Tag: music video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Hazy and Dream-like Visuals for Up-and-Coming Sibling Pop Duo Chaos Chaos’ “Dripping With Fire”

Comprised of Seattle, WA-born, New York-based sibling duo Asy and Chloe Saavedra, the electro pop duo Chaos Chaos is a decided sonic left turn for those who may be familiar with the Saavedras earlier work as members of Seattle-born band Smoosh, an act that opened for the likes of Bloc Party, Sleater Kinney and Cat Power, as the sibling duo’s latest project finds the duo pairing analog synth soundscapes, programmed and live drums with gorgeous harmonies. And while some have compared the duo’s sound to the likes of PJ Harvey, Stereolab and Little Dragon, the duo’s latest single “Dripping With Fire” sounds — to my ears, at least — much more like JOVM mainstays Pavo Pavo but with a modern production sheen. 

Directed by Stephanie Dimiskovski with photography direction by Steven Rico possesses a surreal, dream-like logic. and as the sibling duo explained in a written statement to the folks at Noisey, “We wanted to shed light on a more true sisterhood by recalling the memorabilia of damaging [and healing] as the somewhat conflicted foundation of sisterhood.’ Each posed scene, like dioramas of the Saavedras’ personal life and emotions, takes viewers into another world.”

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Headbang with Rituals of Mine in Intense Live Footage-based Visuals for “Armor”

Comprised of Terra Lopez and Dani Fernandez, the Los Angeles, CA-based electro pop duo Rituals of Mine can trace their origins back to 2009, when they initially formed under the name Sister Crayon. After years of relentless touring up and down the West Coast, playing house shows, DIY venues, basement rooms and other small, local establishments, the duo built up a loyal fanbase, and as a result the duo began to build a growing regional and national profile, touring with The Album Leaf, Built to Spill, Antemasque, Le Butcherettes, Maps & Atlases, Doomtree and others. Adding to a growing profile, the duo’s first two independently released and critically applauded albums 2011’s Bellow and 2013’s Cynic helped to further cement the duo’s reputation for crafting cathartic material centering around tweeter and woofer rocking beats, soulful vocals and trip hop-inspired production. 

The Wes Jones-produced, third full-length album Devoted was released in 2015 to critical applause — with the album landing on a number of indie “Top Ten Albums of 2015″ lists; but despite the album’s success, 2015 was a harrowing and difficult year for the Los Angeles, CA-based electro pop act’s Terra Lopez, as her father committed suicide and several months later, her best friend Lucas Johnson died in a tragic accident. Reeling from grief, the duo felt the need to put the Sister Crayon name to rest, and landed on their new name Rituals of Mine.”  Terra writes “It was a mantra that I repeated under my breath on a daily basis when the loss I was experiencing felt too heavy at times. Music, the act of creating, performing, touring, writing, singing, experimenting – all the rituals we have created to get through life.”

Because of its extremely limited release, Warner Brothers Records decided to re-master and re-release Devoted when the duo signed with the label last February. Re-mastered by Tom Coyne, who has worked with Led Zeppelin and Adele, the 2016 re-release features previously unreleased remixes and B-sides. Recently, the members of Rituals of Mine released a live, stripped down video for album single “Armor,” which features Madame Gandhi, a former drummer in M.I.A.’s backing band. 

Filmed by the Bay Area-based French Press Films with lighting by The Steel Hip (Moonlight), the video features the collaborators headbanging and rocking out intensely to their swaggering and percussive live version. And while swaggering, the live version manages to maintain the original’s cathartic vibe with a “you-are-there” intimacy and immediacy. As the duo’s Terra Lopez explains in press notes, “We’ve been long time fans of Kiran (Madame Ghandi) and we’ve all wanted to do a track together so when the idea came around to do a stripped down, percussive heavy live video for “Armor,” we were all so down. This track is raw, it hits heavy and it’s our version of an electronic/punk track. It’s one of my favorite tracks of ours to perform live and this version with Madame Ghandi is so fun and dynamic plus it’s just badass to see women head banging and having a good time together. French Press Films were so incredible to film with — they wanted to do something different visually for a live video so they set up a track in the Madden football building in the Bay Area and shot it beautifully. Huge thanks to them and the team for this. They kill it every time.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Sweaty Voodoo and Psychedelia Fueled Visuals for “Blood”

