Tag: music video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Otoboke Beaver Shares a Dizzying and Breakneck Ripper

 Kyoto, Japan-based garage punk act Otoboke Beaver(おとぼけビ～バ～ in Japanese) — Accorinrin (vocals, guitar), Yoyoyoshie (guitar, vocals), Hirochan (bass, vocals) and Kahokiss (drums, vocals) — can trace their origins back to when the band member while being in Kyoto University‘s music club. 

The Kyoto-based punk outfit quickly built a profile locally and nationally for pairing incredibly dexterous musicianship with Accorinrin’s confrontational stage presence. But when Damnably Records released the Okoshiyasu!! Otoboke Beaver compilation, Otoboke Beaver began to amass international airplay from BBC Radio 6′s Gideon Coe and Tom Ravenscroft, XFM’s John Kennedy, as well as praise from the likes of Pitchfork, NPR, i-D and The Fader.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the band made critically applauded, attention-grabbing appearances across the international festival circuit with stops at SXSW and FujiRock Festival. Their extensive global touring included a sold-out show at London‘s 100 Club. 2018 included an extensive UK tour and a stop at that year’s Coachella Festival.

2019 saw the release of ITEKOMA HITS, an effort that featured “Anata Watashi Daita Ato Yome No Meshi” and “Don’t light my fire,” two feral rippers that possessed elements of noise punk, no wave, prog rock and riot grrl punk, as well as the straightforward yet breakneck “I’m tired of your repeating story.” 

At the beginning of 2020, the members of Otoboke Beaver quit their office days jobs in order to embark on a world tour. They completed a two week European tour and were about to embark on their first Stateside tour when the COVID-19 pandemic forced global quarantines and lockdowns. With touring out of the question, the band worked on new material, which they recorded between lockdowns at Osaka-based LM Studio. 

The acclaimed, Japanese punk outfit’s newest album Super Champon is slated for a May 6, 2022 release through their longtime label home Damnably. The album’s title is derived from champon, a Japanese word that means a mixture or jumble of things of different types. “It’s a mixture of songs from love to food, life and JASRAC (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers),” the band explains. “Our music is genre-less and has various elements. We hope that it will be our masterpiece of chaos music. It also sounds like champion.” 

Earlier this month, I wrote about “I am not maternal,” a defiantly feminist, breakneck, mosh pit friendly ripper meant to be played as loudly as humanly possible. The album’s latest single “PARDON?” is a feral, tempo-shifting thrash punk ripper, full of furious riffage and howled lyrical refrains in English and Japanese. The song is a playful retelling of situation the band often finds themselves in: unrelenting miscommunication of unsolicited and fervent points of views.

The accompanying lyric video is full of rapid-fire cuts and edits, which help emphasize the song’s glitchy stop-start nature while capturing the band’s infectious, raucous and playful energy.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Soccer Mommy Shares a Gorgeous, Behind-the-Scenes Visual for Woozy “Shotgun”

Sophie Allison is a Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and the creative mastermind behind the critically applauded indie rock project Soccer Mommy.  Allison first picked up guitar when she was six — and as a teenager, she attended Nashville School of the Arts, where she studied guitar and played in the school’s swing band. During the summer of 2015, the Swiss-born, Nashville-based artist began posting home-recorded songs as Soccer Mommy and posted them to Bandcamp, just as she was about to attend  New York University (my alma mater, no less!), where she studied music business at the University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.

While she was in college, Allison played her first Soccer Mommy show at Bushwick, Brooklyn’s Silent Barn. She caught the attention of Fat Possum Records, who signed her to a record deal — and after spending two years at NYU, she returned to Nashville to pursue a full-time career in music. Upon her return to Nashville, she wrote and released two Soccer Mommy albums — 2016’s For Young Hearts released through Orchid Tapes and 2017’s Collection released through Fat Possum.

Allison’s proper, full-length debut 2018’s Clean was released to widespread critical acclaim, and as a result of a rapidly growing profile, she has toured with the likes of  Stephen Malkmus, Mitski, Kacey Musgraves, Jay Som, Slowdive, Frankie Cosmos, Liz Phair, Phoebe Bridgers, Paramore, Foster the People, Vampire Weekend, and Wilco.

