Tag: Orlando FL

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays The Lovelines Shares Woozy, Reggae-Tinged “Girl”

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink on The Lovelines. The duo, which is currently split between Berlin and  Orlando, have been very busy during that same period steady releasing singles that have caught the attention of the blogosphere and elsewhere.

The duo’s latest single “Girl” is anchored around a woozy yet languorous production featuring a reggae-influenced groove, bursts of glistening guitar paired with Tessa D’s soulful, subtly swaggering delivery. “Girl” manages to recall some of the JOVM mainstays earliest material, the new single continues to showcase an act that writes songs with an effortless attention to craft, while being remarkably hooky.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Lovelines Shares Slow-Burning “Slow High”

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink on The Lovelines. The duo, which is currently split between Berlin and  Orlando, released material from their forthcoming full-length debut single-by-single. 

The duo’s latest single “Slow High” is a slow-burning ballad that to my ears is one-part Still Corners, one-part lullaby, one part-Amy Winehouse soul, and a subtle Sgt. Pepper nod that serves as a lush bed for Tessa D’s soulful croon.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays The Lovelines Shares New Order-Inspired “Shades of Blue”

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink on The Lovelines. The duo, which is currently split between Berlin and  Orlando, released material from their forthcoming full-length debut single-by-single.

The JOVM mainstays’ latest single “Shades of Blue” is a nostalgia-inducing and hook-driven bit of post punk, that reminds me a bit of fellow JOVM mainstays Club 8 — while clearly being indebted to early 80s New Order.

The band’s Todd Goings explains “‘Shades of Blue’ is an ode to New Wave; it was me pretending I was writing a song for New Order.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: BIJOU Teams Up with Jenny Voss on a Club Rocking Banger

Best known in electronic music circles as BIJOU, Ben Dorman is a rising house music producer, who exploded into the scene with 2016’s “Hello” with Dr. Fresch. Over the past handful of years, Dorman has released a series of bangers that includes “I KNOW” with Marten Hørger, “The Players Anthem” feat. Benny the Butcher and “Gang Gang,” along with chart topping EPs 2019’s Gangsta Party and 2021’s Street Knowledge. That material revealed a producer, who melds timeless hip-hop vibes with classic house undertones that remain underground while being main stage ready.

Along with production, he started his own label, Do Not Duplicate Recordings (DND RECS) while heading out on a multiple sold-out tours.

Dorman will be embarking on a Stateside tour that will see him playing sets in NYC, Seattle and Chicago, as well as making a run of the festival circuit with a set at Orlando‘s Home Bass Festival.

Dorman’s latest track, the anthemic “Seduction” is an slick and swaggering “Rhythm Is A Dancer“-like tune with skittering beats, euphoria-inducing drops and hooks and twinkling synths anchored around Jenny Voss‘ soulful, powerhouse delivery. “Seduction” reveals a producer, who can boldly craft an enormous, crowd-pleasing, club banger.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays The Lovelines Share Woozy “Make Believe (Life Is Such A Dream)”

Currently split between Berlin and  Orlando, the JOVM mainstays The Lovelines — the sibling duo of Tessa D (vocals) and Todd Goings (multi-instrumentalist, songwriting and prodution) — have released material from their forthcoming full-length debut single-by-single. 

Over the past handful of months, I’ve written about five of the album’s singles:

  • “May Be Love,” a slow-burning torch song-like take on trip hop and neo-soul built around shimmering pedal steel and congo-led percussion paired with Tessa D’s soulful vocal expressing an aching longing for love — and to be loved. 

  • “What Kind of Fool Would Want to Fall in Love?” a breezy pop song built around a looped, shimmering, finger plucked acoustic guitar melody and percussive percussion paired with Tessa D’s soulful crooning. On one level, the song views love with a healthy cynicism — but as the band’s Todd Goings explains, “What Kind of Fool Would Want to Fall in Love is a portrait of the fool in love. Do only fools fall in love or does love make us fools?“

  • “Low Fidelity” is a decidedly jazz pop/pop jazz take on their firmly established trip hop-inspired sound that’s rooted in their penchant for incredibly catchy hooks, dusty, old-school inspired production paired with Tessa D’s soulful crooning. 

  • “Darlin’,” a slow-burning torch song that’s one-part neo-soul, one-part old school pop-meets trip hop anchored around a dusty, lo-fi production featuring twinkling Rhodes, boom-bap like drumming and a supple bass line serving as a lush bed for Tessa D’s soulful and yearning crooning. 

  • “Killing Floor,” a vibey bit of psych-tinged neo-soul, anchored around a glistening vaguely Eastern-like guitar line, congo-driven percussion samples of casino games blaring and bleeping. The song’s arrangement and production serves as a lush yet strangely atmospheric bed for Tessa D’s soulful croon.

