With the release of her critically applauded, Dan Auerbach-produced full-length debut Walk Through Fire, the Bristol, UK-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and JOVM mainstay Yola had a highlight-filled, breakthrough year last year. Some of those highlights included:
playing a breakout performance at SXSW
making her New York debut at Rockwood Music Hall
playing a live session for YouTube at YouTube Space New York
opening for a list of acclaimed artists including Kacey Musgraves, Lake Street Dive and Andrew Bird on a select series of US tour dates that featured stops at Newport Folk Festival, Hollywood Bowl, Austin City Limits Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors
making her nationally televised debut on CBS This Morning: Saturday Sessions
receiving a Grammy nomination for Best Artist, along with fellow JOVM mainstays The Black Pumas.
making her late night national television debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
releasing a soulful cover of Elton John‘s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” that’s not only a staple of her live sets — but caught the attention of Sir Elton John himself, who praised the rapidly rising artist and her cover.
Much like countless artists across the globe, the British-born JOVM mainstay had hoped to continue the momentum of her breakthrough 2019: she was supposed to play blues and rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Baz Luhrmann’s musical drama Elvis alongside Austin Butler in the title role, Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Presley’s mother — but the film has been delayed as a result of both pandemic-related lockdowns and Tom Hanks contracting the virus while in Australia. And although she finished her first headlining Stateside tour, she was supposed to play a run of dates with country superstar Chris Stapleton and Grammy Award-winning acts The Black Keys and Brandi Carlile. However, the JOVM has begun to make her rounds across the domestic, late night television circuit: earlier this year, she performed, album bonus track “I Don’t Want to Lie” on The Late Late Show with James Corden — and recently, Yola was on Late Night with Seth Meyers with a soulful, gospel-tinged cover of Nina Simone’s classic and beloved “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” filmed at The Ryman Auditorium.
As a YouTube commenter said “Nina and Aretha are smiling down from above.” He’s absolutely right. Of course, I hope that each rendition of the song will remind everyone of one simple, incontrovertible fact: Black Lives Matter.
Nashville-based indie act In Parallel — Lance Black, Jesse Fine, Ryan Parrish and Mark Nash, former members of Celebrity and Hopesfall — can trace it origins back to when the members of the band got together in the back room of a local picture frame shop. That night with nothing more than a looped electronic drum sample and a few guitars, the first notes they played became the framework of the project’s first song “Bridge and Tunnel.”
Inspired by 80s pop, 90s shoegaze, and post-hardcore, the band aims to balance contrasting melodic, expansive and ambient moments within their material. Interestingly, it took them multiple recordings for the band to get the material on their debut Broken Codes correct; in fact, they had scrapped the first two version of the EP altogether. Thematically, the seven song EP touched upon power, control and human connection.
The Nashville-based indie act’s sophomore EP, Fashioner is slated for a September 4, 2020 release through Wiretap Records. Recorded last year in the band’s home studio, the EP was supported with the help of successful crowdfunding campaign funded by the fans of their previous projects. And as the band claims, bypassing the traditional music industry structure gave them the freedom to lean into technology — and to push their sound and approach into new territory.
Fashioner’s latest single “Deep Dark” is an expansive and ambitious track, centered around shimmering guitars, atmospheric synths, an angular bass line and earnest songwriting which manages to reveal an unerring knack for a rousingly anthemic hook. And while managing to bring Slowdive, Lightfoils and Foals to mind, the track possesses a swooning and urgent romanticism that evokes being simultaneously lost and desperately in love.
Kitty Coen is a 22 year-old, Austin-based singer/songwriter, who emerged with the release of an acoustic cover of Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie.” Influenced by Tame Impala and STRFKR, the emerging Austin-based singer/songwriter has balanced a rooted commitment to the classics with a psychedelic, Western and bluesy sound — with subtle nods to disco.
Centered around the Austin-based singer/songwriter’s sultry vocals, shimmering reverb-drenched, guitars, propulsive drumming, some fuzzy and funky synths and an infectious hook. “Dark Soul” is a sultry and self-assured debut single that to my ears reminds me a bit of Too True-era Dum Dum Girls and 80s New Wave — with subtle nods to country. But under the material’s polished sheen is a beating and sensitive heart — while being a bit of a tell off/warning reminiscent of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good.”
