Tag: London UK

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Janiq Shares Lush and Hook Driven “Dior”

Trinidadian-born, London-based artist Janiq has made a name for herself in the local scene for music that draws from her Trini roots and her experiences living in London and meshes elements of R&B, dancehall, soca, reggae, and Latin American music. Her work explores themes of love, self-discovery and female empowerment. She also has received attention across the British capital for a high-energy live show.

Her third and latest single “Dior” is a lush and slickly produced bop featuring glistening and blocky synth stabs, skittering beats, a supple and funky bass line. Bringing Estelle‘s “American Boy,” and The Weeknd‘s work to mind, “Dior” reveals and artist with an uncanny knack for catchy hooks, with the production being a lush bed for the Trinidadian-born, London-based artist’s coquettish delivery boldly telling the listener that you can’t afford her, so don’t bother.

The stylish and slick accompanying video plays on magazine photo shoots — and Instagram.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Frenchie Teams Up with Frida Touray on Soulful “Love Reservoir”

Today has been a difficult day. Work has just felt stupid and next to impossible. I suspect that’ll be the case for the next few days. Pretending that things are normal and that any of this make sense right now,. is just fucking wrong. But here we are.

Initially, receiving praise from the likes of The Line of Best Fit, Clash Magazine and airplay from the BBC 6 Music’s Jamz Supernova, Jazz FM, Reprezent Radio, BBC London and BBC Introducing with the moniker, The Naked Eye, acclaimed French-born, London-based singer/songwriter Frenchie will be releasing her self-titled debut on March 28, 2025.

Produced by one of the UK’s leading lights in the jazz scene, Femi Teomowo, who has worked as a producer, guitarist, arranger and composer for the likes of Amy Winehouse, SAULT and Gregory Porter, the rising French-born, British-based artist’s highly-anticipated debut will see her collaborating with an all-star cast of some of the UK’s most talented musicians and vocalists, including Corinne Bailey Rae‘s and Chaka Khan‘s Luke Smith (keys), KOKOROKO‘s Ayo Salawu (drums), Hohnen Ford (vocals) and Frida Touray (vocals), along with additional instrumental and production contributions from Aaron Taylor, Alex Maydew, Chris Hyson and Jas Kayser.

The full-length album sees the acclaimed artist continuing to draw inspiration from the likes of Cleo Sol, Lauryn Hill, Khraungbin, Minnie Riperton, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Bob Dylan and The Meters to craft a sound that traverses soul, jazz and alternative R&B paired with honest, heartfelt emotion.

The album’s latest single “Love Reservoir,” a collaboration with Swedish-born, London-based artist Frida Touray is a slow-burning, Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu-meets Soul II Soul-like take on soul, anchored around a strutting bass line, glistening Rhodes, ethereal bursts of harp, and skittering boom bap serving as a lush bed for Frida Touray’s soulful delivery and a French spoken word bridge by the acclaimed French-born, London-based artist.

Inspired by the work of SAULT, the new single thematically addresses a desire to replenish the emotional stocks of relationship, pulling things back from the brink.

“‘Love Reservoir’ lyrically explores the theme of seeking to refuel and revitalise a relationship’s emotional reservoir, symbolising a desire to overcome challenges and nurture love and connection,” Frenchie explains. “Femi and I wrote the song together – and I knew I wanted my talented friend Frida Touray to feature on the track. When she came down to record her vocals, the song was elevated to a whole new level.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Barcelona-born, London-based Artist Eterna Shares Woozy and Brooding “Highbury Grunge”

Rising Barcelona-born, London-based artist Eterna recently signed to section1, who released his attention grabbing label debut “Perfect Comms,” and its follow up “Whatever Reason,” an eerie, post-punk-meets-shoegaze-like take on goth that saw the him weaving murky, reverb-soaked guitar distortion with lyrical themes that touch upon modern isolation, apathy and ephemeral romance — with a frustration and despair that feels all too familiar.

The Spanish-born, British-based artist’s highly anticipated sophomore studio album Debunker is slated for a January 31, 2025 release. The forthcoming album’s lead single “Highbury Grunge” continues a run of eerie and off-kilter material that’s simultaneously alien and familiar. Anchored around distorted layers of chugging, reverb-drenched acoustic and electric guitars and industrial clang and clatter, the slow-burning “Highbury Grunge” serves as a brooding and woozy bed for the rising Spanish-born, British-based artist’s imitably distracted and detached delivery.

