Tag: lyric video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Austin’s Memory Keepers Release a Lysergic Trance-Inducing Video

Late last year, I wrote about Memory Keepers, the Austin, TX-based electro-punk side project of The Sour Notes’ Jared Boulanger and Amarah Ulghani. And as you may recall, the duo released a propulsive synth and vocoder-based cover of Brian Eno’s “Uncle Third” that retained the original’s motorik groove while nodding at The Man Machine-era Kraftwerk. 

Building upon the attention they received from their Brian Eno cover, the duo released the “Faint Ink”/”Found Sound” 7 inch earlier this year. The 7 inch’s A-side single “Faint Ink” is centered around a trance-like motorik groove, layers of buzzing and arpeggiated synths, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, vocoder-fed vocals and an enormous hook– and while further establishing the duo’s retro-futuristic sound, the expansive single manages to simultaneously be lysergic and rousingly anthemic. 

Further emphasizing the song’s trippy, trance-inducing vibes, the recently released video features an analog, mixed media visual by Austin-based mixed media visual artist Sydney Quezada, a.k.a. Astral Violet. “They’ve worked with artists like MBV, Roky Erickson, King Gizzard and more. Astral Violet’s stunning visual projections found them on some of the best bills in town as soon as they moved here, which is how we came to meet them,” the duo’s Jared Boulanger says in press notes. “After they projected their light show on us at a few Memory Keepers gigs, we thought their trippy, visual experience would be the perfect backdrop to our new lyric video ‘Faint Ink.’ It feels good to be completely absorbed in their light, while performing on stage…I could honestly watch their visuals for hours, sync’d to many types of music and be totally lost in space.”

indie rock by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Minor Poet’s Breezy “Tropic of Cancer”

Andrew Carter is a Richmond, VA-born and-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who has spent the past few years writing and recording music by himself in various bedrooms and basements with his solo recording project Minor Poet. His full-length debut, 2017’s And How combined Carter’s love of carefully crafted pop with a loose, fun, off-the-cuff production that eventually received press from American Songwriter, Magnet, The Wild Honey Pie, Impose and others, while helping Carter develop a small but devoted fanbase. Naturally, this has allowed Minor Poet to grow from a labor of love into a nationally touring band.

Carter’s sophomore Minor Poet album The Good News is slated for a May 17, 2019 release through Sub Pop Records, and the album, which was recorded over the course of four days at Montrose Recording, reportedly finds Carter expanding the boundaries of the project’s sound over the course of six songs. While previous Minor Poet releases featured Carter playing all the instruments and handling production duties, the material on The Good News was written with the understanding that the Richmond, VA-born and -based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist had to reach outside himself to do justice to the songs. “I couldn’t capture the sounds I heard in my head,” Carter explains. “I wanted something that was vast and expansive but that at the same time could hit you immediately in the gut.”

Paying homage to the classic “wall of sound: techniques made famous by Brian Wilson and Phil Spector, Carter and co-producer, Adrian Olsen overdubbed layer after layer of Carter playing an array of guitars, pianos, organs, synths, and percussion, as well as Carter singing harmonies. The members of the touring band were brought in to perform the core rhythm section parts with handpicked local musicians stopping by to add crucial flourishes to the material. Interestingly, at the center of the album’s material is Carter’s vocals, singing lyrics that mix allusions to religion, mythology, art and philosophy, as each song’s narrator questions himself, his place in the world around him, what he owes to his relationships, and in turn, what he needs to ask others to stay healthy.

“Tropic of Cancer,” The Good News‘ infectious latest single is centered by layers of shimmering and tropicalia-inspired arpeggiated synth lines, shuffling guitar lines, a soaring hook and a lysergic-tinged guitar solo. And while the deliberate crafted track bears a subtle resemblance to Elvis Costello‘s early work, the song manages to be deceptively breezy as the song’s narrator describes a constant and repetitive struggle with depression, delivered with an unvarnished emotional honesty and a tongue-in-cheek awareness.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: The Dream Syndicate Release Trippy Visuals for Motorik Groove-based “The Way In”

Over the past couple of months, I’ve written a bit about  Los Angeles-based psych rock act The Dream Syndicate, and as you may recall the act, which is currently comprised of founding members Steve Wynn, an accomplished and critically applauded singer/songwriter, guitarist and solo artist and drummer Dennis Duck, along with bassist Mark Walton and guitarist Jason Victor, can trace its origins back to the early 80s when Wynn along with fellow Dream Syndicate founding member Kendra Smith and future True West members Russ Tolman and Gavin Blair founded and played in one of the area’s first new wave bands in the Davis, CA music scene, The Suspects. Wynn also recorded a single with another band, 15 Minutes, which included members of Alternate Learning.

