Tag: Radio 4

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Black Fever’s Old-Timey Visual for “Marketing”

With the release of 2010’s Romanticism, 2012’s Revisionist, 2014’s A Little Help EP and 2015’s Midnight Century, the Toronto-based post-punk act The Black Fever — Shoe (vocals, guitar), Pat Bramm (bass, backing vocals) and Dan Purpura (drums) — have firmly established a sleek and propulsive take on post punk that focuses on melody and concise songwriting.  

Recorded over two intense and breakneck recording sessions, their Ian Gomes-produced EP Unarticulated Wants was released earlier this year, and the EP’s first single is the hook-driven, Editors meets Radio 4-like “Marketing.” Centered around a propulsive and angular bass line, thunderous drumming and Shoe’s plaintive vocals, the track seethes with frustration over the fact that every single moment of daily life is inundated with advertisements. It’s inescapable and oppressive manipulation to convince you to spend early and often on that new shiny thing that will make you more attractive and more interesting to others, that will help you lose weight, restore your receding hair line, keep your erection, and just make you feel whole. And yet, there’s a gnawing emptiness that can’t be resolved by possessions or by spending. 

“We need to find a better balance between ads and public art — for art’s sake.” the band said in an emailed statement. Naturally, the song expresses a concern over what the over saturation of advertising and marketing messages does to the human soul and mind. 

The recently released video for “Marketing” is centered around incredibly manipulative stock footage of old commercials. Although the context for each commercial has been removed, each commercial is meant to make you feel something — envy, pleasure, lust. hunger, despair, all in the desperate attempt to get you to buy right now. And it should feel infuriating and fucked up. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Currently comprised of Long Island-born, Brooklyn-based founding member Sarik Kumar (vocals, guitar) with Wes Wynne (guitar), Craig Stauber (drums) and Justin Lieberthal (bass), the Brooklyn-based dream pop act Mars Motel can trace its origins to a series of psych rock and Brit Pop-inspired demos Kumar wrote and recorded during his senior year of high school. Several years had passed and those early demos were seemingly forgotten with Kumar relocating to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where he joined Twin Wave for a three-year stint between 2013-2016.

Kumar rediscovered those high school demos while he was visiting his childhood home and he was inspired to embark on a new creative venture as the lead singer and primary songwriter. Kumar then recruited Wynne, Stauber and Lieberthal to complete the band’s linep, and since their formation, the band has received attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere for a string of releases that draw from from Brit Pop and early 2000s NYC post-punk.

Mars Motel’s highly-anticipated full-length debut Passenger X is slated for release later this year; but in the meantime, the album’s first official single “Coming Up For Air” is a sweeping and anthemic track, centered by shimmering guitars, a motorik-like groove and Kumar’s vocals expressing a plaintive and urgent yearning. And while bearing a resemblance to Radio 4, White Lies and others, the song as Kumar told Substream Magazine “is about an android -like being longing to be human and attempting an alteration. It captures the universal need for connection and the loneliness one can feel in being viewed as an outsider.”

 

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the course of three self-released albums 2010’s Romanticism, 2012’s Revisionist and 2015’s Midnight Century and 2014’s A Little Help EP, the Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based post-punk trio The Black Fever, comprised of Shoe (vocals, guitar), Pat Bramm (bass, backing vocals) and Dan Purpura (drums) have specialized in a sleek and propulsive post-punk that focuses on melody and concise songwriting.

Building upon that reputation, the band will be releasing a new Ian Gomes-produced EP during the spring that was recorded during two breakneck, twelve-hour recording sessions, and the EP’s first single, the Editors meets Radio 4-like “Marketing.” Centered around Shoe’s plaintive vocals, swirling guitars, angular bass and thunderous drumming, the song expresses a deep seated frustration over the fact that every single moment of your daily life is inundated with advertisements. As George Carlin once joked, someone is always trying to remove you from your money — and the constant attempts to convince  you to spend, spend, spend, spend on the unnecessary is oppressive. As the band says in a statement “We need to find a better balance between ads and public art — for art’s sake.” Throughout the song, there’s a concern over what the over-saturation of marketing messages does to the human soul and mind. Think about that as you go about your daily business.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: NVDES Returns with a Breezy Tropicalia and Dance Punk-Inspired New Single

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past 12-18 months or so, you may have come across a couple of posts featuring the Los Angeles-based collective NVDES. With the release of 2016’s Life With Lobsters, an album consisting of glitchy, summery indie dance pop, the collective fronted by founding member and primary songwriter Josh Ocean received over 10 million streams across all digital platforms, landed on Spotify’s Global Viral Chart, and as a result of rapidly growing buzz, the project’s 2016 effort received praise from The Fader, Nylon and others.  

