Tag: London UK

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Emerging British Artist Shana Releases a Sultry and Self-Assured Banger

Shana is an emerging London-based, Nigerian-British artist. Her second and latest single “No Rainy Days” is a slick and self-assured mix of Quiet Storm R&B and dancehall, centered around stuttering beats, shimmering synth arpeggios, an infectious radio friendly hook, and the rising British artist’s sultry vocals. Coming from — presumably — a new artist, the song is a breezy yet grown and sexy declaration of desire, longing and devotion that feels like a contented sigh.

Filmed and edited by Oliver Brian Productions, the recently released video for “No Rainy Days” follows the emerging artist through her daily life in London while spending time with her beau — and it captures two absolutely beautiful black people in love.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Psymon Spine Teams Up with MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden on a Glittery Club Banger

Rapidly rising Brooklyn-based psych pop/dance pop act Psymon Spine can trace its origins to when founding duo Noah Prebish and Peter Spears met while attending college. Bonding over mutual influences and common artistic aims, the duo went off to tour Europe with Prebish’s electronic act Karate. While in Paris, Spears and Prebish wrote their first song together and when they got to London, they were offered a record deal.

Upon returning to the states, Spears recruited Micheal “Brother Micheal” Rudinski and their Karate bandmates Devon Kilbern, Nathaniel Coffey to the band — and with that lineup they fleshed out the demos, which would eventually become their full-length debut, 2017’s You Are Coming to My Birthday. The members of the rising Brooklyn-based act then supported the album with immersive art and dance parties through their Secret Friend series across Brooklyn, as well as relentless touring.

Simultaneously, Prebish’s work with rising Brooklyn-based dream pop act Barrie began to receive quite a bit of attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere with a handful of buzz-worthy singles and their critically applauded full-length debut, last year’s Happy to Be Here. Interestingly, this led Prebish to meet his Barrie bandmate, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Sabine Holler, who then joined Psymon Spine.

“Milk,” a collaboration with their former bandmate Barrie was the first bit of new material by the Brooklyn-based act inn three years — and it’s the first recorded output with their newest member Sabine Holler. Since the single’s release, it has received airplay on BBC Radio 6 and earned praise from a number of media outlets including Vanyaland, High Clouds, Echowave Magazine, The Revue, Hype Machine and a list of others. The track also landed on a number of YouTube channels including David Dean Burkhart‘s. Nice Guys‘ and Birp.fm, as well as Spotify playlists like Undercurrents, All New Indie and Fresh Finds. Additionally, Apple Music’s Matt Wilkinson featured the track. None of this should be surprising: the track sonically recalls In Ghost Colours-era Cut Copy and Soft Metals‘ Lenses –but with a mischievously coquettish air that makes it a club friendly banger.

The Andrew VanWyngarden-produced and cowritten “Modmed” is a glittering and strutting disco-tinged track, centered around wobbling low end, glistening synth arpeggios and a sinuous bass line and a soaring hook. While drawing from 80s New Wave and classic house music, the track interestingly enough, is deceptively and ironically upbeat: the track actually captures the ambivalent and confusing mix of frustration, doubt and relief of a relationship that’s finally come to a conclusion. In particular, the song actually describes Prebish’s and Holler’s decision to leave Barrie and focus on Psymon Spine full-time.

“Psymon Spine invited me into the studio one winter’s day and we had a fun and funky time ripping Juno basslines and dialing in lush tones,” Andrew VanWyngarden recalls in press notes. “I like that their dj and record digging knowledge comes through distinctly on this track.”

Directed by the band and edited by Noah Prebish, the recently released video for “Modmed” is a delirious and playful lo-fi visual in which we see the members of the band goofing off and rocking out to the song in a variety of situations. This is split with footage of the members of the band actually performing the song. It’s all run through trippy filters and VHS-styled graininess, which also helps enhance the track’s retro-futuristic vibe.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Still Corners Release Eerie and Cinematic Visual for Shimmering “The Last Exit”

Through the release of 2012’s Creature of an Hour, 2013’s Strange Pleasures, 2016’s Dead Blue and 2018’s Slow Air, the London-based dream pop act and JOVM mainstays Still Corners — vocalist and keyboardist Tessa Murray and multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter Greg Hughes — have sonically bounced between chilly and atmospheric synth pop and shimmering guitar-driven desert noir.

