Tag: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Seattle/Venice Post Punk Act MØAA Releases an Eerie and Brooding Visual

Deriving its name after the MAO-A gene, also known as “The Warrior Gene” for its connection to increasing aggression and perseverance, the emerging post-punk/indie rock project MØAA was conceived as a way to process a troubled past through a bunch of a demos that Jancy Rae wrote and recorded while living in the forests near Seattle. Eventually those demos morphed into the project’s just-released full-length debut Euphoric Recall.

About halfway through writing the album, Rae relocated to Venice, where she completed the writing and recording of the album with Andrea Volpato in isolation at Fox Studio. The album explores dark memories embedded with nostalgia paired with brooding soundscapes. Album single “X Marks” is a slow-burning and seemingly 4AD Records inspired track centered around shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, a driving motorik groove, atmospheric synths, ethereal, dueling boy-girl vocals and a soaring hook. The end result is a brooding track full of an uneasy and creeping trepidation.

Directed by Blau!, the recently released video for “X Marks” is a cinematically shot visual that features the duo walking through a snow-covered European looking forest, where they encounter two people burying something in the cold ground. It’s a fittingly eerie visual for such a brooding song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: People Museum Releases an Infectious Club Friendly Bop

People Museum is a rising New Orleans-based art pop/dance pop act largely inspired by Afrobeat, hip-hop and choral and marching music. The duo — Jeremy Phipps (trombone, production) and Claire Givens (vocals, keys) — can trace their origins back to 2016: Phipps and Givens were eager to start a music project that incorporated the feelings and vibes of their hometown. Founded with the expressed intention of bringing nature to the future, the New Orleans-based duo’s sound and aesthetic seamlessly meshes their hometown’s beloved and world famous brass band tradition with the Crescent City’s synth heavy, progressive underground scene. 

Givens and Phipps’ soon-to-be released effort I Could Only See The Night EP is slated for release next week through Community Records and Strange Daisy Records. The new EP features a mix of songs made during last year’s pandemic-related quarantines and restrictions and songs the duo initially created during the first few months of their collaboration together. Thematically, the EP is a contemplation of our past, how we’re making sense of where we have ended up — and as a result, learning how to be more malleable with our visions of what the future could and should be. As the duo explains in press notes, the songs are an attempt to offer a bit of light in our very dark times while opening space for the listener to reflect, dance or just feel some sort of joy.

Last month, I wrote about “Forever” a Larry Levan-era house music influenced club banger that’s full of late night regret and trepidation centered around shimmering Giorgio Moroder-like synth arpeggios, skittering beats, Phipps’ mournful and melodic trombone played through reverb and delay pedal and Givens’ achingly plaintive vocals. You can literally feel the song’s narrator spiraling into indecision, regret and despair — although they’re desperately trying not to do so. 

“Rush,” I Could Only See The Night’s latest single continues a run of house music inspired bangers, centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, skittering beats, Gaines coquettish vocals, explosive bursts of fluttering and melodic trombone and a euphoria-inducing hook. The end result is a much-needed escape to the dance floor, where there’s true liberation and equality.

“‘Rush’ was written in July of 2020 during quarantine with our drummer and co-producer, Mopodna. It is a dance anthem about letting go of the expectations we had for where we thought would be right now and reframing our thoughts and words to rebuild a better environment socially and emotionally. It’s intended to be this idea of a mourning that’s moving us toward evolving personally and globally. We have second-lines here in New Orleans which are basically street parades that are for deaths and for parties – I think it’s that’s a huge vibe of ‘Rush.’ We cry, we dance it out, we move on together and celebrate what we have and help each other.”

