Tag: Los Angeles CA

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Breezy and Self-Assured Pop of Up-and-Coming Phoenix-born Los Angeles-based Artist Upsahl

Growing up in a deeply musical family, the 18 year old, up-and-coming, Phoenix, AZ-born and Los Angeles, CA-based pop artist Taylor Upsahl, who writes and performs under the mononymic moniker Upsahl, started playing guitar and piano when she had turned 5, and by the time she was 14, she had written and released a self-titled EP, which caught attention across the local music scene for material that was influenced by The Shins, Spoon, Lorde and Beyonce among others. In 2015, she pieced together a band, and then wrote and self-produced her full-length debut Viscerotonic. 

Upsahl’s third full-length album Unfamiliar Light was released earlier this year to critical praise from the likes of Phoenix New Times, who had written that the album was a “breath of fresh air” and that fans will be “blown away by the quantum leap in sound and vision,” and when you hear album single “Can You Hear Me Now,” which was released last month to praise from Nylon, who called the song a “a girl-power anthem you’ll want to play on repeat all summer long,” you’ll see — er, hear — why the young, Phoenix-born, Los Angeles-based artist has been dominating the blogosphere: produced by Max Frost, the single which features strummed guitar, boom bap beats, swirling electronics, undulating synths and chiming percussion reveals an artist, who is self-assured and confident beyond her years and perhaps more important, an artist who can craft an mischievously infectious, radio-friendly hook. But underneath the breezy and infectious surface is a message rooted on resilience and the recognition that a failing relationship isn’t the end of the world; that in fact, it could be an opportunity to recognize that the listener can and should be treated in a way that they deserve. 

Directed by Matty Steinkamp of Sundawg Media, the recently released video for “Can You Hear Me Now” features the up-and-coming pop artist with a group of friends and associates, dancing and goofing off in a number of neon-colored set ups; but underneath the surface is the fact that everyone is making the best of the situations in front of them. And while clearly nodding at Taylor Swift, the video reveals a young woman, who is quirky, coquettish, incredibly self-assured and self-possessed. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Playful and Summery Visuals for Umm’s “Black Summer”

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site throughout the course of the summer, you’ve likely come across a couple of posts featuring the  Los Angeles, CA-based indie rock duo Umm. Comprised of Stefanie Drootin, best known for stints in The Good Life, Big Harp and in the backing bands of She & Him and Bright Eyes, and her Big Harp bandmate and husband Chris Senseney, the duo specialize in a 90s alt rock-inspired sound, full of fuzzy power chords, propulsive and forceful drumming paired with swoon-worthy boy-girl harmonizing and anthemic hooks; in fact, as a child of the 80s, who started to come of age in the 90s, “I’m in Love,” off the duo’s recently released full-length debut Double Worshipper instantly reminded me of the countless hours I spent watching 120 Minutes, of scanning the radio stations to make mixtapes of my favorite songs of the moment and of borrowing friends’ tapes and CDs and dubbing them on a Sony boombox stereo I had owned. 

Double Worshipper’s second single “Black Summer” continues along a similar vein as its predecessor, as it clearly 90s alt rock-inspired. And although the song manages to possess  some rather dark lyricism, there’s a breezy and old timey pop accessibility that bolsters both the song’s anthemic quality, as well as its mischievous irony; after all, the song is about rejecting the idea of some kind of stable, acceptable adulthood — and pretty much saying “Fuck it, it’s all bullshit. Just exist, man.” 

Directed by Mike Stillkey and shot with what looks like grainy Super 8 film, the video features the duo goofing off on a glorious Southern California day at the beach and in the desert, playing together and naturally a horse’s head mask, because — well, why not? 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Introducing the Trippy and Ethereal Sounds of Los Angeles’ Western Scene

Featuring founding member and primary songwriter Tom Pritchard with a rotating cast of collaborators and friends, the Los Angeles, CA-based indie rock/indie pop act Western Scene received attention regionally with the 2013 release of their debut effort Listening. Since then, Pritchard and company have been writing and recording material in bedrooms and studios on both coasts including 2014’s “See What You Want To,” a track that received attention regionally and across the blogosphere; in fact, “See What You Want To” received airplay on radio stations across Southern California and was featured in several films and TV shows. 

“Going Back” Western Scene’s latest single is a dreamy song that employs the use of a mid-tempo yet driving groove atmospheric synths, a shimmering guitar line and Pritchard’s breathy, falsetto crooning paired with a soaring hook but oddly enough the song is under-pinned by a sense of uneasy and frustrated triumph. Interestingly, the song manages to sound as though it drew from OK Computer and Kid A-era Radiohead and Primal Scream but with a trippy, cosmic glow. 

