Tag: noise rock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of TV on the Radio‘s Kyp Malone, Samiam‘s Sean Kennerly, Fuckemos‘ and Surfbort’s Sean Powell, Midnight Masses‘ Giselle Reiber, Wild Yaks‘ Dan Scinta and B.A. Miele,  no-wave, noise-punk act Ice Balloons features an who’s who of contemporary indie rock. Although it’s a side project from each of their full-time gigs, the project find each member bringing sometimes disparate  elements from their pasts into their songwriting process and as you’ll hear on “Calypso Heartworm,” the latest single off the band’s forthcoming full-length debut Fiesta, the band specializes in a fuzzy and washed out dissonance paired with a difficult to discern song structure. There are hints at familiar elements though — there’s something like a bridge and there’s even something like a hook and even verses — and it’s held together by a propulsive and angular bass line, buzzing guitar chords and washed out sounds. And while possessing a trippy and kaleidoscopic vibe underneath the cacophony of noise, it’s a song that manages to feel simultaneously chaotic, slack and anxious.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps best known as one-half of acclaimed Brooklyn-based noise rock duo Talk Normal, an act that released two critically applauded albums, Sugarland and Sunshine and opened for the likes of Sonic Youth, Wire, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Zola Jesus among others, Andyra Ambro (vocals, drums) saw the breakup of the band, as marking a major shift in her own creative process and an opportunity to start something completely new with her solo recording project Gold Dime, which has been performing live as a trio — with  Jessica Ackerley and Ian Douglas-Moore — since 2014. Interestingly Ambro’s Gold Dime has received some attention nationally as the live trio have opened for Lower Dens, U.S. Girls and Xiu Xiu. And after several years of touring, writing and recording material, Ambro’s long-awaited Gold Dime debut Nerves is slated for a June 2, 2017 release through Fire Talk Records.

Self-produced by Ambro, recorded by PC Worship’s Justin Frey, mixed by Jonny Schenke and mixed by Ambro’s former Talk Normal partner Sarah Register, the album is a result in marked shift in Ambro’s creative process with the material reportedly consisting of much more exploratory and experimental compositions, and as you’ll hear on “Shut Up,” Nerves’ second single, Ambro’s sound manages to effortlessly alternate between swirling, hypnotic drone and wild and abrasive dissonance while held together by a propulsive motorik groove. Ambro’s ironically (and somewhat detached) deadpan vocals float over the mix. And while clearly possessing an almost neurotic and anxious tension, “Shut Up” in particular focuses on the challenges of confronting the struggles to continue creating meaningful, interesting art when there seem to be larger forces against you — and those forces push, shove and taunt you in every possible way.

Seemingly drawing from New York’s early 80s No Wave, art rock, noise rock and post-punk the song — and in turn, Ambro’s latest work — manages to do in a way that’s uncompromisingly, defiantly and joyously weird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps best known as members of renowned Sacramento, CA-based experimental hip-hop act Death Grips, Zach Hill and Andy Morin formed their experimental rock/noise rock/punk rock side project The I.L.Y’s in 2015 and they’ve quietly released two full-length albums, their 2015 debut I’ve Always Been Good at True Love and their 2016 sophomore effort Scum With Boundaries. The duo’s third full-length album is slated for a May 16, 2017 digital release, followed by a vinyl and CD release through Castle Face Records on June 16, 2017 — and while the new album has the band collaborating with guitarist Tristan Tozer, who’s best known for his work with Yah Mos and Drug Apts, the album’s first single “I Love You, Man,” will further cement the duo’s reputation for crafting noisy and swaggering, industrial-leaning rock that sounds indebted to hip-hop, punk rock and 80s post punk.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Denmark’s Shocking White Return with a Noise Rock-Leaning, New Single Paired with 120 Minute MTV-era Visuals

Late last month, I wrote about the Aarhus, Denmark-based indie rock/noise rock trio Shocking White. Currently comprised of founding member Jan Petersen (guitar, vocals), along with Rune Randlev (bass) and Marco Bøgehøj (drums), the Danish trio have released four albums in which they’ve experimented with their sound, writing energetic post punk, nihilistic No Wave and feral garage rock primarily rooted in noise rock. And although the band was initially founded back in 2009, the Danish trio has started to receive attention both across Denmark and elsewhere across Scandinavia as they’ve played at some of the region’s biggest festivals, including Recession Festival, Pop Revo, Mejlgade for Mangfoldighed and Spot Festival. Adding to a growing international presence, the band has toured Denmark with Norwegian space rock act Kal-El and Canadian avant-garde punk act Alpha Strategy, and 2016’s “Tweet Scientists” 7 inch, which Copenhagen-based label Tigermilk Records released. Along with that, the Danish trio will be included on a forthcoming compilation featuring internationally-based alt rock/indie rock bands.

