Tag: Methyl Ethel

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Perth, Australia-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jake Webb is the creative mastermind behind the critically applauded and commercially successful Aussie synth pop/psych pop act Methyl Ethel. Webb’s Methyl Ethel has amassed over 25 million Spotify streams globally — and after landing at #4 on Triple J’s 2017 Hottest 100, “Ubu,” was named an ARIA Accredited Gold single early last year. Also, his tour dates across Australia and the UK have regularly sold out since 2016. 

Although Webb has achieved commercial and critical success within a relatively short period of time, Methyl Ethel began as a sort of personal challenge. “I wanted to see if I could write, record and release some music before the band I was in at the time finished doing the same,” Webb says in press notes. “I did and subsequently withdrew from some close friends. Relationships were severed. I severed some even closer ones. This was all played out in such a public away, as it invariably does, so I withdrew more. My first album Oh Inhuman Spectacle became the ‘why me?/fuck you/sorry’ album that I wrote as a confused coping mechanism. It helped and I enjoyed it. I continued the introspective journaling with the follow-up, Everything is Forgotten. For me, that album said ‘who cares? all your emotions are irrational and meaningless anyway.'”

Webb’s most recent full-length album, last year’s Triage may be his most introspective and reflective effort to date with the material thematically, focusing on time and its passing, of getting older and occasionally becoming more mature, of the lies we have to tell ourselves and have to keep to keep on getting by.

Interestingly, Triage‘s follow-up effort, the forthcoming Hurts To Laugh EP, which is slated for an April 10, 2020 release through Dot Dash/Remote Control was recorded at the same time as Triage. Thematically, the five song EP touches upon the psychological difference between feeling and emotion. One is a conscious response to a set of circumstances, the other is the unconscious conditions of our very being that only occasionally surfaces through feelings — with the material probing ambiguities and paradoxes, implied by the effort’s title: you can laugh so hard that it hurts (joy) or you can laugh despite the pain (despair). 

Hurts To Laugh‘s first single, the stumbling and stuttering “Majestic AF” is centered around bubbling oscillator, analogue polyrhythm, a sinuous bass line, march-like drumming and a shimmering, slightly atonal synth melody and an anthemic hook paired with Webb’s plaintive falsetto floating over the mix. But at its core, the song manages to possess a dance floor-like energy while being earnest and uneasy.

Methyl Ethel will be embarking on aStateside tour to support his latest effort, opening for Peter, Bjorn & John during the Spring. The tour includes an April 10, 2020 stop at Webster Hall. Mid-April sees Webb returning to Australia for a solo tour at intimate venues across the country’s largest cities. Check out the tour dates below.

TOUR DATES
March 23 – Teragram Ballroom – Los Angeles, CA#
March 24 – La Santa – Santa Ana, CA#
March 25 – New Parish – Oakland, CA#
March 27 – Doug Fir Lounge – Portland, OR#
March 28 – Crocodile – Seattle, WA#
March 31 – Urban Lounge – Salt Lake City, UT#
April 01 – Bluebird – Denver, CO#
April 03 – Amsterdam – St. Paul, MN#
April 04 – Empty Bottle – Chicago, IL#
April 05 – Loving Touch – Ferndale, MI#
April 07 – Johnny Brendas – Philadelphia, PA#
April 08 – Union Stage – Washington, DC#
April 10 – Webster Hall – New York City, NY#
April 11 – Brighton Music Hall – Boston, MA#
April 15 – The Outpost – Brisbane, AUSTRALIA
April 16 – Nightcat – Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
April 17 – Mary’s Underground – Sydney, AUSTRALIA
April 19 – Goodwill Club – Perth, AUSTRALIA
# Supporting Peter, Bjorn & John
All tickets
Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Wistful Sounds and Visuals of Soaked Oats’ “Coming Up”

Comprised of Oscar Mein (vocals, keys), Henry Francis (guitar), Max Holmes (guitar) and Conor Feehly (drums), the up-and-coming Dunedin, New Zealand-based indie rock act Soaked Oats are one of the first Kiwi bands to sign to highly-regarded Australian label Dot Dash/Remote Control Records, the label home of acclaimed acts like Methyl Ethel, Carla Geneve, Gabriella Cohen and Total Giovanni, which marks a huge career step forward for the band. 