Directed, filmed and edited by People Museum’s Claire Givens, features black and white footage of a horn player walking to the beach with his horns, the band’s Phipps conducting an informal march, the recording of the song and Givens singing and dancing along to the song. It’s a playful and feverish visual that captures aspects of life in a quarantine.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Willy Mason Releases a “120 Minutes”-like Power Chord Anthem Paired with Mischievous and Lo-Fi Visuals

Willy Mason is a White Plains-born, West Tilbury, MA-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who has released three full-length albums — 2004’s Where The Humans Eat, 2007’s If The Ocean Gets Rough and 2012’s Carry On.

Slated for an August 6, 2021 release through Cooking Vinyl, Already Dead is the White Plains-born, West Wilbury-based singer/songwriter’s fourth album — and the first batch of full-length material from Mason in over nine years. Thematically, the album reportedly explores honesty, deception, anonymity in the digital age, good intentions with unexpected consequences, freedom, colonialism, love, God and purpose. “Already Dead is a spiritual state to aspire to; it is freedom from the trappings and inhibitions of one’s ego, culture, and mythology. It is freedom and love and freedom to love in the face of death,” Mason explains. “It’s about the necessary destruction of one’s mythology; mythology of species, sex, race, nation, self. It’s about the pain and tragedy that comes with such destruction, but also about the freedom, possibility and opportunity for reconciliation; reconciliation with the natural world and with each other.”

Reportedly one of the harder songs in his growing catalog, Already Dead’s latest single “Youth On A Spit” is a 120 Minutes MTV-era alt rock-like anthem centered around scuzzy power chords, propulsive drumming, and Mason’s ironically delivered lyrics, which are both a bold declaration of insouciance and invincibility and an incisive commentary on post-modern life. And because of its relatable yet rousingly anthemic hook, the song may remind some listeners of 90s era Beck.

“‘Youth On A Spit’ is about the struggle for freedom and identity that comes from growing up in an advertising based culture. The refrain ‘you can’t kill me I’m already dead’ is about the liberation that comes with disillusionment,” Mason explains.

Director by Noel Heroux is a lo-fi and lysergic romp that’s partially a journey through boring suburbia and a partially a journey through hell, competed with Mason being practically in the hellfire.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Late Aster Releases a Trippy and Feverish Visual for “A Minor Fantasy”

Split between Brooklyn and the Bay Area, the emerging experimental pop act Late Aster — Ami Hochhalter, Aaron Messing, Charles Mueller and Cameron LeCrone — can trace their origins back to when its members met while studying jazz and/or classical music performance at Northwestern University and the University of Southern California. The members of the band quickly bonded over a mutual love of experimentation: the band employs brass instrumentation with electronics and popular music forms and melodies to push and pull at the boundaries of classical, jazz, pop and rock. The quartet’s sound finds the band looking to draw out the intimacy and versatility of instruments commonly related to a much more secondary role in rock.

The quartet’s debut EP True and Toxic is slated for a May 21, 2021 release through Bright Shiny Things. The EP features a collection of musical sketches on the modern human condition — and thematically, the EP’s material focuses on relationships, politics, sciences and digital society to create a soundtrack for our incredibly polarizing society. Each song is paired with a visual accompaniment by Four/Ten Media, Deadeye Press, Harrison Atkins and Kelsey Boncato.

The EP’s latest single “A Minor Fantasy” is centered around skittering drum beats, shimmering synth arpeggios, regal sounding horns and ethereal vocals placed within an expansive and cinematic-leaning song structure. Sonically, the song reminds me — to my ears, at least — of Flourish//Perish-era BRAIDS and People Museum but with a dreamy yet brooding quality. “This song is inspired by a Shostakovich piano prelude I listened to for years before attempting to learn. I thought the way the piece moves through the harmony would suit it well for an additional melody on top, which became the vocal melody,” the band’s Aaron Messing explains in press notes. “The prelude is in the key of A minor, which I eventually used as the name of the song, both because it describes the piece musically but also because read literally, it actually describes the meaning behind the words of the song: A dream-like state that is simultaneously exciting and ominous.”

