Tag: Los Angeles CA

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Johanna Cranitch is an Australian-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer and the creative mastermind behind the electro pop project White Prism. Cranitch grew up in a deeply musical home, where she was immersed in music for most, if not all of her life. Her father was a priest-in-training, who used to sing Gregorian chants around the house — and as the story goes, when Cranitch was a small child, her Hungarian-born father, a jazz pianist. gave her his blessing by openly declaring that “this one will be musical.”

Her parents encouraged her to go to the Kodaly School of Music, where she was classically trained as a vocalist and as a musician. When she was nine, Cranitch performed at the Sydney Opera House as part of the Opera Australia Children’s Chorus. But like most young people, she had a love of pop music – especially Kate Bush, Fleetwood Mac, New Order, and others.  After graduating from high school, Cranitch went on to attend the Australian Institute of Music, where she studied jazz vocals and graduating with honors.

After a stint performing in her native Australia, Cranitch relocated to New York, where she cut her teeth as an assistant recording engineer, writing and recording several hundred demos before joining The Cranberries and The Cardigans‘ Nina Persson as a touring background vocalist and keyboardist. Many of those demos that she wrote and recorded during her stint as a recording engineer, wound up appearing the debut effort of her first solo recording project, Johanna and the Dusty Floor. While as a member of The Cranberries’ touring band, Cranitch spent a lot of her off-time in Iceland, which helped influenced her latest project White Prism, a project that she saw as much-needed reboot.

Several years have passed since I’ve personally written about Cranitch and as it turns out, the Aussie-born singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer relocated to Los Angeles. where she’s been primarily been working as a producer. Recently, she finally has had the time to release the music she has been working on over the past couple of years — material that continues to be heavily influenced by the aforementioned Kate Bush, Phil Collins, Cocteau Twins and Joni Mitchell among others. And while being e decidedly synth-based, her work is centered around lyrics that frequently tell stories of love and loss, triumph and failure. 

“Good Man,” is the first new batch of White Prism material in several years. Centered around a sleek and modern production featuring shimmering and arpeggiated bursts of synth, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, martial-styled drumming, Cranitch’s plaintive vocals and an infectious hook, the song manages to be carefully crafted yet rooted in the sort of vulnerability and earnestness  that comes from lived-in experience. Interestingly, “Good Man” is the first single Cranitch every really produced — and came about as a necessity: she didn’t have the budget to hire a producer, so she set about learning how to record and make sounds on her own computer. She then enlisted the assistance of producer and composer Matt Wigton to bring the material home.

“’Good Man’is about fighting for love, for what you believe in and ultimately being on the right side of history,” the Aussie-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer explains in press notes. “I wrote ‘Good Man’ after a difficult period with my then-husband. I was reflecting on our differences and right when I was writing the lyrics, the news came on that Trump had started to attack the health care bill in the courts effectively taking away transgender rights to the health care act. It felt like a very ominous sign of things to come. We were all recovering from the election still and this felt like such an assault on freedom in America.” 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Psychic Twin Releases an Intimate Yet Dance Floor Friendly Single

Erin Fein is a Urbana-Champaign, IL-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, producer and electro pop artist. Inspired by Kate Bush, Annie Lennox and Grace Jones, Fein began writing and recording lush, synth-based solo material earlier this decade under the moniker Psychic Twin. As the story goes, Fein found that she was channeling energy that led her to believe that she was spiritually collaborating with her “other self,” a non-existent twin.

After the release of her debut single, 2012’s “Gonna Get Her,” Fein relocated to Brooklyn, where she released her second single “Strangers” and her full-length debut, 2016’s Strange Diary. Since the release of Strange Diary, Fein has relocated to Los Angeles, where she joined Empress Of’s touring band — and has been working on her long-awaited sophomore album, which is slated for release in 2020. In the meantime, “Water Meets Land” is the first bit of new, Psychic Twin material from Fein in three years, and the track is  shimmering and propulsive track that balances emotional intimacy with a slick, dance floor friendly production centered around shimmering and arpeggiated synths, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and Fein’s plaintive vocals. And while recalling Madonna, Stevie Nicks and Little Boots among others, the song comes from a deeply lived-in place, as it’s about struggle, acceptance and survival. 