Ghosting, Shocking White’s fourth studio album was released last month and the album continues their ongoing collaboration with producer Rasmus Bredvig, who along with the members of the band recorded the album in 3 days at Aarhus-based Tapetown Studio. Now, as you may recall, I wrote about the album’s first single, “Into The Sun,” a single that managed to sound as though it drew influence from 80s grunge rock — i.e., Pixies, Sonic Youth and Nirvana — as the Danish trio pairs power chords played through reverb and distortion pedals with a rousingly anthemic hook, a propulsive and chugging rhythm section and a playfully pop-leaning sense of melody while thematically focusing on a profound and palpable fear of death that gives the song an underlying sense of menace and unease. The album’s second and latest single “Far From Bloom,” continues in a similar vein; however, the single also manages to be reminiscent of The Jesus and Mary Chain, A Place to Bury Strangers, but with an anthemic hook.

Bearing an uncanny resemblance to the video for “Into The Sun,” the recently released video for the song features footage shot in color-treated film negatives which create an otherworldly, psychedelic feel to the proceedings while being reminiscent of the thousands of videos I’ve watched during 120 Minutes-era MTV.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Although he may be best known as a member of renowned Brooklyn-based trio and JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers, the New Zealand-born, Brooklyn-based bassist Dion Lunadon can trace the origins of his music career to when he cut his teeth in his homeland as a member of The D4. During a short break in touring with APTBS, Lunadon had a sudden rush of inspiration that resulted in what he has described as a neurotic implies to write and record a bunch of songs right there and then — and the result was his solo debut EP, Com/Broke, an effort which drew from the bands that inspired him in his youth, including Toy Love and The Gun Club, as well as New Zealand unknowns such as Gestalt and Supercar while defying what may typically expected of someone who’s approaching middle age.

Lunadon’s highly-anticipated and still untitled full-length debut is forthcoming and the album’s first single “Fire” reveals a man, who refuses to start the process of going quietly into the night, but instead maintains the primal, furious roar that many heard on Com/Broke while subtly drawing from psych and garage rock as soaring organs are paired with enormous power chords with blistering peals of feedback, a forceful and propulsive bass line, thundering drumming and Lunadon’s shouting and howling throughout the song. Interestingly, the song manages evoke a tense, anxious paranoia  — the anxious, creeping paranoia that many of us likely feel during this weird political climate.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: A Place to Bury Strangers in St. Petersburg Russia and Santiago Chile

Currently comprised of Oliver Ackermann (guitars and vocals), Dion Lunadon (bass) and Robi Gonzalez (drums), the Brooklyn-based trio of A Place to Bury Strangers have a long-held reputation for a moody, atmospheric Wall of Sound-influenced sound which effortlessly meshes elements of psych rock, shoegaze, space rock and noise rock in a way that owes a profound debt to The Jesus and Mary Chain and others — and for one of most explosive, feedback-filled, punishingly loud live shows around, while being shrouded in strobe light and smoke machine fog. Recently, a Twitter follower had retweeted a recent post — of which I’m eternally grateful — and I began telling him about several bands with a similar sound, including A Place to Bury Strangers.

Now, there’s quite bit of live footage of the Brooklyn-based trio shot by fans and professionals alike, as well as several live sessions for renowned Seattle-based indie station KEXP; but in my opinion the best live footage I’ve come across was a live show in St. Petersburg, Russia shot by Musicserf Magazine in 2013, which includes “Deadbeat,” “Don’t Go,” “Ego Death,” “I Know I’ll See You,” “Missing You,” “Mind Control,” “Drill It Up,” “I’m So Clean,” “You Are The One,” “Keep Slipping Away,” and set closer “I Lived My Life to Stand in the Shadow of Your Heart.” The second video was shot at Bar Loreto in Santiago, Chile last year (presumably) and features the band performing “Fear,” “Deeper,” “I Live My Life to Stand in the Shadow of Your Heart” and “Wild Animal.”

After you’ve viewed the footage, you’ll see why the Brooklyn-based trio is one of my favorite live bands to see and to shoot.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Comprised of Morgan Fox, Andrew Garcia and Kenneth Draper, the Sacramento, CA-based noise rock trio So Stressed initially began as a largely improvisational noise project. And although it took two-and-a-half years to write and record, the trio’s 2015 full-length debut The Unlawful Trade of Greco-Roman Art had material which took on a harsh, cold and digital-based sound, as the band’s Morgan Fox explained in press notes. The band’s highly-anticipated sophomore effort Please Let Me Know will come on the heels of a recently released 7 inch though Ghost Ramp Records, and unlike their debut, the material on their sophomore effort was written in less than a year, and was quickly recorded, mixes and mastered by their friend Pat Hillis at Earth Tone Studio.

