Alessia Iorio is a rising Toronto-based singer/songwriter and pop artist, best known as Alle The Dreamer. Iorio quickly established herself in the local scene, writing and recording with a series of collaborators in Toronto, Los Angeles and London, including Samuel Gerongoco, who has worked with Alessia Cara; Bram Inscore, who has worked with BTS and Andy Grammer; Jeff Shum, who has worked with John Legend and Camila Cabello; Dayyon Alexander, who has worked with Demi Lovato and Dua Lipa; and Negin Djafari, who has worked with Drake. She has also accumulated a bunch of credits in a relatively short period of time including as a featured artist of DVBBS‘ “Wicked Ways” and Morgan Page‘s “Beautiful Disaster,” and as a co-writer on Little Mix‘s “F.U.,” Baby Ariel‘s 2019 “I Heart You” and two singles for K-Pop star Suho.
Writing and performing as Alle The Dreamer, Iorio has quickly become known for dynamic songwriting and a unique dream pop sound that draws from a fluid bend of vintage and cutting-edge influences. The rising Canadian artist’s debut EP Starting Over was released last week.
“Starting Over came to be in a very organic way. The more songs I wrote, the more clarity I had on what the underlying themes were from all the music I was writing,” Iorio explains. “Writing this EP was a time of self-reflection, and self-isolation. It taught me the beauty in letting go and having faith. I struggled with these ideas my whole life as I’m a chronic overthinker. I let overthinking & overanalyzing mindset steal joy from special moments instead of being present.”
The EP’s latest single “Run Home to You” is an slow-burning, anthemic pop ballad built around glistening synths, the Canadian artist’s achingly tender and ethereal delivery before the introduction of skittering tweeter and woofer rattling beats and buzzing bass synths paired with enormous sing-along worthy choruses. Sonically recalling 80s pop ballads and JOVM mainstay ACES, “Run Home To You” evokes the whirlwind of confusing and contradictory emotions relationship can bring from beginning to end.
“I am just reflecting on how confusing relationships can be, the dynamics, dating in your 20’s, the highs and lows, and all the feelings you go through and experience for the first time,” the Canadian artist says.
Acclaimed Los Angeles-based rock duo Deap Vally — Julie Edwards (drums, vocals) and Lindsey Troy (guitar, vocals) — can trace their origins to the duo’s chance meeting in a knitting class over a decade ago. The Los Angeles-based duo’s debut single, 2012’s “Gonna Make My Own Money,” was released through tiny British indie label Ark Recordings.
Since then, Edwards and Troy went on to release three albums of roaring, idiosyncratic maximalist minimalist rock — 2013’s SISTRONIX, 2016’s Nick Zinner-produced FEMEJISM and 2021’s MARRIAGE. They’ve shared stages with Blondie, Garbage, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queens of the Stone Age and a lengthy list of renowned acts. Along with that, they participated in a series of groundbreaking collaborations with an eclectic array of artists including Peaches, KT Tunstall, Jamie Hince, Soko, and The Flaming Lips, with whom they recorded a joint album, 2020’s DEAP LIPS.
Although the band has been received critical applause and won fans across the globe, maneuvering the contemporary music industry has become increasingly difficult. And if you add the challenges of the pandemic and raising families, the duo increasingly found themselves struggling to fit into the recording, promotion and touring cycle. “That model isn’t compatible with our current lives,” Lindsey Troy says. “We found we just can’t function as a traditional band anymore,” Julie Edwards adds. “It’s time for both of us to explore motherhood and other avenues of our lives properly, rather than squeezing them into our artist’s hustle.”
“I’m so proud of all our records, and Julie and I have an uncanny creative relationship,” Troy says. “It’s hard to ever picture having that with someone else. After all that, ya never know what could happen! We need to find the balance where we can focus on the fun stuff, but have the freedom to make the music we love. We just felt it would be fitting to go out with a bang, not a whimper. I felt marking this occasion should be a cathartic process: healing deep wounds, reconnecting with old friends and collaborators – and falling in love with Deap Vally all over again.”
So while Deap Vally is calling an end to their decade-plus long run together, they’ve decided to go out with a bang — and not with a whimper. They’re releasing a re-recorded version of their full-length debut, SISTRONIX 2.0, which is slated for a Spring 2024 release through their own Deap Vally Records. Pre-order vinyl, exclusive bundles and the digital LP here.
They’ll be supporting SISTRONIX 2.0 with a final tour, which will see them celebrating SISTRONIX‘s 10th anniversary by playing SISTRONIX in its entirety. The tour begins with West Coast dates during November. And a Midwest and East Coast run in early 2024. The east coast run includes a February 17, 2024 stop at Le Poisson Rouge.
Ticket pre-sales begin on Thursday. General on-sale tickets will begin on Friday 10:00am local time. You can get more information here. L.A. Witch, JOVM mainstays Death Valley Girls, Sloppy Jane, and Spoon Benders will be opening for the band in select markets. Of course, more shows will be announced in the coming weeks and months. So be on the lookout.
