Tag: psych pop

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Polycool Shares Strutting and Sultry “Unlike You”

With the release of their full-length debut, 2091’s Lemon Lord, French psych pop outfit Polycool quickly established a unique sound that drew from Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Air, Sebastian Tellier, Nick Hakim, Connan Moccasin and others. The band has received airplay on Radio Nova, FIP, France Inter, Les Inrocks and others. 

Building upon a growing profile in their native France, the rising psych pop outfit has played at 2019’s Printemps de Bourges and 2020’s We Love Green. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Something Between Us,” a breezy and infectious bop centered around a strutting bass line, glistening synth arpeggios, Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar paired with a dance floor friendly hook and and a seductive falsetto delivery. The end result was a song that sounded like a slick synthesis of the Bee Gees and Tame Impala.

The French psych pop outfit’s latest single “Unlike You” is a swaggering and sultry song centered around glistening synth arpeggios, a strutting, Quiet Storm-like groove and buzzing guitars paired with a plaintive falsetto delivery and the band’s ability to craft an infectious hook. But underneath the sultry facade is something much more uneasy and menacing — the dysfunctional past relationship that you can’t escape from, that you can’t stop obsessively thinking of.

The band explains that the song describes “the trap of memory, the sleepless nights, the false desire to forget, looking for different thins (unlike you) in order to no longer love the past (un-like you).”

Directed by Martin Schrepel, the accompanying video for “Unlike You” begins with pairs of scissors making clean cuts of everything around — but at its core, is the confusing push and pull of emotions love often engenders, and the desire to break free.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Lyric VIdeo: Kainalu Teams up with MUNYA on A Breezy and Funky Bop

Trent Prall is a Southern California-born, Madison,WI--based producer, multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and creative mastermind behind the acclaimed solo recording project and JOVM mainstay act Kainalu. 

Deriving its name from the Hawaiian word for ocean wave, Prall’s work with Kanialu sees him drawing from psych pop, psych rock, dream pop, Tropicalia, synth pop and funk, and childhood trips to visit his mother’s family in Oahu. The end result is a breezy, funky and nostalgia-inducing sound that Prall has dubbed “Hawaii-fi,” which he further developed and expanded upon with his full-length Kainalu debut, Lotus Gate. 

Back in 2020, the JOVM mainstay collaborated with fellow JOVM mainstay MUNYA on the breezy and infectious “You Never Let Go,” which revealed some easy-going yet ambitious, hook-driven songwriting that found the pair seamlessly meshing their individual sound and aesthetics. 

Prall’s highly-anticipated sophomore Kainalu album Ginseng Hourglass is slated for a November 4, 2022 release, The 11-song album is reportedly a contemplative and philosophical exploration of the passage of time and the finite, fleeting nature of life. Ginseng Hourglass follows the recent and untimely death of Prall’s mother, and is deeply informed by the conversations they had about her life and mortality during the last few months of her life. While seeing Prall striking a delicate balance between breezy effervescence and the darkest depths of despair, the album’s material captures life’s small joys and victories amidst trauma, emotional ruin and hard-won wisdom. Ultimately, the album makes a concerted effect to find and see hope — in heartbreak and pain. 

“I don’t want people to think this album is sad because it’s not,” Prall says in press notes. “I have always used music as a way to heal. That’s what this music is — a way to escape into a vibe and atmosphere when the world was crumbling. It’s meant to transport you into a world because that’s what I needed when I wrote it.”

The album’s main thematic concern is also shown in the cover art, which resembles falling sand in an hourglass — the literal embodiment of time physically slipping away, knowing that one’s time is the most precious thing anyone could have. While the album will further cement Prall’s reputation for crafting dance floor friendly grooves, lyrically, it may arguably be the most personal of his growing catalog: The songs dig deep into a rabbit hole of complex, conflicting (and intimately familiar) emotions making the album a cathartic, therapeutic fever dream — with Prall’s story at the center. Created as a means of escape and healing, Prall explains, “I write to escape the thoughts that keeps me up at night. It’s a therapy device and meditative practice. These past years we all experienced so much loss. On top of the pandemic, I really went through some serious trauma and I wrote this record because I needed to.” 

Last month, I wrote about album single “Queen of Wands,” a strutting, funky bop that sonically seems to draw from Currents-era Tame Impala, electro pop, 90s funk, and 90s house music centerdd around Krall’s unerring knack for yearning, nostalgia-inducing songwriting and infectious, soaring hooks. Interestingly, “Queen of Wands” took shape after a tarot card reading in which Prall drew the queen of wands card. (According to some interpretations, the queen of wands card suggests that the person is upbeat, courageous, determined, self-actualized and self-aware. and can channel their strengths and weaknesses to achieve their goals. In some cases, those who draw the card are inspirational, charismatic, creative sorts.) 

 “It’s about being overwhelmed in the complexities of modern dating and relationships. As we grow older, the desire for deep connection becomes increasingly stronger and a sort of existential longing develops.” An ode to the power of femininity, Prall continues, “The track is a metaphor for this desire as the card roughly symbolizes a strong, driven feminine persona. When the queen of wands reveals themselves to you, resisting the signs is futile.”

Ginseng Hourglass‘s latest single “Inhibitions/Intuitions” thematically and even sonically continues where its immediate predecessor left off. Seemingly influenced by Tame Impala with the song centered around a strutting bass line, bursts of glistening synths, buzzing guitars, “Inhibitions/Intuitions” continues Prall’s ongoing and wildly successful collaboration with Quebec-born-and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and fellow JOVM mainstay Josie Boivin, a.k.a. MUNYA, who contributes her ethereal and coquettish vocals. While reminding listeners of the pair’s unerring knack for crafting earnest, yet hook-driven bops, “Inhibitions/Intuitions” grapples with the apprehension that comes with taking risks in love and in other aspects of one’s life, and trusting your instincts, which aren’t always right.