“I have been through some very difficult experiences in the last 6 years of my life and I honestly didn’t know if I could survive,” Fein explains in press notes. “And to accompany it all, I experienced anxiety so debilitating that I considered suicide. For many years I was steadily falling apart. And then things began to change — because I began to change — because I chose to get help. I learned how to stand on my own, to trust my own resources and to look directly into the darkest and most painful experiences in my life and confront them.” 

Fein adds, “I want to share with anyone out there reading this that, if you are lost, you can learn to find your way again. If you’re willing to get help when you need it, you can learn to love and forgive yourself, without anyone else’s affirmation but your own. You can take the dagger out of your own heart and you can find the resources inside of yourself to do it. It is a life’s work, but it is possible.

“Lastly, I would like to dedicate this song to Trish Nelson, Natalie Saibel , Jamie Seet, Carla Rza Betts, Jessa Blades, Christina Lecki, and Kate Horne. To ‘The Team’ — All of you helped me to confront one of the most hidden places of pain in my life, you are survivors and you are champions, and I will always be grateful to all of you  .  .  .” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Black Pumas Perform “Colors” on “Jimmy Kimmel Live”

I’ve written quite a bit about the acclaimed and rapidly rising Austin, TX-based soul act, Black Pumas throughout the course of this past year, and as you may recall, the act which is led by Grammy Award-winning producer, songwriter and guitarist drian Quesada and 27 year old singer/songwriter Eric Burton and features a cast of collaborators can trace its origins to when Burton, a popular street performer in his native Los Angeles busked his way across country to Austin, where he met Quesada. 

Black Pumas released their self-titled, full-length debut earlier this year, and since its release the act has been on a relentless touring schedule that has included three separate stops in New York alone: The Knitting Factory, back in May; Mercury Lounge, back in July; and Brooklyn Bowl last month. Album single “Colors” exploded nationally when a live version of the song amassed over 4 million YouTube views — and since then, the song has become the most added song to Adult Album Alternative (AAA) radio. None of that should be surprising as the song is a decidedly old school singer/songwriter soul-inspired track centered around a looping 12 bar blues guitar line, twinkling Rhodes, some gospel-like backing vocals and Burton’s incredibly soulful and expressive vocals, which manage to express hurt, yearning, pride and awe simultaneously. As Burton, Quesada and company explained to The Fader by email, “‘Colors’ was written while the sun was going down on a rooftop in New Mexico. Finding inspiration in the multicolored hues of the night sky. The song is a message of togetherness, but there’s awareness of mortality mixed in . . .”

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the band made their nationally televised debut last night, performing “Colors” on Jimmy Kimmel Live. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Reindeer Flotilla is a Los Angeles-based electro pop act comprised of Neal Harris (vocals, keys) and Josh Brown (guitar). The duo started jamming together in the basement of an Atwater Village wine store, playing covers of John Carpenter, Brian Eno and Elliot Smith, which helped them develop their own sound centered around synths and guitar.

The Los Angeles duo’s latest single is an eerily straightforward cover of Radiohead‘s “Lucky,” that’s a bit more atmospheric and shimmering than the original — but while retaining the original’s soaring and yearning quality.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Dan Sadin is a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who has spent the past decade or so playing, writing and performing with an eclectic array of artists and bands including FRENSHIP, Holychild, MØ, Jessie Ware and Sabrina Claudio. Deeply influenced by the likes of Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith among others, Sadin’s songwriting has long been inspired by intimate moments — the quiet conversations and moments often had in darkened bars, bedrooms and therapy sessions.

Interestingly, Sadin’s forthcoming, self-titled debut EP finds Sadin stepping out into the limelight as a solo artist and songwriter — and for an artist, whose own work was hidden out of self-consciousness and fear of rejection, it’s a a bold unveiling of an artist, who pairs earnest lyricism with an rousing and enormous hook. Thematically, the material focuses on a familiar and fairly universal personal battle that we’ve all fought and continue to fight: that choice to conform and be accepted and liked — or standing out an individual and risking rejection and loneliness. And while acknowledging that it isn’t an easy decision to make, the material suggests that it’s better to be hated for who you really are than to be liked for who you’re not.