Directed by Really Sorry, the accompanying video is shot in black and white, and through a series of split screens, follows Eterna as he wanders around suburban London — sometimes with an unsettling and uncomfortably close close up. The video further evokes the woozy and brooding nature of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sophie Jamieson Shares Gorgeous “Camera”

London-based singer/songwriter Sophie Jamieson released two EPs in 2020 that caught the attention of Bella Union Records, who quickly signed the rising British artist, and released her Steph Marziano-produced full-length debut, 2022’s Choosing.

Choosing was a subtle reworking of the sound that Jamieson quickly established through her first two EPs. While her first two EPs flirted with playful experimentation, her full-length debut featured a much organic, simpler and intimate sound, centered around arrangements of live drums, bass, cello and piano that are roomy enough for Jamieson’s mesmerizing vocals to take the spotlight.

Jamieson described the songs on her first two EPs as “black holes” and while Choosing manages to cover similar thematic ground, it never takes its eyes from what lies beyond, never fully releases its grip when its telling her to let go. The album is deeply personal documentation of a journey from the painful rock bottom of self-destruction to a safer place, and imbued with a faint light of hope. Focusing on the bare bones of each song, the album’s material is influenced by songwriters like Elena Tonra, Sharon Van Etten and Scott Hutchinson, and sees Jamieson singing openly about longing and searching, of trying, failing and trying again, and the strength of love in its varying forms. 

“The title of this album is so important,” Sophie explained. “Without it, this might sound like another record about self-destruction and pain, but at heart, it’s about hope, and finding strength. It’s about finding the light at the end of the tunnel, and crawlingI towards it.” 

Ultimately, Choosing asks the listener to look deep within themselves and to show them that they can take whatever pain they’re experiencing, and choose, to some extent, how they let it affect them; whether they let it burn them down or whether they choose to look it straight in the face. “The songs are bursting with something, and that energy just needs to be reshaped into love for the self,” Jamieson explained. “I can say this from a place of having learned now how to love and care for myself. The love that reverberates through this album is like the green shoots of something I have happily learned to nurture into my present day.” 

The London-based artist’s highly anticipated sophomore album, the Guy Massey and Jamieson co-produced I still want to share is slated for a January 17, 2025 release through Bella Union. The album is a deeply personal reflection on the cynical nature of loving and losing, the anxiety we can’t keep out of our relationships and the perpetual longing for belonging that drives us to keep trying and failing, to find a home in others. The album sees Jamieson lifting the lid on the roots of how we love and digs in even deeper, leaning into our deficiencies but from a stronger, healthier place that is much less afraid of the pain that inevitably comes with feeling everything.

Sonically, the album’s material is reportedly much more exploratory, playful and detailed with a richer palette. The raw emotion of Jamieson’s songwriting and delivery is joined by new instrumentation, including omnichord, harmonium and sub-bass, as well as rich string arrangements by Josephine Stephenson that help to weave a yearning connection through the beating heart of the album’s material. “There’s a lot of warm autumnal colors, and then more glittery, dark, starry skies. Something about it all has really come together to illustrate some things that I didn’t know I needed to articulate in this way”, Jamieson explains.

I still want to share‘s second and latest single, album opening “Camera” is a brooding and stunningly gorgeous song which begins with Jamieson accompanying her expressive delivery with strummed acoustic guitar that swells and builds up with a cinematic arrangement of strings, shuffling drums and twinkling keys to a slow-burn fade out. The song captures a narrator, who’s slowly unraveling with a woozy precision.

“I wrote this song when my heart was broken and I was trying to hold everything when it didn’t want to be held,” Jamieson explains. “I wanted to be able to draw an outline around the pieces, fit them into a frame. Something in me knew that I’d find some peace if I just let things stay blurry, but everything in me wanted to find some focus. This song is the yearning, wrenching of trying to define a love that was less simple, more layered and less graspable than I could accept.”

Co-directed and shot by Malena Zavala and Sophie Jamieson in Brecon Beacons, Wales, the accompanying video for “Camera” features dazzlingly cinematic imagery.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Eterna Shares Murky and Uneasy “Whatever Reason”

Rising Barcelona-born, London-based artist Eterna follows his attention grabbing section1 label debut “Perfect Comms,” with “Whatever Reason,” an eerily goth-like take on post punk/shoegazey take on goth that sees him weaving murky, reverb-soaked guitar distortion with lyrical themes that touch upon modern isolation apathy and ephemeral romance — with a frustration and despair that feels all too familiar.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Schande Shares Noisy and Rousingly Anthemic “Palimpsest”

California-born, London -based singer/songwriter and guitarist Jen Chochinov has been crafting catchy, propulsive rock in DIY circles since the 1990s as a solo artist and in full-bands. Solo and full adventures throughout her career have included a split 7″ with The Cribs and James Murphy’s pre-LCD Soundsystem band Speedking, playing the UK’s Indie Tracks Festival, playing Happy Birthday to Me‘s Athens Pop Festival.