But in the meantime, the duo have shared SISTRONIX 2.0‘s first single “Baby I Call Hell (Deap Vally’s Version).” Built around buzzing power chords, thunderous drumming and soulful vocals, “Baby I Call Hell (Deap Vally’s Version)” is a swaggering and towering ripper that captures the quintessential Deap Vally sound and energy but within a completely different and new context: The duo is a bit older and wiser. Kids are around — and that forces you to rethink everything about your life and career. But they do so lovingly and wistfully with a sense of admiration and awe as though the pair is saying to each other: “Holy shit! We did actually did THAT!”
“‘Baby I Call Hell’ is quintessential Deap Vally,” Lindsey Troy says. “It was the first song we ever wrote as a band, so it’s very meaningful to our story. Re-recording that song was a lot of fun, but also a lot of pressure because we wanted to make sure the recording captured the magic of the song again.”
“SISTRIONIX is just classic Deap Vally. It’s so pure and raw,” Troy continues. “It really encapsulates an era — an era of dank, yeasty backstage rooms across the UK, of the endorphin rush of that first wave of success, of youthful drunken, wild nights, of the worldly adventures and the newness of it all.”
“We’re just going to go to play as many places as we can and say farewell to everyone,” Julie Edwards says. “Though the band is playing live for the last time, the door is open to us to collaborate. Now we’re all about re-establishing a workflow and connection around our friendship, after all we’ve shared together along the way.”
Tour Dates
11.10 – San Diego, CA @ The Casbah * 11.11 – Santa Ana, CA @ Observatory ^ * 11.15 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall ^ 11.17 – Portland, OR @ Star Theater ^ ~ 11.18 – Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall ^ 11.19 – Seattle, WA @ Neptune Theatre ^ ~ 02.08 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West # 02.09 – Nashville, TN @ Basement East # 02.10 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall # 02.11 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club # 02.13 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom # 02.14 – Washington, D.C. @ Black Cat # 02.16 – Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts # 02.17 – New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge # 02.18 – Boston, MA @ Crystal Ballroom # 03.09 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram * 03.15 Las Vegas, NV @ Backstage Bar + Billiards * 03.16 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge * 03.17 – Denver, CO @ Marquis * 03.18 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf * 03.20 Austin, TX @ Mohawk * 04.18 Mexico City, MX @ Foro Indie Rocks!
support from ^ L.A. Witch * Death Valley Girls # Sloppy Jane ~ Spoon Benders
14 year-old — yeah, 14! — Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Edie Yvonne wrote her full-length debut At Ease in her room during pandemic-related quarantines. The young artist has shared three singles off the album so far, “On Your Mind,” “In the Rain,” and the album’s latest single “Random Boy,” which were released earlier this year.
Built around a singer/songwriter pop arrangement of strummed acoustic guitar, boom bap-like drums and a mischievously jaunty hook, “Random Boy” simultaneously reveals a young artist with a self-assuredness beyond her relative youth while being a tell off/reminder to not deal with fuckbois, bullies and other assorted dummies with the awareness that they’d be terrible for her.
Since initially forming in Bloomington, IN over a decade ago, the acclaimed Los Angeles-based psych rock outfitFrankie and the Witch Fingers — currently founding duo Dylan Sizemore (vocals, guitar) and Josh Menashe (lead guitar, synth), along with Death Valley Girls‘ Nikki “Pickle” Smith (bass) and Mike Watt’s Nick Aguilar (drums) — have a long-held reputation for restless experimentation rooted in the multiple permutations of their lineups, and for a high-powered and scuzzy, garage punk meets thrash punk take on psych rock paired with absurdist lyrics, frequently fueled by dreams, hallucinations, paranoia and lust. The result is material that can be simultaneously mischievous, menacing and dreamlike.
Slated for a September 1, 2023 release through Greenway Records/The Reverberation Appreciation Society, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays’ forthcoming seventh album, Data Doom is built around the cerebral yet visceral songwriting of the outfit’s co-founders, while marking the first written and recorded material featuring Smith and Aguilar.
In crafting what may arguably be their most rhythmically complex work to date, the band drew heavily from each member’s distinct sensibilities: Smith tapped into her extensive background in West African drumming, an art form she first discovered through her music instructor parents. Aguilar leaned into formative influences like longtime Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen.
Self-produced by the proudly DIY-minded band and recorded direct to tape by the band’s Menashe, Data Doom ultimately took shape through countless sessions in their Southeast L.A.-based rehearsal space, with the band allowing themselves unlimited time to explore their gloriously strange impulses. “There was no pressure and no real time constraint for this record, and because of that the creativity flowed in a very free way that probably wouldn’t have happened if we’d been on the clock in a studio,” Frankie and the Witch’s Dylan Sizemore says in press notes. “It showed us that the more we take the time to communicate and share our ideas with each other, the more it feeds our creative energy and helps us to make something we’re all really excited about.”
While showcasing the expansive and eccentric musicality of past efforts like 2020’s Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters . . ., Data Doom reportedly features nine high-wattage songs built with both dizzying intricacy and completely unfettered imagination.
