Tag: London UK

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Imre Kiss is a Slovakian-born, Hungarian-based producer, electronic music artist and designer, who first emerged onto the European electronic music scene with the release of his acclaimed Raw Energy, which was released by London-based label Lobster Theremin Records. (I have to admit that’s a pretty catchy name for a label.)

As the story goes, Kiss’ full-length debut, Midnight Wave, which was released just the other day is essentially a reissue, as the album was initially released as a limited edition cassette tape through Hungarian label Farbwechsel. The cassette was essentially a commercial failure as it was quietly released to little fanfare, but interestingly enough, Lobster Theremin’s label head Jimmy Asquith has a developed a reputation for discovering and signing obscure artists from Bandcamp tapes. Asquith had discovered Imre Kiss’ Midnight Wave sometime after the artist had returned to his hometown just outside of Bratislava, and was impressed by the ambient and atmospheric material, which was heavily influenced by British industrial electronica, Kraftwerk and Chris Carter’s The Spaces Between; in fact, Asquith had made it a personal mission to release the works of an unknown artist, who he felt deserved further attention.

“Gray’s Legend,” the first single off Midnight Wave consists of layers of undulating and cascading synths, skittering percussion, swirling and ambient electronics floating off into the ether, subtle industrial clang and clatter in the distance to create a sound that manages to simultaneously cinematic and intimate while evoking a sense of desperate isolation and loneliness.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Chet Faker’s Club-Friendly and Sexy Collaboration with Marcus Marr

Up-and-coming, London-based DJ, producer, electronic music artist and multi-instrumentalist Marcus Marr has received international attention over the last couple of years for a number of critically acclaimed singles released through renowned dance music/electro pop label, […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially influenced by No Doubt, Smashing Pumpkins, The Cranberries and Radiohead, the Australian-born, London-based singer/songwriter Lucy Mason first learned the guitar when she was 13, and after finishing school in Australia, the up-and-coming singer songwriter relocated to the UK, where she quickly wound up touring with fellow singer/songwriters Matt Corby and Josh Kumra across the UK. Adding to a steadily growing national profile, Mason is a winner of the UK Songwriting Contest, which naturally established her as one of the UK’s best, new songwriters.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past eight or nine months, you might remember that I’ve written about Mason — and over that same amount of time, the Australian-born, London-based singer/songwriter has been receiving attention internationally across the blogosphere for dramatic yet deeply personally pop.

Her newest and latest single “Lightning Strikes” pairs Mason’s husky jazz-inspired vocals over a sparse and atmospheric production comprised of layers of trembling and ethereal synths, finger-snapped percussion and sudden tempo changes that gives the song a tense, jagged and almost anxious feel as the song builds in intensity. And as Mason explains in press notes, the song is inspired by a deeply personal experience — the sort that had required some time for Mason could write after some time and gaining some perspective. In fact, the song manages to be a bitter and regret-stained confession over a dysfunctional relationship that the narrator spent way too much time in.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

The internationally acclaimed Brazilian indie psych rock quartet, Boogarins can trace their origins to when its founding duo, Fernando “Dino” Almeida and Benke Ferraz started playing music together as teenagers in their hometown, the central Brazilian city of Goiânia. The music that Almedia and Ferraz began to write and then eventually record was a unique vision of psych pop that drew from their country’s incredibly rich and diverse musical history — but with a decidedly modern viewpoint. Their 2013 full-length debut, written and recorded as a duo, As Plantas Que Curam was a decidedly lo-fi home studio effort, pieced together in isolation before the duo had played a live gig. By the time, their debut album was released, Almedia and Ferraz had recruited a rhythm section, and the completed lineup had started developing a profile both in their hometown and nationally, as they started booking and playing regular gigs in Sao Paulo and several of Brazil’s largest cities.  Without much support from a label or from a major PR firm, As Plantas Que Curam was a critical and commercial success in Brazil, as the album received praise from Rolling Stone Brazil, who had dubbed the band “Best New Artist” in 2013, and the album was nominated for several awards on GloboTV’s annual music award shows. Arguably, a great deal of the success and attention that Boogarins has seen in their homeland comes from the fact that unlike the majority of contemporary Brazilian acts that primarily sing lyrics in English, like their British, Australian and American counterparts, Boogarins material is written and sung completely in Brazilian Portuguese.