“This release of music is a coming-out party for tunes I’ve had in my soul for a while,” Coen explains. “As an artist who took some time to perfect her sounds, I feel that the music I’m putting out in the coming months is introducing my voice and style to the world. The stories and themes have been acquired over my life. Growing up in a small Texas town I was exposed to a lot of country music and influenced my a western aesthetic, but this isn’t country, it’s more like Dolly Parton on an acid trip.”
“‘Dark Soul’ is basically a warning label to any potential suitors who might think I’m all smiles and rainbows,” the emerging Austin-based singer/songwriter adds. “Just because I seem sweet at first doesn’t mean I always am. Especially with relationships that don’t let me breathe. I’m an independent woman and if you want to be with an independent woman you have to accept one thing: they don’t need you. ‘Dark Soul’ was originally a song I wrote on acoustic guitar in my friend’s garage. But as I performed it live I realized I wanted it bigger and ultimately better. I went to Nashville to work on it with my producer and we re-worked it into a western disco dance track.”
Directed by Kitty Coen and Aaron Brown, the recently released is a psychedelic and cinematically shot visual that begins with Coen driving on an open highway with burning orange skies with her red hair mirroring the color of the sky. She eventually parks the muscle car she was driving and enters into a smoky, neon room with bubbles, palms, glitter and explosive bursts of color. We also follow her to a pool and to a futuristic Western club. But throughout we see Coen be sassy, seductive and remarkably self-assured. ‘“The vibe of the video is disco cowgirl realness. I wanted to take the viewer on a psychedelic trip through the mind of Kitty Coen,” Coen explains.
Growing up in a hyper-fundamentalist Christian, home-school cult, the emerging Indiana-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Enoch Porch was isolated from all popular and secular music: as a child, he listened to his parents vinyl collection of classical music, church songs recorded in the 70s and Sousa marches. “I remember, age 5 or so, loving the rhythm and excitement of Sousa marches, the hypnotic repetition of Ravel’s ‘Bolero’, and the drama and emotion of The Nutcracker,” Porch recalls in press notes. “Many of my creative choices are still heavily influenced by early that musical diet.”
When he turned 11, Porch quit school and learned to play multiple instruments and to record himself. “I was more excited about this particular path than were my folks, and I found myself locked inn a battle of wills with my ex-Marine fighter pilot/electrical engineer father for several years,” Porch says. The Indiana-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist adds that his father had a latent musical talent of his own and although he taught him to harmonize and to hear major and minor intervals — but he didn’t think that it was possible to make a living as a musician. However, his folks allowed him to work, mowing lawns around his small town to save up money for a guitar, then other instruments and recording instruments. As a teenager, Porch was a busy musician — and what he believed a recording engineer.
Porch eventually moved to Nashville. And while in Music City, Porch had difficulty landing a job; so to get by, he gave plasma at a local blood bank to pay for his bills. He wound up landing a gig with a touring band and worked at local restaurants to keep afloat.
The Indiana-born singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist then relocated to New York, where he found a partner, lost partner and fell into a deep depression. He found his way to a therapist, who taught him to un-learn false beliefs he has had since his childhood and to replace them with a certain type of care for his inner child. “It was not properly love, but the closest I had gotten to it. Eventually the seeds of care grew and I began to hold myself in high regard and to protect this precious heart,” Porch says.
The emerging Indiana-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s solo debut single “Grand Army” is a lush, 70s AM rock-like track featuring shimmering guitars, a supple bass line, Porch’s plaintive vocals, twinkling keys and a soaring and expressive guitar solo. Centered around some quietly ambitious yet earnest songwriting, the song as Porch explains is inspired by deeply personal experience: “I fell deeply, painfully, in love with someone who was close to me but couldn’t love me back,” the Indiana-born, Brooklyn-based artist explains. “I lost contact with myself, as if my center had ripped right out of me. This song came out of exploring how this experience echoed the feelings I had as a child of my mother who, while in proximity, wasn’t able to give the kind of love her children needed.”
