Tag: Marathon Artists

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Baaba Maal Teams Up with The Very Best on Mesmerizing “Freak Out”

Acclaimed Senegalse singer/songwriter and guitarist Baaba Maal is a member of the semi-nomadic Fulani people. He first left his home in Podor, Senegal to perform music hundreds of miles away as a teenager — and he has been a wanderer ever since. “It’s part of my culture,” Maal says. “The songs travel from village to village, from country to country. It’s something natural to my tribe and this part of Africa.”

Since then, Maal has followed his music, as it traveled around the world, starting from his young travels around West Africa, performing with mentor Mansour Seck, to the Paris conservatory, where he studied music theory and then eventually across the rest of the globe, while collaborating with an eclectic array of acclaimed, contemporary artists including John Leckie, Brian Eno, Damon Albarn’s Africa Express, and Mumford & Sons. Maal has worked on the soundtracks for The Last Temptation of Christ and Black Hawk Down. He has also worked with soundtrack composer Ludwig Goransson to create the soundscapes for both Black Panther films, essentially making him the voice of Wakanda.

Throughout his career, the acclaimed Senegalese artist has spread the word of an idealistic, energetic Africa — to the entire world. “I could bring my Africa to this other, abstract Africa, and both places collided together beautifully,” he says of Black Panther, “I brought this mythical Africa back to Podor, extending my reality, my hometown, and my music. I didn’t know whether I would make another album after The Traveller, but I did know my thinking about music was still changing. And once more something stirred inside me at home in Podor. I found myself once again. It was time for a new album.”

Maal’s forthcoming album Being is slated for a March 31, 2023 release through Marathon Artists. The album reportedly is the latest stage in the development of a highly distinctive, ecstatically melodic sound that meshes traditional African instruments and rhythms with modern, electronic production, The album is a set of confrontational and contemplative stories in which Maal mixes evocative, personal local concerns with grand universal themes to produce a unique form of deep, immersive soul music, taking the listener to new places via his birthplace of Podor, Senegal, where his music always begins — and his travels always end. “However far I travel, whatever direction, I will always return home,” the acclaimed Senegalese artist says. “It is the nomadic nature. To wander, but to return home, eventually. Home is where you start from, where you begin to learn what really matters, and home is where you finish. Podor is the perfect place for me when I need some time to think, to see my music with a fresh eye, to surprise it, snare it, catch it unawares as if coming across it for the first time.”

The album is also deeply informed by experiences Maal had before, during and after the pandemic. The album is about being African, being a songwriter, being a romantic, being realistic, being wary, being online, being at the mercy of the elements, being caught between two worlds, being on your way somewhere — and ultimately about his being from Podor while being connected to a constantly turbulent and shifting world through his art. “Each song of this album has its own personality. A song is like a person. It has a life, name, a character, and it has a position in life,” Maal says in press notes. “I think that’s what makes this album so powerful – it is totally about now and where I am now, the dreams I have of the past and the future.”

The album’s material also reflects Maal’s need to continually move forward with his work. Much like the acclaimed Senegalese artist’s previously released work, there wasn’t a set deadline: Songs were finished when they ere finished, emerging out of a combination of both fast and slow work. There were intense improvisational studio sessions in Brooklyn, Podor, and London, where things moved quickly and songs took place over a few days. After energetic bursts of activity, both artist and producer took time to process their work, and songs would reveal themselves over many months. Some would be recorded by the ocean, in the ocean air, with the sound of crickets, dogs, donkeys, birds, traffic, rain and people being captured nearby. 

Last year, I wrote about album opening track “Yerimayo Celebration,” a joyous and percussive stomp centered around layers of thunderous percussion, African traditional instrumentation and enormous, ebullient hooks. The song which features contributions from Cheikh Ndoye (bass ngoni) and Momadou Sarr (percussion) is celeebration of music — and of music’s power to open the mind and heart in deeply troubled times, and of its power in fighting cynicism and chaos.

Beings latest single, “Freak Out” feat. The Very Best is a mesmerizing and woozy alchemy of traditional African folk instrumentation and modern production through the form of skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling beats and percussion that effortlessly bridges the ancient and the modern — while being boldly and defiantly African. Lyrically, the song explores the complex dynamic of social media and its effects on both African and the wider world.

“It became a song about being careful what you put on the internet,” says Baaba Maal, “It might seem funny or popular when you do it, but it might have consequences and you will have to live with those all your life.

“There are things you should keep to yourself. Mystery is important in life; you don’t need to shine a light on every little thing you do. You don’t have to give away your soul for the sake of a little bit of attention.