After returning to his hometown, Wynn spent a brief stint of time rehearsing in another local band, Goat Deity with future Wednesday Week members, Kelly and Kristi Callan — and while with Goat Deity, Wynn met Karl Precoda, who had an answered an ad seeking a bassist. The two started a new band with Precoda switching to guitar. Wynn’s college pal and former bandmate Smith and Duck (Mehaffey), who was a member of Pasadena-based act Human Hands joined the band to complete The Dream Syndicate’s initial lineup. (Interestingly, as the story goes, Duck suggested the band’s name as a reference to Tony Conrad’s early 1960s New York-based experimental ensemble, best known as the Theatre of Eternal Music, which featured John Cale.)

With the release of their Paul B. Cutler-produced debut EP, The Dream Syndicate received attention locally for a sound influenced by The Velvet Underground, Neil Young and Television, complete with aggressively long, feedback-filled improvisations. The members of the band signed to Slash Records subsidiary Ruby Records, who released the band’s 1982 full-length debut, the attention-grabbing and influential Days of Wine and Roses. Rough Trade Records released their debut’s lead single “Tell Me When It’s Over” as the A-side of a UK EP, which included a live cover of Neil Young’s “Mr. Soul” that was released in early 1983. Smith left the band and joined David Roback in Opal — and she was replaced by David Provost.

Their Sandy Pearlman-produced sophomore effort Medicine Show was recorded and released through A&M Records in 1984 — and as a result of being on a major label, the band opened for R.E.M. and U2. Attempting to build on a growing profile, the members of the band released a five song EP This Is Not The New Dream Syndicate Album . . . Live!, which was noteworthy as it was the last recorded effort to feature Precoda, who left soon after to pursue a career in screenwriting — and it was the first to feature Mark Walton on bass. The EP’s commercial failure led to the band’s first breakup — although a temporary one. The band was then dropped by A&M Records after the label rejected the band’s demo for “Slide Away.”

During the band’s break up, Wynn along with Green on Red’s Dan Stuart wrote and recorded 10 songs with Duck and a number of other musicians, which was released by A&M Records in 1985 as Danny and Dusty’s The Lost Weekend. After the release of Lost Weekend, Wynn, Duck and Walton teamed up with Paul B. Cutler to form a then-newly reunited iteration of The Dream Syndicate that recorded two full-length studio albums — 1986’s Cutler-produced Out of the Grey and 1988’s Elliot Mazer-produced Ghost Stories. The band recorded a live album Live at Raji‘s which was recorded in 1988 before the release of Ghost Stories but released afterward.

The band broke up in 1989 — and a batch of previously unreleased material was released that included 3½ (The Lost Tapes: 1985-1988), a compilation of studio sessions and The Day Before Wine and Roses, a live KPFK radio session, recorded just before the release of the band’s applauded debut album were released.  After the breakup, Walton went on to play bass in the Continental Drifters while Wynn went on to become an acclaimed singer/songwriter and solo artist with a reputation or restlessly exploring a variety of different styles while leading a number of different projects including Steve Wynn and The Miracle 3, The Baseball Project and others.

Wynn led a reunited Dream Syndicate to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their full-length debut that featured Walton, Duck and Jason Victor, Wynn’s longtime Steve Wynn and The Miracle 3 guitarist at an appearance at 2012’s Festival BAM in Barcelona Spain. The reunited band went on to play a handful of other live sets, including two 2013 Paisley Underground reunion shows that included The Bangles, The Three O’Clock and Rain Parade. September 2014 saw the band playing a handful of shows in which they played their first two albums in their complete entirety — and those shows marked the band’s first shows in the Southeast in almost 30 years.  Between their first reunion show and 2017, the band played more than 50 shows together.

Anti-Records released the band’s fifth full-length album How Did I Find Myself Here in 2017, which featured a lineup of Wynn, Walton, Duck and Victor with keyboardist Chris Cacavas. Recorded at Montrose Studios, the album’s notable final track “Kendra’s Dream” featured vocals and lyrics from Kendra Smith. Building upon the growing attention around the reunited band, the members of The Dream Syndicate recorded three songs, which were included on the compilation 3 x 4, a collection of tracks that featured new material from their Paisley Underground counterparts, The Bangles, The Three O’Clock and Rain Parade with each of the four bands covering songs by the other bands.