Earlier this year, I wrote about “Mild Davis,” an expansive, stream-of-consciousness-driven song that sees the acclaimed JOVM mainstays cycling through a whirlwind of rhythms and textures paired with dexterous guitar work, proggy synths and a series of mind-bending solos. Seemingly drawing from Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo-era DEVO, acid jazz freakouts, garage psych and space rock, while influenced by Miles Davis‘ early 70s electric period, “Mild Davis” may arguably be the wildest, face-melting ripper I’ve come across this year. “We worked on that for two weeks straight, puzzle-piecing together different parts into one very weird and stream-of-consciousness song that’s mostly in a 7/4 time signature,” the JOVM mainstay outfit’s Josh Menashe recalls.
Lyrically, the song sees Sizemore shifting between savagely despairing the state of the world and resolutely dreaming of a brighter future. “I wrote ‘Mild Davis’ in a moment of feeling pessimistic about what technology is doing to our society, especially as AI is creeping to the forefront more and more,” says Sizemore. “But then the bridge comes from a more optimistic perspective, where it’s questioning whether we could reboot the whole system and start all over.”
“Empire,” Data Doom‘s final preview is seven minutes of scorching guitar riffs, thunderous drumming and intense, apocalyptic-laden lyrics. Play loud and open up that pit right now!
Directed by Kevin Fermini and featuring corrupted knight and ship design by Gage Lindsten, creature designs by Carlo Schievano and titles and matte paintings by Jordan Warren, the accompanying video for “Empire” is a trippy and nightmarish intergalactic romp with weird otherworldly creatures that bring Metroid to mind.
Alex Paris is a Houston-born singer/songwriter. He located to Los Angeles for college and upon his graduation, he began releasing material independently last year.
The Houston-born singer/songwriter recently relocated to Brooklyn. And since moving to Brooklyn, he has been inspired by the city’s house, tech house and deep house scenes.
Paris’ latest single “Feel” is a fun, summery bop that’s simultaneously lounge and dance floor friendly: The Houston-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s plaintive delivery ethereally floats over a sleek production featuring glistening synth arpeggios and thumping beats.
Slowdive — co-founders Neil Halstead (vocals, guitar) and Rachel Goswell along with Nick Chaplin (bass), Christian Savill (guitar) and Simon Scott (drums) — will be releasing their highly-anticipated fifth album everything is alive on September 1, 2023 through Dead Oceans.everything is alive is the shoegaze pioneers’ first album in over six years, and the material reportedly sees the British outfit finding ever more contours of its immersive, elemental sound. Individually, each of the album’s songs contain the duality of a familiar internal language mixed with the exaltation of new beginnings.
The record began with the band’s Halstead in the role of writer and producer, working on demos at home. Experimenting with modular synths, Halstead originally conceived everything is alive as a “more minimal electronic record.” The band’s collective decision-making ultimately saw them drawing back to their signature reverb-drenched guitar sound — but the synths seeped their way into the compositions. “As a band, when we’re all happy with it, that tends to be the stronger material. We’ve always come from slightly different directions, and the best bits are where we all meet in the middle.” Halstead says. “Slowdive is very much the sum of its parts,” Goswell adds. “Something unquantifiable happens when the five of us come together in a room.”
The album was recorded over a couple of years, starting in the fall of 2020 at Courtyard Studio, where they’ve historically recorded. Sessions moved to Oxfordshire, and then the Wolds of Lincolnshire and then to Halstead’s Cornish studio. Early last year, the band enlisted Shawn Everett to mix six of the album’s eight tracks.
Because of their deep and lengthy history, there’s a palpable familial energy to the band — and fittingly to to the album: The album is dedicated to Goswell’s mother and Scott’s father, who both died in 2020. “There were some profound shifts for some of us personally,” Goswell says. Life’s profound shifts and uneasy crossroads are often reflected in the many-layered emotional tenor of their music. And while everything is alive is informed by some of life’s heaviest experiences, the material sees the band poised, wizened and pitching themselves to hope. Sure, there’s sadness, but there’s gratitude and uplift, coming from the acknowledgement that life is complicated yet profoundly beautiful in itself.
Thematically, the album is in many ways an exploration into the shimmering nature of live and the universal touch points within it. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the acclaimed British outfit boldly pushing their sound towards the future with the material touching upon the psychedelic soundscapes they’ve long been known for but with 80s electronic elements, and John Cale-inspired journeys.
So far, I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:
“kisses,” a breathtakingly gorgeous song, which struck me as being a sort of gentle refinement of the classics enveloping Slowdive sound that fans have long adored: reverb-drenched guitar textures,. Goswell’s and Halstead’s uncannily precise, yearning harmonies, soaring hooks and choruses and a gently driving groove — with featuring an emphasis on atmospheric synths. The result is a song that — for me, at least — evokes a waking dream full of intertwined yearning, nostalgia and hope.
“skin in the game,” a slow-burning, forlorn and smudged song built around Halstead’s aching vocal radiating outward from hazy and distorted guitars paired with a narcotic and syrupy rhythm. Much like its immediate predecessor, the song evokes a woozily heartbreaking nostalgia, mixed with regret., unease and uncertainty.