Comprised of Rett Smith (guitar, vocals), who is an accomplished solo artist and Daniel Sousa (drums), the Los Angeles, CA-based (by way of Nashville, TN) indie rock act SAENTS formed earlier this year as a way for Smith to unpack untapped sonic curiosities — and interestingly, the duo have quickly received attention from American Songwriter, NYLON, Gibson Guitars and NPR among a growing list of others for a power chord-based blues rock sound, similar to The Black Keys. 

Building upon the growing buzz surrounding them, the duo will be releasing their self-titled debut EP on November 10, 2017 and EP single “Blood” will further cement their burgeoning reputation for arena rock friendly, power chord-based blues featuring anthemic hooks and thundering drumming — but the song bristles from bitter, personal experience. As the duo’s Smith explains in press notes the EP’s latest single was penned during a challenging recovery process in the Caribbean and focuses around a metaphorical woman that stands for everything that we all chase — frequently without regard to physical well-being, sanity. “‘Blood’ is very much a first person account of who I was up to that moment, a letter to myself, in ways that I’ve always felt but needed to hear myself say to truly acknowledge.” He adds, “The way the drums hit between the vocal lines really mimics the way life can hit us all. Especially while living the moments being described lyrically.  The manic way the guitar solo builds is very much a representation of how relationships and our extreme feelings can, at times, run out of control.”

Directed by Ricardo Coelho, the recently released video for “Blood” is a highly stylized video that draws from 50s and 60s stock footage to create a sweaty psychedelics and voodoo-style influenced video. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Limiñanas Team Up The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe on Lysergic and Menacing “Istanbul Is Sleepy”

Comprised of Marie (drums, vocals) and Lionel (guitar, bass, keys and vocals), the Perpignan, France-based duo The Limiñanas have developed a reputation as one of France’s beloved treasures, as their sound straddles the boundaries of psych rock, shoegaze and yé-yé, paired with fuzzy, distorted and reverb-heavy hooks and effortlessly cool vocals. And while being mischievously anachronistic, the duo manage to do so in an quintessentially French fashion. 

“Istanbul Is Sleepy,” the title track of their forthcoming Istanbul Is Sleepy EP finds the renowned French psych rockers collaborating with The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s influential Anton Newcombe, who contributes guitar and his imitable vocals to the track. And as the members of The Limiñanas recall in press notes, the collaboration can trace its origins to last year, when the folks at Mojo Magazine asked them to contribute a track to a Kinks tribute compilation. “We chose ‘Two Sisters,'” Lionel explains in press notes. “Marie and I were thinking for the vocal part, it would be great to approach Anton Newcombe, having opened for The Brian Jonestown Massacre at Le Trianon in Paris. The work began like that. We had an album to record and we decided to finish it with him. During the Christmas week we took our demos, flew to Berlin and recorded at Anton’s studio. Six days later we had a finished album.” 

Sonically speaking, the French psych rock act’s latest single features an arrangement that consists of  propulsive backbeat, layers of fuzzy guitars, soaring organs and rousing hooks and while possessing a decided garage rock scuzziness, the song has the sort of underlying menace reminiscent of The Black Angels — although interestingly enough, Newcombe was reportedly inspired by Rain-era The Cult. 