The duo’s latest single “Make Believe (Life Is Such A Dream)” is a woozy trip-hop-like take on indie pop anchored around twinkling and arpeggiated keys, reverb-soaked pedal steel and skittering beats paired with the duo’s unerring knack for crafting catchy hooks. The song’s arrangement and production serves as a dusty bed for Tessa D’s heartbroken delivery.

“It is a song about lying to oneself,” the duo explain. “The inspiration for the song was ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,’ in that the sound of the song and the lyrics of the song are tonal opposites. It sounds light, but when you read the lyrics it’s dark. So, is it a light song, or is it a dark song? It’s both, and is dependant on the listener’s perception of it. In Make Believe, the protagonist is in a loveless relationship, and rather than accepting this truth, chooses to lie to themselves. The sound of the song is the lie, and the lyrics are the truth.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays The Lovelines Take a Gamble on Love

Currently split between Berlin and  Orlando, the JOVM mainstays The Lovelines — the sibling duo of Tessa D (vocals) and Todd Goings (multi-instrumentalist, songwriting and prodution) — have released material from their forthcoming full-length debut single-by-single.

So far, I’ve managed to write about four of the album’s singles:

  • “May Be Love,” a slow-burning torch song-like take on trip hop and neo-soul built around shimmering pedal steel and congo-led percussion paired with Tessa D’s soulful vocal expressing an aching longing for love — and to be loved. 

  • “What Kind of Fool Would Want to Fall in Love?” a breezy pop song built around a looped, shimmering, finger plucked acoustic guitar melody and percussive percussion paired with Tessa D’s soulful crooning. On one level, the song views love with a healthy cynicism — but as the band’s Todd Goings explains, “What Kind of Fool Would Want to Fall in Love is a portrait of the fool in love. Do only fools fall in love or does love make us fools?“

  • “Low Fidelity” is a decidedly jazz pop/pop jazz take on their firmly established trip hop-inspired sound that’s rooted in their penchant for incredibly catchy hooks, dusty, old-school inspired production paired with Tessa D’s soulful crooning. 

  • “Darlin’,” a slow-burning torch song that’s one-part neo-soul, one-part old school pop-meets trip hop anchored around a dusty, lo-fi production featuring twinkling Rhodes, boom-bap like drumming and a supple bass line serving as a lush bed for Tessa D’s soulful and yearning crooning.

The album’s latest single “Killing Floor” is a vibey bit of psych-tinged neo soul, rooted in glistening vaguely Eastern sounding guitar, congo-driven percussion, samples of casino games blaring and bleeping serving as a lush yet strangely atmospheric bed for Tessa D’s soulful croon.

“‘Killing Floor’ is about the abstract connection between three subjects: a casino, a slaughterhouse, and life itself,” the band’s Todd Goings explains. “Every one of these places/things is a killing floor in its own sense. The idea is a ‘if the game is rigged and you’re bound to lose, you might as well gamble’ thing… gamble on love, gamble on pursuing a dream, etc.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Lovelines Share Slow-Burning Torch Song “Darlin'”

Over the past year or so, Orlando-based sibling duo and JOVM mainstays The Lovelines — Tessa D (vocals) and Todd Goings (multi-instrumentalist, songwriting and production) — have released material from their forthcoming full-length debut, single-by-single.

I’ve managed to write about three of the album’s singles:

  • “May Be Love,” a slow-burning torch song-like take on trip hop and neo-soul built around shimmering pedal steel and congo-led percussion paired with Tessa D’s soulful vocal expressing an aching longing for love — and to be loved. 

  • “What Kind of Fool Would Want to Fall in Love?” a breezy pop song built around a looped, shimmering, finger plucked acoustic guitar melody and percussive percussion paired with Tessa D’s soulful crooning. On one level, the song views love with a healthy cynicism — but as the band’s Todd Goings explains, “What Kind of Fool Would Want to Fall in Love is a portrait of the fool in love. Do only fools fall in love or does love make us fools?“

  • “Low Fidelity” is a decidedly jazz pop/pop jazz take on their firmly established trip hop-inspired sound that’s rooted in their penchant for incredibly catchy hooks, dusty, old-school inspired production paired with Tessa D’s soulful crooning. 

The duo’s latest single “Darlin'” is a slow-burning torch song that that’s subtly one-part neo-soul, one-part old school pop-meets trip-hop rooted around a dusty, lo-fi-like production featuring twinkling Rhodes, boom bap-like drumming and a supple baseline serving as a lush bed for Tessa D’s soulful and yearning crooning.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Lovelines Share a Breezy Meditation on Love

Orlando-based sibling duo and JOVM mainstays The Lovelines — Tessa D (vocals) and Todd Goings (multi-instrumentalist, songwriting and production) — emerged into the scene with the late 2021 release of their debut single “Strange Kind of Love,” a slick synthesis of Amy Winehouse-like blue-eyed soul, jazz standadrs and Dummy-era Portishead-like trip-hop centered around Tessa D’s soulful crooning and a dusty production featuring twinkling Rhodes, wobbly guitars and an infectious, razor sharp hook. 

