Tag: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Reims France’s Not A Number Releases a 4AD Records-like Single

Not A Number (N.A.N.) is a post-punk act led by its Reims, France-based creative mastermind, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Bernard Collot. Slated for an October 15, 2020 release, Collot’s self-titled, three song EP  was recorded and mixed by Sylvain Masure at Le Chalet Studio — and the EP’s material finds the emerging French artist drawing from a mix of coldwave, shoegaze and post-punk. 

The EP’s latest single is the shimmering and brooding 4AD Records-like “Black Water,” which features shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, atmospheric synths and thumping beats, a sinuous bass line, and anthemic hook paired with Collot’s plaintive vocals.  And while being both slickly produced and carefully crafted, the song thematically is centered around an achingly familiar sentiment — the age old battle between nostalgia and the desire to move forward. 

Directed by Collot and Arnaud Klein, the recently released video follows a brooding Collot through an industrial looking tunnel, him and his bandmate swimming and walking through a suburban-looking pool — and of course, the duo playing the song poolside. It’s symbolic and feverish, and it emphasizes the overall feel and vibe of the song. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Crown Lands Releases an Arena Rock Friendly Ripper

Crown Lands is a rising Oshawa, Ontario, Canada-based rock duo — Cody Bowles (vocals, drums) and Kevin Comeau (guitar, bass, synths) — that can trace its origins back to 2014, when the duo met. Bonding over a shared love and passion for music, Bowles and Comeau quickly became best friends and started jamming together in a local barn. And although they switched up instruments, they never strayed from writing, recording and performing as a duo.

The duo’s name manages to be forcefully indicative of their ambitions and intentions. Crown Land is territorial area belonging to a monarch — or as Bowles puts it: “Crown Land is stolen land and we are reclaiming it.” The band’s overall mission is to represent a sense of empowerment for marginalized communities through their music and their work’s thematic concerns and lyrical content. People are going to listen to you, so you may as well say something that matters,” Crown Land’s Kevin Comeau says in press notes.

Since their formation, the band has released three EPs 2016’s Mantra, 2017’s Rise Over Run, this year’s Wayward Flyers, Volume 1 and their Dave Cobb-produced self-titled full-length debut, which was released earlier this month. So far the band has released three singles off the album — “Spit It Out,” ‘Howling Back” and the righteous indignation-fueled, arena rock anthem “End of the Road,” a passionate cry for awareness and action surrounding the status of missing and murdered Indigenous womxn, girls and two-spirits across their native Canada and elsewhere. 

Centered around an expansive yet radio friendly song structure, enormous bluesy power chords, thunderous drumming, Bowles’ rock god vocals and a swaggering arena rock friendly vibe, Crown Lands’ latest single is the Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath-like “Leadfoot,” a song perfect for playing as loudly as humanly possible while displaying your own leadfoot. “’Leadfoot’ started as a cautionary tale about speeding but quickly became some sort of song about interstellar love,” Crown Lands’ Kevin Comeau says. “Lots of space and nature imagery keep the song from touching down into reality but the music is quite rooted in blues and glam rock. Is it about aliens? Is it about cars? Is it about aliens driving cars? Maybe. Either way, it’s a lot of fun to play.”

Directed by Blake Mawson, features the Canadian duo as a pair of sultry and badass rock gods, a badass classic car and a celestial chorus of sorts. Shot with COVID-19 restrictions in mind, the visual balances the health of everyone involved with some bold, ass-kicking ambition. “We wanted to get really ambitious and weird with this one, and Blake’s vision was perfect for what we wanted. It was the first post-COVID shoot for everyone involved, so that was interesting to work with those restrictions, but everyone was so happy to be back to work and eager to do a great job,” Cody Bowles recalls. “On set we had this whole warehouse studio booked and subdivided into different sets for the corresponding scenes in the video. My favourite moment would have to be when I was in the blue box room with the TV. It was this little cramped room setup where they told me to play with the space between myself and the fisheye lens, so I kinda went wild with it and of course I thoroughly enjoyed that, aha!”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Amsterdam’s Rex Releases a Horror Film-Inspired Visual for Brooding EP single “Dm”

REX is a rising, Amsterdam-based indie rock trio that features members with very diverse musical backgrounds:  Jonathan Rex (vocals, guitar) grew up with flamenco in his blood,  Nout Kooji (drums) grew up in punk rock, and Sara Elzinga (bass) grew up in a blues loving home. But despite their different musical backgrounds, the Dutch band’s sound draws from Nick Cave, Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen and flamenco, while thematically their material tackles dark and murky topics — and as a result the band has developed a profile both nationally and across sections of the European Union. 