Slated for a January 22, 2021 release through Wrecking Ball Records, the London-based JOVM mainstays’ fifth album The Last Exit sonically continues where its predecessor Slow Air left off — 11 songs centered around shimmering and carefully crafted arrangements of organic instrumentation and Tessa Murray’s smoky crooning. Thematically, The Last Exit takes the listener on a hypnotic journey filled with dilapidated and abandoned towns, mysterious shapes on the horizon and long trips that blur the line between what’s there and not there. “We found something out there in the desert – something in the vast landscapes that went on forever,” Greg Hughes says in press notes.

Interestingly, the album was brought into further focus as a result of pandemic-related lockdowns and quarantines. “There’s always something at the end of the road and for us it was this album. Our plans were put on hold – an album set for release, tours, video shoots, travel,” Tessa Murray explains. “We’d been touring nonstop for years, but we were forced to pause everything. We thought the album was finished but with the crisis found new inspiration and started writing again.” Three of the album’s songs — “Crying,” “Static,” and “‘Till We Meet Again” were written during this period and they reflect upon the profound impact of isolation and the human need for social contact and intimacy.

The Last Exit’s first single, album title track “The Last Exit” is centered around a cinematic arrangement that evokes large, indifferent skies, dusty two-laned blacktop — twinkling keys, subtle blasts of shimmering steel pedal and harmonica, jangling guitar and a galloping beat paired with Murray’s gorgeous vocals and a soaring hook. And while sounding as though it could have been part of the Slow Air sessions, “The Last Exit,” manages to find the duo subtly pushing their sound towards the direction of an Ennio Morricone soundtrack.

Thematically, the song makes a subtle nod to classic Delta Blues, as its exhausted narrator inexplicably feels compelled to inexplicably get in her car and hit the road — without any particular destination in mind. And while written as a sort of love letter to the lover, she’s left behind, the song can also be read as a slow-burning, journey into purgatory.

Directed by the band’s Greg Hughes. the recently released video for “The Last Exit” is the last portion of the duo’s Road Trilogy, following the videos for “The Trip” and “The Message.” Inspired by the 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock, the video begins with Murray abandoning her stalled car and being pulled into the mysterious rocks of Joshua Tree. “In a world where everyone thinks all the corners of the map are filled in we like to suggest there’s something beyond that, something eternal in the landscape and in our psyche,” Tessa Murray explains. “Maybe you don’t see it every day but it’s there and that’s what we are trying to connect to.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Psymon Spine Teams Up with Barrie on a Shimmering Pop Confection and Playful Visual

Rising Brooklyn-based psych pop/dance pop act Psymon Spine can trace its origins back to when founding and core members Noah Prebish and Peter Spears met while attending college. Bonding over mutual influences and common artistic aims, the duo went off to tour Europe with Prebish’s electronic act Karate. While in Paris, Spears and Prebish wrote their first song together and when they got to London, they were offered a record deal.

Upon returning to the states, Spears recruited Micheal “Brother Micheal” Rudinski and their Karate bandmates Devon Kilbern, Nathaniel Coffey to the band — and with that lineup they fleshed out the demos, which would eventually become their full-length debut, 2017’s You Are Coming to My Birthday, which they supported with immersive art and dance parties through their Secret Friend series across Brooklyn and some relentless touring.

Simultaneously, Prebish’s work with rising Brooklyn-based dream pop act Barrie began to receive quite a bit of attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere with a handful of buzz-worthy singles and their critically applauded full-length debut, last year’s Happy to Be Here. Interestingly, this led Prebish to meet his Barrie bandmate, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Sabine Holler, who then joined Psymon Spine.

“Milk” feat. Barrie is the first bit of new material from the Brooklyn-based psych pop/dance pop act in three years — and it’s the first recorded output with their newest member Sabine Holler. Since the single’s release, it has received airplay on BBC Radio 6 and it has earned praise from a number of media outlets including Vanyaland, High Clouds, Echowave Magazine, The Revue, Hype Machine and a list of others. The track also landed on a number of YouTube channels including David Dean Burkhart’s. Nice Guys’ and Birp.fm, as well as Spotify playlists like Undercurrents, All New Indie and Fresh Finds. Additionally, Apple Music’s Matt Wilkinson featured the track. And when you hear the new track, the attention its earned shouldn’t be surprising: the track is centered around an angular bass line, shimmering guitars, glistening synth arpeggios, thumping beats, a punchy and anthemic hook, and Barrie’s sultry vocals. Sonically, the track may remind some listeners of In Ghost Colours-era Cut Copy and Soft Metals’ Lenses –but with a mischievously coquettish air that makes it a club friendly banger.

