JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the legendary Stephen Stills’ 81st birthday.
Tag: psych folk
New Video: JOVM Mainstay MAGON Shares Dreamily Meditative “All My Days Are Hanging”
Wildly prolific, Israeli-born, Costa Rican-based singer/songwriter, musician and JOVM mainstay MAGON recently released his third album of this year and 13th — yes, y’all, 13th! — album overall Zoe Rainbow Days.
Zoe Rainbow Days’ latest single “All My Days Are Hanging” continues a run or mediative and introspective material that seemingly draws from psych folk, Sea Change-era Beck and others. And at its core, is a dreamy and lovingly detailed depiction of domesticity that feels nostalgic yet somehow punctuated with a realization of how fleeting everything is.
The accompanying video features footage from Len Lye‘s 1936 short film, The Birth of the Robot. The footage is restored and re-imaged as a visual companion to the song.
Throwback: Happy 59th Birthday, Hope Sandoval!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Hope Sandoval’s 59th birthday.
New Audio: Swimming Bell Shares Lush and Dreamlike “Meet My Shadow”
Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and musician Katie Schottland is the creative mastermind behind Swimming Bell. Her five-song, Rob Schnapf-produced EP Somnia is slated for a May 16, 2025 release through Perpetual Doom.
Somnia invites listeners to an ethereal sonic realm, a sort of underwater dreamworld where melodies drift effortlessly and rhythms pulse like ocean currents. Schottland envisioned the EP as an escape from the crushing weight of reality, a space where listeners could feel suspended — as though they were floating — between wakefulness and dreaming. Collaborating with Schnapf, Schottland embraced a much more percussive approach, allowing textures and rhythms to guide the listener through the material’s shimmering soundscapes.
“I wanted this EP to feel like sinking into water, where everything is softened and suspended,” says Schottland. “Given all the stress and tension in the world, I wanted to make a feeling of escape – something hypnotic and transportive. Rob and I explored percussive layers in a way that felt both grounding and dreamy, creating movement within.”
Somnia’s first single, “Meet My Shadow” is a shimmering mix of Laurel Canyon, Nick Drake-era psych folk and country featuring shimmering pedal steel, twinkling keys, gently rolling percussion, strummed acoustic guitar, and a supple bass line serving as a lush and dreamlike bed for Schottland’s gorgeous yet effortless delivery.
“With this song, I wanted to strip things down and focus on the feel – letting the groove take the lead and allowing the melody to float within it.”
Throwback: Happy 80th Birthday, Stephen Stills!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Stephen Stills’ 80th birthday.
New Video: JOVM Mainstay MAGON Shares Dreamily Introspective “Falling In Love”
Earlier this year, the prolific JOVM mainstay MAGON released his ninth album, Wedding Song, which featured two tracks I managed to write about here:
Album track “The Wedding Song,” a 70s Laurel Canyon/AM rock-like number featuring shimmering guitars, a shuffling yet propulsive rhythm and a glistening and soulful guitar solo paired with MAGON’s unerring knack for crafting catchy hooks. But under the slick and seemingly effortless craftsmanship is a song that feels much like the contented sigh of someone who after much effort and struggle, has found the true, long-lasting love they’ve long hoped for. The song marks the one-year anniversary of MAGON’s wedding to his now-wife Alexa, and is dedicated to their love.
“Portobello’s On The Run,” a mediative and folksy bit of Nick Drake-like psych folk anchored around an ethereal and old-timey mellotron flute lines, strummed acoustic guitar and tight-drum pattern paired with the Israeli-born, Costa Rican-based artist’s plaintively singing whimsical yet introspective lyrics.
Closing out 2024, the JOVM mainstay will be releasing his 10th — yeah, 10th overall and third this year y’all — album, World Peace. World Peace will feature the previously released “Stoned Seclusion Blues” reveals yet another shift in sound direction with the track seemingly drawing from the Madchester sound of The Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses.
World Peace’s second and latest single “Falling In Love” is a dreamy psych folk ballad featuring strummed acoustic guitar, bursts of buzzing power chords and ethereal flutes paired with the JOVM’s mainstay giving an introspective and thoughtful vocal turn.