As Morgan Fox goes on to explain in press notes “As far as making the record, we were definitely less focused on a specific sound when we were writing this . . . This one pretty harsh too, but we also allowed ourselves to kind of do whatever we wanted as long as all three of us liked it and it was fun to play. Ugly noise is cool, but so is melody.” Interestingly, Please Let Me Know‘s first single “The King’s Wig” is a blistering and furious barnburner, complete with rapid-fire tempo changes, howled and shouted vocals — and sonically the songs is reminiscent of Cinemechanica‘s equally blistering self-titled album while possessing a bit of ache at its core.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Cinemechanica’s Abrasive, Insistent Sounds and Visuals for “Hang Up The Spurs”

The album’s second single “Hang Up The Spurs” will further cement the trio’s reputation for crafting incredibly abrasive and punishing barn burners consisting of spastic tempo changes, dense layers of slashing, angular guitar chords, rapid fire, staccato drumming that evokes machine guns and furiously howled vocals. It’s frenetic, angry, insistent and full of spastic, whiplash-inducing tempo changes that evoke a furious and pain-filled how into an uncaring, indifferent universe.

Comprised of South Park-like construction paper animation by Travis Betz, the recently released video for “Hang Up The Spurs” possess a surreally nightmarish and grimly violet dream-like logic, in which killer robots roam the Earth and stab everything in their sight, including the soldiers tasked to destroy those killer robots and ends with the moon turned into an angry Medusa that turns everything on the planet into stone.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Although formed more than a decade ago, Athens, GA-based act Cinemechanica have managed to only release their groundbreaking debut effort, The Martial Arts and its follow-up, Rivals EP; however, the band featuring the primary and founding trio of Bryant Williamson (guitar), Joel Hatstat (bass) and Maserati‘s Mike Albanese (drums have developed a reputation for being one of the Southeast’s pioneering math rock/noise rock acts — and for a meticulous attention to detail, frequently taking several months to write on songs that may only last a few seconds.

The band’s long-awaited sophomore, self-titled, full-length effort is slated for a September 23, 2016 through Arrowhawk Records — and the album, which was recorded with Kevin Ratterman, best known for his work with Young Widows and My Morning Jacket and mixed by Converge’s Kurt Ballou has the band collaborating with Manray‘s Jordan Olivera (guitar/vocals) and with Lazer/Wulf’s Bryan Aiken for live shows.

Clocking in at a little over two minutes, the self-titled album’s first single “Vietnamese Pool Party” brings to mind a number of adjectives — often simultaneously: punishing, frenetic, tense, blistering, abrasive, aggressively sneering, teeth-baring, muscular, insistent, angular. And that shouldn’t be surprising as the band pairs dense, cascading sheens of angular guitar stabs, thundering and rolling drumming and frayed vocal chord howling in a song that feels and sounds as though the band is trying to squeeze as many notes as humanly possible within a bar of music, while structurally leaning towards spastic and impatient prog rock as the song actually is comprised of three distinct sections of incredibly dexterous guitar work by Williamson and Olivera held together by Albanese’s propulsive and forceful drumming.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Existential Visuals and Sounds of Brooklyn’s Bambara

BAMBARA – All The Ugly Things from blaze bateh on Vimeo. With the release of DREAMVIOLENCE, the Brooklyn-based trio Bambara, comprised of twin brothers Reid and Blaze Bateh and William Brookshire quickly became a JOVM mainstay […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays CROSSS Return with Dark, Horror Film-Inspired Visuals for “Golden Hearth”

If you’ve been frequenting the site over the past 15-18 months or so, you’ve likely come across a post or two on JOVM mainstay act, Toronto, ON-based proto-metal/doom metal trio CROSSS. And although the band is rather […]

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Check Out The Creepy, New Video for A Place to Bury Strangers’ “Supermaster”

If you’ve been frequenting JOVM for some time now, you’ve likely come across a post on the Brooklyn-based trio  A Place to Bury Strangers, and although the band has gone through a number of lineup […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Charlee Cook, Chance Cook, Will Hicks, and Dom Marcoaldi, the Nashville, TN-based experimental quartet Linear Downfall have developed a reputation for a sound that blends abrasive, almost psychotic noise with gorgeous melodies. And as the band notes, their music is meant to tap into the highs and lows of life and challenges the listener to look inward. After the self-release of three full-length albums, an EP and some rather extensive touring across the US, the band managed to catch the attention of The Flaming Lips, which interestingly enough led to a side project featuring members of the band, that they dubbed Electric Würms.

Last year may have arguably been the most productive and prolific period in the band’s history, as they completed a tour to support their third full-length album Fragmental Hippocampus, released the first Electric Würms album, Musik, die Schwer zu Twerk and released a 5 song EP as the band was busily putting the finishing touches on their forthcoming effort, Sufferland, which is slated for a November 6 release. As the band notes in press notes the new album will be released with a full-length film meant to correspond with the material on the album. In some way, it would seem that the material on the album would be — at least informally — the film’s score. 

With that in mind, Sufferland‘s first single “The Question” is a tense and uneasy song consisting of propulsive, tribal drumming, feedback, electronic squeaks, squawks, bleeps and bloops. twisting and turning organ chords and obscured by the abrasive, and menacing post apocalyptic noise is a trippy, off-kilter sense of melody that makes the song evoke that unsettled feeling you’d have after waking up from a very fucked up dream.


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