Directed by Gabriel Kurzlop, the recently released video employs a simple concept in a gorgeous fashion: We see Porch standing at the shore in a blue work coveralls as the camera slowly and gradually zooms closer throughout. Just before the song fades out, we see a brief flash of playfulness with Porch giving a sign to the camera.
After spending the past handful of years as a go-to collaborator, the Nashville-based singer/songwriter and pop artist has decided to step out into the spotlight as a solo artist: over the past year, she’s been writing material and honing her take on “dark industrial pop” while catching the attention of Nashville Sceneas a Nashville Artist to Watch in 2020. Building upon the rapidly growing buzz surrounding her, her solo debut single “Power” premiered on Lightning 100‘s The 615and her third “Out of Love” was put on the station’s regular rotation.
“Beyond The Grave” found Notelle exploring a grittier sound than her previously released material, while fearlessly eschewing standard pop song structures and defying genre conventions and this has helped the Nashville-based artist develop a reputation for crafting forward-thinking, difficult to categorize pop. Interestingly, within the first couple of weeks of the song’s release, the track landed on Spotify’s “Study Break,” “Fresh Finds” and Fresh Finds: Poptronix” lists organically.
Earlier this year, I wrote about “Alive.” The Nine Inch Nails and Billie Eilish-like track continued a remarkable run of slickly produced, genre-defying, sultry pop with elements of industrial electronica, alternative pop and trip hop centered around fearlessly adventurous and ambitious songwriting based around unsettling personal experience. The Nashville-based artist’s latest single “Bugs” is a dark and seductive song centered around wobbling synths, handclap-led percussion, thumping beats, a distorted string sample, an infectious hook and Notelle’s sultry cooing — and while radio friendly, the song feels a bit like the creeping, anxious dread of a bad trip.
“I wrote ‘Bugs’ during a break up where it felt like that person was still in my body in some capacity,” Notelle says in press notes. “The impact of someone else’s choices left literal and metaphorical residue on me, and I felt dirty. I kept imagining it as a bad hallucination – like bugs. Was this person capable of hurting me more? Was the worst of it over? Or was another bomb going to be dropped on me when I felt like I was out of the woods? I wanted this song to embody that level of paranoia, you know? When you check behind doors or shower curtains when you’re alone in your house – or when you can’t tell if the noises in you hear in the silence are in your head or are real. That’s a bizarre place to be, and ultimately, I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t out of my mind. In fact, they were.”
After the release of 2018’s critically applauded ATW, the Nashville-based psych rock act and JOVM mainstays All Them Witches went through a massive lineup change that resulted in what may arguably be the most pared down lineup in their history — Charles Michael Parks, Jr (bass, vocals), Ben McLeod (guitar, vocals) and Robby Staebler (drums, vocals). And although bands typically release more restrained and quieter work whenever their operating with a smaller lineup, their self-produced standalone single “1X1” found the JOVM mainstay employing a muscular, prog rock-like sound, with scorching guitar work, thunderous drumming and enormous arena rock friendly hooks.
The Nashville-based JOVM mainstays forthcoming album, the eight song Nothing as the Ideal is slated for a September 4, 2020 release through their longtime label home New West Records. Co-produced by the band and Mikey Allred, who produced their New West debut Dying Surfer Meets His Maker, Nothing as the Ideal was recorded at Abbey Road Studio’s Studio Two — and the album’s material not only serves as the first batch of original material written and recorded as a trio, it’s also reportedly among the most experimental and heaviest they’ve written to date. The material features tape loops, unplugged minimalist sections while retaining their long-held reputation for pummeling, heavy hitting headbangers.
Nothing as the Ideal’s first single is “Saturnine & Iron Jaw.”Clocking in at a little under seven minutes, the expansive track and constantly shifting track begins with a slow-burning and atmospheric introduction before quickly morphing into a track that’s one Queens of the Stone Age-like stoner rock, one part Soundgarden-like grunge and one part The Mars Volta-like prog rock centered around massive, arena rock friendly power chords, thunderous drumming and brooding atmospherics. The band’s Ben McLeod told Consequence of Sound, “We very specifically wanted to lead with this track. I think it’s the most well-rounded track on the record; it’s constantly changing, it has a lot of different vibes to it.” Giving a hint at what to expect with the rest of Nothing as the Ideal, he adds, “Obviously there are way heavier songs on the record,” but “‘Saturnine & Iron Jaw’ should let fans know All Them Witches are still very much rooted in psychedelic and bluesy rock.”
