Tag: London UK

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their first three singles, “Souvenirs,” “Set The Fire” and “Cameos,” the London, UK-based indie rock quintet — Robbie Reid (guitar, vocals), Louis Price (guitar, vocals), Jason Hawthorne (guitar), Paddy Conn (bass) and Andrew Evans (drums) — Swimming Tapes quickly received attention across the blogosphere and a growing national profile, as “Set The Fire” and “Cameos” both reached the top of the Hype Machine charts, which was promptly followed by airplay on BBC Radio 1. Building upon the buzz the band received from their first three singles, they released the Souvenirs EP late last year through up-and-coming London-based indie label Hand In Hive, and the EP featured the band’s previously released singles and some newer material.

2017 will see the release of a new EP from the London-based indie rock quintet, as well as UK tour that includes sets at The Great Escape Festival, the Dot to Dot Festival and a headlining set at The Lexington but before that, the EP’s first single “Queens Parade,” consists of layers of shimmering guitars, propulsive and steady drumming, a forceful bass line, and ethereal harmonies paired with a soaring and anthemic hook. And while clearly nodding at 120 Minutes era Brit Pop, shogaze, and alt rock, the song also find the band subtly nodding at 70s AM rock and early New Wave but complete with a wistful nostalgia at its core.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Since appearing on DJ Shadow‘s 2006 album The Outsider, the critically applauded, mostly instrumental London, UK-based act The Heliocentrics, comprised of Malcolm Catto (drums, production), Jake Ferguson (bass), Adrian Owusu (guitar) and multi-instrumentalist Jack Yglesias, have cemented a reputation for a compositional approach based on the band’s four musicians’  live improvisation in the studio as a way to avoid typical songwriting and compositional processes and generic song structures, and for a boldly genre-defying aesthetic as their sound possesses elements of jazz, hip-hop, trip-hop, psych rock, acid jazz, krautrock and musique concrete. Unsurprisingly, as a result of being uncompromisingly difficult to pigeonhole, the members of The Heliocenters have collaborated with an impressive array of artists including Muluta Astake, The Gaslamp Killer, Lloyd Miller, Orlando Julius, the legendary and iconoclastic Melvin Van Peebles and others.

Spending well over a decade together, the members of the band refer to their songwriting and recording process as “almost a form of telepathy” with “musical changes that otherwise would be near impossible to write .. . ” Interestingly, the band’s fourth full-length effort, A World of Masks, which is slated for a June 9, 2017 release through  will further cement their reputation for being difficult to pigeonhole; but it also marks several new directions for a band that constantly pushes themselves in new directions sonically and thematically. First, the London-based band’s fourth album is the first official release through their new label home Soundway Records after several years on Los Angeles-based Now Again Records — and secondly, the album finds the band collaborating with Barbora Patkova, a young Slovakian vocalist, who the members of the band discovered through a mutual friend. According to the band, Patkova’s sound and vocal stylings “instantly worked with us,” and they quickly discovered an artist, who like them was intimately familiar with an improvisational approach and had lyrics at the ready to sing, frequently in her native Slovakian over any music thrown at her.  Lastly, A World of Masks is the first release of rather prolific year or so period for the band: they recently wrote the score to the critically acclaimed documentary about LCD, The Sunshine Makers and have plans to collaborate with the legendary Marshall Allen and the Sun Ra Arekstra, and to continue their collaboration with Gaslamp Killer with a new album as well, ensuring that The Heliocentrics will be a go-to band to collaborate with on genre-stretching and genre-defying works.