Over the past year, the Orlando-based JOVM mainstays have released material from their forthcoming full-length debut single-by-single over that period. Last month, the duo shared “May Be Love,” a slow-burning torch song-like take on trip hop and neo-soul built around shimmering pedal steel and congo-led percussion paired with Tessa D’s soulful vocal expressing an aching longing for love — and to be loved.

The album’s latest single, the hook-driven “What Kind of Fool Would Want to Fall in Love?” features a looped, shimmering and finger plucked acoustic, guitar melody and propulsive percussion paired with Tessa D’s soulful crooning. On one level, the song views love with a healthy cynicism — but as the band’s Todd Goings explains, “What Kind of Fool Would Want to Fall in Love is a portrait of the fool in love. Do only fools fall in love or does love make us fools?“

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: BluFlame Shares Swaggering “Outta Sight”

BluFlame is an emerging emcee, who was born in Bartow, FL, a town located between Tampa and Orlando and just south of Lakeland. While the town is named after Francis S. Barrow, the first brigade commander of the Confederate Army to die in combat during the Civil War, it’s best known as the birthplace of Hall of Fame linebacker and two-time Super Bowl Champ, Ray Lewis.

The Bartow-born emcee, grew up in Winter Haven‘s Abby Lane neighborhood, one of the region’s toughest neighborhoods. “Back then, Abby Lane was the streets,” he says. My cousin and I witnessed out first murder. A lady got her head blown off by her husband. I remember me and my cousin running, until the asthma kicked in. We seen the police everyday, if not every night. It was crazy fights everyday. Throw ‘em up, bust ‘em up…is what we called it. But it was a grind all day, every day.” Unsurprisingly, the environment forced the young, emerging emcee to mature much younger than most while fostering a desire to protect and provide for his family as best as he could. “I had to help take off my lil brother and sisters when I was 7. So I hustled and sold candy…anything to keep the family alive,” he says.

His latest single “Outta Sight” pairs a hyper contemporary trap production — featuring skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling beats, eerily twinkling synths serving as a sleek vehicle for the emerging emcee’s remarkably self-assured and swaggering delivery full of some hilarious punchlines rooted in pop culture references. The single reveals an emcee and producer with an uncanny knack for a catchy hook.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Lovelines Share Slow-Burning and Yearning “May Be Love”

Orlando-based sibling duo and JOVM mainstays The Lovelines — Tessa D (vocals) and Todd Goings (multi-instrumentalist, songwriting and production) — emerged into the scene with the late 2021 release of their debut single “Strange Kind of Love,” a slick synthesis of Amy Winehouse-like blue-eyed soul, jazz standadrs and Dummy-era Portishead-like trip-hop centered around Tessa D’s soulful crooning and a dusty production featuring twinkling Rhodes, wobbly guitars and an infectious, razor sharp hook. 

Over the past year, the Orlando-based JOVM mainstays have released material from their forthcoming full-length debut single-by-single over that period. Their latest single, “May Be Love,” is a slow-burning torch song take on trip hop and neo-soul built around shimmering pedal steel and congo-led percussion paired with Tessa D’s soulful vocal expressing an aching longing for love — and to be loved. We’ve all been there at some point or another. And we’ll all continue to be there at some point or another, too.

“‘May Be Love’ is a song about love and foolishness. It’s about what a fool love can make you be, but, oh to be a fool in love. You know?” The Lovelines Todd Goings says of the new single.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays The Lovelines Share Sultry “Make Believe”

Orlando-based sibling duo and JOVM mainstays The Lovelines — Tessa D (vocals) and Todd Goings (multi-instrumentalist, songwriting and production) — with the late 2021 release of their debut single “Strange Kind of Love,” a slick synthesis of Amy Winehouse-like blue-eyed soul, jazz standadrs and Dummy-era Portishead-like trip-hop centered around Tessa D’s soulful crooning and a dusty production featuring twinkling Rhodes, wobbly guitars and an infectious, razor sharp hook. The single eventually rose to #1 on SubmitHub’s Popular Charts.

The Orlando-based duo’s second single, “Dark Thoughts About A Pretty Flower,” a sultry trip hop-like number with a dusty lo-fi-like production featuring twinkling Rhodes, slashing guitars, propulsive polyrhythm paired with Tessa D’s soulful crooning and an infectious hook. “‘Dark Thoughts About A Pretty Flower’ was written to be free for interpretation,” The Lovelines’ Todd Goings explained to me in an email. “Is it a song about love or is it a song about a literal flower? Is it a song about pessimism, or a song about perversion, or is it a song about both?”

