Tag: Pink Floyd The Wall

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of founding members Ison Van Winkle (vocals, guitar) and Ross Murakami (drums), along with Jacob Gutierrez and newest member, Mari Brossfield (keys, vocals), the Coachella Valley, California-based indie act Yip Yops can trace their origins back to 2011. As the story goes, Van Winkle, who was turned on to Pink Floyd’s The Wall by his father, “consciously and subconsciously” developed boundless ambition when it came to mutual. Through mutual friends, he attended a local jam session where he met Murakami, About a year later, the duo began jamming together, and it sparked the possibility of forming a band, centered around working together to accomplish a goal of creating the best music possible

Gutierrez joined the band for an industry conference, and as a teenaged trio, the band cut their teeth playing in and around the Coachella Valley area for the better part of a year-and-a-half. Brossfield joined the band, and as a result the band’s New Wave-inspired sound expanded to include male-female harmonies. Already the band has played sets at Coachella, Chinatown Summer Nights and Echo Park Rising and adding to a growing profile the band has opened for Lauren Ruth Ward and have released their latest single, “She” a single that draws from The Ting Tings “That’s Not My Name” and “Shut Up and Let Me Go,” and Freedom of Choice-era Devo, as the band employs the use of shimmering and arpeggiated synths, propulsive. tribal-like drumming and an infectious, razor sharp hook within an anachronistic yet carefully crafted song that sounds as though it could have been released in 1981, 2011 or 2018.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Going on a Hallucinogenic and Surreal Car Ride with Gaz Coombes in Visuals for “Deep Pockets”

Gareth “Gaz” Coombes is an Oxford, UK-born and raised singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist best known as a founding member and frontman of renowned British indie rock act Supergrass, who over the course of their 17 years together released six full-length albums — 1995’s I Should Coco, 1997’s In It for the Money 1999’s self-titled, 2002’s Life on Other Planets, 2005’s Road to Rouen and 2008’s Diamond Hoo Ha, all of which landed on the UK Top 20. (Reportedly, the band had written material for a seventh album, just before their breakup, Release the Drones that remains unfinished and unreleased.)

Since Supergrass’ breakup Coombes has released two solo efforts — 2011’s Sam Williams-produced Here Comes the Bombs and his breakthrough 2015, self-produced sophomore album, Matador, which received a Mercury Prize nod thanks to the commercial success of its five singles, as well as critical praise from the likes of Q Magazine and Mojo Magazine. Interestingly, Coombes’ third, full-length album World’s Strongest Man, which is slated for a May 4, 2018 release through Hot Fruit/Caroline International Records was written and recorded at Coombes’ home studio and at Oxford’s Courtyard Studios with co-production with his longtime collaborator Ian Davenport, in a working process that Coombes has compared to being like “editing a novel.” And in som way that shouldn’t be surprising as the album was reportedly inspired by Grayson Perry’s autobiography The Descent of Man, Frank Ocean‘s Blonde, the work of Neu! and hip-hop while at points exploring the effects of unchecked and toxic masculinity among other things — but with a deeply personal bent.

The album’s latest single “Deep Pockets” finds the former Supergrass frontman taking on a decided motorik groove, with the song nodding at Screamadelica and Evil Heat-era Primal Scream, complete with a slick and infectious hook — and the song will likely cement Coombes reputation for crafting mischievously forward thinking and hook driven rock.

The recently released self-directed, filmed and edited video features Coombes in the back of an Uber Pool during one of the oddest and trippiest rides I’ve ever seen, as the Uber Pool picks up a variety of weird characters as the car zooms through Los Angeles — and interestingly enough, for some reason the video reminds me of the paranoid and fucked up sequences during the movie rendition of Comfortably Numb in Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  As Coombes says in press notes about the video, “I shot the ‘Deep Pockets’ video on a shoestring, mostly in LA at the end of 2017. The idea came from the lyrics and memories of weird night drives over the years — a never ending car journey laced with paranoia, intermittent hallucinations and unexpected carpooling. I liked the idea of getting together with some fun, interesting people in a cat at night, filming it all and just seeing what happened. “

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Up-and-Coming Leeds, UK-based Band Koyo Returns with an Arena Rock-Friendly New Single

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the first few months of this year, you may recall a post featuring the Leeds-based indie rock quintet KOYO. Comprised of Kettering, UK-born, Leeds-based founding members Huw Edwards (lead vocals, guitar) and Jacob Price (synths and samplers) along with Seb Knee-Wright (guitar), Dan Comlay (bass) and Tom Hingham (drums). the up-and-coming British indie rock act have received attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere for a sound that reportedly draws from n across the blogosphere for a sound that draws from 90s grunge and alt rock and from Edwards’ and Price’s parents’ classic rock and prog rock-heavy record collections, as well as the electronica and post rock sounds of Floating Points, JOVM mainstays Mogwai and Brian Eno — but manages to sound as though it nodded at the work of Tame Impala, Wish You Were Here and The Wall-era Pink Floyd, 90125-era Yes and Radiohead as you would have heard on “Tetrochromat,” the album title track and first single off the band’s forthcoming full-length debut Tetrochromat.

The album’s latest single “Lost in the Kingdom” continues in a similar vein as its preceding single as it clearly draws from prog rock and art rock while being remarkably accessible, thanks in part to a rousingly Brit Pop-like hook; however, “Lost in the Kingdom” may arguably be one of the most ambitious and adventurous songs the up-and-coming British band may have written and released to date. In fact, the song sounds as though the band actively were trying to write an arena rock anthem that nodded at the likes of U2, Coldplay and others, while retaining a buzzy psychedelia.

Filmed and edited by Barry Hoffman at Soundyoucansee with additional footage by Joseph Burn and Joseph Burn Video Production and Kayla Cosgrove at Loving Lotus, the recently released music video for “Lost in the Kingdom” employs kaleidoscopic footage shot in the desert, superimposed with footage of the band performing the song, followed by other surreal and dream like imagery — and it’s done in a way that sort of reminds me Candlebox’s “Far Behind” and others.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Psychedelic Imagery for Toy’s “I’m Still Believing”

As you’ll hear on “I’m Still Believing,” Clear Shot’s second and latest single, the band’s sound has began to lean more towards lush, guitar pop territory as layers of shimmering and jangling acoustic guitar chords (with gentle amounts of reverb) are paired with soaring synths, an anthemic hook and Tom Dougall’s introspective lyrics, all while nodding at Nick Drakeand Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd.

The recently released music video employs a pretty basic concept of having the extremely British looking band performing the song in a variety of strobe lights and Super 8-like filters, sequences of the individual band members broodingly hanging out, brief bursts of animation and Japanese commercials and it gives the entire proceeding a trippy vibe reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s The Wall but with a playful air.