Directed by Maya Prebish, Noah’s sister, the recently released video for “Milk” uses the wildly popular video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons and features each member of the band as a game avatar. And of course, each member of the band does something within the game — including play (sort of) an outdoor set, fish, sit in cafes and daydream.

“We were trying to come up with a way to shoot a music video together during a pandemic, with Sabine stuck in Germany and Barrie being god-knows-where,” Noah Prebish says of the new video made during pandemic-related social distancing and quarantine guidelines. “I remembered that my sister is a genius wizard and Nintendo dork and thought: ‘what’s more quarantine than a hap-hazard Animal Crossing video organized via a bunch of confusing Zoom calls?'” The video’s director, Maya Prebish, adds: “When Noah came to me with the idea, I jumped onboard right away. It was a lot of fun turning Psymon Spine and Barrie into villagers, and I think it was a super fun way to bring everyone together even though they’re dispersed all over the world at the moment. I don’t think any of them know how to fish in real life, but that’s creative license.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of 2014’s self-titled debut through Shelflife Records, the trans-national based shoegazer/dream pop act The Luxembourg Signal — currently, Beth Arzy (vocals), Betsy Moyer (vocals), Johnny Joyner (guitar), Brian Espinoza (drums), Ginny Pitchford (keys), Daniel Kumiega (bass) and Kelly Davis (guitar) — quickly attracted a loyal following while receiving overwhelmingly breathless praise for crating material centered around ethereal vocals and lush soundscapes, paired with a pop sensibility. 

The Luxembourg Signal’s sophomore album 2017’s Blue Field saw the band’s sound moving towards a much more developed, darker and bolder sound — perhaps as a result of the band expanding to their current lineup. 

The band, which features members split in London, Los Angeles and San Diego returned to the studio with Mark Rains to write and record their upcoming third, full-length album The Long Now. Deriving its name from a phrase coined by the legendary Brian Eno, the title refers to a long-term way of perceiving time, that’s an alternative to the accelerated way we often experience our lives. Essentially, viewing our lives this way allow us to make sense of our brief and noisy time together, by understanding our place in a much larger timeline with history playing its own course.  Interestingly, the 10 song album which is slated for an October 23, 2020 release through Shelflife Records and Spinout Nuggets thematically sees the trans-national septet imagining a blurred horizon that lies between light and dark and the fleeting nature of — well, everything. 

The Long Now’s latest single “2:22,” which coincidentally has a runtime of 2:22 is an anthemic and breakneck song that sees the act further cementing their reputation for crafting lush soundscapes paired with ethereal vocals — but in this case, there’s a subtle bit of grit and grime at edges that gives the song an emotional punch. Thematically, the song deals with the emotional and mental paralysis and insecurities of our digital world the evokes the overwhelming and confusion array of emotions that constantly being plugged in evokes.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Led by frontman Zac Woolery, the London-based post-punk act DEADLETTER emerged into the national scene with the release of their debut single “Good Old Days” earlier this year, which received airplay on regional BBC and BBC 6. Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the rising London-based act’s second single “Fit For Work” is an angry, attention-grabbing track featuring the angular guitar attack that recalls Entertainment!-era Gang of Four, centered around an alternating quiet verses, a No Wave-like, explosive chorus and call-and-response vocals.

Although the song has a decidedly British point of view, the song thematically focuses on our seemingly unending Kafkaesque hellscape of cruelly indifferent bureaucrats, and ridiculous laws and regulations that crush dreams, hopes and lives — in particular, governments and institutions that force people to work in the most absurd situations to get by — or to get a little bit of money from the government. “‘Fit For Work’ was a concept a long time before it was a song,” DEADLETTER’s Zac Woolery explains in press notes. “As a band, and as a writer, we [I] have always regarded the call and response strategy as biblical. The idea of having a conversation during the delivery of art leads to this absurd metaphysical tangent of acknowledging your art is art whilst performing it; similar to when artists use the line “I wrote this song for you because…” what they are doing, when you think about it, is taking away the idea that what they’re creating exists in itself, and is in fact an entity that exists in a wholly real world.

“As a song, “Fit For Work” is about more than just the Department for Work and Pensions. It provides a mirror to the world, and specifically the Britain of today.  The ideas explored within the track are seemingly exaggerated accounts of reality but, upon close examination, have worrying roots in true experience, with the track aiming to parallel the savagery of the narrator in the song with the actual brutality of our government.

