Tag: Pixies

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Featuring primary and founding members Ryan Needham and Liza Violet, along with a rotating cast of friends, collaborators and others, the Leeds, UK-based indie rock band Menace Beach received both national and international attention with the release of their full-length debut Ratworld and its follow-up Super Transporterreum EP — both of which were praised for an off-kilter, buzzing and fucked up take on 90s rock. Now, if you had been frequenting this site last year, you may recall that I wrote about “Ghoul Power,” the first single off Super Transporterreum EP, a song that tales a story about a pocket-sized, alien thou, who soaks up your darkness and anxieties –but after hanging out with the members of Menace Beach, who take him to way too many parties and shows, the alien winds up as a pale, sweaty  mess. Sonically, the song seemed to draw from Pixies, The Breeders and L7 while evoking a lurching fucked up, nauseating haze.

Written while in Ibiza and recorded in Sheffield, UK with Russ Orton, who’s worked with M.I.A., Arctic Monkeys and The Fall, the band’s forthcoming sophomore effort Lemon Memory was partially written as a way to lift a citrus-based curse that the band’s primary duo believe was placed on their house and as a way for them to forge their own sound and identity. The album’s latest single “Give Blood” begins with a couple of false starts before noisily chugging along in earnest with layers of scuzzy power chords fed through effects pedals and tons of feedback, propulsive and thundering drumming and an anthemic hook in which Needham and Violet sing about death — all while sounding as though the song were inspired by Blur and psych rock.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The Veldt Return with Sensual and Moody Visuals for “In A Quiet Room”

Now, earlier this year the newly reformed The Veldt released the first batch of new material in almost 20 years with the release of The Shocking Fuzz of Your Electric Fur: The Drake Equation Mixtape an effort which revealed a subtle meshing of the original The Veldt sound with that of Apollo Heights — and the result is a sound that pairs towering and shimmering guitar chords, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and Danny Chavis’ soulful yet ethereal crooning as you would have heard on the swooning “Sanctified” and their sultry yet moody latest single “In A Quiet Room.” And as those two singles and the tour supporting their EP revealed, the band’s sound manages to make a vital and important connection between The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Cocteau Twins, The Verve, Fishbone, Marvin Gaye, Prince and TV on the Radio among others.

Directed by Toshi Kaneiwa, the recently released music video possesses a painterly quality as the gorgeously shot black and white video features a nude woman brooding and posing in a room. And with each shot, you can almost picture an unseen photographer or painter creating a moody portrait.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Darkly Surreal Visuals and Shimmering Shoegazer Rock of Dead Leaf Echo’s “Lemonheart”

“Lemonheart,” will further cement their burgeoning reputation for crafting lush and shimmering shoegazer-like dream pop in the vein of RIDE, Swervedriver and Slowdive — or in other words, layers upon layers of shimmering guitar chords played through gentle amounts of reverb, a propulsive motorik-like groove paired with ethereal and wistful vocals.

The recently released video for “Lemonheart” employs a surreal and nightmarish logic as it features a beautiful young woman selling lemonade at a child’s lemonade stand, cutting lemons for lemonade, and occasionally sucking on a lemon when she encounters a man dressed as a lemon mascot, who’s devastated upon seeing the carnage inflicted on his fellow lemons. Running away, he encounters a female lemon who captures his attention and they return to get revenge on our lemonade stand girl.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting this site for some time, you’d likely know that I’m often multi-multitasking while working. A fair number of posts come about while watching the New York Yankees, the New York Giants or the New York Rangers or some crime show on Investigation Discovery. Yesterday, I was listening and writing a post while watching the Los Angeles Angeles of Anaheim vs. New York Yankees game when the London, UK-based indie rock quintet Heavy Heart‘s latest single “Pretty Thing” came up in the related artists list on Soundcloud. And I was immediately drawn to the lush, melodic, and anthemic, power chord and propulsive drumming-based 90s alt rock sound that should remind the listener of several acts including Pixies, A Northern Soul-era The Verve, The Posies and others; in fact, as a result, the British quintet has started to receive international attention as they’ve received some breathless praise from a number of blogs, have played shows in London, Barcelona and New York — and in the middle of a song-a-month project, which will likely garner even more attention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

With the release of their debut effort Dreaming, the Brooklyn-based trio Graveyard Lovers — comprised of Zach Reynolds (vocals, guitar), Tricia Purvis (drums) and Joel Reynolds (bass, guitar) — quickly received national attention for a sound that was compared favorably to the likes of Pixies, Sonic Youth and others. Building upon the buzz of their debut, the band’s music has been heard in a variety of movies and TV series including Showtime’s Shameless — and they’ll be releasing their album Past The Forest Of The Fruitless Thoughts in two parts, with part one in June and part two slated for release later this year. Part one’s first single “Told A Lie” will further cement the Brooklyn trio’s growing reputation for crafting 90s alt rock-inspired indie rock as the band pairs layers of jangling and buzzing guitars, throbbing bass lines and plaintive vocals with incredibly anthemic hooks — but with some electronics towards the bridge to add a subtly modern touch to a familiar and winning formula.

