Tag: psych soul

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Brainstory Shares a Shuffling and Trippy Ode to Suburban Life

Rialto, CA-based soul outfit Brainstory — siblings Kevin (vocals, guitar) and Tony Martin (bass) and Eric Hagstrom (drums) — can trace their origins to the shared common denominator of jazz: With no real music scene in California’s Inland Empire, Kevin Martin and Eric Hagstrom both landed in music school, where they met. Tony Martin, however, relocated to San Francisco, where he studied jazz bass in a more traditional fashion — gig-by-gig, learning trial-by-fire. 

By the mid-2010s, the trio relocated to Los Angeles, where they started with a more jazz-tinged take on soul. “”That’s what we were all into at the time—jazz,” Brainstory’s Kevin Martin explains. “And that’s what we wanted to do with our first EP in 2014—take our songs and expand them, improvise, weld jazz onto them. We wanted to trick people into listening to jazz, basically.” 

Since then, the trio’s sound and approach has evolved from their self-released EPs and the opening slots of their earliest days. Growing as musicians and people, the trio don’t want to be pigeonholed as jazz heads — although the transcendent and freeing nature of that genre is crucial to their sound. 

For the members of Brainstory, the “genre-bending” band distinction is a celebration of what sets them apart in a very busy and crowded field. Anchored by Kevin Martin’s songwriting and real, studied-but-humble musicianship, the result is something new yet familiar. But it’s more than just top-notch musicianship and songwriting; the band also has some proper influences. In their formative days, some of their most significant influences came from a few places: their parents (who were musicians in their own right) and their household record collections, and then later, Chicano Batman‘s Eduardo Arenas. 

Arenas produced the trio’s first EPs and then introduced them to Big Crown Records and the label’s co-owner Leon Michels, who would eventually produce their full-length debut, 2019’s Buck. Michels also was a major influence on the band’s 2021 EP Ripe: Of the seven-song EP, two featured lyrics while the remaining five were instrumental compositions rooted in heady, vibey atmospherics. 

Much like the countless bands and artists across the globe, the pandemic kept the members of Brainstory out of the studio, away from Big Crown’s East Coast operations — and of course, put their plans to play live shows on pause for a while. Feeling the need to establish and maintain some momentum during the pandemic, the trio decided to do something drastic: Spearheaded by the band’s Eric Hagstrom, the band built their own studio in Long Beach and quickly got to work recording music. “We didn’t really set out to make a record,” Hagerstrom clarifies. “We were learning how to record and playing around to figure out what was working. But we were also sending the stuff to Big Crown, and they were like, ‘Let’s make this record.’” 

The trio’s Leon Micehls-produced sophomore album Sounds Good is slated for an April 19, 2024 release through Big Crown Records. The album will feature:

“Gift of Life,” a lush, old-school, Quiet Storm-like, show-topping ballad built around a shimmering and vibey arrangement featuring fluttering, ethereal flute paired with Kevin Martin’s emotive, falsetto croon and some incredibly catch hooks. While the song see the band pulling from classic soul, psych soul and dub in a way that sounds like it could been released sometime between 1968-1974, “Gift of Life,” manages to feel remarkably modern. 

Thematically, the song sees the trio ruminating on the complexity of the human condition with a hard-earned, weary wisdom. “This song is somewhat of a prayer to the inevitable decay that surrounds us and the pain that follows. It alters our perspectives and ways of life,” Brainstory explains. “It’s a powerful natural force that guides us. In this life, we lose and eventually must let go of life itself but, when we learn to surrender, we give ourselves a chance to change and adapt. Though it is often painful, the reward is simply to see another day with new eyes full of gratitude for the opportunity to live.”

Last month, the trio celebrated the official announcement of their sophomore album with the release of the “Listen”/”Too Young” double single, which featured “Listen,” a song anchored around a classic, two-step groove paired with shimmering analog synths, an overdrive-fueled guitar solo and some dreamy falsetto melodies and harmonies. While sounding as though it could have been a Mandrill or Isley Brothers B side, the song sees Martin expressing modern day frustrations over how technology can distract people from being fully present in our daily lives and from spirituality. The song’s narrator is encouraging the listener to spend some time enjoying the present moment, because it’s all too short and remarkably fleeting. 

