Tag: Projector

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Brighton’s Slung Shares a Bruising Ripper

Brighton, UK-based outfit Slung may have initially been the brainchild of its founding member and Small Pond Records label head Vlad Mateikov (bass) but the band was actually some time in the making; Mateikov randomly met Ali Johnson (guitar) at an Australian campground back in 2009. He fell in love with Katie Oldham (vocals) during COVID-19 related lockdowns. He had been familiar with drummer Ravi Martin through his work with his previous band, which he heard demos through his role with Small Pond. But the actual genesis of Slung began when Mateikov’s previous band InTechnicolour broke up, and he began formulating new musical ideas without knowing where exactly they would lead him.

Mateikov started out working with a series of like-minded vocalists including Sugar Horse‘s Ash Tubb, El Moono‘s Zac Jackson, Projector‘s Lucy Sheehan, CTRL DRP‘s Annie Dorret and Sick Joy’s Michael Barton before Oldham joined. According to the band, bringing Oldham was its own journey. “First thing you need to know is that Vlad is an absolute machine,” Katie Oldham says matter-of-factly. “He has creativity, passion and drive like nothing else, and an ability to ‘get shit done’ that is second to none. He approached me about two years ago with these demos to see if I wanted to work with him as a vocalist, and maybe try turning them into a band. I *totally* bitched out,” she admits, laughing. “My previous band (Sit Down) had only very recently fallen apart and my confidence was in the gutter – I just didn’t feel ready. But immediately from working with him (on just one track to begin with), I felt incredibly reassured and encouraged by him, and it was such a different songwriting experience than I’d had before. After about a year of convincing and with Vlad having successfully recruited Ali and Ravi, I finally took the plunge and joined.”

Last year, the Brighton-based outfit released their first two singles, which captures the attention of folks across the music industry and the internet. But before that, they earned fans the old fashioned way — hitting the road before they officially released a note of music. Building upon the growing buzz surrounding the band, the Brighton-based band’s highly-anticipated full-length debut In Ways is slated for a May 2, 2025 release through Fat Dracula Records.

Drawing from an eclectic array of influences including like Deftones, Baroness, Wednesday, MJ Lenderman, Queens of the Stone Age, Chappell Roan and Fleetwood Mac, the Brighton-based band’s debut album is a collaborative meshing of the band’s members’ experiences, circumstances and musical prowess.

The album’s material lyrically and thematically sees the band’s Oldham brining together personal, lived-in experience with more abstract, conceptual ideas and characters. Thematically, Oldham’s inspirations range from sex workers and the power dynamics that come along with the profession; the tragic occurrences of bull fights in Spain and more.

The album also features contributions from the band’s former collaborators including Sick Joy’s Micheal Barton, Projector’s Lucy Sheehan and CTRL DRP’s Annie Dorret.

Additionally for the band’s Katie Oldham, one of her personal missions for the band relates to representation, sisterhood and women being a more dominant force within the music industry, whether on stage, behind the scenes or in the crowd. “My love for women knows no bounds. Everything I do, I do for the girlies, the women and the female gaze exclusively. (This extends of course to ALL women inclusively, no TERF bullshit here.) There is just an unparalleled magical feeling when you’re around liberated, electrifying women who speak with honesty and clarity and without fear,” Oldham says. “The world is built to try and make us resent, envy and destroy each other, and I LOVE those moments where we realise we are more alike than what divides us. I want to be around women all the time, to be inspired by them, to connect with them and to share and to bond and unite.” 

In Ways‘ latests ignore “Laughter” is swaggering and pummeling most pit friendly anthem that to my ears sounds like a synthesis of Queens of the Stone Age, Deftones and Paramore anchored around scorching power chords, thunderous drumming, heavy down-tuned bass and enormous arena rock friendly hooks and choruses paired with Oldham’s impassioned, powerhouse vocal.

“This song is about a face-off that’s been a long time coming, and the difficult relationships we can have with members of our family, especially our parents,”Slung’s Katie Oldham says. ” When we’re children we’re so desperate for our parents’ attention and approval that their dismissal or rejection can feel agonising. With an emotionally absent parent, trying desperately to earn love or consideration from someone who isn’t capable of giving it can be so destructive. This hurt can often develop into resentment as we age and we may even later villainise this person, wanting to fight, confront, defeat them.”

Directed by Jordan Kai Wright, the accompanying video for “Laughter” features the members of Slung as a wedding-styled band, waiting for their frontperson Oldham to arrive while a chef is setting up a catered meal. While the band stomps and rocks out, we see the members of the band in an uproarious food fight.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Ganser Take Us on a TED Talk from Hell in New Visual for “Projector”

Chicago-based post-punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Ganser can trace its origins back to when its founding members Nadia Garofalo (keys, vocals) and Alicia Gaines (bass, vocals) met while attending art school. Bonding over a mutual love of The Residents, outsider communities and the work of John Waters and David Lynch, the duo developed a hands-on DIY craftsmanship that eventually carried over into the band. Each of the band’s members — Garofalo, Gaines, Brian Cundiff (drums) and Charlie Landsman (guitar) — sharing writing duties and collaborating on every aspect of their creative work, including music videos, album art and the visuals, which often accompany their live shows. 

2018’s full-length debut Odd Talk received widespread praise nationally and across the blogosphere with some critics comparing their sound and approach to Sonic Youth and Magazine. Thematically, the album focused on communication breakdowns — namely, the difficulties of being understood, avoidance and intimacy

With the release of 2018’s full-length debut, Odd Talk, the Chicago-based post-punk outfit developed a national profile with the album receiving widespread praise for sound that some critics have compared favorable to Sonic Youth and Magazine paired with incisive lyrics critiquing larger social issues. Odd Talk thematically focused on communication breakdowns, the difficult of being understood, intimacy and avoidance. 

Now, as you may recall the Chicago-based JOVM mainstays’ highly-anticipated sophomore album Just Look at That Sky is slated for a Friday release through Felte Records. Thematically, their sophomore album finds the quartet probing the futility of striving for self-growth during chaos — while evoking an all too familiar manic worry and generalized sense of dread and doom. The album acknowledges that we’re online all the time and inundated with too much information about other people and situations. We’re all a tweet, a status update, an Instagram post or a text exchange away from truly knowing what our followers, friends and loved ones really think about us. And in a larger sense, the world as we know it is dying before our eyes. We can watch the replays every night at 8, 10, 11 — in slow motion. 

So far, I’ve written about two of Just Look at That Sky’s released singles — the tense and explosive album opener “Lucky.” and the atmospheric and brooding “Emergency Equipment and Exits.” The album’s latest single “Projector” is an uneasy song centered around propulsive drumming, angular blasts of guitar and bass paired with Garofalo delivering a psychological study of people desperately trying to hold on to anything when everything is so absolutely insane. 

“It’s what happens when someone becomes so far removed from general society that their thoughts become a Dunning-Kruger Effect echo chamber of pseudo-wisdom and self-affirmations. Connection and perspective gets lost, but that echo becomes louder and often public,” Ganser’s Garofalo says of the song, 

Directed by the members of the band, the recently released video for “Projector” stars the band’s Nadia Garofalo as a painfully awkward and intensely self-aware TED Talk-like speaker, giving a talk on “Pseudo Philosophies for Living in the Current Climate,” and the talk includes the prerequisite PowerPoint slides and video clips. But as the video pulls out at the end, we see that Garofalo’s TED talk speaker has been speaking in front of an empty room — the entire time. 

“We shot this the day after SXSW was cancelled,” the members of Ganser recall in press notes. “We didn’t know what was coming, but we knew it wasn’t going to be good.”