Since relocating to London back in 2013, she has continued playing shows throughout the UK and US both solo and with her full band. In 2018 and 2019, Chochinov was a touring member of Thurston Moore‘s Guitar Ensemble, playing shows throughout the UK and Europe alongside Nøght‘s and Thurston Moore Group’s James Sedwards, My Bloody Valentine‘s and Thurston Moore Group’s Deb Googe, Sonic Youth‘s Steve Shelley, Thurston Moore Group’s and The Oscillation‘s Jim Doulton and Wobbly‘s Jonathan Leideker.

Chochinov is also the frontperson of the British-based noise rock outfit Schande. The outfit, which also features Italian-born Gio Vilaraut (bass) and Canadian-born Ryan Grieve (drums) will be releasing their full-length debut Once Around through Thurston and Eva Moore’s Ecstatic Peace Library’s The Daydream Library Series on September 27, 2024.

Inspired by the works of Hannah Arendt and Adriana Cavarero, One Around thematically focuses on notions of personal existence and subjectively. As Chochinov puts it, the record consists of “contemplations on the teh ways in which we do and do not disclose ourselves to each other, our responsibilities towards ourselves and others, and the ways we do or do not acknowledge the experience ion others. Mirrored by the band’s creative process, which often sees Chochinov writing the lyrics to instrumentals formed out of jams and group revisions, the album aims to explore the ways in which the most personal journeys depend on others, something the collective of expats navigate daily as they establish and reinvent themselves in their adoptive home of the UK.

Once Around‘s latest single “Palimpsest,” is a breakneck, New Wave-like ripper anchored around Chochinov’s angular guitar jangle, Villaraut’s driving bass lines and Grive’s forceful timekeeping. Chochinov’s insouciant delivery ethereally floats over the chaotic fray, seemingly emphasizing the indifference that the narrator’s expressing throughout. Sonically, “Palimpsest” recalls 120 Minutes MTV-era alt-rock, complete with rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses.

“I can’t help but hear the Siouxsie influence every time we play the song. Plus, let’s be honest, ‘palimpsest’ is just a great word,” Chochinov says. “I used a tuning I learned from my friend Darren who I had a recording project with years ago, forgot about it, and then when I started playing around with a 12 string guitar Thurston lent me it all came flooding back, like ‘oh yeaaaaaah. I wonder how this guitar would sound in that tuning?’ As it turns out, ‘rad’ is the answer to that question — just really dynamic and expansive and effortlessly creates a prismatic life of its own. Lyrically, the song reflects on patterns of behaviors that leave room for improvement.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: London’s The Fire Belows Share Bruising “Too Far To Reach”

London-based metal outfit The Fires Below — Smithy (vocals, guitar), Si (bass), Del (drums) and Sam (guitar) formed back in 2021. The band quickly established a sound that draws from punk rock, metal, stoner rock, desert rock and djent, a sub-genre of progressive metal named after the onomatopoeia of the guitar sound that characterizes it. 

The London-based quartet’s debut EP, last year’s Masquerade was released last year to critical acclaim and received quite a bit of radio airplay. Building upon a growing profile in the British metal scene and elsewhere, The Fires Below released their highly-anticipated sophomore EP Thorns last month. The five-song EP sees the British quartet firmly establishing a melodic and punishing sound rooted in their penchant for blending punk, desert rock, alt-metal and djent. “With more experience, we’ve pushed ourselves creatively,” The Fire Below’s Smithy explains. “This EP really plays to our strengths that we discovered playing live. We mix elements of punk, desert rock, alt-metal and djent for an intense yet melodic cocktail of riffs and emotion. Blast it as loud as you can until the neighbours complain!

The EP’s first single “Too Far To Reach” is a bruising and grimy ripper that sees the band seamlessly — and effortlessly — meshing elements of metal, stoner rock, desert rock and punk anchored around pummeling drumming, scorching riffage and howled vocals in a way that will bring Songs for the Deaf-era Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss and others to mind.

