Tag: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Super Plage Teams Up with Virginie B and Nectar Palace on a Disco-Tinged Cover of “Nos corps”

Jules Henry is a Montréal-based singer/songwriter, electronic music producer and creative mastermind behind the acclaimed recording project Super Plage. 

Earlier this year, he released “Ton chien,” the first bit of new material since the release of Henry’s fourth Super Plage album, last year’s Magie à minuit. “Ton chien” is a flirty bop anchored around a breezy and summery production featuring glistening synths and skittering beats as a lush bed for Henry and Parsian artist Sainte Nicole to trade ethereal and dreamily delivers verses. It’s the sort of song that’s perfect for hanging out in the park — or the beach — with the pretty someone, who’s got your heart skipping beats.

Henry’s latest single, which sees him collaborating with longtime collaborator Virginie B and Nectar Palace on a cover and remaining of Jimmy Hunt‘s 2013 hit “Nos corps,” which amassed over three million streams — just on Spotify alone. While the original is disco-tinged yet atmospheric New Wave-like bop that reminds me a little bit of Blondie-meets-Soft to the Touch-era Jef Barbara, the Super Plage retains some of the original’s chill dance vibes but while pairing it with a propulsive Giorgio Moroder-meets-Robyn-like disco groove and some squiggling funk guitar.

Sonically seeming like a synthesis of Jef Barbara’s “Wild Boys,” 80s pop and disco, the Super Plage cover of “Nos corps” continues a run of summery, hook-driven feel good bops. Play this one in the club and dance your worries and cares away for a bit.

Directed by Virginie B, the accompanying video follows the collaborators on a road trip to the shore for frolicking and hanging out. Because what’s summer without a road trip, right?

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: London’s The Fire Belows Share Bruising “Too Far To Reach”

London-based metal outfit The Fires Below — Smithy (vocals, guitar), Si (bass), Del (drums) and Sam (guitar) formed back in 2021. The band quickly established a sound that draws from punk rock, metal, stoner rock, desert rock and djent, a sub-genre of progressive metal named after the onomatopoeia of the guitar sound that characterizes it. 

The London-based quartet’s debut EP, last year’s Masquerade was released last year to critical acclaim and received quite a bit of radio airplay. Building upon a growing profile in the British metal scene and elsewhere, The Fires Below released their highly-anticipated sophomore EP Thorns last month. The five-song EP sees the British quartet firmly establishing a melodic and punishing sound rooted in their penchant for blending punk, desert rock, alt-metal and djent. “With more experience, we’ve pushed ourselves creatively,” The Fire Below’s Smithy explains. “This EP really plays to our strengths that we discovered playing live. We mix elements of punk, desert rock, alt-metal and djent for an intense yet melodic cocktail of riffs and emotion. Blast it as loud as you can until the neighbours complain!

The EP’s first single “Too Far To Reach” is a bruising and grimy ripper that sees the band seamlessly — and effortlessly — meshing elements of metal, stoner rock, desert rock and punk anchored around pummeling drumming, scorching riffage and howled vocals in a way that will bring Songs for the Deaf-era Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss and others to mind.

Directed by David Smith, the accompanying video for “Too Far To Reach” is shot in black and white, and features the band performing the song in front of a projections of gorgeous natural phenomena, interspersed with the brutality of the human world. The video channels the fiery hellscape of our contemporary moment.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Only Twin Shares Cinematic and Swooning “Give You Up”

Initially known for his work with Forgive Durden and Cardiknox, Seattle-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Thomas Dutton is the create mastermind behind the rising, solo, synth pop project Only Twin.

Back in Seattle, every show Dutton went to gave him a sense of longing. It didn’t matter if they were playing to dozens or hundreds, the band was up on that stage tearing their hearts out in front of the world. Dutton knew he wanted to be up there on a stage, like the bands he was catching as a fan. As a teen, carpooling with his friends’ older siblings meant expose to bands and songs he had never heard before. Songs that weren’t played on the radio — and songs that opened his eyes and ears in transformative ways. “I’m always trying to capture that feeling I had when I was discovering music that changed my life,” Dutton says.

Inspired by the likes of The 1975 and Bon Iver, Only Twin emerged out of necessity. When Cardiknox split up, producing became Dutton’s full-time job, and he wanted to start a project that showed himself as a left-of-center, indie pop aesthete. But as Dutton used music to process both the dissolution of Cardiknox and a breakup, Only Twin took a life of its own. “It started as a way to carve out a little space for myself,” he says. “But as I started reclaiming tracks I’d written for other people, the project gave me closure on a huge chapter in my life.” 

Dutton’s sophomore Only Twin effort, the recently released it Feels Nice to Burn sees him bottling that sense of nostalgia. “I still feel like that wide-eyed 13-year-old at his first show in a lot of ways,” he says. Thematically, It Feels Nice to Burn continues the exploration of love, rebirth and new beginnings that he explored on his Only Twin debut, 2021’s Rare Works. Sonically, the new album sees Dutton finding the sweet spot between left-of-center indie pop and dreamy rock, while marking the next chapter of his life, one that sees him embracing the love of a lifetime and fatherhood. Unsurprisingly, the experience of falling in love, getting married and raising a child has given new meaning to his music and to himself.

