Tag: Portishead

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps best known as one of the world’s most acclaimed professional dancers for more than 20 years, the Swedish-born dancer Uma E. Fernqvist has taken her love of movement and music to inspire her debut EP Reverse. Interestingly, the material on the recently released Reverse EP is largely inspired by the 90s trip hop of Lamb, Massive Attack, and Portishead — and as you’ll hear on the hauntingly mesmerizing and lushly textured single “For U,” Fernqvist’s tender vocals ethereally float over a minimalist yet cinematic production consisting of pulsating and thumping beats, shimmering synths and atmospheric electronics; but under the chilly surface, the song trembles with a vulnerable, human need.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of  Amber Lane-Mcivor, Jake Blythe and Oliver Lamb, the Manchester, UK-based electro pop trio Ambiere have received attention from the blogosphere and BBC Introducing over the past year for a sound that’s drawn comparisons to the likes of Portishead and The xx among others. Building upon a breakthrough year and a growing profile, the Manchester-based electro pop act’s latest single “I See Faces” finds the act pairing strummed, electric guitar and Lane-Mcivor’s gorgeous and soulful vocals with a lush and effortlessly slick production consisting of arpeggiated and shimmering synths, propulsive yet stuttering beats and a soaring hook. And while their latest single manages to simultaneously be both radio and club friendly, their sound — to my ears at least — reminds me of Ways We Separate and Escapements-era Beacon, as the British trio manages to evoke similar, lingering ghosts.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Psychedelic Sounds and Visuals of Swiss-born, Berlin-based Pop Artist Evelinn Trouble

Evelinn Trouble is a Swiss-born and currently Berlin, Germany-based singer/songwriter and pop artist, who over the course of four critically applauded albums released in her homeland, has developed a reputation for being a musical chameleon with every effort finding the Swiss-born, German-based artist adopting a different sound, aesthetic and alter ego; in fact, her debut was an album of lo-fi pop, her sophomore effort was an abrasive take on industrial doom rock, her third album was an all analog, live recording that mixed Motown aesthetics with Trouble’s decidedly eerie songwriting and she then followed that up with an EP featuring covers of old evergreens and standards.

Trouble’s latest single “Sunset Everytime” is a slow-burning pop song which pairs a languid yet aching vocal performance with a shimmering arrangement featuring pedal effected shoegazer rock-like guitars, softly padded drumming, a sinuous bass line, stuttering beats and a lush yet moody string section that nods at the cinematic, psych pop of Scott Walker (in particular, “It’s Raining Today” off the lush Scott 3), Amy Winehouse, and Portishead;  but while being an ode to all things being finite; in fact, interestingly enough, the song was written during a period of several different transitions and is intended as a series of goodbyes — to her former home in London, where she lived until relocating to Berlin last year, to her former band, whom she’s letting go in order to self-produce what she describes will be a psychedelic, trap pop album, to old habits, friends and lovers, and to Jimmy Boeing, the tour bus that her and her band used while on tour throughout the past 6 years. 

Directed by Trouble, the video features Trouble, her bandmates and the video’s protagonist and faithful companion Jimmy Boeing as the van goes on one last glorious and magical trip (that interestingly enough, nods at The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine) before its fateful trip to the junkyard. 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

 

Livia Blanc is a French-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, who specializes in a subtly modern take on 60s-inspired, cinematic pop that mischievously nods at the likes of   Edith Piaf, Portishead and Melanie DeBlasio; in fact, the French-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s second and latest single, “Mr. Hyde,” which was produced and cowritten by The Chevin‘s Coyle Girelli and Andrew Horowitz, who has cowriting credits with Jidenna, Verite and John Legend, finds Blanc cooing in a coquettish French over a breezy yet mischievously anachronistic featuring strummed ukulele, whistling, polyrhythmic beats and soaring synths. But despite the song’s ethereal quality, the song reportedly explores the inner duality of good and evil that we all have, reminding the listener that we’re all capable of good and evil at any particular moment. Fitting for the Halloween season, indeed!

