JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates U2’s Larry Mullen, Jr.’s 62nd birthday.
Tag: New Wave
Throwback: Happy 60th Birthday, Johnny Marr!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Johnny Marr’s 60th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 72nd Birthday, Sting!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Sting’s 72nd birthday.
Throwback: Happy 78th Birthday, Bryan Ferry!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Bryan Ferry’s 78th birthday.
New Audio: Art Feynman Returns with Funky “Early Signs of Rhythm”
Over the past few months, I’ve written a bit about Luke Temple, a singer/songwriter, visual artist, producer best known as being the creative mastermind behind the genre-defying recording project Art Feynman. Up until recently, Art Feynman has been strictly a solo thing, a way for Temple to explore surprising sonic landscapes without the burdens of identity.
His forthcoming Art Feynman album Be Good The Crazy Boys changes that quite a bit: Recorded live in-studio with a full band, the album reportedly captures a spirit of restless anxiety while recalling Talking Heads, Oingo Bongo and others. “Sonically, I was inspired by records that were recorded at the late Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas such as Grace Jones‘ Private Life, Lizzy Mercier Descloux‘s Mambo Nassau, and Talking Heads‘ Remain in Light.” And yet, despite those references, the album is firmly rooted in contemporary concerns: The material features songs about fearing the end of the world and struggling with FOMO. Normally, these would be relatable subjects — that is if it didn’t quite seem unhinged.
Throughout his career, Temple has long specialized in a sound that draws from and meshes slightly twisted tasks on Komische musik, worldbeat and art pop. But with the new album, slated for a November 10, 2023 release through Western Vinyl, Temple delicately balances dark thematic concerns like struggling to maintain balance in a toxic, chaotic and mad, mad, mad world with dance floor friendly, hypnotic groove.
“To me, there was a lot of energy that needed to be released as the result of living in isolation for six years,” Temple explains. “It also seems to speak to a general anxiety we’re all holding, but it’s expressed in a cathartic way.”
So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:
- “Desperately Free,” a a Fear of Music/Remain in Light-like jam built around twinkling tropicalia-inspired percussion and a hypnotic groove paired with chanted and call and response vocals. “Desperately Free” manages to simultaneously evoke sweaty summer nights on the dance floor and the yearning for something more than our mere existence. “I was thinking about the obsession with spiritual growth or with ‘curing’ death and the compensatory consequences that ensue as a result,” Temple says. “We can’t cheat nature of which we are one and the same, she’ll find balance eventually.”
- “Passed Over,” a breezy and kaleidoscopic, tropicalia-meets-80s New Wave-inspired bop that channels Talking Heads, Zazou Bikaye‘s Mr. Manager and others — but with a soulful yacht rock sax solo from Nicole McCabe. Thematically, the song explores struggling with FOMO with the song’s narrator stubbornly and defiantly saying I’m ok to be passed over/ Let them have it/I don’t care. “It can be refreshing to decide to eat last, it’s stressful if you’re always needing to be at the front of the line,” Temple explains.
Be Good The Crazy Boys‘ latest single “Early Signs of Rhythm” continues a remarkable fun of funky tracks that seamlessly mesh krautrock/kosmiche musik, world beat and art pop in a way that will remind folks of Fear of Music and Remain in Light-era Talking Heads and Grace Jones’ “Pull Up To The Bumper” — but with a No Wave-like sax solo and references to Abrades, a figure of both good and evil in Jungian mythology.
Fittingly, the song is a meditation on opposites — both within and without.
New Audio: Art Feynman Returns with Breezy and Kaleidoscopic “Passed Over”
Luke Temple is a singer/songwriter, visual artist, producer and creative mastermind behind the genre-defying recording project Art Feynman. Up until recently, Art Feynman has been strictly a solo thing, a way for Temple to explore surprising sonic landscapes without the burdens of identity.
His forthcoming Art Feynman album Be Good The Crazy Boys changes that quite a bit: Recorded live in-studio with a full band, the album reportedly captures a spirit of restless anxiety while recalling Talking Heads, Oingo Bongo and others. “Sonically, I was inspired by records that were recorded at the late Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas such as Grace Jones‘ Private Life, Lizzy Mercier Descloux‘s Mambo Nassau, and Talking Heads‘ Remain in Light.” And yet, despite those callbacks, the album is firmly rooted in contemporary concerns: The material features songs about fearing the end of the world and struggling with FOMO. Normally, these would be relatable subjects — that is if it didn’t quite seem unhinged.
Throughout his career, Temple has long specialized in a sound that draws from and meshes slightly twisted tasks on Komische musik, worldbeat and art pop. But with the new album, slated for a November 10, 2023 release through Western Vinyl, Temple delicately balances dark thematic concerns like struggling to maintain balance in a toxic, chaotic and mad, mad, mad world with dance floor friendly, hypnotic groove.
“To me, there was a lot of energy that needed to be released as the result of living in isolation for six years,” Temple explains. “It also seems to speak to a general anxiety we’re all holding, but it’s expressed in a cathartic way.”
Last month, I wrote about album single “Desperately Free,” a a Fear of Music/Remain in Light-like jam built around twinkling tropicalia-inspired percussion and a hypnotic groove paired with chanted and call and response vocals. “Desperately Free” manages to simultaneously evoke sweaty summer nights on the dance floor and the yearning for something more than our mere existence. “I was thinking about the obsession with spiritual growth or with ‘curing’ death and the compensatory consequences that ensue as a result,” Temple says. “We can’t cheat nature of which we are one and the same, she’ll find balance eventually.”