“The internet should be used to make humanity feel good about themselves. It is so powerful, it can be dangerous and sometimes it just seems the internet has just caused a constant freak out.”

The accompanying video is a gorgeous and sensitive slice of the complexity of African life that’s life-affirming and necessary as it captures a mix of ancient traditions and modernity. But along with that, there’s a reminder of the fact that people are generally the same.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Courtney Barnett Performs “Turning Green” on “Late Night with Seth Meyers”

With the release of 2012’s I’ve Got a Friend Called Emily Farris EP and 2013’s How to Carve a Carrot Into a Rose, Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Courtney Barnett received critical acclaim from outlets across North America, the UK and Australia for work that paired witty and rambling conversational-like lyrics delivered with an ironic deadpan paired with enormous, power chord-driven arrangements.

While those successes may have seemed to come about overnight, they actually didn’t; Barnett carved out a reputation for being one of Melbourne’s best guitarists, which was cemented with a stint in Dandy Warhols’ Brent DeBoer’s side project Immigrant Union and a guest spot on on Jen Cloher‘s third album, In Blood Memory.

Barnett’s full-length debut, 2016’s Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit, which featured “Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go To The Party” and the T. Rex-like “Elevator Operator was released to critical praise across the world. The acclaimed Aussie artist collaborated with Kurt Vile on 2017’s critically and commercially successful Lotta See Lice, which landed at #5 on the Aussie charts, #11 on the British charts and #51 on the American charts. 

Her sophomore solo album, 2018’s Tell Me How You Really Feel, which featured the motorik groove-driven “City Looks Pretty” continued an enviable run of critical and commercial success. Barnett supported Tell Me How You Really Feel with a three month world tour that included some of her biggest tour steps in Australia at the time. 

Barnett’s Stella Mozgawa co-produced third album Things Take Time, Take Time was released earlier this year through Mom + Pop Music and Marathon Artists. Centered around intimately detailed songwriting, Things Take Time, Take Time finds the acclaimed Aussie crafting a journey through heartbreak, recovery and all the soft moments in between that speak to the feelings and experiences that are innately human. 

Now if you’ve been frequenting this site over the course of this year, you may recall that I’ve written about “Before You Gotta Go,” a lovely ballad that’s one-part frustrated kiss-off and one-part gracious send-off rooted in bittersweet, lived-in experience: the hope that the last words between you and a soon to be former lover, won’t be unkind.

Along with an extensive North American tour, Barnett has made the rounds of the late night, Stateside talk show circuit. Earlier this year, Barnett played the introspective garage rocker “If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight,” an empathetic portrayal of the desperate self-doubt and awkwardness of a crush that’s more than likely equally requited yet not exactly confirmed or expressed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Barnett was recently on Late Night with Seth Meyers, where the acclaimed Aussie singer/songwriter and her backing band played a loose and jammy rendition of garage rock anthem “Turning Green,” complete with Barnett playing a roaring solo.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Psychedelic Porn Crumpets Share Animated, Horror Film-Inspired Visual for New Ripper “Acid Dent”

Throughout their history, the acclaimed Perth-based outfit Psychedelic Porn Crumpets — Jack McEwan (vocals, guitar), Luke Parish (guitar), Danny Caddy (drums), Wayon Bilondana (bass) and multi-instrumentalist Chris Young — have developed a reputation for being one of Australia’s preeminent purveyors of enormous riff-based psych rock.

The Perth psych rockers’ fifth album Night Gnomes officially dropped today through Marathon Artists/What Reality? Records. The follow-up to last year’s critically applauded SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound, Night Gnomes sees the acclaimed Aussie outfit throws the listener into a range of different sonic territories and emotional fields through the exploration of even more sonic influences and creative tangents than before while being firmly rooted in the sound and approach that has won them fans across the world.

Written in Perth during pandemic related lockdowns, and recorded at McEwan’s Perth home and Blackbird Studio with Dave Parkin, Night Gnomes is informed by the sense of isolation and the accompanying mania of being out of sync with the normalcy and patterns of the life that McEwan and the rest of the band had gotten accustomed to over the past few years.

“Night Gnomes is a bit darker than the other four releases. I don’t know if that’s the bi-product (sic) of being locked inside Western Australia for the past two years but it’s definitely given us a lot of time to think,” McEwan says of the new album. “I reckon this record has a bit more of a KID A/Amnesiac vibe to it, it’s a bit weirder, a little left of the ‘psych/pop’ world we’ve been tagged under. I kinda like that though, forever expanding, variety is the spice of life! It starts moody, talks of break ups and new relationships; gets kinda chirpy in the middle and then ends really beautifully, a bit like Jurassic Park 3. I reckon Spielberg might actually rate it, he’s a mixture of a bag, ain’t he.