The album’s third and latest single, album closer “the slab” is built around skittering and thunderous percussion, layers of reverb-drenched guitar fuzz, menacing synths. Halstead’s plaintive delivery is buried in the mix, seemingly desperate to burst out from its confines. It’s one of the heaviest songs on the album that I’ve heard so far — and arguably one of the heaviest songs they’ve written or recorded ins some time.
“This is the heaviest track on the record and as the name suggests we wanted it to feel like a big slab of music,” Slowdive’s Neil Halstead explains. “We wanted it to feel very dense.”
Phil Galloni is a Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, studio engineer and producer, who has been running Voltiv Sound since 2015. His solo recording project Waverly Drive can be traced to when he turned some downtime in the studio to the project’s debut EP, last year’s Living in a Fantasy, which saw him crafting material that drew from indie rock, New Wave, indie pop and electro pop — and is perfect for driving up the coast, daydreaming and just escaping life’s absurdities.
Building upon a growing profile, Gallini’s sophomore Waverly Drive EP Now I Know is slated for release Friday. While Living in a Fantasy was a carefree and uptempo batch of songs, Now I Know is a matured, mid tempo follow-up that thematically questions everyday reality through the lens of escapism and surrealism and touches upon themes of love, trust, loss, class systems and more. Several studio musicians contributed to the EP including Magic Wands‘ Chris Valentine, Miguel‘s, Mayer Hawthorne‘s and Grace VanderWaal’s Melissa Dougherty, Dropkick Murphy‘s and Stu Hamm‘s Halley Feaster, Chebaka’s and Allá’s Christiaan Dageforde, Stefan Ponce‘s and KO AKA Koala‘s Jess Hoover, Macy Gray‘s and Family Company‘s Alex Kynh, French Montana‘s and The Weeknd‘s Russ Mitkowski and Cameron Ljungkull.
The EP’s latest single “Mind Play” is decidedly 80s New Wave/synth pop song built around gentle layers of glistening synths, skittering beats, Galloni’s yearning vocal paired with the Chicago-born, Los Angeles producer and artist’s penchant for remarkably catchy hooks. Sonically, “Mind Play” manages to bring Human League’s “Human” and New Order to mind while being rooted in seemingly lived-in personal experience.
Galloni explains that “This song is about how much better things could be in life and love if we stopped playing games with each other.”
Los Angeles-based indie rock outfit The Voxes — Joseph Faundez (vocals), Adrian Jardines (guitar), Brian Lopez (guitar), Alec Pereda (bass) and John Toledo (drums) — formed back in 2013. And since their formation, the Los Angeles-based outfit have developed a sound that draws from 2000s indie rock and 2010s indie pop rock paired with energetic guitar melodies, lush harmonies and introspective lyrics.
Their full-length debut, 2021’s Closer Than Ever showcase the band’s growth as songwriters, with the album’s material featuring anthemic rock songs and introspective ballads.
The band’s follow-up EP is slated for release this summer, and it reportedly sees the Los Angeles-based outfit pushing the boundaries of their sound while staying true to their indie roots. The forthcoming EP’s first single, the Jose Cruz and Evan Lopez-produced “Midnight,” not only serves as a taste of what to expect from the new release; it’s also the first bit of new material from The Voxes since their full-length debut. Built around glistening synths, a sinuous bass line, angular bursts of guitar paired with yearning vocals and the band’s uncanny knack for catchy hooks. At its core, the song captures the sense of joy, good times, and possibility of something extraordinary happening just around midnight while hanging out with your friends. And the song does so while sounding as though it could have been released back in 1984.
“This song came to me out of the blue while sitting at the grand piano,” the band’s Brian Lopez explains. “Despite not being a proficient pianist, the chords flowed naturally. It came alive when John wrote that funky bass line.”
Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist Andrew Clinco, also known for his work drumming in Marriages founded Drab Majesty back in 2011 as a way to create music in which he recorded every instrument himself. For the project, Clinco created the androgynous character Deb Demure. Alex Nicolaou, a.k.a. Mona D (keys, vocals) joined the project in 2016.
Since signing to Dais Records, the Los Angeles-based duo have released three albums, 2015’s Careless, 2017’s The Demonstration, 2019’s Modern Mirror, which saw the project combining androgynous aesthetics and commanding vocals with futuristic and occult lyrics, to create a style and sound that the band’s Demure refers to as “tragic wave.”
Drab Majesty’s forthcoming EP, An Object in Motion is slated for an August 25, 2023 release through Dais Records. Clocking in at 32 minutes, the release actually sits somewhere between an EP and a mini-album, and the effort reportedly marks a new chapter in the project’s legacy story: Written during a 2021 retreat to the remote costal Oregon town of Yachats, the band’s Deb Demure leaned into the neo-psychedelic resonance of a uniquely bowl-shaped 12-string Ovation acoustic/electric guitar. After early morning hikes in the rain, Demure would record ambient guitar experiments the rest of the day, tapping into “flow states,” in which he would let the sound lead the way. Those sessions were then refined or recreated and then later elevated with contributions from Slowdive‘s Rachel Goswell, Beck’s, M83‘s and Air’s Justin Meldal-Johnsen, and Uniform’s Ben Greenberg. Fittingly, the EP reportedly holds true to its title, as it captures Demure and Drab Majesty in a transitional state, and evolving while showcasing a series of potential futures from the project.