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Exploded View Return with a Fatalistic Ode to the Environment

Initially spending the early part of her professional career as a political journalist, who split her time between Berlin and Bristol, UK, Annika Henderson, best known as Anika can trace the origins of her musical career to a particular moment —  when she was introduced to Portishead’s Geoff Barrow. As the story goes, at the time, Barrow was looking for a vocalist, who would be willing to work with his band Beak> for what he envisioned as a side project. Reportedly, when Barrow and Henderson first met, they immediately bonded over a mutual love of punk, dub and 60s girls group. And within a week of their meeting, Barrow, Henderson and the members of Beak> went into the studio to record the material which would eventually comprise Henderson’s 2010 self-titled full-length debut.

2013 saw the release of Henderson’s self-titled EP, a collection of covers and remixes that included one of my favorite songs off the set, Henderson’s cover of Chromatics’ “In the City,” which paired Henderson’s icy delivery with a Portishead and The Velvet Underground and Nico-inspired production. Last year, Geoff Barrow’s Invada Records, released an icily foreboding, dub-inspired cover of Nena’s “99 Red Balloons” by the mysterious Invada All Stars featuring Anika on vocals as part of the  Stop Trident National anti-nukes demonstration in London.

Since then, Henderson has been busy with her most current musical project, Exploded View is collaborative side project fronted by the renowned vocalist and featuring a group of Mexico City-based producers including Martin Thulin, known for his work with JOVM mainstays Crocodiles; Hugo Quezada and Amon Melgarejo — and the project’s sound finds Henderson and company moving away from the krautrock-inspired sound of her solo work, and towards a seemingly fuzzily atmospheric and baroque-like psych pop.  After completing the material that would comprise the band’s self-titled debut album, the members of the band decided to return to the studio and record some more, with the result being the Summer Came Early EP. Comprised of some outtakes from the self-titled album, along with some new material, their follow-up EP reportedly finds the band crafting sons that carefully walk a tightrope between clarity and focus and a messy, free-flowing experimentalism that comes from improvisation.

Interestingly, EP title track “Summer Came Early” may arguably be one of the most delicate and bitterly wistful songs that the band has released to date — while thematically, the song is written as a post-permanent climate change ode to how the environment once was, with the caveat that no one questioned anything and no one did anything besides lazily sat down and gave up. And when the proverbial shit hit the fan, the only action that was left  was to point fingers at someone else. It’s a bit reminiscent of the famous T.S. Eliot poem isn’t it?

Directed by William Markarian-Martin is an eerily psychedelic vision of the hellish and permanent damage that humanity has done to the environment, and while wistful it possesses an eerie fatalism and acceptance.

 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Now, as you may recall, Keep Shelly in Athens is an internationally renowned electronic music production and artist duo that has released dreamy, mid tempo electro pop material through Forest Family Records, Transparent Records, Planet Mu Records, Cascine Records and Friends of Friends Records and others — and building upon a growing internationally recognized profile, the duo have played at some of the world’s largest festivals including — Coachella, Parklife Festival, The Great Escape Festival and Fun Fun Fun Festival. Adding to a steadily growing profile, the act has made official remixes for Tycho, Blood Diamonds and Steve Mason among others.

Philokalia, the Athens, Greece-based electronic music duo’s third full-length album is slated for a Friday, September 29, 2017 release through the duo’s own Athenian Aura Recordings, and the album finds the act featuring their newest vocalist, Aussie Award-winning novelist and poet Jessica Bell. Last month, I wrote about album single “Game Over (Daniel’s Theme),” a track that further cemented their reputation for crafting moody and cinematic, mid-tempeo electro pop as the song featured a production that consisted of shimmering synths, swirling, ambient electronics, a mournful string arrangement and stuttering drum programming paired with Bell’s viscerally earnest and heartfelt vocals — and interestingly enough, the song bristles with the self-flagellation and recrimination of someone who’s been betrayed or lied to in some deeply unforgivable fashion.

