About two weeks ago, you may recall that I wrote about the Texas-born, New York-based singer/songwriter Melany Watson. Watson has been singing and performing music for as long as she can probably remember but, she can […]
Tag: pop
New Video: Pr0files’ “Subterranean Homesick Blues”-Inspired Video for “Empty Hands”
The past few days around here have focused on artists who have become mainstays on this site, and if you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past couple of years, you may be familiar with yet another mainstay […]
Born and reared in the Springfield, IL area and currently splitting her time between San Francisco, CA and Big Sur, CA singer/songwriter. guitarist and producer Jenny Gillespie can trace her musical career to her childhood — during drives to and from town, a young Gillespie spent quite a bit of time harmonizing in the backseat with her sister, who is a gifted pianist. When Gillespie was 13, she picked up her mother’s Martin guitar and began putting the poems she had started writing to music. A local record clerk changed the young singer/songwriter’s life by giving her albums from three of the 90s’ most renowned singer/songwriters — Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan and Shawn Colvin.
After stints living in Virginia, Paris and Texas, Gillespie relocated to Chicago, where she self-produced and then released the folk and alt-country influenced sophomore effort Light Year to a fair amount of critical praise across the blogosphere. As a result of Light Year‘s exposure, Gillespie met Darwin Smith, an Austin, TX-based multi-instrumentalist, with whom she wrote her third full-length effort, Kindred, a sparse, experimental, electronica-based effort recorded in an old house in Wilmette, IL with contributions from Steve Moore, who has worked with Tift Merritt and Laura Veirs and Dony Wynn, who has worked with Robert Plant.
Inspired by a volunteer trip to Kenya that led her to an African fingerpicking class at the Old Town School of Folk Music and studying for an MFA in Poetry at North Carolina’s Warren Wilson College, Gillespie found her sound and songwriting approach expanding and becoming more refined. And by the fall of 2011, she traveled to NYC to record the EP Belita with Shazard Ismaily, a multi-instrumentalist who has worked with Lou Reed, Bonnie Prince Billy, and St. Vincent. Interestingly, that effort possesses elements of pop, folk music, African and Asian rhythms and tones.
Featuring contributions from Emmett Kelly (Bonnie Prince Billy) on guitar and Joe Adamik (Califone, Iron and Wine) on drums, her last full-length effort Chamma was released to critical praise, including landing on Billboard Magazine‘s Top 25 Albums of 2014 List. Naturally, that has seen Gillespie’s profile grow nationally — and continuing on that buzz, the singer/songwriter is set to release Chamma‘s follow-up, Cure for Dreaming early next year through Narooma Records. Recorded over the past couple of months and featuring contributions from Paul Bryan (Aimee Mann), drummer Jay Bellerose (Robert Plant and Allison Krauss’ Raising Sand), guitarist Chris Bruce (Meshell Ndgeocello), guitarist Gerry Leonard (David Bowie), and pedal steel player Greg Leisz (Lucinda Williams, Bon Iver), the album reportedly possesses elements of folk, progressive jazz, and 60s and 70s AM pop.
“No Stone” Cure for Dreaming‘s first single pairs Gillespie’s husky and unhurried vocals with a spacious yet warm and subtly jazz-like arrangement of keys, guitar, bass, gently buzzing electronics and hushed drumming in a song that feels as intimate as a lover whispering sweet nothings in your ear. And at its core, is conversational lyricism that possesses a novelist’s attention to detail, as you can picture the woman who hides her face by the ocean, the cherry blossom trees in bloom, someone peering through a keyhole to see a depressed woman struggling to just starting her day — and a novelist’s attention to psychological detail. The song’s narrator feels like a fully-fleshed out person, desperately struggling to push on. Interestingly, each time I’ve played the song I’ve been reminded of how Gillespie sounds so much like Joni Mitchell — it’s incredibly uncanny.