“MUNYA, aka Josie Boivin, and I have been collaborating on tracks together for several years,” Prall says in press notes. “We met through Instagram and have actually never met in person despite creating countless songs together. The song dives deeper into the story presented by ‘Queen of Wands.’ Fighting one’s inhibitions about taking risks in love versus following their intuition which has previously led them astray.“

“Trent and I have been working together for a few years now. Even if we have never met in person, we have built a strong connection that allows us to create and complete each other in a very natural way,” Boivin says. “I had a lot of fun singing on ‘Inhibitions / Intuitions’ and I’m so honoured to be part of Kainalu’s album. Super stoked for this one and the whole album.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Julien Chang Shares Funky Yet Introspective “Snakebit”

Throughout 2019, I spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering Baltimore-born multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter, producer and college student Julien Chang (pronounced Chong). Initially only thought of as “just a trombone player,” the Baltimore-born artist surprised his peers when he quietly began releasing original music saw him playing multiple instruments while meshing psych rock, pop-inspired melodicism and jazz fusion-like experimentation and improvisation with a sophistication and self-assuredness that belied his youth. Thematically, Chang’s work sees him tunneling towards deeper truths, while touching upon everyday existentialism, love, life, art — and his own life as a human and artist. 

Those early releases caught the attention of Transgressive Records, who signed Chang and released his acclaimed full-length debut, 2019’s Jules, which featured: 

  • “Of The Past,” a sleek, early 80s-like synth funk-based track centered around dexterous musicianship and pop melodicisim 

  • “Butterflies from Monaco,” a slow-burning Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles-like track

  • “Memory Loss” an 80s synth funk inspired song that continued a remarkable run of self-assured material centered around dazzling musicianship and big hooks. 

Chang’s highly-anticipated — and long-awaited — sophomore album The Sale is slated for a November 4, 2022 release through Transgressive Records. Partially recorded in Baltimore and partially in his Princeton dorm room, The Sale is a DIY effort with Chang playing all instruments — with the odd exception of a few notable cameos from some Baltimore locals, classmates and old friends. Thematically, The Sale‘s material sees the rising Baltimore artist exploring the discrepancy between two worlds, a struggle to get comfortable in either one of them, and an artistic fascination with that very struggle. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Marmalade,” a single that found the Baltimore-born artist leaning heavily into lo-fi indie pop with the song featuring glistening guitar lines, punchy drums, Chang’s layered, ethereal falsetto and some remarkably infectious hooks. But the song is underpinned by Chang’s long-held penchant for expansive, psych pop-influenced song structures.

Interestingly, “Marmalade” isn’t as much of a love song, as much as it is about the way one’s memory makes sense of love — and the experience of being in and out of love. “I think the point is that memory runs up against certain limits in sense-making and then has to start relying on fictions,” Chang says.  “I wrote ‘Marmalade’ at a time in which this feeling of passionate regret had just finished transforming into something domesticated, incorporated, and basically mundane — a part of everyday life, something that pops up in the mind from time to time and causes me to scrunch my nose.”

Chang continues, “The verses are the positive struggle of trying to make sense of a past romantic experience; the choruses are the ensuing confrontation with non-sense (“I nearly lost my name!”); and the euphoric outro is the resulting victory of a false memory (“I remember falling in love! I remember falling in love! I remember falling in love!”). 

The Sale‘s third and latest single “Snakebite” sees Chang effortlessly meshing elements of smooth jazz, jazz fusion, Tame Impala-like psych pop and pop in what may arguably be the lush, funkiest and yet most introspective song of Chang’s growing catalog.

“‘Snakebit’ emerged during a period of transformation. This was around the time I left Baltimore for University in the middle of New Jersey,” Chang explains in press notes. “The awkwardness of the transition and the discomfort of ‘growing pains’ provoked in me a kind of creative agitation which found its outlet most decisively in this song. But the song is not only about changing. It is also about encountering change: in a reflective turn, encountering myself who is changing and then interrogating him, testing the limits of the ‘new me’ before finding that I am really not so different.”

Created by multidisciplinary artist Vaughn Taormina, the accompanying video for “Snakebit” draws from an eclectic array of influences including Jacques Tati’s Playtime, 80s Japanese advertisements, the concept of dopplegängers and more. The video also begins with “Snakebite Side,” a cinematic and jazzier, kissing cousin to the original single.

“The song takes the form of a self-interrogation. I have changed, but how? and when? Why? This video simulates the fragmented, unfocused, and self-contradictory search for clues that one falls into trying to answer,” Chang says of the video. “Taken as a whole, the animations all seem to go together on a single string, but examined individually, it is clear that what binds them is not any logical order. In this sense, the video has the structure of a dream. While dreaming, a rapid sequence of freely-associated images and events seems to make perfect sense. It is only upon sober reflection the following morning that these images and events become absurd, random, and nonsensical.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Vacant Lots Share Slow-Burning and Brooding “Consolation Prize”

With the release of 2020’s Interzone through London-based psych label Fuzz Club, the Brooklyn-based psych duo The Vacant Lots — Jared Artaud (vocals, guitar, synths) and Brian McFayden (drums, synths, vocals) — crafted an album’s worth of material that saw the duo blending dance music and psych rock while maintaining the minimalist approach that has won the band acclaim across the international psych scene. 

The duo’s highly-anticipated fourth album Closure is slated for a September 30, 2022 release through Fuzz Club. Written during pandemic-related lockdowns, the eight-song Closure clocks in at 23 minutes and continues the Brooklyn-based duo’s established “minimal is maximal” ethos — all while being a soundtrack for a shattered, fucked up world. 

“During the pandemic the two of us were totally isolated in our home studios,” The Vacant Lots’ Jared Artaud says. “I don’t think the pandemic directly influenced the songs in an obvious way, but merely amplified existing feelings of alienation and isolation. We found ourselves writing in a more direct and vulnerable way than ever before.”

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

“Chase:” Written on a Synsonics drum machine and a Yamaha CS-10 synthesizer, “Chase” is firmly rooted in their long-held “minimal is maximal” ethos but while seeing the Brooklyn-based duo pushing their sound in a club friendly direction while still being lysergic. Arguably one of their most dance floor friendly songs, “Chase” is centered around what may be the most vulnerable and direct lyrics of their growing catalog with the song subtly suggesting that at some point we will all need to dance away our heartache — if only for a three or four minutes. 