“The declaration of someone as ‘Fit For Work’ is symptomatic of the apathy and bureaucratic cruelty prevalent in society, where being unable to meet a certain ticked number of boxes (either literally or metaphorically), equates to the surrender of personal autonomy, and by extension, individual identity.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially founded in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico by Estrella del Sol Sanchez and Amor Amezcua, the Mexican shoegazer act Mint Field quickly received international attention with the release of their debut EP Primeras Salidas, eventually playing sets across the North American festival circuit, including Coachella and SXSW, as well as venues across both the States and their native Mexico. Building upon a growing profile, Mint Field’s full-length debut, 2018’s Pasar De Las Luces found the act establishing a clearer sense of what they wanted to do sonically — primarily, as a result of finally having access to the tools to do so. The end result was an album’s worth of material that drew from dream pop, krautrock, stoner rock and shoegaze, imbued with sorrow and nostalgia.

The past couple of years since the release of Pasar De Las Luces has been rather eventful for the Mexican shoegazer act: they’ve toured extensively across the North America and the European Union, playing over 100 shows. Continuing that momentum, the band recorded Pasar De Las Luces’ follow-up, last year’s  Mientras Esperas EP, which they supported with further touring across the States, Canada and Mexico — with two sold out shows in Mexico City.

During that same period, the band relocated to Mexico City and upon relocating to the Mexican capital, the band went through a massive lineup change: Amor Amezcua left the band, and the band then expanded into a trio with the addition of Sebastian Neyra and the band’s newest member, Ulrika Spacek’s Callum Brown. Capping off a series of monumental changes for the acclaimed Mexican act, they signed to Los Angeles-based post punk label Felte Records.

Slated for a September 25, 2020 release, the band’s Syd Kemp-produced sophomore album Sentimiento Mundial was recorded at London‘s Wilton Way Studio, and the album reportedly sees the band’s sound shifting towards a decidedly minimal, rhythmically focused approach. The album will feature the meditative “Natural,” and the motorik groove-driven “Contingencia,” and the lushly textured  Pink Floyd-like “Delicadeza.”

“Aterrizar,” Sentimiento Mundial‘s fourth and latest continues a run of slow-burning, painterly material, centered around shimmering yet angular guitars, propulsive drumming, del Sol Sanchez’s plaintive and ethereal vocals and a soaring hook. Interestingly, the track manages to recall Slowdive and The Verve-like shoegaze — but imbued with an aching nostalgia for a seemingly innocent past that we can’t get back.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Flamingods’ Kartik Poduval Returns with a Kaleidoscopic Visual for Summery Club Banger “Mañana Groove”

Karthik Poduval is a London-born, Indian-British DJ and producer, best known as a founding member of the acclaimed tropical psychedelic band Flamingods. Poduval’s latest solo project Mera Bhai, which derives its name from the affection Hindi greeting “my brother,” is informed by his own personal experiences: he’s spent time living in Italy, Albania, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Nigeria — and naturally that experience has seeped into his own globe-spanning, border-crossing, genre-defying take on dance music, which incorporates elements of Indian Carnatic, Arabic Rai, 70s disco, Acid House, Detroit techno and Tropicalia. “Having grown up all over the world, I was surrounded by a wealth of different sounds — i’m just trying to weave the cultural through line that I hear in music.”

Earlier this year, I wrote about Poduval’s Mera Bhai debut, a bootle remix of Ahmed Fakroun‘s “Jama El F’na,” which retained the shimming instrumentation of the original and Fakroun’s vocals but sped the tempo up quite a bit, to give the song a decided Tour de France-era Kraftwerk/Primal Scream/Kasabian-like feel to the proceedings: layers of synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rocking boom bap and industrial clang and clatter. Both the original and its remix are club bangers — but the remix manages to sound as though it could have been released in 1992, 2002, 2020 or 2032.

Poduval’s latest Mera Bhai single “Mañana Groove,” a summery club banger, centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, hot hi hats, stuttering tweeter and woofer rocking beats and vocodered vocals within an expansive mind-bending song structure. Sonically, it’s one part Kraftwerk, one part Primal Scream and one part deep house. And its core is a carefree, let’s worry about it all tomorrow vibe, which feels so very appropriate right now. While continuing upon his growing reputation for synthesizing a wide variety of sounds, “Mañana Groove” is inspired by Todd Terje’s “Inspector Norse” and features a samples from Mr. Bongo Records reissue of Cissé Abdoulaye’s “A Son Magni.” “I wanted to take this tune that’s already in my DJ record bag to another dimension,” Poduval says. “It also gives a nod to one of my favourite anthems ‘Pacific State’ by 808 State, which frames summertime feels for me. 