Because of their growing profile, the members of the Dutch act have played shows in the UK, Germany and Spain. They’ve opened for Claw Boys Claw — and they’ve made appearances across the European Festival circuit, including Into the Great Wide Openlast year. Adding to a growing profile, Rex released their self-titled debut EP earlier this year, and the EP’s latest single is the brooding “Dm.” Sounding like an incredibly stylish synthesis of The Doorsand Nick Cave, the track is centered around slashing guitars, an explosive guitar solo, and a propulsive rhythm section powered by a sinuous bass line, the track is a darkly seductive platform for Jonathan Rex’s sonorous, Glenn Danzig meets Jim Morrison’s baritone and Silia Hollestelle’s plaintive and expressive vocals. It’s fitting since the song is focused on a troubled male protagonist desperately calling out to a lost lover. Expanding upon the song’s theme and story, Jonathan Rex says ““His lover tells him that they can only be together if he chooses to cross the ‘other side’ where she will be waiting for him. Knowing that he will have to cross the river to the land of the dead, insanity starts to creep in.”

Shot in the Dutch forests, just outside Amsterdam, the recently released video for “Dm” evokes Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe movies — a feverish and hallucinogenic journey through the dark recesses of the human soul and mind. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Alex McMahon Teams Up with La Bronze on the Ethereal and Otherworldly “Qalbi Dialna”

Quebec-based Alex McMahon is an acclaimed and prolific musician, who will embarking on a solo career with the October 18, 2020 release of his solo debut, Expat, genre-defying album initially created as the soundtrack of the TVA and Casa TV series of the same name. Centered around material that possesses elements of funk, soul, R&B and electro pop, the album finds McMahon collaborating with a collection of Montreal’s best talent including Alaclair Ensemble’s Eman, The Brooks’ Alan Prater, Radio Radio’s GABIO, La Bronze and a lengthy list of others. 

“Qalbi Dialna,” which translates from Arabic to English as “My Heart to Us,” is the third and latest track from McMahon’s forthcoming debut. The song features La Bronze’s delicate and yet yearning vocals gliding over a lush yet ethereal production featuring strummed acoustic guitar, stuttering trap beats, twinkling keys and atmospheric synths to create a song that’s mesmerizing and  otherworldly. And yet, the song is a swooning and achingly tender song that uses the desert as a metaphor for a warm, passionate love. 

The recently released video for “Qalbi Dialna” is an equally hypnotic and feverish visual featuring hallucinogenic overlays of exotic and unfamiliar landscapes to create a vaporous, otherworldly feel. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Xanthe Alexis Releases a Cinematic and Symbolic Visual for “Moon”

Born near Arizona’s Superstition Mountains, the rising singer/songwriter Xante Alexis spent much of her early youth in Michigan, where she grew up deeply steeped in mysticism. When Alexis turned 15 she relocated to Colorado Springs; at 19, she became pregnant with her first child; and when she turned 20, her sister died of a heart defect. Those tumultuous years helped cement her desire to create — while leading her towards a life centered around helping and healing others through language and music. 

After opening a healing centered with her mother, the Arizona-born, Colorado Springs-based singer/songwriter released her full-length debut, 2016’s Time of War to critical praise from the Colorado Springs Independent and a Best of 2017 award from Roots Music Report. Building upon a growing profile, Alexis played sets at Folk Alliance International, Americanafest and a three-week residency at the New York-based art collective, The Mothership. After more than a raced of touring the States and the European Union by car and van, Alexis eventually traded the road for the rails, supporting the album with a series of tours that crisscrossed the Western United States by train. 

The Colorado Springs-based singer/songwriter’s sophomore album The Offering is slated for a Friday release — and although written way before the pandemic, the album’s material is decidedly of our time: centered around soaring lush melodies and hypnotic soundscapes, the album thematically grapples with anxiety and strength, worry and comfort, heartbreak and hope. Influenced by Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten, Julien Baker, and Feist, the album’s material finds Alexis at her most compassionate, unflinchingly honest and most vulnerable, as her narrators — and in turn, the songwriter — seeking  much-needed acts of radical empathy and connection. Drawing from the Arizona-born, Colorado Springs-based singer/songwriter’s newfound sobriety and longtime passion for social activism, the album’s material finds her advocating for Native rights alongside the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, demanding racial justice in the streets with Black Lives Matter protestors and more. 