The video created by Four/Ten Media is a surreal and psychedelic fever dream. “Working with Four/Ten Media was an obvious choice for this song because of their background as classically trained percussionists,” the band’s Anni Hochalter, says about the video treatment. “We wanted a team that was going to really understand how to feature the virtuosic beats written by our drummer Cameron LeCrone, as well as be experimental in visual aesthetic to capture the new sounds of electronics and brass. We combined two visual inspirations for the video – 1. Liquid lights created with layers of colored mineral oil and alcohol placed over a projector lens and which produce changing color patterns for a psychedelic effect. And 2. an early animated film that uses color and silhouette cut-outs, called The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926).”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toronto’s Jiants Release an Anthemic Brit Pop-like Single

With the release of their critically applauded self-titled debut, 2016’s self-titled debut, Toronto-based Jiants — former professional skateboarder Jesse Landen (vocals, guitar), Adam Kesek (bass), John Sirdevan (drums) and the band’s newest member Joe Delfin (lead guitar) quickly established a sound that meshes 90s alt rock with sensibilities. 2018’s Taylor Knox co-produced follow-up Odd Trouble found the band meshing infectious rifts, melodic keyboard lines and Landen’s vocals to create a sound that managed to be nostalgia-inducing yet wholly theirs.

Earlier this year, the Toronto-based indie act released their latest EP, Wait Here and the EP’s latest single “Some Kind of Loser” is a decidedly Brit Pop-inspired anthem, featuring a gorgeous and cinematic string arrangement by Drew Jurecka, layers of shimmering guitars and rousingly anthemic and dryly ironic chorus paired with Landen’s plaintive and sun-cracked vocals. Sonically, the track — to my ears, least — reminds me quite a bit of Urban Hymns-era The Verve, Love Is Here-era Starsailor and Oasis. But as the Landen and company admit in press notes. “Some Kind of Loser” “is about charting your own path. These lyrics reflect on how it would ultimately be beneficial learning to work together and respect each other’s paths.”

The song was “born out of a rough day in the studio that was followed by some upcoming shows falling apart in advance,” Jiants’ Jesse Landen continues. “I was half-hoking around thinking about much time and energy I was spending obsessing over music stuff and feeling like a bit of a dork. I think everyone can relate to that in some way. But that’s when it dawned one me that sometimes you might have to just learn to enjoy the rollercoaster because I know that I was going to continue making and sharing music, regardless of the results.”

Directed by Hart Dylan Webster, the recently released visual for “Some Kind of Loser” is a cinematic ode to 120 Minutes-era MTV.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Madagasacar’s LohArano Releases Another Mosh Pit Friendly Ripper

LohArano — Mahalia Ravoajanahary (vocals, guitar), Michael Raveloson (bass, vocals) and Natiana Randrianasoloson (drums, vocals) — is a rising Antananarivo, Madagascar-based trio that formed over six years ago. And since their formation, they’ve develop and honed a remarkably unique, boundary pushing sound that meshes elements of popular and beloved Malagasy musical styles — in particular, Tsapiky  and Salegy — with metal. The Antananarivo-based trio’s sound and approach represents a bold, new generation of young people in their homeland, a generation that respects and honors the traditions of their elders but roaring with the fierce urgency that our moment requires.

Building upon the buzz that they received with their debut single “Andrambavitany” and a handful of standalone singles, the members of LohArano released their self-titled debut EP last Friday. The EP’s latest single is “Tandroka” continues a run of enormous, mosh pit friendly rippers centered around a rumbling, down-tuned bass line, thunderous drumming, scorching guitar riffs and Mahalia Ravoajanahary’s Karen O-like vocals, which alternate between feral howls, screeching and shouting. We can’t have mosh pits for a bit longer — but play this one as loud as possible and remember what it was like to be colliding with sweaty bodies in a dark room.