Directed by David Smith, the accompanying video for “Too Far To Reach” is shot in black and white, and features the band performing the song in front of a projections of gorgeous natural phenomena, interspersed with the brutality of the human world. The video channels the fiery hellscape of our contemporary moment.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Dutch-born, British-based Artist Dutch Mustard Shares Cathartic and Urgent “Loser”

Dutch-born, London-based artist Sarah-Jayne “SJ” Riedel is the creative mastermind behind the rising indie recording project Dutch Mustard. And with Dutch Mustard, Riedel blends ethereal dream pop, 90s alt-rock with shoegaze touches to create a soundscape that features painterly and swirling guitar textures while the Dutch-born artist’s vocals drift between a near whisper and yearning, heavenly arching shouts.

Riedel and Dutch Mustard exploded into the British scene with the release of 2022’s debut EP An Interpretation of Depersonalisation, an effort that was featured by the BBC while receiving airplay on BBC Radio 1’s Future Artists with Jack Saunders and a co-sign from the legendary Iggy Pop. Last year’s sophomore EP, Beauty received airplay from BBC Radio 6’s Lauren Laverne and co-signs from Don Letts and Amy Lamé. Adding to a growing profile, The Independent, The Line of Best Fit, Clash, Dork and Notion have all covered her — and The Grammy Awards selected her a one of 6 Female Fronted Acts Reviving Rock, along with Wet Leg.

SJ’s latest single, the Bill Ryder-Jones and Riedel co-written and co-produced “Loser,” is a catharsis-inducing, 120 Minutes MTV alt rock-era anthem built around swirling shoegazer guitar textures, rousingly anthemic, shout along worthy hooks and chorus serving as a lush and downright perfect vehicle for the rising Dutch-born, London-based artist’s vulnerable, yet equally enormous vocal.

Creatively, the song was fueled by a bold tale of chutzpah: SJ dropped her demos into the DMs of big-name producers she admired with the hopes that they would be willing to work with her. But at its core, the song as the rising Dutch-born artist explains is about resilience: “‘Loser’ is about making peace with heartbreak. We move on by accepting our feelings and understanding that not everyone speaks the truth. This doesn’t mean we stop being truthful, just more careful with who we trust.”

“I love working with SJ….she’s fucking hard to keep up with like. She has this knack of coming up with great ideas when I’m still admiring the last one,” Bill Ryder-Jones adds.

Directed by Josiah Newbolt, the accompanying video for “Loser” is shot in black and white, and follows the rising Dutch-born, British-based artist in a dizzying close up that evokes the swooning urgency of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Two Cumbia-Inspired Bops from JOVM Mainstays Los Bitchos

Earlier this year, acclaimed London-based instrumental outfit and JOVM mainstays Los Bitchos — Australian-born, Serra Petale (guitar); Uruguayan-born Agustina Ruiz (keytar); Swedish-born, Josefine Jonsson (bass) and London-born Nic Crawshaw (drums) — announced that their highly-anticipated sophomore album, the Oli Barton-Wood-produced Talkie Talkie will be released through City Slang on August 30, 2024.

Deriving its name from a fictional club of the same name, Talkie Talkie is a late-night paradise, brimming with freedom and possibility; a place where partygoers can escape reality by getting caught in the groove and dancing it all away or daydream along to the invigorating soundscape. 

Recorded over a short but intense month-long series of sessions at London’s RAK Studios and Lightship 95, sonically, the album will transport the listener into a world where funk, disco, Latin and Turkish rhythms collide in a euphoric fusion fueled by adventurous experimentation and their endearingly puckish spirit. If 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin was the rowdy build up to the big night out with your homies, Talkie Talkie is the equivalent of rocking out to the groove on the dance floor. 

The album’s material is anchored in a vivid cinematic universe that takes inspiration from the band’s favorite aesthetic era — the ’80s. Think less self-serious men, gated reverb and more campy, hi-fi pop songwriting that glistens with moxie and verve. The quartet especially wanted to tap into the sonic innovation of the period, where analog and digital techniques collided to create polished texture and depth. 

The album will feature the previously released:

  • “La Bomba,” a hook-driven 80s Turkish psych pop-inspired bop anchored around a shuffling dance floor rhythm, a twangy and looping guitar line, a disco-influenced bass line, some video game-like beats paired with glistening synths and ecstatic shouts. 

  • “Don’t Change,” a breezy and blissful jam anchored around a languid and reverb-drenched Spanish-tinged, psych rock-inspired guitar line, stomping percussion, glistening and atmospheric synths and an arpeggiated, funky synth bass line. It’s the perfect soundtrack for frolicking at the beach, of dreaming of heading to the beach with your best pals — or for riding a ferry and dreaming that you were on a super expensive yacht drinking mimosas. 