“Dark Light” Philokalia‘s latest single is a a bit of decided change in direction for the renowned electronic act as it featured Bell with self-assured and in-your-face vocals paired with what may arguably be their most industrial leaning production featuring wobbling and buzzing synths, industrial clang and clatter, stuttering drum programming and a rousing hook while retaining some elements of the dreamy, ethereal sound that has captured the attention of the blogosphere — namely with the song’s introduction and coda. But interestingly enough, the song possesses a dark, sultry seductive quality reminiscent of Version 2.0-era Garbage and Portishead.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Niko Antonucci is a Prague, Czech Republic-born, Los Angeles, CA-based multi-instrumentliast, singer/songwriter, producer and electronic music artist, who can trace the origins of her music career to when she received piano lessons when she was 6. As teenager, the Prague-born, Los Angeles-based artist began stealing her father’s guitar as a teen — and when she turned 15, she had cut her first demo and began singing and playing in a number of local bands for a number of years. But at a young age, Antonucci recognized that in order to get the exact sound she wanted, she would need to do it herself and she began producing herself.

With her solo, downtempo/industrial electronica project Resin, Antonucci’s sound is inspired by many of the influences that have been a part of her creative life including Nirvana, Portishead, Nine Inch Nails , The Cure, Chelsea Wolfe, as well as ambient electronica and classic music, while thematically focusing on spirituality, dark magic, being an outsider. and so on. And with “Hoarse,” the first single off her self-produced full-length effort Fidget, Antonucci pairs swirling electronics, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, stuttering drum programming and a soaring hook with her sultry yet achingly vulnerable vocals — and while clearly nodding at Nine Inch Nails and Portishead, the single also manages to remind me of Version 2.0-era Garbage.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Brooding Visuals for Beliefs’ Buzzing and Abrasive, Industrial-Leaning Single “Comb”

Currently comprised of founding members and primary songwriters Jesse Crowe and Josh Korody, the Toronto, ON-based indie rock duo Beliefs have released two well-regarded full-length albums over the course of their seven years together — 2013’s self-titled debut and 2015’s Leaper. And although the band has gone through a series of lineup changes throughout their history, the band can trace its origins to a shared love of late 80s and early 90s noise pop and shoegaze. However, the recently constituted duo’s forthcoming, third full-length album Habitat, which is slated for a September 22, 2017 release through Hand Drawn Dracula Records. The album, which was engineered by the duo’s Josh Korody and mixed by Holy Fuck’s Graham Walsh features guest spots from Leon Tahenny, who’s played with Austra, Death From Above 1979 and Owen Pallet on drums and reportedly finds the band completely destructing, remaking and remodeling their self-conscious shoegazer-based sound to pursue an uncompromising new sound and vision, a a way for the band to find their own unique voice and sound. And interestingly enough, the period in which a band finds their own sound and voice may arguably be one of the most exciting and pivotal periods for any band. “I hope that’s the case,” says Crowe. “That’s always how I feel about bands, too – when you listen to something and it seems like it’s leading to a whole other element of a band, when you feel like you’re in the hallway about to open the door to a whole other space that this band is creating. And I hope that that’s what happens with us. We have no real plans at this point. We don’t want to be a ‘shoegaze’ band anymore.”

Interestingly, Habitat was the first time that the band’s founding duo had written an album together, and as Crowe continues, “we wrote 80% of it in a room in four days wth no previous material. It’s as spontaneous as can possibly be” — with material being derived from extensive jam sessions. Adding to the spontaneous nature of the material, the album was recorded and tracked in 16 days and was recorded with no grand design or plan at play; however, interestingly enough the material manages to be influenced by each individual member’s unique interests and obsessions while gravitating towards unfamiliar instruments and instrumentation. Lately, Korody has had an increasing interest in modular synths and avant industrial  sounds, partially influenced by his solo recording project Nailbiter while Crowe had been listening to a great deal of 90s hip-hop — in particular, Portishead‘s Third.  “It’s a dark record, for sure,”  Crowe says of their new album. “I feel like we were drawing a lot more from, like, me being a Goth teenager and Josh only wanting to listen to Aphex Twin and me only wanting to listen to Portishead’s Third for the last year and stuff like that. But also it was time to embody the elements of being a ‘wall-of-sound’ band with some space and the idea of being able to be quiet when you should be quiet, and you can’t do that with three guitars. There’s no space. It just becomes all push and no pull.”

