Tag: Nashville TN

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Born Tessa Violet Williams in Chicago, the up-and-coming, Nashville-based indie pop singer/songwriter and vlogger, Tessa Violet can trace the origins of her music career to a school project in which she began daily vlogging in 2007 for a school project with the screen name Meekakitty while working in Hong Kong and Thailand as a model; however, by 2009 Williams quit modeling and relocated to New York, to focus on her vlog, which primarily focused on storytelling, skits and music videos — particularly, fan-made music videos for popular artists like Reliant K, Family Force 5 and MIKA.

Wiliams gained national attention after winning $100,000 in a YouTube competition by receiving the most comments on her video entry.  In 2011, Williams was featured in fellow YouTube creator Nanalew’s fan-made “Sail,” which went viral and has amassed over 310 million views. In 2012, The Chicago-born, Nashville-based indie pop singer/songwriter followed her appearance in “Sail” by appearing in the video for Family Force 5’s “Cray Button,” and then directing the act’s video for “Chainsaw,” which featured Tedashii.

By 2013 Williams began to focus on writing, recording and releasing music and the focus on her YouTube channel shifted to her original music, eventually leading to her dropping the Meekakitty moniker and using her real name Tessa Violet across all of her online platforms.

So far the past year or so has been a breakthrough, whirlwind year for the up-and-coming Chicago-born, Nashville-based indie pop artist: she’s released two critically applauded singles “Crush” and “Bad Ideas” — “Crush” has amassed over 18 million Spotify streams and the video has received over 36 million views. “Bad Ideas” became a viral hit. As result of the success of those two singles, Williams toured with her first live, backing band, which featured Jess Bowen (drums) — and that tour included her first sold-out headline shows at Los Angeles‘ The Troubadour and the Mercury Lounge. 

Building upon an exploding profile, she just finished her first UK tour, which featured a sold out London show, and Billboard featured her as one of 10 new festival artists to look out for this year. She was also named the first YouTube Foundry Artist of 2019 — and she’ll be making her Lollapalooza debut this year. Her full-length album Bad Ideas will be released one song a month or so throughout the year, and the album’s third and latest single “I Like (The Idea of) You” recently premiered on Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist and YouTube Music’s Pop Before It Breaks playlist. Centered around a disco meets New Wave-like bass line, the Chicago-born, Nashville-based pop artist’s latest single is a sultry and coquettish, late night strut that recalls DFA Records heyday.

“I was seeing this guy at the time, who I knew wasn’t into me. And even though I could see that, it was still so much fun to think and obsess about him,” Tessa Violet says of the song. “Replaying the way he said my name on the phone, imagining what I would wear or say the next time I saw him, thinking of things I could write about him. I remember that I could logically see it wasn’t going anywhere, so I thought maybe I should feel embarrassed about how much time I was spending on him. But it didn’t make me feel embarrassed, it made me feel sexy and powerful. So what if they’re not that into me? I like the idea of it and I’m going to enjoy that.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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: Striking and Sensual Visuals for Eve Maret’s Ambient Composition “My Own Pace”

Eve Maret is a Nashville-based electronic music composer, producer, and multidisciplinary artist, whose work generally bridges pop and experimentalism, while exploring the possibilities of personal and communal healing through creative acts — and as a result, to Maret, the act of creating is a wholehearted, life-affirming “Yes!” 

Last year was a big year for the Nashville-based electronic music composer, producer and multidisciplinary artist: she co-founded Hyasynth House, an electronic music collective and education center for female, trans, and non-binary artists, founded to help support and empower marginalized groups through workshops, performances and community-wide conversations. Also last year, she released a limited run of her full-length debut, No More Running on cassette through Nashville-based label Banana Tapes. Maret has toured across the US alongside a diverse and wildly eclectic array of artists including Guerrilla Toss, JEFF the Brotherhood, Mary Ocher, Coupler and Precious Child among others. 

Building upon a growing profile, Maret will be releasing No More Running (Deluxe Edition), an expanded edition of last year’s debut album with three new tracks, new videos and alternate artwork that’s slated for an April 26, 2019 release. The deluxe edition’s latest single is the ambient composition “My Own Pace.”  Centered by layers of shimmering and arpeggiated synths, thumping beats and a subtle motorik-like groove, the track recalls Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk.