Thematically, the song is a journey of love and self-discovery, honed by hard-earned wisdom, experience and understanding of how difficult and maddening love can be — especially in a desperate, stark world.
The accompanying video follows a young woman wandering through the damp Costa Rican countryside and is shot with a loving, dreamy quality.
New Audio: GITKIN Shares Trance-Inducing “The One”
Brian J. Gitkin is a New Orleans-based multi-instrumentalist and Grammy-nominated producer, best known for his work as the bandleader and frontman of the road warrior, party rock outfit Pimps of Joytime. He also collaborated with Cedric Burnside on a Grammy-nominated country blues effort.
Gitkin’s solo recording project, the aptly named GITKIN was initially conceived as a way for the Pimps of Joytime frontman and producer to “explore tonalities I’d never mess with,” as he puts it. Gradually, the instrumental project became a release from “having to write lyrics or involve my voice,” Gitkin explains.
With the release of 2018’s debut album, 5 Star Motel, the New Orleans-based Pimps of Joytime frontman, multi-instrumentalist and producer quickly established a sound that he dubbed “Outernational Psychedelic Twang,” which drew from a wide range of sounds and styles, including Peruvian Chicha, 60s Pakistani surf rock while featuring a back band with an impressive collection of players.
His sophomore GITKIN album, 2020’s Safe Passage saw the New Orleans-based multi-instrumentalist and producer expanding upon an already rich and eclectic sonic palette with melodies informed by Greek and Middle Eastern modalities, Saharan Tuareg guitar, creating a sound that was a mix of stomping blues and gritty funk.
Gitkin’s latest album, the recently released, 10-song Golden Age showcases yet another evolution of the New Orleans’ based artist’s lyrical guitar-driven sound. Exploring the endless expanses of cumbia, North African and Middle Eastern music, the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist and producer has increasingly brought his own personality to those traditions, while creating a lively interplay between distant modes and rhythms and his own New Orleans-steeped sound.
The album’s latest single “The One” seems to be a mesh of Tuareg Desert Blues, Black Sabbath-era metal and krautrock that to my ears reminds me of Here Lies Man — but with deep, lysergic-fueled grooves. Gitkin describes teh song as “Sudanese synth-trance mixed with Tuareg, Black Sabbath, and 2000s-era hipster disco.”
“My goal when creating is to think as little as possible and do what feels good,” the New Orleans-based artist and producer says. “I don’t overthink creating. If I wake up with a groove in my head or melody idea I just go into my studio and record it.”
New Audio: Camilla Dávilla Shares Mesmerizing “Old Shoe”
Camille Dávilla is an American born producer, multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter, who currently split her time between the UK, Norway and Spain, making her a truly international artist. With the release of her first two albums through Norwegian label Goodbye Records, Dávilla quickly established an eclectic sound and approach inspired by the likes of David Bowie, Syd Barrett, Robyn Hitchcock, Harry Nilsson, Dibidim, Gaby Moreno, Cate Le Bon, C Duncan and Declan McKenna that frequently sees her pairing colorful, trippy whimsy with melancholic beauty and striking songwriting.
Dávilla’s third album, The Local Orchestra can trace its origins back several years ago: She was writing songs furiously with arrangements in mind and happened upon an inspiring and uplifting encounter with longtime David Bowie producer and collaborator Tony Visconti, who said to her, “Why don’t you just try and write all your own arrangements. I’m sure you can do it.”
She began an intensive self-education on arranging. Halfway through and feeling a little overwhelmed, Dávilla reached out to another musical and arranging hero Van Dyke Parks, who rapturously praised her previous album. Before listening to her arrangements, he asked to her a few of the tunes she had been writing, and took a particular liking to one, asking if he could write an arrangement. As most of her childhood soundtrack had been written by Parks, her answer was an obvious — and enthusiastic — yes, and a lunch in Los Angeles saw the pair making plans.