Sounds Good’s fourth and latest single “Peach Optimo” is a slow-burning and summery bit of psych soul anchored around a strutting and wobbling bass line, glistening keys, some funky drum rhythm patterns and an expressive guitar solo paired with some retro-futuristic synths. Seemingly channelling JOVM mainstays Mildlife and L’Eclair, “Peach Optimo” derives its title from a favorite cigar wrap that the band’s members used for blunts as teenagers. The song sees the trio diving into the banality and simple pleasures of teenaged suburban life — full of the nostalgia of cul-de-sac hangs and bullshit sessions with the homies.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 81st Birthday, Sly Stone!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Sly and the Family Stone’s Sly Stone’s 81st birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Rialto, CA-based soul outfit Brainstory — siblings Kevin (vocals, guitar) and Tony Martin (bass) and Eric Hagstrom (drums) — can trace their origins to the shared common denominator of jazz: With no real music scene in California’s Inland Empire, Kevin Martin and Eric Hagstrom both landed in music school, where they met. Tony Martin, however, relocated to San Francisco, where he studied jazz bass in a more traditional fashion — gig-by-gig, learning trial-by-fire. 

By the mid-2010s, the trio relocated to Los Angeles, where they started with a more jazz-tinged take on soul. “”That’s what we were all into at the time—jazz,” Brainstory’s Kevin Martin explains. “And that’s what we wanted to do with our first EP in 2014—take our songs and expand them, improvise, weld jazz onto them. We wanted to trick people into listening to jazz, basically.” 

Since then, the trio’s sound and approach has evolved from their self-released EPs and the opening slots of their earliest days. Growing as musicians and people, the trio don’t want to be pigeonholed as jazz heads — although the transcendent and freeing nature of that genre is crucial to their sound. 

For the members of Brainstory, the “genre-bending” band distinction is a celebration of what sets them apart in a very busy and crowded field. Anchored by Kevin Martin’s songwriting and real, studied-but-humble musicianship, the result is something new yet familiar. But it’s more than just top-notch musicianship and songwriting; the band also has some proper influences. In their formative days, some of their most significant influences came from a few places: their parents (who were musicians in their own right) and their household record collections, and then later, Chicano Batman‘s Eduardo Arenas. 

Arenas produced the trio’s first EPs and then introduced them to Big Crown Records and the label’s co-owner Leon Michels, who would eventually produce their full-length debut, 2019’s Buck. Michels also was a major influence on the band’s 2021 EP Ripe: Of the seven-song EP, two featured lyrics while the remaining five were instrumental compositions rooted in heady, vibey atmospherics. 

Much like the countless bands and artists across the globe, the pandemic kept the members of Brainstory out of the studio, away from Big Crown’s East Coast operations — and of course, put their plans to play live shows on pause for a while. Feeling the need to establish and maintain some momentum during the pandemic, the trio decided to do something drastic: Spearheaded by the band’s Eric Hagstrom, the band built their own studio in Long Beach and quickly got to work recording music. “We didn’t really set out to make a record,” Hagerstrom clarifies. “We were learning how to record and playing around to figure out what was working. But we were also sending the stuff to Big Crown, and they were like, ‘Let’s make this record.’” 

The trio’s Leon Micehls-produced sophomore album Sounds Good is slated for an April 19, 2024 release through Big Crown Records. The album will feature “Gift of Life,” a lush, old-school, Quiet Storm-like, show-topping ballad built around a shimmering and vibey arrangement featuring fluttering, ethereal flute paired with Kevin Martin’s emotive, falsetto croon and some incredibly catch hooks. While the song see the band pulling from classic soul, psych soul and dub in a way that sounds like it could been released sometime between 1968-1974, “Gift of Life,” manages to feel remarkably modern.

Thematically, the song sees the trio ruminating on the complexity of the human condition with a hard-earned, weary wisdom. “This song is somewhat of a prayer to the inevitable decay that surrounds us and the pain that follows. It alters our perspectives and ways of life,” Brainstory explains. “It’s a powerful natural force that guides us. In this life, we lose and eventually must let go of life itself but, when we learn to surrender, we give ourselves a chance to change and adapt. Though it is often painful, the reward is simply to see another day with new eyes full of gratitude for the opportunity to live.”

To celebrate the official announcement of their sophomore album, the California trio shared a double single “Listen”/”Too Yung.” “Listen” sees the trio crafting a classic, two-step inducing groove-driven song with shimmering analog synths, an overdrive-fueled guitar solo paired with some dreamy falsetto melodies and harmonies. While sounding as though it could have been a Mandrill or Isley Brothers B side, the song sees Martin expressing modern day frustrations over how technology can distract people from being fully present in our daily lives and from spirituality. The song’s narrator is encouraging the listener to spend some time enjoying the present moment, because it’s all too short and remarkably fleeting.