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about “Turning Heads” off their forthcoming La NVDITÉ EP, a breakneck dance punk track along the lines of  Sound of Silver-era LCD Soundsystem, Radio 4 and others, complete with angular guitar chords, a propulsive bass line, boom-bap beats and a rousingly anthemic hook. And building upon the buzz that single received, the act recently released their latest single “Dancer From New Yorker,” a track that will (naturally) further cement their growing reputation for crafting glitchy and breezy pop with anthemic hooks, and while its as dance floor-friendly as its predecessor, the track manages to subtly nod at tropicalia and bossa nova. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Scuzzy and Rousingly Anthemic, Dance Punk of NVDES’ Latest Single “Turning Heads”

With the release of 2016’s Life With Lobsters, an album consisting of glitchy, summery indie dance pop, the Los Angeles-based collective NVDES fronted by founding member and primary songwriter Josh Ocean received over 10 million streams across all digital platforms, landed on Spotify’s Global Viral Chart — and as a result, also received phrase from The Fader, Nylon and others. Building on a growing profile, the project’s latest single “Turning Heads” off their forthcoming La NVDITÉ EP will further cement Ocean’s reputation for crafting scuzzy, breakneck dance punk along the lines of Sound of Silver-era LCD Soundsystem, Radio 4 and others, complete with angular guitar chords, a propulsive bass line, boom-bap beats and a rousingly anthemic hook. And while clearly being summery, the track also manages to be incredibly dance floor friendly. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Christoffer Hein and Dracut Lugalzagosi, the Copenhagen, Denmark-based duo Mercyfox started collaborating together last year, and the result was a sound that drew from The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream and LCD Soundsystem — although their latest single “Dead White Doves” is a breakneck, rousingly anthemic and noisy track that manages to remind me quite a bit of The Jesus and Mary Chain and Radio 4 with a dance floor stomp; but underneath the surface, the song’s lyrics vacillates between hope and despair, and as the band explains “This is our best attempt at making a sunny as hell track. Even though weird and violent things are going on in the world, we mustn’t forget to party hard and spread loads of love in the sun.”

 
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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Brooklyn-based indie rock act LCD Soundsystem was founded by frontman, multi-instrumentalist, producer, DJ and DFA Records co-founder James Murphy in 2002, and along with acts like The Rapture, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bloc Party, Radio 4, Liars, and lengthy list of others are considered pioneers of a dance punk act renaissance that saw its height at the early part of this century. Interestingly enough, LCD Soundsystem may arguably be one of most critically and commercially successful acts of their era — 2005’s eponymous full-length debut, which featured their most successful single “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” was nominated by a Grammy for Best Dance Recording with the album also being nominated for Best Electronic/Best Dance Album.  With a growing national and international profile, Nike commissioned the band to write and record a workout-inspired album — 45:33 — as part of Nike+ Original Run series and they followed that up with their 2007 critically acclaimed sophomore album Sound of Silver, which was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Electronic/Dance Album. 2010’s This Is Happening was the band’s most commercially successful, as it was also their first Top 10 album in the States; however, by the next year, the band announced that it would be breaking up and celebrating with a series of farewell shows at Madison Square Garden and Terminal 5 — with the events of the final show chronicled in the documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits and was released as a live album, 2014’s The Long Goodbye.

After LCD Soundsystem broke up, Murphy and the members of the band went on to pursue a number of creative and business pursuits — with Murphy being the among the busiest in the band. Over the years Murphy has continued his production and sound engineering work, working with Arcade Fire during the Reflektor sessions, created a special set of remixes from the 2014 US Open, based on the actual sounds and events of matches and remixed David Bowie‘s “Love Is Lost,” for an expanded edition of the legendary artist’s The Next Day. He also occasionally DJ’d, including an incredible set to close out DFA Records’ 12th Anniversary Party at Grand Prospect Hall.  As far as other pursuits, Murphy participated in Canon’s Project Imaginat10n, which invited 5 different celebrities and personalities to direct short films based on pictures uploaded by photographers and other creatives around the world to their website — and the result was his first directorial effort, “Little Duck,” set in Japan. And interestingly enough, with the assistance of Blue Bottle Coffee founder James Freeman, Murphy released his own blend of espresso and a few years later, Murphy opened a critically applauded restaurant in Williamsburg. Though Murphy publicly stated that LCD Soundsystem’s breakup allowed him the time and ability to pursue a wild array of projects in a way he had never before, he also missed being in a band. Interestingly, towards the end of 2015 there were rumblings that the members of LCD Soundsystem were considering a series of reunion shows for the major festival circuit — and those rumors went wild when the members of the band released “Christmas Will Break Your Heart” ironically enough on Christmas, the first single they released in over 5 years.

After the release of “Christmas Will Break Your Heart,” Murphy and his bandmates confirmed a reunion tour, with appearances at several major music festivals, and a new album, which is slated for release sometime this year. Now, if you’ve been following the blogosphere, you know that Murphy and company had a series of hometown shows to open The Bowery Presents‘ newest venue, Brooklyn Steel and those live shows included two new singles, which will make appearances on the band’s new album — the atmospheric, Berlin Trilogy-era Bowie meets Roxy Music “Call The Police,” which features Murphy’s archly ironic and cynical lyrics and nods a bit at This Is Happening and their incredible cover of Harry Nilsson‘s “Jump Into The Fire” and “American Dream,” a slow-burning track featuring shimmering synths but subtly nods at “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down,” thanks in part to Murphy’s dramatic crooning, Certainly for fans, who have been waiting for new material for the past 18 months, it’ll give them a good hint of what they might expect from the new album, while also suggesting that the band has continued forward as though they never broke up.