Before the pandemic, Allison, much like countless other artists was gearing up for a big year: she started off 2020 by playing one of Bernie Sanders’ presidential rallies and joined a lengthy and eclectic list of artists, who endorsed his presidential campaign. That year also saw the release of her critically applauded sophomore album color theory, which she had planned to support with a headline tour with a number of sold-out dates months in advance that included a stop Glastonbury Festival and her late-night, national TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

With touring at a half as a result of the pandemic, Allison, much like countless other artists recognized that the time off from touring offered a unique opportunity to get creative and experiment with new ideas and new ways to connect with fans.

Combining her love of video games and performing, Allison had a digital show on Club Penguin Rewritten with over 10,000 attendees, who all had to make their own penguin avatars to attend. The show was so popular, that the platform’s servers crashed, forcing a rescheduling of the event. Of course, Allison has also played a number of live-streamed sets, including ones hosted by  NPR’s Tiny Desk At Home (which she kicked off) and Pitchfork‘s IG Live Series. She also released her own Zoom background images for her fans to proudly show off their Soccer Mommy fandom. 

Allison and her backing band embarked on a Bella Clark-directed 8 bit, virtual music video tour that saw Soccer Mommy playing some of the cities she had been scheduled to play if the pandemic didn’t happen — in particular, Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle, Toronto, and Austin. Instead of having the visual shows at a traditional music venue or a familiar tourist spot, the band were mischievously placed in highly unusual places: an abandoned Toronto subway station, a haunted Chicago hotel, a bat-filled Austin bridge underpass and the like. The video tour featured color theory single “crawling in my skin,” a song centered around looping and shimming guitars, a sinuous bass line, shuffling drumming, subtly shifting tempos and an infectious hook.

She closed out 2020 with an Adam Kolodny-directed, fittingly Halloween-themed visual for “crawling in my skin” that’s full of creeping and slow-burning dread that reminds me of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe movies with Vincent Price.

Allison’s newest album, the Daniel Lopatin (a.k.a. Oneohtrix Point Never)-produced Sometimes, Forever is slated for a June 24, 2022 release through Loma Vista/Concord. The new album reportedly sees Allison pushing her sound in new directions — but without eschewing the unsparing lyricism and catchy melodies that have won her attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere.

Inspired by the concept that neither sorrow nor happiness is permanent, Sometimes, Forever will be a fresh peek into the mind of a bold, young artist who synthesizes everything — retro sounds, personal tumult, the disorder of modern life — into music that feels built to last for a long time. The album’s material is also partly inspired by the uncomfortable push and pull between her desire to make meaningful art, her skepticism about the mechanics of careerism, and the mundane, artless administrative chaos that comes with all of it.

The album’s first single, the woozy “Shotgun” is an infectious banger centered around a classic grunge song structure — quiet verses, explosive choruses paired with layers of distorted guitars, Allison’s achingly plaintive vocals, an enormous hook, thunderous drumming and a throbbing groove.

“Shotgun” manages to liken a young romance to a sort of chemical high — but without the bruising and sickening comedown, which always comes after. But throughout the song, its narrator focuses on small moments in a particular love affair that’s imbued with a deep, personal meaning, “‘Shotgun’ is all about the joys of losing yourself in love,” explains Allison. “I wanted it to capture the little moments in a relationship that stick with you.”

Directed by Kevin Lombardo, the accompanying video catches Allison strumming her guitar in a sunny bedroom — but pulls out to show the workings of a music video set, plus a promotional shoot. The video captures Allison’s own struggles in a way that’s both gorgeous and realistic.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: N’Faly Kouyaté Teams Up with Tiken Jah Fakoly on a Socially Relevant Banger

Throughout his lengthy musical career Guinean-born, Belgian-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist N’Faly Kouyaté has bridged the modern and the ancient, and Africa and the West: Kouyaté received a very traditional and rigorous Guinean musical education. He eventually relocated to Belgium, where he received conservatory training.

Inspired by Aretha Franklin, Harry Belafonte and a long list of others, the Guinean-born, Belgian-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has managed to collaborate with an eclectic array of acclaimed artists including Peter Gabriel, William Kentridge, Phil Manzanera, Ray Phiri and others. But he may be best known for his work with groundbreaking, genre-defying and Grammy Award-nominated act Afro Celt Sound System.