Be Good The Crazy Boys‘ third and latest single “Passed Over” continues a run of breezy and kaleidoscopic. tropicalia-meets-80s New Wave-inspired bops that manage to channel Talking Heads, Zazou Bikaye‘s Mr. Manager and others — but with soulful yacht rock sax solo from Nicole McCabe. Thematically, the song explores struggling with FOMO with the song’s narrator stubbornly and defiantly saying I’m ok to be passed over/ Let them have it/I don’t care. “It can be refreshing to decide to eat last, it’s stressful if you’re always needing to be at the front of the line,” Temple explains.
Throwback: Happy 62nd Birthday, The Edge!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates The Edge’s 62nd birthday.
Throwback: Happy 42nd Birthday, MTV!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the launch of MTV 42 years ago today.
Phil Galloni is a Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, studio engineer and producer, who has been running Voltiv Sound since 2015. His solo recording project Waverly Drive can be traced to when he turned some downtime in the studio to the project’s debut EP, last year’s Living in a Fantasy, which saw him crafting material that drew from indie rock, New Wave, indie pop and electro pop — and is perfect for driving up the coast, daydreaming and just escaping life’s absurdities.
As a solo artist his work has been covered in a number of publications including The Line of Best Fit, The 405, Clash Magazine, Post-Punk.com, Good Music Radar, Havoc Underground, We Write About Music and more.
Building upon a growing profile, Gallini’s sophomore Waverly Drive EP Now I Know is slated for release Friday. While Living in a Fantasy was a carefree and uptempo batch of songs, Now I Know is a matured, mid tempo follow-up that thematically questions everyday reality through the lens of escapism and surrealism and touches upon themes of love, trust, loss, class systems and more. Several studio musicians contributed to the EP including Magic Wands‘ Chris Valentine, Miguel‘s, Mayer Hawthorne‘s and Grace VanderWaal’s Melissa Dougherty, Dropkick Murphy‘s and Stu Hamm‘s Halley Feaster, Chebaka’s and Allá’s Christiaan Dageforde, Stefan Ponce‘s and KO AKA Koala‘s Jess Hoover, Macy Gray‘s and Family Company‘s Alex Kynh, French Montana‘s and The Weeknd‘s Russ Mitkowski and Cameron Ljungkull.
The EP’s latest single “Mind Play” is decidedly 80s New Wave/synth pop song built around gentle layers of glistening synths, skittering beats, Galloni’s yearning vocal paired with the Chicago-born, Los Angeles producer and artist’s penchant for remarkably catchy hooks. Sonically, “Mind Play” manages to bring Human League’s “Human” and New Order to mind while being rooted in seemingly lived-in personal experience.
Galloni explains that “This song is about how much better things could be in life and love if we stopped playing games with each other.”
As a founding member of The B-52s, Cindy Wilson is a pioneer of the New Wave sound that redefined rock and pop music in the late 70s through much of the 80s. And if you love the legendary Athens, GA-based outfit as much as I do, you know that Wilson has one of the most distinct, melodic voices in rock — and that she’s known for her ability to deliver powerful emotions throughout her work.
Back in 2016, the New Wave legend stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist. Since then she has released two EPs and her full-length solo debut — Sunrise EP and Supernatural EP and Change, which saw her collaborating with electronic musicians and producers Suny Lyons and Ryan Monahan. The collaboration with Lyons and Monahan proved to be a decided sonic departure from Wilson’s best known and beloved work that also managed to stay true to Wilson’s alt rock, punk and New Wave roots: Her world famous vocals were paired with a backdrop of dreamy and ambient, dance floor friendly music. And as a result, the material subtly continues Wilson’s long-held reputation for being behind some dance floor friendly jams while establishing herself as a singular force in her own right.
Wilson’s forthcoming sophomore album Realms is slated for an August 25, 2023 through Kill Rock Stars. Realms sees the New Wave legend continuing her collaboration with Suny Lyons and features contributions from Sterling Campbell (drums) and Maria Kindt(strings). The ten-song album reportedly her most ambitious to date, with the material inviting the listener on a journey that peels back the layers of our common humanity — and digs deep into our minds and souls. Continuing upon the contemporary, electro pop of its predecessors, the new album is rooted in carefully crafted material that reveals that the New Wave legend has her fingers on the pulse of contemporary music, while being a new chapter in her already storied career.
Last month I wrote about album single “Wait,” a song built around an atmospheric production featuring skittering beats, glistening synths and euphoria-inducing hooks paired with chopped up vocal samples serving as a lush bed for Wilson’s yearning delivery.
Realms‘ third and latest single “Delirious” is a trippy, Gary Numan-like, dance floor friendly bop built around layers of fluttering synths and a retro-futuristic, motorik groove. Wilson contributes a yearning and desperate vocal turn, evoking our wildly uncertain period. It’s arguably the most New Wave-like single, harkening back to the early days of her own career — but with a mischievously modern sensibility.
“I’m so happy that ‘Delirious’ is up to bat!” Wilson told Flood Magazine. ” It reminds me of elements of the new wave music we started out doing. I think it has the desperate vocals of the time, with a psychedelic fusion. Terrance McKenna loved ‘Private Idaho!’ Maybe he would have liked ‘Delirious!'”