Sophie Allison is a Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, best known as 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. By 2015, the Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and guitarist began posting home-recorded songs as Soccer Mommy to Bandcamp during the summer of 2015, just as she was about head off to New York University, 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. The Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and guitarist caught the attention of Fat Possum Records, who signed her to a record deal. After spending two years studying at NYU, Allison returned to Nashville to pursue a full-time career in music.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was gearing up to be a massive year for the young and rising singer/songwriter and guitarist: she began the year by playing at one of Bernie Sanders’ presidential rallies and had joined a list of contemporary artists, who endorsed his presidential campaign. Allison’s highly-anticipated sophomore album color theory was released to critical applause — and building upon a rapidly growing profile, the Nashville-based artist had been gearing up for a massive year: she was about to embark one a headlining tour with a number of dates sold-out months in advance, along with that, she had lined up appearances across the global festival circuit that included a stop at Glastonbury. Additionally, she was supposed to make her late-night, nationally televised debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
With touring being on an indefinite half for the music industry, the Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and guitarist recognized that this was a unique opportunity to get creative and experiment with new ideas. Combining her love of video games and performing, Allison held a digital concert on the online gaming platform Club Penguin Rewritten with over 10,000 attendees, who all had to make their own penguin avatars to attend it. The concert was so popular, that her fans crashed the platform’s servers, forcing a rescheduling of the event. Allison has also performed a number of live streams events, including NPR’s Tiny Desk At Home (which she kicked off) and Pitchfork‘s IG Live Series. And she also recently released her own Zoom background images.
Recently, Allison and company embarked on a an Bella Clark-directed 8-bit virtual, music video tour in which the band plays some of the cities she was meant to be passing through — Minneapolis, Chicago,Seattle, Toronto, and Austin. Instead of virtually playing at the more common tourist locations or a traditional music venue, the members of the band are mischievously placed in unusual locations: an abandoned Toronto area subway station, a haunted Chicago hotel, a bat-filled Austin bridge and more.performing album track “crawling in my skin.”
Continuing some wildly creative ways to maintain the momentum of her full-length debut, Allison recently launched a singles series, Soccer Mommy & Friends that sees some of her most accomplished friends and associates covering her work — and Allison covering their work. The singles series will see contributions from MGMT‘s Andrew VanWyngarden, Beabadoobee, Beach Bunny, Jay Som and a list others — with releases dropping every two weeks. The singles series first release finds the acclaimed Oakland-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Melina Duterte, the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed indie rock act Jay Som covering Soccer Mommy’s “Lucy.”
Interestingly, Jay Som’s take on “lucy” turns the jangling guitar pop anthem into a shimmering and brooding track, centered around atmospheric synths, thumping beats and ethereal vocals that to my ears reminds me quite a bit of Air’s ethereal remix of Beck’s “Heaven Hammer.” “I had an extremely fun time recording the ‘lucy’ cover,” Duterte says in press notes. “Sophie has such a special way of entwining catchy melodies and sometimes dark chord progressions. I feel very lucky to be a part of this comp!”
All net profits from Bandcamp sales from the series will be donated to Oxfam‘s COVID-19 relief fun. Oxfam is working with partners to reach more than 14 million people in nearly 50 countries and the US to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 in vulnerable communities and support people’s basic food needs and livelihoods. As we’re all aware women and girls usually bear a disproportionate burden of care in a crises like COVID-19, and Oxfam has a proven record of helping women cope during and recover after these crises in ways that allow them to be safer and stronger than ever.
Anne Freeman is an emerging indie-folk singer/songwriter and guitarist, who grew up in Mississippi Delta, not far from Bobbie Gentry’s hometown of Woodland, MS. Although she’s starting out in her career, Freeman has already played festivals across Mississippi and has appeared on Mississippi Public Radio — and praise from American Songwriter. The emerging artist caught the attention of Fat Possum’s Graham Hamaker, who signed her to his label Muscle Beach.