The trio will be hitting the road this week for some Northern California shows with The Budos Band before embarking on a headlining U.S. tour in April, and UK and European Union dates in May with Lady Wray. Tour dates are below.

BRAINSTORY TOUR DATES

Feb 23 – The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA*

Feb 24 – Felton Music Hall – Felton, CA*

Apr18 –  Lodge Room- Highland Park, CA

Apr 22 – Valley Bar – Phoenix, AZ

Apr 23 – Love Buzz – El Paso, TX 

Apr 25 – Tandem – San Antonio, TX 

Apr 26 – Psych Fest – Austin, TX

Apr 27 – Norman Music Festival – Norman, OK

Apr 30 – Sister Bar – Albuquerque, NM 

May 01 – Larimer Lounge – Denver, CO 

May 02 – The Atrium – Fort Collins, CO 

May 03 – DLC – Salt Lake City, UT 

May 04 – Neurolux – Boise, ID 

May 07 – High DIve – Seattle, WA 

May 08 – Mississippi Studios – Portland, OR

May 16 – Knust – Hamburg, Germany +

May 17 – Franz Mhelhose – Enfurt, Germany +

May 18 – Lido – Berlin, Germany +

May 20 – La Maroquinerie – Paris, France +

May 26 – Cross The Tracks Festival  – Brockwell Park, UK

May 28 – The Blues Kitchen – Manchester, UK +

* with The Budos Band

+ with Lady Wray

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Ghost Funk Orchestra founder, creative mastermind, composer, arranger, producer and multi-instrumentalist Seth Applebaum has always had a latent fascination with space and space travel. Midway through writing the arrangements, which would comprise the material of the band’s fifth album, On a Trip To The Moon, Applebaum became aware that Internet Archive had made the recordings of the Apollo to Mission Control transmissions accessible in the public domain. Once he started listening to those recordings, it gave the Ghost Funk Orchestra mastermind the idea of using the recordings as a narrative binder for the music, which he was working on at the time. 

The process was painstaking. The recordings were frequently filled with long silences, punctuated by surprisingly casual commentary on the cosmos. Applebaum’s commitment to the voyage managed to draw him into a sort of historical tourism, in which he studied film, photos, and music from the era. And as he did so, he was struck by the gusto with which new technology was embraced in pop culture of the day, and he honors that tradition by skillfully blending digital recording techniques to cobble together arrangements incorporating 60s and 70s analog keys and guitar sounds that bring early surf bands from the 50s and 60s. The album’s material also nods to 90s surf punk band Man or Astro-man?, who used vintage sound bites in their music, tying together cosmologically themed concept albums together with clips from vintage sci-fi and B movies. This is also informed by Applebaum’s religious listening to Little Steven’s Underground Garage radio show, which also used soundbites from films and TV shows as a container for a body of music.

As the 15 compositions, which comprise the band’s forthcoming fifth album took shape, Applebaum brought the rest of the band, string arrangements from Will Marshal and a talented crew of collaborators including Megan Mancini (vocals),  Romi Hanoch(vocals), Stephen Chen (saxophone), Billy Aukstik (trumpet), Mike Sarason (flute), James Kelly (trombone), Stuart Bogie (reeds) into the studio with a newfound confidence acquired by heavy touring to support 2022’s A New Kind of Love. Sonically, A Trip To The Moon is a departure from the clean production of their predecessors, as the the sessions players were allowed to let it rip, breathing life and their personal voices into the material. 

Last month, I wrote about A Trip To The Moon‘s first single, the cinematic instrumental track “To The Moon!” Beginning with the transmissions of the Apollo crew to Mission Control, you hear a member of the Apollo crew remark that they’re flying over The Canary Islands before dramatic drumming, a slithering bass line and quivering keys set up a dreamy introduction. At the 45 second mark, a swaggering horn line and funk jazz guitar lines burst into the scene, creating the sense that the listener might be listening to the soundtrack to one of the greatest stories ever told, the creation and the eventual exploration of the cosmos by humankind or an episode of Star Trek. The composition ends with a mind-bending Dark Side of The Moon/Wish You Were Here guitar solo that gently fades out into the ether. 

The composition seems to accurately capture a period specific sense of hope that science and technology could solve humanity’s most pressing problems, while doing some incredibly cool stuff. If only it were that easy, right? 

A Trip To The Moon‘s second single “Again” is a swooning and uneasy fever dream of bitter heartache, cynicism delivered with a soulful, seemingly lived-in experience. Beginning with Apollo and Mission Control banter, dreamily strummed and twinkling keys quickly build up serving as a dreamy psych soul intro paired with Romi Hanoch’s falsetto crooning and bursts of fluttering flute. Seemingly sounding as though it wouldn’t be out of place on Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here or a James Bond soundtrack, the song turns into a Broadway-meets-psych jazz freakout with an explosive horn line, an expressive sax solo paired with one of the more soulful, powerhouse performances I’ve heard from Hanoch.