Today, the acclaimed London-based outfit shares the dual single “Kiki, You Complete Me” and “1K!.” Both tracks see the band reveling in the shimmering guitar tones and shuffling guacharaca rhythms of cumbia — but in mischievously different directions: “Kiki, You Complete Me” has a clean, 80s studio polish-like sound and a cinematic quality that evokes the opening sequence of Nintendo video games like Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda or Blades of Steel — or of an incredibly cheesy but wildly entertaining action movie starring Carl Weathers, Bill Duke or someone like that, complete with a blazing guitar solo.

“This track feels like the opening sequence of a comic book series,” the JOVM mainstays say. “The tom sounds we went for are outrageous, like the ‘pows’ and ‘thwacks’ of a comic strip punctuating the music… think Batman meets Bitchos! Towards the end of the song we extended this chuggy, tension building section and brought out a guitar solo before ending on the comic/video game theme vibe refrain.”

Directed by Tom Brewins, the accompanying video for “Kiki, You Complete Me” follows the quartet as they go to an arcade, where they play a video game called Los BItchos Miami Drive, which features their 16 bit video game counterparts in a a car racing game that brings back memories of Pole Position.

“We’ve leaned into the 16 bit video game aesthetic for the video,” Los Bitchos explain. “Serra has always dreamed of writing music for video games.. We’ve started playing this song live at festivals this year and it’s definitely one of the songs we’re all most enjoying playing.”

“1K!’ is a shimmery, summery yet somewhat straightforward take on cumbia that evokes lazy-because-of-the-intense-heat summer afternoons and early evenings, anchored around a languid guitar line and stripped back, traditional-inspired percussion.

“This is a really shimmery, summer tune. There’s even a can of drink being opened at some point, you can feel the heat and carefree vibes,” the band says. “I imagine a gathering with friends, maybe a BBQ, some drinks, people popping by. The drums are quite stripped back for this track, more percussion led.”

Shot by Madeline Northway on grainy Super 8, the accompanying video for “1K!” captures the quartet’s endearingly puckish spirit and best gal pal vibes, as they head off to a local pool to hang out, drink a cold Coca Cola and bullshit, giggle and attempt to stay cool on a hot summer day.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

London-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Oscar “Sholto” Robertson grew up with a deep and abiding love of jazz, soul, krautrock and 60s and 70s soundtracks. Initially known as being one-half of indie outfit Sunglasses for Jaws, Robertson honed his production skills under the guidance and tutelage of Allah-Las‘ Nick Waterhouse and Inflo.

Four years ago, Robertson stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist with his latest project SHOLTO, which sees him crafting a unique take on instrumental, psychedelic soul. Last year was a big year for the rising London-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer: He signed to Deep Matter imprint Root Records, who released his SHOTOL debut, The Changing Tides of Dreams EP. 

The rising British artist’s work has received airplay from Jazz FM‘s Tony Minvielle and BBC Radio 6‘s Huey Morgan, Deb Grant and Gilles Peterson. Building upon a rapidly growing national profile, Robertson’s latest track “Ligurian Storm” continues a run of gorgeous and mischievously anachronistic material that seemingly channels The Ironsides, Mildlife, Adrian Younge/The Midnight Hour, David Axelrod and Quincy Jones — but with a cinematic quality.

Conceived on a stormy train ride from Milan to Liguria, the compositions blend of swelling and building harp, strings, vibraphone and synths evoke the build up on a growing storm swallowing and overwhelming a beautiful landscape.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Steve Wynn Shares Punchy “Making Good on My Promises”

Steve Wynn is an acclaimed singer/songwriter and musician, solo artist and frontman of the revered alt-rock/indie rock outfit The Dream Syndicate and The Baseball Project. 

This year will be a very busy year for Wynn: Make It Right, the acclaimed singer/songwriter’s first solo album since 2010 is slated for an August 30, 2024 release through Fire Records. The album also coincides with the release of his new memoir I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True, which will be published by Jawbone Press.

I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True is a vivid and revealing memoir that tells a tale of writing songs and playing in bands as a conduit to a world its author could once have barely imagined — a world of major labels, luxury tour buses and sold out theaters across the world, but also one of alcohol, drugs and a a low-level rock ‘n’ roll Babylon. Ultimately, it’s a tale of redemption, with music as a vehicle for artistic and personal transformation and transcendence. 