“Sucker,” Sadin’s latest single is an earnest track, centered by an arena rock friendly hook, layers of buzzing and distorted guitars, explosive and ebullient blasts of horn, thumping, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and Sadin’s plaintive vocals. The song manages to be heavily indebted to Springsteen and Petty in particular but while avoiding soulless and cliched homage and mimicry, as the song is rooted in hopeful yearning for something more, for a deeper connection based on lived-in personal experience and hard-fought, hard-earned wisdom. 

“I’m terrible at small talk. I’m always pushing for the deeper, more serious conversations,” Sadin says in a lengthy statement. “When I’m out being social, talking about that stuff feels taboo and I think I end up coming across as awkward or disengaged. So I had become actually afraid of ‘going there’ and creating genuine relationships, actively trying to avoid that part of myself. But I’ve reached a point where that just isn’t working for me anymore. 

“‘Sucker’ is an outpouring of that need for a deeper connection with the world around me and myself,” Sadin continues. “I had been feeling lost, caught up in a very surface level existence. I was overwhelmed with anxiety created by ignoring the things in life that really mattered to me, that were a part of my core, because I felt like I had to live up to cultural, communal and familial expectations. I felt like I had to be my own curator of what other people think is a ‘perfect life.’ And while I knew that living like that might be a way to receive instant gratification, it was also a way to avoid being with myself. Living in a world of curated successes and one-dimensional projections, only seeing what people what you to see or hear, I was riddled with anxiety about how I compare with someone else’s end product, As a result, I believed that this end goal, whatever it might be, should be something immediate when it really isn’t. I don’t see someone else’s journey, their deep, dark demons…but that’s the exciting part! That’s the part that I live for. That’s the part that makes us all human and connects us together. I know that we all struggle, we all feel lonely. We are all bound to this human experience by these very feelings, struggles and challenges I had been trying to pass over. And in doing so, I had buried my deepest most authentic self, more concerned with trying to be what I think others want to see than asking myself how I really feel and what I really want.

“This song is for my five-year old self who was in perfect alignment with his dreams, his feelings and who he was. It is meant to honor that part of myself that craves the real talk, the real connections – not just surface level interactions. And it’s a helpful reminder to not take myself too seriously. Life can be both fun and meaningful at the same time!”

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Clipping. Return with an Eerie and Historically Inspired Visual for “Blood of the Fang”

I’ve written quite a bit about the Los Angeles-based hip-hop trio Clipping over the past few years of this site’s nine-plays year history. And as you may recall, the act — production duo Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson and frontperson Daveed Diggs — never expected to achieve much in the way of critical or commercial success: their earliest releases were built around Snipes’ and Hutson’s sparse and abrasive productions featuring industrial clang, clink and clatter and samples of field recordings paired with Diggs’ rapid-fire narrative driven flow, which is full of surrealistically brutal and violent imagery and swaggering braggadocio.

Sub Pop Records signed the Los Angeles-based trio and released 2014’s clpping. an effort that received attention across the blogosphere, including here. When Diggs went on to star in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash-hit musical Hamilton, winning a Tony Award for his dual roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette, the act was on an informal hiatus. But during that time, the members of the acclaimed JOVM mainstays reconvened to write and record 2016’s critically applauded effort Splendor & Misery, a Sci-Fi dystopian concept album that is futuristic and yet describes our increasingly frightening and bizarre present.

Clipping.’s  latest full-length effort, There Existed an Addiction to Blood is slated for an October 18, 2019 release, and the album, which features guest spots from Ed Balloon, La Chat, Counterfeit Madison and Pedestrian Deposit among a list of others, finds the acclaimed act interpreting another rap splinter sect through their own singular lens — in this case, horrorcore, a purposefully absurdist and significant sub-genre that flourished for a brief few moments in the mid 1990s. Some of its pioneers included Brotha Lynch Hung, Gravediggaz, which featured The RZA — and it included seminal releases from Geto Boys, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and pretty much most of Memphis cassette tape rap.

Interestingly, There Existed an Addiction to Blood is partially inspired by Ganja & Hess, the 1973 vampire cult classic, regarded as one of the highlights of the Blaxploitation era — the title is derived from the film and the members of the acclaimed JOVM mainstays sampled part of the score on the album. (More on that later.) Over the past month or so, I’ve written about two of the forthcoming album’s previously released singles: the menacing and cinematic “Nothing Is Safe,” a track that loving employs the tropes of gangsta rap and horror films in a way that recalls Geto Boys’ hallucinogenic “My Mind Playing Tricks On Me.” — and “La Mala Ordina,” a collaborative track featuring guest spots from The Rita, Benny The Butcher and Elcamino that’s full of mayhem, copious gore paired with boom bap-like beats that’s part Mobb Deep’s “Get It Twisted“ and part DMX.