“‘Chase’ is a song about longing, about the struggle of love across time zones,” The Vacant Lots’ Brian MacFayden explains in press notes. “It’s about the desire to close that gap of separation, but also the anticipation and excitement that builds between each encounter. It’s about a sense of knowing how it should be before it is.” The band’s Jared Artaud adds, “‘Chase’ has this duality that strikes a balance between wanting to dance and taking a pill that plunges you on the couch.”

“Thank You,” a dance floor friendly banger centered around a relentless and angular, arpeggiated baseline paired with a four-on-the-floor drum machine pattern, glistening synths, angular guitar buzz and sneering vocals. But while being a New Order-like banger, “Thank You” is a bitter tell-off to a people (and situations) that have wasted valuable time. 

“‘Thank You’ was built in the framework of simplicity,” The Vacant Lots Brian MacFayden says. “It has a relentless pace driven by an angular arpeggiated bassline and drum machine pattern. A Juno-6 was used for chords throughout, a Korg M500 for the leads, and the track is brought to another level with guitars layered on top. The process of crafting this song was done entirely remotely due to the pandemic and the layers over time became more and more refined until we were satisfied with each sound source.”

“Consolation Prize,” Closure‘s third and latest single continues the Brooklyn-based duo’s long-held minimal is maximal ethos but while leaning heavily towards industrial goth with the track being centered around droning synths, wiry bursts of guitar, some efficient thump paired with vocals expressing aching heartbreak and frustration. Sonically, the song sounds like a narcotic synthesis of Suicide, Iggy Pop, and New Order.

Filmed and edited by Alexander Schipper, the accompanying video follows a leather jacket-clad Katerina Samar walking through a park. Shot in grainy Super 8 black and white film, the video employs kaleidoscopic filters and old film stock to give the proceedings a slow-burning yet trippy air.

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Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Femme Share a Hilarious and Summery Visual for Breezy “Sacatela”

Founded back in 2010, Parisian psych pop act and longtime JOVM mainstays  La Femme — currently, founding members Sacha Got and Marlon Magnée, along with Sam Lefévre, Noé Delmas, Cleémence Quélennec, Clara Luiciani, Jane Peynot, Marilou Chollet and Lucas Nunez Ritter — managed to completely hoodwink the French music industry by lining up a DIY Stateside tour as a then unknown band, with only $3,000 Euros and their debut EP, that year’s Le Podium #1. 

After playing 20 gigs across the States, the members of La Femme returned to their native France with immense interest from the Parisian music scene. “The industry was like, ‘What the fuck? They have an EP out and they are touring in the US and we don’t know them?” Marlon Magnée told The Guardian. “So the buzz began to start. When we came back to France, it was red carpet. Fucking DIY.” 

2013’s critically applauded and commercially successful full-length debut Psycho Tropical Berlin found the Parisian JOVM mainstays making a wild, creative and sonic left turn incorporating krautrock and synths to the mix. The album eventually earned a Victoires de la Musique Award. Building upon a rapidly growing national and international profile, La Femme’s sophomore album, 2016’s Mystére to praise by Sound Opinions, The Line of Best Fit, The Guardian, AllMusic, BrooklynVegan and a lengthy list of others. 

The French JOVM mainstays long-awaited, third album Paradigmes was released last year through the band’s own Disque Pointu and distributed through IDOL. And over the course of 2021, I managed to write about five of the album’s nine — that’s right, nine! — released singles: 

  • “Cool Colorado,” a coolly bombastic single that seemed indebted to Scott Walker and Ennio Morricone soundtracks while being an “ode to the San Francisco of the 70s — and to Colorado, the first American state to legalize cannabis. 
  • Disconnexion,” a surreal what-the-fuck fever dream centered around pulsating Giorgio Moroder-like motorik grooves, a fiery banjo solo, atmospheric electronics, twinkling synth arpeggios, a philosophic soliloquy delivered in a dry, academic French and operatic caterwauling. 
  • “Foutre le Bordel,” a breakneck freak out that meshed Freedom of Choice-era DEVO and Giorgio Moroder with ’77 punk rock nihilism. 
  • “Le Jardin,” an achingly sad lullaby written and sung in Spanish — the band’s first song in Spanish. Inspired by a trip to Spain that the band took a few years ago, the song as the band explains is a kind of an old-school slow dance, which underlines how fragile and random fate is. 
  • “Pasadena,” a slow-burning, woozy ballad that sounds — and feels — like a narcotic-induced haze. Written as an informal response and continuation of the story told in “Septembre,” off the band’s sophomore album, “Pasadena” features the main character of “Septembre” as a teenager. And as a result, the song is about budding romances — primarily their seemingly carefree nature at the time, their eventual difficulties and confusions, and the weight of peer pressure. 

So far, 2022 has been very busy for the Paris-based JOVM mainstays: Back in April, La Femme released Paradigmes: Le Film, a full-length film co-directed by the band’s Sacha Got and Marlon Magnée and Aymeric Bergada du Cadet that highlights the band’s humor and creativity while being primarily centered around Paradigmes‘ material. (You can watch it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Wnil2ipf0)

The also released an exclusive, vinyl Record Store Day edition of Paradigmes, Paradigmes: suppléments, a deluxe edition of their critically applauded third album. Along with the Record Store Day exclusive vinyl release of Paradigmes: suppléments, the band released yet another single off Paradigmes, the album closing track “Tu T’en Lasses,” a slow-burning and atmospheric fever dream, centered around skittering beats, glistening synths and a distorted yet mournful horn solo paired with dreamily delivered vocals.

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of Paradigmes, La Femme announced the release of a limited collection of NFTs made from the original frames used for the animated video for “Foutre le Bordel.” The NFTs were released by  by Ballad(r), an NFT launchpad for artists and institutions in the music industry. These unique digital works of art included a unique audio track made from stems of the original song and unlocked exclusive content and numerous real-life perks for each lucky NFT holder.