Last month, I wrote about An Object in Motion‘s first single “Vanity” featured a very rare guest spot from Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell. Built around shimmering, reverb-drenched 12 string guitar, gated reverb-soaked drum patterns, Demure’s plaintive commanding baritone paired with soaring hooks. Goswell contributes her imitably expressive vocal, which seamlessly intertwines with Demure’s vocal in an uncannily gorgeous harmony. To my ears, sonically, “Vanity” seems like a synthesis of Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne‘s “Close My Eyes Forever,” Sisters of Mercy, Disintegration-era The Cure and Goswell’s work with Slowdive — or in other words, something that will warm the cold hearts of any goth.
An Object in Motion‘s second and latest single “The Skin and The Glove” is a lush, Smiths-meets-Slowdive/RIDE-like song built around reverb-soaked, shimmering 12 string guitar, a driving groove paired with the Los Angeles-based duo’s uncannily unerring knack for gorgeous harmonies and catchy hooks. But under the lush soundscapes is a song that thematically touches upon the endless march of time, and our inevitable mortality.
Inspired by the song’s lyrics, the accompanying video for “The Skin and The Glove,” was shot primarily on Super 8mm film while the band was on tour, and includes sequences in Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Switzerland, France, Italy, Hungary, Mexico, Vancouver, and Tasmania. Digital video footage was shot in Los Angeles. The duo decided that film was the medium that most accurately reflects the way that memories seem sewn together by fragments of imagery.
The video’s flashing moments in time that seem naturally edited seem naturally edited in some part by simply moving through moments, holding down the trigger and choosing to remember certain aspects of a day, a trip or an extended period of travel. Throughout, there’s the attempt to compress a long passage of time and the effort that goes into playing and touring in a band and to present it as the mind does; a tapestry of reflection and memory that seems stitched together randomly. And with that sort of ephemeral granularity, the potential to misremember — and to mythologize.
Texas-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Danny Lee Blackwell is the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed psych rock outfit Night Beats. And with Night Beats, Blackwell creates music like one might assemble a puzzle: He builds his work from one moment, an initial spark that for him, must fit a specific criteria — it must give him goosebumps. If he gets goosebumps, then he will purse that idea relentlessly until he has a new song; if not, he moves onto the next moment, constantly looking for the perfect molecule of a song.
Rajan, Blackwell’s fifth Night Beats album is slated for a Friday release through Suicide Squeeze/Fuzz Club. The album began much like every other Night Beats album before it: Shortly after the release of 2021’s Outlaw R&B, Blackwell had the familiar itch to create new music. Writing isn’t a process that Blackwell has to sit down and engage with, rather it’s something he’s always doing. The only differentiation between creative periods is what makes it on certain albums and what winds up falling victim to the cutting room. “Whenever my writing gets to a point where songs begin to take shape, it begins to feel like a faucet,” Blackwell explains. “As soon as Outlaw R&B was finished, I began writing and very quickly fell in love with a few ideas that encapsulated the feeling of Rajan. I think writing is a constant cycle in that it never really begins or ends, but there are definitive points where the writing is leading somewhere.”
Early on, Blackwell felt that the album would be dedicated to his mother. Although thematically, it doesn’t always reflect his tribute, the material is informed by the familial tie. “This isn’t a concept album, because every album has a concept. That term never made sense to me. But if it’s about one thing, it’s about this pursuit of freedom that was instilled in me by my mother,” Blackwell says. “In the arts, I’m very lucky in that I have 100% control over what I want to say, and how I do it,” he explains.
Fittingly, the album’s material is wildly diverse and lands somewhere between Spaghetti Western film score and psych pop opus — while being among Blackwell’s most cohesive works to date. Some of the album’s songs nod at Anataolian funk and Western tinged R&B. Others with 70s Brazilian psychedelia, Chicano soul, rock steady — and even Lee “Scratch” Perry-inspired dub. “Rajan is just one of six examples of me doing exactly what I want, and not caring about whether it’s checked out or not. I’m a journeyperson. I want to make things for the sake of making them,” Blackwell says.
While clearly indebted to its influences, Rajan is wildly innovative and finds Blackwell pursuing his wildest musical whims. “I’m here to explore. I think exploration is the underlying reason in a way, of why we do the things we do,” Blackwell explains. “I feel lucky. What can I say? I feel blessed.”
In the lead up to the album’s release later this week, I’ve written about three of its singles:
Album opener “Hot Ghee,” which simultaneously sets the stage for what to expect sonically from the album and establishing a scalding hot take on the interaction of psych rock, jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop and more. Built around bluesy and sultry guitar lines, swinging drumming, layers of intertwined harmonies, subtle bursts of twinkling piano, “Hot Ghee” sounds like a synthesis of Altin Gün, Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles and Free Your Mind . . . And Your Ass Will Follow-era Funkadelic that’s mind-bending while displaying Blackwell’s unerring and deft craftmanship.