Directed by videographer Helen Gilley, the recently released video features Eve Maret dancing in front of an angelic halo of light to the propulsive composition. It’s an interesting mix of the sensual and spiritual, the organic and the robotic. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Born in Nashville, the acclaimed, Los Angeles-based indie pop artist Meg Myers spent her formative years in a devoted Jehovah’s Witness household, in which a young Myers dealt with strict restrictions on what she was allowed to listen to. After her parents divorced, her mother married a comic book artist, who moved the family to Ohio, where her mother and stepfather ran a cleaning business. When she was 12, her family moved to Florida, where she spent the bulk of her teen years — and during that period, Myers began singing and writing songs on keyboard, eventually teaching herself guitar. She also played bass in a band that she started with her brother, Feeling Numb.

A few days shy of her 20th birthday, Myers moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music. Living in a studio apartment with her then-boyfriend, the Nashville-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist worked as a waitress at a Hollywood coffee shop and played show whenever she could land them. Although her romantic relationship ended, Myers met Doctor Rosen Rosen, who signed her to his production company. Rosen and Myers began writing songs together, including the material that comprised her first two EPs Daughter in the Choir and Make a Shadow and her 2015 full-length debut Sorry, which featured a number of Top 15 and Top 20 alternative radio hits.

Building up on a rapidly growing profile, Myers’ sophomore album, last year’s Take Me To The Disco debuted at #5 on the Current Alternative Charts and received praise from a number of media outlets including The New York Times, the Associated Press, NPR Music, Stereogum, Billboard and a lengthy list of others.  The acclaimed Nashville-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter recently played an NPR Tiny Desk session that included a fairly straightforward yet intense cover of Kate Bush‘s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” that brings the song to 21st Century listeners, who may have been previously unfamiliar with one of the great, dramatic pop songs of the 80s.

“Growing up, I was never really interested in covering other artist’s music.” Meg explains, “I always wanted to write my own songs because I knew I could only sing music and lyrics that were truly authentic, from my heart (and also would have to make sense with my deep voice). Well, then I discovered Kate Bush’s ‘Running up that Hill,’ which for years has resonated with my soul like nothing ever before. What if we could experience role reversal? What would it be like living in each other’s shoes? I think we would find a lot more compassion for one another and a passion for kindness and truth. This song to me, represents an opening of our hearts and a possibility of acceptance for all. And to me, this is an important message for the world we are living in right now.​​​​​​​”

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Nashville’s Rock Eupora Releases a Lyrical and Wistful Visual Focusing on Enjoying the Moment

Clayton Waller is a Mississippi-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who through the release of three full-length albums with his solo recording project Rock Europa has developed a reputation locally for crafting infectious and anthemic indie rock centered around punchy guitars, catchy melodies, heartfelt sincerity and a defiantly DIY ethos.  Interestingly, Waller’s fourth, full-length self-titled album thematically is centered around Waller contending with the challenges of a 20 something searching for his own place in the world — and unlike his previously released albums, it was recorded in a professional studio, which has led to what reportedly may be his most polished, ambitious and adventurous albums he has worked on to date.

“Inbetween,” the latest single off Waller’s fourth Rock Europa album is centered around jangling power chords, a sinuous bass line, Waller’s plaintive vocals and a soaring hook. And while nodding at Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac, the song and its restless narrator expresses several different things — a longing to belong to something; the feeling of always rushing around and never having enough time to actually sit down and think about anything; and the feeling of being hopelessly disconnected from everything and everyone, when you’re desperate for any connection; but you don’t know how to do so. 

“Neither here nor there: that’s a tough place to be. Sometimes I only feel halfway present. It’s hard for me to live in the now — I’m always looking for the next best thing, always en route,” Waller says of his latest single in press notes. “I get so caught up trying to plan and control my future that I miss a lot of realtime fulfillment.

“It’s safe to say that most of us stay too busy – which I think is partly a reaction to what we value as a culture. We associate worth and meaning with accomplishments. I think it’s good to be driven, but I think it’s more important to be present. I’ve been trying to love myself (and others) right where I am and without qualifications or conditions. I believe that humans are inherently valuable! And if that’s the case, maybe the in-between is what it’s all about”

Shot and edited by Noah Tidmoore, the recently released video was shot on what appears to be Super 8 film and follows a group of friends, who are heading off to the lake for a boating trip — but one of them is a ghost, who lingers a bit uncomfortably on the margins, while his friends  are having a wonderful time, enjoying themselves, their youth and the moment. And once he dives in the lake and loses his ghostly sheet, Waller finds himself in the very moment with his friends. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jo Schornikow’s Serene Meditation on Loss

Jo Schornikow is a Melbourne, Australia-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and pianist with a backstory rich of unexpected and profound experiences: Beginning as a church organist and jazz-trained pianist, Schornikow eventually relocated to New York, where she worked as an accompanist for the likes of Hugh Jackman, Bobby Rydell, and Lana Del Rey among others. She has also collaborated with King Creosote, The National, and Kelli Scarr before settling into a steady role as a touring member of Phosphorescent. 