A Trip To The Moon is slated for a February 23, 2024 release through Karma Chief Records. Click here to pre-order.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Ghost Funk Orchestra Shares Cinematic and Trippy “To The Moon!”

Ghost Funk Orchestra founder, creative mastermind, composer, arranger, producer and multi-instrumentalist Seth Applebaum has always had a latent fascination with space and space travel, Midway through writing the arrangements, which would comprise the material of the band’s fifth album, On a Trip To The Moon, Applebaum became aware that Internet Archive had made the recordings of the Apollo to Mission Control transmissions accessible in the public domain. Once he started listening to those recordings, it gave the Ghost Funk Orchestra mastermind the idea of using the recordings as a narrative binder for the music, which he was working on at the time.

The process was painstaking. The recordings were frequently filled with long silences, punctuated by surprisingly casual commentary on the cosmos. Applebaum’s commitment to the voyage managed to draw him into a sort of historical tourism, in which he studied film, photos, and music from the era. And as he did so, he was struck by the gusto with which new technology was embraced in pop culture of the day, and he honors that tradition by skillfully blending digital recording techniques to cobble together arrangements incorporating 60s and 70s analog keys and guitar sounds that bring early surf bands from the 50s and 60s. The album’s material also nods to 90s surf punk band Man or Astro-man?, who used vintage sound bites in their music, tying together cosmologically themed concept albums together with clips from vintage sci-fi and B movies. This is also informed by Applebaum’s religious listening to Little Steven’s Underground Garage radio show, which also used soundbites from films and TV shows as a container for a body of music.

As the 15 compositions, which comprise the band’s forthcoming fifth album took shape, Applebaum brought the rest of the band, string arrangements from Will Marshal and a talented crew of collaborators including Megan Mancini (vocals), Romi Hanoch (vocals), Stephen Chen (saxophone), Billy Aukstik (trumpet), Mike Sarason (flute), James Kelly (trombone), Stuart Bogie (reeds) into the studio with a newfound confidence acquired by heavy touring to support 2022’s A New Kind of Love. Sonically, A Trip To The Moon is a departure from the clean production of their predecessors, as the the sessions players were allowed to let it rip, breathing life and their personal voices into the material.

A Trip To The Moon‘s first single, the cinematic instrumental track “To The Moon!” begins with the transmissions of the Apollo crew to Mission Control, remarking on the things they’re seeing as they’re orbiting the Earth, 21 minutes into their journey. A voice from Apollo informs Mission Control that they’re flying over The Canary Islands before dramatic drumming and a slithering bass line and quivering keys set a dreamy introduction. At the 45 second mark, a swaggering horn line and funk jazz guitar lines burst into the scene, creating the sense that the listener might be listening to the soundtrack to one of the greatest stories ever told, the creation and the eventual exploration of the cosmos by humankind or an episode of Star Trek. The composition ends with a mind-bending Dark Side of The Moon/Wish You Were Here guitar solo that gently fades out into the ether.

The composition seems to accurately capture a period specific sense of hope that science and technology could solve humanity’s most pressing problems, while doing some incredibly cool stuff. If only it were that easy, right?

A Trip To The Moon is slated for a February 23, 2024 release through Karma Chief Records. Click here to pre-order.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Rialto, CA-based soul outfit Brainstory — siblings Kevin (vocals, guitar) and Tony Martin (bass) and Eric Hagstrom (drums) — can trace their origins to the shared common denominator of jazz: With no real music scene in California’s Inland Empire, Kevin Martin and Eric Hagstrom both landed in music school, where they met. Tony Martin relocated to San Francisco, where he studied jazz bass in a more traditional fashion — gig-by-gig, learning trial-by-fire.

By the mid-2010s, the trio relocated to Los Angeles, where they started with a more jazz-tinged take on soul. “”That’s what we were all into at the time—jazz,” Brainstory’s Kevin Martin explains. “And that’s what we wanted to do with our first EP in 2014—take our songs and expand them, improvise, weld jazz onto them. We wanted to trick people into listening to jazz, basically.” 

Since then, the trio’s sound and approach has evolved from their self-released EPs and the opening slots of their earliest days. Growing as musicians and people, the trio don’t want to be pigeonholed as jazz heads — although the transcendent and freeing nature of that genre is crucial to their sound.