There Existed an Addition to Blood’s third and latest single “Blood of the Fang”  is built around a chopped up sample from Sam Waymon’s score to the 1973 blaxploitation vampire film Ganja and Hess paired with a production featuring stuttering beats, wobbling low end and fluttering synths. Lyrically, Diggs conjures an alternate history of black political and social struggle in the 60s and 70s, name-dropping a who’s who of radical activists  — and then reimagining them as a sort of undead superhero team continuing the necessary fight against systems of oppression and racism.  Whereas the album’s two previously released singles were full of menace and mayhem, “Blood of the Fang” is full of fitting righteous (and necessary) fury.

Directed by multidisciplinary artist Lars Jan, the recently released video for “Blood of the Fang” is inspired by a famous of Huey Newtown — co-founder of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense — handcuffed to a hospital gurney while being treated for a gunshot wound in the stomach after a gun battle with Oakland police in October 1967. The video set in an eerie hospital operating room, features the members of Clipping. performing a series of bloody surgical procedures.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Brooklyn Shoegazers No Swoon Releases a Shimmering and Lush, Synth-Driven Single

Since their formation in 2016, the Brooklyn-based indie act No Swoon, currently comprised of Tasha Abbott (vocals, guitar) and Zack Nestel-Patt (synths) have received attention locally and elsewhere for a sound that features elements of dream pop, shoegaze, post-punk and ethereal wave. Interestingly, much like BLACKSTONE RNGRS, Lightfoils and others, the Brooklyn-based act have added their name to a growing list of acts that have actively pushed the sonic and aesthetic boundaries of shoegaze and dream pop.

Last year’s critically applauded EP 1 was written in Los Angeles during a self-imposed exile from the East Coast. For Abbott, a native of Ontario, CA, the idea was to get back to her geographic and musical roots with a great deal of time spent driving around the suburbs listening to the goth and new wave that her mom played in the car when Abbott was a little girl (Bauhaus, Love and Rockets, New Order) and the indie rock and punk rock of her teenage years (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The White Stripes).

Now, as you may recall, the duo’s forthcoming Jorge Elbrecht-produced, self-titled debut is slated for a November 1, 2019 release through Substitute Scene Records, and the album reportedly is an ambiguous and urgent affair that thematically touches upon the confusion, frustration and uncertainty of our zeitgeist. And naturally, as a result, the material is at times searingly critical, frustrated and despondent over everything from misogyny to global power imbalance and inequality with each of the song’s narrators seeking answers to questions that may never be resolved. The album also finds the duo collaborating with Robi Gonzalez, best known for his work with A Place to Bury Strangers and This Will Destroy You, contributing drums.

“Don’t Wake Up, Wake Up,” their self-titled debut’s first single and opening track was a Joy Division-like take on shoegaze, centered around layers of fuzzy and distorted power chords, a motorik-like chugging groove, an enormous arena rock-like hook. But at its core, Abbott expresses confusion, unease and frustration while asking uncomfortably familiar, large questions: has the world gone crazier or is it me? Is this real or is this some horrifying and unending nightmare? “Forward,” No Swoon’s second and latest single off their forthcoming full-length debut is a lush, synth-driven track featuring shimmering and arpeggiated synths, thunderous drumming, a soaring hook and Abbot’s ethereal cooing. And while being their most dance floor-like single of their growing catalog, the song expresses frustration about how we haven’t made progress on racism, sexism. homophobia, inequality and so on. 