The London-based act’s latest single “Oh Brother” is the second official single off A World of Masks and the single is an awe-inspiring, heady and cinematic mix of psych rock, acid jazz, jazz fusion, 60s blue eyed soul and a subtle hint of psychedelic Bollywood in a song that possesses an explosive and feral immediacy paired with Patkova’s sultry and soulful Nancy Sinatra-like vocals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Childlike and Psychedelic Visuals for Nick Hakim’s “Roller Skates”

Earlier this year, the Washington, DC-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Nick Hakim quietly re-emerged with the first batch of new material in some time, “Bet She Looks Like You,” and “Green Twins,” the first two singles off his much-anticipated and long-awaited full-length debut album Green Twins, which is slated for release in a few weeks through ATO Records. Interestingly, Hakim can trace the origins of Green Twins to when armed with the masters for his first two EPs Where Will We Go Part 1 and Where Will We Go Part 2, the DC-born singer/songwriter and guitarist relocated from Boston, where he was based at the time to Brooklyn. And as soon as he got himself settled, Hakim spent his spare time fleshing out incomplete songs and writing and recording sketches using his phone’s voice memo app and a four-track cassette recorder. He then took his new demo’d material to various studios in NYC, Philadelphia and London, where he built up the material with a number of engineers, including frequent collaborator Andrew Sarlo (bass, engineering and production), who were tasked with keeping the original spirit and essence of the material intact as much as humanly possible.

As Andrew Sarlo explained in press notes about the writing and recording process for Green Twins, for many artists, a demo typically serves an extremely rough sketch of what the song could eventually become and sound; however, with Hakim, things are done very differently; in fact, the demos are seen as more akin to building a comfortable, holy temple — and as a result, as a producer and engineer, Sarlo was tasked to clean, furnish where necessary and prepare those who entered for a profound, religious experience. However, thematically speaking, Green Twins’ material reportedly focuses on unique and particular aspects and events of his life with the bulk of the songs being based on specific experiences, feelings, and thoughts had at the time he was writing and composing. As a result, the album consists of a series of different self-portraits — and in a similar fashion to Vincent Van Gogh’s famed self-portraits, the album’s song captures the artist sometimes in broad strokes but frequently in subtle gradations of mood, tone and feeling.

Hakim adds, “I also felt the need to push my creativity in a different way than I had on the EPs,” The record draws from influences spanning Robert Wyatt, Marvin Gaye and Shuggie Otis to My Bloody Valentine. We wanted to imagine what it would have sounded like if RZA had produced a Portishead album. We experimented with engineering techniques from Phil Spector and Al Green’s Back Up Train, drum programming from RZA and Outkast, and we were listening to a lot of The Impressions, John Lennon, Wu-Tang, Madlib and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.”

Now, as I wrote about “Bet She Looks lIke You,” the song further cemented Hakim’s growing profile and reputation for writing intimately confessional songwriting with a heartbreakingly visceral feel — all while being a subtle refinement and expansion of the sound that first won the attention of the blogosphere; in fact, the material retains a spectral quality, thanks to sparse arrangements that allow room for Hakim’s achingly tender falsetto but interestingly enough, the song manages to nod at Roy Orbison. Green Twins’ third and latest single “Roller Skates” continues in a similar spectral and soulful vein; however, there’s a subtle hallucinogenic-fueled psychedelia. Adding to the personal feel of the album’s material, “Roller Skates” is partially inspired by actual real life experience. “The song’s first verse is about a night when I got really stoned at my friend’s house and forgot to meet up wth my partner,” Hakim says in press notes. “It was pouring rain outside and when I realized I was late, I biked through Bed Stuy as fast as I could through the rain to find her but she was gone . . . The second verse is about patching it up, and not leaving her house for a couple of days. It’s a love song.”