“Thank You,” a soaring and groovy bit of gospel-tinged psychedelia built around Blackwell’s yearning falsetto, twinkling keys, dense layers of bluesy wah wah pedaled guitar, towering feedback, paired with a gospel backing chorus. Sonically nodding at a bit at Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself” and Parliament Funkadelic’s “Testify,” “Thank You” expresses a sense of profound gratitude.
“Nightmare,” a song that to my ears recalled the psych soul leanings of 70s Isley Brothers — i.e. 3+3, Go For Your Guns and The Heat is On and others built around a dense arrangement featuring blazing guitar solos paired with shuffling funk guitar, a supple and sinuous bass line paired with layers upon layers of vocals, including Blackwell’s yearning delivery — and his unerring knack for a well-placed, catchy hook. The song as Blackwell explained in press notes is essentially “a call and response to the blood curdling voice of a lost soul, ringing out, pleading for understanding.”
Rajan’s fourth and final pre-release single, “Blue” is a slow-burning Motown-meets-blue-eyed soul-meets-Quiet Storm-like jam built around a lush and trippy arrangement paired with Blackwell’s aching and ethereal falsetto intertwining with the song’s arrangement.
“Waking up on a mist-covered street corner, downtown night time cruising, Donnie and Joe Emerson mood. Everly Brothers in an underground subway, accompanied by a steady beat living in the pocket. Sunny Oruna, slow soul, hip hop and jazz, every flavor distilled into the trip,” Blackwell writes about the new single.
Kian Stevens-Winston is an Illinois born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and creative mastermind behind the emerging indie rock recording recording project Sugar Pit. Stevens-Winston started the project in earnest in his Illinois bedroom back in 2015 with a slurry of singles.
While gaining momentum on Soundcloud, Stevens-Winston moved to Philadelphia, to study sound engineering at Drexel. He found a welcome home in the city’s college house show circuit, and then released his debut EP, 2020’s Defense Mechanism, which saw him quickly establishing his signature freak pop sound that draws from post-punk and garage rock paired with a raw yet eccentric vocal performance.
In 2021, Stevens-Winston relocated to San Francisco, where he began writing and recording his full-length debut while developing his live show. Last year, he relocated again to Los Angeles. And in L.A., he has hit the ground running: After assembling a revamped live quartet, the band played a handful of sold-out shows last November. Earlier this year, the Illinois-born, Los Angeles-based artist shared “Why I Come Back Home.”
Built around twangy and folksy acoustic guitar, fuzzy electric guitar-driven power chords, propulsive drumming and enormous power pop-like hooks and choruses paired with Stevens-Winston’s raw, yearning delivery. The song thematically touches upon a series of familiar struggles — life’s endless transitions, newfound independence and the longing for something constant and familiar in a mad, mad, mad, mad world.
Stevens-Winston explains that the song was written in between two major, life-altering events: a breakup and a solo move across the country. The result is a song swerves between heartbreak, despair and pride within the turn of a phrase — and in a fashion that feels familiar.
Bella Moore is a Los Angeles-based artist, who dreams of an anachronistic world. Growing up around racetracks, casinos, Floridian seas, old Hollywood films and carnivals, she is heavily influenced by memory. Last summer, she met a young boy, who read her palm and told her to pursue music. Shortly after, Moore’s fiancé, Limo’s Ben Howley had her debut on the band’s sophomore album — and from here she began to further experiment.
Because she had a very close relationship with her grandparents, Moore was drawn to the music of Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Rudy Vallée and a variety of singers from the ’30s to the ’50s. Combining that with other eclectic influences like Suicide, Bloodshot Bill and Les Rallizes Dénudés, the Los Angeles-based artist began to write material on her keyboard. Inspired mostly by drums, she can create a song entirely around a selection of carefully chosen waltz-styled drum beats. She then sought the help of Kirk Hellie and Rob Campanella, who helped her produce and mix her work.
Moore’s eerie debut single “Benny Valentine” features her ethereal croon floating across a brooding and uneasy arrangement of distorted and funny guitars, reverb-soaked drums. The song’s narrator describes a mesmerizing meeting with the enigmatic and mysterious Benny Valentine. While there’s a sense of fascination, the song also evokes deeper complexities to the encounter — mainly a character grappling between the internal conflict of attraction and resistance. The push and pull at the heart of the song adds to its unease.
“‘Benny Valentine’ is a love song,” Moore explains. “It reminds me of a nightmare and a dream all at once. It’s a feeling of doom and being eternal, living in love and not fear.”
Deriving their name as a sort of tongue-in-cheek nod to the legendary Nile Rodgers — “C’est chi-chi! It’s Chic!” — NYC-based disco outfit Say She She features three accomplished, strong female lead vocalists: founding members Piya Malik, who has spent time in El Michels Affair, 79.5 and Chicano Batman; and Sabrina Cunningham; along with Nya Gazelle Brown, a former member of 79.5.