Several months later, Parks sent his arrangement to Dávilla, who at the time was residing in the UK, and she began working with the arrangement with other musicians. By 2020, Dávilla sent the arrangement to Jonathan Baker to conduct and record a string quartet. It was then sent to Norway, where composer and musician Stein Urheim added guitars and percussion and oversaw assembly and mixing with Anders Bjelland.
Over the next few years, confusion followed. Dávilla endured much turbulence: A pandemic lockdown-induced drinking binge led to sobriety — and a relocation from the UK to Spain. But through all of that, she continued her writing and arrangement work, and by last year, Dávilla had written nearly three albums of material; however, this proved daunting when she was trying to assemble what would become her third album.
Dibbidm’s, Grandama‘s and Klanghaus‘ Jeron Gundersen helped her wade through the massive amount of material and cherry-picked songs that should be recorded. They decided that the recording sessions should take place in Norway — in particular, the home studio of acclaimed producer HP Gundersen and his spouse, handball player Cecile Leganger. Coincidentally, Leganger had also bene studying piano and theremin and contributed to the sessions. Several other songs were recorded at Jonas Nielsen’s home in Bergen, Norway, alongside vocal dubs in Jostein Gundersen‘s studio.
The album was mixed in Gundersen’s Panera Studio in Asturias, Spain and mastered by Eric James at North Norfolk, UK-based Philosophers Barn Mastering.
The Local Orchestra‘s latest single “Old Shoe” is a gorgeous and meditative bit of psych folk built around an armament of strummed acoustic guitar, twinkling keys, ethereal backing vocals serving as a lush and mesmerizing bed for Dávilla’s captivating vocal, which expresses wizened regret, remorse and pride within a turn of a phrase.
“Imagine 20 years after Dorothy has found Oz and she’s doing a clear out of her closet, and is about to those ruby red slippers in the bin,” Dávilla says. “If they could walk, what would they say?”
New Video: Vanille Shares Shimmering and Ethereal “M’as tu vu passer?”
Rising Montréal-based singer/songwriter Rachel Leblanc, best known to the outside world as Vanille, specializes in a sound that exists somewhere between ’60s folk and French chanson and brings the listener into a dreamlike world of dense forests and swooning heartbreak.
Leblanc’s sophomore Vanille album, the Alex Martel and Leblanc co-produced La clairière is slated for a February 3, 2023 release through Bonbonbon Records in Canada and Boogie Drugstore in Europe. Recorded at Wild Studio and Le Pantoum, La Clairére sees Leblanc retaining elements of the dream pop sound and approach that won her attention — but while leaning heavily into 60s English baroque folk.
Last summer, I wrote about “À bientôt,” a swooning and expansive bit of psych folk-meets-psych rock featuring a lush arrangement of strummed reverb-drenched guitars, gently padded drumming paired with Leblanc’s achingly tender falsetto. And at its core, is tale as old as time itself: a heartbroken narrator, in the aftermath of the devastation of a newly-ended relationship i left with their memories — and the bitter taste of their heartbreak.
La clairère‘s latest single “M’as tu vu passer?” continues a run of gorgeous, baroque folk-inspired material featuring strummed guitar, atmospheric synths, gently padded drumming and percussion paired with Leblanc’s plaintive and ethereal cooing. “M’as tu va passer?” is simultaneously a song about heartbreak and depression, and of dark and cold Montréal winters without anywhere to really go or anything to really do.
Directed by Rachel Leblanc and Irina Tempea, the accompanying visual for “M’as tu va passer?” is shot on Super 8 film to give it all a hazily nostalgic, old-timey air. The video references winter in several different instances: Leblanc laying down on a furry blanket with fake snow falling on her, Leblanc holding a snow globe and edited footage of a couple fighter skating.
New Audio: DG Solaris and Jeremy Tuplin Team Up on The Gorgeous and Meditative “In The Name of Love”
London-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Danny Green may be best known for being the frontman of acclaimed British folk pop act Laish. With Laish, Green wrote and recorded four critically applauded albums released through French indie label Tailres, which he and his bandmates supported with extensive touring across the UK, the European Union and the States.