Now, as you may recall I wrote about album single “1994,” a sleek and atmospheric Xiu Xiu, Antics-era Interpol-leaning single that was reportedly a sort of sequel  Leaper‘s “1992,” thanks in part to a song that eschews a traditional song structure; in fact, much like Antics, the song is focused on creating and sustaining a particular mood than whether a chorus should be placed in a particular part of the song or not. “Comb,” Habitat’s latest single is a noisy and abrasive, industrial and mosh pit worthy track consisting of layers of buzzing synths paired with forceful and propulsive drumming and shout worthy, nihilistic lyrics. And while nodding at Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, the song has an almost dance floor friendly stomp at its core. 

Directed by Andrew Matthews and Ivy Lovell, the recently released video for “Comb” features Crowe and Korody with the members of their touring band performing the song  at Toronto-based music venue Baby G under shadowy lighting and strobe lights. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of “Brontos” and “Snowboy,” the Gothenburg, Sweden-based electronic trio Emmecosta received attention across the European Union and elsewhere for an electro pop sound that aesthetically drew from jazz, trip-hop, hip-hop and the like, with the intention of evoking the sensation of stumbling home fucked up and possibly half-awake from the club as the sun is slowly rising.

Now, if you had been frequenting this site three years ago, you may recall that I wrote about “Thousands of Me,” a moody track consisting of a slick production the nodded at Portishead, Amnesiac-era Radiohead and Chet Faker as it featured stuttering drum programming, sparse piano chords and a mournful horn line with a confessional and deeply personal vibe.

The trio’s latest EP Velour was released Friday through Swedish boutique label Icons Creating Evil Art and the EP’s first two singles “His Power of Youth” and “Miguel” revealed that the trio had been experimenting and expanding upon their sound with those two singles reportedly nodding at the likes of early 2000s-era Phoenix and Washed Out — and while those comparisons may be fair to some degree, as you’ll hear on the trio’s latest single “A Mountain From Us” the Swedish trio’s sound also nods at fellow Swedes Moonbabies and Summer Heart as they pair layers of choppy and shimmering arpeggio synths, swirling electronics, ethereal vocals but underneath the dreamy yet murky vibe is a aching sense  of longing and desire for something that you know deep inside is practically impossible to have; in fact, as the members of the band explain, the EP thematically focuses on “the feeling of unshakable longing we’ve never been. This is a specific form of wanderlust — a craving for a distant land or deep feeling of ‘homesickness’ for a place we have never seen. We imagine distant places through small fragments: everyday life seen elsewhere. We are going through a strange sensation of disorientation, something magical seen from far away. We fall in love with this fragment. It holds the promise for more . . . ”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Slum Sociable is an up-and-coming Melbourne, Australia-based electronic duo, who will be releasing their full-length debut on October 13, and as you’ll hear on the album’s first single “Castle,” the duo specializes in a sound that draws from and possesses elements of jazz, electronica, contemporary electro pop, hip-hop and electro soul paired with earnest and soulful vocals. And while some have compared the Aussie electronic duo’s sound to Animal Collective and Bonobo, there’s a subtle hint at J. Dilla, Portishead and Gnarls Barkley.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Fuck Buttons’ Andrew Hung Releases a Primal New Single

Worcester, UK-born, Bristol UK-based electronic music artist, multi-instrumentalist and producer Andrew Hung is arguably best known for being one half of renowned electronic music duo Fuck Buttons with Benjamin John Power, an act that can trace its origins to when Hung and Power began collaborating together to create a soundtrack to a film that Hung had made but immediately after forming Hung and Power had started playing live whenever possible and soon began gathering a cult following for a sound that employed the use of a variety of instruments including Casiotone keyboards and children’s toys such as a Fisher-Price karaoke machine — and the result was a live sound that Time Out Magazine once described as an “adrenaline pumping, ear purging slab of towering, pristine noise.”

Their limited edition 7″ single “Bright Tomorrow” was released to critical praise from the likes of Drowned in Sound, Pitchfork, Mojo and Stereogum, and building upon growing buzz, Hung and Power played critically applauded live sets at 2007’s Supersonic Festival, Truck Festival and Portishead’s curated ATP Festival; in fact, after those sets, a number of media outlets named them as a Hot New artist for 2008 with outlets like The Observer calling their sound “a joyous racket of swirling atmospherics and percussive gunfire,” in an article highlighting them in a new, contemporary wave of intelligent, literate British pop music.  Since then the duo released three critically applauded full-length albums — 2008’s Street Horsing, 2009’s Tarot Sport and 2013’s Slow Tarot; however, over the past few years the duo have focused on various side projects and production work: Hung started a band Dawn Hunger with Clarie Inglis (vocals) and musician Matthew de Pulford. But he’s released a solo EP, Rave Cave and has co-produced Beth Orton’s Kidsticks. Power has released three critically applauded albums with his solo recording project Blanck Mass — 2011’s self titled debut, 2015’s Dumb Flesh and 2017’s World Eater.