During the JOVM mainstays’ time touring across Latin America and Spain, the band wrote their first song entirely in Spanish, “Le Jardin,” which appeared on the aforementioned Paradigmes. “Le Jardin” led the band down the path to write Teatro Lucido. Deriving its name from a mythic theater, where the band has played many times while touring in Mexico, the album, which is slated for a November 4, 2022 release will be their first album with lyrics written and sung entirely in Spanish. Teatro Lucido will also be the first of a planned thematic series of albums that the band calls Collection Odyssèe.

The album is informed by their adventures in Seville, Granada, Madrid, Mexico City, Cuautepec, Padul — all of which hold important places in their hearts, because they had a ton of laughs, joys, tears and disappointments in each. The album also reportedly draws from a number of different inspirations including Spain’s Semana Santa — or holy week; pasodoble, reggaeton, Brazilian and Andalusian rhythms., classical guitars and 80s Movida among others. Much like their previous releases, the members of French JOVM mainstays wrote, composed and produced the album entirely by themselves, while inviting numerous female vocalists to participate in the process.

Now, as you may recall just before the JOVM mainstays last North American tour, La Femme shared “Sacatela.” Inspired by their tours across South American and Spain, “Sacatela” is a Tropicalia-take on psych pop featuring shuffling Latin rhythms and lyrics sung entirely in Spanish paired with an infectious call-and-response vocal-led hook.

Directed by Ilan Zerrouki and starring Itziar Guardamino Sanchez, Marlon Magnée, Sacha Got, Ysé Grospiron, Samantha Quealy, Sam Lefèvre, Daniel Barda and Francesco Mocchia Di Coggiola, the accompanying visual for “Sacatela” was shot in Nice, France and is a breezy, stylish blast of seemingly carefree, easy-going summer, full of frolicking at the beach, rooftop parties and the like. But things quickly go hilariously wrong with some of the video’s cast getting violently ill. As the band explains the video is about unacknowledged desires and un-pursued dreams, which is also called “sacatelaism.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jonathan Personne Shares Gorgeous “À présent”

Montreal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, animator and visual artist Jonathan Robert may be best known for being a co-founder and co-lead vocalist of internationally acclaimed JOVM mainstay act Corridor. But Robert is also an acclaimed solo artist, writing and performing as Jonathan Personne.

Robert’s solo debut as Jonathan Personne, Histoire Naturelle, sonically drew from desert dream pop, Western Spaghetti rock and jangle pop. Thematically, the album’s material focused on the potential end of the world. Of course, with the album’s timing, it might have hit the nail a bit too hard on the head.

His sophomore Jonathan Personne album, 2020’s Guillaume Chiasson-product Disparitions was primarily written while the Montreal-based artist was touring with Corridor, and came about in a quick and fluid fashion. While the album saw Robert continuing upon the hook-driven yet intimate and sensitive songwriting that has won him acclaim as a solo artist, Disparitions was largely inspired by moment when music became a source of profound disgust. “I spent a lot of time touring away from home. Towards the end I felt like I was reluctantly going to do something that I had longed wished for,” Robert explained in press notes. 

The Montreal-based singer/songwriter began 2022 by signing with Bonsound, who will be releasing his third Jonathan Personne album, the Emmanuel Éthier-produced Jonathan Personne on Friday. Written alone on an acoustic guitar in a cottage, the album took an unexpected turn, when the Montreal-based artist went to Quebec City-based Le Pantoum with his friends and frequent collaborators Samuel Gougoux (drums), Julian Perreault (guitar), Mathieu Cloutier (bass) and the aforementioned Éthier (violin, synths, mellotron, vocals and production). The album’s material features arrangements centered around electric guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, Rhodes, timpani, mellotron, synths, violin and even samples, the eight-song album continues Robert’s reputation for crafting material inspired by 60s pop and Spaghetti Westerns but with samples from obscure TV shows and movies, blistering rock grooves and extravagant guitar licks, the album features a more polished production than previous releases. 

Packaged with a Jonathan Robert illustration in which two children discover the remains of a dead body, the album thematically is rooted in duality: While continuing his reputation for breezy guitar pop, the album’s material is simultaneously brutal and sinister, yet candid. The album’s material evokes a mysterious world where ghosts, the supernatural, fate and broken characters with broken lives all intertwine and interact.

Featuring a Jonathan Robert illustration in which two children discover the remains of a dead body as its album cover art, the album thematically is rooted in duality: Continuing his reputation for breezy guitar pop, the album is also brutal, sinister yet candid. The end result is an album that evokes a mysterious world where ghosts, the supernatural, fate and broken characters with broken lives intertwine. 

In the lead-up to the album’s release later this week, I’ve managed to write about two album singles:

  • “Un homme sans visage” a deceptively breezy song centered around an arrangement of gorgeous Mellotron-driven melody, jangling guitar, simple yet propulsive rhythms, bursts of lap steep, big hooky choruses and Robert’s plaintive falsetto. While continuing to be lovingly inspired by the sounds of the late 60s, the song is a bittersweet, modern fable of sorts that tells a story about a man, whose face is badly burned in a fire. 
  • “Rock & roll sur ton chemin,” a deceptively straightforward rocker centered around a loose and breezy surf rock-like riff and a churning groove paired with dreamily delivered falsetto harmonies and Robert’s penchant for big, catchy hooks paired with subtle amounts of bongo, Mellotron and whistles. But despite it’s breezy air, the song is bittersweet and drenched with irony with the song being a tribute to dying art forms and those, who still practice them. “Devoting oneself to a genre destined to failure, there’s something pathetic about it, but also something very beautiful,” Robert says.

Jonathan Personne‘s third and latest single, “À présent” sounds indebted to Scott Walker‘s orchestral pop and Phil Spector‘s famous Wall of Sound production but with a greatest emphasis on the jangling rhythm section, which subtly pushes the whole affair into more contemporary realm. Thematically, the song depicts a world where excess, speed and love coexist in a setting that’s kind of a synthesis of Romeo and Juliet and James Dean’s life with the song’s central couple dying in a horrific accident.

Animated by Mathieu Larone and Henry McClellan, the accompanying video for “À présent” is abstract but centered in dualities, evoking the album’s themes: the animation is both childlike and disturbing, broodingly dark and colorful. But throughout, the intention was to present the optimistic vision of a new beginning.