Now, if there’s one thing the blogosphere has gotten absolutely right, its the fact that as a general rule it has given attention and praise to a number of fantastic internationally based acts that many American listeners wouldn’t have been aware of before, unless they were particularly adventurous. And over the last two years or so, Boogarins have started to receive increasing international attention as the band as toured across the globe, playing at some of the world’s most renowned and largest festivals, including Austin Psych Fest, Burgerama, Primavera Sound Festival and headlining shows in clubs in London, Paris, Barcelona and New York. Naturally, with that kind of exposure, the band started to receive praise from a number of internationally recognized outlets such as Pitchfork and The New York Times, who compared the Brazilian band’s sound to the likes of early Jefferson Airplane.

During their Spring 2014 European tour, the members of Boogarins spent two weeks in Jorge Explosion’s Estudio Circo Perrotti in Gijón, Spain, where they started tracking for material, which would wind up comprising their sophomore effort, Manual, which is slated for an October 30 release. Actually, the album’s full (and official title) is Manual,ou guia livre de dissolução dos sonhos, which translates into English as Manual, or Free Guide to the Dissolution of Dreams, and the material on the album is specifically meant to be viewed as a diary or sort of dream journal. The band eventually returned to Brazil and in between concert dates across South America, they finished the album in Ferraz’s home studio.

Manual‘s material is reportedly not only more personal than their debut, it’s also more socially conscious as it draws from the sociopolitical and class issues affecting their homeland before, during and after the 2014 World Cup as entire neighborhoods were pushed aside and destroyed for massive commercial developments that helped wealthy global corporations make even more money, instead of uplifting those who desperately needed uplift and were promised it from the World Cup. (Certainly, as a native New Yorker, the stories of increasingly gentrification changing the face, character and population of the city would seem remarkably familiar.)

Just a few weeks ago, I had written about album single “Avalanche,” a slow-burning yet breezy and percussive song comprised of shimmering guitar chords played through reverb and delay pedals, swirling feedback and a sinuous bass line paired with plaintive and ethereal vocals. And in some way, the song sonically speaking sounded as though it drew from Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd and Tropicalia but thematically drawing from Rage Against the Machine; in other words, dreamy and trippy yet grounded in the real world — and done in a way that’s powerfully accessible.  The album’s latest single “6000 Dias” is a slow-burning kaleidoscopic song that’s propelled and held together by a tight rhythm section, as the song is composed of about three distinct segments — one which includes a gorgeously, twisting and turning guitar solo that’s reminiscent of Robby Krieger‘s incredible, guitar solo in “Light My Fire” before ending in a gentle fade out, which evokes the sensation of slowly waking from a pleasant reverie.

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Soaring and Anthemic Pop Sound of London’s Lucy Mason

Initially influenced by No Doubt, Smashing Pumpkins, The Cranberries and Radiohead, the Australian-born, London-based singer/songwriter Lucy Mason first learned the guitar when she was 13, and after finishing school in Australia, the up-and-coming singer songwriter relocated to the UK, where […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

London-born, Birmingham-based producer and electronic music artist, Joe Flory. Flory’s musical career began with his first musical project, Primary 1. With the release of Primary 1′s No Thrills, Flory had a growing profile across the European Union as he had toured as a backing drummer with Chilly Gonzales and The Kaiser Quartett. His solo production and recording project. Amateur Best started in earnest when Flory relocated to Birmingham to fully concentrate on sharpening his songwriting and production skills.