The band will be playing a Thursday night residency at Piano’s in the Lower East Side with one of the shows celebrating the release of “Told A Lie.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Trippy and Introspective Visuals for The Veldt’s “Sanctified”

Last month, I wrote two rather lengthy posts on the pioneering Raleigh, NC/NYC-based shoegaze quintet The Veldt. Currently comprised of founding members and identical twin brothers Daniel Chavis (vocals, guitar) and Danny Chavis (guitar) along with […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Earlier, I wrote a lengthy post about pioneering Raleigh, NC/NYC-based shoegaze quintet The Veldt. Currently comprised of founding members and identical twin brothers Daniel Chavis (vocals, guitar) and Danny Chavis (guitar) along with Hayato Nakao (bass), Frank Olsen (guitar), and Martin Levi (drums), the quintet can trace their origins to the vital and quirky Chapel Hill, NC music scene of the late 80s and early 90s — a scene that featured Superchunk (perhaps, the best known out of that entire scene), Polvo, Dillon Fence and others. Initially featuring the Chavis Brothers and Levi along with Joseph “Hue” Boyle (bass) and later David Burris, The Veldt managed to be a rather extreme rarity  as shoegaze act prominently featuring black men in a genre, as well as a place and time in which it was considered highly unusual — and honestly still is; however, despite how unusual it seemed, the then-Chapel Hill, NC-based band quickly attained “must-see” status in their home city and a rapidly growing national profile with the release of their debut effort Marigolds. 

Their 1994 Ray Shulman-produced sophomore effort Afrodisiac propelled the band towards international recognition and the band wound up opening and touring with the likes of  The Jesus and Mary Chain, Lush, Oasis, Cocteau Twins, Pixies, Fishbone, Corrosion of Conformity and others. Unfortunately, throughout their initial run together, the members of the band found with their management and labels who found them “too difficult to market” as their sound meshed elements of old school soul and shoegaze. And unsurprisingly, the band got dropped from their label. Struggling to fund writing, recording, releasing and marketing their work and touring, the band went through several lineup changes before officially going on hiatus in 1998.

Several years later, the Chavis Brothers had relocated to New York and started their post The Veldt project, Apollo Heights, which received quite a bit of buzz locally for a sound that added trip-hop and electronica to their previous mix of shoegaze and soul. In fact, I can clearly remember reading a raving and informative profile of the band in the old New York Press, a few years before I started to write for the publication. And honestly, it shouldn’t be surprising that critics and journalists were raving about the band — their 2007 Apollo Heights debut White Music For Black People was produced by Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie and featured guest spots from Guthrie on guitar, Mos Def, Lady Kier of Deee- Lite, TV on the Radio‘s Dave Sitek, and Mike Ladd.

Sadly, despite their early successes the Chavis Brothers work have been reduced to largely cult-favorite status; but interestingly enough, their work in The Veldt and Apollo Heights has managed to quietly reverberate and influence some highly regarded contemporary musicians — the members of  Bloc Party and TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek have publicly claimed The Veldt as influences on their work and sound, which has proven that the Chavis Brothers had the somewhat bitter misfortunate of being about 20 years ahead of their time; however, with the forthcoming release of The Shocking Fuzz of Your Electric Fur: The Drake Equation Mixtape, their first batch of original material in almost 20 years, the members of the reformed band seek to firmly establish their claim as the forebears and pioneers of a sound and aesthetic that has captured the blogosphere and fans by storm. And interestingly enough, they hop they do so in a similar fashion to the incredible renaissance that the members of Detroit-based proto-punk/proto-metal band Death has seen over the past few years.

“Sanctified,” the first single off The Shocking Fuzz reveals how deeply indebted TV on the Radio’s sound is to The Veldt as towering squalls of guitar chords played through gentle amounts of reverb paired with skittering yet propulsive drum programming and Danny Chavis’ soulful crooning in a tender and swooning song that evokes the feeling of being desperately, madly, stupidly in love — in a way that nods at subtly cosmic version of The Jesus and Mary Chain, if they had been influenced by Fishbone , Marvin Gaye and Prince; in other words, it’s shoegaze that manages to be irresistibly sexy.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Sweetly, Anxious Earnestness of Diet Cig’s New Single, “Dinner Date”

Comprised of Alex Luciano (guitar, vocals) and Noah Bowman (drums), the New Paltz, NY-based duo Diet Cig caught the attention of the blogosphere earlier this year with the release of their Over Easy EP  — and building […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Menace Beach’s Latest Single “Ghoul Power” Channels 90s Grunge Rock

With the release of their debut full-length effort, Ratworld earlier this year, the Leeds, UK-based quintet Menace Beach, comprised of Ryan Needham, Liza Violet, Matt Spalding, Nestor Matthews and Nick Chantler received international attention for what has been described as channelling grunge/alternative’s […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Live Concert Photography: Vivid Dreams at Rockwood Music Hall 5/17/15

Live Concert Photography: Vivid Dreams at Rockwood Music Hall  May 17, 2015 As you can imagine, since starting JOVM five years ago, I receive an overwhelming number of invites to shows in the NYC area […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting JOVM for the better part of the past year or so, you may have come across the electronic music act Du Tonc. Comprised of Matt Van Schie, best known for his […]