Naturally, while the  Jean Luc Moly-directed video is decidedly psychedelic, it also pays subtle homage to French New Wave films thanks to its attention to split screens and bright colors — as it features a zombie-like Anton Newcombe with the members of The Limiñanas performing the song in a persistent rainy backdrop as a man in a suit struts, dances and bops his head to the music. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Surreal and Chaotic Visuals for FACIAL’S “Black Noise”

FACIAL is a Los Angeles, CA-based post-punk band, who have described their sound on their Facebook Fan Page as “the noise that cuts like a chainsaw through the thick buildup of residue in your mind, left behind by years of dealing with the dull banality of life. They take the dead parts of your brain killed by mundane reputation and blast it away with a pressure hose, while the low end rattles all the barnacles off your body and pounds you the way you are always afraid to ask for. Sweet melodies interchange with primal screaming as you fluctuate between comfort and discomfort, horror and jubilation, familiarity and utter confusion.” 

With their sophomore album Facade slated for release on Friday through Chain Letter Collective, the Los Angeles-based post-punk trio reportedly finds the band blowing away the facades and exposing the ugly truths underneath whether it’s their hometown, their country or within themselves. As a result, the material burrows down into the uncomfortable realities that we’ve long tried to push aside such as primal urges, anger, hate, selfishness, envy, jealousy rather than the superficial and alternate reality we show to the world that we are happy, cooperative, peaceful, benevolent members of a kind, cooperative society. And interestingly enough, album single “Black Noise” is a darkly moody, tense and angular track that nods at Echo and the Bunnymen’s Heaven Up Here and others but with a menacing and muscular tone, as though capturing the murky depths of the id.

Directed by Jack Mikesell and co-produced by Jared Robbins and Matt Macnelly, the recently released visuals for “Black Noise” employ a chaotic, dream-like logic with the video beginning with the members of the trio walking through a model town like gods, before quickly cutting to an interpretive dance sequence reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” — that is until a group of young women come by to kick the band’s ass and smash everything in their sights, which in some way seems to evoke our own destructive urges going absolutely wild. Towards the end of the video, the young women join in on the interpretive dance. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Wander Around NYC with Copenhagen-based Retro-futuristic Electro Pop Duo TAN

Comprised of Mathias Riss and Andreas Bengsten, the members of Copenhagen, Denmark-based act TAN have spent sings in a number of post punk and psych rock projects which makes their current collaboration a marked sonic departure for them with their sound, as you’ll hear on latest single “PANORAMA,” leaning towards the chilly retro-futusitic synth-based compositions of John Carpenter, Umberto and countless others; however, the Copenhagen-based electro pop act’s sound manages to subtly nod towards early house music. 

Interestingly, enough the song and video were created at all night rooftop party in Brooklyn. Inspired by the skyline and the infinite sense of possibility of NYC, they ditched the party armed with an old 80s VHS video recorder, with which the duo dressed entirely in black bodysuits explore the city, hitting up bars, riding the subway and wandering through Times Square  and chatting with locals — and typical for New York, no one bats an eye towards these oddly attired strangers. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Surreal and Cinematic Visuals for The Horrors “Something to Remember Me By” Feature Hilarious Commentary on Fame and Consumerism

Over the past five or six years of this site’s history, I’ve written quite a bit about the London, UK-based indie rock quintet and JOVM mainstays The Horrors. And as you may recall, the British blogosphere darlings comprised of of Faris Badwan (vocals), Joshua Hayward (guitar), Tom Cowan (aka Tom Furse) (keys and synths), Rhys Webb (bass) and Joe Spurgeon (drums, percussion), can trace their origins back to the early 00s, and to a shared interest in obscure vinyl collecting, DJ’ing, and a mutual love of 60s garage rock, and 70s and 80s New Wave and post-punk — in particular, The Birthday Party and Bauhaus. In fact, as the story goes, the band’s founding trio met during repeated trips back and forth between their hometown from their hometown Southend-on-Sea and London.

