Tag: music

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Indie Rock, All-Star Side-Project’s Orchestral Interpretation of Their Noisy, Debut Material

While expanding upon the sound of their most famous primary projects, the band finds each member of the band sonically pushing themselves and crossing as many creative barriers as possible. Interestingly, the project’s soon-to-be released effort, Orchestral Variations is an album of orchestral and instrumental interpretations of the material off Minor Victories’ debut album. The concept, as the band’s Justin Lockey explained to the folks at VICE THUMP began with Lockey “fucking around” but as he progressed, it felt increasingly valid because it presented the songs and harmonies in a completely different light — revealing a stunning beauty underneath the vitriol. In press note Lockey explains that Orchestral Variations’ latest single “Give Up The Ghost” is an orchestral arrangement on the original song. On the full band album, the song begins with an enormous bit of fuzz and vitriol; however, the Orchestral Variation version has Lockey stripping the arrangement down to Rachel Goswell’s vocal melody, which was buried underneath layers of guitar tracks and arena rock-like drums. “In the end, I started with marimbas . . why? Because everyone loves a marimba (if not, they ought to). I guess from my part, it’s a huge nod to Steve Reich, with some melodramatic strings woven in for good measure.” And the result, is gorgeous and soaring and melodramatic composition that sounds as though it should be part of a movie soundtrack while capturing the mood of harried commuters rushing to and fro.

Interestingly, as Lockey explains in press notes, the video was shot by his brother James while they had a day off in Berlin and it features an incredibly simple concept — the band’s Rachel Goswell riding the Berlin metro with enormous headphones on, sitting next to her fellow commuters. And as the train travels you see the Goswell and her fellow commuters sitting next to her, lost in their thoughts and daydreaming; at points the motion of the train or the length of their day has someone close their eyes and nod off; at other points, people get off at their various stops; people and train stops rush by. If it wasn’t so relatively clean, it would look and feel as though you were riding the subway in New York.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tokyo, Japan’s LITE and Their Funky Take on Prog Rock

Comprised of Nobuyuki Takeda (guitar), Kozo Kusumoto (guitar / synthesizer), Jun Ozawa (bass) and Akinori Yamamoto (drums), the Tokyo, Japan-based instrumental rock band LITE have over their 14 years together and four full-length albums and six EPs developed both a national and international profile for mischievously playful and complex compositions featuring edgy riffs, complex rhythms and a prog rock and math rock-leaning sensibility, a well-regarded live show and a relentless touring schedule across the US, Europe and Asia. And with “-D,” the first single off the Japanese quartet’s fifth full-length and second proper Stateside release Cubic, the band has released a composition that playfully bridges funk, jazz, prog rock and hip-hop as angular guitar chords are paired with a regular yet ethereal horn line from trumpeter Tabu Zombie, a sinuous bass line and old school-like breakbeats which hold together a composition featuring three distinct yet incredibly funky sections together. Sonically, I’m reminded of the Josh Roseman Unit‘s Treats for the Nightwalker (in particular, their rendition of Burt Bacharach‘s “Long Day, Short Night,” which Dionne Warwick sung) and of a contemporary batch of Afrobeat and Afro-pop inspired acts that includes Superhuman Happiness (think of “Half-Step Grind” off their excellent Hands) and others.

Cubic is slated for a release through Topshelf Records on Friday and the Japanese quartet will be touring to support and build up buzz for the album with a handful of West Coast tour dates, which you can check out below. And interestingly, as the band was in the middle of seven date West Coast tour, they released an official music video comprised of the band performing the song in a studio in front of alternating colored lights — and in some way it gives a sense of what their live show would be like.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Nots Captures Our Current Dread and Unease

Cosmetic’s third and latest single “Inherently Low” is presciently and strangely fitting for our increasingly surreal times while continuing with the album’s overall theme. Sonically, the band pairs angular guitar and bass chords, propulsive drumming and shouted lyrics — and the end result is a song that evokes creeping dread and unease and while boldly and furiously calling out hypocritical bullshit. Simply put it’s a song with a narrator that simply has stopped giving a fuck.