Make It Right was written and recorded in tandem with Wynn’s work on the memoir. “With each chapter, I would get ideas for songs inspired by the deep dive into my past and vice versa,” Wynn explains. “The reflections became intertwined after a while, a mutual commentary between literal and metaphorical ruminating.

“The songs here aren’t directly autobiographical although the album does start with ‘Santa Monica,’ the city and boulevard where I was born and concludes with ‘Roosevelt Avenue,’ the main thoroughfare of the Queens neighborhood in New York City that I call home today. You write what you know—even when you’re not aware it’s what you’re writing about at the time.

“If the book recounted a tale of trepidation and dread and questionable choices, then that tale would turn into a song of similar intent like ‘What Were You Expecting.’ A step back for perspective and positivity, in turn, found its way into a song like ‘You’re Halfway There.’

The cataclysmic ‘one big open drain’ of ‘Simpler Than the Rain’ was resolved by the resolute ‘I’m just trying to make it right’ on the title track. A gauzy and melancholy where-did-it-go-wrong Southern California flashback on the Long Beach inspired ‘Cherry Avenue’ would steer me towards a steelier determination and reset on ‘Making Good on My Promises.’

“It was a dialogue between the memoirist and the musician, a one-man Q&A, a gentle volley in the tennis court of my mind. 40-love, game, set and match.

As I’ve found the melodies and words to stir and simmer with the stories I told in the book, I’ve simultaneously brought friends and collaborators from my recent and distant past to help flesh them out on the record. The likes of Vicki Peterson, Mike Mills, Stephen McCarthy, Scott McCaughey, Jason Victor, Dennis Duck and Mark Walton and my wife Linda Pitmon are all in the book and—look! —there they are on the record as well!”

“And much like life itself, new faces and hit-and-run collaborators would pass my radar during the sessions and provide new light as well. Chris Schlarb from California dream pop ensemble Psychic Temple added his cinematic touch, Emil Nikolaisen of Norway psych-grunge combo Serena Maneesh chimed in with his trademark sonic anarchy and then Eric “Roscoe” Ambel used his studio savvy producer chops to tie it all together at the end.

It feels perfect and very appropriate that the book and record will both be coming out in the same final week of August 2024. Not that one is needed to understand the other. Hey, you can just put on ‘Make It Right’ and use it as the catalyst to create your own life story, dig into your own past. It belongs to you now. Let it tell your own tale while I tell mine. We’re all just trying to make it right.”

Last month, I wrote about Make It Right‘s first single, album title track “Make It Right,” a slow-burning and ruminative ballad, written from the perspective of someone who has lived a full and messy life of foolish and selfish mistakes regrets, heartbreak, bitter betrayals and joyous triumphs — and with the deep, wizened empathy and understanding that people are flawed, occasionally myopic, stupid and selfish. But almost all of us are trying to make it right somehow in a mad, desperate world that’s on fire.

Make It Right‘s second and latest single “Making Good On My Promises” is a defiant, post punk-inspired ripper. Seemingly drawing from The Jam and XTC, the song is anchored around angular guitar jangle, soulful organ blast, a jaunty yet driving rhythm section and a punchily delivered hooks and choruses. Much like its immediate predecessor, “Making Good On My Promises” is written from hard-fought, harder-won experience — and in turn, the perspective of someone who’s been near the brink and survived while being acutely aware of the fact that the shoe will inevitably drop at some point.

“I wrote this song with Paco Loco, a prolific producer down in Spain,” Wynn says. “Haven’t heard of him?  If you live in Spain, I guarantee you have.  Dude’s a legend and I’d estimate that he’s produced half the records released down there in the last several decades.  The lyrics, like most of the words on ‘Make It Right,’ fit into the overall narrative of my book—a defiant and yet tentative of a return from a temporary abyss while keeping a wary eye out for the next dip ahead.  I shot the video within the confines and out on the streets in London surrounding my groovy label Fire Records.  Together, we’ll make good on those promises.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Remy Bond Shares Lush, Mesmerizing “Summer Song”

Remy Bond is a 19 year-old, New York-based singer/songwriter, who spent much of her childhood living out her own version of Just Kids: She grew up at the renowned Chelsea Hotel, surrounded by music. Her obsession with the silver screen, and the washed up beauty of places like Atlantic City and Las Vegas add a nostalgic undertone to her lyrics.

Bond’s work sees her combing modern elements with her deep rooted love of the past — specifically Golden Age Hollywood — where she often retreats to write, which creates an anachronistic nostalgia, while exploring what it’s like to be a young woman — right now.

