Tag: London UK

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!”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Deriving their name from their favorite PJ Harvey song “Meet Ze Monsta,” Dutch indie trio Black Monsoon — Jacky (guitar, vocals), Marjolin (drums, vocals) and Teun (guitar, vocals) — have received attention across the Netherlands and the European Union for a sound that the cognoscenti have favorably described to early Nirvana, The Stooges and Sonic Youth.

2018’s Joes Brands-recorded, self-titled debut EP saw the band quickly establishing their sound, rooted in unusual guitar tunings and drill machine-like solos earned the band opening sets for Sonic Youth‘s Steve Shelley, L.A. Witch and Belgian JOVM mainstays Whispering Sons. They also earned sets at Popronde Festival, the touring festival for emerging and up-and-coming Dutch bands.

2019’s “Jabberwocky,” “Losing” and “Pantomime” were released to critical praise. Building upon a growing profile across The Netherlands, the trio released their Jan Schenk-recorded full-length debut, Pantomime in 2020.

The band adheres to defiantly DIY ethos and in the winter of 2020-2021, the band attracted attention through a unique album release tour: The band organized a video release tour, featuring live footage of the band playing the album’s material at unique locations for each song, including an art gallery and a skate park, to present the song within the most appropriate atmosphere.

Since then, the duo signed to London-based label Civil War, and have toured across Germany and the UK, while recording new material that reportedly sees the band pushing their sound in new directions. “Broken,” the first single from that batch of new material is a grungy, power chord-driven, mosh pit friendly ripper that will bring back memories of Bleach and Incesticide-Nirvana, Veruca Salt and others on your beaten up Walkman.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Los Bitchos Share Glittery Visual for Disco-Inspired Romp “La Bomba”

Acclaimed London-based instrumental outfit 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 and retro-futuristic sound that 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.”

Los Bitchos’ 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 London-based JOVM mainstays 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.

The tracks were released digitally and physically on a flexi-disc, bundled with a red vinyl re-pressing of their debut — for that year’s holiday season..

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. The EP also featured a reworking of King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard‘s “Trapdoor.”

The British outfit’s latest single, the Oli Barton Wood-produced “La Bomba,” the first bit of new material from the band since last year’s PAH! EP. The track is an 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.”

Directed by the band’s long-term artistic collaborator Tom Mitchell, the accompanying video, features some high-energy, glittery visuals that at points playfully nods at Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

The band says of the video “As it’s a high energy, pumping song, we needed to have really dynamic visuals to go with that and bring the song to life. The video has lots of shiny, glitterball moments and moves between performance and surreal segments. We had so much fun with make-up and styling for this video. Josefine saw this thing on Tik Tok where you film in a way which gives the illusion you’re riding a horse, so obviously we had a go and put that in the video last minute on set.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Fat Dog Shares Euphoric Trance Banger “Running”

Led by Joe Love, the rapidly rising London-based electronic act Fat Dog — Love (vocals, production), Chris Hughes (keys, synths), Ben Harris (bass), Johnny Hutchinson (drums) and Morgan Wallace (keyboards and sax) — can trace its origins back to 2021, when Love decided to form a group and take the demos he’d be making as a way to keep himself during lockdown out into the world. Initially, Love had two simple rules: Fat Dog was going to be a healthy band, who looked after themselves and there would be no saxophone presence in their music. But those two simple edicts have long-since been broken.

With Hughes, Harris, Hutchinson and Wallace, Love found like-minded mavericks to help bring the dream home. “A lot of music at the moment is very cerebral and people wonʼt dance to it,” says Hughes. “Our music is the polar opposite of thinking music.” The band’s Chris Hughes should know. He was originally a fan of the band, who at that point had been making a name for themselves with a series of exhilarating and/or wonky shows across South London before he joined.