Slated for a May 3, 2019 release through Anti-Records, the John Agnello and The Dream Syndicate co-produced These Times will be the second full-length studio album since the band reunited, and the album’s material is reportedly a subtle yet noticeable departure for the band sonically. “When I was writing the songs for the new album I was pretty obsessed with Donuts by J-Dilla,” lead singer and songwriter Steve Wynn explained. “I loved the way that he approached record making as a DJ, a crate-digger, a music fan wanting to lay out all of his favorite music, twist and turn the results until he made them into his own. I was messing around with step sequencers, drum machines, loops—anything to take me out of my usual way of writing and try to feel as though I was working on a compilation rather than ‘more of the same.’ You might not automatically put The Dream Syndicate and J-Dilla in the same sentence, but I hear that album when I hear our new one.” Additionally, Wynn also changed up his lyric writing process for the album — instead of the song’s sound being dictated by previously written lyrics, he wrote all the material’s lyrics after the band finished instrumental tracking, so that the lyrics were influenced by the sounds.

The album’s first single was the atmospheric and surrealist dream, “Black Light,” a track built around a looped arpeggiated key and congo sequence, shimmering bursts of guitar, and a motorik groove comprised of a propulsive and sinuous bass line and a backing vocal section that sings “aaah” while Wynn’s vocals sing surrealistic and symbolic lyrics about how the night exposes our darkest and deepest inhibitions and fears. “Put Some Miles On,” the album’s second single continued in a similar vein as its immediate predecessor with the track featuring a chugging, motorik groove, blasts of feedback driven guitar, twinkling synths and Wynn’s languid, speak-singing vocals delivering surrealistic lyrics with a profound double meaning — with the song making references to getting older while being on the road and actually playing the influential work of Miles Davis.

“The Way In,” These Times‘ third and latest single is the album’s lysergic, Starfish-era The Church-like opening track. Centered around a chugging, motorik-groove, looping, feedback and distortion pedaled guitars, the song as the band’s Steve Wynn says in press notes is “the leadoff track, kind of a Rosetta Stone, decoder ring, instruction manual to light the way,” the band’s Steve Wynn says of the album’s new single. “It’s all about clearing the decks, dusting off, fastening the spacesuit and bracing yourself for what might come next.  It sounds like something we might have heard on the radio in 1981 when we were forming the band thinking, ‘Maybe we ought to sound like that.’”

Filmed on the vibrant streets of Madiera, Portugal, the recently released lyric video for “The Way In” is an aptly hallucinogenic visual that feels like falling down the proverbial rabbit hole.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Dutch-based Act Altin Gun Releases a Lysergic Visual for Shimmering Take on Turkish Psych Pop

Comprised of founding member Jasper Verhulst (bass) with Ben Rider (guitar), Erdinc Ecevit Yildiz (keys, saz, vocals), Gino Groneveld (percussion), Merve Dasdemir (vocals) and Nic Mauskovic (drums), the Amsterdam-based Turkish psych pop act Altin Gun, which derive their name for the Turkish phrase “Golden Day” can trace their origins to Verhulst’s deep passion for 60s and 70s Turkish psych pop and folk — and when he toured Istanbul with a previous band. While in Istanbul, Verhulst discovered a lot music that wasn’t readily available back in Netherlands; but at the story goes, he wasn’t content to just listen as an ardent fan, he wound up having a vision of where he could potentially take the sound. “We do have a weak spot for the music of the late ’60s and ’70s,” Verhulst admits in press notes “With all the instruments and effects that arrived then, it was an exciting time. Everything was new, and it still feels fresh. We’re not trying to copy it, but these are the sounds we like and we’re trying to make them our own.”

Although the material they’re playing has been a familiar part of Turkish life for a few generations, the Dutch-based act actively interpret an re-imagine the beloved sound through a 21st century lens. “Of course, since our singers are Turkish, they know many of these pieces. All this is part of the country’s musical past, their heritage, like ‘House of The Rising Sun’ is in America,'” Verhulst explains. Naturally, he’s continued to see new songs that grab his ear. “Most of these songs have had hundreds of different interpretations over the years. I’m listening for something we can change and make into our own.  We need something that will make people stop and listen, as if it’s the first time they’ve heard it.”

Slated for an April 26, 2019 release through ATO Records, the Dutch-based Turkish psych pop act’s sophomore album Gece is the highly-anticipated follow-up to last year’s On — and the album reportedly finds the band further establishing themselves as masterful interpreters of a beloved Anatolian rock and folk history, and as a new voice in a growing global psych scene.  Gece also finds the band bringing together music and sounds from several different Anatolian sources — with only one original song, the improvised “Şoför Bey.”