Created by Emily Wilder, the recently released lyric video is comprised of images from Google Street View to emphasize the feeling of travel and movement towards a destination. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: NVDES Returns with a Breezy Tropicalia and Dance Punk-Inspired New Single

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past 12-18 months or so, you may have come across a couple of posts featuring the Los Angeles-based collective NVDES. With the release of 2016’s Life With Lobsters, an album consisting of glitchy, summery indie dance pop, the collective fronted by founding member and primary songwriter Josh Ocean received over 10 million streams across all digital platforms, landed on Spotify’s Global Viral Chart, and as a result of rapidly growing buzz, the project’s 2016 effort received praise from The Fader, Nylon and others.  

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about “Turning Heads” off their forthcoming La NVDITÉ EP, a breakneck dance punk track along the lines of  Sound of Silver-era LCD Soundsystem, Radio 4 and others, complete with angular guitar chords, a propulsive bass line, boom-bap beats and a rousingly anthemic hook. And building upon the buzz that single received, the act recently released their latest single “Dancer From New Yorker,” a track that will (naturally) further cement their growing reputation for crafting glitchy and breezy pop with anthemic hooks, and while its as dance floor-friendly as its predecessor, the track manages to subtly nod at tropicalia and bossa nova. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of London-born, Los Angeles-based duo Hetty Clark (vocals) and Ned Douglas (keys, guitar, programming), The Dot and The Line can trace its origins to a mutual love and appreciation of downtempo electronica acts like Portishead, The xx, Haelos and others. As the story goes, the duo started working together to carve out their own sound and to write the material the would comprise their debut EP, and as you’ll hear on the duo’s second and latest single “Wait For You,” the duo pair Clark’s breathy and sensual vocals with a stark and cinematic production featuring layers of cascading, shimmering synths, twinkling keys, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and a soaring hook. And while nodding at Portishead, The xx and Garbage, the song as the duo’s Hetty Clark explains in press notes is an ode to the complicated and often frustrating essence of desire. “It’s a song about desire, desire being the blueprint of all we do and act upon. There is a dazzling aspect to desire, with all the unassimilated feelings that lie below the surface, causing us to act and behave in unpredictable ways. Desire is a huge life force, but it can also be an annihilating force. Deeply longing for something requires also accepting the pain of unfulfillment.””

Of course, unsurprisingly the song while further cement the duo’s growing reputation for crafting moody and cinematic downtempo electronica with a tense, push and pull familiar to relationships and involvements in which one’s feelings and motivations are uncertain and confused.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this year, I wrote about  San Francisco-born, Los Angeles-based sibling duo Cones  and as you may recall the sibling duo comprised of Jonathan Rosen, a pop music influenced, acclaimed hand-drawn animator,  who has created music videos for a number of renowned artists including Toro y Moi, Eleanor Friedberger and Delicate Steve, whose rock ‘n’ roll dream started in earnest when he played Johnny Thunders for the HBO series Vinyl; and Michael Rosen, who is a classically trained pianist, commercial/film composer and experimental sound artist can trace the origins of their band to when they began playing together as members of the NYC-based indie rock act Icewater. Eventually, the members of Icewater began playing as the session and backing band for Furnaces’ Eleanor Friedberger, helping to write, record her latest album New View.

And as the story, while touring with Friedberger, the Rosens began to conceptualize what Cones would sound like, and ultimately they decided that the project’s overall sound would fuse Jonathan’s pop sensibilities with Michael’s lush, atmospheric soundscapes and keyboard-based instrumentation.  Shortly after the tour, the Rosens with a bunch of friends, associates and collaborators to write and record the material that would eventually comprise their debut EP Whatever You’re Into, which featured single “Echoes On,” a single that paired Jonathan’s dreamy falsetto with a twangy, psych country-like arrangement with a breeziness reminiscent of 70s AM radio.

Their latest single “Back In The Brain” will further cement the sibling duo’s reputation for crafting breezy and wistful synth pop with a motorik-like groove and soaring hooks but underneath the breeziness is a song is an aching loneliness. As Jonathan Rosen explains “A friend of mine once described living alone as a sensation of being constantly inside of your own brain — your house is your head. After a while I realized I would often think the phrase ‘back in the brain’ upon returning home from being out, so we turned it into a song. It’s my ode to solitude.