So far, Flory’s solo recording project has been praised by the British blogosphere for a sound that compares favorably to  electro pop duo Cassius, the soundtrack work of Michael Nyman, as well as The Avalanches, David Sylvian and Ryuchi Nakamoto — although as I’ve mentioned from the release of “They Know,” the first single off his recently released The Gleaners and the recently released second single, “White Noise,” Flory’s sound reminds me much more of Barbarossa, as both singles pair Flory’s plaintive and ethereal vocals singing deeply confessional lyrics over skittering and propulsive beats, cascading and chiming synths and swirling electronics to craft material that sounds as though it’s delving deep into the fractured psyche of its narrator, who seems crippled by his own insecurities and doubt; however, in the case of “White Nose,” the song also manages to express an aching and urgent vulnerability, that you hear in Flory’s vocals — with hopeful air that belies the song’s existential dread.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Born in Germany to a Finnish father and English mother, young, up-and-coming pop artist Leena Ojala was raised in Hong Kong and Essex before she relocated to London when she was 17. Influenced by London Grammar, Rae Morris and Florence and the Machine, Ojala spent a considerable amount of time experimenting, tweaking and honing her sound — until she felt she found her voice. After a six month stint in Berlin, absorbing everything it had to offer and then using her time there to inspire and inform her music and lyrics, Ojala returned to London, and began working on the material that would comprise her forthcoming EP, EP 1.

EP 1′s first single “Why” is comprise of some sparse piano chords at the song’s introduction followed by guitar, an ethereal string arrangement and stuttering synths and skittering percussion paired with Ojala’s plaintive vocals that express recrimination, anger, confusion, heartache and inner resolve within the turn of a phrase.And that shouldn’t be surprising as the song’s narrator seems to be demanding answers from a deceitful, absent lover in a bitter confrontation. Certainly, the song possess a heartfelt honesty that suggest that the song is inspired by the songwriter’s personal experience — while backed by production that gives the song a stormy and melodramatic heft. If you’ve ever been betrayed by a lover or made foolish by a lover, the song will remind you of a familiar (and universal) ache. 

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: London’s Punks Jump Up and Their Old-School, Chicago House Leaning New Collaboration “Give It To Me” with the Legendary Robert Owens and Josh Caffe

Comprised of a native Londoner, Joe Attard and Swedish-born and London-based David Andersson, the London-based electronic music act and production duo Punks Jump Up (PJU) come from a punk, dance, street art, street fashion background. The […]

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Boogarins’ Breezy, New Single “Avalanche” Draws Influence from Pink Floyd and Tropicalia

Boogarins, the Brazilian, indie psych rock sensation can trace their origins to when its founding duo, Fernando “Dino” Almeida and Benke Ferraz started playing music together as teenagers in their hometown, the central Brazilian city of Goiânia […]

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Up-and-Coming London-based R&B Artist Shanay

Performing under the mononym Shanay, Shanay Holmes is a London-based singer/songwriter who has started to receive attention across the British blogosphere as her debut EP Time is slated for an October 1, 2015. EP title track […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Native Sons, Shoegaze-Leaning, New Single “Pictures”

With members based in London UK and Brighton UK, the British indie rock trio Native Sons first caught my attention with the release of their first single “Humanise,” which was a breezy bit of Brit pop reminiscent of The Invisible Band-era Travis and […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Introducing London’s We Are Z, and Their Anthemic, New Single “Knucklehead”

Comprised of Marc “Archie” Arciero (bass, keyboards), Gabriel Cazes (vocals, keyboards and drums) and Clement Leguidcoq (keyboards, percussion and backing vocals), the London-based trio We Are Z formed in 2012, and since their formation they’ve developed […]

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Creepy and Intimate Electro Pop Aesthetic of Amateur Best

Amateur Best is the solo, electronic production and recording project of the London-born, Birmingham-based producer and electronic music artist, Joe Flory. Flory’s musical career began with his first musical project, Primary 1. With the release […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Live Concert Photography: King Raam with Smoke Season at Mercury Lounge 8/29/15

Live Concert Photography: King Raam with Smoke Season at Mercury Lounge August 29, 2015 Just the other night, I was at Mercury Lounge with my dear friend and colleague, Natalie Hamingson and a dear friend, […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Summery and Ethereal Sound of Clas Tuuth’s Latest Single “Air”

Clas Tuuth is an up-and-coming London-based producer, who first came to the attention of the British electronic music scene with the release of a remix of Rozi Plain’s “See My Boat,” which received radio airplay […]