The recently released video was created and edited by the band’s Natalie Hoffman and was influenced by the results of last week’s Presidential Election. And as Hoffman explains in press notes “the tension and fear that came with the results certainly played a part in the visual outcome of the video. America has elected someone who has openly campaigned to keep us low. To keep us completely divided. To keep us at war. I don’t think that I (or anyone) can fully process the weight of what is to come, but this video is an attempt to translate both what the song is about, and how I’ve felt since the election results – a new awareness, anger, and fear about being kept inherently low.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Therman Munsin is an up-and-coming New Jersey-born and based emcee who  teams up Hempstead, NY-based emcee and producer Roc Marciano on the Marciano produced “Frivolous Wardrobe,” a track off Munsin’s forthcoming full-length effort slated for release in early 2017. And the track features the two emcees trading braggadocio-filled bars over a sparse production featuring shuffling drum beats paired with a shuffling guitar and bass line sample. From the track, it’s evident that Munsin and Marciano possess an undeniable creative chemistry — and we can hope that this collaboration with continue with new street rocking shit.

 

 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this year, I wrote about the Portland, OR-based doom metal quartet, R.I.P. The quartet has long operated off the belief that heavy metal didn’t come from the forest or beam down from outer space; but rather, that it crawled up out of the sewer and writhed to life in in the grit and grime of the streets and their unique take on heavy metal and doom metal “street doom” is deeply indebted to that approach. And in addition to that, the quartet have developed a reputation for relentless touring when they signed to renowned Los Angeles-based label RidingEasy Records, who will be releasing the band’s highly-anticipated full-length debut In The Wind on December 9, 2016.

Now you may recall that “Black Leather” had the Portland-based quartet pairing scuzzy, power chords with thunderous drumming and a driving motorik-like groove in an expansive and spacious dirge that allowed room for some additional, blistering guitar pyrotechnics in a song that seemed to draw equally from Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Hawkwind — in the sense that structurally speaking, the song in its first half or so is power chord heavy dirge and in its last half turns into a psych rock-leaning stoner rock with a swaggering self-assuredness while evoking sulfurous smoke billowing from the depths of hell. In The Wind‘s latest single “Tremble” is a stoner rock/psych rock doom-filled ass-kicker reminiscent of the aforementioned Black Sabbath and of Badmotorfinger and Superunknown-era Soundgarden as the song consists of dense layers of punishing power chords, some ridiculous guitar pyrotechnics, a motorik-like groove and murky lyrics   that evoke the fear and dread that many of us have been feeling for the past 24 hours.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Furious Visuals and Sounds of Dangers’ “Kiss with Spit”

Interestingly, Dangers’ blistering and snarling latest single “Kiss With Spit” has the band pairing layers of scuzzy and acidic guitar chords, thundering drumming, a persistent bass line and howled vocals in a way that sounds reminiscent of Melvins, Metz and Nirvana — in particular, think of “Dive,” “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” and “Breed,” complete with a tense, mosh pit worthy fury. And recently after playing the song after the strangeness of a President-elect Donald Trump, the song conveyed the blind and confused fury that many of us feel.

The recently released music video follows a vicious, disjointed, sweaty mosh pit in a dark, tiny little shithole of a club — and in some way it also looks like a fucked up orgy with a band leading it on.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Featuring The Eccentronic Research Council‘s Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer and Fat White Family‘s Lias Saoudi and Saul Adamczweski, The Moonlandingz are both a side project and a semi-fictional guitar pop act, whose latest single “Black Hanz,” is as the band refers to in press notes “a song for our times, born out of abuse; abuse in the workplace, abuse in the street, abuse by the sniveling toe rags we call a government, abuse for daring to dream and to be different,” and “a celebration of the Outsider, the socially inept . . ” Sonically speaking their sound manages to mesh a facsimile of the Manchester sound — twinkling synths, guitars fed through delay and effects pedals and a driving motorik groove — paired with a sneering and ironic punk sentiment, and a mischievous and menacing spoken word section towards the song’s bridge.

The project’s full-length debut effort was co-produced by Sean Lennon and the band and was mixed by Dave Fridmann, best known for his work producing Flaming Lips and Tame Impala, and is slated for a 2017 release through Chimera Music across North America and Transgressive Records in the UK and elsewhere.