“The animation, drawn and colored by hand, brings this idea to life. Through the yes of Bob the Hippie — an extremely groove dude, who lives inside of a lava lamp, we witness the magical confusion of seclusion.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Last month, I wrote about the  Oklahoma City, OK-based indie rock/psych rock quartet SPACE4LEASE. Comprised of primary songwriter and founding member Grayson Hamm (keys, lead vocals), along with Walt Blythe (guitar),  Brandon Brewer (bass, vocals) and Wes Belk (drums), the Oklahoman indie rockers can trace their origins to when Hamm met his bandmates while they were all attending the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma. And although they all had vastly different musical backgrounds and differing musical tastes, the band’s sound manages to be a convergence of all of their influences including Tame Impala, My Morning Jacket, Big Thief, Andy Shauf and others; however, unlike their eclectic influences, their material lyrically focuses on lost love, the unknown, and inevitable life experiences. With the release of their debut EP Hiraeth, an effort that focused on the complicated process of self-discovery, the members of the Oklahoma City-based quartet toured extensively across the Midwest last year, eventually winning the praise of The Flaming Lips‘ Derek Brown, who described them as  “Fellow Okies that wonderfully mix the blissfulness and melancholy of the great wide open.”

And as you may recall “Must Be Something” was a moody and atmospheric bit of psych rock that featured some lush, shimmering guitar work, a sinuous and propulsive bass line and a rousingly anthemic hook that reminded me of JOVM mainstays  Caveman, Los Angeles-based indie rock act Hands and others but inspired by the endless possibility of the road, of the profound sensation of being “a man from far away,” seeing, eating, experiencing things you’d never expect and how it can change and influence your life. As the band’s Grayson Hamm explained in press notes, “Coming from a small town, I never had the experience of the big city life, but surprisingly it wasn’t these destinations that intrigued me the most. It was the journey, and the miles, and time it took to get there. Once we were out on the road all by ourselves just driving and seeing the countryside, this quest of finding myself really started to take effect. This is where the premise of the chorus let alone the whole song comes into play. ‘There must be something in the way how, there’s nothing standing in our way now.’ I started to realize that the only barrier that was standing in the way was myself. The world was just waiting for me.”

The band’s latest single “Lately” finds the band drawing from classic, Quiet Storm-era R&B, indie rock and blue eyed soul in a way that reminds me of Milagres’ exceptional first two albums Glowing Mouth and Violent Light — and much like the material off of those albums, there’s the push and pull of infatuation, lust, love and heartache at the core of a confusing relationship that at times is unrequited and other times is requited; but as the band’s primary songwriter Grayson Hamm notes, there’s also an underlying questioning of one’s own worth, which love can make you do on occasion. As he explains in press notes,  “The lyrics came to me one day after experiencing the all-too-common feeling of falling for someone without reciprocation. The truth is, I didn’t know what I was getting into and probably will never fully understand it. We have all experienced that uncomfortable moment in which we have stronger feelings for someone than they have for us, even if we refuse to admit it out of embarrassment or shame. I’ve reached the point multiple times in my life where I ask the question, ‘Who I am to you? How does this person see me compared to how I see them?’ This cyclical pattern is emotionally exhausting, so I decided to channel these feelings the best way I know how: though the process of songwriting. ‘Lately’ is all about asking these difficult questions. Sometimes it is more helpful to look introspectively rather than to direct the questions toward the one we might be falling for.”

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Alice Merton is a Canadian-born, Berlin, Germany-based singer/songwriter and pop artist, who has lived a rather nomadic life, as she was raised in Canada, finished high school in Germany and then with the rest of her family, relocated to England. Of course, music was a major part of her life, no matter where on earth she was — she started taking classical piano lessons when she was five and by the time she was nine, she was introduced to vocal training. As the story goes, after spending the better part of a decade under classical training, Merton discovered songwriting through one of her high school courses while in Germany. And from that point forward, she went on to study songwriting and began pursuing her dream of becoming a professional singer/songwriter.