By 2005, the British indie rock band’s founding trio recruited Haywood and Spurgeon to complete the band’s lineup and began rehearsing, and reportedly their first rehearsal together featured two covers — The Sonics’ “The Witch” and Screaming Lord Sutch’s “Jack the Ripper,” interpreted in the tradition of previous garage rock covers such as those by The Fuzztones, The Gruesomes and others. Unsurprisingly, their 2007 debut, Strange House featured their garage rock take on “Jack the Ripper” as its opening track; however, it was the album’s first two official singles “Sheena Is a Parasite” and “Death at the Chapel” that caught the attention of music journalists, music critics and fans. And since then, each of the band’s albums — their aforementioned 2007 debut, 2009’s Primary Colours, 2011’s Skying and 2014’s Luminous — have garnered both critical praise and commercial success, as they have all charted within the UK Top 40. Along with that, Skying and Luminous received international attention, including attention from this site.

V, The Horrors’ aptly titled fifth studio album was released last week through Wolftone Records/Caroline Records and while being the band’s first batch of material in three years, the Paul Epworth-produced album finds the band experimenting and expanding with the sound that’s won them national and international attention over the past two albums; in fact, the album’s first official single “Machine” seems to have the British indie rockers incorporating elements of the Manchester sound — in particular, Evil Heat-era Primal Scream, the abrasive, industrial electronica of Nine Inch Nails and Earthling-era David Bowie while retaining the band’s rousing and anthemic hooks; but by far, the song may be among the most swaggering and assertive songs of their growing catalog.

“Something to Remember Me By,” V’s second and is a propulsive, dance floor-friendly track that features a sinuous bass line paired with shimmering and cascading layers of synths, four-on-the floor drumming and a soaring hook — and to my ears, the track seems to have the band drawing influence from late period New Order — i.e., Get Ready and Music Complete — with an underlying, swooning Romanticism, making it arguably their most instantly memorable song they’ve released to date.

Directed by Max Weiland, the recently released video for V’s second single is a cinematic and weird video that directly comments society’s obsession with celebrity and the music industry’s attempt to take advantage of that, as Weiland explains in press notes. In the video, a strange and menacing mega-conglomerate uses the bandmembers’ desire for fame to harder their blood, sweat, tears, semen and more to make ridiculous consumer products for mass consumption — with the most hilarious one being The Horrors brand dildo. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Visuals for Wolf Alice’s “Heavenward” Capture Life on the Road

Currently comprised of founding members Ellie Roswell (vocals, guitar) and Jeff Oddie (guitar, vocals), along with Theo Ellis (bass) and Joel Amey (drums, vocals), the London-based indie rock quartet Wolf Alice derive their name from an Angela Carter short story, and can trace their origins to when its founding members Roswell and Oddie began the act in 2010 as an acoustic act. Eventually, Roswell and Oddie decided to add more electric elements to their sound and they recruited Roswell’s childhood friend Sadie Cleary (bass) and Oddie’s friend George Barlett (drums) to join the band. And with the original lineup, the quartet released a self-titled EP, which featured “Every Cloud,” “Wednesday,” and “Destroy Me,” with the band releasing a video for “Wednesday.”

When Barlett broke his wrist in 2012, Joel Amey joined on as a temporary replacement but later became a permanent member. Also in that year, Cleary left to focus on her studies, and Theo Ellis was recruited to join in. Despite the lineup changes, the band released “Leaving You,” on Soundcloud as a free download, and it received airplay on BBC Radio 1 was featured in NME‘s Radar section. Building upon the buzz they received nationally, the quartet toured with Peace, and they began the following year with a session for Huw Stephens’ BBC Radio 1 show.

Since then the quartet have released two EP’s 2013’s Blush and 2014’s Creature Song and a full-length album — 2015’s critically applauded and commercially successful My Love Is Cool, which featured the Grammy Nominated-single “Moaning Lisa Smile,” a track that peaks at #9 on Billboard‘s Alternative Songs Chart. The British indie rock quartet’s soon-to-be released sophomore effort Visions of a Life is slated for a September 29, 2017 release through Dirty Hit/RCA Records, and the album’s aptly soaring, latest single “Heavenward” reminds me quite a bit of A Storm in Heaven-era The Verve, as lush layers of shimmering guitar chords, four-on-the-floor drumming and Roswell’s yearning vocals are paired with an arena rock-like power chord-based hook. And while revealing some impressive guitar work, the song manages a rare feat — to be intimate,  immediate and bombastic yet yearning as the band arches heavenward, even if just for a few moments.