For the members of Brainstory, the “genre-bending” band distinction is a celebration of what sets them apart in a very busy and crowded field. Anchored by Kevin Martin’s songwriting and real, studied-but-humble musicianship, the result is something new yet familiar. But it’s more than just top-notch musicianship and songwriting; the band also has some proper influences. In their formative days, some of their most significant influences came from a few places: their parents (who were musicians in their own right) and their household record collections, and then later, Chicano Batman‘s Eduardo Arenas.

Arenas produced the trio’s first EPs and then introduced them to Big Crown Records and the label’s co-owner Leon Michels, who would eventually produce their full-length debut, 2019’s Buck. Michels also was a major influence on the band’s 2021 EP Ripe: Of the seven-song EP, two featured lyrics while the remaining five were instrumental compositions rooted in heady, vibey atmospherics.

Much like the countless bands and artists across the globe, the pandemic kept the members of Brainstory out of the studio, away from Big Crown’s East Coast operations — and put their plans to play live shows on pause for a while. Feeling the need to establish and maintain some momentum during the pandemic, the trio decided to do something drastic: Spearheaded by the band’s Eric Hagstrom, the band built their own studio in Long Beach and quickly got to work recording music. “We didn’t really set out to make a record,” Hagerstrom clarifies. “We were learning how to record and playing around to figure out what was working. But we were also sending the stuff to Big Crown, and they were like, ‘Let’s make this record.'” 

In the meantime, the trio’s latest single “Gift of Life” is a lush, old-school, Quiet Storm-inspired, show-stopping ballad built around a shimmering and vibey arrangement, featuring some enormous yet incredibly catchy hooks and fluttering, ethereal flute paired with Kevin Martin’s emotive, falsetto croon. Throughout the song sees the band nodding at classic soul, psych soul and dub among others in a way that makes “Gift of Life” sound as though it came out sometime between 1968-1974 but while being remarkably modern. Thematically, the song sees the trio ruminating on the complexity of the human condition with a hard-earned, weary wisdom.

“This song is somewhat of a prayer to the inevitable decay that surrounds us and the pain that follows. It alters our perspectives and ways of life,” Brainstory explains. “It’s a powerful natural force that guides us. In this life, we lose and eventually must let go of life itself but, when we learn to surrender, we give ourselves a chance to change and adapt. Though it is often painful, the reward is simply to see another day with new eyes full of gratitude for the opportunity to live.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Los Angeles’ Orgōne Shares a Slow-Burning and Soulful Lament

Tracing elements of their origins back to the 1990s, Los Angeles-based psych soul outfit Orgōne — currently Sergio Rios (guitar), Adryon de León (vocals), Dan Hastie (keyboards), Sam Halterman (drums) and Dale Jennings (bass) –is a pillar of the contemporary West Coast soul music scene, developing and maintaining a reputation for being an unmissable touring band for more than a decade, thanks in part to their arresting intensity, impeccable playing style and undeniable, irresistible chemistry.

2023 has been a busy year for the Los Angeles-based outfit: They were the studio backing band for JOVM mainstays Say She She‘s critically applauded sophomore album Silver. They then backed the JOVM mainstays on their wildly successful world tour. As the year is coming to a close, the members of Orgōne announced that they’ll be releasing their Sergio Rios-produced 15th album, Chimera.

Slated for a February 9, 2024 release through 3 Palm Records, the album’s title is derived from a mythical beast the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent. Sonically, the album’s material weaves voodoo soul, thrumming Afro funk and psych rock and evokes a dreamlike odyssey, tripping through the hazy swamps of New Orleans, and features contributions from vocalists Jamie Allensworth, Terin Ector, and Congolese artist Mermans “Mofaya” Mosengo.

“The album really took form organically. It’s raw and dark with a hopeful thread throughout that’s highlighted by the incredible soul singers we work with,” the band’s Sergio Rios says of the album. “There’s a looseness to most of the cuts, giving the album the feeling of a shadowy dream.”

Chimera‘s latest single “Lies & Games” is a heart-wrenching lament that pairs Terin Ector’s soulful and yearning delivery with a slow-burning, 70s soul-inspired arrangement of vintage spacey synths, a sinuous bass line, some grimy rhythm guitar and Wailers-inspired backing vocals. While sonically channeling the severely under-appreciated Mandrill, in particular songs like “I Refuse to Smile” “House of Wood” and others, the song speaks of the rocky and uncertain road of forgiveness and redemption with a seemingly Biblical air.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: London’s Frances and The Majesties Share Brooding and Trippy “All Of Time”

Led by Francesca Landi (vocals, sax) and Sarah Kershaw (vocals, keys), London-based psych soul septet Frances and The Majesties features members from diverse backgrounds, including Italy, Morocco and elsewhere, and their experiences and backgrounds are reflected in their eclectic sound.