Naturally, during her studies Merton worked with a number of producers and finding the right producer who both compliments and challenges a singer/songwriter in the way that a true collaborator — and in turn, a great producer — should do, is a rarity, and when she met Berlin-based producer Nicolas Rebscher, Merton quickly recognized that she found her musical match; in fact, the collaborative duo have specialized in pairing vintage, analog synthesizers with organic arrangements based around propulsive drum and bass. Unsurprisingly then, on Merton’s swaggering and (somewhat) bluesy debut single “No Roots,” Merton’s self-assured and soulful pop belter vocals are paired with a Rebscher production that features enormous, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, a sinuous bass line, brief blasts of funk guitar, squiggly blasts of synths and a rousingly anthemic hook. And in some way, the song is a slick meshing of both the familiar and the unfamiliar, as the song sonically nods (a little bit) at Amy Winehouse, Lorde, Taylor Swift and a lengthy list of major pop star contemporaries; however, the song has a visceral ache, as it based on her own personal experiences, recognizing that her life was frequently thrown in disarray, she’s never been able to claim one place as a home.

Already “No Roots” has won the up-and-coming Merton an immense amount of attention both across the European Union and the States and elsewhere, as the song has already seen millions of streams on Spotify and YouTube, and has recently been added to the playlists of several Stateside Adult Alternative Album radio stations, including stations in Los Angeles, Austin, Dallas, San Francisco, Minneapolis, the NYC area, as well as Sirius Alt Nation. And as a result of the action the single has seen, merton recently signed with Mom + Pop Music; but along with that, I suspect that over the next few months that we’ll be hearing this single quite a bit, and more from Merton, who seems destined to be a pop star.

 

 

Merton has a series of live dates across Germany throughout the end of August and the fall, and is planning stops across North America and elsewhere so be on the lookout; in the meantime, European friends, check out the live dates below.
TOUR DATES:

 

08/25 Gamescon – Cologne, Germany

08/26 Laternenfest – Halle, Germany

09/9 Rennbahn Berlin Hoppegarten – Berlin, Germany

09/10 Lollapalooza Berlin – Berlin, Germany

09/14 SWR3 New Pop Festival – Baden Baden, Germany

09/15 NDR 2 Soundcheck Festival – Göttingen, Germany

9/20-23 Reeperbahn Festival – Hamburg, Germany

11/17 New Fall Festival – Düsseldorf, Germany

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The 80s New Wave-Inspired Sounds and Visuals of Frankie Rose’s Latest Single “Dyson Sphere”

For the better part of a decade, Frankie Rose played a significant role in Brooklyn’s  indie rock scene, both as a solo artist and as an original member of critically applauded and commercially successful acts like Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls and Beverly; in fact, if you’ve been covering music in this town as long as I have, you may recall that Rose was a largely considered a controversial, restlessly creative presence, frequently leaving projects, just as they were about to attain some measure of success. As the story goes, Rose relocated back to her birthplace of Los Angeles with the intention of establishing a new, creative and professional moment in her career; however, she gradually found herself running short on sleep, money and optimism.  “I moved to LA, drama ensued and I ended up on a catering truck. I was like, how can this be my life after being a touring musician and living off of music. I had really lost my way and I thought I was totally done,” the indie rock artist recalls in press notes.

During those restless nights, Rose spent her time listening to Art Bell’s paranormal-themed archives and her thoughts turned fatalistic — in the sense that she started to feel as though she wasn’t cut out for the music business, and wondering what she was going to do next. “But out of it all, I just decided to keep making music, because it is what I love and what I do — regardless of the outcome,” the indie rock artist says.

Towards the end of her 18 month stint back in Los Angeles, Rose reached out to Jorge Elbrecht, known for his work with Tamaryn, Gang Gang Dance, No Joy and my own personal favorite Violens and began sketching what eventually became the basic outline of what felt like a new album. When Rose returned back to Brooklyn, she had the realization that she had to do it on her own, and naturally it meant working with basically no budget and finding ways to record in-between days; however, Rose credits it as being incredibly useful as it allowed her to experiment with a variety of people, who helped change her creative process and songwriting as a whole. “I got a lot of people from people like Dave Harrington (Darkside), who was helpful in reconstructing the songs, adding dynamics and changing up the rhythms.”

The end result is Rose’s soon-to-be released fourth full-length album Cage Tropical, and as you’ll hear on the album’s latest single “Dyson Sphere,” the material takes on a decidedly spectral yet New Wave-inspired sound, complete with analog synths, an angular and propulsive bass line, angular guitar chords fed through delay and reverb pedals, dramatic percussion and a soaring hook paired with Rose’s ethereally crooned vocals floating over the mix. And although the song is reminiscent of A Flock of Seagulls “I Ran (So Far Away),” Siouxsie and The Banshees’ “Israel” and “Happy House,” it may be the one of the more personal and albums of Rose’s career — and while seemingly dark, there’s an underlying and subtle sense of hope; that the darkest days of one’s creative or personal life certainly aren’t forever.  “It’s all essentially based on what happened to me in Los Angeles and then a return to Brooklyn. Misery turned into something good,” Rose says of the album in press notes. “The whole record to me is a redemption record and it is the most positive one I’ve made.