In 2019 Green went through a number of major life changes: That March, he met Leanna “LG” Green — and by December they got married. For their honeymoon, Leanna and Danny Green decided to spend six months across South America with a simple recording setup that they carried with them in a backpack. During their trip, the couple wound up writing and recording demos that would become the earliest material of their recording project together DG Solaris. “In between swimming with sea-lions, exploring sacred plant medicines and climbing mountains, we had been searching for beautiful spaces to set up our backpack studio,” the Greens explained in press notes. “All of our recordings feature the sounds of birds, cicadas and crickets.”
Returning home to London after their honeymoon, Danny and Leanna recruited Tom Chadd, Matt Canty and Matt Hardy to help flesh out the material they demoed during their honeymoon. The end result was the act’s full-length debut, last year’s Spirit Glow, which drew from and meshed elements of 70s psych pop, synth pop, krautrock and prog rock in a unique and playful fashion — with the album’s material written as a textural journey through emotional realms. “We wanted to explore the idea of two voices, two spirits, two creative minds and see where this dynamic could take us,” DG Solaris’ Leanna Green says in press notes. Danny Green adds, “It has been an incredibly inspiring trip. We came back with over forty songs and it has been a challenge to chose our favourites for this first album.”
Recently Green has been collaborating with Somerset, UK-born, London-based singer/songwriter Jeremy Tuplin. With the release of his full-length debut 2017’s I Dreamt I Was an Astronaut Tuplin’s sound and approach gradually evolved with the Somerset-born, London-based singer/songwriter incorporating indie rock and psych music into what he has semi-ironically dubbed “space folk.” 2019’s Pink Mirror was released to critical acclaim with the album being lauded by The Line of Best fit, Loud & Quiet Magazine, BBC Radio 6 and Rumore Magazine. As a result of Pink Mirror’s success, Tuplin received funding from PRS’ Open Fund to record last year’s Violet Waves.
Green and Tuplin’s first single together, “Ocean/Are You Weird Enough?” came about from some unusual circumstances: Although Green and Tuplin have been writing and recording albums during the past decade, they’ve only been vaguely aware of each other’s existence. One night in Peru, following an intense shamanic ceremony, Green had a vivid dream that he and Tuplin were floating high above the ocean. The next morning, Green contacted Tuplin to share his strange astral encounter — and the pair began a correspondence.
Written and recorded during the middle of a pandemic — which created its own challenges — “Ocean/Are You Weird Enough?” is centered around a sparse yet haunting arrangement of acoustic guitar, atmospheric synths, shuffling drums serving as a gentle and ethereal bed for a gorgeous melody — and some equally gorgeous harmonies. And while sounding a bit like a cross between The Church and Nick Drake, the song as Green explains thematically explores the oneness and weirdness of people within a collective whole.
centered around atmospheric synths, strummed acoustic guitar serving as a sumptuous bed for the pair’s mellifluous vocals and equally gorgeous harmonizing. Much like its predecessor, “In The Name of Love” brings The Church’s “Under the Milky Way” but while also nodding at Nick Drake. Thematically, the song tackles chaos theory, the nature of the cosmos and our tendency to distort the truth in the name of love. But underneath the seriousness of the song, there’s a a delicately wry sense of humor over the fact that everything in the cosmos may ultimately be up to chance.
Live Footage: Amsterdam’s Altin Gün Performs “Ordunun Dereleri”
Deriving their name from the Turkish phase for “Golden Day,” the Amsterdam-based Turkish psych pop act Altin Gün — founding member founding member Jasper Verhulst (bass) with Ben Rider (guitar), Erdinç Ecevit Yildiz (keys, saz, vocals), Gino Groneveld (percussion), Merve Dasdemir (vocals) and Nic Mauskovic (drums) — can trace their origins to Japser Verhulst’s deep and abiding passion for 60s and 70s Turkish psych pop and folk and to frequent tour stops in Istanbul with a previous band.