The duo have written and recorded their full-length debut and plan to release it single-by-single over the course of 2022-2023. The album will feature previously released singles “Dark Thoughts About A Pretty Flower” and “Steadily,” a woozy featuring dusty hip hop-inspired breakbeats, glistening Rhodes, a supple bass line and the duo’s uncanny knack for crafting razor sharp hooks. Tessa D’s sultry vocal floating through the Geoff Barrow-like mix production helped further cement their unique take on trip-hop.

The Lovelines’ first single of 2023, “Make Believe” is a slow-burning and woozy take on trip-hop featuring dusty breakbeats, twinkling keys, shimmering bursts of pedal steel paired with Tessa D’s gorgeous and soulful delivery expressing a mix of longing, desire, desperation and pride. The song focuses on the push and pull of a dysfunctional relationship that can’t quite be escaped.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Orlando’s The Lovelines’ Sultry New Single

So I royally fucked something up yesterday and realized after I posted something that I confused two different songs by the same artist. We all have off days but that’s — well, something different. I’m really sorry for the confusion. But let’s back to business at hand . . .

Orlando-based sibling duo outfit The Lovelines — Tessa D (vocals) and Todd Goings (multi-instrumentalist, songwriting and production) — emerged late last year with their single “Strange Kind of Love,” which rose to #1 on SubmitHub’s Popular Charts.

Once you hear “Strange Kind of Love,” you can kind of hear why it took a portion of the blogosphere by storm. “Strange Kind of Love” is a slick synthesis of Amy Winehouse-like blue-eyed soul, jazz standadrs and Dummy-era Portishead-like trip-hop centered around Tessa D’s soulful crooning and a dusty production featuring twinkling Rhodes, wobbly guitars and an infectious, razor sharp hook. 

“Dark Thoughts About A Pretty Flower” is a soulful and sultry take on trip hop featuring Tessa D’s soulful crooning paired with a dusty production featuring twinkling Rhodes, buzzing and slashing guitars, propulsive polyrhythm and their uncanny knack for infectious hooks.

“‘Dark Thoughts About A Pretty Flower’ was written to be free for interpretation,” The Lovelines’ Todd Goings explained to me in an email. “Is it a song about love or is it a song about a literal flower? Is it a song about pessimism, or a song about perversion, or is it a song about both?”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Orlando’s The Lovelines Share a Soulful Take on Trip-Hop

Orlando-based sibling duo outfit The Lovelines — Tessa D (vocals) and Todd Goings (multi-instrumentalist, songwriting and production) emerged late last year with their single “Strange Kind of Love,” which rose to #1 on SubmitHub’s Popular Charts.

Of course, once you hear “Strange Kind of Love,” you can kind of hear why it took a portion of the blogosphere by storm. “Strange Kind of Love” is a slick synthesis of Amy Winehouse-like blue-eyed soul and Dummy-era Portishead-like trip-hop centered around Tessa D’s soulful crooning and a dusty production featuring twinkling Rhodes, slashing and buzzing guitars, propulsive polyrhythm and an infectious, razor sharp hook.

“‘Dark Thoughts About A Pretty Flower’ was written to be free for interpretation,” The Lovelines’ Todd Goings explained to me in an email. “Is it a song about love or is it a song about a literal flower? Is it a song about pessimism, or a song about perversion, or is it a song about both?”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially started as a bedroom solo recording project back in 2017, Orlando-based psych outfit Timothy Eerie has become a full-fledged band with a rotating cast of players. The Orlando-based psych outfit’s latest single “We’re Going To Make It” is a sunny and lysergic anthem for the end of the world — or our near dystopian future.

Centered around reverb-drenched vocals. glistening organ arpeggios, scorching guitars and forceful drumming, “We’re Going To Make It” is indebted to 60s psych rock but with a modern twist: the song’s narrator knows that the hope for a better world may be desperate and foolish, which gives the song a bitterly ironic bite, just under the trippy vibes.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past couple of years, I’ve managed to write a bit about JOVM Matthew Messore, who’s an Orlando, FL-born and-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. best known as the creative mastermind behind the rapidly rising bedroom recording project Cathedral Bells. Since the release of 2018’s self-titled EP, which received support from David Dean Burkhart and praise from The Line of Best Fit, Messore has released a handful of singles from his highly-anticipated Cathedral Bells full-length debut Velvet Spirit, which is slated for a March 6, 2020 release through Good Eye Records.

The JOVM mainstay begins 2020 with “Disconnected,” the latest single off his forthcoming debut, and much like its predecessors, the new single continues to cement the sound that has won the attention of the blogosphere, including this site: centered around Messore’s ethereal vocals, delicately shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars and a motorik groove, “Disconnected” is a shoegazer-like take on New Wave that recalls early 4AD Records and others but while possessing a swooning urgency.