“I wrote this track during a pretty tumultuous time of my life where I was grieving recently lost family members and coming to terms with fraught relationships,” Poudval recalls. “I escaped to India for a few months by myself and set up my studio there, and this was one of the first tracks that I wrote.”

Having started on the path to total sobriety, he continues: “I really needed to feel the carefreeness that comes with being in a club/festival environment and wanted to know that I wouldn’t be excluded from feeling that by being sober. I also felt the need to free myself from what I was going through and transmute my challenging experiences into something positive and happy, and that I could share.”

Adds Poduval, “it’s a sun-soaked anthem to blast out the windows as you cruise out of town. It’s a careless, ‘I’ll do it mañana’ answer to life’s responsibilities, a getaway tune, here to take us out of lockdown into sunnier times ahead.” 

Directed by Niall Trask, the recently released video for “Mañana Groove” is an appropriately kaleidoscopic and hallucinogenic VHS taped fever dream that follows a our protagonist as he plays a racing game and rocks out to an album on his record player. 

Mera Bhai’s debut EP Futureproofing is slated for an October 9, 2020 release through Moshi Moshi Records. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Aussie Indie Act Children Collide Release a Jittery and Anxious New Single

Critically applauded and commercially successful Melbourne, Australia-based indie act Children Collide — Johnny Mackay (guitar, vocals), Ryan Caeaser (drums) and Chelsea “Chela” Wheatley (bass) —  have released three albums, 2008’s The Long Now, 2010’s Theory Of Everything and 2012’s Monument, all of which feature some of the most beloved Aussie indie rock tracks of the past decade including, “Social Currency,” “Skeleton Dance,” “Chosen Dance,” “Loveless,” and Triple J Hottest 100 singles “Farewell Rocketship,” “Jellylegs” and “My Eagle.” And as a result, 2010’s Theory of Everything debuted at #5 on the ARIA Albums Chart and landed a Triple J album feature — and the band has received twoARIA Award nominations, including one for 2012’s Monument. 

Adding to a growing profile, the bad has played sets across the global festival circuit with sets at SXSW, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Falls Festival and Big Day Out. They’ve played tons of headlining shows across Australia, as well as dates in London, Paris, Los Angeles, Tokyo and NYC. 

Recorded by Loren Humphrey at The Diamond Mine and Stockholm Syndrome, “Funeral for a Ghost” is the first bit of original material from the acclaimed Aussie indie act since Monument and the propulsive and anthemic single is full of the jittery and anxious energy that seems to define our current moment while sounding mischievously anachronistic, as though the song could have been released in 1991, 2001, 2011 or this week, As the song seems to say,  everything is infuriating, cruel and stupid — and nothing can be trusted. Be paranoid ya’ll.  “I wrote it on an old Roland loop pedal when I was living in a dungeon in North Melbourne an eon ago,” says frontman/guitarist Johnny Mackay of the track. “I had to open a trap door to get down to my room and you could see where a tunnel had been bricked up on my bedroom wall. I was listening to a lot of Sonic Youth at the time, constantly rotating between Murray St and Confusion is Sex. Listening to it now, the lyrics sound like I wrote them last week about covid conspiracy nuts. Time is a flat circle,” he muses. 

Beginning with a PBS-like into, the recently released, Lord Fascinator-directed visual for “Funeral for a Ghost” captures the band’s live energy in a variety of trippy scenarios. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Throughout a significant portion of this site’s 10+ year history, I’ve managed to spill a lot of virtual ink covering the Umea, Sweden-born and based, singer/songwriter and cellist  Cajsa Siik. Since the release of her full-length debut, 2012’s Contra, the JOVM mainstay has released two more albums, including 2017’s DOMINO, an EP and a handful of attention-grabbing singles — and she’s released much of that work to critical praise from a number of internationally known media outlets including Q Magazine, The Line of Best Fit and NYLON, as well as airplay on BBC Radio 6. Building on a growing profile, Siik went on a European tour with Mitski to support DOMINO, which she followed up with headlining shows in Berlin and London.

Siik’s fourth full-length album will be released in two parts during Fall 2020 and Winter 2021. “Gate Keeper,” the album’s second single is a slow-burning and atmospheric track featuring whirring and wobbling synths and Siik’s plaintive vocals. And while seemingly easygoing, the song is centered around uneasy tension that feels familiar — particularly if you’ve been in love and have had to started anew.