“You know when you’re talking to someone about how fucked the world is (in many ways) right now and they say ‘but it’s better than it used to be, we’ve come so far!’  I hate that, ‘we’ve come so far,’ it’s such a cop-out,” the band says in a statement. “Sure we’ve made progress, some things are better than before and some things aren’t. It doesn’t mean that racism, sexism, homophobia, abuse (the list goes on), doesn’t exist today or that climate change isn’t a real threat to the world. And if that all still exists, we still have work to do. And that’s what this song, ‘Forward’ stems from. That cop-out of an idea that things are better and great. ‘Are the clouds really breaking, or merely moving over?’ Meaning are we really making progress or is whatever problem just shifting, either to someone else, or in a different form.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Cones Release a Behind the Scenes-like Visual for Breezy Album Single “Seeing Triple”

Throughout the course of this site’s nine-plus year history, I’ve written quite a bit about the  San Francisco-born, Los Angeles-based sibling duo Cones. The duo which is comprised of Jonathan Rosen, an acclaimed, pop music influenced, hand-drawn animator, who has created music videos for Toro y Moi, Eleanor Friedberger and Delicate Steve,  and played Johnny Thunders on the HBO series Vinyl; and Michael Rosen, a classically trained pianist, commercial and film composer and experimental sound artist, can trace the origins of their band back to their stint playing together as members of the New York-based indie act Icewater, an act that at one point became Friedberger’s session and touring band during New View. As the story goes, while touring with Friedberger, the Rosens began to conceptualize what their new project would sound like, ultimately deciding that their project would fuse Jonathan’s pop sensibilities with Michael’s lush, atmospheric soundscapes and keyboard-based instrumentation.

After releasing a string of critically applauded singles, which they followed up with their debut EP, the Rosen Brothers went into a friend’s studio to collaborate with a producer for the first time in their history.  They recorded what they initially thought would be their full-length debut but ultimately, they decided to scrap it, as it didn’t feel like a proper Cones album to them. So they went back to their home studio and started working on the full-length debut from scratch. The end result wound up being their full-length debut Pictures of Pictures. 

Now, as you may recall, earlier this month, I wrote about “Moonstone,” a breezy bit of psych pop that struck me a being a sort of seamless synthesis of Steely Dan and MGMT, but while being a swooning and delicate love song. “Seeing Triple,” Pictures of Pictures’ latest single is a shimmering and breezy New Wave-like track, that kind of reminds me of The Cars and of The World’s Best American Band-era White Reaper, complete with a soaring hook and plaintive vocals. But at its core, the song evokes the ambivalence and confusion of getting older.  

Interestingly, the recently released video for “Seeing Triple” is arguably their first live-action video, centered around the duo performing the song in a studio in front of psychedelic-tinged lighting. The video reveals, the behind-the-scenes of a video filming and of the brother’s relationship — like most siblings, they fight and fuss but there’s a profound amount of love there.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Starcrawler Releases an Anthemic Country-Tinged Rocker

Over the past few months, I’ve written a bit about the Los Angeles-based indie rock act Starcrawler, and as you may recall, the band quickly emerged with the release of last year’s critically applauded, self-titled debut album, an effort that established their sound, a heavily grunge rock-inspired sound, and for a feral live show. Since the release of their debut, the members of the band — Arrow de Wilde (vocals), Henri Cash (guitar), Austin Smith (drums) and Tim Franco (bass) — have had a busy touring schedule that has seen them play some of the world’s biggest music festivals, including Primavera Sound,Rock Am Ring, Download Festival, Voodoo Festival, FujiRock Festival, Reading Festival, Leeds Festival, SXSW and others.

Adding to a rapidly rising profile, the band was included as part of last year’s incredibly diverse crop of Vevo DSCVR — but they were only ones to have Garbage’s Shirley Manson praise the band and de Wilde in a video testimonial. They’ve opened for Foo Fighters, MC50  Morrissey, Beck, Cage The Elephant, Spoon and The Distillers. But 2019 may arguably be the biggest year of the young band’s history: “Hollywood Ending,” the first single from the band this year received praise from NPR and Rolling Stone, and as a result, the track spent several weeks at #1 on speciality radio charts. And the band’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Devour You is slated for an October 11, 2019 release through Rough Trade Records.

Produced by Nick Launay at Sunset Studios, the album finds the band capturing the aggression and essence of their unhinged live show and pairing it with a more elaborate, more nuanced yet harder-hitting sonic palette to create a sound that the band’s Arrow de Wilde says ““encapsulates all the blood, sweat, bruised knees, and broken fingers of a Starcrawler show.”  “Bet My Brains,” Devour You’s first official single, was a T. Rex-like boogie shake, centered around de Wilde’s feral vocals, a massive guitar riff and a cretinous and forceful stomp. Interestingly, the album’s second and latest single “No More Pennies” is a mid-tempo, country rocker with an enormous hook that reveals an ambitious, young band growing more mature and adventurous with their songwriting and sound — while being reminiscent of Headbanger’s Ball-era metal and T. Rex. 