When the Night-era St. Lucia-like album single “Give You Up” is slow-burning, seemingly 80s rom-com-inspired song featuring glistening synths, gated reverberated drums, bursts of twinkling keys, bursts of shimmering and squiggling guitars paired with Dutton’s plaintive delivery paired with the Seattle-born, Los Angeles-based artist’s unerring knack for crafting swooningly earnest tracks with big hooks and choruses.

“Give You Up” is rooted in lived-in personal experience with the song describing the moment Dutton and his wife “jumped into the deep end” of their burgeoning relationship.

Directed by The Director Brothers, the accompanying video for “Give You Up” stars Julianne Hough as a bored office drone, who has an odd yet adorable affair with an old office copier that plays on rom-com tropes.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Laura Carbone Shares Bittersweet “Silver Rain”

Berlin-based singer/songwriter, guitarist, photographer and JOVM mainstay Laura Carbone‘s third album The Cycle was released earlier this year. The album, which debuted on North American college radio at #19 on the NACC Top Adds Chart, is a concept […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sunflower Bean Shares a Gritty, Grimy Ripper

Formed back in 2013, while they were still teenagers, New York-based trio Sunflower Bean — Julia Cumming (vocals, bass) Nick Kivlen (guitar, vocals) and Olive Faber (drums) — have become one of the area’s most acclaimed outfits. During that period, they’ve released three critically applauded full-length albums, 2016’s Human Ceremony, 2018’s Twentytwo in Blue and 2022’s Headful of Sugar, which have featured several chart topping releases. They’ve supported those albums with sold-out tour dates as headliners and as openers for the likes Beck, The Strokes, Cage the Elephant, Interpol, Courtney Barnett, The Pixies, The Kills, DIIV, Wolf Alice and more. They’ve also made their run across the international festival circuit, making stops at Glastonbury, Governor’s Ball, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Reading Festival, Leeds Festival and others. And famously, they’ve opened for Bernie Sanders during this primary campaign rallies.

Adding to a growing profile, the band’s Julia Cumming had a guest spot on Yves Tumor‘s 2020 effort Heaven to a Tortured Mind. Kivlen and Faber collaborated with Frost Children on “SERPENT,” which appears on last year’s Speed Run.

The trio’s newest effort, Shake EP is slated for a September 27, 2024 release through Lucky Number. The self-produced and self-recorded effort will reportedly feature some of the band’s heaviest, most immediate and loudest material to date. Influenced by the doom-laden, riff-driven sound of Black Sabbath and others, the EP is an embrace of rock tropes and excess, while nodding to the band’s first two albums.

“SHAKE was inspired by our first years as a DIY band, the spirit that birthed us and gave us the chance to have this enduring journey together,” the band says of the EP. “We wrote, recorded, engineered, and produced these songs so nothing was filtered through anyone else’s idea of us. We always felt like rock and roll was a feeling, not a sound. But sometimes there is no subverting it or explaining it. We’re now offering it exactly as it occurred to us.” And as a result, the EP captures the band at its most raw, unfiltered and most natural state.

To further that theme, the band worked with rising Toronto-based director Isaac Roberts to create a 14-minute performance based video to showcase each track through an interpretation of the natural elements — earth, wind, water, fire and metal.

The EP’s lead single and title track, the grimy and gritty “Shake” is a scorching doom-laden, distorted pedaled power chord-driven ripper with thunderous drumming that captures the band at their loudest, hardest and meanest to date, and at their most inspired.

The accompanying video directed by Roberts performing the song in a torrential rain storm that created the sort of mud pit reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails‘ Woodstock 94 set. Fittingly, the video captures and emphasizes the grit and grime of its accompanying song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: GIFT Shares Euphoric “Light Runner”

Earlier this year, Brooklyn-based JOVM mainstays GIFT — TJ Freda (vocals, guitar), multi-instrumentalist Jessica Gurewitz, Kallan Campbell (bass), multi-instrumentalist Justin Hrabovsky and Gabe Camarano (drums) — signed to Captured Tracks, who will be releasing their highly-anticipated sophomore, 11-song album Illuminator on August 23, 2024.

Illuminator reportedly sees the JOVM mainstays firmly cementing their sound with a remarkably mature, self-assuredness for a relatively young band.
Professionally, the members of the rising Brooklyn-based outfit are firmly enmeshed in the local scene as talent buyers, photographers, DJs, audio engineers, art directors, and in the case of Campbell, the owner of Bushwick-based DIY venue Alphaville. The continued melting pot of their combined skills and experiences helps to make the album an even more cohesive listening experience while seeing increasing contributions from each of the band’s members: Gurewitz, a relative newcomer to making music, contributed a host of lyrics and vocal melodies. Hrabovsky, who previously engineered at Asheville, NC-based Drop of Sun Studios and Echo Mountain Recording shared production duties with Freda. And Camarano’s drumming provided the crucial rhythmic underpinning of the album’s material. 