As a result of his tour stops in Istanbul, Verhulst wound up discovering a lot of music that wasn’t readily available in his homeland. But as the story goes, he wasn’t just content to listen as an ardent fan, he had a vision of where he could potentially take the sound he loved. “We do have a weak spot for the music of the late ’60s and ’70s,” Verhulst admitted in press notes. “With all the instruments and effects that arrived then, it was an exciting time. Everything was new, and it still feels fresh. We’re not trying to copy it, but these are the sounds we like and we’re trying to make them our own.” The Dutch act actively interpret and reimagine this beloved material through a contemporary 21st century lens. “Of course, since our singers are Turkish, they know many of these pieces. All this is part of the country’s musical past, their heritage, like ‘House of The Rising Sun’ is in America,‘” Verhulst explains.
The act’s sophomore album, last year’s Grammy Award-nominated, critically applauded Gece helped the Amsterdam-based act win further worldwide acclaim for their reimagining of traditional Turkish folk through the lens of psych rock and pop. The band’s highly-anticipated third album Yol, the third album from the Dutch act in three years, finds the act continuing to draw upon the rich and diverse traditions of Turkish and Anatolian folk music. But as a result of pandemic-related restrictions and lockdowns, the members of the Dutch act was forced to write music in a new way: they traded demos and ideas built around Omnichord, 808 and other elements, including field recordings and New Age-like ideas by email.
“We were basically stuck at home for three months making home demos, with everybody adding their parts,” Altin Gün’s Merve Dasdemir says in press notes. “The transnational feeling maybe comes from that process of swapping demos over the internet, some of the music we did in the studio, but lockdown meant we had to follow a different approach.”
As a result of arrangements featuring Omnichord and 808 — and the new songwriting approach, the album finds the band crafting material that’s a bold, new sonic direction: a sleek, synth-based Europop sound with a dreamy quality that may have been informed by the enforced period of reflection. Additionally, Yol finds the members of Altin Gün enlisting Ghent, Belgium-based production duo Asa Moto — Oliver Geerts and Gilles Noë — to co-produce and mix the album, marking the first time that the band has collaborated with outsiders.
“Ordunun Dereleri,” Yol‘s mesmerizing first single finds the Dutch act pairing an old folk standard with an arrangement centered around atmospheric and glistening synth arpeggios, four-on-the-floor drumming paired with Mediterranean-like polyrhythmic percussion, shimmering bursts of guitar, a sinuous, motorik groove and plaintive vocals. And while, being a sleek and futuristic push in a new sonic direction, the track finds the band balancing careful and deliberate attention to craft with a dreamy introspection.
The members of Altin Gün filmed a livestream concert for Dekmantel Connects that will air December 17, 2020 at 8:00PM Central European Time/2:00PM Eastern Standard Time/1:00PM Central Standard/12:00PM Mountain Standard Time and 11:00AM Pacific Standard Time. The livestream will feature a sneak peek at the band’s forthcoming album, including this gorgeously shot live footage of the aforementioned “Ordunun Dereleri” filmed in what looks like an abandoned factory.
Yol is slated for a February 26, 2021 release through ATO Records/Cadence Music Group.
New Video: Amsterdam’s Altin Gün Releases a Cinematic and Feverish Visual for “Ordunun Dereleri”
Deriving their name from the Turkish phase for “Golden Day,” the Amsterdam-based Turkish psych pop act Altin Gün — founding member founding member Jasper Verhulst (bass) with Ben Rider (guitar), Erdinç Ecevit Yildiz (keys, saz, vocals), Gino Groneveld (percussion), Merve Dasdemir (vocals) and Nic Mauskovic (drums) — can trace their origins to Japser Verhulst’s deep and abiding passion for 60s and 70s Turkish psych pop and folk and to frequent tour stops in Istanbul with a previous band.
As a result of his tour stops in Istanbul, Verhulst wound up discovering a lot of music that wasn’t readily available in his homeland. But as the story goes, he wasn’t just content to listen as an ardent fan, he had a vision of where he could potentially take the sound he loved. “We do have a weak spot for the music of the late ’60s and ’70s,” Verhulst admitted in press notes. “With all the instruments and effects that arrived then, it was an exciting time. Everything was new, and it still feels fresh. We’re not trying to copy it, but these are the sounds we like and we’re trying to make them our own.” The Dutch act actively interpret and reimagine this beloved material through a contemporary 21st century lens. “Of course, since our singers are Turkish, they know many of these pieces. All this is part of the country’s musical past, their heritage, like ‘House of The Rising Sun’ is in America,‘” Verhulst explains.