Featuring childlike and psychedelic animation by Micah Buzan, the video employs an accessible and deeply empathetic concept. “I wanted to tell a simple story about lonely characters, who desire something that they can’t seem to get — be it love, a stuffed animal, or the ability to skate well,” Buzan says. “I also tried to make it kind of funny how their expectations don’t live up to reality. In the end, rollerskating unites all the characters as they join together in the roller rink. We might feel alone but we’re in this life experiment together.” Much like he visuals for “Bet She Looks Like You,” the visuals for the latest single continue a trend of Hakim pairing his material with bold, playful yet artfully done imagery,

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Kraftwerk Inspired Sounds and Trippy Visuals of Heart Years’ “The Field Trip”

Heart Years is a London, UK-based producer and electronic music artist, who has begun to receive attention for a sound that based around his love of vintage synths, tape machines and 70s electronica, and his latest single “The Field Trip” off “The Great Fades” single sounds to my ear as though it draws from Trans Europe Express and The Man Machine-era Kraftwerk as layers of shimmering and undulating arpeggio synths are paired with a motorik groove. And in similar fashion to “Trans Europe Express” “Metal on Metal” and “Abzug,” the track manages to evoke the sensation of forward movement.

The recently released video for “The Field Trip” is a fitting audio-visual collaboration between the British electronic artists and indie filmmaker Bailey. And as Bailey explains of the idea shot using Lomography’s lo-fi analog, hand cranked, LomoKino movie camera, which only produces 15 seconds of footage per 35mm roll, “The film is an abstract sci-fi where extra-terrestrial life forms represented by 3 primary colour shapes take a field trip to planet earth and observe nature, human infrastructure, behaviour and sound … before leaving unnoticed by the planet’s inhabitants.” Of course, what makes the video so fitting is that it captures the trippy nature of the song while equally evoking the sensation of movement towards something.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Double Dare-Inspired Visuals for Girls in Synthesis’ “Disappear”

Girls in Synthesis is a rather mysterious London, UK-based punk rock trio, who formed last year with a specific intent and purpose — to aurally represent the noise and violence of the modern world. And […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Will Joseph Cook is an up-and-coming London, UK-based indie pop/indie electro pop artist and producer who can trace the origins of his career to when he began crafting earnest and off-kilter pop tunes inspired by Talking Heads, MGMT, LCD Soundsystem and Vampire Weekend among others.  And at a relatively young age, the British producer and electronic music artist quickly received national and international attention with the release of his debut EP,  You Jump I Run through Duly Noted Records; in fact with EP single “Message,” which landed at number 1 on Hype Machine‘s charts and number 2 on Global Spotify Viral Chart. 

Proof Enough, Cook’s much anticipated follow-up Proof Enough further cemented Cook’s growing reputation for crafting material with enormous, rousing and crowd pleasing hooks, while going through a decided electronic approach, an approach that continues on his Jack Steadman, Hugh Worskett and self-produced full-length debut, Sweet Dreamer which is slated for an April 14, 2017 release through Atlantic UK.

“Plastic,” the album’s latest, infectious single features a boldly confident and brash production consisting of twinkling arpeggio keys, enormous, stomping, tweeter and woofer rocking beats paired with Cook’s achingly soulful and easygoing vocals and a rousing, anthemic hook; but underneath, the song possesses an anxious uncertainty — the sort that comes about when a potential love may be unrequited or when a current love may be unceremoniously ending. And from the release of his latest single, Cook reveals himself to be one of the more interesting and unique electronic artists in an incredibly crowded field.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of brothers Dru (keys, guitar) and Kumar Grant (electronics, percussion) and Emma Wilson (vocals), the London, UK-based electro pop trio KOIYA formed late last year, and they’ve quickly won over a growing fanbase and attention in London for a sound that pairs Wilson’s gorgeous, soulful and yearning vocals with live percussion and slick, brooding production featuring ominously swirling electronics and enormous, tweeter and woofer low-end as you’ll hear on “Brood,” the first single off the trio’s forthcoming self-titled EP, slated for a May 5, 2017 release. Sonically, they seem to draw from Portishead — but with a muscular and modern approach.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Surreal and Gorgeous Visuals for Nick Hakim’s “Bet She Looks Like You”

Up until relatively recently, it had been some since I had written about the Washington, DC-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Nick Hakim; however, 2017 looks to be a big year for the renowned singer/songwriter as his much-anticipated full-length debut Green Twins is slated for a May 19, 2017 release through ATO Records — and if you had stumbled across this site earlier today, you’d remember that Hakim is currently on tour to build up buzz for the new material until its release.