Directed by Andriamanisa Radoniaina, the recently released video follows the trio as the embark on their every day life, from the band’s members getting up to start their day, meet up and rehearse, write material, play a friend’s house party — before moving up to an actual club.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Warish Release a Hilariously Demented Visual

With the release of their full-length debut, 2019’s Down In Flames, the San Diego-based noise punk trio Warish — currently founding member Riley Hawk (guitar, vocals), Alex Bassaj (bass) and Justin de la Vega (drums) — quickly established a reputation for crafting mosh pit friendly, bludgeoning rippers, that would bring early Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid, Incesticide-era Nirvana, Static Age-era Misfits and others to mind for listeners.

The San Diego-based JOVM mainstays’ sophomore album, the 13-song Next To Pay reportedly finds the noise punk trio at their darkest and most vicious. “Next To Pay is about a sense of imminent doom, everyone is going to die,” Warish’s Riley Hawk says in press notes. “It’s not the happiest record, I guess.” The album’s material sonically finds the band continuing to draw from the same influences as its predecessor, but while pushing their sound in a much more forceful — and in turn, nastier — direction, heavily influenced by the guitar work of Greg Ginn and Buzz Osborne — wiry contortions drenched in various chorus effect pedals. “This album is more of an evolution, it’s a little more punk-heavy,” Hawk adds. “We figured out what our sound was.” 

Along with that evolution, the band went through a massive lineup change. The band’s original drummer Nick “Broose” McDonnell plays on roughly half the album’s song while their newest de la Vega played on the more recently written and recorded tracks. Bassaj joined the band after their debut was recorded, so Next To Pay marks his official Warish debut.

Earlier this year, I wrote about album single “Seeing Red,” a breakneck, Bleach-era Nirvana like ripper centered around Hawk’s howled vocals, scuzzy power chords, a forceful and chugging bass line paired with pummeling drumming that continues a run of mosh pit friendly material — but with a feral snarl.

“S.H.M. (Second Hand Misery),” Next To Pay’s latest single is a breakneck ripper featuring fuzzy, chugging power chords, a rousingly anthemic hook paired with Hawk’s yelps and howls. Sonically, the song — to my ears, at least — reminds me of a gritty synthesis of Nirvana and Melvins, but full of bile and evil intentions.

Edited by the band’s Riley Hawk, the hilariously demented video features edited footage from Barney that features the enormous purple dinosaur and some innocent kids seemingly dancing and singing along to the song. “This video came to mind when I heard the ‘If you’re happy and you know it’ song by Barney playing somewhere while I was in a bad mood and was thinking, this song is kinda evil sounding. Then I went home and instantly started editing the video to the track ‘S.H.M.’ because it’s the polar opposite of ‘If You Are Happy And You Know It.’ It fit nicely I thought, hah.” 

The JOVM mainstays’ sophomore album Next To Pay is slated for an April 30, 2021 release through RidingEasy Records.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New VIdeo: Morningbell’s Travis Atria Releases a Quiet Storm-Inspired Meditation on Climate Change

From 2004-2013, Travis Atria was a member of acclaimed Gainesville, FL-based indie rock act Morningbell, which released six critically applauded albums of material, which includes songs featured in film and television. The band also played sets at Bonnaroo and SXSW and commissioned a custom star show at the Kika Silva Pia Planetarium while on tour to support 2013’s excellent album Boa Noite. Travis also had a side project The Slims, which released two albums and kept him pretty busy bon top of his Morningbell duties. In 2014, Morningbell went on indefinite hiatus when his brother Eric and his sister-in-law Stacie Thrushman-Atria started a family.

After spending a decade of recording and touring, Travis Atria turned to another lifelong dream of his — books. In 2016, Atria co-wrote Traveling Soul, the first biography of the legendary soul singer/songwriter and producer Curtis Mayfield — a major influence on Atria’s music — with Mayfield’s son Todd Mayfield. Traveling Soul received praise from Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. He then wrote Better Days Will Come Again, a biography of jazz trumpeter Arthur Briggs, who was among the greatest musicians of Paris’ Jazz Age — and who spent four years in a Nazi prison camp during World War II, where he conducted a classical orchestra of prisoners.