Slated for a June 14, 2019 release, the band’s newest EP Sludge Pop will feature their previously released, attention-grabbing tracks “Driftworld” and Shuggah Doom.” The EP’s latest single “Coming Up” is a wistful and reflective track, centered around shimmering guitars, twinkling keys, a motorik-like groove and an anthemic hook — and while being a striking road trip anthem, the song possesses the tacit understanding that things are fleeting; that the good times do end — and that eventually all you’re left with is the t-shirt, the pictures and nostalgia. “I had just written the first half of the lyrics as a poem. I was trying to personify a low morning in the immediate surroundings of a bedroom,” the band’s Oscar Mein says of the song’s creative process. “Henry [Francis] sent through a demo he had done, titled “coming up from behind,” and I started playing around with applying the poem to the song while working within the title he had given it. I wrote the last few lines in a more positive headspace with Tom Bell at Chicks Hotel, where we recorded it. Tom Healy added a bunch of nice stuff to this song, and it wouldn’t be what it is without him, especially that acoustic guitar that chimes through when we get grooving and the synth parts, too — plus a lot of other tasty bits.” 

Directed by Jake Munro, the black and white video for “Coming Up” follows the band during their travels in a 34 foot 1980s RV that they called home for their 10 week, 20,000 mile DIY-styled US tour last year. The viewer follows the band through urban, suburban and rural America, passing through mobile home parks, farms and waterfalls — with stops at underground DIY venues. Unsurprisingly, the video further emphasizes the song’s nostalgic vibes, while capturing the longing for a profound experience you’ve once had. “The footage was captured on mountains of rolls of Super 16 and Super 8mm film. Jake (Munro) and I retreated to a cabin on New Zealand’s wild west coast of the South Island and spent days trawling through it all to find the excerpts that fitted and established the progression found within the song,” Mein says of the video. “Jake threw the word ‘painstaking’ around to describe his experience of the process. We had a good time. The main destinations we see in the video are Virginia, Nashville, New Orleans, and NYC.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Perth Australia’s Methyl Ethel Releases Their Most Pop-Leaning and Accessible Track to Date

Jake Webb is a Perth, Australia-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, best known for his acclaimed solo recording project Methyl Ethel, which features backing touring bandmembers Thom Stewart, Chris Wright, Lyndon Blue and Jacob Diamond.  Over the past few years Webb has seen tremendous commercial and critical success. “Ubu,” became an ARIA Accredited Gold single earlier this year, after landing at #4 on Triple J’s 2017 Hottest 100. They’ve amassed over 25 million Spotify streams — and all of their tour dates across Australia and the UK have been sold out since 2016. Although Webb and company have achieved such success in a relatively short period of time, the project began as a personal challenge as Webb explains in press notes.  “I wanted to see if I could write, record and release some music before the band I was in at the time finished doing the same. I did and subsequently withdrew from some close friends. Relationships were severed. I severed some even closer ones. This was all played out in such a public away, as it invariably does, so I withdrew more. My first album Oh Inhuman Spectacle became the ‘why me?/fuck you/sorry’ album that I wrote as a confused coping mechanism. It helped and I enjoyed it. I continued the introspective journaling with the follow-up, Everything is Forgotten. For me, that album said ‘who cares? all your emotions are irrational and meaningless anyway.’ 

“This year, I found myself in the same city, alone in a room tasked with writing an album to be heard, not as an outlet for personal grievances. I decided to find closure with Triage. The question this time around is ‘what is important? What requires attention?’ I think It’s about living with secrets. Secrets cause the problems. They call them white lies, little things used to manipulate people for the greater good. It’s a triage of truths to maintain an artifice. A poem by T.S Elliot that I referenced on the first EP I recorded says it best:

“To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.”

Everyone is older, people have moved on. I receive text messages from old friends looking to reconnect. I have a masochistic social complex in so far as I enjoy the company of others, but self-imposed solitude and exile are exciting and useful to me. Its like method acting, which isn’t too far removed from the emotional memory I see people drawing upon every day. I challenge the idea of friendship and trust. I think because I am untrustworthy. At least I’m honest about that.” As a result, Webb’s forthcoming, third full-length album Triage which is slated for a February 15, 2019 release through 4AD Records — and the album, which comes after his 30th birthday, is reportedly a much more reflective album, thematically focusing on time and its passing, of getting older and only sometimes becoming more mature, of the lies we have to keep to keep on getting by and so on.

“Real Tight,” Triage’s latest single is a bit of a departure from Webb’s previously released work as it’s arguably the most pop-leaning and the most emotionally-direct he’s ever written, thanks to swelling and soaring hooks, shimmering and arpeggiated synths, chiming reverb-heavy guitars and a propulsive groove and while nodding at 80s pop like Prince and others, the song’s narrator finds himself making an urgent and desperate plea to someone he cherishes; but emotionally, the song is jumble of guilt, devotion, fear and uncertainty.

Directed by Matt Sav, the recently released video riffs a bit off the video for Janet Jackson’s “The Pleasure Principle,” as a boom box carrying Webb walks into an empty studio to sing and dance along to the music he decides to play but it’s interspersed with psychedelic visuals that emphasize the song’s ambivalence and plaintive need.