The rising New York-based outfit can trace their origins back to when Malik and Cunningham found themselves living in the studio apartments directly above and below each other. The pair would hear each other singing through the floorboards and quickly became friends. “I knew the girl below me had the most beautiful voice as I would hear her early in the morning and she would hear me late at night. Between the two of us I don’t think we got a wink of sleep. Then again I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say they moved to New York City to sleep,” Malik says in press notes.
After spending years singing in other people’s bands, Malik and Cunningham felt they were finally ready to step out into the spotlight with their own project. At first, they wrote tongue-in-cheek songs about bad boyfriends, band breakups and bad politics. But shortly after, they started writing much more serious and vulnerable tunes, like much-needed therapy sessions, detailing the lives of post-modern women. And as a result, their material frequently touches upon love, lust, sex, heartbreak, betrayal and hope.
A few years after they started the project, the duo recruited their close friend and Malik’s former 79.5 bandmate Nya Gazelle Brown to join them. At that point, the act’s core lineup was settled.
Their eight-song, Sergio Rios-produced full-length debut Prism was released through Karma Chief Records last year. Recorded on old tape machines in the basement studios of friends, the album features guest spots from The Dap Kings‘ Joey Crispiano and Victor Axelrod, The Shacks’ Max Shrager, Chicano Batman’s Bardo Martinez, Antibalas‘ Superhuman Happiness‘ and Low Mentality’s Nikhil Yerawadekar, Twin Shadow’s Andy Bauer and NYMPH‘s Matty McDermot.
The acclaimed trio return with “C’est Si Bon,” a funky disco love letter, built around a sinuous bass line, twinkling keys, space lasers paired with the trio’s gorgeous harmonies, penchant for big, catchy hooks, deep groves and expansive psychedelia-tinged song structures. It’s a summertime club anthem that reminds the listener to seize the day and make their time count.
Directed by Lucas Hauchard and Valentin Duciel, the accompanying video for “C’est Si Bon” is fittingly a glittery, disco ball tribute to both disco and the world’s great fashion capitals with sections shot in Paris, New York and Los Angeles. And of course, the ladies of Say She She are wearing glittery outfits throughout.
Texas-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Danny Lee Blackwell is the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed psych rock outfit Night Beats. And with Night Beats, Blackwell creates music like one might assemble a puzzle: He builds his work from one moment, an initial spark that for him, must fit a specific criteria — it must give him goosebumps. If he gets goosebumps, then he will purse that idea relentlessly until he has a new song; if not, he moves onto the next moment, constantly looking for the perfect molecule of a song.
Rajan, Blackwell’s fifth Night Beats album is slated for a July 14, 2023 release through Suicide Squeeze/Fuzz Club. The album began much like every other Night Betas album before it: Shortly after the release of 2021’s Outlaw R&B, Blackwell had the familiar itch to create new music. Writing isn’t a process that Blackwell has to sit down and engage with, rather it’s something he’s always doing. The only differentiation between creative periods is what makes it on certain albums and what winds up falling victim to the cutting room. “Whenever my writing gets to a point where songs begin to take shape, it begins to feel like a faucet,” Blackwell explains. “As soon as Outlaw R&B was finished, I began writing and very quickly fell in love with a few ideas that encapsulated the feeling of Rajan. I think writing is a constant cycle in that it never really begins or ends, but there are definitive points where the writing is leading somewhere.”
Early on, Blackwell felt that the album would be dedicated to his mother. Although thematically, it doesn’t always reflect his tribute, the material is informed by the familial tie. “This isn’t a concept album, because every album has a concept. That term never made sense to me. But if it’s about one thing, it’s about this pursuit of freedom that was instilled in me by my mother,” Blackwell says. “In the arts, I’m very lucky in that I have 100% control over what I want to say, and how I do it,” he explains. Fittingly, the album’s material is wildly diverse and lands somewhere between Spaghetti Western film score and psych pop opus — while being among Blackwell’s most cohesive works to date. Some of the album’s songs nod at Anataolian funk and Western tinged R&B. Others with 70s Brazilian psychedelia, Chicano soul, rock steady — and even Lee “Scratch” Perry-inspired dub. “Rajan is just one of six examples of me doing exactly what I want, and not caring about whether it’s checked out or not. I’m a journeyperson. I want to make things for the sake of making them,” Blackwell says.
And while clearly indebted to its influences, Rajan is wildly innovative and finds Blackwell pursuing his wildest musical whims. “I’m here to explore. I think exploration is the underlying reason in a way, of why we do the things we do,” Blackwell explains. “I feel lucky. What can I say? I feel blessed.”
So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:
Album opener “Hot Ghee,” which simultaneously sets the stage for what to expect sonically from the album and establishing a scalding hot take on the interaction of psych rock, jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop and more. Built around bluesy and sultry guitar lines, swinging drumming, layers of intertwined harmonies, subtle bursts of twinkling piano, “Hot Ghee” sounds like a synthesis of Altin Gün, Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles and Free Your Mind . . . And Your Ass Will Follow-era Funkadelic that’s mind-bending while displaying Blackwell’s unerring and deft craftmanship.