“We had a lot more confidence going in,” Freda says. “The main goal was to take a big swing, embrace the pop sounds we love and clear the mist and clouds surrounding the last record to make it a lot punchier.”

Illuminator will feature the previously released:

“Wish Me Away,” a track anchored around a dreamy and hook-driven shoegazer soundscape of glistening, reverb-drenched guitars, woozy synths and a motorik groove paired with propulsive rhythms serving as a lush bed for Freda’s plaintive falsetto, “Wish Me Away” is continuation of the overall aesthetic they established on Momentary Presence and a decided sonic push forward, showcasing where the band is going next. The song also sees the band exploring and expressing a complex array of emotions with a lived-in specificity. 

“‘Wish Me Away’ is about giving into the feeling of everything slipping away,” GIFT’s TJ Freda explains. “Just take it all away, put me out of my misery, wish me away. While this all seems daunting and sad, there’s a feeling of optimism in this song, holding on for dear life and refusing to give up hope.”

After nearly losing a loved one, Freda found himself grappling with the fleeting nature of life, and understandably with the inevitability of mortality. “‘Wish Me Away,’ ruminates on the fear and freedom that can come knowing it can all slip away. The line ‘wish me away’ kept coming up, as in ‘take me, not them,’” Freda adds. 

“Going In Circles,” an Evil Heat-era Primal Scream take on shoegaze, built around a motorik groove, glistening and atmospheric synths, swirling reverb-soaked guitar textures and Freda’s dreamily plaintive delivery paired with the quintet’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and chorus. But underneath the euphoria-inducing nature of the song is a bitter lament of a relationship gone a bit awry. 

“This was the first song I wrote for Illuminator that helped me realize the direction of the album,” GIFT’s TJ Freda says. “I wrote the chorus while passively playing guitar and rushed to record the idea. At that moment, something clicked and I realized where the album was going. At our shows from the Momentary Presence tour, people would stand in the crowd wide-eyed without moving. We wanted to get people moving with the new album, so we were really inspired by bands like Primal Scream, Oasis, and Massive Attack. It’s our psych-rock tribute to U.K. rave culture in the ‘90s.

“The song is about the endless cycle of a relationship,” Freda adds, “the back and forth in both euphoria and doubt. The chorus ‘I never told you why’ is about never being able to say how you really feel, not having closure and the cycle continuing.” 

The Jessica Gurewitz and TJ Freda co-written “Later,” which may arguably be one of the most brooding and uneasy song of the band’s growing catalog — while also being the most straightforward shoegazer track of the album. Anchored around a swaggering motorik groove, the track finds the band pairing glistening and reverb drenched guitars with Freda’s plaintive falsetto and the band’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses.

“While writing Illuminator I found myself clinging to intense emotions, reluctant to release them. ‘Later’ stands out as one of the darkest songs I’ve made,” Freda explains. “Making it was cathartic, diving into darker themes. The song explores surrendering to the overwhelming sensation of life slipping away before my eyes.” 

“Light Runner,” Illuminator‘s fourth and latest single sounds — to my ears, at least — like a mind-bending and slickly produced synthesis of Madchester scene, breakbeats, Ray of Light-era Madonna and shoegaze anchored around enormous, buzzy and euphoria inducing hooks and choruses. “Light Runner” also sees the band crafting a hook-driven sound that’s simultaneously dance club and arena rock friendly while retaining the widescreen quality that has won them accolades.

The accompanying video for “Light Runner” was directed by the band’s TJ Freda. “The album and song ‘Ray of Light’ by Madonna was a massive inspiration while recording Illuminator – I wanted to pay homage to the brilliant music video directed by one of my favorite directors Jonas Åkerlund. ‘Light Runner’ celebrates the triumph of emerging from a dark time while acknowledging the transformative power of overcoming it. It’s a testament to the euphoria of personal achievement.In 2023, during our first European tour, we were enthralled by the origins of 90s UK bands like Primal Scream, Massive Attack, and Oasis. Following a show in Glasgow, the promoters treated us to an underground Jungle/DnB rave, blowing our minds wide open.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Geneva Jacuzzi Shares Lush and Satirical “Scene Ballerina”

Geneva Jacuzzi is a Los Angeles-based multimedia artist, whose immersive and unhinged performances are considered legendary: they often involve a psychotropic gallery of masks, costumes, confrontation and massive art installations. Her recorded music frequently features catchy hooks […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sister Gemini Shares Anthemic “120 Minutes” MTV-like “One Room Apartment”

Bay Area-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and musician Remy Jean is the creative mastermind behind the rising indie project Sister Gemini. Much like countless other musicians, she came into music as a byproduct of teenage discomfort: After being shunned by the cheerleaders at her high school, the Bay Area-born, Los Angeles-based artist found herself taking up guitar and hanging out with the outsiders and weirdos in the music room. “At first I was, like, ‘Oh my god, really? I’m going to hang out with these people?’ And then I was, like, ‘Wait, these people are me,'” Remy Jean fondly recalls.