“All in all, I’m very proud of everyone’s efforts, it’s a step up which is a good direction to be stepping and it’s a good body of work that I’m happy to share with the world, our little patch of darkness. And if deeper isn’t your cup of moonshine, then at least you know the sixth album will be upbeat as F@!#.””

Because the album follows so closely to its immediate predecessor, in some ways the material on Night Gnomes feels a bit like a continuation of the same narrative ideas and story that McEwan initially dreamed up. Unsurprisingly, the album retains elements that will appeal to the band’s oldest fans while providing a peak of where the band is going next sonically. “I stepped up a few recording techniques and tried to hone in on the production side of things a little more, gave my mental train a fresh lick of paint and tried to make the album step up in quality from the previous four releases, while still holding onto that ‘Crumpet’ approach to songwriting,” McEwan says.

“There’s definitely a few moments in older albums where I’ve been lazy and tweaked things after we’ve finished recording but with Night Gnomes, I made sure to stick with Dave’s ethos and polish every track before it was sent to Jelly to mix. I’m much happier with how my vocals are sitting now, I left a lot of room in the tracks to bring them out rather than adding twenty million layers beforehand, it feels a lot cleaner, the idea for each song is present and accessible without too much ear straining. To me, it’s our best work. I feel like we’re moving forward while still learning and these albums are a checkpoint to where we’re at, and for now we’re happy with our little Night Gnome.”

Night Gnomes‘ latest single “Acid Dent” is a head banging ripper, centered around enormous, power chord-driven riffs, rumbling bass, driving rhythms paired with mosh pit friendly hooks and McEwan’s punchy shouts. But while thrashing with a relentless and seemingly carefree abandon, the song sees its narrator offering a bit of a concession to growing older and maybe slowing down a bit from some of the riotous decadence of youth — before its way too late.

Every generation has their means of escapism and for some reason here in Perth, or at least when we were in our heyday you could purchase mushrooms and acid from any decent supermarket,” McEwan explains. “So it’s inevitable we’re gonna be munching jumpers and chatting to fences in a few decades, but as for now, well… we’ve seemed to somehow milk a career out of it. Who’d have thought. But yeah, it’s probably not going to end well, hence my newly appointed position on drug safety. Then again, someone also once told me, “Hell hath no fury like a man who’s pressed pause on his drug abuse”, so now I’m slightly more perplexed as to where I stand. Anyway, good luck to everyone, enjoy yourselves but remember nobody wants to pick up your marbles after.”

“When we were younger, we were carefree and living tall, “McEwan says. “You get home with a handful of stuff in your pocket from whatever festival and just munch all of it, until you wake up in the morning so scattered. If we kept carrying on this way, we’d wind up in mental institutions by 35. So this is a nice little story about slowing down a bit.

Directed by frequent visual collaborator Ollie Jones, the video for “Acid Dent” continues a run of claymation-based animated videos. This time, we follow a mustachioed maintenance man working at PPC Chemicals, who has a terrible accident at work: He falls into a glowing vat of toxic sludge.

After being treated at a local hospital, he returns home to discover that as a result of his accident, everything he touches melts before his eyes. The video ends with some hilarious yet horrifying, horror movie-inspired hijinx. “I’ve always been a fan of the horror sub genre ‘ MELT MOVIES ‘ — films like Street Trash, The Blob and Body Melt,” Ollie Jones explains. “So when I was given the title of the track, I knew what I wanted to do right away. A simple story of a guy who after a freak accident is granted the powers to melt everything he touches and how it escalates in a comedy of errors throughout the video. Think the Skittles advert only more gruesome.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Courtney Barnett Performs “If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight” on “Jimmy kimmel Live!”

With the release of 2012’s I’ve Got a Friend Called Emily Farris EP and 2013’s How to Carve a Carrot Into a Rose, Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Courtney Barnett received critical acclaim from outlets across North America, the UK and Australia for work that featured witty and rambling conversational lyrics, often delivered with an ironic deadpan paired with enormous power chord-driven arrangements. And although her success may have seemed like it came about overnight, it wasn’t; Barnett carved out a long-held reputation for being one of Melbourne’s best guitarists: she had a stint in Dandy Warhols’ Brent DeBoer’s side project Immigrant Union and guested on Jen Cloher‘s third album, In Blood Memory.

Barnett’s full-length debut, 2016’s Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit, which featured “Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go To The Party” and the T. Rex-like “Elevator Operator was released to critical praise across the world. The acclaimed Aussie artist collaborated with Kurt Vile on 2017’s critically and commercially successful Lotta See Lice, which landed at #5 on the Aussie charts, #11 on the British charts and #51 on the American charts.