“‘Gate Keeper’ is one of the key songs on the album. Like a little backbone,” the JOVM mainstay explains. “The melody wrote itself and has an ease about it, yet the lyrics is all about tension and resistance. I guess it’s about the art of trying to be there for someone else. Still be there for yourself. To be someone to count on in life and to trust, despite all your destructiveness and flaws. Maybe it’s when you dare to accept the shit that you carry around that you can fully be there and be loved? When you stop ignoring what scares you the most.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Noosa, Australia-born, London-based twin siblings Toma and Andy Benjamin grew up in a musical home, and as a result they wound up joining the local church band when they were teenagers. Coincidentally, that same church band was where the Banjamins met their future Tempesst bandmates Kane Reynolds and Blake Mispeka.

The Banjamin Brothers eventually left home and discovered a whole new world of music, ideas and ways of living that weren’t part of their previous purview: after a short stint in the UK, the Banjamins wound up in Brooklyn, where they soaked up the DIY ethos of the  late 2000s Williamsburg scene. They started to develop their own ideas, starting home recording projects initially inspired by Joni Mitchell, Al Green, Wings, Electric Light Orchestra and others.

After a year in Brooklyn, an expiring visa forced the Banjamins to relocate to Hackney, where they hunkered down and got serious about writing and recording material. They recruited Swiss-American Eric Weber (guitar) and reconnected with their fellow Aussies Reynolds and Mispeka — and at that point, the rising London-based indie act Tempesst started.

Unsurprisingly, the need to practice, write and record in a city like London helped facilitate the creation of their own studio. “We started out with a basic production studio that Tom kept at his house but one of the biggest challenges in London is that you can’t make noise,” the band’s Andy Banjamin recalls. “So we began looking for a rehearsal space and came across this warehouse, which was way bigger than anything we were looking for but got us wondering about what it would actually take to set up a proper studio.”

Naming the space Pony Studios, the band started to convert the warehouse into multiple studio rooms and practice spaces. Simultaneously, the band started Pony Recordings, which helped changed the way the band had approached their work.  “These days artists are expected to do so much themselves and we have always been slight control freaks anyway,” Andy Banjamin says in press notes. “DIY is part of everything that we do, so that extends to our label, the studio, the videos, all of it and really it’s just how the indie music scene has evolved.” Toma Banjamin adds “With the studio, we have time to work on all the key things that have become quintessential to our sound but also experiment and add an element of surprise, whether that is a weird synth solo or a key change. It’s those little departures that keep the listener on their toes.”

After releasing a handful of critically applauded, buzz worthy singles and EPs, the Aussie-born, British-based members of Tempesst will be releasing their highly anticipated full-length debut, the Eliot Heinrich co-produced Must Be a Dream. Slated for a September 30, 2020 release through the band’s own Pony Recordings, Tempesst’s full-length debut reportedly finds the band boldly taking a step forward with their songwriting and their sound. Generally leaning towards folk-tinged psychedelia, the album’s material nods at Spiritualized, The Flaming Lips, and The Beach Boys — but with a modern melodic sensibility.

Sonically, the material is deceptive: complex musical ideas are centered around seemingly simple melodies.  Seemingly sun-kissed, the album thematically explores themes of longing, love, loss, substance abuse, the death of loved ones — and yet remembering the beauty just underneath all of it. “This record is the first time that I feel like I’ve had the uninterrupted ability to create and have full control at our own pace,” Toma Banjamin says in press notes. “With this LP, we’ve created something we’re really proud of that truly cements our identity as a group. The joy of taking these songs live is something that we’re really excited about.”

Earlier this year, I wrote about Must Be A Dream‘s first single, the Brit Pop meets psych psych rock “On The Run,” a track centered around shimmering and reverb drenched guitars, layered vocal harmonies, an enormous hook and Toma Benjamin’s serpentine-like vocals. And while superficially being a sun-kissed, summery anthem, the song is actually much darker, as the song thematically focuses on substance abuse, death and the loss of innocence — that feels haunted by the weight of heartache. “High On My Own,” the album’s third and latest single sounds as though it draws influence from Electric Light Orchestra, The Beach Boys and Primal Scream, as the song is centered by a  motorik groove, shimmering guitars and a soaring hook within an expansive song structure. But underneath the trippy, feel good vibes the song finds its narrator — and in turn, the band — juxtaposing their lives with those of their peers back home. Recognizing that settling down and having the family life at this moment isn’t for them, the song’s narrator does the brave thing — setting their own path in their own way.