Building upon the growing buzz surrounding her, Freeman’s latest single, the Matt Ross-Sprang-mixed “Days Go By” is a shimmering and hook-driven song that sounds like a slick synthesis of Nashville and Muscle Shoals, while possessing a radio friendly studio polish. Interestingly, the song as Freeman explains “is about struggling to cut ties with a toxic friend but constantly getting lured back in. Everyone has someone or something in their live that makes them feel incredible for aw nile, but eventually leads them down a dark path.”
The Inspector Cluzo are a rising Mount de Marsan, France-based rock duo, comprised of Malcolm Lacrouts (guitars, vocals) and Phil Jourdain (drums, vocals). Interestingly, the duo abandoned promising careers as scientists to work on the land as farmers — and while they are proud and eager to represent their region and their local traditions, as musicians they’re ambitious, and don’t want to fall into the category of just being a local band. Their farm is where they share ideas, blow off steam learn and discover things while going through their rather unpretentious routine.
Essentially the duo concerns themselves with music of the people and of the earth — and their music attempts to make a connection with the roots of soul, blues and rock while possessing urgent and fiery spirit. Interestingly, the duo will be releasing a Vance Powell-produced four song project, The Organic Farmers Seasons. Recorded at Nashville‘s Sputnik Sound Studio, the project features songs that will be released each season.
The Organic Farmers Sessions first single sees the French duo tackling Neil Young‘s “Hey Hey My My (Out of the Blue). And while being a fairly straightforward take on the beloved rock anthem, The Inspector Cluzo cover reveals some surprising sonic depth, including some backing organ, which gives the song a bit of heartland soulfulness. “, “Some of our good friends in the US including Vance Powell – our friend and producer in Nashville suggested that we cover Neil Young because he is the US artist that seems closest to what we are and what we do,” the band told American Songwriter.
Alison Mosshart is a Vero Beach, FL-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter best known as one-half of the acclaimed indie rock act JOVM mainstays The Kills — and for being the frontwoman of the indie rock/blues punk supergroup The Dead Weather. Over the past decade or so, Mosshart has been restlessly creative: her painting has been show in galleries across the world and she has published her first book, CAR MA, a collection of her art, photography and writing that serves as a love letter to all things automobile. In that same period of time, Mosshart has become a go-to collaborator, adding that extra dash of swaggering badassery, working with her Dead Weather bandmate Jack White, Arctic Monkeys, Primal Scream, Gang of Four, Cage The Elephant, Foo Fighters, James Williamson and Mini Mansions in a rapidly growing list.
2020 will continue a period of remarkably creative prolificacy for Mosshart: Currently, Mosshart and her bandmate Jamie Hince are working on the next Kills record, which they hope to be able to bring to the road — pandemic willing, of course. This year will also see Mosshart stepping out into the spotlight as a solo artist, releasing material under her name for the first time in her career. Although, releasing music under her own name is a completely new and thrilling experience, the album’s material can be traced back to unreleased material Mosshart had been compiling for the better part of the past decade. Now, as you may recall, last month, I wrote about her debut single, the Lawrence Rothman-produced “Rise.” Initially tracing its origins to a song sketch that Mosshart wrote in 2013, the song is a slow-burning and searing blues with brooding and ominous undertones centered around thumping beats, fuzzy power chords, Mosshart’s imitable vocals and an enormous, arena rock friendly hook.
Mosshart’s second and latest single is the atmospheric and brooding, Alain Johannes-produced and recorded “It Ain’t Water.” Centered around a sparse arrangement of shimmering acoustic guitars, strings and gently padded drums, the song manages to bring PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, and JOVM mainstay Mark Lanegan to mind. Although the song was written late last year, Mosshart had been sitting on the track for some time — with the acclaimed signer/songwriter guitarist turning to the then-unfinished track whenever she found herself battling a bout of writer’s block.