Directed by the band’s Arrow de Wilde and Jonathan King, the recently released video as the de Wilde explained in press notes, “.  . . started with an archive of 16mm film that Gilbert Trejo shot with us on tour and at home over the last year.” “I was editing it together with Jonathan and we were both drawn to a lot of the shots of us around Los Angeles. So we jumped in a car, and shot the video performances around town trying to capture the feeling we get when we’re all together back in the city. We had our friends with us – Gilbert, Annie Hardy (Giant Drag), Mary James, my uncle Jimmy and Jonathan’s chihuahua Earth Angel. It’s got a feeling that captures the dreaminess of the song.” 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this year, I wrote about Alekos “Kosie” Sryopoulous, an up-and-coming Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and producer, who has collaborated with the likes of Anderson .Paak, Mac Miller, JMSN, The Midnight, DUX, Stan Taylor, Vulfpeck, Cory Wong, DJ Williams, Tiffany Gouche, Sensae, Desi Valentine, Raquel Rodriguez, Ruslan Sirota, Madelyn Grant and others as a live and studio session player. In fact, the Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and producer was recently featured on Anderson .Paak’s “King James.”

Interestingly, as a producer and solo artist, Sryopoulous has begun to receive attention for a take on future funk that incorporates synths, woodwind and a mix of live and sampled drums that’s largely influenced by his deep and abiding love of jazz, funk, hip-hop and electronic music. Now, as you may recall “Struck Gold” was a lush and soulful track centered around arpeggiated synths, warm blasts of saxophone Amber Navran’s easygoing yet sultry vocals. While being one part Teddy Riley-era New Jack Swing and one part 80s synth R&B, the song finds Syropolous and and Navran balancing between a loving homage to two-step inducing soul and contemporary pop.

Sryopoulous’ latest single, the swooning “Heavy Waters” is a lush and soulful track, bursting with several different musical ideas that’s centered around shimmering and arpeggiated synths, thumping beats, Whitney Myer‘s sultry vocals. As a result the song manages to sound as though it seamlessly draws from 90s pop, hip-hop-tinged R&B before ending with a tropical, yacht rock-like coda.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rwandan Folk Act The Good Ones Latest is the Heartbreaking Lament of a Desperate Father

The Kigali, Rwanda-based folk act The Good Ones, which features core trio and founders  co-lead singer Janvier Hauvgimana, co-lead singer and primary songwriter Adrien Kazigira and Javan Mahoro can trace their origins back to the roughy 1978. The members of the band, who were children were taught music and how to play by Hauvgimana’s older brother. Tragically, Hauvgimana’s older brother, who was also blind, later died in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The members of The Good Ones formed the band as part of the healing process after the genocide and interestingly enough, the band’s original trio featured individual members of each of Rwanda’s three tribes — Tutsi, Hutu and Abatwa — symbolically and metaphorically reuniting a country that had been split apart at its seams. But on a personal level, for each of the band’s founding members, the band was an active attempt to seek out “the good ones” after witnessing and enduring unthinkable horrors.

Most of the members of the band are small plot, subsistence farmers — with two of the band’s members living on family plots that  have been passed down through several generations. Because most Rwandans are very poor, instruments are very rare. Like countless musicians. who are poor and barely getting by, they find ways to be creative. Sometimes they may find and use a broken guitar. But in most cases, they’ll make their own instruments, sometimes incorporating their farm tools. 

Now, as you may recall, the Rwandan folk act’s forthcoming album Rwanda, You Should Be Loved is slated for a November 9, 2019 release through Anti- Records, and the album’s material can be traced from a batch of over 40 songs that the band’s Adrien Kazigira had originally written. Most of the material thematically centered around meditations on his 13-year-old daughter Marie Clare and the life-threatening tumor that has afflicted her left eye. Interestingly, the album was recorded live and without overdubs on Kazigira’s farm  — and the sessions were imbued with loss’ their longtime collaborator and producer Ian Brennan‘s mother died and a former bandmember and founding member had both died during the sessions.