Embracing some of her genuine interests for the first time in her life, the Bay Area native began gigging in a Misfits over band and dreamt of a move to Southern California. Upon graduation, Remy Jean relocated to Los Angeles, where she harnesses the energy and encouragement of a circle of talented peers — and where she started her solo recording project Sister Gemini.

She describes Sister Gemini’s sound as “Heavy music for people who like soft music and vice versa.” Thematically, her lyrics grapple with the concept of forgiving yourself — and of coming terms with the reality that although you may sometimes hurt others, it doesn’t necessarily make you a terrible person. Frequently, the material focus on making mistakes, and as a narrator, she isn’t afraid to paint herself as a malevolent character — whether wittingly or unwittingly. “You’re always the villain in someone’s narrative,” she says.

As a self-described open book, Remy Jean’s work is anchored in the sort of unvarnished honesty of an older sister or older friend, giving the listener advice based on the embarrassing yet survivable missteps they’ve managed to navigate.

The Bay Area-born, Los Angeles-based artist’s first single of year, and third Sister Gemini single ever “One Room Apartment” is a 120 Minutes era MTV alt rock-like anthem featuring fuzzy and crunchy distortion pedaled power chords, rousingly anthemic hooks and chorus paired with Remy Jean’s saccharine sweet melody within a classic grunge-inspired song structure. The result is a song that sounds as though it could hav been

Initially conceived as a whispery acoustic demo, the grunge pop anthem “is about attempting to rely on external comforts to pull you up when you’re in a funk,” Remy Jean explains. “I start by calling my friends but when they aren’t available, I turn to casual sex to try to numb the loneliness. I wrote this song during the pandemic, when the world really did feel as small as my apartment at times. It’s a pretty vulnerable song for how upbeat it sounds, I love that contrast.”

She adds, “It took me a while to find my groove, in terms of who I wanted to work with and who actually understood the sound that I was going for.” Ultimately, she wound up working with Sam Plecker, because he had an intrinsic understanding of Remy Jean’s vision for the project. Along with Plecker, who also contributed bass, as well as engineering duties, the Bay Area native recruited Babehoven‘s and Runnner’s Ellington Peet (percussion) and Yunus Iyriboz (guitar) to flesh out the original demo.

Directed by Director Mia Gualtieri, the accompanying video for “One Room Apartment” captures the boredom, desperation and unease of pandemic related lockdowns, in which some people slowly lost their shit.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Dutch-born, British-based Artist Dutch Mustard Shares Cathartic and Urgent “Loser”

Dutch-born, London-based artist Sarah-Jayne “SJ” Riedel is the creative mastermind behind the rising indie recording project Dutch Mustard. And with Dutch Mustard, Riedel blends ethereal dream pop, 90s alt-rock with shoegaze touches to create a soundscape that features painterly and swirling guitar textures while the Dutch-born artist’s vocals drift between a near whisper and yearning, heavenly arching shouts.

Riedel and Dutch Mustard exploded into the British scene with the release of 2022’s debut EP An Interpretation of Depersonalisation, an effort that was featured by the BBC while receiving airplay on BBC Radio 1’s Future Artists with Jack Saunders and a co-sign from the legendary Iggy Pop. Last year’s sophomore EP, Beauty received airplay from BBC Radio 6’s Lauren Laverne and co-signs from Don Letts and Amy Lamé. Adding to a growing profile, The Independent, The Line of Best Fit, Clash, Dork and Notion have all covered her — and The Grammy Awards selected her a one of 6 Female Fronted Acts Reviving Rock, along with Wet Leg.

SJ’s latest single, the Bill Ryder-Jones and Riedel co-written and co-produced “Loser,” is a catharsis-inducing, 120 Minutes MTV alt rock-era anthem built around swirling shoegazer guitar textures, rousingly anthemic, shout along worthy hooks and chorus serving as a lush and downright perfect vehicle for the rising Dutch-born, London-based artist’s vulnerable, yet equally enormous vocal.

Creatively, the song was fueled by a bold tale of chutzpah: SJ dropped her demos into the DMs of big-name producers she admired with the hopes that they would be willing to work with her. But at its core, the song as the rising Dutch-born artist explains is about resilience: “‘Loser’ is about making peace with heartbreak. We move on by accepting our feelings and understanding that not everyone speaks the truth. This doesn’t mean we stop being truthful, just more careful with who we trust.”

“I love working with SJ….she’s fucking hard to keep up with like. She has this knack of coming up with great ideas when I’m still admiring the last one,” Bill Ryder-Jones adds.

Directed by Josiah Newbolt, the accompanying video for “Loser” is shot in black and white, and follows the rising Dutch-born, British-based artist in a dizzying close up that evokes the swooning urgency of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Melbourne’s Ella Thompson Shares Broodingly Cinematic “Let There Be Nothing”

Ella Thompson is a rising Melbourne-based singer/songwriter. And with her backing band, which sometimes features members of Surprise Chef and some of her favorite local players, Thompson and her band pair cinematic textures and arrangements seemingly inspired by The Shangri-La‘s, Renee Geyer, Thee Sacred Souls, Baby Rose, Back to Black-era Amy Winehouse and others with her effortlessly soulful, clear as a bell-like delivery. Lyrically, Thompson’s songwriting draws from poetry, philosophy and personal experience.