“I grew up near Noosa, a small beach town in Australia. In my town, a 30 year old man was typically a family man, with a normal job, a mortgage etc.,” the band’s Toma Banjamin explains. “The kind of guy who had a balanced life and what seemed to be contentment as a byproduct. These guys had beliefs, they lived by a code that guided each decision with a brand of certainty that I envy and in my subconscious, this archetype framed the kind of firm identity one should expect to acquire by age 30. A couple of decades on, here I am, 30, still wandering, without the beliefs or certainty I expected to have.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

FRANK WOODBRIDGE · To The End

Born to an English father and Italian mother,  Paris-born and-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, electronic music producer and electronic music artist, Frank Woodbridge grew up in a passionate, musical household: at an early age, the Woodbridge family spent their evening listening to their vinyl record collection in front of their huge stereo. “My father loved The Kinks, The Beatles, The Bee Gees and Al Jarreau. My mother introduced me to Stan Getz, Carole King and the romantic refrains of the crooners that reminded her of her childhood,” Woodbridge recalls fondly in press notes. “From the age of ten, I was already deep into The Cure, Depeche Mode, U2. My teenage neighbor had decided to perfect my musical education. And then, Bernard Lenoir on Inter, the many weekends in London . . . I was an indie kid, that was my life.”

After spending many years in rock and electro pop groups as a singer/songwriter and self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Woodbridge has spent the past few years focusing on composing for films, the web, TV, as well as  sound design for events and stage music for theater. Currently, Woodbridge works with Andre Manoukian on his daily chronicle for the Daphne Burki-hosted TV show, Je T’aime, ETC — and he wrote a comic book Inversion, which follows its composer protagonist.

2020 has been a busy year for the French artist: a companies like Kenzo Parfums and Oris Watches commissioned him to compose music for web campaigns and for series of 10 films. He also composed the soundtrack for Florie Martin and Melissa Theuriau’s documentary  Seine Saint Denis Style, which aired on French station C8 earlier this year.  Additionally, Woodbridge’s latest album of original compositions LOLA LIFE DEATH ETC was released earlier this month.

Now, if you had been frequenting this site earlier this year, you may recall that I wrote about, the Uppermost and M83-like “Lola dans le bus,” a melancholic yet cinematic track specifically composed to drive or daydream along with that was actually inspired by personal experience: Woodbridge ran into an ex-girlfriend he had lost contact with. He saw her on the bus and waved at her but unfortunately, she didn’t see him. So as the result the song is punctuated with the sadness of a missed connection, nostalgia for old times and of unfinished business. LOLA LIFE DEATH ETC‘s latest single “To The End” is a motorik-groove driven track centered around shimmering synth arpeggios and thumping beats and a fairly optimistic air.  Sonically speaking, the track sounds like a slick synthesis of New Order and From Here to Eternity and From Here to Eternity . . . and Back-era Giorgio Moroder.

“It is music driven with an urge, a dream for something else, a lot of energy and yet peacefulness coming from inner strength and will,” Woodbridge says of his latest single. “I composed it thinking of movies I love, where people are at a turning point of their lives knowing it or not, and heading for their future. Although slightly melancholic, it has a positive light and effect.”

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Mint Field Release a Cinematic and Mediative Visual for Lush and Slow-Burning Single “Delicadeza”

Initially founded in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico by Estrella del Sol Sanchez and Amor Amezcua, the Mexican shoegazer act quickly received international attention with the release of their debut EP Primeras Salidas, eventually playing sets across the North American festival circuit, including Coachella and SXSW, as well as venues across both the States and their native Mexico. Building upon a growing profile, Mint Field’s full-length debut, 2018’s Pasar De Las Luces found the act establishing a clearer sense of what they wanted to do sonically — primarily, as a result of finally having access to the tools to do so. The end result was an album’s worth of material that drew from dream pop, krautrock, stoner rock and shoegaze, imbued with sorrow and nostalgia. 

The past couple of years since the release of Pasar De Las Luces has been rather eventful for the Mexican shoegazer act: they’ve toured extensively across the North America and the European Union, playing over 100 shows. Continuing that momentum, the band recorded Pasar De Las Luces’ follow-up, last year’s  Mientras Esperas EP, which they supported with further touring across the States, Canada and Mexico — with two sold out shows in Mexico City .

During that same period, the band relocated to Mexico City and upon relocating to the Mexican capital, the band went through a massive lineup change: Amor Amezcua left the band, and the band then expanded into a trio with the addition of Sebastian Neyra and the band’s newest member, Ulrika Spacek’s Callum Brown. Capping off a series of monumental changes for the acclaimed Mexican act, they signed to Los Angeles-based post punk label Felte Records,

Slated for a September 25, 2020 release, the band’s Syd Kemp-produced sophomore album Sentimiento Mundial was recorded at London’s Wilton Way Studio, and the album reportedly sees the band’s sound shifting towards a decidedly minimal, rhythmically focused approach. The album will feature the meditative “Natural,” and the motorik groove-driven “Contingencia,” which were both released earlier this year. Sentimiento Mundal’s third and latest single “Delicadeza” is a lushly textured song centered around del Sol Sanchez’s ethereal vocals, swirling and shimmering, pedal effected guitars and propulsive drumming that manages to recall the lengthy introductory sections to Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)” and A Storm in Heaven-era The Verve– but while being fittingly delicate. 