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Gorgeously Cinematic Yet Eerie Visuals for Pamela Hute’s “Banshees”

Last month, I wrote about Pamela Hute, a Paris-based singer/songwriter, who began her music career in earnest at a very young age. As a teen she formed The Mashed Potatoes before going solo in 2006 — and as a solo artist, she’s released two albums, 2010’s Tales From Overseas and 2013’s Bandit, with Bandit being mixed by John Agnello, who has worked with the likes of The Kills, Sonic Youth and Cyndi Lauper. Both of those albums revealed that Hute specializes in jangling guitar pop with rousingly anthemic hooks paired with earnest lyrics as you’ll hear on The Breeders and 90s alt rock channeling “Banshees,” the second and latest single off her self-produced effort Today. But at its core, Today manages to reveal what may arguably be Hute’s most personal songwriting, influenced by a trip she took to California.

Now, as you may recall I wrote about the live video, which featured Hute and her backing band performing “Banshees” at La Fourmi in Limoges, France. The recently released official video, which Hute made with her cousins and nephews this past summer is shot in a gorgeous and cinematic black and white and it features three characters dressed as crows participating in a weird, almost pagan-like ritual in the woods, before following the trio as they walk about the countryside. It’s arguably some of the most artful and yet eerie imagery I’ve seen in some time.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Gorgeously Mournful Yet Hopeful Sound and Visuals of Daniel Land’s “New York Boogie-Woogie”

Written and recorded in a number of locations including London, Manchester, Devon, California and New York City and featuring over 20 musicians including members of Daniel Land and The Modern Painters, the backing bands of Andrew Saks (a.k.a. ASAKS) and Gerald Hopes (a.k.a Little Nova Sound), members of Land’s current band and ambient composer Bing Satellites, who co-wrote some material, co-produced and played several instruments on the record, Land’s forthcoming sophomore full-length solo album In Love With a Ghost may arguably be one of the more complex and textured efforts he has released.

Interestingly enough, the album’s material was written right after his longest running project Daniel Land and The Modern Painters had broken up, and in a period in which he had been forced to consider giving up music about halfway during the recording of the album, when he had suffered a number of health issues including a painful and chronic inner-ear infection that left him prone to bouts of extreme dizziness and partially deaf for over a year. And as a result, among several things Land had been thinking of during tat period influenced the tone and feel of his forthcoming album’s material. As Land explains in press notes: “This is an album about cities. It is an album about reinvention, and starting your life over. It is an album about growing up, finding love, and settling down. And to a lesser degree, it is about the damage that can be done to a person, or a family, by falling in love with the wrong person. With ‘In Love With A Ghost’, I came full circle for a while by incorporating a whole bunch of influences that pre-date my love of dream-pop and shoegaze. I really wanted to make a colourful, widescreen, detailed record. When I started the album, I didn’t have a live band, and most of the tracks were written on the piano, for my own amusement, rather than for a group with three guitarists.

“Unable to make music, and living in a new city made me feel, at times, powerfully depressed. This became a crisis of confidence that went very deep and it did seem, for a while, that I would never find my way back to making music again, ” Land continues. “Finishing the album was a process that involved re-evaluating my life and overhauling my relationship to music, and coming out of the other side more healthy, more humble, and more grateful. It’s good to be back again.”

And while possessing a mournful air about what was and what can never, be the album’s first single “New York Boogie-Woogie” manages to also simultaneously possess a hopefulness towards the future — with the recognition that things constantly change, and that you better respect and cherish that. Sonically speaking, Land’s plaintive falsetto vocals are paired with dramatic piano chords, propulsive drumming, shimmering guitar chords and a gorgeous sax solo to craft a song that possesses a cinematic yet moody sweep.

The recently released music video for the song features black and white footage in and around New York that captures a sense of endless wonder and possibility and profound loneliness.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Halifax, Nova Scotia’s Kestrels Return with Another 90s Alt Rock-Channeling Single Paired with Slick Visuals

Interestingly, the Canadian trio’s self-titled effort’s third and latest single “Descent of Their Last End” continues on a similar vein as “No Alternative,” as it’s an anthemic bit of buzzing shoegaze that sounds as though it could have been released in 1993. We’re talking about buzzing power chords, thundering drumming and a propulsive groove that you can mosh to in a sweaty club — but with a hint of what sounds like synths that act like bookends to the song.

The recently released video is comprised of a TV siting in a middle of an urban street, and a suburban back yard with projections of weird psychedelic-like footage in empty rooms, suburban yards and slick split screens.