Thompson’s latest single, the Thompson, Liam McGorry and Henry Jenkins co-produced “Let There Be Nothing” features a backing of some of Melbourne’s best players on a broodingly cinematic arrangement that sounds like a synthesis of film soundtrack and classic Daptone Records.

“Let There Be Nothing” is a song about leaving your lover, and an inspired reimagining of a scenario that came up in The Sopranos: Thompson wrote the song, inspired by seeing Carmela Soprano battle with the decision to leave Tony, and to start her life again. Choosing to leave her mob boss husband directly challenges the patriarchal establishment she has existed in and has known since birth. But it also requires a complete and thorough break and remake of her identity, which is deeply intertwined with the oppressive structures she has known her entire life. In the song, Thompson envisions Carmela leaving Tony and the morally ambiguous life he offers, and instead sees her finding resilience and freedom in the novel in the unfamiliar. As Thompson says the song is “about accepting something for what it is, without trying to change or fix it — and then making the choices you need to make. That moment is difficult, but on the other side is freedom.”

The Nick McKinley and Thompson co-directed video for “Let There Be Nothing” is a gorgeously shot and highly symbolic visual: The dominoes are meant to represent the interdependent structures of patriarchy, racism and capitalism. And as a result, the video asks the viewer to consider how these structures impact our choices and what we’re willing to sacrifice. But it also suggests that our world as we know it, needs an overhaul for everyone to truly be free.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers Share Anthemic and Mosh Pit Friendly “Disgust”

New York-based JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers — currently Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — will be releasing their seventh album Synthesizer on October 4, 2024 through Dedstrange records.

While Synthesizer is the album’s title, it’s also a physical entity, a synthesizer specifically made for the album — and a synthesizer that you too, can own (in part), if you buy the record on vinyl. The album’s cover art doubles as a circuit board and functional synth for curious and enterprising fans. “It’s pretty messed up, chaotic. But it feels really human,” the band’s Oliver Ackermann says.

In an era of making music where so little is DIY and so much is left up to AI, never setting foot in a practice room or a home studio, making something that feels deliberately chaotic, messy, and human, is entirely the point. The album celebrates sounds that are spontaneous and natural, the kind of music that can only come from collaboration and community.

The writing sessions for Synthesizer started in the band’s Queens studio, shortly after the release of 2022’s See Through You. The new lineup which featured Ackermann and his friends John and Sandra Fedowitz was especially inspiring for Ackermann. “It felt like a fresh new thing,” he says. “I wanted to write songs everyone was excited about playing.”

The album captures the band at a place of reinvention, where they take a carefully honed sound and approach and crack it wide open to gut its then reimagine it. And of course, to ever so slightly reinvent one’s sound, one must also built a new instrument — the synthesizer at the core of the album’s overall sound.

Reportedly, Synthesizer is arguably one of the band’s most live-sounding albums to date, accurately capturing the rawness and explosiveness of the band in a live setting, which is a fitting for a band that is best in a live setting, where the material takes on a new energy in the presence of a crowd. “We’re artists,” Ackermann says, “Going to shows and bringing that imperfect and beautiful DIY ethos is important.”

Synthesizer’s first single “Disgust” is a bit of classic APTBS, an eardrum shattering aural assault, anchored around explosively wailing feedback and distortion pedaled guitar lines, and a relentless motorik groove featuring an arpeggiating bass line weaving in and out of the driving bass — but with subtle refinements, including some of the most rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly choruses and hooks I’ve heard from the band in some time.

“‘Disgust’ is a song I wrote that was inspired by the way I used to perform ‘Got That Feeling,’ a song by my old band Skywave,” Ackermann explains. “There was a long riding open note on the bass that enabled me to play the whole part with my fist in the air.  I wrote this song just on open strings so it could be played with just one hand: dumb and fun.” 

Directed by BODEGA’S Ben Hozie and filmed by Joe Wakeman, the accompanying video for “Disgust” features frames within frames within frames, and frames the band next to and within distorted images on TVs to “achieve a certain style of cine-cubism where the band members can be seen from multiple angles at once in the same frame,” BODEGA’s Hozie says, He adds, “This sense of dissociative texture is exactly what A Place to Bury Strangers music feels like to me,” Hozie says, “I was trying to create a visual accompaniment to the disorienting buzzy speed of the band’s grooves and bliss of their distorted overtones.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Two Cumbia-Inspired Bops from JOVM Mainstays Los Bitchos

Earlier this year, acclaimed London-based instrumental outfit and JOVM mainstays Los Bitchos — Australian-born, Serra Petale (guitar); Uruguayan-born Agustina Ruiz (keytar); Swedish-born, Josefine Jonsson (bass) and London-born Nic Crawshaw (drums) — announced that their highly-anticipated sophomore album, the Oli Barton-Wood-produced Talkie Talkie will be released through City Slang on August 30, 2024.

Deriving its name from a fictional club of the same name, Talkie Talkie is a late-night paradise, brimming with freedom and possibility; a place where partygoers can escape reality by getting caught in the groove and dancing it all away or daydream along to the invigorating soundscape. 

