I was into the Bad Boy Records‘ production and played him a Mase song. We basically jumped into it from there. When we wrote “Way of Life,” we knew that we had an album because that song epitomized the kind of ride or die songs we both wanted to make. That song was our baby because it’s about how music is the way of life. 

On July 21, 2018 Belle dropped Mehran off at his apartment after spending the day in Van Nuys scoring a pair of NS-10 speakers. Mehran was set to mix their EP the next day. But tragically, that would be the last time the Belle would see Mehran again.

Sometime on July 27, 2018 Mehran committed suicide, succumbing to mental health challenges and demons he had battled throughout most of his life. “I think that our bond was profound because we both felt, after all we had each been through, we had been brought together for a reason,” Belle says of his collaboration and friendship with Mehran. “And that reason was to help each other to not give up. Sam lived and created in a different way. It was actual magic. And I knew every day that this chance to create with him was going to be one of the greatest treasures of my life. He was incredibly happy and up, up to that very last day we were together. We were going to take on the world, defeat all our own curses, and he was going to be everything he ever wanted to be. In losing Sam, so many people lost the light of their life. And the world lost so much incredible music.”

Belle’s long-awaited sophomore, full-length Fatal Jamz album is forthcoming.I’m sure more details will be coming in the near future. But in the meantime, the album’s second and latest single, the ethereal “Eternity” is centered around gentle layers of atmospheric synths and twinkling keys paired with a sinuous bass line, glistening guitars, a propulsive back beat and Belle’s achingly plaintive vocals. Written in the months following Mehran’s death, “Eternity” sonically manages to subtly bring Avalon-era Roxy Music to mind, as the new single is rooted in heartbreak and unfathomable and inexplicable loss.

“This song, and the whole album really, came to me from another place, truly like a gift from the gods to help me make something beautiful out of all that and heal, move forward positively,” Belle says. “Moments of ecstasy are always present, like doors for us to open anytime we choose. When I sing ‘Eternity’ and enter the music, I open that eternal doorway and ascend.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

When the members of Credence Clearwater Revival stepped onto the stage at London‘s Royal Albert Hall on April 14, 1970 — coincidentally, just days after The Beatles announced their breakup — the California band had arguably just become the biggest rock band in the world. In the preceding year, CCR had five Top 10 singles and three Top 10 albums — Bayou Country, Green River and Willy and the Poor Boys — on the American charts, outselling The Beatles. They had appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and played to over a million people across the country, including Woodstock.

The band’s Southern fried, “swamp rock” sound” permeated global airwaves throughout 1969: “Proud Mary,” “Green River,” “Fortunate Son,” and “Down on the Corner” were in the Top Ten across Europe, North America and Australasia, while “Bad Moon Rising: hit #1 in the UK and New Zealand. The band managed to be both commercially and critically successful: Rolling Stone named them the “Best American Band.” The band started out the next year (and decade) with a hometown show at the Oakland Coliseum. Less than four months later, in April, CCR embarked on their first European tour, an eight show run that included stops in The Netherlands, Germany, France and Denmark.

CCR considered their two sold-out London shows to be a test of sorts, to measure the success of their European tour. The first night of the two-night run, they opened with “Born on the Bayou.” And as they closed out the show with “Keep on Chooglin’.” the band was met with a 15-minute standing ovation from the the crowd. The next day, they received rave reviews from The Times and NME, who at the time, wrote “Creedence Clearwater Revival had proved beyond a doubt that they are, in more opinions than mine, the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World. In their capable hands, not only is the true spirit of rock music alive and well, but it is kicking like a mule.”

Just two years later, the band split up. But speculation around a live recording of the Royal Albert Hall show began to permeate through their fanbase in 1980. That same year Fantasy Records released a live album by the band, mistakenly titled The Royal Albert Hall Concert. But it was quickly discovered that the audio was from the Oakland Coliseum show a few months earlier. The label was forced to quickly sticker the album with corrections — and then they renamed the the January 1970 show, The Concert for later production runs.

Interestingly enough, those rumors about a long-lost recording of the Royal Albert Hall show are true. Craft Recordings will be releasing the long-awaited live album Credence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall on 180-gram vinyl, CD and cassette tape on September 16, 2022. Select retailers will offer a variety of exclusive color variants on vinyl — Walmart will sell “Tombstone Shadow” colored vinyl, while Target will sell “Green River” colored vinyl. The album will also be available across the digital platforms. including in hi-res and Dolby ATMOS immersive audio formats. After spending almost 50 years in storage, the original multitrack tapes were meticulously restored and mixed by the Grammy Award-winning team of producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell, who have worked on The Beatles’ 50th-anniversary editions of Abbey Road and Sgt, Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and countless others. The LP was masted by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios using half-speed technology for the highest-quality listening experience.

The album presents the show in its entirety and captures the band at the apex of their career — and features then band playing some of their now, classic hits like “Fortunate Son,” “Proud Mary,” and a rollicking, live version of “Bad Moon Rising,” the live album’s first single.

Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall will also be released concurrently with the Bob Smeaton-directed documentary concert film Travelin’ Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall. Narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Jeff Bridges, the film takes viewers from the band’s earliest years in El Cerrito, CA through their rise to fame. Featuring a treasure trove of previously unseen footage, Travelin‘ Band culminates with the band’s Royal Albert Hall show — marking the only known live concert footage of the original CCR lineup.

By the way, on November 14, 2022 both the album and the film will be released in a Super Deluxe Edition Box Set. The 2-LP/2-CD/1-Blu-ray collection includes Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall on two 45-RPM 180-gram vinyl LPs as well as on CD. A second CD features music from the film, including formative recordings from the band’s earliest incarnations (including Tommy Fogerty and the Blue Velvets and The Golliwogs). The Blu-Ray offers the complete documentary film, plus the digital album in hi-res and Dolby ATMOS immersive audio. Limited to 5,000 copies globally, each individually numbered set is housed in a 12″ x 12″ box, with embossed gold foil detail and includes a reproduction of the original 1970s tour program, a 17″ x 24″ and a 16-page booklet, featuring an excerpt of Bridges’ voice-over script.

The pre-order for the album and the various packages is here: https://craftrecordings.com/pages/creedence-clearwater-revival-at-the-royal-albert-hall

The album unboxing trailer, for those who are curious:

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rival Consoles Shares Glistening and Propulsive “Now Is”

Ryan Lee West is a critically acclaimed, London-based electronic music producer, best known as Rival Consoles. Interestingly, over the course of his 15-year career, the London-based electronic music producer’s work has diversified from the challenging electronic output of his early EPs to gradually become more conceptual and metamorphic: 2020’s Articulation used drawings and sketches to imagine and developed each track while last year’s Overflow explored themes of the human and emotional consequences of life surrounded by advancing technologies, including social media that was composed for choreographer Alex Whitley‘s contemporary dance production of the same name.

West’s consistent desire to create a more organic, humanized sound often sees the acclaimed British producer often developing early ideas on guitar or piano; forming pieces that capture and evoke a sense of songwriting behind the electronics. His eighth album Now Is, is slated for an October 14, 2022 release through Erased Tapes. Reportedly featuring some of the most playful and melodic material of his catalog in some time, the album draws on music, as well as art, film, colors, shapes and human emotions.

“The title of the record Now Is interests me because it is the beginning of a statement, but it is incomplete. I like art that is open and suggestive of ideas even if they are inspired by very specific things,” West explains. “With my previous record Overflow being very dark, heavy and almost dystopian, I wanted to escape into a different world with this music and ended up creating a record which is a lot more colorful and euphoric.”

Now Is‘ second and latest single, album title track “Now Is” is centered around a relentless motorik pulse and glistening synth arpeggios. Sonically while bringing Autobahn-era and Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk to mind, “Now Is” manages to evoke prismatic bursts of color exploding before your eyes.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Born in London to parents, who immigrated from India and Kenya, the rising British chamber pop/psych pop artist Saint Kochi has led an extraordinary and unusual life, that for a while got in the way of his real lifetime aim — to make music his entire life, not a part of it. There was so much that occupied his time: a flirtation with genuine stardom as a professional cricket player, parents who doubted hat anyone could survive with a career in the arts, and an unexpected career as a seller of massive ships. 

Saint Kochi continued to push forward with his lifelong dream of making music, releasing last year’s self-titled debut EP. Building upon the growing buzz of his debut EP, the British chamber pop and psych pop artist’s Dom Ganderton co-produced sophomore EP Almost Lost is slated for an August 10, 2022 release. Almost Lost reportedly is a bold-step forward for Saint Kochi as he crafts gorgeous music meant to transport the listener to another place.

So far I’ve written about two of the EP’s singles:

  • “Almost Lost,” a cinematic track that brought  The Beatles, Scott Walker, The Verve, and JOVM mainstays POND to mind — but while possessing an enormous sound, the song is rooted in intimate and lived-in lyricism that’s personal yet universal. 
  • “Out of Time,” a single that features a gorgeous string arrangement paired with a sumptuous bass line, boom bap-like drums, twinkling bursts of keys and Saint Kochi’s plaintive cooing. And much like its immediate predecessor, the widescreen vibes are rooted in intimate, lived-in experience.

Almost Lost‘s latest single, “Lifeline” continues a run of cinematic and swooning, orchestral pop rooted in personal yet universal experience. In the case of “Lifeline,” the desire to connect with another person, who understands you and is there for you during the most tumultuous and difficult periods and struggles of your life.

“Lyrically I think for me its about the importance of finding connections with people and a feeling of we are all in this together and if we can be there for each other, we can collectively get through and past whatever struggles we find along the way…” Saint Kochi explains in press notes.