Interestingly, Gece’s latest single is the Dutch-based act’s hypnotic take on Muzaffer Sarısözen’s “Süpürgesi Yoncadan.” Centered around shimmering and arpeggiated, Casio-like synths, complex polyrhythm, thumping beats and a propulsive, club-banging hook. Sonically, the Altin Gun rendition bears an uncanny resemblance to Syria’s great wedding singer Omar Souleyman but with a motorik groove and a swooning vibe. As the band explains, the song is about “falling for someone unexpectedly, crying and suffering over love.” 

Directed and produced by Sylvain Rusques and Simon Moreaux, the animated, lyric video further emphasizes the lysergic nature of the song, as it features a woman sensually gyrating to the song. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Lost Leaders Release an Anthemic Tom Petty-Inspired Single

Westchester County, NY-based indie act Lost Leaders features two extremely accomplished local musicians: Bryon Issacs (vocals, bass), who was a touring member of The Lumineers, a member of Ollabelle and a member of the legendary Levon Helm’s backing band; and Peter Cole (vocals, bass), who was a member of Lava Baby — and while both Issacs and Cole have collaborated with each other in some way or another over the years, Lost Leaders can officially trace their origins to Isaac’s time with Levon Helm.  

The act’s full-length debut was released in 2014, and the album featured the attention-grabbing single “I’m Gonna Win,” a track that received airplay on radio stations across the country and appeared on several Best Singles of the Year lists. Adding to a growing profile, the duo played a number of live sessions on radio stations and they were covered by Relix, No Depression, Huffington Post and others. Since then, the world has gone absolutely mad and they released an EP, which they’ll follow up with their forthcoming full-length album, the David Baron-produced Promises Promises. Recorded at Sun Mountain Studios in The Catskills, the album finds the duo drawing from Tom Petty, The Ranconteurs and Americana — and while the album’s latest single “Extra-Ordinary” brings to mind Damn The Torpedoes-era Tom Petty, the track which is centered around jangling and bluesy guitar chords, enormous, arena friendly hooks but unlike the material that influenced it, the song possesses a deep-seated and modern anxiety — the fear that you’re sinking into complacency and mediocrity, essentially becoming as boring as everyone else. However, the song seems to suggest that all anyone can do is keep fighting the good fight.  

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Jess McAvoy’s Coquettish 50s Rock Inspired Ode to Enjoying the Moment with Others

Jess McAvoy is a Melbourne, Australia-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who over the course of the past 25 years has written, recorded and self-produced 13 albums within a wide variety of styles and genres, including singer/songwriter folk, pop and rock. But if one thing has been consistent throughout McAvoy’s career is that her work is centered by a disarming honesty, deep self-awareness and openheartedness. Interestingly, McAvoy’s latest single “Do What You Want” finds the Melbourne-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter drawing the blues and classic rock — and while in some way, the song reminds me a bit of Terra Lightfoot, the song is coquettish yet heartfelt. 

Unsurprisingly, the song is influenced by McAvoy’s own personal experience as it was written when she was seeing someone and even though she felt that her heart wasn’t quite open to a romantic commitment, both she and her partner were open to having a good time together. Sometimes, you have to enjoy the love that enters your life for as long as you can hold on it because everything in this world is fleeting.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Maria Del Pilar’s Groove-Driven Call for Empathy for DREAMers

Maria Del Pilar is a Chilean-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and musician, whose family immigrated to the States when she was a child. After developing roots in her adoptive hometown, Del Pilar became an integral part of the city’s music scene as the frontwoman of the critically acclaimed local act, Los Abandoned. Pilar’s solo debut Songs + Canciones I was released to critical praise for Del Pilar’s ability to craft infectious pop hooks that possess a rock ‘n’ roll grit that recalled her Riot Grrl roots. Interestingly, Songs + Canciones I‘s lead single “En El Dancefloor” skyrocketed to the top of the Mexican radio charts and led to shows at Vive Latino and Mexico City’s prestigious The Zocalo.

Songs + Canciones II, the highly-anticipated follow-up to Del Pilar’s solo debut is slated for a November 2, 2018 release, and while finishing up the album, Del Pilar has managed to collaborate with a diverse array of renowned artists including Chicano Batman, Francisca Valenzuela, and Tegan & Sara; in fact, the album features collaborations with a virtual who’s who of the Los Angeles music scene, including members of Chicano Batman, No Doubt, Las Cafeteras, Fitz + The Tantrums and others. But in the meantime, the Chilean-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter has also performed as a backing singer  during tUnE yArDs’ most recent appearance on Conan. Adding to a growing profile, “Se Me Hace Mas” was recently  featured on the new Starz drama Vida.