“Working with Alain on ”It Ain’t Water’ was a blast. He’s such a talent and such a kind person,” the JOVM mainstay says of working with Alain Johannes. “His mind is wide open. He understands and sees the beauty in imperfection, magic moments, accidents- the soulful human stuff, and the spirited super-human hard to explain stuff that makes a song great. Working with him was an honor, and also, hot damn he can play any instrument like a champ . . . like he invented the instrument himself. Alain Johannes IS music.”
Directed, edited and shot by Mosshart, the recently released video continues a run of decidedly DIY visuals — but unlike its predecessor, its shot in an aptly film noir-like black and white and evokes our pandemic-influenced isolation, as we see the acclaimed Kills and Dead Weather frontwoman in her own home, expressively dancing in the background while we see a superimposed image of a sunglasses wearing Mossheart singing the song.
Sophie Allison is a Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, best known as 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. By 2015, the Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and guitarist began posting home-recorded songs as Soccer Mommy to Bandcamp during the summer of 2015, just as she was about head off to New York University, where she studied music business at the University’sSteinhardt 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, the acclaimed Swiss-born artist wrote and released two Soccer Mommy albums — 2016’s For Young Hearts through Orchid Tapes and 2017’s Collection through Fat Possum Records. Her proper, full-length debut, 2018’s Clean was released to widespread critical acclaim, and as a result of a rapidly growing profile, Alison has wound up touring with Stephen Malkmus, Mitski, Kacey Musgraves, Jay Som, Slowdive, Frankie Cosmos, Liz Phair, Phoebe Bridgers, Paramore, Foster the People, Vampire Weekend, and Wilco.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was gearing up to be a massive year for the young and rising singer/songwriter and guitarist: she began the year by playing at one of Bernie Sanders’ presidential rallies and had joined a list of contemporary artists, who endorsed his presidential campaign. Allison’s highly-anticipated sophomore album color theory was released to critical applause — and building upon a rapidly growing profile, the Nashville-based artist had been gearing up for a massive year: she was about to embark one a headlining tour with a number of dates sold-out months in advance, along with that, she had lined up appearances across the global festival circuit that included a stop at Glastonbury. Additionally, she was supposed to make her late-night, nationally televised debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
With touring being on an indefinite half for the music industry, the Swiss-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and guitarist recognized that this was a unique opportunity to get creative and experiment with new ideas. Combining her love of video games and performing, Allison held a digital concert on the online gaming platform Club Penguin Rewritten with over 10,000 attendees, who all had to make their own penguin avatars to attend it. The concert was so popular, that her fans crashed the platform’s servers, forcing a rescheduling of the event. Allison has also performed a number of live streams events, including NPR’s Tiny Desk At Home (which she kicked off) and Pitchfork’s IG Live Series. And she also recently released her own Zoom background images.
Recently, Allison and company embarked on a an Bella Clark-directed 8-bit virtual, music video tour in which the band plays some of the cities she was meant to be passing through — Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle, Toronto, and Austin. Instead of virtually playing at the more common tourist locations or a traditional music venue, the members of the band are mischievously placed in unusual locations: an abandoned Toronto area subway station, a haunted Chicago hotel, a bat-filled Austin bridge and more. Interestingly, the video four features the virtual band playing the album’s latest single “crawling in my skin.” Centered around looping and shimmering guitars, a sinuous bass line, shuffling drumming and subtly shifting tempos, the track reveals a remarkably self-assured young songwriter, who has an unerring knack for pairing earnest songwriting with an infectious hook. (Oh, and you’ll see the band adhering to social distancing rules while virtually performing!)
“It’s really hard having our tour be postponed because I was really excited to play all of the songs on color theory for everyone, ‘crawling in my skin’ in particular,” Allison says. “I hope this little 8-bit performance can hold everyone over until the tour can happen.”
After spending the past handful of years as a go-to collaborator, the Nashville-based singer/songwriter and pop artist has decided to step out into the spotlight as a solo artist: over the past year, she’s been writing material and honing her take on “dark industrial pop” while catching the attention of Nashville Sceneas a Nashville Artist to Watch in 2020. Building upon the rapidly growing buzz surrounding her, her solo debut single “Power” premiered on Lightning 100‘s The 615and her third “Out of Love” was put on the station’s regular rotation.