“Mathieu and Henry were able to translate the song into images, and it’s just beautiful! It’s like an excerpt from the movie Fantasia, only weirder, darker, and done by the NFB rather than Disney,” Jonathan Robert says.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Kainalu Shares a Breezy and Funky New Bop

Over the course of the past couple of years of this site’s 12 year history, I’ve managed to spill a bit of virtual ink covering the Southern California-born, Madison,WI--based producer, multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter, Trent Prall, the creative mastermind behind the rising psych pop, solo recording project Kainalu.

Deriving its name from the Hawaiian word for ocean wave, Prall’s work with Kanialu routinely sees him drawing from psych pop, psych rock, dream pop, Tropicalia, synth pop and funk, and childhood trips to visit his mother’s family in Oahu. The end result is a breezy, funky and nostalgia-inducing sound that Prall has dubbed “Hawaii-fi,” which he further developed and expanded upon with his full-length Kainalu debut, Lotus Gate.

Back in 2020, the JOVM mainstay collaborated with fellow JOVM mainstay MUNYA on the breezy and infectious “You Never Let Go,” which revealed some easy-going yet ambitious, hook-driven songwriting that found the pair seamlessly meshing their individual sound and aesthetics.

Prall’s highly-anticipated sophomore Kainalu album Ginseng Hourglass is slated for a November 4, 2022 release, The 11-song album is reportedly a contemplative and philosophical exploration of the passage of time and the finite, fleeting nature of life. Ginseng Hourglass follows the recent and untimely death of Prall’s mother, and is deeply informed by the conversations they had about her life and mortality during the last few months of her life. While seeing Prall striking a delicate balance between breezy effervescence and the darkest depths of despair, the album’s material captures life’s small joys and victories amidst trauma, emotional ruin and hard-won wisdom. Ultimately, the album makes a concerted effect to find and see hope — in heartbreak and pain.

“I don’t want people to think this album is sad because it’s not,” Prall says in press notes. “I have always used music as a way to heal. That’s what this music is — a way to escape into a vibe and atmosphere when the world was crumbling. It’s meant to transport you into a world because that’s what I needed when I wrote it.”

The album’s main concert is also shown in the cover art, which resembles falling sand in an hourglass — the literal embodiment of time physically slipping away, knowing that one’s time is the most precious thing anyone could have. While the album will further cement Prall’s reputation for crafting dance floor friendly grooves, but lyrically, it may arguably be the most personal of his growing catalog: The songs deep deep into a rabbit hole of complex, conflicting emotions making the album a cathartic, therapeutic fever dream — with Prall’s story at the center. Created as a means of escape and healing, Prall explains, “I write to escape the thoughts that keeps me up at night. It’s a therapy device and meditative practice. These past years we all experienced so much loss. On top of the pandemic, I really went through some serious trauma and I wrote this record because I needed to.” 

Ginseng Hourglass‘s latest single “Queen of Wands” is a strutting, funky bop that sonically seems to draw from Currents-era Tame Impala, electro pop, 90s funk, and 90s house music centerdd around Krall’s unerring knack for swooningly yearning, nostalgia-inducing songwriting and infectious, soaring hooks. Interestingly, “Queen of Wands” took shape after a tarot card reading in which Prall drew the queen of wands card. (According to some interpretations, the queen of wands card suggests that the person is upbeat, courageous, determined, self-actualized and self-aware. and can channel their strengths and weaknesses to achieve their goals. In some cases, those who draw the card are inspirational, charismatic, creative sorts.)

 “It’s about being overwhelmed in the complexities of modern dating and relationships. As we grow older, the desire for deep connection becomes increasingly stronger and a sort of existential longing develops.” An ode to the power of femininity, Prall continues, “The track is a metaphor for this desire as the card roughly symbolizes a strong, driven feminine persona. When the queen of wands reveals themselves to you, resisting the signs is futile.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Saint Kochi Shares Lysergic Animated Visual for “Leeches”

Born in London to parents, who immigrated from India and Kenya, the rising British chamber pop/psych pop artist Saint Kochi has led an extraordinary and unusual life, that for a while got in the way of his real lifetime aim — to make music his entire life, not a part of it. There was so much that occupied his time: a flirtation with genuine stardom as a professional cricket player, parents who doubted hat anyone could survive with a career in the arts, and an unexpected career as a seller of massive ships. 

Saint Kochi continued to push forward with his lifelong dream of making music, releasing last year’s self-titled debut EP. Building upon the growing buzz of his debut EP, the British chamber pop and psych pop artist’s Dom Ganderton co-produced sophomore EP Almost Lost officially dropped today. The EP is a bold step forward for the rising British artist, as it sees him crafting gorgeous and thoughtful music meant to transport the listener to another place.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few months, I’ve written about three of the EPs singles in the lead-up to its release:

  • “Almost Lost,” a cinematic track that brought  The Beatles, Scott Walker, The Verve, and JOVM mainstays POND to mind — but while possessing an enormous sound, the song is rooted in intimate and lived-in lyricism that’s personal yet universal. 
  • “Out of Time,” a single that features a gorgeous string arrangement paired with a sumptuous bass line, boom bap-like drums, twinkling bursts of keys and Saint Kochi’s plaintive cooing. And much like its immediate predecessor, the widescreen vibes are rooted in intimate, lived-in experience. 
  • “Lifeline,” a single that continued a remarkable run of cinematic, swooning, orchestral pop rooted in personal yet universal experience: With “Lifeline,” the song thematically is rooted in the desire to connect with another person, who understands you for you, and is there for you during the most tumultuous and difficult periods and struggles of your life.

Almost Lost‘s fourth and latest single “Leeches” is a stunningly gorgeous and thoughtful song featuring strummed guitar, a soaring orchestral arrangement, a fuzzy and lysergic guitar solo and enormous hooks paired with the rising British artist’s plaintive falsetto. “There is a lyric that is lifted out of a Basquiat painting called Leeches– it made me think a lot about unspoken realities of peoples’ lives that exist alongside our interactions with people and relationships in a very immediate sense,” Saint Kochi says.