Those early gigs formed the bedrock of what the rapidly rising British outfit were all about: seizing the moment, drinking too much with the moment, going home separately from the moment, but making up with the moment again the next day. Naturally, the rising British outfit quickly developed a following — and it helped that every show across London had become a huge upgrade on the last.

There’s something far deeper going on with the band. “Thereʼs a sense of community about Fat Dog,” says Hutchinson. And after completing their first shows in the US, including a set at a taco joint, the band has quickly built up a following Stateside. Building upon the buzz in their native UK, the Londoners will tour the UK next month and November, as well as make a run of the European festival circuit, playing sets at festivals in the UK and Europe over the summer.

Amazingly, the band’s breakthrough year or so, has come as the result of only two official singles under their collective belts: “King of the Slugs” and “All The Same,”  propulsive, club rocking, industrial-inspired banger built around glistening synth arpeggios, and orchestral sample-driven hit, industrial clang and clatter paired with skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling boom bap, enormous shout along worthy hooks and a plaintive vocal delivery.

Fat Dog’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, WOOF is slated for a September 6, 2024 release through Domino Recording Co. Produced by the band’s Love, Jimmy Ford and Jimmy Robertson, WOOF‘s material is influenced by Bicep, I.R.O.K., Kamasi Washington and the Russian experimental EDM group Little Big. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the London upstarts firmly establishing music for letting go, anchored around a blend of electro punk, snarling rock, techno soundscapes, industrial electronica and rave euphoria. The sound that Fat Dog makes, according to Love is “screaming-into-a-pillow music.” He continues, “I wanted to make something ridiculous because I was so bored. I don’t like sanitized music. Even this album is sanitized compared to what’s in my head. I thought it would sound more fucked up.”

WOOF‘s latest single “Running” is a hook-driven bit of club rocking trance, built around glistening, razor sharp synth arpeggios, relentless four-on-the-floor, thumping club beats and shouted vocals. But underpinning the club friendly euphoria is a tense, paranoid unease that befits our corporate sponsored hellscape.

Directed by Stephen Agnew, the accompanying video for “Running” is a surreal, breathtakingly cinematic visual with hints to Ken Russell, Ingmar Herman and others that reveals the true origins of the cult of Fat Dog and their real leader.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Zimbabwean-born, London-based emcee Rhyme Assassin is a grizzled vet in the game, starting his career in earnest back in 2000 doing rap battles and performances in his native Zimbabwe before relocating to the UK in 2002. Since then, Rhyme Assassin has appeared on a number of compilations and released a handful of mixtapes, including 2021’s Side Barz.

HIs forthcoming, highly-anticipated full-length debut, Dedicated to Self will feature production from the likes of Buckwild, True Master, DJ King Flow and a list others, as well as guest spots from Ras Kass, Masta Ace, dead prez‘s stic.man, Saigon and Keith Murray. Dedicated to Self‘s latest single, “Run Em Up” sees the Zimbabwean-born, London-based emcee trade mosh pit-inducing bars about running up on the competition with M.O.P. and Ruste Juxx over a bruising and menacing Preemo-like beat from The Arcitype.

The Arcitype beat inspired Rhyme Assassin to reach out to his collaborators. “I could only hear M.O.P. on the instrumental,” he says, adding that it didn’t matter how many times he listened to it, because he only could hear the Brownsville bullies on the beat. Then, when he needed a third verse to close it out, he reached out to Ruste Juxx, who “complemented M.O.P.’s energy and vibes,” Rhyme Assassin says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Close to Monday Shares Lush and Uneasy “Stranger”

Since their earliest releases back in 2019, rising electro pop duo Close to Monday — Ann (vocals) and Alexander (production) — quickly amassed a dedicated international following while establishing a sound that some have described as blending elements similar to that of acclaimed outfits like CHRVHCES and Boy Harsher, but while forging a musical identity uniquely their own. Thematically, the duo’s work is a guide for people, who are on a journey — either exploring themselves and/or the surrounding world.