Adding to a rather productive period for the now-acclaimed musician and author, Atria had been writing new material, which would eventually become his soon-to-be released solo debut, Moonbrain, and at the tine he had started he was searching for the album’s heart. Of course, that process came about in stages: While working on his Arthur Briggs book, Atria went to Paris in August 2017 to see the site of Briggs’ prison camp. On the night he had visited Briggs’ prison camp, the Parisian news reported on the now-infamous Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, VA. For Atria, who was studying World War II history in Paris, it was a chilling to see his own countrymen staging what was a pro-Nazi rally.

The following year, the IPCC released their updated climate report, which said that we were maybe 20 years away from permanently damaging the environment as we know it. Atria, who had been involved in climate activism since 2004 began to fear the world the his niece and nephew would inherit, and decide that the album had to be more than the sensual rock ‘n’ soul he had been known for in Morningbell. Taking Curtis Mayfield’s “painless preaching” as a model fo this solo work, Atria focused on creating the material’s grove, initially steering clear of lyrical polemics — but while still trying to write about the truth about the world. “I felt too few artists were trying to deal with what we’re going through,” Atria says. “I owed it to these kids to try.” 

Unsurprisingly, Moonbrain’s material is a reflection of our time — and it pulls no punches about it, even if they sometimes seem like love taps. The album’s first single “Jazz Cigarette” is a shimmering Quiet Storm-like slow jam featuring shimmering guitars, twinkling keys, smooth horns, and a sinuous bass line paired with Atria’s plaintive crooning. But underneath the sultry, late night grooves, the song is focused on the dire state of the globe’s climate, suggesting that things are really even more fucked up than you think.

The accompanying video was shot primarily on the streets of New York — with most of the footage set in and around the 59th Street Bridge, Roosevelt Island and Long Island City. Throughout, the video reminds us all of the city’s constant activity and constant motion; but with the uneasy reminder that those beloved sites may at some point be in endangered, and real soon.

Moonbrain is slated for an April 2, 2021 release through Gold Robot Records.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Lost Horizons and Kavi Kwai Release a Haunting and Nostalgic Visual for the Dan Carey Remix of “Every Beat That Passed”

The members of the acclaimed duo Lost Horizons — Cocteau Twins‘ and Bella Union Records label head Simon Raymonde (bass. guitar, keys, production) and Dif Juz’s Richie Thomas (drums, keys, guitar) — each ended a 20+ year hiatus from creating music with the release of their full-length debut together, 2017’s Ojaiá, (Spanish for “hopefully” or “God willing”). “These days, we need hope more than ever, for a better world,” Thomas said in press notes at the time. “And this album has given me a lot of hope. To reconnect with music . . . And the hope for another Lost Horizons record!” 

Since the release of Ojalá, the state of the world has gotten much worse — and much more dire. Our socioeconomic and political systems are slowly collapsing, exposing dangerous flaws. However, the fight for a fairer and better world continues as it has for generations; but one small portion of Thomas’ hopes have been fulfilled: Raymonde and Thomas wrote and recorded a new album’s worth of material together, their highly-anticipated sophomore album  In Quiet Moments.

Released earlier this year, and written and recorded during pandemic-related restrictions and lockdowns, In Quiet Moments‘ material is inspired by the sense of existential doom, fear, uncertainty and anxiety of the larger world — and deep heartache: Just as the duo were settling into the studio to craft the largely improvised, instrumental bedrock of the album’s material, Raymonde’s mother died. 