Directed and shot by 26 year-old Mexico City-based filmmaker Santiago Padilla Arouesty, the recently released video is a cinematic and meditative portrait of our zeitgeist — one in which our sanity, well-being and humanity are held together by an extremely delicate thread. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

A.K. Paul is a London-born and-based singer/songwriter, producer, engineer and recording artist, who first came to prominence with a contribution to his brother Jai Paul’s debut single “BTSU.” The following year, Paul was very busy: he worked on his brother Jai’s “Jasmine (demo)” and Big Boi‘s “Higher Res,” feat. Jai Paul and Little Dragon, as well as co-writing material for Sam Smith and Emeli Sandé, which resulted in the London-born and based artist winning a Ivor Novello Award back in 2013.

In 2016, A.K. Paul, Jai Paul and Muz Azar started their own label Paul Institute, and the label released A.K’s full-length debut Landcruisin’. Unfortunately, Paul Institute and its co-founders had gone through a protracted legal fight that nearly shut the label down — but over the past few months, the label, along with its co-founders and artists have released new material.  “I’m really happy we’re releasing new music with Paul Institute this summer,” A.K. Paul says in press notes. “It’s been a while coming and the last couple of years have been perilous at times for PI, particularly because of a legal fight that set us back. So besides it being sick music, to return with such a strong set of releases feels like a vindication of our rights as artists too.”

Paul’s latest single “Be Honest” is a New Jack Swing-like take on house and electro pop, centered around stuttering beats, shimmering synth arpeggios, an infectious hook and the British artist’s soulful crooning. Sonically, the song is an escapist (and necessary summer) banger — even if it’s one of the strangest summers in recent memory. In press notes, Paul describes the song as being “about giving up control for a moment, allowing yourself to feel something beyond what you’ve known. It’s a song about liking something you didn’t think you would like, feeling something you didn’t think you’d feel — and as soon as you come to your senses being faced with the prospect you’ve only half lived . . .”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Mexico City’s Mint Field Releases a Minimalist and Trance-Inducing New Single

With the release of their debut EP Primeras Salidas, acclaimed shoegazer act Mint Field — initially founded in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico by Estrella del Sol Sanchez and Amor Amezcua — quickly received international attention that landed them sets across the North American festival circuit, including Coachella and SXSW, as well as venues across both the States and their native Mexico. Building upon a growing profile, Mint Field’s full-length debut, 2018’s Pasar De Las Luces found the then-duo establishing a clearer sense of what they wanted to do sonically,  as a result of having access to the tools to do so. Interestingly, their debut drew from dream pop, krautrock, stoner rock and shoegaze while imbued with sorrow and nostalgia.

Since the release of their full-length debut, Mint Field has had an eventful two years. The Mexican shoegazer act toured extensively across North America, Mexico and the European Union, playing over 100 shows to support their full-length debut. Continuing upon that momentum, the band recorded Pasar De Las Luces’ follow-up, last year’s  Mientras Esperas EP, which they supported with further touring across the States, Canada and Mexico — with two sold out shows in Mexico City . During that same period, the band relocated to Mexico City and upon relocating to the Mexican capital, the band went through a massive lineup change: Amor Amezcua left the band, and the band then expanded into a trio with the addition of Sebastian Neyra and the band’s newest member, Ulrika Spacek’s Callum Brown. Capping off a series of monumental changes for the acclaimed Mexican act, they signed to Los Angeles-based post punk label Felte Records, who released “Natural,” the first bit of material of 2020. 

Interestingly, while at London-based Wilton Way Studio, the members of Mint Field recorded their Syd Kemp-produced sophomore album Sentimiento Mundial. Slated for a September 25, 2020 release, Sentimiento Mundial reportedly sees the band’s sound shifting towards a decidedly minimal, rhythmically focused approach. “Contingencia,” Sentimiento Mundial’s second and latest single is centered around a propulsive and relentless motorik groove, layers of a shimmering and jangling guitars and del Sol Sanchez’s ethereal vocals — and the end result is song that a trance-inducing song that gently rises upward with an aching yearning.