While primarily recorded at Saint Kochi’s purpose-built basement studio, the string arrangement performed by the 14-piece string section was recorded at RAK Studios, where iconic albums like Radiohead‘s The Bends and a lengthy list of others was recorded. The string section fulfilled the rising British artist’s ambition of “making a record that had these big cinematic James Bond, Beatleseque type of strings on them.” 

Directed by Kate Renshaw-Lewis and featuring animation, VHS and transfer workday Dillion Moore, the accompanying video for “Leeches” follows an animated Saint Kochi through a lysergic journey through the lives of every day folks he encounters during a regular day in London.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Vacant Lots Share a Motorik Groove-Driven Bop

With the release of 2020’s Interzone through London-based psych label Fuzz Club, the Brooklyn-based psych duo The Vacant Lots — Jared Artaud (vocals, guitar, synths) and Brian McFayden (drums, synths, vocals) — crafted an album’s worth of material that saw the duo blending dance music and psych rock while maintaining the minimalist approach that has won the band acclaim across the international psych scene. 

The duo’s highly-anticipated fourth album Closure is slated for a September 30, 2022 release through Fuzz Club. Written during pandemic-related lockdowns, the eight-song Closure clocks in at 23 minutes and continues the Brooklyn-based duo’s established “minimal is maximal” ethos — all while being a soundtrack for a shattered, fucked up world. 

“During the pandemic the two of us were totally isolated in our home studios,” The Vacant Lots’ Jared Artaud says. “I don’t think the pandemic directly influenced the songs in an obvious way, but merely amplified existing feelings of alienation and isolation. We found ourselves writing in a more direct and vulnerable way than ever before.”

Last month, I wrote about Closure‘s first single “Chase.” Written on a Synsonics drum machine and a Yamaha CS-10 synthesizer, “Chase” is firmly rooted in their long-held “minimal is maximal” ethos but while seeing the Brooklyn-based duo pushing their sound in a club friendly direction while still being lysergic. Arguably one of their most dance floor friendly songs, “Chase” is centered around what may be the most vulnerable and direct lyrics of their growing catalog with the song subtly suggesting that at some point we will all need to dance away our heartache — if only for a three or four minutes.

“‘Chase’ is a song about longing, about the struggle of love across time zones,” The Vacant Lots’ Brian MacFayden explains in press notes. “It’s about the desire to close that gap of separation, but also the anticipation and excitement that builds between each encounter. It’s about a sense of knowing how it should be before it is.” The band’s Jared Artaud adds, “‘Chase’ has this duality that strikes a balance between wanting to dance and taking a pill that plunges you on the couch.”

Closure‘s second and latest single “Thank You” is a dance floor friendly banger centered around a relentless and angular, arpeggiated baseline paired with a four-on-the-floor drum machine pattern, glistening synths, angular guitar buzz and sneering vocals. But while being a New Order-like banger, “Thank You” is a bitter tell-off to a people (and situations) that have wasted valuable time.

“‘Thank You’ was built in the framework of simplicity,” The Vacant Lots Brian MacFayden says. “It has a relentless pace driven by an angular arpeggiated bassline and drum machine pattern. A Juno-6 was used for chords throughout, a Korg M500 for the leads, and the track is brought to another level with guitars layered on top. The process of crafting this song was done entirely remotely due to the pandemic and the layers over time became more and more refined until we were satisfied with each sound source.”

Directed by Alexander Schipper, the accompanying video brings Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground to mind as it features two impossibly cool people in sunglasses smoking and swaying to music, shot in grainy black and white.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

After spending years leading Boston-based art rock collective The Solars, whose 2017 EP Retitled Remastered landed on DigBoston‘s Best Massachusetts Albums of 2017, Miles Hewitt returned to Harvard College to finish his award-winning collection of poems The Candle is Forever Learning to Sing.

Following his graduation in 2018, Hewitt relocated to Western Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley, settling in a small hill town, just down the road from a friend’s recording studio — and a few miles from where he spent the first year of his life. It was amidst the cycling greens, browns and blues of the Pioneer Valley, where Hewitt began writing the songs that would become Hewtti’s ambitious and wide-ranging solo debut Heartfall. Drawing from British and American folk music, 70s songwriter rock, psychedelia, krautrock and electronic music, Heartfall‘s is reportedly an album for album-lovers. And while the material is formally spare, few of the album’s arrangements have recognizable verse/chorus structures, instead holding patterns that melt away only when fully exhausted. “As I became interested in a less anthropocentric mentality, I wondered if this could be expressed through formally organic songs, built from looping phrases or motifs and evolving at the level of the line,” Hewitt explains.
The effect of these slow changes — a kind of temporal dilation that can make it easy to forget just how long you’ve been listening to a given song — invites a state of consciousness more familiar in drone and ambient music than most rock ‘n’ roll. 

After relocating to Brooklyn in 2019, Hewitt began recruiting a variety of serious session players including members of the backing bands for Devendra Banhart, Kevin Moby and Aldous Harding, including Jared Samuel (organ), David Christian (drums), Shahzad Ismaily (piano) and Jack McLoughlin (guitar) and a cast of others, who all contributed to the Hewitt-produced recording sessions.

Heartfall‘s latest single, the vibey “The Ark” begins with the sound of rushing water, before quickly morphing into a tempest of jazz fusion drumming, glistening Rhodes, sinuous bass, atmospheric electronics. The song’s second section is a dreamy bit of guitar-driven Pink Floyd meets Radiohead-like psychedelia that slows down to a laconic fade out. The song ends with a folksy piano-driven coda. Although the song doesn’t hew to a familiar or recognizable chorus, verse, bridge structure, it’s all held together by the deft and seemingly effortless rhythm section and Hewitt’s tender vocals. Thematically, the song details the search for the Biblical — and mythical — vessel that can deliver humanity from certain doom.

Heartfall is slated for an August 26, 2022 release.

Hewitt will be embarking on a tour to support his full-length debut. Check out the tour dates below.