The rising young singer/songwriter’s latest single, the Jules Apollinaire co-produced, Air co-written “Summer Song” is a lush and narcoleptic bit of nostalgia-inducing bit of dream pop anchored by Bond’s silky delivery, glistening keys, twinkling synths. Written in Paris, recorded in London and finished in Los Angeles, the song specifically evokes the long bygone era of 60s glamor — but with decidedly modern sensibility that reminds me of Pavo Pavo.

“It’s very much an American song lyrically, reminiscing on the essence of the late 60s and early 70s,” Bond explains. “I have endless love for Sharon Tate & the American sweethearts of the time, but I didn’t want it to be so super apple pie, so I reached out to AIR, which bought in rich new elements and sounds, as well as my British producers, who really brought a seasoned perspective to the project.”

Directed by 16 year-old Jagger Blue, produced by Olivia Violet, and a cast of high schoolers recruited by Bond, the video is spot-on ode to the imagery and vibe of Valley of the Dolls, The Virgin Suicides and Hairspray that opens with Bond leaving her fiancé at the altar for another man.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Mister Lady Shares a Mesmerizing and Swaggering Banger

Jacqueline King is a Chicago-born, Berlin-educated, London-trained, Los Angeles-based electronic music producer and DJ, best known in electronic music circles as Mister Lady. With Mister Lady, King draws from a huge catalog of musical influences, […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Beach Ready Teams Up with Boe Huntress on Breezy “RIde Your Horses”

Christopher Cordoba is a London-based instrumental solo artist, composer and session musician, whose career started in earnest as a member of Jack Adaptor and Vibrations of The Sun, two projects that featured The Family Cat’s Paul Frederick. As an instrumental solo artist, Cordoba has released a series of critically acclaimed, eclectic efforts that has seen him collaborating with a an equally eclectic array of artists and producers including Robert Wyatt David Watson, The Associates’ Billy Mackenzie, Phil Vinall, Propaganda’s Claudia Brucken, Robyn Hitchcock, Pascal Gabriel, PJ Harvey’s Terry Edwards, Audrey Riley, Alex Thomas, Charlie Winston and a list of others. 

Cordoba’s sophomore Beach Ready album, last year’s Archipelago was released through Snow in Water Records. The album’s material is darker in texture and more extreme than Cordoba’s self-titled Beach Ready debut while still being centered around Cordoba’s guitar work and penchant for atmospheric soundscapes. The album also sees Cordoba incorporating drone, glitch, Frippertronics, industrial, New Wave and New age to create a unique sound collage that imparts an urgent ambience. Fittingly, the album thematically focuses on destruction — an all too present theme in our seemingly pre-apocalyptic moment. 

Cordoba’s latest single “Ride Your Horses” is the third collaboration with labelmate Boe Huntress. The collaboration can trace its origins back to when the pair met while playing a David Bowie tribute show at London’s Union Chapel, where Huntress was the artist in residence. “Ride Your Horses” is features an elegiac and gorgeous vocal from Huntress paired with a percussive production anchored around gently twinkling pads, jazzy four-on-the-floor, bursts of reverb-soaked guitar. While being a breezy and summery bop, “Ride Your Horses” sonically brings Princess Century‘s 2021 effort s u r r en d e r and BRAIDS‘ 2013 effort Flourish//Perish to mind, thanks to a forward thinking yet accessible production.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Los Bitchos Share Blissed Out Beach Bop “Don’t Change”

Acclaimed London-based instrumental outfit and JOVM mainstays Los Bitchos — Australian-born, Serra Petale (guitar); Uruguayan-born Agustina Ruiz (keytar); Swedish-born, Josefine Jonsson (bass) and London-born Nic Crawshaw (drums) — can trace their origins to meeting at various late-night parties and through mutual friends. Inspired by their individual members’ different upbringings and backgrounds, the acclaimed British outfit have firmly established a genre-blurring, retro-futuristic sound that playfully blends elements of Peruvian chica, Argentine cumbia, Turkish psych, surf rock, and the music each individual member grew up with: 

  • The Uruguayan-born Ruiz had a Latin-American music collection that the members of the band fell in love with

  • The Swedish-born Jonsson “brings a touch of out of control pop,” her bandmates often joke

  • Aussie-born Petale is deeply inspired by her mother’s 70s Anatolian rock records

  • And the London-born Crawshaw played in a number of local punk bands before joining Los Bitchos

“Coming from all these different places,” Los Bitchos’ Serra Petale says, “it means we’re not stuck in one genre and we can rip up the rulebook a bit when it comes to our influences.”