Interestingly enough, as the story goes, Hakim can trace the origins of the material of Green Twins to when armed with the masters for his first two EPs Where Will We Go Part 1 and Where Will We Go Part 2, the DC-born singer/songwriter and guitarist relocated from Boston, where he was based at the time to Brooklyn. And as soon as he got himself settled, he spent his spare time fleshing out incomplete songs and writing and recording sketches and lyrics using his phone’s voice memo app and a four-track cassette recorder. He then took his new, demo’d material to various studios in NYC, Philadelphia and London, where he built up the material with a number of engineers, including frequent collaborator Andrew Sarlo (bass, engineering and production), who were tasked with keeping the original spirit and essence of the material intact as much as humanly possible.

As Andrew Sarlo explained in press notes about the writing and recording process for Green Twins, for many artists, a demo typically serves an extremely rough sketch of what the song could eventually become and sound; however, with the Hakim, the general sense is that the demos are much more like building a holy temple — and as a result, as a producer and engineer, he was tasked to clean, furnish and prepare entrants for a religious experience. Thematically speaking, the material on the album reportedly focuses on unique and rather particular aspects of his life with the bulk of the songs based on specific things he was thinking and feeling at the time he was writing and composing. And as a result, the album consists of a series of different self-portraits — and in a similar fashion to Vincent Van Gogh’s famed self-portraits, the album’s song captures the artist sometimes in broad strokes but frequently in subtle gradations of mood, tone and feeling. Hakim adds, “I also felt the need to push my creativity in a different way than I had on the EPs,” The record draws from influences spanning Robert Wyatt, Marvin Gaye and Shuggie Otis to My Bloody Valentine. We wanted to imagine what it would have sounded like if RZA had produced a Portishead album. We experimented with engineering techniques from Phil Spector and Al Green’s Back Up Train, drum programming from RZA and Outkast, and we were listening to a lot of The Impressions, John Lennon, Wu-Tang, Madlib and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.”

Green Twins’ first single, “Bet She Looks Like You,” will further cement Hakim’s growing reputation for deeply intimate, confessional songwriting that manages to be heartbreakingly visceral while being a subtle expansion upon the sound that first won attention as it retains a spectral quality but with a subtle, bluesy swagger reminiscent of Roy Orbison. Interestingly, the recently released video for the song follows Hakim as he walks to a studio space in what appears to be Sunset Park, near Industrial City where he takes part in a surreal play full of dream-like imagery, missed chances, miscommunication — and some popping and locking.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Nubiyan Twist is a London, UK-based collective founded by Tom Excell (production, guitar) and featuring Nubiya Brandon (vocals), Pilo Adami (percussion, vocals), Finn Booth (drums), Luke Wynter (bass), Oli Cadman (keys), Joe Henwood (baritone sax, live dubs), Denis Scully (tenor sax), Nick Richards (alto sax) and Jonny Esner (trumpet)  who have won attention across the UK and the EU for a sound that draws from the members backgrounds in jazz, reggae, dub, soul, Afrobeat, Latin music — and for a live set that embraces the use of electronics, alongside jazz-inspired improvisation. In fact their debut album received praise from the likes of major media outfits like the Independent, Mojo, Songlines Magazine, and Blues ‘n’ Soul and the album received airplay on the radio programs of David Rodigan, Craig Charles, Trevor Nelson, and Huey Morgan. And adding to a growing profile, the band has opened for the likes of De La Soul, Hot 8 Brass Band, Quantic and Robert Glasper.