2021’s Interference and 2022’s Secret Wishes landed on the Top 3 on the Deutsche Alternative Charts. Adding to a growing profile, the video for “Guns” won awards at international film festivals in London, Rome, and Paris.

The rising electro pop duo will have a very busy 2024: They’ve started a monthly series of releases that continues with their latest single “Stranger.” Built around brooding production featuring glistening synths, wobbling bass synths, skittering beats that serves as a lush and uneasy bed for Ann’s breathily yearning delivery.

Sonically channeling Soft Metals‘ 2013 effort Lenses and Depeche Mode, “Stranger” as the duo explain dives into the darker dimensions of love that can pull us into multiple conflicting directions simultaneously.

“The track delves into the shadows of [the characters’] love story, a complex dance where the desire to break free collides with an irresistible pull, creating a vortex of torment and vitality,” the band says. Elaborating on the magnetism of dysfunctional relationships, they add, “Despite their yearning to escape, each attempt only draws them back into the vicious cycle, a paradoxical realm that both torments and breathes life into their existence. The music mirrors this tumultuous relationship, offering a hauntingly beautiful reflection of the individuals’ struggle to break free from a toxic yet life-sustaining bond.”

The accompanying video for “Stranger” is shot in a gorgeously cinematic black and white that accurately captures the topsy-turvy feelings of unease, obsession, longing and desire that love often brings.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the course of the lat handful of years, the Roskilde-born, London-based singer/songwriter, musician, producer and JOVM mainstay Marie Dahlstrøm has developed and honed a reputation for being one of the most prolific and acclaimed artists in contemporary, indie/underground R&B.

The JOVM mainstay’s third album, last year’s A Good Life was a deeply personal album that was informed and inspired by the recognition that she contained multitudes, thousands of different selves co-existing and contradicting each other — simultaneously. For the Danish-born artist, she’s an acclaimed singer/songwriter and producer. Producer Dan Diggas‘ romantic partner and creative collaborator. A mother, and on and on.

“These different pockets of life also create friction,” she acknowledges. “I’ve been figuring out where I belong, what I’m supposed to do and how I fit into all of this — because I am so much more than an artist. When you have big dreams or goals and you see time being taken away from achieving them, and going towards something else — how do you make that a positive experience? There are always challenges, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good life.”

Fittingly, A Good Life thematically explores dismantling the long-held idea that your validity as an artist somehow diminishes when it’s not the focal point of your life and that somehow being a parent negates creativity. Of course, that can be said for artists, who have to support themselves and their creative endeavors with a day job not even remotely related to their passions.

The album also featured collaborations with Jay Prince, Kofi Stone, Cory McKenzie Tribbett, Delleile Ankrah and Sipprell among a list of others, and production from Conor Albert and her partner Dan Diggas.

The JOVM mainstay announced the forthcoming release of A Good Life Deluxe, which will feature two previously unreleased tracks “Glass,” and her latest single “Nothing On You” feat. Odeal, as well as two new remixes and reworks of album tracks “If I Belong” featuring contributions from Samson Jatto (drums) and Jay Asafo (bass) and “Now my Own,” featuring frequent collaborator, London-based rapper Aligo.

Anchored by a shimmering, looping guitar line, reminiscent of The Isley Brothers‘ “Footsteps In The Dark,” a sinuous bass line and a swaggering four-on-the four, atmospheric synths and twinkling bursts of keys, “Nothing On You” is driven by Dahlstrøm’s and Odeal’s yearning yet effortlessly soulful and gorgeous solos and harmonies. While sonically being a remarkably contemporary bit of neo-soul tinged R&B, the song thematically harness back to classic soul — a sweet and earnest longing and desire for a deeper, sustainable connection with that special significant other.

“This song was made in the very first session Odeal and I had together. It was such a natural and smooth process,” the acclaimed JOVM mainstay explains. “Daniel’s production provided the perfect foundation and it felt really natural to develop the song. The song is a true love song – feels like a nice way to start the year.”