While the album was recorded during a period of profound loss for the band and their producer, the album focuses on a variety of things in the bandmembers’ lives and experiences. Rwanda, You Are Loved’s first single “The Farmer” celebrates the critical role farmers play in society and to a national — but it’s also an aching lament, acknowledging the bitter irony that farmers often can’t feed their own families and are struggling to barely get by. Built around a sparse arrangement of strummed guitar, harmonized vocals, the song is a timeless one that has seemingly been sung by generations upon generations across the world — and in a variety of languages. The album’s second and latest single “Where Did You Go Wrong, My Love” is a heartbreaking song that’s one part aching lament, one part desperate plea, one part bittersweet reminiscence over the loss of innocence of a young one, as the song is about a father’s desperate attempt to rescue his daughter from going down a bad path in her life. And as a result, the song is imbued with the powerless fear that countless parents have felt about their children. Much like it’s predecessor, the song is centered around a gorgeous yet sparse arrangement: al looping and shimmering 12 bar blues-like guitar, galloping percussion and the interwoven harmonies between the band’s primary songwriter Kazigira and co-lead vocalist Havugiamana.

Sonically, the material may draw comparisons to bluegrass, country, Americana and acoustic, Mississippi Delta Blues but while coming from an older, primordial source. Countless artists consciously aim to create something timeless, the members of The Good Ones somehow manage to seemingly do so in an effortless, breezy fashion while talking about the plight of their fellow farmers, countrymen and working men. (The song features a guest appearance from Wilco’s Nels Cline.)

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: The Midnight Hour and Black Thought Perform “Noir” at The Lodge Room

A Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge, a Los Angeles-based composer, arranger and producer teamed up with a 10 member ensemble, The Midnight Hour, which features vocalists Loren Oden and Angela Munoz and guitarist Jack Waterson to compose and record the score to the acclaimed Netflix series Luke Cage. Last year, the ensemble released their self-titled debut which further established their sound: jazz and orchestral-inspired hip-hop that recalls David Axelrod, Quincy Jones and Jazzmatazz-era Gang Starr. 

The act has been and will continue to be rather busy:  Linear Labs has already released Jack Waterson’s psych rock solo album Adrian Younge Presents Jack Waterson and albums from the act’s Oden and Munoz, as well as the act’s highly-anticipated sophomore album are slated to be released over the coming months.

The Midnight Hour will be embarking on an extensive fall tour across North America with  collaborative opening sets from Oden, Munoz and Waterson. The tour includes a stop tomorrow night at Brooklyn Bowl — and if you want to check out the rest of the tour dates, as well as ticket information, check out the following link:

http://www.artdontsleep.com/2019/07/20/tmhustour19/

In the meantime, Linear Labs and The Midnight Hour released live footage of the band performing “Noir” with The Roots’ Black Thought. The track originally appeared as part of Amazon Music’s Produced By series that Younge curated, produced and recorded to collectively celebrate the spectrum of Black Music — with the series appropriately being released during Black History Month. Interestingly, the live footage was filmed this past month at Los Angeles’ Lodge Room that featured collaborations with Estelle, Gallant, Georgia Anne Muldrow and a long list of others. 

Of course, the live footage will give you a great sense of what you should expect of the Brooklyn Bowl shows and onward. But just as important, it’s a reminder of a few things — if you’ve forgotten about them: 

Black Thought is fucking dope. 
All dope emcees should record an album with a live jazz or orchestral ensemble. 
When I rule the world, I’ll make sure that’s a law. 
As far as the track, it’s a gorgeous and crafted take on hip-hop that’s sophisticated and cinematic while still being gritty street shit that raises the proceedings to a transcendent, Curtis Mayfield/Issac Hayes soundtrack-level artistry. In an age where a lot of hip-hop is mass produced product, we need to be reminded that it can be a transcendent and powerful art form. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Kills Birds’ Explosive “Volcano”

Initially beginning as a secret musical project founding by Nina Ljeti, an award-winning, Los Angeles-based Bosnian-Canadian filmmaker and vocalist and guitar Jacob Loeb back in 2017, the Los Angeles-based punk act Kills Birds evolved into a full-fledged band with the addition of Fielder Thomas (bass) and Bosh Rothman (drums). The act quickly drew attention for jagged, post-punk-like guitar driven melodies, slow-burning dynamics, Ljeti’s urgent lyrics and an explosive live show, featuring Ljeti’s raw stage presence. 