Their forthcoming All Of Time EP reportedly marks a significant departure from the sound they’ve developed on their previously released material: The band moves from a modern take on the 60s sound towards a jazzier, synth-driven sound that retains the melancholy-tinged, cinematic quality they’ve been known for.

All Of Time‘s latest single, the cinematic and brooding EP title track “All Of Time” is an expansive and trippy song built around an arrangement of glistening and fluttering synths, strutting funk guitar, a supple and propulsive bass line and jazz-like drumming serving as a lush bed for Landi’s and Kershaw’s ethereal harmonies. Sonically, bringing JOVM mainstays Ghost Funk Orchestra to mind, “All of Time” encapsulates the disorientating certainty of the passage of time — and is informed by a two year period of uncertainty and unease, which feels palpable throughout the song’s nearly four-minute run.

Emphasizing the song’s brooding air, the accompanying video is shot with a chiaroscuro treatment, as we see a witch-like character dancing and moving through the shadows.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Monophonics and Kendra Morris Team Up on a Soulful Meditation on Life on the Road

Since their formation, Bay Area-based soul outfit and JOVM mainstays Monophonics —  Kelly Finnigan (lead vocals, keys), Austin Bohlman (drums), Ryan Scott (trumpet, backing vocals, percussion), and Max Ramey (bass) – have developed and honed a sound that continues in the classic and beloved tradition of Stax Records, Muscle Shoals, Daptone Records and Dunham Records, recorded on vintage analog recording gear and paired with a healthy amount of old-fashioned woodshedding and craft. “We’re from the same school as the producers from the studios we love. We use the tools that we have to make the best records we can,” the band explained in press notes. 

Monophonics’ third album, 2020’s It’s Only Us, which featured “Chances,” and “It’s Only Us” received praise from the likes of Billboard, Flood, Cool Hunting and American Songwriter, while selling 10,000 physical copies and amassing over 20 million streams across the various digital streaming platforms. Thematically, It’s Only Us touched upon unity in a fractious and divisive world, strength, resilience, acceptance — and of course, love.

Their fourth album, last year’s Kelly Finnigan-produced Sage Motel derived its title from a real place — The Sage Motel. What started as a quaint motor lodge and common pitstop for travelers and truckers in the 1940s, morphed into a bohemian hang out by the 1960s and 1970s: Artists, musicians and vagabonds of all stripes would stop there, as seedy ownership pumped obnoxious mounts of money into high-end renovations, which eventually attracted some of the most prominent acts of the era. But when the money ran out, the motel quickly devolved into a hot sheet hotel.

If The Sage Motel’s walls could talk, they’d tell you tales of human highs and lows, of a place where big dreams and broken hearts live, and where people frequently have found themselves at a crossroads — often without quite knowing how they wound up there. Thematically, the album tackles all of those subjects — with the band further cementing their reputation as one of the world’s premier psychedelic soul bands.

JOVM mainstay Kendra Morris is a Florida-born, New York-based singer/songwriter, musician, and multi-disciplinary artist. As a singer/songwriter and musician, Morris can trace the origins of her music career to discovering the joys of multi-tracking and harmonizing with herself on a karaoke machine in the closet of her childhood home. 

Morris went on to play in cover bands in Florida before relocating to New York with her band, which played her original material. Her first band split up and she dealt with the aftermath by writing material alone on an 8-track recorder in her closet. Sometime after, she met longtime collaborator and producer Jeremy Page and signed to Wax Poetics, who released her full-length debut, 2012’s Banshee. 

The Florida-born, New York-based JOVM mainstay self-released her sophomore effort 2016’s Babble. She then went on to collaborate with DJ Premier, 9th Wonder, MF DOOM, Czarface, Ghostface Killah, Dennis Coffey and Dave Sitek among others. And while being a grizzled, New York scene vet, Morris’ work generally embodies a broader sense of American culture, drawing from a wide array of influences across music and film dating back to the mid 20th Century. 

Last year’s Nine Lives was the Florida-born, New York-based JOVM’s mainstay’s first full-length album in about a decade. The album represented a major turning point in her life both professionally and personally for Morris: The album heralds the beginning of a new chapter, an evolution to the next level of adulthood — and the first on her new label,  Karma Chief Records. Thematically, the album’s material encapsulates moments from what could easily be nine lifetimes lived over a chronological time period — or nine lives lived simultaneously in parallel and convergent realties in the multiverse.