As a response, Raymonde threw himself into his work as a way to channel his grief. “The way improvisation works,” he says, “it’s just what’s going on with your body at the time, to let it out.” The duo forged ahead, crafting 16 instrumental tracks that they sent to an eclectic array of guest vocalists including Ural Thomas, Penelope Isles‘ Jack Wolter, The Hempolics Nubiya Brandon, Tim Smith, Gemma Dunleavy, the innocence mission’s Karen Peris, Horse Thief‘s Cameron Neal, Marissa Nadler, Porridge Radio‘s Dana Margolin, John Grant, Ballet School‘s Rosie Blair, Penelope Isles’ Lily Wolter (as her solo recording project KookieLou) and an impressive list of others. 

When they sent the instrumental tracks to their then-prospective guest vocalists, Raymonde suggested a guided theme for their lyrics: “Death and rebirth. Of loved ones, of ideals, at an age when many artists that have inspired us are also dead, and the planet isn’t far behind. But I also said, ‘The most important part is to just do your own thing, and have fun.” Roughly half of the album’s lyrics were written during the middle of pandemic-related lockdowns but as it turns out, Raymonde in particular, saw a sliver lining: people were forced to slow down and take careful stock of themselves and their lives. Interestingly, after having heard a lyric written by Ural Thomas, Raymonde singled out on praise “in quiet moments,” and thought it would be a perfect album title. “It just made sense,” he says. “This moment of contemplation in life is really beautiful.” 

Although generally centered around loss and heartbreak, the album’s material is imbued with a sense of hope. as a result, the material subtly leans in the direction of rebirth more so than death. “I think it’s more joyous than Ojalá,” Thomas says. “But both albums have a great energy about them.” That shouldn’t be surprising as both Lost Horizons albums find the duo and their various collaborators on a journey through a dizzying area of moods and voices. 

Now, over the course of the past year, I’ve written about five of In Quiet Moments‘ released singles:

“Cordelia,” a lush track centered around atmospheric synths, gorgeous steel pedal guitar from David Rothon, elegant strings from Fiona Brice, and John Grant’s brooding vocals. The song is a meditation on the passing of time, the inevitable changing of the seasons — but with the tacit understanding and acceptance that all things in our world are transient. 
“One For Regret,” a dark and foreboding song centered around shimmering, reverb-drenched guitars, propulsive drumming and Porridge Radio’s Dana Margolin’s frantic vocals. While sonically, the song finds Raymonde and Thomas paying homage to the beloved sound and approach that won Raymonde accolades “One For Regret” is a meditation on the messiness of regret and loss, that acknowledges that regret and loss are a necessary part of life — and that the only way out is through. 
“Every Beat That Passed,” an old-timey waltz centered around shimmering and arpeggiated keys, jangling guitars and Kavi Kwai’s Julia Ringdahl ethereal vocals. Much like its immediate predecessor, In Quiet Moments‘ third single sonically seemed indebted to Raymonde’s while being defiantly upbeat. 
“In Quiet Moments,” a shimmering and slow-burning, old school soul meets shoegaze number featuring twinkling keys, jazzy drumming, gently buzzing guitars and Ural Thomas’ easygoing soul crooning. The end result is a gorgeous and thoughtful song that evokes a complex and confusing array of emotions with a simplicity and profound earnestness that most contemporary songwriters lack. 
“Heart of a Hummingbird,” a hazy and cinematic bit of shoegaze centered around stuttering syncopated drumming, layers of shimmering guitars, twinkling keys and Penelope Isles’ Lily Wolter (a.k.a. KookieLou)’s ethereal and mesmerizing vocals singing lyrics that get at the confusing feelings of love and heartache can inspire — in particular, longing, desperation, uncertainty, acceptance and even a little bit of denial within a turn of a phrase. 

Raymonde and Thomas recently enlisted Dan Carey to remix “Every Beat That Passed.” Retaining the jangling guitars and Ringdahl’s ethereal vocals, the Cary remix pairs those elements of the original with a brooding and uneasy production featuring arpeggiated synths and skittering beats. Interestingly, the remix is a dub-like and trippy take on the song that manages to emphasize the dreamy yet upbeat feel of the original.