New Video: Sofi de la Torre’s Late Night, Noir-ish, Electro Pop
Over the past few months, Spanish-born Berlin-based singer/songwriter Sofi de la Torre has become something of a mainstay artist on this site. Now, if you’re new to the site — or just need a refresher let’s get into […]
New Video: The Infectious, Girl Power Video for Escort’s “My Life”
New York-based neo-disco/electronic dance music/funk collective Escort have been mainstays on this site, since its inception 5 years ago. And over the course of that period, the collective founded by producers Eugene Cho and Dan Balls featuring frontwoman […]
Over the course of this site’s five year history, I’ve written quite a bit about New York-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rene Lopez, who is among a group of incredibly talented and shamefully under-appreciated artists I’ve covered and have gotten to know in some fashion. And throughout those five years, Lopez has uncompromisingly refused to be pigeonholed into one particular genre. E.L.S. (short for Electric Latin Soul), Lopez’s 2011 release, saw the New York-based artist meshing salsa, boogaloo, old school hip-hop, merengue and electronica to create a sound that was a loving homage to Latino New York and to old school New York I grew up in, but with an inventive, modern re-interpretation. It’s an amiably swaggering, upbeat party album with sounds that grab you by the hand and pulls you towards the dance floor.
Paint the Moon Gold, his last and most recent full-length released in 2014 was comprised of stripped down compositions consisting of live instrumentation only — vocals, guitar, bass, percussion, horns, flute, etc. — while drawing deeply from salsa, and 70s Brazilian music. In some way, that material brought Lopez back to the music that his father played as a member of Tipica 73 — and is just as danceable; but importantly, the material on that album seemed to come from a deeply personal place, as lyrically and thematically, the material expresses the thoughts, sentiments, regrets, compromises and desires of a worldly, experienced man, who has looked back at his life with a sense of amazement and disbelief and the recognition life is at times remarkably painful, remarkably strange and incredibly, profoundly wonderful — sometimes simultaneously.
Lopez’s most recent recorded effort, Love Has No Mercy was released at the end of last year, and from his previous efforts it would seem to be the most dramatic change of sonic direction in his career as the material is comprised of slinkily seductive synth-based R&B and funk, inspired by Prince, The Gap Band, Rick James, Chic and others. However, as Lopez had told me in an interview, he grew up in a household where salsa and merengue and disco were routinely played, and his first band The Authority was deeply influenced by his love of the aforementioned Prince. So in some way, Lopez has come back full circle.
Now, if you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past couple of months, you may recall that I wrote about Lopez’s then-recently released single “Heavy, Baby Heavy,” a single that not only continues Lopez’s long-held fascination and love of all things funk, but was also the first released single in his Jam of the Month series. (Presumably, the Single of the Month series is meant to build up buzz for a new recorded effort, which he and his backing band have been working on for quite some time.) The third single of the Single of the Month series, “Trouble Lovin’ Lady” consists of squiggling and trembling synths, a brass section that punctuates the song’s chorus, a sinuous and funky bass line, propulsive drums in a song that channels Rick James’ “Ghetto Life,” “Give It To Me,” and “Superfreak,” The Gap Band’s “You Dropped A Bomb On Me” and others — but with a sexy horn solo at the song’s bridge; in fact, the song sounds as though it could have easily been released in 1982. Simply put it’s a funky, party-friendly song that drive you to the dance floor — right now.
New Video: The Stormy and Nostalgic Video for Leena Ojala’s “Why”
Just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the young, up-and-coming pop artist, Leena Ojala. Born in Germany to a Finnish father and English mother, Ojala was raised in Hong Kong and Essex before she relocated to London when she was […]
Comprised of Jamie Cogar (guitar, drums and vocals) and Andrew Trouwborst (guitar and vocals), the Brooklyn-based duo No Kill specialize in what they describe on their Facebook Fan Page as reverb soaked noise pop. And the duo’s latest single “Better” is a slow-burning and moody and swooning ballad that would likely make Hope Sandoval and Phil Spector proud — although decidedly lo-fi, the song captures the feelings and thoughts of someone, who recognizes that their romantic relationship may be on the ropes, and they’re uncertain of not just what to do, but if there’s a way to make it better. If you’ve been in that situation the song will be achingly familiar.
New Audio: Kishi Bashi’s Swooning and Romantic Cover of The Talking Heads “This Must Be The Place”
As a child, I was a huge fan of Talking Heads. I’ve probably seen and heard Stop Making Sense more times than about 80% of the population before I turned 15 and several of their albums — […]
Lucy Whittaker is an up and coming, 19 year-old British singer/songwriter and student at Leeds College of Music. Her debut single “Change Your Mind” pairs shimmering cosmically glowing synths, twinkling keyboards and propulsive 808s with Whittaker’s sultry, soulful vocals to craft a contemporary pop sound that fits in with the likes of Chelsea Lankes, Phoebe Ryan, CAPPA, Heather LaRose and others while possessing a self-assuredness, confidence and perspective well beyond her young years. And although this single is her debut, I’m looking forward to hearing quite a bit more from this young British talent.