The British collective’s latest single is a bold, funky, sensual reworking of Super Cat’s 1982 classic dancehall track Dance Inna New York that employs portions of the original’s verses, along with the hook with new lyrics written by the band’s frotnwoman Nubiya Brandon paired with the backing band playing a percussive, Latin-tinged, Afrobeat-inspired arrangement featuring a bold brass section, twinkling keys and a shuffling and swaggering riddim. And interestingly enough, while the London-based act’s reworking pushes a beloved song into the 21st century, perhaps introducing new fans to one of dancehall’s legends, it also manages to bridge the sounds of African Diaspora in a seamless and intelligent manner.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Girls in Synthesis is a rather mysterious London, UK-based punk rock trio, who formed last year with a specific intent and purpose — to aurally represent the noise and violence of the modern world. And within a relatively short period of time, the trio developed a reputation for playing riotous live sets with Cherry Glazerr and Fat White Family side project, Revenue, that include lengthy and intense periods of noise and feedback, band members jumping off the stage and into the audience, garbled Dictaphone-era audio featuring dialogue from the British government’s Protect and Survive nuclear war video, Orson Welles’ speech from The Trial and audio from the Heaven’s Gate’s suicide video.

Building upon their growing profile across London, the British trio released their debut double A side single “The Mound”/”Disappear” today — and from their latest single, “Disappears,” the band captures the frenetic energy of their live sets while pairing almost metronomic-like drumming with sizzling and slashing guitar chords and a propulsive and forceful bass line with punchy, shouted lyrics. Sonically speaking, the song sounds as though it draws from Entertainment and Solid Gold-era Gang of Four and Elastica‘s self- titled debut album, complete with prerequisite cynical sneering and a primal fury.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Bad Breeding is a somewhat mysterious punk outfit from Stevenage, UK, a town that the band have described as a bleak commuter-belt town north of London. Formed in 2013, the members of the band feature a group of friends, who muddled through school and they were drawn together by an enthusiasm for old, anarcho-punk and a complete disdain for the misrepresentation and simplification of Brtiain’s working-class identity, the band as its members see it, is an attempt to furiously call out both the rank injustices and political distortion peddled to people existing on the fringes, as well as a desperate outlet from the monotony of humiliating, soulless temp jobs.

The band’s forthcoming, sophomore effort Divide is slated for an April 7, 2017 release through Iron Lung Records here in the States and La Vida Es Un Mus throughout the UK and EU and the material on the effort will reportedly sum up our dark, dense, claustrophobic and fucked up times, reveal a world that on a daily basis has become a melting pot of stupidity and hate, marching in blind lockstep towards its seemingly inevitable self-destruction. And fittingly Divide‘s first single “The More the Merrier” is a furious, primal stomp with towering squalls of noisy, distorted power chords and bilious vocals in what may be the angriest and most urgent songs I’ve heard all year, as it captures the anger and confusion of those crushed by a cadre of evil, indifferent greedy, thieving, moronic and lying assholes, who are out to steal from the poor and unfortunate, before stomping them into oblivion.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: ATO Sessions: Nick Hakim “Bet She Looks Like You”

Up until relatively recently, it had been some since I had written about the Washington, DC-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Nick Hakim; however, 2017 looks to be a big year for the renowned singer/songwriter as his much-anticipated full-length debut Green Twins is slated for a May 19, 2017 release through ATO Records — and if you had stumbled across this site earlier today, you’d remember that Hakim is currently on tour to build up buzz for the new material until its release.

Interestingly enough, as the story goes, Hakim can trace the origins of the material of Green Twins to when armed with the masters for his first two EPs Where Will We Go Part 1 and Where Will We Go Part 2, the DC-born singer/songwriter and guitarist relocated from Boston, where he was based at the time to Brooklyn. And as soon as he got himself settled, he spent his spare time fleshing out incomplete songs and writing and recording sketches and lyrics using his phone’s voice memo app and a four-track cassette recorder. He then took his new, demo’d material to various studios in NYC, Philadelphia and London, where he built up the material with a number of engineers, including frequent collaborator Andrew Sarlo (bass, engineering and production), who were tasked with keeping the original spirit and essence of the material intact as much as humanly possible.