Hung’s solo full-length debut Realisationship is slated for an October 6, 2017 release through Lex Records and the album’s latest single “Animal” is a tense and forceful track that finds Hung exploring a more organic, lo-fi-leaning sound featuring a gorgeous string arrangement, buzzing power chords, slashing synths, forceful electronic beats and drumming and Hung’s primal, punk rock-like howling. As Hung explains in press notes “Animal is a warning that oppression brings about consequences; we have bred fear and now we are reaping its effects. We cannot address the external without first addressing the internal.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of London-born, Los Angeles-based duo Hetty Clark (vocals) and Ned Douglas (keys, guitar, programming), The Dot and The Line can trace its origins to a mutual love and appreciation of downtempo electronica acts like Portishead, The xx, Haelos and others. As the story goes, the duo started working together to carve out their own sound and to write the material the would comprise their debut EP, and as you’ll hear on the duo’s second and latest single “Wait For You,” the duo pair Clark’s breathy and sensual vocals with a stark and cinematic production featuring layers of cascading, shimmering synths, twinkling keys, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and a soaring hook. And while nodding at Portishead, The xx and Garbage, the song as the duo’s Hetty Clark explains in press notes is an ode to the complicated and often frustrating essence of desire. “It’s a song about desire, desire being the blueprint of all we do and act upon. There is a dazzling aspect to desire, with all the unassimilated feelings that lie below the surface, causing us to act and behave in unpredictable ways. Desire is a huge life force, but it can also be an annihilating force. Deeply longing for something requires also accepting the pain of unfulfillment.””

Of course, unsurprisingly the song while further cement the duo’s growing reputation for crafting moody and cinematic downtempo electronica with a tense, push and pull familiar to relationships and involvements in which one’s feelings and motivations are uncertain and confused.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Beliefs Dark and Moody Cabaret-Inspired Visuals for “1994”

Although they’ve gone through a series of lineup changes and are currently constituted as a duo featuring its founding members and primary songwriters Jesse Crowe and Josh Korody, the Toronto, ON-based indie rock duo Beliefs have released two well-regarded full-length albums over the course of their seven years together — 2013’s self-titled debut and 2015’s Leaper; but the band can trace their origins to a shared love of late 80s and early 90s noise pop and shoegaze. Interestingly, the Canadian duo’s forthcoming third full, length effort Habitat was produced and engineered by the band’s Josh Korody and mixed by Holy Fuck’s Graham Walsh, who’s also mixed albums by Preoccupations, Alvvays and METZ, and features Leon Tahenny, who’s played with Austra, Death From Above 1979 and Owen Pallet on drums, finds the band completely destructing, remaking and remodeling their self-conscious shoegazer-like origins in pursuit of an uncompromising new sound in which the duo has stopped being defined by the sum of its influences and finds their own unique voice and sound — and that period can often be one of most exciting and pivotal periods for a band. “I hope that’s the case,” says Crowe. “That’s always how I feel about bands, too – when you listen to something and it seems like it’s leading to a whole other element of a band, when you feel like you’re in the hallway about to open the door to a whole other space that this band is creating. And I hope that that’s what happens with us. We have no real plans at this point. We don’t want to be a ‘shoegaze’ band anymore.”