Recorded over a short but intense month-long series of sessions at London’s RAK Studios and Lightship 95, sonically, the album will transport the listener into a world where funk, disco, Latin and Turkish rhythms collide in a euphoric fusion fueled by adventurous experimentation and their endearingly puckish spirit. If 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin was the rowdy build up to the big night out with your homies, Talkie Talkie is the equivalent of rocking out to the groove on the dance floor. 

The album’s material is anchored in a vivid cinematic universe that takes inspiration from the band’s favorite aesthetic era — the ’80s. Think less self-serious men, gated reverb and more campy, hi-fi pop songwriting that glistens with moxie and verve. The quartet especially wanted to tap into the sonic innovation of the period, where analog and digital techniques collided to create polished texture and depth. 

The album will feature the previously released:

  • “La Bomba,” a hook-driven 80s Turkish psych pop-inspired bop anchored around a shuffling dance floor rhythm, a twangy and looping guitar line, a disco-influenced bass line, some video game-like beats paired with glistening synths and ecstatic shouts. 

  • “Don’t Change,” a breezy and blissful jam anchored around a languid and reverb-drenched Spanish-tinged, psych rock-inspired guitar line, stomping percussion, glistening and atmospheric synths and an arpeggiated, funky synth bass line. It’s the perfect soundtrack for frolicking at the beach, of dreaming of heading to the beach with your best pals — or for riding a ferry and dreaming that you were on a super expensive yacht drinking mimosas. 

Today, the acclaimed London-based outfit shares the dual single “Kiki, You Complete Me” and “1K!.” Both tracks see the band reveling in the shimmering guitar tones and shuffling guacharaca rhythms of cumbia — but in mischievously different directions: “Kiki, You Complete Me” has a clean, 80s studio polish-like sound and a cinematic quality that evokes the opening sequence of Nintendo video games like Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda or Blades of Steel — or of an incredibly cheesy but wildly entertaining action movie starring Carl Weathers, Bill Duke or someone like that, complete with a blazing guitar solo.

“This track feels like the opening sequence of a comic book series,” the JOVM mainstays say. “The tom sounds we went for are outrageous, like the ‘pows’ and ‘thwacks’ of a comic strip punctuating the music… think Batman meets Bitchos! Towards the end of the song we extended this chuggy, tension building section and brought out a guitar solo before ending on the comic/video game theme vibe refrain.”

Directed by Tom Brewins, the accompanying video for “Kiki, You Complete Me” follows the quartet as they go to an arcade, where they play a video game called Los BItchos Miami Drive, which features their 16 bit video game counterparts in a a car racing game that brings back memories of Pole Position.

“We’ve leaned into the 16 bit video game aesthetic for the video,” Los Bitchos explain. “Serra has always dreamed of writing music for video games.. We’ve started playing this song live at festivals this year and it’s definitely one of the songs we’re all most enjoying playing.”

“1K!’ is a shimmery, summery yet somewhat straightforward take on cumbia that evokes lazy-because-of-the-intense-heat summer afternoons and early evenings, anchored around a languid guitar line and stripped back, traditional-inspired percussion.

“This is a really shimmery, summer tune. There’s even a can of drink being opened at some point, you can feel the heat and carefree vibes,” the band says. “I imagine a gathering with friends, maybe a BBQ, some drinks, people popping by. The drums are quite stripped back for this track, more percussion led.”

Shot by Madeline Northway on grainy Super 8, the accompanying video for “1K!” captures the quartet’s endearingly puckish spirit and best gal pal vibes, as they head off to a local pool to hang out, drink a cold Coca Cola and bullshit, giggle and attempt to stay cool on a hot summer day.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Automatic Channels Lou Reed as They Cover “New Sensations”

Los Angeles-based post punk outfit Automatic — Izzy Glaudini (synths, vocals), Lola Dompé (drums, vocals) and Halle Saxon (bass, vocals) — can trace their origins to their hometown’s DIY scene: When the trio met, they each individually […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: THE THE Shares Brooding and Feverish “Linoleum Smooth To The Stockinged Foot”

Acclaimed British post-punk outfit THE THE was founded by singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Johnson back in 1979 and through various iterations and configurations, Johnson and his collaborators have developed a sound and approach that seems to inhabit its own difficult to define genre: music of long shadows, high hopes, channeled anger, feverish passions and sweetly disturbing poignancy that meshes elements of pop, rock, blues, folk and soul among others while spanning alienated electronics to twisted cinematic soundtracks, guitar tumbling swing to crimson ballads, rants and prayers to diaries and hymns. 

Over the course of their 45 year history, Johnson and company have released only five full-length albums of original material, 1983’s Soul Mining, 1986’s Infected, 1989’s Mind Bomb, 1993’s Dusk and 2000’s NakedSelf. Having a long-held reputation for being unpredictable, the band has also tackled covers, such as 1995’s Hanky Panky; film soundtracks, including 2009’s Tony, 2010’s Moonbug, 2014’s Hyena and 2019’s Muscle; art installations, a the Radio Cinéola podcast series; 2017’s moving, 84 minute documentary/multimedia project The Inertia Variations and various book publications including 2018’s Matt Johnson biography Long Shadows, High Hopes: The Life and Times of Matt Johnson & THE THE. 