“Thank You,” a soaring and groovy bit of gospel-tinged psychedelia built around Blackwell’s yearning falsetto, twinkling keys, dense layers of bluesy wah wah pedaled guitar, towering feedback, paired with a gospel backing chorus. Sonically nodding at a bit at Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself” and Parliament Funkadelic’s “Testify,” “Thank You” expresses a sense of profound gratitude.
Rajan’s third and latest single “Nightmare” sonically brings to mind the psych soul leanings of 70s Isley Brothers — i.e. 3+3, Go For Your Guns and The Heat is On and others: you’ll a hear dense arrangement featuring blazing guitar solos paired with shuffling funk guitar, a supple and sinuous bass line paired with layers upon layers of vocals, including Blackwell’s yearning delivery — and his unerring knack for a well-placed, catchy hook.
“I wanted to hear sounds and cries of unconditional, blind love. I wanted swirling, fitful guitars, speaking in tongues, thrashing around in a chest trying to break free. A call and response to the blood curdling voice of a lost soul, ringing out, pleading for understanding,” Blackwell says. “Rajan is laced with distant, layered choral groups, exploring pathways paved by Isley Brothers, David Ruffin, Grace Slick and other psychedelic soul pioneers of the time. I wanted to hear the sounds of service to the ones you love, even being blinded by it. This song creates a circle, if you’re listening. A cascading roadmap through a nightmare. Thunder and lightning, flashing neon blue lights, rhetorical puzzles.”
The accompanying video features Blackwell and his backing band performing the song. Shot on grainy film stock, the video captures the band in front of lysergic and hazy filters, kaleidoscopic bursts of light, and geometric figures.
Since initially forming in Bloomington, IN well over a decade ago, the acclaimed Los Angeles-based psych rock outfitFrankie and the Witch Fingers — currently founding duo Dylan Sizemore (vocals, guitar) and Josh Menashe (lead guitar, synth), along with Death Valley Girls‘ Nikki “Pickle” Smith (bass) and Mike Watt’s Nick Aguilar (drums) — have a long-held reputation for restless experimentation rooted in the multiple permutations of their lineups, and for a high-powered and scuzzy, garage punk meets thrash punk take on psych rock paired with absurdist lyrics, frequently fueled by dreams, hallucinations, paranoia and lust. And as a result, their material can be simultaneously mischievous, menacing and dreamlike.
Slated for a September 1, 2023 release through Greenway Records/The Reverberation Appreciation Society, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays’ forthcoming seventh album, Data Doom is built around the cerebral yet viscerally songwriting of the outfit’s co-founders, while marking the first written and recorded material featuring Smith and Aguilar.
In crafting what may arguably be their most rhythmically complex work to date, the band drew heavily from each member’s distinct sensibilities: Smith tapped into her extensive background in West African drumming, an art form she first discovered through her music instructor parents. Aguilar leaned into formative influences like longtime Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen.
Self-produced by the proudly DIY-minded band and recorded direct to tape by the band’s Menashe, Data Doom ultimately took shape through countless sessions in their Southeast L.A.-based rehearsal space, with the band allowing themselves unlimited time to explore their gloriously strange impulses. “There was no pressure and no real time constraint for this record, and because of that the creativity flowed in a very free way that probably wouldn’t have happened if we’d been on the clock in a studio,” Frankie and the Witch’s Dylan Sizemore says in press notes. “It showed us that the more we take the time to communicate and share our ideas with each other, the more it feeds our creative energy and helps us to make something we’re all really excited about.”
While showcasing the expansive and eccentric musicality of past efforts like 2020’s Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters . . ., Data Doom reportedly features nine high-wattage songs built with both dizzying intricacy and completely unfettered imagination.
Data Doom‘s latest single “Mild Davis” is a expansive, stream of consciousness-driven song that sees the acclaimed JOVM mainstays cycling through a whirlwind of rhythms and textures paired with dexterous guitar work, proggy synths and a series of mind-bending solos. Seemingly drawing from Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo-era DEVO, acid jazz freakouts, garage psych and space rock, while influenced by Miles Davis‘ early 70s electric period, “Mild Davis” may arguably be the wildest, face-melting ripper I’ve come across this year. “We worked on that for two weeks straight, puzzle-piecing together different parts into one very weird and stream-of-consciousness song that’s mostly in a 7/4 time signature,” the JOVM mainstay outfit’s Josh Menashe recalls.
Lyrically, the song sees Sizemore shifting between savagely despairing the state of the world and resolutely dreaming of a brighter future. “I wrote ‘Mild Davis’ in a moment of feeling pessimistic about what technology is doing to our society, especially as AI is creeping to the forefront more and more,” says Sizemore. “But then the bridge comes from a more optimistic perspective, where it’s questioning whether we could reboot the whole system and start all over.”
The song is accompanied with a fittingly mind-melting, animated video that places the band in a surrealistic hellscape of technology, fascism and destruction.