Interestingly, Habitat was the first time that the band’s founding duo had written an album together, and as Crowe continues, “and we wrote 80% of it in a room in four days wth no previous material. It’s as spontaneous as can possibly be” — with material being derived from extensive jam sessions. Adding to the spontaneous nature of the material, the album was recorded and tracked in 16 days and was recorded with no grand design or plan at play; however, interestingly enough the material manages to be influenced by each individual member’s unique interests and obsessions while gravitating towards unfamiliar instruments and instrumentation. Lately, Korody has had an increasing interest in modular synths and avant industrial  sounds, partially influenced by his solo recording project Nailbiter while Crowe had been listening to a great deal of 90s hip-hop — in particular, Portishead’s Third.  “It’s a dark record, for sure,”  Crowe says of their new album. “I feel like we were drawing a lot more from, like, me being a Goth teenager and Josh only wanting to listen to Aphex Twin and me only wanting to listen to Portishead’s Third for the last year and stuff like that. But also it was time to embody the elements of being a ‘wall-of-sound’ band with some space and the idea of being able to be quiet when you should be quiet, and you can’t do that with three guitars. There’s no space. It just becomes all push and no pull.”

Habitat, the band’s third full-length effort is slated for a September 22, 2017 release through Hand Drawn Dracula Records and Outside Music and the album’s latest single “1994” is reportedly a sort of sequel to Leaper’s “1992” and is a sleek and atmospheric track featuring ominously cascading synths, shimmering and angular guitar chords and propulsive drumming — and while allowing enough room for Crowe’s husky vocals to float and dart around the mix, the track sonically reminds me of Xiu Xiu, Antics-era Interpol, and others but with an eerily spectral vibe; as though the track was possessed by the lingering ghosts of one’s life. And they manage to do so within a song that eschews discernible or traditional song structures; in fact, much like Antics, the song is focused on creating and sustaining a particular mood than whether a chorus should be placed in a particular part of the song or not. 

Produced and edited by Christopher Mills, the video features Crowe and Korody performing in a dark room cabaret style –but the video manages to bear the appearance of old VHS tape, as it possesses a grainy quality in between cuts, nodding at the quality of the video for “1992.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: ATO Sessions: Nick Hakim Performs “The Want”

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site for a while, you’d recall that earlier this year, the Washington, DC-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Nick Hakim quietly re-emerged with the first batch of new material in some time, “Bet She Looks Like You” “Green Twins,” and “Roller Skates,” the first three singles off his recently released and highly-anticipated full-length debut Green Twins. Hakim can trace the origins of Green Twins’ material back a bit — back to when armed with the masters for his first two, critically applauded EPs, Where Will We Go Part 1 and Where Will We Go Part 2, the DC-born singer/songwriter and guitarist, relocated from Boston, where he was then based to Brooklyn. And as soon as he got himself settled, Hakim quickly went to work, spending his spare time writing and recording sketches using his phone’s voice memo app and a four-track cassette recorder and further fleshing them out whenever possible. He then took his new demo’d material to various studios in NYC, Philadelphia and London, where he built up the material with a number of engineers, including frequent collaborator Andrew Sarlo (bass, engineering and production), who were tasked with keeping the original spirit and essence of the material intact as much as humanly possible.

As Andrew Sarlo explained in press notes about the writing and recording process for Green Twins, for many artists, a demo typically serves an extremely rough sketch of what the song could eventually become and sound. However, with Hakim, things are done very differently; in fact, the demos are seen as more akin to building a comfortable, holy temple — and as a result, as a producer and engineer, Sarlo was tasked to clean, furnish where necessary and prepare those who entered for a profound, religious experience.

Thematically speaking the album’s material reportedly focuses on unique and particular aspects and events of his life with the bulk of the songs being based on specific experiences, feelings, and thoughts had at the time he was writing and composing. As a result, the album consists of a series of different self-portraits — and in a similar fashion to Vincent Van Gogh’s famed self-portraits, the album’s song captures the artist sometimes in broad strokes but frequently in subtle gradations of mood, tone and feeling. Hakim adds, “I also felt the need to push my creativity in a different way than I had on the EPs,” The record draws from influences spanning Robert Wyatt, Marvin Gaye and Shuggie Otis to My Bloody Valentine. We wanted to imagine what it would have sounded like if RZA had produced a Portishead album. We experimented with engineering techniques from Phil Spector and Al Green’s Back Up Train, drum programming from RZA and Outkast, and we were listening to a lot of The Impressions, John Lennon, Wu-Tang, Madlib and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.”

Green Twins’ fourth and latest single “The Want” features Hakim’s tender and aching falsetto over a sparse and hauntingly eerie arrangement of shimmering and gently plucked guitar chords played through copious reverb and effect pedals, soaring organ and a gently propulsive rhythm section to evoke a plaintive, vulnerable and undeniably carnal longing for someone, when all you want in this world is the electric touch of their skin against yours, to lay around in an unkempt bed with limbs entwined all morning, kissing, touching, licking, tickling, laughing and bullshitting . . .