The act’s sophomore album, last year’s Grammy Award-nominated, critically applauded Gece helped the Amsterdam-based act win further worldwide acclaim for their reimagining of traditional Turkish folk through the lens of psych rock and pop. The band’s highly-anticipated third album Yol, the third album from the Dutch act in three years, finds the act continuing to draw upon the rich and diverse traditions of Turkish and Anatolian folk music. But as a result of pandemic-related restrictions and lockdowns, the members of the Dutch act was forced to write music in a new way: they traded demos and ideas built around Omnichord, 808 and other elements, including field recordings and New Age-like ideas by email.
“We were basically stuck at home for three months making home demos, with everybody adding their parts,” Altin Gün’s Merve Dasdemir says in press notes. “The transnational feeling maybe comes from that process of swapping demos over the internet, some of the music we did in the studio, but lockdown meant we had to follow a different approach.”
As a result of arrangements featuring Omnichord and 808 — and the new songwriting approach, the album finds the band crafting material that’s a bold, new sonic direction: a sleek, synth-based Europop sound with a dreamy quality that may have been informed by the enforced period of reflection. Additionally, Yol finds the members of Altin Gün enlisting Ghent, Belgium-based production duo Asa Moto — Oliver Geerts and Gilles Noë — to co-produce and mix the album, marking the first time that the band has collaborated with outsiders.
“Ordunun Dereleri,” Yol’s mesmerizing first single finds the Dutch act pairing an old folk standard with an arrangement centered around atmospheric and glistening synth arpeggios, four-on-the-floor drumming paired with Mediterranean-like polyrhythmic percussion, shimmering bursts of guitar, a sinuous, motorik groove and plaintive vocals. And while, being a sleek and futuristic push in a new sonic direction, the track finds the band balancing careful and deliberate attention to craft with a dreamy introspection.
Directed by Bob Sizoo and Najim Jansen, the recently released visual for “Ordunun Dereleri” is an incredibly cinematic fever dream that follows the Dutch act’s Erdinç Ecevit Yildiz driving a white BMW through a sodium and fluorescent-lit cityscape and into an eerie forest where he encounters the rest of the band. Even stranger things occur.
Yol is slated for a February 26, 2021 release through ATO Records/Cadence Music Group.
Portland, OR-based The Parson Red Heads — currently Evan Way (guitar, vocals), Brette Marie Way (drums, vocals), Robbie Augspurger (bass), Raymond Richards (multi-instrumentalist, production), the band’s newest member Jake Smith (guitar) and a rotating cast of friends, collaborators and associates — can trace their origins back to when its founding members met while attending college in Eugene OR back in 2004, studying for degrees that as the band’s Evan Way once joked “never used or even completed.”
The members of the then newly formed Parson Red Heads spent the next year writing songs and rehearsing constantly. “We would rehearse in the living room of my house for hours and hours until my roommates would be driven crazy — writing songs and playing them over and over again, and generally having as much fun as a group of people can have,” Way fondly recalls. “We weren’t sure if we were very good, but we were sure that there was a special bond growing between us, a chemistry that you didn’t find often.”
In 2006, the band relocated to Los Angeles, with the hopes that they would take music seriously and become a real band. The members of the band moved into and shared a one bedroom apartment in West Los Angeles. “Eventually the population of our 1 bedroom ballooned to 7 — all folks who played in our band at that point, too,” Way says of the band’s early days in Southern California. The Parson Red Heads quickly became mainstays in a growing, 60s-inspired folk and psych folk scene primarily based in Los Angeles’ Silverlake and Echo Park sections. “We played every show we could lay our collective hands on, which turned out to be a lot of shows. We must have played 300+ shows in our first two years in L.A. . . . . We practiced non-stop and wrote a ton of songs, and eventually recorded our debut album King Giraffe at a nice little studio in Sunland, with the help of our friends Zack and Jason,” Way reminisces.