2017’s The Inertia Variations took inspiration from British poet John Tottenham’s 2005 book of the same name — particularly the idea of “brooding, abstraction and evasion” getting in the way of the creative process. The Inertia Variations eventually resulted in not just the documentary, but also the Radio Cinéola Trilogy triple album box set. 

At the end of The Inertia Variations documentary, Johnson was filmed performing a new song live in his studio, “We Can’t Stop What’s Coming,” an elegy to his older brother Andrew Johnson, an artist professionally known as Andy Dog, who died in 2016. “It was not an easy song to write,” he says. “That was the first time I’d sung in many years. I enjoyed it but found it very emotional.”

The experience prompted Johnson to revive THE THE as a live band — and it lead to the sold-out 2018 The Comeback Special world tour. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the release of the accompanying live film and album until 2021. Unsurprisingly, the pandemic also delayed the intended start of the writing and recording of the acclaimed British outfit’s first album in almost 25 years, Ensoulment. Instead, Johnson and company continued releasing a series of 7 inch singles that began with 2017’s “We Can’t Stop What’s Coming,” and continued with 2020’s “I WANT 2 B U,” and last year’s “$1 ONE VOTE!”

Slated for a September 6, 2024 release through Cinéola/earMUSIC, the 12-song Ensoulment reportedly contains echoes of the acclaimed outfit’s multifaceted and lengthy musical past while being richly representative of the mercurial band’s here and now.

Ensoulment also continues upon Johnson’s long-held reputation for being unafraid to tackle the inherent emotional complexity of the human condition — in particular, intimacy in an age of alienation; democracy in a post-truth age; empire and vassalage; the seemingly inexorable rise of AI and more. And yet, despite all of this, the album is rooted in a deep-seated hope.

“It’s vital to be hopeful,” Johnson states. “And I hope people get out of the album what we put into it. It was created under very happy circumstances, with a great vibe amongst the band and all the people that worked on it. There was a lot of thought, a lot of work, a lot of love, a lot of laughter!”

The album’s material were further refined in rehearsals, just before a six-day recording session at Bath, UK-based Real World Studios, where Johnson was joined by long-standing band members James Ellen (bass), DC Collard (keys), Earl Harvin (drums) and Barrie Cadogan (lead guitar). The album also marks the return of co-producer and engineer Warne Livesey, who worked with the band on Infected and Mind Bomb. The album also features contributions from Gillian Glover (backing vocals), Terry Edwards (horns), Sonya Cullingford (fiddle) and Danny Cummings (percussion).

Earlier this year, I wrote about the album’s first single, the Johnson and Cadogan co-written “Cognitive Dissident,” a brooding and slinky number that’s anchored around a strutting bass line and features bursts of squiggling, reverb-soaked guitar, Johnson’s breathy speak-sing delivery, sultry cooing from Gillian Glover, atmospheric electronics and skittering percussion paired with as slinky and remarkably catchy hook. Thematically, the song captures the madly topsy-turvy Orwellian nature of modern life — and honestly our current moment — with an uncanny and unsettling attention to detail.

Ensoulment’s second and latest single “Linoleum Smooth To The Stocking Foot” is a brooding and atmospheric track anchored around a discordant interplay between screeching fiddle bursts and mournful horn blasts paired with skittering and fluttering beats, hand-claps, and ethereally cooed backing vocals. The song’s arrangement evokes a narcotic-fueled, flop sweat-induced, fever dream while Johnson’s lyrics touch upon the paranoia of the nascent bio-security state, the unending class war and the re-emergence of fascism and more. Much like its immediate predecessor, “Linoleum Smooth To The Stocking Foot” captures the absurdity, the madness, the anxiety-fueled dread, the hate and fear of our slow-burning, lockstep march to dystopian hellscape.

The song’s lyrics were written from Johnson’s hospital bed, under the influence of morphine while recovering from a life-saving operation. As fate would have it, Johnson’s weeks spent in the hospital had occurred at precisely the moment that COVID-19 had become a crisis, making for an even more surreal ordeal for him — and for everyone else. The discordant interplay between horns and fiddle is redolent of Johnson’s hallucinogenic, feverishly surreal experience, which he tried to emulate by asking the musicians to improvise over the track without hearing the other’s contributions, as he manipulated the sounds in real time.

The new single is unique in the fact that apart from Johnson, who contributes vocals, guitar and bass, it doesn’t feature any of the core band members; however, the track features guest spots from Sonya Cullingford (fiddle), Terry Edwards (horns), Gillian Glover (backing vocals) and handclaps from Danny Cummings (percussion).

The single cover art features a previously unpublished piece of Johnson’s late brother Andrew “Andy Dog” Johnson, who was responsible for the distinctive aesthetic style of THE THE’s releases.