With her partner, Phosphorescent’s Mathew Houck, Schonrikow had two children in quick succession in 2014 and 2015. The longtime musician-turned-mom took to songwriting to deal the life-altering and dramatic changes within every aspect of her life, including a new set of priorities and schedules, a spontaneous move from New York to Nashville — and perhaps most important, openly admitting and confronting the fact that for her, motherhood wasn’t the immediately satisfying and fulfilling experience that many describe; that for her, motherhood was centered by wonder, fear and compromise in every aspect of her life. Schornikow’s forthcoming, full-length debut Secret Weapon is informed by and was created in the heavily weighted wake of motherhood — and sonically, the album’s material reportedly falls in the intersection of pop, shoegaze and ambient experimental music. In fact, the gorgeously restrained album single “Ghosts” is built around subtly swelling synths, shimmering guitars and Schornikow’s serene vocals — and while being a decided contract to the chaos of being a mother of two young children, the song evokes a complex and messy array of emotion: joy, wonder, guilt, remorse, awe, fear, and the feeling of being a ghost stuck in one’s past. 

Animated, directed, and edited by Michael Hughes, the recently released video for “Ghosts” is a gorgeous and subtle take, displaying mundane aspects of daily life —  gatherings of friends and loved ones, cooking and chatting with a loved one in the kitchen and so on with a smoldering sense of loss of all the small things one once enjoyed.

Schornikow’s full-length debut is slated for a March 29, 2019 release through Keeled Scales/Secretly Distribution.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Up-and-Coming British Singer-Songwriter Yola Celebrates the Hard-Working Little Person with Big Dreams

Over the past few months, I’ve written a bit about the up-and-coming London-based singer/songwriter Yola, and as you may recall she’s led a rather remarkable life — the sort that should eventually be made into an inspiring biopic: She grew up extremely poor and as a child was actually banned from making music. As an adult, she has overcome homelessness, being an abusive relationship, stress-induced voice loss and literally being engulfed in flames in a house fire, and all of those things inspired her Dan Auerbach-proudced full-length debut Walk Through Fire, slated for a February 22, 2019 release through Easy Eye Sound. 

So far, the up-and-coming British singer/songwriter has received praise from a number of major media outlets both nationally and internationally including NPR, Rolling Stone, Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, Refinery 29, Billboard, American Songwriter, BrooklynVegan, Nashville Scene, Paste and Stereogum. But perhaps much more interesting for you reader, listener and viewer, Yola has had a lengthy career as a backing vocalist, songwriter and guest vocalist on a number of pop hits — and she has opened for James Brown and briefly was a member of the renowned trip hop act Massive Attack before traveling to Nashville to work with Auerbach and a backing band that features musicians, who have worked with Elvis and Aretha Franklin.  

Walk Through Fire’s first single “Ride Out in the Country” was a Muscle Shoals-like take on honky tonk country that to my ears recalled Sandra Rhodes’ under-appreciated Where’s Your Love Been. Centered around twangy guitar chords, lap steel guitar, some Rhodes electric organ, a soaring hook and Yola’s easy-going and soulful vocals, the song is an achingly sad breakup song, written from the perspective of someone reeling from a devastating breakup, complete with the recognition that your former lover has moved on and that maybe you should be doing so too — even if it’s profoundly difficult for you. “Faraway Look,Faraway Look,” the album’s second single was a slow-burning and swooning, Phil Spector Wall of Sound, meets classic Motown Records track that was centered around a soulful, old school arrangement and a soaring hook while being roomy enough for Yola’s incredible vocal range to shine in a well-written and well-crafted song. 

Walk Through Fire’s third and latest single “Love All Night (Work All Day)” is a slick and soulful amalgamation of Motown and Muscle Shoals soul, with a dash of Nashville country and 70s AM rock  and it’s a perfect vehicle for Yola’s warm and effortlessly soulful vocals. Much like the preceding singles, “Love All Night (Work All Day)” comes from hard-fought and hard-earned experience, which gives the material a wisdom and honesty that can be so rare in contemporary pop songs. In this case, the song’s narrator details a  life of working multiple jobs to scrape by, having big dreams and at some point taking an enormous risk to achieve them. And what makes the song remarkable, beyond its well-crafted and well-written nature, is the fact that the song is a celebration of the little person, who’s out there busting their ass to get by, trying to maintain their dignity and sanity in the rat race. Keep on dreaming and keep on hustling. 