“We are big fans of Dan Carey’s (who isn’t??) and when I was thinking of remixers, Dan, David Holmes and Adrian Sherwood were the first ones I wanted to approach as I felt their aesthetic would work best with some of these songs,” Lost Horizons’ Simone Raymonde says in press notes. “When Dan heard ‘Every Beat That Passed’, he mailed me back: ‘I’m obsessed with this song ! I really love it and I think I can do something really cool.’ He certainly did.”

Directed by Penelope Isles’ Jack Wolter, a.k.a. Wavyhead, the recently released video for the Dan Carey remix is full of feverish nostalgia as the video is split between footage of a decaying and abandoned amusement park and stock footage of smiling and happy folks at county fairs and amusement parks. In some way, the video is a bittersweet reminder of the things we’ve missed during the past year and some odd months of the COVID-19 pandemic. “For the accompanying film, listening to his version and Kavi’s words i had this vision in my head of dead souls riding a ferris wheel in an old decaying fairground and found some reels of this abandoned amusement park and for balance we mixed that in with some footage of happy smiling faces too from other funfairs,” Raymonde explains,. “Our main video collaborator again here is Jack from Penelope Isles.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Vancouver Duo IAMTHELIVING and Teon Gibbs Release a Hilarious VIsual for Two-Step Inducing Bop “Boxes”

Rian Peters is a rising London-born, Vancouver-based soul vocalist, best known in music circles as IAMTHELIVING. As a child Peters green up listening to the likes of Michael Jackson, Prince and Steve Wonder — all of which have influenced his work. Following his musical destiny, Peters relocated to Vancouver, where he’s developed and honed a distinct yet versatile sound.

Teon Gibbs is a rising Botswana-born, emcee and producer, who as a child spent time living in South Africa, Angola and the UK before eventually settling in Vancouver. As an artist and producer, Gibbs has developed and honed a sound and approach that blurs genre lines.

The duo met in their adoptive hometown and quickly started a successful collaboration that resulted in a handful of attention grabbing singles including “Puppa” and “Between The Groove” and “The Distance,” which quickly established the duo’s sound — a dance floor friendly mix of 90s R&B and 2000s British R&B. Building upon the growing buzz surrounding them, the duo will be releasing their seven-song debut EP together JNGL. Slated for release in June 2, 2021 release through Tiny Kingdom Music, the EP reportedly finds the duo continuing to craft dance floor friendly pop based on a meeting of the minds between two artists from very different yet simultaneously very similar backgrounds.

“We wanted to create a project that embodies who we are, where we’re from, and shows what we can do. The word “JNGL” just seemed to capture it all. Being from Botswana, the word jungle has followed me around my entire life, and IAMTHELIVING is originally from South London, which is the concrete jungle – this project is those worlds meeting…” Gibbs explains in press notes. ” “The sounds on this project are big and diverse but at the same time we really took a grassroots approach to making it, I think that’s why even though the sound fills the room it can still resonate with the listener’s core.”

But along with making folks hit the dance floor, the duo collaboration is fueled by their desire to lead by example for other Black voices to connect in their city. “We really feel like we’ve created our own little lane and we can really shed light on how dope the Vancouver music scene is,” the duo say.

JNGL’s latest single, “Boxes” prominently pairs IAMTHELIVING’s silky smooth croon and Gibbs’ dexterous and dense wordplay and laid-back delivery over a vibey, two-step inducing production featuring a sinuous bass line, twinkling Rhodes, shimmering synth arpeggios, skittering beats and an infectious hook that may remind listeners of Montell Jordan’s “Get It On Tonite.”

Directed by Joseph Carney, the recently released video for “Boxes” is a gorgeously shot yet hilarious send-up of love, delusion (perhaps influenced by drugs and drink), longing, heartbreak and cruel rejection.