The recently released accompanying video or “Linoleum Smooth To The Stocking Foot” was was directed by Tim Pope with editing, VFX and projections People Like Us/Vicki Bennett and Peter Knight — all of whom are longtime collaborators with Johnson and THE THE. Fittingly, the video also evokes the sensation of a fever dream with Johnson’s face being in and out of focus and in and out of shadow throughout.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Steve Wynn Shares Punchy “Making Good on My Promises”

Steve Wynn is an acclaimed singer/songwriter and musician, solo artist and frontman of the revered alt-rock/indie rock outfit The Dream Syndicate and The Baseball Project. 

This year will be a very busy year for Wynn: Make It Right, the acclaimed singer/songwriter’s first solo album since 2010 is slated for an August 30, 2024 release through Fire Records. The album also coincides with the release of his new memoir I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True, which will be published by Jawbone Press.

I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True is a vivid and revealing memoir that tells a tale of writing songs and playing in bands as a conduit to a world its author could once have barely imagined — a world of major labels, luxury tour buses and sold out theaters across the world, but also one of alcohol, drugs and a a low-level rock ‘n’ roll Babylon. Ultimately, it’s a tale of redemption, with music as a vehicle for artistic and personal transformation and transcendence. 

Make It Right was written and recorded in tandem with Wynn’s work on the memoir. “With each chapter, I would get ideas for songs inspired by the deep dive into my past and vice versa,” Wynn explains. “The reflections became intertwined after a while, a mutual commentary between literal and metaphorical ruminating.

“The songs here aren’t directly autobiographical although the album does start with ‘Santa Monica,’ the city and boulevard where I was born and concludes with ‘Roosevelt Avenue,’ the main thoroughfare of the Queens neighborhood in New York City that I call home today. You write what you know—even when you’re not aware it’s what you’re writing about at the time.

“If the book recounted a tale of trepidation and dread and questionable choices, then that tale would turn into a song of similar intent like ‘What Were You Expecting.’ A step back for perspective and positivity, in turn, found its way into a song like ‘You’re Halfway There.’

The cataclysmic ‘one big open drain’ of ‘Simpler Than the Rain’ was resolved by the resolute ‘I’m just trying to make it right’ on the title track. A gauzy and melancholy where-did-it-go-wrong Southern California flashback on the Long Beach inspired ‘Cherry Avenue’ would steer me towards a steelier determination and reset on ‘Making Good on My Promises.’

“It was a dialogue between the memoirist and the musician, a one-man Q&A, a gentle volley in the tennis court of my mind. 40-love, game, set and match.

As I’ve found the melodies and words to stir and simmer with the stories I told in the book, I’ve simultaneously brought friends and collaborators from my recent and distant past to help flesh them out on the record. The likes of Vicki Peterson, Mike Mills, Stephen McCarthy, Scott McCaughey, Jason Victor, Dennis Duck and Mark Walton and my wife Linda Pitmon are all in the book and—look! —there they are on the record as well!”

“And much like life itself, new faces and hit-and-run collaborators would pass my radar during the sessions and provide new light as well. Chris Schlarb from California dream pop ensemble Psychic Temple added his cinematic touch, Emil Nikolaisen of Norway psych-grunge combo Serena Maneesh chimed in with his trademark sonic anarchy and then Eric “Roscoe” Ambel used his studio savvy producer chops to tie it all together at the end.

It feels perfect and very appropriate that the book and record will both be coming out in the same final week of August 2024. Not that one is needed to understand the other. Hey, you can just put on ‘Make It Right’ and use it as the catalyst to create your own life story, dig into your own past. It belongs to you now. Let it tell your own tale while I tell mine. We’re all just trying to make it right.”

Last month, I wrote about Make It Right‘s first single, album title track “Make It Right,” a slow-burning and ruminative ballad, written from the perspective of someone who has lived a full and messy life of foolish and selfish mistakes regrets, heartbreak, bitter betrayals and joyous triumphs — and with the deep, wizened empathy and understanding that people are flawed, occasionally myopic, stupid and selfish. But almost all of us are trying to make it right somehow in a mad, desperate world that’s on fire.

Make It Right‘s second and latest single “Making Good On My Promises” is a defiant, post punk-inspired ripper. Seemingly drawing from The Jam and XTC, the song is anchored around angular guitar jangle, soulful organ blast, a jaunty yet driving rhythm section and a punchily delivered hooks and choruses. Much like its immediate predecessor, “Making Good On My Promises” is written from hard-fought, harder-won experience — and in turn, the perspective of someone who’s been near the brink and survived while being acutely aware of the fact that the shoe will inevitably drop at some point.

“I wrote this song with Paco Loco, a prolific producer down in Spain,” Wynn says. “Haven’t heard of him?  If you live in Spain, I guarantee you have.  Dude’s a legend and I’d estimate that he’s produced half the records released down there in the last several decades.  The lyrics, like most of the words on ‘Make It Right,’ fit into the overall narrative of my book—a defiant and yet tentative of a return from a temporary abyss while keeping a wary eye out for the next dip ahead.  I shot the video within the confines and out on the streets in London surrounding my groovy label Fire Records.  Together, we’ll make good on those promises.