As Andrew Sarlo explained in press notes about the writing and recording process for Green Twins, for many artists, a demo typically serves an extremely rough sketch of what the song could eventually become and sound; however, with the Hakim, the general sense is that the demos are much more like building a holy temple — and as a result, as a producer and engineer, he was tasked to clean, furnish and prepare entrants for a religious experience. Thematically speaking, the material on the album reportedly focuses on unique and rather particular aspects of his life with the bulk of the songs based on specific things he was thinking and feeling at the time he was writing and composing. And as a result, the album consists of a series of different self-portraits — and in a similar fashion to Vincent Van Gogh’s famed self-portraits, the album’s song captures the artist sometimes in broad strokes but frequently in subtle gradations of mood, tone and feeling. Hakim adds, “I also felt the need to push my creativity in a different way than I had on the EPs,” The record draws from influences spanning Robert Wyatt, Marvin Gaye and Shuggie Otis to My Bloody Valentine. We wanted to imagine what it would have sounded like if RZA had produced a Portishead album. We experimented with engineering techniques from Phil Spector and Al Green’s Back Up Train, drum programming from RZA and Outkast, and we were listening to a lot of The Impressions, John Lennon, Wu-Tang, Madlib and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.”

While in town for an intimate and sold out show at Union Pool, Hakim and his backing band recorded a live version of the spectral and achingly confessional “Bet She Looks Like You” for the ATO Sessions at Bushwick’s Market Hotel — and while conveying a visceral heartache and longing, paired with a Quiet Storm-like groove, the song, with repeated listens somehow manages to nod at Marvin Gaye, Bilal and Roy Orbison, thanks in part to his incredibly tight backing band. Speaking of the great Roy Orbison, the live footage is shot in a gorgeous, film noir-like black and white, much like Roy Orbison and Friends: A Night in Black and White.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Rachel K. Collier Performs New Single “Paper Tiger”

With today being International Women’s Day, I felt it was appropriate and necessary to spend some portion of the day both here and on Twitter honoring the female artists, musicians and producers I’ve written about throughout the site’s history and to writing about new (and sometimes, firmly established) female artists, producers throughout the day as much as humanly possible.

Rachel K. Collier is a accomplished Swansea, Wales, UK-born, London-based singer/songwriter and producer, who has quickly achieved both commercial and critical success across the UK. Collier is credited as a co-writer or producer or several chart-topping, smash hits including Ray Foxx’s “Boom Boom (Heartbeat),” which peaked at nubmer 12 on the UK Singles chart back in 2013; Mat Zo’s Grammy-nomiated album Damage Control, which peaked at number 1 on the iTunes Dance Album charts; and on legendary garage producer Wookie’s comeback single “2 Us.” As a solo artist, she recorded a cover of Jimmy Cliff’s “Hard Road to Travel,” which landed at number 79 on the UK Singles chart, and her debut original single “Predictions” was named Sarah Jane Crawford’s “Smash of the Week” on the radio personality’s BBC Radio 1Xtra show. Collier has also received airplay and praise from the likes of Annie Nightingale, Capitol Xtra, Tiësto and Oliver Heldons.

Building upon a growing national profile, Collier released her self-produced, debut EP Words You Never Heard through Love and Other records in late 2015 and followed that up with “Ships,” a single she released during the last few months of 2016. “Paper Tiger,” Collier’s first single of 2017 and the single features a slick yet unfussy, dance floor-friendly production consisting of wobbling low end, twinkling synths and stuttering drum programming, enormous tweeter and woofer rocking beats, and a chopped up vocal sample paired with a rousingly anthemic hook; but interestingly, Collier’s production manages to be roomy enough for her swaggering, cocky vocals.