Her sophomore solo album, 2018’s Tell Me How You Really Feel, which featured the motorik groove-driven “City Looks Pretty” continued an enviable run of critical and commercial success. Barnett supported Tell Me How You Really Feel with a three month world tour that included some of her biggest tour steps in Australia at the time.

Barnett’s Stella Mozgawa co-produced third album Things Take Time, Take Time was released last month through Mom + Pop Music and Marathon Artists. Centered around intimately detailed songwriting, Things Take Time, Take Time finds the acclaimed Aussie crafting a journey through heartbreak, recovery and all the soft moments in between that speak to the feelings and experiences that are innately human.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the lovely ballad “Before You Gotta Go.” Centered around a sparse arrangement that begins with a warm drone before gently adding layers of twangy guitar, Barnett’s tender vocals, synths, drums and percussion in a slow-burning crescendo, “Before You Gotta Go” is a simultaneously a frustrated kiss-off and a gracious send-off rooted n a bittersweet, lived in-experience: the hope that the last words between you and a love be to unkind because nothing is guaranteed.

The acclaimed Aussie artist is currently in the middle of a lengthy and extensive North American tour that includes a February 5, 2022 stop at Radio City Music Hall with Julia Jacklin. As always, the rest of the tour dates are below. But in the meantime, Barnett was recently on Jimmy Kimmel Live, where she performed the introspective, garage rock-like “If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight,” a empathetic portrayal of the desperate self-doubt and awkwardness of a crush that’s probably requited, yet not exactly confirmed.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Courtney Barnett Releases a Gorgeous and Surreal Visual for “Before You Gottta Go”

With the release of 2012’s I’ve Got a Friend Called Emily Farris EP and 2013’s How to Carve a Carrot Into a Rose, the  Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Courtney Barnett quickly received critical acclaim from outlets across North America, the UK and Australia for work that featured witty and rambling conversational lyrics, often delivered with an ironic deadpan paired with enormous power chord-driven arrangements. And although her success may have seemed like it came about overnight, it wasn’t; Barnett carved out a long-held reputation for being one of Melbourne’s best guitarists: she had a stint in Dandy Warhols’ Brent DeBoer’s side project Immigrant Union and guested on Jen Cloher‘s third album, In Blood Memory.

Barnett’s full-length debut, 2016’s Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit, which featured “Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go To The Party” and the T. Rex-like “Elevator Operator was released to critical acclaimed across the world. Back in 2017, Barnett collaborated with Kurt Vile on the highly acclaimed and commercially successful album Lotta Sea Lice, which landed at #5 on the Aussie charts, #11 on the British charts and #51 on the Stateside charts. The Aussie singer/songwriter and guitarist continued an enviable run of critical and commercial success with her third album, 2018’s Tell Me How You Really Feel, which featured the motork groove-driven “City Looks Pretty.” Barnett supported the album with a three month world tour that included some of her biggest Aussie tour stops. 

The acclaimed Aussie artist’s highly-anticipated third album, the Stella Mozgawa-co-produced Things Take Time, Take Time is slated for a November 12, 2021 release through Mom + Pop Music and Marathon Artists. Centered around intimately detailed songwriting, Things Take Time, Take Time reportedly finds the acclaimed Aussie artist pulling the curtain back to reveal an optimistic and serene side. “Sometimes I try to say everything in one song, or put my whole belief system into a vox pop, but you just can’t do that — it’s impossible,” Barnett says in press notes. The album represents the realization that ideology is represented through the way you treat others, not what you say in a song — that some things are more felt than said. And yet, the album is full of the strangeness, busyness and undeniable warmth of life. 

Things Take Time, Take Time‘s latest single, the lovely “Before You Gotta Go” features a sparse and atmospheric arrangement that begins with a warm drone, before gently adding layers of twangy guitar, Barnett’s tender vocals, synths, drums and percussion in a slow-burning crescendo. But at its core the song is a deceptively complex song that’s both a frustrated kiss-off and a gracious and thoughtful love song centered around a bittersweet yet very real sentiment: that if something bad were to happen that the last words between you and your lover not be unkind. 