TOUR DATES

    Aug 03 – Khyber Pass Pub – Philadelphia, PA
    Aug 04 – Garden Grove Brewing Company – Richmond, VA
    Aug 05 – Down Yonder Farm – Hillsborough, NC
    Aug 06 – Story Parlor – Asheville, NC
    Aug 09 – 5 Spot – Nashville, TN
    Aug 10 – Northside Tavern – Cincinnati, OH
    Aug 11 – Rear End Gastropub – Pittsburgh, PA
    Aug 12 – The Avalon Lounge – Catskill, NY
    Aug 13 – Lilypad – Cambridge, MA
    Aug 14 – Sun Tiki Studios – Portland, ME

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Julien Chang Shares Dreamy and Meditative “Marmalade”

Throughout the course of 2019, I spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the acclaimed Baltimore-born multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter, producer and college student Julien Chang (pronounced Chong). Initially only thought of as “just a trombone player,” the Baltimore-born artist surprised his peers when he quietly began releasing original music saw him playing multiple instruments while meshing psych rock, pop-inspired melodicism and jazz fusion-like experimentation an improvisation with a sophistication and self-assuredness that belied his relative youth. Thematically, Chang’s work sees him tunneling towards deeper truths, while touching upon everyday existentialism, love, life, art — and his own life as a human and artist.

Those early releases caught the attention of Transgressive Records, who signed Chang and released his critically applauded full-length debut, 2019’s Jules, which featured:

  • “Of The Past,” a sleek, early 80s-like synth funk-based track centered around dexterous musicianship and pop melodicisim
  • “Butterflies from Monaco,” a slow-burning Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles-like track
  • “Memory Loss” an 80s synth funk inspired song that continued a remarkable run of self-assured material centered around dazzling musicianship and big hooks.

Chang’s highly-anticipated — and long-awaited — sophomore album The Sale is slated for a November 4, 2022 release through Transgressive Records. Partially recorded in Baltimore and partially in his Princeton dorm room, The Sale is a DIY effort with Chang playing all instruments — with the odd exception of a few notable cameos from some Baltimore locals, classmates and old friends. Thematically, The Sale‘s material sees the rising Baltimore artist exploring the discrepancy between two worlds, a struggle to get comfortable in either one of them, and an artistic fascination with that very struggle.

“Marmalade,” The Sale‘s first single sees the acclaimed Baltimore artist leanings heavily into lo-fi indie pop with the song centered around glistening guitar lines, punchy drums, Chang’s layered, ethereal falsetto and big, infectious hooks. But the song is underpinned by his penchant for expansive, psych pop song structures.

Interestingly, “Marmalade” isn’t as much of a love song, as much as it is about the way one’s memory makes sense of love — and the experience of being in and out of love. “I think the point is that memory runs up against certain limits in sense-making and then has to start relying on fictions,” Chang says.  “I wrote ‘Marmalade’ at a time in which this feeling of passionate regret had just finished transforming into something domesticated, incorporated, and basically mundane — a part of everyday life, something that pops up in the mind from time to time and causes me to scrunch my nose.”

Chang continues, “The verses are the positive struggle of trying to make sense of a past romantic experience; the choruses are the ensuing confrontation with non-sense (“I nearly lost my name!”); and the euphoric outro is the resulting victory of a false memory (“I remember falling in love! I remember falling in love! I remember falling in love!”). 

Directed by Layla Ku of New York-based collective MICHELLE, the mesmerizing and trippy accompanying visual for “Marmalade” features a mix of still photography and video that includes New Wave-inspired split screens as the video follows the rising Baltimore-born artist driving to the beach, at the beach sitting in an office chair while brushing his teeth and staring at a TV — and playing his guitar in an abandoned, graffitied warehouse space.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Born in London to parents, who immigrated from India and Kenya, the rising British chamber pop/psych pop artist Saint Kochi has led an extraordinary and unusual life, that for a while got in the way of his real lifetime aim — to make music his entire life, not a part of it. There was so much that occupied his time: a flirtation with genuine stardom as a professional cricket player, parents who doubted hat anyone could survive with a career in the arts, and an unexpected career as a seller of massive ships. 

Saint Kochi continued to push forward with his lifelong dream of making music, releasing last year’s self-titled debut EP. Building upon the growing buzz of his debut EP, the British chamber pop and psych pop artist’s Dom Ganderton co-produced sophomore EP Almost Lost is slated for an August 10, 2022 release. Almost Lost reportedly is a bold-step forward for Saint Kochi as he crafts gorgeous music meant to transport the listener to another place.

So far I’ve written about two of the EP’s singles:

  • “Almost Lost,” a cinematic track that brought  The Beatles, Scott Walker, The Verve, and JOVM mainstays POND to mind — but while possessing an enormous sound, the song is rooted in intimate and lived-in lyricism that’s personal yet universal. 
  • “Out of Time,” a single that features a gorgeous string arrangement paired with a sumptuous bass line, boom bap-like drums, twinkling bursts of keys and Saint Kochi’s plaintive cooing. And much like its immediate predecessor, the widescreen vibes are rooted in intimate, lived-in experience.

Almost Lost‘s latest single, “Lifeline” continues a run of cinematic and swooning, orchestral pop rooted in personal yet universal experience. In the case of “Lifeline,” the desire to connect with another person, who understands you and is there for you during the most tumultuous and difficult periods and struggles of your life.

“Lyrically I think for me its about the importance of finding connections with people and a feeling of we are all in this together and if we can be there for each other, we can collectively get through and past whatever struggles we find along the way…” Saint Kochi explains in press notes.

While primarily recorded at Saint Kochi’s purpose-built basement studio, the string arrangement performed by the 14-piece string section was recorded at RAK Studios, where iconic albums like Radiohead‘s The Bends and a lengthy list of others was recorded. The string section fulfilled the rising British artist’s ambition of “making a record that had these big cinematic James Bond, Beatleseque type of strings on them.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Spacemoth’s Woozy and Wobbling “Round In Loops”

Bay Area-based Afghan-American musician, composer and producer Maryam Qudus has been driven by a lifelong devotion to music: When she turned 12, she traded chores for guitar lessons; when she was 16, she took on after school jobs to pay or voice lessons. As a first-generation Afghan-American child of working-class immigrant parents, finding a place in music was nothing short of a challenge for Qudus. “Women are often discouraged from pursuing music in the Afghan and Muslim community, and those who follow that path receive a lot of heat,” she explains. 