Since their formation three years ago, the Washington, DC-based duo GEMS, comprised of Lindsay Pitts and John Usher, have developed a reputation for crafting material that’s intimate and confessional, and expresses heartache and longing paired with eerily atmospheric and hypnotic synth pop that’s subtly influenced by contemporary R&B.And the duo’s forthcoming full-length debut, Kill The One You Love, which takes its title from a line in Chuck Palahniuk‘s Fight Club will not only further cement the duo’s reputation for their take on contemporary pop, it will also help expand their already growing national profile.
Kill The One You Love‘s latest single “Soak” is a haunting song that pairs ominously swirling electronics, Nile Rodgers-like guitar played through gentle layers of reverb, a shuffling yet sinuous bass line, stuttering and skittering yet propulsive drum programming with aching boy and girl vocals expressing desperate loneliness, heartache and longing that comes as a relationship splinters apart. In particular, the song focuses on that feeling that life being irrevocably different after a breakup — that in some way just trying to move forward and live one’s life without that other person seems as impossible as breathing underwater or walking upside down. And yet, there’s a subtle ray of hope as the narrators of the song blindly attempt to accept the uncertainty of their lives. It’s an emotionally raw song that evokes yanking a bandaid off a barely healed wound — and it does so in a way that’s incredibly sensual.
New Video: Introducing the Dramatic and Moody Pop of Malta’s Berne
Influenced by the likes of Imogen Heap, Regina Spektor, Agnes Obel, and Marina and The Diamonds, Maltese singer/songwriter Berne initially began her career as the frontwoman of the acclaimed and award-winning act Bletchley Park, an act […]
Texas-born, New York-based singer/songwriter Melany Watson has been performing music for as long as she can probably remember — but she can trace the origins of her music career to two particular events: performing in school choirs and touring the Southeast Texas Ol’ Opry circuit alongside her mother, as the mother and daughter country music duo Melva Lee and Melany. According to Watson, her own artistic self-discovery was inspired by Whitney Houston and The Bodyguard soundtrack, and a lengthy list of 90s R&B vocalists, which naturally opened a new world of expression to her. After singing Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” at a local karaoke bar when she was 12, Watson had what she has called an epiphany — that she was singing and performing the music she had to devote her life to. And as a result, Watson realized that she needed to set out on her own path.
So far Watson has had quite an accomplished career, as she’s performed at PBS‘ Christmas at Belmont with Trisha Yearwood while as an undergrad at Belmont University, was a Top 100 Finalist during Season 6 of NBC‘s The Voice and she recently backed YouTube pop sensation Tori Kelly during Kelly’s performance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. And among some within the music industry, Watson has been compared favorably to Etta James, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and others — but with a country music leaning towards lyrics that tell stories informed by her own experiences.
“Illuminate,” the first single off Watson’s forthcoming EP, Lilith in Virgo pairs Watson’s effortlessly soulful vocals with a slick, modern production comprised of skittering percussion, shimmering synths, swirling electronics and twinkling piano chords in a way that meshes 90s inspired R&B and soul, contemporary electro pop and a very subtle nod to the country music that Watson grew up listening to and performing. While possessing a dramatic and moody heft, as the song thematically discusses what it truly means to be in a relationship and to be someone’s soulmate, the ethereal production suits Watson’s vocals perfectly, as the arrangement allows room for Watson’s vocals to soar and dart through and above the mix.
If you’ve been following the blogosphere over the course of the past year, you’d likely know that this year has been a big year for pop music — and an even bigger year for women artists, as a number of women artists have dominated the attention of the blogosphere. And with the release of “Illuminate” Watson adds her name to a growing list of artists that are making a name for themselves.
Live Footage: The Soul-Leaning Pop Sound of Judith Hill
Singer/songwriter Judith Hill comes from a very musical family — her mother is a renowned, classically trained pianist from Japan and her father is a bassist, who had stints playing with Sly Stone, Chaka Khan, […]
New Video: Sorcha Richardson’s Achingly Sincere Pop Single “Petrol Station”
Born in Ireland and currently based in Brooklyn, electronic music artist and singer/songwriter Sorcha Richardson initially came to the States to study but after developing a number of close relationships within Brooklyn’s electronic music scene, Richardson’s […]