Last year, the JOVM mainstays and labelmates toured together and they’ve finally collaborated on a song together — the woozy and trippy soul jam “Untitled Visions.” Built around a strutting yet cinematic arrangement that serves as a perfect vehicle for Finnigan’s and Morris’ soulful vocals, “Untitled Visions” is about the hectic and bizarre lifestyle that comes from being on tour. The song’s narrators dive into the feelings of boredom, anxiety, anticipation, stress, fun and more that one feels while living a life on the road.

The accompanying video feature edited footage of 50s and 60s era cars driving on the highways, byways and streets, flowers bursting to life and then contracting, a Fred Astaire-like dancer performing — and seemingly heading off to the next tour stop.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Ironsides Share Soulful and Cinematic “The Web”

Led by Max Ramey (production, bass) and Joe Ramey (production, saxophone), and featuring members of Monophonics, as well as a collection of some of the best Bay Area-based players, The Ironsides specialize in a sound that meshes classic psych soul with sweeping orchestral arrangements in a way that recalls the soundtracks and library music of European composers during the ’60s and ’70s.

The Bay Area collective set out to create a collection of lush compositions that evoke a diverse arrange of feelings, emotions and memories. The band enlisted Louis Robert King, a New York-based maestro as a co-writer and arranger. King had previously created arrangements for Ramey on other projects. Once the material was finished, the Ramey Brothers started contacting a collection of local musicians, who would bring the material to life. “We hired a group of Bay Area working musicians,” Max Ramey explained. “Many of them play a range of music, from jazz to classical, in clubs and orchestras. Using these local musicians was really important to us.”

Slated for a May 19, 2023 release through Colemine Records, Changing Light was recorded at Transistor Sound Studios, the home base for The Ironsides, a growing list of Colemine Records artists, including Kelly Finnigan and Monophonics. While California is a major inspiration for the album’s material, it wasn’t the only geographical inspiration for the album: The Ramey Brothers can trace their heritage to Liguria, Italy — the birthplace of their maternal grandfather. Album track “Ligurian Dream” pays homage to their Italian heritage and the composers, who inspired the cinematic and instrumental direction of the album’s material.

Changing Light‘s material evokes the imagery of an open road, a breathtaking view and scenes of a vast landscape begging to be explored. So plug something into your GPS, play the album and just drive. “The songs are inspired by landscapes – each one could mean something to someone and create a completely different meaning for someone else,” The Ironsides Max Ramey says.

The album’s first single “The Web” is a soulful, lush and incredibly cinematic composition rooted in old-school craftsmanship featuring shimmering and soaring strings, a supple and propulsive rhythm section, a punchy horn section and a buzzing horn solo. Sonically recalling a slick and seamless synthesis of Issac Hayes‘ Hot Buttered Soul and Spaghetti Western soundtrack scores, “The Web” is the perfect mood-setting song for a road-trip playlist.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ghost Funk Orchestra Shares Cool and Funky “Blockhead”

Written during pandemic-related lockdowns, Ghost Funk Orchestra’s recently released third album  A New Kind of Love feels and sounds like the soundtrack from an imaginary movie — with the album’s songs easily being part of the score of a romantic drama, an action thriller or a modern twist on film noir: Spare, cascading vocals accentuate the lush instrumental arrangements composed, arranged, performed and produced by the band’s creative mastermind Seth Applebaum and a talented cast of collaborators and players that include Billy Aukstik (trumpet), Stephen Chen (baritone sax), Lo Gwynn (vocals), Romi Hanoch (vocals), James kelly (trombone), Megan Mancini (vocals), Michael Sarason (flute) and a list of others.

Sonically, the album’s material draws from mid-20th Century exotica, 60s and 70s orchestral pop, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and Antibalas among others, as well as Applebaum’s experiences as a young filmmaker. Sonically speaking, the end result is an album that encompasses a loving reverence for the past without attempting to soullessly recreate it. 

Thematically, the 12-song album sees Applebaum exploring the complicated, confusing and conflicting realm of love, with the album’s songs capturing the emotional notes of love going well and love gone sour, as though manifesting love songs based in ghostly affairs. 

In the lead-up to the album’s release, I wrote about two A New Kind of Love‘s singles:

  • “Scatter,” a cinematic affair that pairs Romi Hanoch’s sultry and ethereal delivery with an expansive, lush and downright trippy arrangement that’s one-part film-noir-like spy movie, one-part classic rom-com, one-part Blaxploitation — with a wild late-period John Coltrane-like saxophone freakout of a solo. But if you pay close attention, the song captures a narrator reeling from a love gone disastrously wrong but with the knowing self-assuredness and confidence that she deserves — and will get much better soon enough. 