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Childlike and Psychedelic Visuals for Nick Hakim’s “Roller Skates”

Earlier this year, the Washington, DC-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Nick Hakim quietly re-emerged with the first batch of new material in some time, “Bet She Looks Like You,” and “Green Twins,” the first two singles off his much-anticipated and long-awaited full-length debut album Green Twins, which is slated for release in a few weeks through ATO Records. Interestingly, Hakim can trace the origins of Green Twins to when armed with the masters for his first two EPs Where Will We Go Part 1 and Where Will We Go Part 2, the DC-born singer/songwriter and guitarist relocated from Boston, where he was based at the time to Brooklyn. And as soon as he got himself settled, Hakim spent his spare time fleshing out incomplete songs and writing and recording sketches using his phone’s voice memo app and a four-track cassette recorder. He then took his new demo’d material to various studios in NYC, Philadelphia and London, where he built up the material with a number of engineers, including frequent collaborator Andrew Sarlo (bass, engineering and production), who were tasked with keeping the original spirit and essence of the material intact as much as humanly possible.

As Andrew Sarlo explained in press notes about the writing and recording process for Green Twins, for many artists, a demo typically serves an extremely rough sketch of what the song could eventually become and sound; however, with Hakim, things are done very differently; in fact, the demos are seen as more akin to building a comfortable, holy temple — and as a result, as a producer and engineer, Sarlo was tasked to clean, furnish where necessary and prepare those who entered for a profound, religious experience. However, thematically speaking, Green Twins’ material reportedly focuses on unique and particular aspects and events of his life with the bulk of the songs being based on specific experiences, feelings, and thoughts had at the time he was writing and composing. As a result, the album consists of a series of different self-portraits — and in a similar fashion to Vincent Van Gogh’s famed self-portraits, the album’s song captures the artist sometimes in broad strokes but frequently in subtle gradations of mood, tone and feeling.

Hakim adds, “I also felt the need to push my creativity in a different way than I had on the EPs,” The record draws from influences spanning Robert Wyatt, Marvin Gaye and Shuggie Otis to My Bloody Valentine. We wanted to imagine what it would have sounded like if RZA had produced a Portishead album. We experimented with engineering techniques from Phil Spector and Al Green’s Back Up Train, drum programming from RZA and Outkast, and we were listening to a lot of The Impressions, John Lennon, Wu-Tang, Madlib and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.”

Now, as I wrote about “Bet She Looks lIke You,” the song further cemented Hakim’s growing profile and reputation for writing intimately confessional songwriting with a heartbreakingly visceral feel — all while being a subtle refinement and expansion of the sound that first won the attention of the blogosphere; in fact, the material retains a spectral quality, thanks to sparse arrangements that allow room for Hakim’s achingly tender falsetto but interestingly enough, the song manages to nod at Roy Orbison. Green Twins’ third and latest single “Roller Skates” continues in a similar spectral and soulful vein; however, there’s a subtle hallucinogenic-fueled psychedelia. Adding to the personal feel of the album’s material, “Roller Skates” is partially inspired by actual real life experience. “The song’s first verse is about a night when I got really stoned at my friend’s house and forgot to meet up wth my partner,” Hakim says in press notes. “It was pouring rain outside and when I realized I was late, I biked through Bed Stuy as fast as I could through the rain to find her but she was gone . . . The second verse is about patching it up, and not leaving her house for a couple of days. It’s a love song.”

Featuring childlike and psychedelic animation by Micah Buzan, the video employs an accessible and deeply empathetic concept. “I wanted to tell a simple story about lonely characters, who desire something that they can’t seem to get — be it love, a stuffed animal, or the ability to skate well,” Buzan says. “I also tried to make it kind of funny how their expectations don’t live up to reality. In the end, rollerskating unites all the characters as they join together in the roller rink. We might feel alone but we’re in this life experiment together.” Much like he visuals for “Bet She Looks Like You,” the visuals for the latest single continue a trend of Hakim pairing his material with bold, playful yet artfully done imagery,