“Beyond The Grave” found Notelle exploring a grittier sound than her previously released material, while fearlessly eschewing standard pop song structures and defying genre conventions and this has helped the Nashville-based artist develop a reputation for crafting forward-thinking, difficult to categorize pop. Interestingly, within the first couple of weeks of the song’s release, the track landed on Spotify’s “Study Break,” “Fresh Finds” and Fresh Finds: Poptronix” lists organically.
Notelle’s latest and recently released single ” Alive” continues a run of slickly produced, genre-defying and remarkably sultry pop, featuring elements of industrial electronica, alternative pop and trip hop. And while being centered around the Nashville-based pop artist’s whispered cooing, wobbling low-end, shimmering and twinkling synth arpeggios and industrial clang and clatter, the track finds Notelle further honing a darkly seductive and eerie sound that seemingly draws from Nine Inch Nails and Billie Eilish. But what sets the Nashville-based artist and her latest single apart from her contemporaries is the fact that “Alive” reveals fearlessly adventurous and ambitious songwriting rooted in deeply unsettling personal experience.
“There’s a point in hysteria where you begin to feel electrified. When you love someone who is pushing you to the brink of insanity, it has a way of making you feel more than you’ve ever felt prior. You experience every emotion, all at once, in such an alarming way,” says Notelle, “and I wanted to explore that in this track. I’ve been in a situation before where someone was questioning my own perception of reality, telling me that my understanding of what was going on wasn’t accurate — lying to me, gaslighting me. It pushed me to an emotional breaking point that was totally new. It felt like I had shot up adrenaline and it was startling and liberating at the same time. Straddling the line between total madness and invigorating emotional depth, I realized that this was unbelievably toxic, yet I had never felt more alive.”
Over the past six months or so, I’ve written quite a bit about the Greenville, SC-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and JOVM mainstay Marcus King. King is a fourth generation musician, who has followed in his family’s footsteps by becoming a musician and singer/songwriter of note himself.
Playing professionally since he was 11, King was discovered after a video of him performing at Norman’s Rare Guitars went viral. Now 23, King has been performing for the past 15 years, establishing himself as a world class guitarist, vocalist and highly sought-after session player.
Since 2015, King has been relentlessly touring with his backing band The Marcus King Band — Jack Ryan (drums), Stephen Campbell (bass), Justin Johnson (trumpet, trombone) and Dean Mitchell (sax, still guitar) — playing 140 dates live shows over the course of the past year. Adding to a breakthrough year, King and his backing band have played on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, made his debut at The Grand Ole Opry — and he has opened for Chris Stapleton during the country star’s last US arena tour, playing in front of 17,000 people every night.
King’s Dan Auerbach-produced full-length debut El Dorado was released earlier this year through Fantasy Recordings, and the album continues his ongoing collaboration with Auerbach with the album being co-written with the acclaimed singer/songwriter, guitarist and producer over a breakneck three days at his Nashville-based Easy Eye Sound Studio. Sonically the album finds King and Auerbach crafting a contemporary exploration of classic rock, blues, southern R&B and country soul.
“Marcus is known by so many as a phenom guitar player, and rightfully so,” Dan Auerbach says of King. “He’s regularly the best player in the room, hands down. I was equally blown away by the way he can sing — so effortless, so soulful, straight to the heart. He’s a naturally gifted writer too, which was clear right away. Everything for him is so innate — that’s why he can always go right to the heart of a song and connect in a deeper way. He’s really one of a king and I’m proud I got to work alongside him on this record.”
“One Day She’s Here,” El Dorado’s fourth single is lush song centered around a soulful arrangement that’s indebted to Curtis Mayfield and 70s Motown, complete with a soaring string arrangement, layers of propulsive percussion, shimmering Rhodes piano and guitar, an enormous hook and King’s effortlessly soulful vocals. Much like the specific period that seemingly inspired it, the song is an achingly earnest song about a lover, who suddenly disappears without explanation — and with a remarkable display of craft and self-assuredness that belies its creators relative youth.
Directed by Joshua Shoemaker, the recently released video for “One Day She’s Here” is a mind-bending nod to Memento as it features action going in forward and reverse simultaneously as it focuses on the sudden disappearance of the song’s central love interest.