Qudus’ career began in earnest with her first solo project Doe Eye, which quickly received radio airplay, magazine features and blogosphere buzz after 2014’s John Vanderslice-produced Television, a lush batch of indie pop and spacey rock. Working with Vanderslice at his San Francisco co-op-turned studio, Tiny Telephone opened new avenues for the Bay Area-based artist: She began studying at Bay Area-based recording arts non-profit Women’s Audio Mission, eventually interning both there and at Tiny Telephone, before becoming a staff engineer at both. 

Picking up studio techniques and tricks from clients like Wax Nine Records artists Sad13, Toro Y Moi, Sasami, and Tune-Yards helped inspired the arrangements she was working on. And in between sessions, she was able to play with electronic ambiance and tape experimentations for her latest solo project Spacemoth. 

Qudus’ Spacemoth full-length debut, No Past No Future is slated for a July 22, 2022 release through Wax Nine Records. Centered around lush, intergalactic, avant-pop made with vintage synths like the Yamaha CS-50 and Korg Polysix with fluttering tape manipulations paired with Qudus’ striking vocals, No Past No Future thematically serves as a reckoning point between nostalgia and nihilism, exploring the struggle to hang on to a moment as it warps in time. Overall, the album radiates in the awe of the complex emotional landscape humans contain within themselves and the preciousness of our time here. 

Last month, I wrote about No Past No Future‘s third single “Waves Come Crashing,” a swooning and hypnotic pop song featuring blown out beats, glistening analog synths, wobbling tape distortion and rumbling bass paired with Qudus’ plaintive vocals and a razor sharp hook. Sonically, the song seems to simultaneously nod at the dusty yet retro futuristic leanings of BBC Radiophonic Workshop and JOVM mainstays Pavo Pavo, but while increasingly getting darker emotionally — and sonically — as the song flutters and wobbling to its conclusion.

Throughout the song, the song’s narrator confronts the inevitability of death while exploring the most difficult and heartbreaking aspect of falling and being in love — the fear of losing the person you love. “‘Waves Come Crashing’ was written during a period when I was haunted by the idea of losing my partner,” Qudus explains. “I would lay awake at night and all I could think of was ‘what if something happens to them tomorrow‘? While I was unable to shake these thoughts, I slowly realized my time spent worrying about loss was consuming the time we have together.”

No Past No Future‘s fourth and latest single, “Round In Loops” is centered around woozy, analog tape loops, looping and glistening guitar lines and blown out beats paired with Qudus’ plaintive and dreamy delivery. While being a wobbly yet infectious bit of dusty, psych pop, the song thematically focuses on the cyclical patterns we create and endure throughout our lives — to the point of being nonsensical and defeatist.

“I often start a song by creating tape loops and layering different sounds together to create a bed of abstraction to build upon,” Qudus explains. “In ‘Round In Loops,’ I wanted to connect the loops in the song with the cyclical patterns we endure both in our minds and in our lives.”

Co-directed with her brother Dean, the accompanying video for “Round In Loops” is a hazy, lysergic and playfully loving homage to the classic and memorable Maxell “High Fidelity” ad campaign in the early 80s, essentially adding to the overall analog feel.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Brooklyn’s The Vacant Lots Share Vulnerable and Trippy, Dance Floor Friendly Bop

With the release of 2020’s Interzone through London-based psych label Fuzz Club, the Brooklyn-based psych duo The Vacant Lots — Jared Artaud (vocals, guitar, synths) and Brian McFayden (drums, synths, vocals) — crafted an album’s worth of material that saw the duo blending dance music and psych rock while maintaining the minimalist approach that has won the band acclaim across the international psych scene.

The duo’s highly-anticipated fourth album Closure is slated for a September 30, 2022 release through Fuzz Club. Written during pandemic-related lockdowns, the eight-song Closure clocks in at 23 minutes and continues the Brooklyn-based duo’s established “minimal is maximal” ethos — all while being a soundtrack for a shattered, fucked up world.

“During the pandemic the two of us were totally isolated in our home studios,” The Vacant Lots’ Jared Artaud says. “I don’t think the pandemic directly influenced the songs in an obvious way, but merely amplified existing feelings of alienation and isolation. We found ourselves writing in a more direct and vulnerable way than ever before.”

Closure‘s first single “Chase” was written on a Synsonics drum machine and a Yamaha CS-10 synthesizer. While firmly rooted in their “minimal is maximal” ethos, “Closure” sees the acclaimed Brooklyn-duo pushing their sound in an increasingly club friendly direction thanks to thumping beats and glistening synth arpeggios — while still possessing a lysergic quality. “Closure” may well be perfect for late nights under strobe lights, the song features what may arguably be the most vulnerable and direct lyrics of their growing catalog. It’s as though the song is subtly suggesting to that the listener dance the heartache away for a few minutes.

“‘Chase’ is a song about longing, about the struggle of love across time zones,” The Vacant Lots’ Brian MacFayden explains in press notes. “It’s about the desire to close that gap of separation, but also the anticipation and excitement that builds between each encounter. It’s about a sense of knowing how it should be before it is.” The band’s Jared Artaud adds, “‘Chase’ has this duality that strikes a balance between wanting to dance and taking a pill that plunges you on the couch.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Chicago’s Crawling Vines Shares a Breezy and Hook-Driven Bop

Jack Holston is a Chicago-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind the emerging solo psych pop recording project Crawling Vines. And with Crawling Vines, Holston is able to fully display his self-described experimental, genre-bending style rooted in inventive melodies and polished production.

Holston’s latest Crawling Vines single “Not Today” is a hook driven, breezy, and summery pop confection centered around twinkling synths, a sinuous and punchy bass line, some funk rhythm guitar and a blazing guitar solo paired with a distorted vocal. Ironically, written and produced during the cold winter, “Not Today” manages to sound influenced by Tame Impala and JOVM mainstays like Summer Heart and Washed Out while capturing the awkward and swooning pangs of love — both requited and unrequited.