“Original Dreamer,” Songs + Canciones II’s latest single is of our current sociopolitical moment, as it was written while the Trump Administration and the Republican led house was busily repealing DACA, which struck a chord both personally and politically. After the introduction and approval of 2001’s DREAM Act, millions of undocumented minors were granted legal residency in the States along with their parents and guardians. Del Pilar’s mother and father were among the first DREAMers — but sadly, her mother died when she was 12.  The stories reminded me of what I saw my parents go through when I was a kid immigrating from Chile to the US,” Del Pilar says in press notes. “I had a chance to thank my father for these sacrifices but never got a chance to thank my mom. This song gives me that chance.”

Produced by Poolside‘s Flip Nikolic, the song features looping, psych rock-inspired guitar lines from Chicano Batman’s Carlos Arevalo — and while centered around a fiercely held belief that no one is an illegal alien, the percussive, deep groove-driven song manages to bring Fear of Music-era Talking Heads to mind; but with a bold, distinctly Latin flavor and vibe, along with some infectious hooks. Of course, at its core is a deep (and much-needed) empathy and understanding of the plight of society’s most vulnerable, reminded the listener that a great deal of Americans are descendants of those who have taken great risks and had enormous dreams.

Directed by Maria del Pilar and Guillermo Moreno, the recently released lyric video begins with a number of DREAMers telling the stories of the sacrifices and risks that their parents’ and loved ones’ took to get to the States, the big hopes and even bigger dreams they had for their children — and the deep seated sense of appreciation these DREAMers have for their parents. Photos of some of these DREAMers with their parents at various ages, ending with these young people graduating from school — and everyone is beaming with pride and hope for bright futures. The lyric video will further emphasize the song’s call for empathy (which we need more of in a deeply cynical world). 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Portland’s Hemmit Captures Youthful Passion in “Friends”

Keith Fleming is a Portland, OR-based multi-instrumentalist, producer and singer/songwriter, who as a drummer, has had stints touring and recording with The Jonny Cohen Love Machine, John Stabb’s Weatherhead and and others, and for being one-half of highly acclaimed indie rock duo Hemmit, with his longtime collaborator, producer, engineer, songwriter and highly sought-after guitarist Adam Rohosy. Interestingly, Hemmit has had their music featured on MTV, Surfline, Bike TV and have received radio airplay from a number of radio stations across the world; in fact, their fifth album Straight Outta Nowhere saw heavy college radio airplay and attention from critics and fans. 

With the six-song EP One Ultra, the long-awaited follow up to their buzz worthy fifth, full-length album, Hemmit has become a solo recording project featuring Keith Fleming, and the EP reportedly consists of indie rock and guitar pop that blends elements of lo-fi garage rock, power pop and 80s synth rock, largely influenced by Ty Segall, Best Coast, Guided by Voices and Sloan; however, the EP’s first single “Friends” sounds as though Fleming was drawing from 90s alt rock — in particular My Vitriol, Blur, Foo Fighters and others, as the song is centered around enormous power chords, a guitar pyrotechnic-fueled solo, thunderous drumming and a rousingly anthemic, arena rock friendly hook. And while swaggering and self-assured, the song is a breakneck, swooning, “you-were-there”-like recollection of youth and youthful passions 

The recently released lyric video for “Friends” is essentially a time capsule, featuring found footage of young people over the course of the past 30 years or so, being young and seemingly carefree. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio/Lyric Video: Dusted Releases a Jangling and Anthemic New Single

Brian Borcherdt is best known as a founding member of the renowned, Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based electronic act Holy Fuck, as well as Toronto-based indie, All-Star supergroup LIDS, which features Constantines’ Doug MacGregor and METZ’s Alex Edkins, and while he’s spent the bulk of his career writing and recording unhinged dance music, behind the scenes, he had spent his time writing material that went in a decidedly different direction from his primary band — lo-fi, garage pop, which eventually became his solo recording project Dusted. And with Dusted’s critically applauded 2012 full-length debut, Total Dust, Borchedt opened for the likes of Great Lake Swimmers, Perfume Genius and JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers, as well as a cameo in Jean Marc Vallee’s 2014 film Wild.

Dusted’s sophomore effort, Blackout Summer is slated for an April 6, 2018 release through Polyvinyl Records and while the album’s latest single “Backwoods Ritual” will further cement the project’s growing reputation for jangling and anthemic, lo-fi, garage pop with fuzzy melodies, the deceptively upbeat track actually possesses a bittersweet wistfulness over things that have passed and are just out of grasp.

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.