Directed by Andy DeLuca, the recently released visuals for “Heavenward” aptly capture a vision of a life — a life on the road, as the video follows the band on tour, rushing from place to place, goofing off to kill time between shows, playing sets in front of enthusiastic crowds in sweaty clubs, the rare moments between the members of a band before they hit the stage; but adding to the psychedelic vibe of the song are kaleidoscopic colors that includes members of the band playing superimposed over various imagery throughout. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the 90s Grunge Inspired Sounds and Visuals of Up-and-Coming British Band Sitting Pretty

Sitting Pretty is a Plymouth, UK-based indie rock band, founded in early 2014 and within a few months of writing and rehearing material, the band was offered their first live gig opening for Ocean Colour Scene’s and Paul Weller’s Steve Craddock, and adding to the growing buzz around them, they promptly followed it with a handful of festival sets, including at The Cider Festival, as well as a set at Plymouth’s largest music venue, Plymouth Pavilions before wrapping up the year opening for Cast’s and The La’s John Power’s acoustic tour. The following year, found the band becoming a figure on the local music scene — an achievement for a scene that predominantly consists of cover bands. Along with that, the band spent 2015 opening for up-and-coming band The Bulletproof Bomb and CAST during their 25th anniversary tour. 

The Plymouth-based band’s latest single “Then You Break” reveals a band that specializes in a sound that meshes elements of classic rock, grunge rock, psych rock and indie rock that’s reminiscent of Screaming Trees and Mark Lanegan’s solo career, as the band pairs fuzzy power chords and anthemic hooks with a propulsive rhythm section — and interestingly enough, the band’s frontman Conor Wilde’s vocal stylings are reminiscent of a young Mark Lanegan. In fact, it shouldn’t surprise you that I immediately thought of Screaming Trees’ “All I Know” and “Nearly Lost You” but with a expansive song structure.

As the band’s Wilde explains “we started messing around with the riff and melodies for this single, ‘Then You Break’. Lyrically for me the song is about struggling to understand all the shit I see every day and the feelings that come along with it, and the bulk of this song is about being confused and trapped which ironically is what makes everything seem normal for a twenty something year old these days. It has taken us months to get this track off the ground but we had some good advice from Ian Hunter, who invited us out with him last year and he told me that  ‘You should always strive to write about something that means a lot to you.’  So I did.”  

The band is currently working on their full-length debut, slated for release sometime next year and have been expanding their profile across the UK with opening gigs for Primal Scream, Black Grape, Reverend and The Makers and Foals, as well as Mott the Hoople’s Ian Hunter. But in the meantime, the recently released video is decidedly 90s grunge rock-inspired, as it features the band performing the song on the street in front of some dramatic and sweeping strobe lights. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Dark and Menacing Post Punk Sounds and Visuals of Paris’ SURE

SURE is a rather mysterious Paris-based post punk/dark wave act, who in an email described their sound as “dark songs to dance in caves.” Their murky and moody, debut single “Tasting Revenge” consists of a forcefully persistent kick drum, angular and propulsive bass lines,  slashing guitar chords fed through layers of distortion paired with vocals that are submerged within the mix and industrial clang and clatter.  And in some way, the French band’s sound manages to channel Joy Division and The Sisters of Mercy, as well as contemporaries like Chain of Flowers and Bambara, 

The recently released accompanying visuals for the song as the band notes may cause discomfort and seizures for those who suffer from photosensitive epilepsy, as it features the members of the band in murky black and white with strobe lights flashing around them as they play in an empty room.