The acclaimed singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist will be releasing a new album — and that album sees Kouyaté developing a new genre, Afrotonix, which mixes polyphony, electronic production and traditional African instruments like the kora, the balafon and percussion. The album’s first single “Free Water,” which features a guest spot from Tiken Jah Fakoly is a slick synthesis of the modern and traditional: modern electronic production featuring wobbling, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and traditional Guinean instrumentation paired with a vitally necessary message — water is life for all of us.

The accompanying video reminds then viewer of water’s importance to all of us — from drinking, bathing, our food and so on. But it also gives the viewer a glimpse of daily life in beautiful Guinea and scenes from the studio.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toronto’s Mear Shares a Gorgeous and Expressive Visual for Cinematic “Second Sight”

Toronto-based synth pop duo Mear — Frances Miller and Greg Harrison — can trace their origins to when the pair met while working at renowned music venue Massey Hall. Shortly after meeting, Miller and Harrison began collaborating by sending tracks back and forth through social media.

Through the release of their debut EP, 2016’s Flood and a handful of singles, the Canadian synth pop duo have established a sound and approach that pairs catchy melodies and poignant lyrics with the duo’s shared love of experimental music. Their single “Perfect Mess” was released to praise by The East, edm joy and OMGblog and was named a “Song You Need to Hear This Week” by CBC Music.

Their full-length debut, Soft Chains is slated for an April 22, 2022 release. The album’s latest single “Second Sight” is a cinematic bit of pop centered around shimmering synth arpeggios and skittering reverb-drenched beats paired with Miller’s gorgeous and expressive vocals. While sonically recalling Flourish//Perish era BRAIDS, Kinlaw and ACES, the song as the duo explain “is about someone, who is grappling with a memory that holds them back. It’s about a confrontation and making it out on the other side.”

Edited by Mear’s Frances Miller, the accompanying video for “Second Sight” pairs the live action expressive dancing of choreographer and dancer Katherine Semchuk with the flowing animation of Kristen-Innes Stambolic. The visual manages to evoke a difficult and exhausting inward struggle that ends with the video’s protagonist coming out of the other side with an inner peace.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Cigar Cigarette’s Hazy and Feverish “Guilty Pleasures”

Chris McLaughin is a producer, sound engineer and multi-instrumentalist, who can boast over a decade of production work with a wide-ranging array of artists from Kanye West, Bon Iver, The Strokes‘ Fabrizio Moretti, machinegum, and a recent Neon Indian remix.

McLaughin steps out into the limelight as an artist with his solo recording project Cigar Cigarette. McLaughlin’s Cigar Cigarette forthcoming full-length debut Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigarette is an industrial-leaning soundscape guided by anxious, apocalyptic mystique — and McLaughlin’s wide-spanning ear and expansive vision.

Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigarette‘s latest single “Guilty Pleasures” is a woozy and feverish haze of buzzing and oscillating electronics, skittering boom bap, industrial clang and clatter, glistening synths and shoegazey guitars paired with McLaughlin’s achingly plaintive and processed vocals and an enormous hook. While recalling a slick synthesis of Uncanny Valley era Midnight Juggernauts and POND, “Guilty Pleasures” as McLaughlin explains “is a song that takes place in an early period of the Internet, and is built using sounds and memories from each of the last four decades. It’s about two people meeting on a road in the woods and exchanging briefcases which contain their own internal organs.

“I thought it would be funny to begin a song with the beat from the 80’s hit ‘Come On Eileen‘, making hi hats from voices and chords from vocoder. Ultimately, it ascends into a wash of shoe-gaze guitars and heavy modular synths as the characters in the song take turns swallowing their own lungs.

“As an engineer I love the process of recording sounds; but as a producer and musician I’m more interested in resampling those sounds and creating a collage with them, rather than just letting the performances sit,” McLaughin adds. “I blended the vocoder and natural vocals for the same reason: I want the song to evoke the same cold unease of the uncanny valley, to feel like something a slightly imperfect copy of a human would make.”

Directed by frequently collaborator, MOTHERMARY‘s Elyse Winn and shot by Michael Pessah is a surreal and disorientating visual that follows McLaughin as he drives a badass car through time and space as he sings along with the song. “We wanted to use the ‘poor man’s process’ technique of projecting a video behind a stationary vehicle to make it appear like it’s moving. Using these sorts of ‘movie magic’ practical effects from another time period can create a much more surreal and disorienting world,” says McLaughlin.