Directed by Dan Teef, the recently released video for “Love All Night (Work All Day)” was shot in a South London bar and is centered around a beautiful young, working couple with big dreams. “My new video for ‘Love All Night (Work All Day)’ was shot in a stunning pub in Peckham, South London,” Yola says of the video for her latest single. “I’ve lived all over London (including on the streets in East London at one time) but before that I lived in a shared house in South London and I think the area will always feel like my London home. The song celebrates a way of life. It’s a life I used to live, growing up in Bristol and working multiple jobs to get by as I started out in music. I love listening to music from people who’ve not just been on a conveyor belt to the big time and I think it is important to hear more music from the working class again.  People who, at some point, had no choice but to work all day long and maybe take a risk in pursuit of what they love.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Photo Ops is the folk-tinged, dream pop recording project of Los Angeles, CA-based singer/songwriter Terry Price. Price began Photo Ops as a way to find meaning within an onslaught of traumatic and life altering events — a sudden and series medical condition, the death of his father and the breakup of his longtime band Oblio. Naturally, all of those things wound up inspiring his Photo Ops debut, 2013’s How to Say Goodbye. 2016’s Patrick Damphier-produced Vacation was released to critical praise. Several songs off the album were licensed for film and TV, including the trailer for the motion picture People, Places, Things, several episodes of ABC’s Blood & Oil and CW’s Valor — and as a result, the album and its songs amassed several million streams on Spotify. He eventually signed a publishing deal with Secretly Canadian.

Like countless people, Price was shaken and dazed by the 2016 election. He stopped touring for his sophomore effort, went dark on social media and left Nashville, where he lived for 15 years and relocated to Los Angeles. I needed to shed my skin,” Price says in press notes. In fact, the change of scenery became a sudden need both creatively and spiritually for the acclaimed singer/songwriter. “I needed to look outside myself for inspiration,” Price explains. “It’s a matter of survival to know that there is beauty in the world. So that’s my mission now: to show that there still is beauty in the world. I honestly don’t know how else to write right now.”

Slated for release later this year, Price’s third Photo Ops effort, Pure at Heart was partially inspired by Price’s time listening and studying Bob Dylan‘s Sirius XM show, Bob Dylans’s Theme Time Radio Hour while driving through the Southwest. “They were mostly old songs. What struck me was the spirit that was behind them. They’re just people in a room with a microphone, so they would have to self-correct and really conjure a spirit in the moment. Something about that felt so vital to me. It sounds like a time and place,” Price says. And as a result, the forthcoming album, which continues Price’s ongoing collaboration with Patrick Damphier is based around a production that emphasizes a sense of immediacy that’s a sort of Jack Kerouac-like first thought, best thought fashion. Along with that, the arrangements throughout the album’s material are also based around that same sense of arrangement with Price using an intentionally limited set of instruments: one acoustic guitar, one electric guitar, a vintage, 60s Ludwig drum kit, a stand-up piano, a Hofner bass and a small Casiotone keyboard. And although for this album Price is working remotely with the Nashville-based Damphier, the album’s songs were recorded as soon as they were written.

Reportedly one of the biggest and perhaps most noticeable changes throughout the album’s material is in Price’s voice with the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter at points throughout the album singing in a relaxed, easy-going upper register. “It’s partly an accident of location,” Price explains. “In Nashville, I had a garage. I could go out and make as much noice as I wanted. In L.A., you have to be more thoughtful about your neighbors.” Unsurprisingly, the need to sing quietly opened up the opportunity to experiment with space and restraint. But let’s move on a bit, eh?

Pure at Heart’s latest single is the buoyant “July.” Nodding a bit at Full Moon Fever-era Tom Petty and 70s AM rock, the song is centered around an arrangement of bouncing and propulsive bass, shimmering guitar, a breezy and infectious hook and Price’s plaintive and ethereal vocals. Throughout the song, its narrator sighs with a mix of clinical and ironic detachment and compassion over the end of a relationship. But interestingly enough, the song’s viewpoint doesn’t come from moving on and forward with someone else; it’s actually from the astute recognition that all things end at some point or another, no matter what you do.