Interestingly, among the band’s earliest fans was KRO Records founder and producer Justin Raisen, who not only signed the Los Angeles-based quartet to his growing label roster, but also opted to produce their recently released self-titled full-length debut. Recorded nearly live over an intense, breakneck eight hour session, the band’s full-length debut reportedly captures the band’s feral, live energy while being driven by deeply personal songwriting. “The album is very personal,” Ljeti says. “As a whole, it has no concept, but each song is reflective of what I struggled with, and continue to struggle with. Feelings of insecurity, anxiety, inadequacy, and ultimately love. Love is the main driving force behind everything I create.”

“The instrumentation helps clarify those feelings,” Ljeti continues in press. “When Jacob and I write, Jacob is able to understand what I’m feeling, and he uses the instrumentation to elevate the piece to a whole new level. He honors the words and challenges me to find the best method of expression. His contribution is brave — he works without ego to benefit the emotion of the song. Same goes with Fielder and Bosh. Completing the puzzle. We are all emotional beings. And we struggle with what everyone struggles with. Our ultimate goal is to stay true to that, no matter what. We play together because we crave honesty, and we want to do justice to love in all its forms.”

“Volcano” the self-titled album’s latest single seethes with the feral unease of someone, who’s literally bouncing off the walls emotionally and mentally as they vacillate between feelings of power and self-assuredness, self-satisfaction, self-hatred, insecurity, passivity, boredom and fury. Centered around angular bursts of guitar, thunderous drumming a rousingly anthemic hook and Ljeti’s explosive shouts and yelps, the song evokes the interior monologues of Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground paired with the tense and neurotic instrumentation of Gang of Four. 

The recently released video follows two fairly average teenage girls and their adventures in being rebellious and trying to fit in simultaneously. As the band’s Nina Ljeti says of the video and the song, “Volcano” is meant to encapsulate that feeling of being a teenage girl on the verge of adulthood. The constantly fluctuating feelings of excitement, power, sexuality, insecurity, and inadequacy as you are trying to get a sense of who you are. There’s no climax to the video because I wanted to stay true to the nervous energy and stasis of being a teenager. It’s a so-called life. In your mind, you’re ready to grow up, but you’re not sure how to yet. You’re not as ready as you think you are. 

“I still carry that impatient energy with me into adulthood. That’s what Volcano is about. There are so many things I want/want to be, but I’m not grown enough yet. I want to be a volcano but I’m still dormant. Maybe soon that will change.”

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Laura Burhenn is a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, musician, activist and restless creative mastermind behind The Mynabirds, an act that has released four critically applauded and stylistically different albums through Saddle Creek Records — 2010’s What Was Lose in the Fire, 2012’s Generals. 2015’s Lovers Know and 2017’s Be Here Now. Burhenn also had had stints as a touring member of critically applauded and commercially successful acts The Postal Service and Bright Eyes. Burhenn has helped found Omaha Girls Rock, a non-profit that helps young girls find their creative voices — and she has given a TED talk based on her New Revolutionist photo project, which explored what it meant to be a revolutionary woman in this day and age. (Before all of that Burhenn was a member of Washington, DC-based indie act Georgie James with Q and Not U’s John Davis and released two-self produced solo albums through the label she founded, Laboratory Records.)

Interestingly, this year marks the 25th anniversary of Portishead‘s classic debut Dummy, an album that was highly-influential to Burhenn. “Dummy was my all-time favorite make-out record in high school and is in my permanent top ten, period,” Laura Burhenn says in press notes. To celebrate the occasion, The Mynabirds’ creative mastermind recently released a Patrick Damphier-produced cover of “Glory Box” that retains the original’s slow-burning and sultry nature and quietly defiant feminism — but while giving it a subtle, old-school country vibe. “That Beth Gibbons slid that feminist anthem into my teenage brain — that song completely rewired me.” Certainly, when women’s rights are being edged backwards, the song and its refrain “I just want to be a woman” would have to feel more powerfully necessary than ever before.

The track was released through Our Secret Handshake, a womxn-driven, women-focused creative strategy collective that Burhenn co-founded last year. A portion of the proceeds from the single will benefit Omaha Girls Rock.