“I feel like I am finally free from worrying about an outcome. I don’t care. I already lost everything. I already had the worst-case scenario. When that happens, you do become free. In the end, it’s about me rescuing myself via having this record.”

Directed by Daniel Carbone, the recently released video for “Dyson Sphere” is an incredibly 80s New Wave-inspired performance video that features the Brooklyn-based indie artist and her backing band shot in a hazy and moody shadows, complete with trippy fade outs and bursts of color, that should remind anyone who grew up in the 80s of watching warped and over-recorded VHS tape.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Los Angeles-based songwriter Jesse Marc and New Orleans-based songwriter and producer Christoph Andersson, who has collaborated with the likes of G-Eazy, Olivia O’Brien, Monopol and others, the Los Angeles/New Orleans-based pop duo JOME can actually trace its origins to when Marc started the project as a solo recording project. And as the story goes, a few minutes after Consequence of Sound posted Marc’s first single as JOME, Marc received an email from Andersson, who asked him Marc if he’d be interested in collaborating together. “I thought it was spam,” Marc recalls in press notes. “It happened too quickly.”

Marc and Andersson met in Venice, CA for an afternoon and quickly recognized that they were on the same page creatively, as both men, who had worked in the realm of pop for some time were yearning to make music with a deeper emotional resonance.  “Crystalline,” the duo’s ethereal new single features an ambient-leaning production consisting of a gentle melody, warm bursts of guitar, propulsive, boom bap-like beats paired with dreamy vocals but what sets the duo and this single apart from an extraordinarily crowded electro pop field is that the song reveals a deliberate and careful attention to craft that belies its breeziness. But perhaps more important is that the song carries a simple yet powerful message — that everything in life will settle in due time, if you’re patient.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: In The Valley Below Releases the Surreal Yet Symbolic Visuals for Rousingly Anthemic, New Single “Bloodhands (Oh My Fever)”

With the release of their full-length debut The Belt, which spawned the viral hit single “Peaches,” In The Valley Below,  the husband and wife duo Angela Gail and Jeffrey Jacob first received international attention — including “Peaches” debut on BBC Radio 1, as well as commercial success in Germany and France, with the song topping the French Alternative Charts. A year or so after the release of The Belt, Gail and Jacob received national attention with “Peaches” becoming a staple of American alternative radio, which lead to appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman and Conan. Adding to a growing profile, the duo went on a relentless touring schedule across both the European Union and the US that included sets at Reading Festival, Leeds Festival, Austin City Limits, Rock En Seine and others, which has resulted in a growing international fan base that has been clamoring for new material from the duo. Considering that the duo effortlessly meshes elements of art rock, synth pop, the blues, arena rock and more in a way that’s reminiscent of JOVM mainstays Smoke Season, it shouldn’t be surprising that Gail and Jacob have seen such rapid critical and commercial success.

The husband and wife duo’s latest EP, Elephant was released last month, and the effort was recorded in the basement studio of the 93-year old home the couple purchased upon relocating from Los Angeles to Grand Rapids, MI. Interestingly enough, the EP reportedly consists of some of the duo’s most personal, ambitious and politically-charged material they’ve written do date; in fact, Elephant’s first single “Bloodhands (Oh My Fever)” was inspired by the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, MO and its immediate aftermath. “All the uprising happening in Ferguson was powerful,” the duo explain. “Sad, angry and feeling helpless, we sang about it. It’s our way of keeping the issue alive. Racism is real, we don’t know how to stop it, but we can make people think about it.” And while being a rousingly, anthemic and ambitious song — a song that feels and sounds both arena rock and radio friendly — its an earnest plea to the listener that there’s much work to be done to make our a world a fairer place, where all lives, whether Black, Asian, Latino, First Nation, Trans, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Gender Nonconforming, etc. will actually matter. The song’s coda, which features a local gospel choir led by Debra L. Perry, adds to the song’s enormous sound, while adding a deeper emotional wallop to the proceedings. 

Directed by the band’s Angela Gail and Chris Johnson, the recently released visuals for “Bloodhands (Oh My Fever)” possess a nightmarish, fever dream-like quality that symbolically touches upon race, sexuality, religion while reminding the viewer that ultimately our fates and the fate of the world as we know it will lie solely in the hands of our children.