“Moon,” The Offering’s lush and mesmerizing single is centered around looping and twinkling, arpeggiated keys, a sinuous bass line, stuttering beats paired with Alexis’ ethereal yet achingly tender vocals and a soaring hook. And while sonically the song seems to nod at Stevie Nicks’ and Peter Gabriel, “Moon” is written from deeply lived-in, personal experience, which gives the song’s yearning an added emotional punch. 

Created and edited by TruLu Design’s Inaiah Lujan, the recently released and cinematically shot video for “Moon” follows a woman clad entirely in black — long black dress and black boots — as she walks purposefully through the forest with a wicker bag with white roses and other provisions for her journey. At a river clearing, we see the woman stop and make several small offerings to the river and to Mother Earth.  

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Death Valley Girls Release a Feverish Visual for “Hold My Hand”

I’ve also spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the Los Angeles-based garage rock/psych rock act JOVM mainstays Death Valley Girls throughout the bulk of this site’s 10 year history.  The act which features founding duo Larry Schemel (guitar) and Bonnie Bloomgarden (vocals, guitar) and a rotating cast of collaborators that includes Alana Amram (bass), Laura Harris (drums), Shannon Lay, members of The Make Up, The Shivas and Moaning, as well as The Flytraps’ Laura Kelsey can trace their origins back to over a decade ago, when they were formed by Schemel, Bloomgarden, Rachel Orosco (bass) and Hole‘s Patty Schemel (drums).  And despite the fact that they’ve gone through a series of lineup changes throughout their history, the band’s sound and aesthetic for much of their history has been heavily indebted to The Manson Family and B movie theatrics — while thematically concerned with the occult. 

Earlier this year, the longtime JOVM mainstays released a two song, seven-inch EP Breakthrough. The EP found the Los Angeles-based act covering two songs which have a deep and profound connection to the band — both in their spirit and aural alignment. One of those songs was Atomic Rooster‘s “Breakthrough,” a song discovered through an even more obscure cover by Nigerian psych act The Funkees.  While the Death Valley Girls’ cover leans more towards The Funkees’ version — thanks to grimy power chords, fire-and-brimstone organ lines and an in-your-face, combative chorus — all three versions of the song evoke the age-old desire to be free from prisons both real and mental.

Although they’ve been unable to tour because of COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns and quarantines, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays have managed to make 2020 a busy year: Slated for an October 2, 2020 release through their longtime label home, Suicide Squeeze Records, the band’s forthcoming album Under the Spell of Joy derives its title from the text on a t-shirt that the San Diego-based heavy psych rock act Joy gave to Death Valley Girls’ Bloomgarden. As the story goes, Bloomgarden regularly wore the shirt constantly over the next five years, treating it like a talisman. “I read it as being about manifesting your biggest dreams and responding thoughtfully and mindfully to everything that comes in your path with joy and compassion first,” Bloomgarden explains in press notes. “There is a lot to be really angry about in the world but joy is just as powerful if used correctly!”

With Under the Spell of Joy, the members of the Death Valley Girls sough to make a spiritual record — what Bloomgarden describes as a “space gospel” — with the intention of bringing people together and creating the kind of participatory musical experience people have in places of worship. And as a result, the album’s material is generally centered around chants, choirs and rousing choruses, written with the purpose of encouraging people to sing along. Where the band had once sought to connect people through more esoteric means, Spell of Joy finds them tapping into an age-old tradition of uniting people by inviting them to be an active participant.

Although Bloomgarden and Schemel knew their intention for the album’s material before they had written a single note, the nature and direction of the music was initially inspired by the Ethiopian funk records they had been listening to while touring — but once they began playing and recording the material they had written, the music, which they claim came from tapping into their subconscious seemed to come from the future. Now, as you may recall, last month, I wrote about Under the Spell of Joy’s first single, the slow-burning. expansive and yearning “The Universe,” a track which seemed to simultaneously nod at Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here era Pink Floyd, 60s psych rock and shoegaze. 

Under the Spell of Joy’s second and latest single “Hold My Hand” is simultaneously a return to form and arguably one of the album’s seemingly more straightforward songs: centered around stomping drums, reverb drenched guitars, soaring organs and a rousingly anthemic hook, the song evokes both the urgent swoon of new love, as well as the urge to improve upon oneself deep personal reflection and through love. 

“Relationships are really tricky and can be super messy and complicated! I used to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again,” Death Valley Girls’ Bonnie Bloomgarden explains in press notes. “I realized it’s cause I thought relationships were an agreement you made with another person. And that meant giving away my power to the other person and letting them navigate our way along our path. Then I realized things either happen to you or for you! Any relationship you have is an opportunity to make an agreement with yourself! It’s a chance to learn to be more compassionate and to grow stronger and more powerfully into the person you want to be and are meant to be! Hopefully, the other person will help along the way and grow with you! If not, peace and next, please.”