The JOVM mainstays’ Alex Kapranos-produced, critically applauded, full-length debut, 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin! was recorded at Gallery Studios, and saw the band cementing their reputation for crafting playful, lysergic yet party friendly grooves. 

The quartet capped off a breakthrough year with two Serra Petale and Javier Weyler-co-produced singles “Tip Tapp” and “Los Chrismos,” their first Christmas-themed composition. Fittingly, “Los Chrismos” is a celebratory party-starting romp built around a psych rock-inspired, dexterous and looping guitar line, atmospheric synths, cumbia rhythms paired with holiday appropriate cheers and shouts. Simply put, the song is a much-needed hope and joy bomb in desperate, uneasy time. 

Building upon a growing profile internationally, the London-based JOVM mainstays released 2023’s PAH! EP, a two-track effort that featured a mischievously, rowdy and downright boozy cover of The Champs‘ oft-covered “Tequila,” a song that has become a fan favorite during the band’s live shows and a reworking of King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard‘s “Trapdoor.” 

Today, the London-based instrumental outfit announced that their highly anticipated sophomore album, the Oli Barton-Wood-produced Talkie Talkie is slated for an August 30, 2024 release through City Slang. Deriving its name from a fictional club of the same name, Talkie Talkie is a late-night paradise, brimming with freedom and possibility; a place where partygoers can escape reality by getting caught in the groove and dancing it all away or daydream along to the invigorating soundscape.

Recorded over a short but intense month-long series of sessions at London’s RAK Studios and Lightship 95, sonically, the album will transport the listener into a world where funk, disco, Latin and Turkish rhythms collide in a euphoric fusion fueled by adventurous experimentation and their endearingly puckish spirit. If 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin was the rowdy build up to the big night out with your homies, Talkie Talkie is the equivalent of rocking out to the groove on the dance floor.

The album’s material is anchored in a vivid cinematic universe that takes inspiration from the band’s favorite aesthetic era — the ’80s. Think less self-serious men, gated reverb and more campy, hi-fi pop songwriting that glistens with moxie and verve. The quartet especially wanted to tap into the sonic innovation of the period, where analog and digital techniques collided to create polished texture and depth.

The album will feature the previously released “La Bomba,” a hook-driven 80s Turkish psych pop-inspired bop anchored around a shuffling dance floor rhythm, a twangy and looping guitar line, a disco-influenced bass line, some video game-like beats paired with glistening synths and ecstatic shouts. “‘La Bomba’ is a burst of energy and power! It’s just such a fun song – we started playing it at festivals last summer and the energy felt so good!” The band says in press notes. 

“The beginning stabs are what came to me (Serra) first as I was cooking in my kitchen. There’s something quite heroic and powerful about the opening guitar tone and the stabs underneath them. The twangy guitar tone cuts through the chaotic landscape of claps, pumping disco bassline and dreamy swirling synth sounds. The disco era influence is quite evident in this song, and I think the bassline sets the tone perfectly for this. Structurally the song delivers straight into a chorus (as Nile Rodgers said, ‘why wait?’). We wanted to keep this as close to a classic pop structure as possible, everything straight to the point. 

“The cherries on top are the little ping pong drum sounds (think Ring My Bell, Anita Ward) – they just make the track go off and totally emulate the feelings of euphoria and pure energy running through it.”

Talkie Talkie’s second and latest single “Don’t Change” is a breezy and blissful jam anchored around a languid and reverb-drenched Spanish-tinged, psych rock-inspired guitar line, stomping percussion, glistening and atmospheric synths and an arpeggiated, funky synth bass line. It’s the perfect soundtrack for frolicking at the beach, of dreaming of heading to the beach with your best pals — or for riding a ferry and dreaming that you were on a super expensive yacht drinking mimosas.

Directed by Tom Mitchell, the accompanying video for “Don’t Change” is a deliriously fun joy bomb that captures the band — fittingly — frolicking in paradise while seemingly on vacation. Can I join y’all?

“‘Don’t Change’ is a pure bliss track; think holiday vibes with ice creams, beach balls, sunsets and margaritas,” the band says of the song and its accompanying video. “It’s feel-good, with sun soaked melodies, vibrant arpeggiator synth bass, and layers of percussion. We had such a fun time making the video, making up little dances and frolicking about in the sand and sea!”