After the release of King Giraffe, The Parson Red Heads spent the next three years writing new material and touring, which eventually resulted in their sophomore album, 2011’s Yearling. The album was partially recorded at Los Angeles-based studio Red Rockets Glare with Raymond Richards, who had then joined the band to play pedal steel and in North Carolina at Fidelitorium with The dB’s Chris Stamey. After finishing the album, the members of the band decided to quit their day jobs and give up their apartments to go on a lengthy tour with their friends Cotton Jones. After the tour was completed, they would relocate to Portland.
Simultaneously, the band had developed a reputation for performing an uninhabited live show, in which they could easily morph from earnest folk to ass-kicking rock anthems with their sound and approach being inspired by The Byrds, Teenage Fanclub, Big Star, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Jackson Browne. Interestingly, with the band’s third album 2013’s Orb Weaver, the band desired to capture the energy and sound of their live sound. “We’re always made records that were more thought-out,” Way says of Orb Weaver.
The Portland-based band’s fourth album, 2017’s Blurred Harmony found the band actively intending to do things differently than they did on their previously released work — with them and recording and tracking themselves: frequently, they would set up drums ad amps and furiously record Blurred Harmony‘s material after everyone put their kids to sleep, finishing that day’s session before it got too late. And as a result, Way says “the record is more a true part of us than any record we have made before — we put ourselves into it, made ourselves fully responsible for it. Even the themes of the songs are more personal than ever — it’s an album dealing with everything that has come before. It’s an album about nostalgia, about time, change, about the hilarious, wonderful, bittersweet, sometimes sad, always incredible experience of living. Sometimes it is about regret or the possibility of regret. These are big topics, and to us, it is a big album, yet somehow still intimate and honest.”
After the release of Blurred Harmony, the band’s founding member Sam Fowles left the band — and the members of the band were forced to ask themselves tough questions about both the future of the band and its creative direction. The remaining founding members recruited their touring Jake Smith to join the band full-time, and then they decided to approach any new material with a completely new lens. Slated for a November 13, 2020 release through their longtime label homes Fluff and Gravy Records across North America and You Are The Cosmos across Europe, The Parson Red Heads’ fifth album Lifetime of Comedy reportedly finds the band excavating the bedrock of their well-honed sound and allowing it to be remolded. While remaining a quintessentially Parson Red Heads album, the material as Way contends in press notes are the most collaborative they’ve written and recorded to date.
Initially starting the recording of Lifetime of Comedy earlier this year, The Parson Red Heads quickly found themselves and their plans in limbo as a result of pandemic-related lockdowns and quarantines. And once studios could reopen, sessions continued at a snail’s place for small, very intimate sessions. With the material being recorded in a delicate, touch and go period, the album’s material seems to be deeply informed by a sense of perseverance and hope.
“All I Wanted,” Lifetime of Comedy‘s first single is classic Parson Red Heads — breezy yet careful and thoughtfully crafted song centered around shimmering guitars, twangy steel pedal, rousing sing–a-long choruses, saccharine bursts of multi-part harmonies, Evan Way’s plaintive falsetto and incredibly earnest lyricism, born of lived-in experiences. And while superficially sounding as though it could have easily been part of the Blurred Harmony sessions, the track manages to possess a subtle free-flowing, jammier vibe. If you pay close attention, you can literally feel longtime friends creating something with a revitalized sense of togetherness.
Featuring a regretful and brokenhearted narrator, “All I Wanted” thematically is full of the hindsight and regret of someone looking back at the past — their past selves, their past mistakes and misgivings — and wishing that there was some way that they could undo it, so that they could remain in a relationship that they desperately prized above everything else. And yet, there’s a tacit recognition that while you may pine for the past, you can’t ever get it back. In fact, life does what it always does — pushes and forces you forward.