Directed by Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore, the recently released video for “Before You Gotta Go” is fittingly both lovely and surreal. We see Barnett, as an idiosyncratic, suit wearing ethnographer, collecting field recordings of trees, dogs, horses, mushrooms, insects and enormous statues and even plants with her own face, pushing through the ground. “Making this clip was an interesting experience for me,” Sangiorgi Dalimore says in press notes. “I love how brilliantly simple Courtney’s idea was, it brought real joy shooting part of it together, just me, her and my DOP with the other part being two long days directing over zoom across the Tasman Sea. I watch it now and feel that sense of peace, that potent calm you can only get immersed in the beauty of nature.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rising Aussie-born Los Angeles-based Singer-Songwriter Hazel English Releases a Woozy 60s Inspired Pop Tune

Hazel English is a rapidly rising Australian-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and musician. Her Justin Raisen and Ben H. Allen co-produced full-length debut Wake UP! is slated for an April 24, 2020 release through Marathon Artists/Polyvinyl Records. Recorded in Los Angeles and in Atlanta, English hopes the album will serve as a klaxon, a sort of warming horn that will give the listener a meaningful shake from their doldrums — and to encourage the listener to become more present in their own lives. “Sometimes, I feel like we’re just sleepwalking through our lives,” English says in press notes. She goes on to say that she hopes the album helps “make people become more aware and mindful.” 

Wake UP!’s fourth and latest single, “Five and Dime” is a woozy, mid-tempo track that sounds indebted to late 50s country and Phil Spector-produced 60s girl group pop. Centered around reverb drenched guitars, finger snap-led percussion, twinkling Rhodes, English’s expressive vocals, some twangy pedal steel and a rousing hook, the track is part playful love song and part bitter lament, as the song’s narrator muses on a love interest, who has become so consuming to her that she’s distracted.  Ah, to be that infatuated! 

“It’s about the desire for space and independence when feeling stifled in a relationship,” English explains in press notes. “I wrote it about a trip I took to Oakland when I just needed to get out of LA for a bit. ‘Five and Dime’ is actually an old slang term for the area code 510 which covers the East Bay, so I thought it would be a fun way to refer to the place that once used to be my home, while also invoking a sense of nostalgia for a time when a phrase like five and dime was very common.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Renowned Australian Singer/Songwriter and Guitarist Courtney Barnett Releases Psychedelic Visuals for Expansive Album Single “City Looks Pretty”

With the release of her first two, critically applauded EPs, I’ve Got a Friend Called Emily Farris and How to Carve a Carrot Into a Rose, the Melbourne, Australia-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Courtney Barnett quickly received attention from the North American, British and Australian press witty and rambling, conversational lyrics delivered in an ironic deadpan paired with big, power chord-based indie rock. And although to the casual observer, it may have seemed like overnight success, it actually wasn’t. In fact, Barnett has long been considered one of Melbourne’s best guitarists as once played in Dandy Warhols’ Brent DeBoer’s side project Immigrant Union and had  guest spot on Jen Cloher‘s third album, In Blood Memory.

2015’s full-length effort Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit continued a run of critically applauded releases, and the album’s lead single “Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go To The Party” was promoted with a unique promotional campaign that included scores of giant billboards, posters and murals spontaneously posted around the world — and all of them declared the same unattributed statement in the same exact font. As for the song, it found Barnett and her backing band pairing thundering drumming, dense layers of swirling guitar chords and a scorching guitar solo and Barnett’s bemused and ironic deadpan delivery with a rousingly anthemic, arena rock-like hook. “Elevator Operator,” which I also wrote about on this site, was a stomping and shuffling T. Rex-like song that featured twisting and turning organ chords, handclap-led percussion, and a mischievous yet anthemic hook that described incredibly neurotic people, who are beaten down by boring and soulless day jobs, including one character, who escapes to peer over a rooftop for a brief moment of clarity while dreaming he was playing Sim City.  (If you’ve worked at a boring and soul crushing day job, that song may well be your anthem during the workweek.)

Last year, saw the release of Lotta Sea Lice, a critically applauded and commercially successful collaborative album with renowned guitarist and vocalist Kurt Vile; in fact, the album landed at #5 on the Australian charts, #11 on the British charts and #51 on the American charts. Building upon an incredible run of critical and commercial success, Barnett’s third full-length album Tell Me How You Really Feel is slated for a May 18, 2018 release through Mom + Pop Records, Marathon Artists, and Barnett’s own label Milk! Records — and the album’s third and latest single “City Looks Pretty” finds Barnett eschewing traditional song structures in order to focus on a motorik-like groove, razor sharp hooks and an expansive psych rock-like vibe that’s roomy enough for what may be some of Barnett’s most inspired and bluesy guitar work she’s recorded to date. The song lyrically is an exploration of friendship, place and home centered around the irony of friends treating you like a stranger and strangers treating you like their best friend. 

The recently released video by Courtney Barnett features some appropriately psychedelic imagery shot on what looks like digital cameras and an old Super 8, and in some way it brings to mind 120 Minutes-era MTV.