While primarily recorded at Saint Kochi’s purpose-built basement studio, the string arrangement performed by the 14-piece string section was recorded at RAK Studios, where iconic albums like Radiohead‘s The Bends and a lengthy list of others was recorded. The string section fulfilled the rising British artist’s ambition of “making a record that had these big cinematic James Bond, Beatleseque type of strings on them.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: DELNUR Shares Sultry “Intimacy”

Vic Delnur is a Rio de Janeiro-born, New York-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, who can trace much of the origins of his career to growing up in a deeply musical home: Delnur grew up surrounding by synths, pianos and other instruments — thanks to the fact that his father is a maestro and producer, and his mother is a vocalist and art therapist.

With his mononymic electronic music project DELNUR, the Rio de Janeiro-born, New York-based artist’s work is informed by his Brazilian roots. as well as the time he has spent living and playing in London and New York. Lyrically, his work is informed by lived-in, personal experiences — and as a result, thematically the material touches upon anxiety, faith, relationships and life as an immigrant. Sonically, his work draws from early 80s disco, funk, neo-soul, psych pop and Brazilian music.

Earlier this year, the Rio de Janeiro-born, New York-based singer/songwriter and producer, released his debut single as DELNUR, “Mind-Brain-Body,” which quickly received attention nationally and internationally: Since its release, the track has amassed over 50,000 streams on Spotify. And with the attention surrounding both the artist and his debut single, Delnur was invited to play a set at this year’s Okeechobee Music Festival, where he shared a stage with Tame Impala, Jungle, Megan Thee Stallion and a list of other world-renowned acts.

DELNUR’s latest single “Intimacy” is a slow-burning, sultry bop centered around glistening and wobbling synths, skittering beats, the Rio de Janeiro-born, New York-based artist’s plaintive and vulnerable delivery paired with an infectious, razor sharp hook. Sonically, the track sees Delnur effortlessly mesh elements of electro pop, alternative pop, Quiet Storm soul to create something warmly familiar yet completely new.

The accompanying video by Monochroma Films is sumptuous fever dream — and a photographer’s dream: We see a woman dancing in a field at night, lit by headlights; photo shoots in monochromatic color schemes and in lush colors. And throughout, there’s a sense of longing and unrequited desire for the gorgeous woman at the center of it all.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Brooklyn’s The Vacant Lots Share Vulnerable and Trippy, Dance Floor Friendly Bop

With the release of 2020’s Interzone through London-based psych label Fuzz Club, the Brooklyn-based psych duo The Vacant Lots — Jared Artaud (vocals, guitar, synths) and Brian McFayden (drums, synths, vocals) — crafted an album’s worth of material that saw the duo blending dance music and psych rock while maintaining the minimalist approach that has won the band acclaim across the international psych scene.

The duo’s highly-anticipated fourth album Closure is slated for a September 30, 2022 release through Fuzz Club. Written during pandemic-related lockdowns, the eight-song Closure clocks in at 23 minutes and continues the Brooklyn-based duo’s established “minimal is maximal” ethos — all while being a soundtrack for a shattered, fucked up world.

“During the pandemic the two of us were totally isolated in our home studios,” The Vacant Lots’ Jared Artaud says. “I don’t think the pandemic directly influenced the songs in an obvious way, but merely amplified existing feelings of alienation and isolation. We found ourselves writing in a more direct and vulnerable way than ever before.”

Closure‘s first single “Chase” was written on a Synsonics drum machine and a Yamaha CS-10 synthesizer. While firmly rooted in their “minimal is maximal” ethos, “Closure” sees the acclaimed Brooklyn-duo pushing their sound in an increasingly club friendly direction thanks to thumping beats and glistening synth arpeggios — while still possessing a lysergic quality. “Closure” may well be perfect for late nights under strobe lights, the song features what may arguably be the most vulnerable and direct lyrics of their growing catalog. It’s as though the song is subtly suggesting to that the listener dance the heartache away for a few minutes.

“‘Chase’ is a song about longing, about the struggle of love across time zones,” The Vacant Lots’ Brian MacFayden explains in press notes. “It’s about the desire to close that gap of separation, but also the anticipation and excitement that builds between each encounter. It’s about a sense of knowing how it should be before it is.” The band’s Jared Artaud adds, “‘Chase’ has this duality that strikes a balance between wanting to dance and taking a pill that plunges you on the couch.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Javier Moreno and Los Amigos Perform “La Escalera” at Masterlink Studios

Javier Moreno is an emerging Barcelona-born and-based singer/songwriter and guitarist. Along with his backing band Los Amigos which features musicians from Spain, Cuba, Brazil and Peru, Moreno has spent the past 12 years touring extensively throughout London and the rest of the UK.

Although Moreno has returned to Barcelona to work on his forthcoming Joe Dworniak-produced third album, earlier this year, Moreno and his backing band recorded a live session at Masterlink Studios in Guildford, UK. The two song session features “Despedida” off last year’s Uno EP and “La Escalera” a shuffling groove-based cumbia that’s a feel good summer banger paired with an unfitting message.

The live footage of the band performing “La Escalera” was shot in a single take and captures their live energy and unbreakable simpatico.