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Will Powers · RIVERS
Will Powers is an emerging Sudbury, Ontario-based folk singer/songwriter and musician. Powers’ latest single, “RIVERS” is heavily influenced by the cottage his family owns on the French River. “. . . in rent years, I’ve become more aware of its history as an important trading route in early colonial times,” Powers explains in an email to me. “I’ve often thought about the significance of us occupying that land, which is now a pristine provincial park.
“Living in the twenty-first century amidst a pervasive ignorance of colonial history has pushed me to learn about the general circumstances that enabled us to be there today, and obliges me to convey a message of respect to that place.” “RIVERS,” he adds is a personal acknowledgement of the complex realties behind my presence on that river.
Centered around shimmering and reverb-drenched acoustic guitar, some pedal effected electric guitar, a propulsive backbeat, Powers sonorous baritone, the lushly arranged yet kind of dusty “Rivers” brings to mind — to my ears, least — Nick Drake and Loving. It’s a gently buzzing yet half-remembered dream of a song. “My voice shouldn’t necessarily be the one being heard in this arena, but rather be the one relaying towards Indigenous voices, attempting to draw attention to them and their needs,” Powers adds. “I hope that ‘RIVERS’ can serve as a conduit as I come to terms with my position within reconciliation.”
New Video: DG Solaris’ Much-Needed Blast of Playful Optimism
Danny Green is a London-based singer/songwriter, best known for his time fronting British folk pop act Laish. With Laish, Green released four critically applauded albums through French indie label Tailres, which he and his bandmates supported with extensive touring across the UK, the European Union and the States.
Last March Green’s life changed — he met his soon-to-be wife Leanna “LG” Green. And by December, the pair married. For their honeymoon, the Greens decided to spend six months traveling across South America with a simple recording set up that they carried with them in a backpack. And that’s how their newest project together DG Solaris began. “In between swimming with sea-lions, exploring sacred plant medicines and climbing mountains, we had been searching for beautiful spaces to set up our backpack studio,” DG Solaris’ core duo explain in press notes. “All of our recordings feature the sounds of birds, cicadas and crickets.”
Returning to London after their honeymoon, the duo recruited Tom Chadd, Matt Canty and Matt Hardy to help flesh out the material they wrote and demoed during their trip across South America. And the end result is the act’s forthcoming full-length debut, Spirit Glow which is slated for a June 19, 2020. Reportedly, the album is a focused development to Green’s songwriting with the material drawing from and meshing elements of 70s psych pop, synth pop, krautrock and prog in a unique fashion. Ultimately, the album’s material was written as a textural journey through different emotional realms. “We wanted to explore the idea of two voices, two spirits, two creative minds and see where this dynamic could take us,” DG Solaris’ Leana Green says in press notes. Danny Green adds, “It has been an incredibly inspiring trip. We came back with over forty songs and it has been a challenge to chose our favourites for this first album.”
Back in March, I wrote about the woozy album single “Brother, I’ll Ask Her.” Centered enormous and an expansive song structure featuring a pastoral and slow-burning introduction, a lurching Fleetwood Mac and Nick Drake-like middle section and a krautrock-like coda with fluttering flute and synth arpeggios, the track is a hallucinogenic fever dream that’s inspired by deeply personal experience: a painful shamanic experience they had in the Peruvian jungle. Interestingly, “Don’t Need to Tell You” is a decidedly upbeat song centered around a lushly textured arrangement of LG’s gorgeous and expressive vocals, shimmering acoustic guitar, atmospheric synths and flute, an infectious hook led by boy-girl harmonies, a supple bass line and propulsive drumming. And while clearly indebted to 70s psych folk and 60s bubble gum pop, the breezy pop confection accurately captures and evokes the giddy joy of new love. “We wanted to release something unflinchingly positive and happy during this difficult time. The song is an expression of unquestioning love for someone,” the Greens say.
The recently released video for “Don’t Need to Tell You” is split between live footage of the band performing in little clubs, and footage of the adorably in love couple in South London’s Ruskin Park on a glorious day goofing off and enjoying each other. While playful, the video should be a reminder that when things are at their most difficult and their most bleak that we should lean on those we love.