Curated by Andi Avery and Kate E. Hinshaw, the recently released video for “Hold My Hand” features painted film by a collection of artists. The end result is a visual that’s lysergic, urgent and feverish.  

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay No Joy Teams Up with Arch Enemy’s Alissa White-Gluz on a Feverish Visual for “Dream Rats”

Over the past three years or so of this site’s history,  I’ve written quite a bit about Montreal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer Jasamine White-Gluz, the creative mastermind behind the critically applauded JOVM mainstay act No Joy.  Initially starting out as a series of emailed guitar riffs between White-Gluz and her then-bandmate Laura Lloyd, the project has always been centered around White-Gluz’s penchant for restless experimentation. And throughout the project’s history, it has gone through a number of different sonic permutations with subsequent albums showcasing her love of delay-saturated jangle, industrial distortion and sludgy droning over disco-like beats.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past handful of months, you’d recall that White-Gluz’s Jorge Elbrecht-produced Motherhood is slated for a Friday release through Joyful Noise Recordings and Hand Drawn Dracula in Canada. The album is the Canadian-based artist’s first full-length album album in five years, and reportedly, the album finds her returning to the project’s early, DIY recording, shoegazer roots — but the material finds the JOVM mainstay continuing to expand upon her sound with the incorporation of elements of trip-hop, trance, nu-metal/deathcore and others. Some of the album’s genre-defying approach was inspired by White-Gluz’s many tours with genre-divergent artists: touring with Quicksand, No Joy picked up post-hardcore fans and ambient techno fans while touring with Baths. “As long as people are open minded about music, they can hear different things,” explains White-Gluz, “Maybe because there are a lot of layers.”

So far I’ve written about two of Motherhood’s singles —  “Birthmark,” which managed to be a seamless and trippy synthesis of Brit pop, shoegaze, trip-hop and shoegaze with a soaring hook and the Amoral-era Violens-like “Four.” “Dream Rats,” Motherhood’s third and latest single features White-Gluz’s sister Alissa White-Gluz, a member of deathcore supergroup Arch Enemy. Centered around thunderous drumming, synth choirs, twinkling strings, power chord shredding and soaring hooks, the song is a maximalist fever dream that recalls the aforementioned Violens while being a radio friendly 3.35.

“I’ve never collaborated musically with my sister before,” Jasamine White-Gluz says in press notes. “When we were kids we would sing and play music together but as we’ve both become adults and touring musicians we’ve never had a chance to work together. This is the heaviest song on this record so it felt fitting to have her on there. There is something special about her being on this album, specifically because it’s an exploration of family and motherhood.”

Directed by Beatrice Scharf-Pierzchala, the recently released video stars the White-Gluz sisters and a duck named Success, who’s something of a local celebrity in Montreal. (I just looked up the backstory behind Success and it’s adorable. And if you want to see a picture that will make your heart melt, there’s a picture of the bird on the Montreal metro.)

While the video is something of a surreal fever dream, the White-Gluz sisters bigger purpose was to spotlight the Le Nichoir Wild Bird Rehabilitation Centre, a non-profit organization located in Hudson, Quebec. Their mission is to conserve wild birds as part of Canada’s natural heritage. For more information and to donate, check out the following: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/le-nichoir-wild-bird-rehabilitation-centre/

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays METZ Return with a Pummeling Meditation on Compromise and Adulthood

Over the course of this site’s 10 year history, I’ve managed to spill copious amounts of virtual ink covering Toronto-based punk trio and JOVM mainstays METZ. The JOVM mainstays fourth album Atlas Vending is slated for an October 9, 2020 release through their longtime label home Sub Pop Records. Their previously released material found the band thriving on an abrasive relentlessness but before they set to work on Atlas Vending‘s material, the Canadian punk trio set a goal for themselves and for the album — that they were going to make a much more patient and honest album, an album that invited repeated listens rather than a few exhilarating mosh-pit friendly bludgeonings. Co-produced by Uniform’s Ben Greenberg and mastered by Seth Manchester at Pawtucket’s Machines with Magnets, the album finds the band crafting music for the long haul, with the hopes that their work could serve as a constant as they (and the listener) navigated life’s trials and tribulations.