  • “Why” a spectral and slow-burning bit of psych soul with Latin-influenced percussion paired with powerhouse vocals. The song manages to capture curiosity, obsession and desire with an uncanny psychological realism. 

“Blockhead,” A New Kind of Love‘s third and latest single is narratively structured around a phone call between the song’s narrator — voiced by Megan Mancini — and an unheard listener, in which the narrator reminds their caller that their lover is absent, a virtual non-presence, who’s blowing it. And throughout, you can feel the narrator’s frustration with the other side of the phone call — with the narrator literally saying at one point, “what are you doing here?” Guaranteed, for most of us, this conversation should feel so familiar, that it scans simultaneously as advice and accusation. The song is built around a coolly funky and cinematic psych soul arrangement that’s roomy enough for some inspired and fiery soloing.

Directed by Ghost Funk Orchestra’s Seth Applebaum, and shot on glorious Kodak film, the accompanying video stars Megan Mancini as herself, on an old-fashioned landline and a lawn chair that she takes everywhere with her.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ghost Funk Orchestra Shares Spectral “Why”

Founded and led by multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and producer Seth Applebuam, rising New York-based psych rock/psych soul outfit Ghost Funk Orchestra initially began as a lo-fi, solo recording project back in 2014 with a unique sound featuring tape-saturated drums, spring reverb, surf rock guitar, Latin-styled percussion, odd time signatures and Spanish language female vocals. Since then, the project has become a full-fledged band with as many as 10 members — while crafting a unique sound that draws from even more eclectic and diverse sources, including salsa, Afrobeat, classic soul, film soundtracks and more. 

Ghost Funk Orchestra’s full-length debut, 2019’s A Song for Paul was conceived as a tribute to Applebaum’s late grandfather Paul Anish, who played an immense role in his life. Although the album’s songs don’t address Paul Anish directly, the album’s creative direction specifically conveys what Anish’s presence felt like — and was — for Seth, a tough but kind, music obsessed, native New Yorker. For Applebaum, accurately capturing what his grandfather’s essence meant to him forced him to expand the band’s arrangements and sound further than anything he had done to that point, including writing much more comprehensive horn lines and working with a string section. 

Their sophomore album, 2020’s An Ode to Escapism saw the band further expanding upon the sound developed on A Song for Paul with the album’s material featuring much more intricate arrangements, unusual time signatures, rapid tempo and time signature changes within songs, heavier drums and vocal harmonies that soar over the entire affair. Specifically written as an invitation to the listener to close their eyes while listening and delve deep into their own subconscious, if they weren’t too afraid to do so, the album thematically touched upon isolation, fear of the unknown and the fabrication of the self-image. 

Written during pandemic-related lockdowns, Ghost Funk Orchestra’s third album  A New Kind of Love reportedly feels like the soundtrack from an imaginary movie — with the album’s songs easily being part of the score of a romantic drama, an action thriller or a modern twist on film noir: Spare, cascading vocals accentuate the lush instrumental arrangements composed, arranged, performed and produced by Applebaum. Sonically, the album’s material draws from mid-20th Century exotica, 60s and 70s orchestral pop, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and Antibalas among others, as well as his experiences as a young filmmaker. Sonically speaking, the end result is an album that encompasses a loving reverence for the past without attempting to recreate it. 

The 12 song album sees Applebaum exploring the complicated, confusing and conflicting realm of love, with the album’s songs capturing the emotional notes of love going well and love gone sour, as though manifesting love songs based in ghostly affairs. 

Earlier this month, I wrote about A New Kind of Love‘s first single “Scatter,” a cinematic affair that pairs Romi Hanoch’s sultry and ethereal delivery with an expansive, lush and downright trippy arrangement that’s one-part film-noir-like spy movie, one-part classic rom-com, one-part Blaxploitation — with a wild late-period John Coltrane-like saxophone freak out of a solo. But if you pay close attention, the song captures a narrator reeling from a love gone disastrous wrong but with the knowing self-assuredness and confidence that she deserves — and will get much better soon enough.

A New Kind of Love‘s second and latest single “Why” is a spectral and slow-burning bit of psych soul with Latin-influenced percussion paired with powerhouse vocals. The song manages to capture curiosity, obsession and desire with an uncanny psychological realism.

The accompanying video for “Why” was shot on Kodak film –and manages to seem inspired by nouveau vague yet surrealistic.