The end result is an album that reportedly retains the massive sound that has won them attention and hearts across the world — but while arguably being their most articulate, earnest and dynamic of their growing catalog. Thematically, the album covers disparate yet very adult themes: paternity, crushing social anxiety, addiction, isolation, media-induced paranoia and the restless urge to just say “Fuck this!” and leave it all behind.  Much like its predecessor, Altas Vending offers a snapshot of the the modern condition as they see it; however, each of the album’s ten songs were written to form a musical and narrative whole with the album’s song sequencing following a cradle-to-grave trajectory. And as a result, the album’s material runs through the gamut of emotions — from the most rudimentary and simple of childhood to the increasingly nuanced and turbulent peaks and valleys of adulthood. So in some way, the album find the band tackling what’s inevitable for all of us — getting older, especially in an industry seemingly suspended in youth. “Change is inevitable if you’re lucky,” METZ’s Alex Eadkins says of the band’s fourth album Atlas Vending. “Our goal is to remain in flux, to grow in a natural and gradual way. We’ve always been wary to not overthink or intellectualize the music we love but also not satisfied until we’ve accomplished something that pushes us forward.”

So yes, their current mission is to mirror the inevitably painful struggles of adulthood while tapping into the conflicting relationship between rebellion and revelry — particularly in a period of seemingly profound and unending bleakness. Last month, I wrote about album closing track and first single “A Boat to Drown In.” And while continuing the band’s long-held reputation for crafting enormous and punishing aural assaults centered round layers of distortion fueled power chords, thunderous drumming and mosh pit-friendly hooks, the song finds them moving away from their grunge inferences and creating one of the most expansive, oceanic tracks they’ve released to date. 

Interestingly, the album’s second and latest single “Hail Taxi” is a deceptive return to form. Yes, it’s an enormous and urgent mosh pit friendly ripper, full of rousingly anthemic hooks, thunderous drumming and Eadkin’s howled vocals  — but at its core, the song is full of a aching and deeply adult sense of regret, as the song’s narrator attempt to reconcile who they once were and who they’ve become. After all, being an adult often means making uneasy and uncomfortable compromises; the sort of compromises that an idealistic younger version of you would likely hate and have little empathy for.  The end result is a howl of desperation, frustration and fury for what once was and what has to be right now — and for when things seemed simpler. 

Directed by A.F. Cortes, the recently released video for “Hail Taxi” was shot in a highly symbolic and cinematic black and white. The video captures and further emphasizes the song’s intensity in its pummeling choruses as we see a woman struggling to keep afloat in the open sea — and her brooding on a rowboat full of trash on the song’s verses. “I wanted to tell a simple story that captures the song’s overarching theme,” A.F. Cortes says of the video. “The idea of longing for the past creates many visual motifs and I wanted to create a piece that feels timeless and conveys a sense of isolation, highlighting that while we can hide our feelings, we can’t run from them.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Ethereal and Plaintive Pop of French Artist Phoebe

Phoebe is an emerging  Paris-based singer/songwriter, who can trace some of the origins of her music career to learning piano at the Olivier Messiaen Conservatory. After her training, the French artist began to write her own original material, inspired by Jhene Aiko and Sabrina Claudio. Last year, the emerging French artist wrote and recorded her debut EP Flowered, which is slated for an October release through L4 Sourc3 Records. 

The EP’s latest single “How Much” is an atmospheric bit of contemporary pop centered around stuttering trap beats, shimmering synths, ethereal electronics and the emerging French artist’s achingly tender and sensual vocals. But underneath the contemporary electronic production sheen, the song is an intimate peek into its creator’s inner world — including her doubts and uncertainties — with an unvarnished honesty. 

Directed by Loïck Tchouta, the recently released, swooningly cinematic visual for “How Much” reveals an aptly intimate and hazy world that’s both romantic and decidedly French. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Italian Neo-Soul Act Takes on a Classic Joe Jackson Tune

Stereonoon is a modular, Italian neo-soul/jazz and R&B inspired collective formed during pandemic-related lockdowns that features core creative duo — Verona-born vocalist Anna Polinari and cinemavolt’s creative mastermind Max Tozzi. The act’s debut single is a fairly straightforward yet neo-soul and vibey cover of Joe Jackson’s classic “Steppin’ Out,” centered around a sinuous bass line and Polinari’s sultry vocals. 

The accompanying visual for Stereomoon’s cover of “Steppin’ Out” is comprised of stock footage of a family — mom, dad and a very bored and sullen son — driving into New York in the late 40s for a trip on the town. Of course, despite the fact that there were countless marvels all around him, the kid is miserable. But the one thing that seems to capture his attention is The Statue of Liberty. It’s old-fashioned and goofy. 

The Italian act will be releasing an EP of original material sometime during the fall.