Tag: Radiohead

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

The Smile is an acclaimed outfit that features some of the world’s most accomplished musicians — and a couple of household names: Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, and Sons of Kemet‘s Tom Skinner. 

Last year, the trio released their critically applauded Nigel Godrich-produced full-length debut A Light For Attracting Attention. The album saw the acclaimed outfit collaborating with London Contemporary Orchestra and a full brass section of contemporary British jazz musicians that include Bryon Wallen, Theon Cross and Nathaniel Cross, Chelsea Carmichael, Robert Stillman, and Jason Yarde. 

The Smile’s sophomore album, the Sam Petts-Davies Wall of Eyes is slated for a January 26, 2024 through XL Recordings. The album, which was recorded in Oxford and legendary Abbey Road Studios features string arrangements from London Contemporary Orchestra. 

Late last year, I wrote about Wall of Eyes‘ first single, album title track, “Wall of Eyes,” an eerily haunting and meditative song that sees the trio pair Yorke’s imitably yearning delivery with a glitchy arrangement featuring strummed guitar melody, glittering strings and gently padded drums. The song evokes — at least to me — a slow-burning sense of dread and unease.

Wall of Eyes‘ latest single “Friend Of A Friend” continues a remarkable run of broodingly cinematic and meditative material that sees the trio pairing twinkling keys, gently swinging jazz-inflected percussion, mournful saxophone from Robert Stillman and soaring strings with Yorke’s achingly yearning delivery. “Friend of a Friend” manages to be a subtle synthesis of Amnesiac-era Radiohead, 70s AM rock and art film scores.

Along with the new single, which was originally showcased during the band’s 2022-2023 tour, the bands announce new European headlining dates in June and August, in addition to their near sold-out run of shows in March. All tour dates, including the new ones are listed below. But tickets for June and August run go on sale Friday, January 12, 2024. Check out: https://www.thesmiletheband.com/live for details.

James Holden will open for The Smile at all of their headline shows this year.

The video for “Friend Of A Friend,” by motion picture director Paul Thomas Anderson, will be premiered alongside a surround sound album playback of Wall Of Eyes at a series of one-off events hosted at independent cinemas between January 18-25th.

The events, titled Wall Of Eyes, On Film will celebrate the new album and the band’s collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson. It will take place at 12 cinemas from Sydney to Mexico City, and includes a New York City event at The Village East. The events comprise:

  • Wall Of Eyes album playback in its entirety, for the first and only time with surround sound and accompanying never-before-seen footage of the album’s recording sessions.
  • The world film premiere of Friend Of A Friend and a presentation of Wall Of Eyes, both directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and shot on 35mm film*
  • A programme looking back over Paul Thomas Anderson’s previous directorial collaborations with both Thom Yorke and Radiohead to include ANIMA (short film) and Radiohead’s Daydreaming (35mm), Present Tense & The Numbers.

Further information on these events and how to obtain tickets can be found here HERE. 

Tickets will be on sale from 10am GMT on Thursday, January 11th.

Screening events:

Jan 18th  – The Prince Charles Cinema, Leicester Square, London, UK*

Jan 18th  – The Village East, Manhattan, New York, US*

Jan 19th  – Brain Dead Studios, Los Angeles, US*

Jan 20th  – SangSang Madang Cinema, Seoul, SK (x2 showings)

Jan 20th  – Cinema Godard – Fondazione Prada, Milan, IT*

Jan 20th  – Cine Tonalá, CDMX, MX

Jan 22nd  – 190 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku, Tokyo, JP*

Jan 22nd  – MK2 Quai de Loire, Paris, FR*

Jan 23rd  – Golden Age Cinema, Sydney, AUS (x2 showings)

Jan 23rd  – Eye Filmuseum, Amsterdam, NL*

Jan 23rd  – Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, UK*

Jan 25th  – 190 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku, Tokyo, JP*

Jan 25th  – Kino Intimes, Berlin, DE

*35mm presentations available in select participating cinemas

March 2024 UK and European Tour Dates

Wed 13th March: Copenhagen – K.B. Hallen
Fri 15th March: Brussels – Forest National
Sat 16th March: Amsterdam – AFAS Live
Mon 18th March: Brighton – Brighton Centre
Tue 19th March: Manchester – O2 Apollo
Wed 20th March: Glasgow – SEC Armadillo
Fri 22nd March: Birmingham – O2 Academy
Sat 23rd March: London – Alexandra Palace

June and August 2024 European dates:

June 8th – Hamburg, Stadtpark Open Air, Germany

June 9th – Cologne Palladium, Germany

June 11th  – Berlin, Verti Music Hall, Germany

June 12th  – Prague, Forum Karlin, Czechia

June 14th  – Belgrade, Hangar, Serbia

June 15th  – Pula Arena, Pula, Croatia

June 17th  – Bucharest, Arenele Romane, Romania

June 18th  – Sofia, Arena Sofia, Bulgaria

June 23rd – Rome, Cavea Auditorium, Roma Summer Fest, Italy

August 13th  – Sigulda Castle, Sigulda, Latvia

August 14th  – Warsaw, Progresja, Summer Stage, Poland

August 20th  – Frankfurt, Jahrunderthalle, Germany

August 21st  – Munich, Zenith, Germany

August 22nd  – Vienna Open Air Arena, Austria

August 26th  – Bordeaux, Krakatoa, France

August 28th  – Valencia, Jardins De Viveros, Spain

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Smile Shares Eerie and Haunting “Wall of Eyes”

The Smile is an acclaimed outfit that features some of the world’s most accomplished musicians — and a couple of household names: Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, and Sons of Kemet‘s Tom Skinner. 

Last year, the trio released their critically applauded Nigel Godrich-produced full-length debut A Light For Attracting Attention. The album saw the acclaimed outfit collaborating with London Contemporary Orchestra and a full brass section of contemporary British jazz musicians that include Bryon Wallen, Theon Cross and Nathaniel Cross, Chelsea Carmichael, Robert Stillman, and Jason Yarde. 

The Smile’s sophomore album, the Sam Petts-Davies Wall of Eyes is slated for a January 26, 2024 through XL Recordings. The album, which was recorded in Oxford and legendary Abbey Road Studios features string arrangements from London Contemporary Orchestra.

Wall of Eye‘s first single, album title track “Wall of Eyes” continues a run of haunting and eerily meditative material with the song seeing the trio pair Yorke’s imitable and yearning delivery with a glitchy arrangement of strummed guitar melody, glistening strings and gently padded drums that evokes — at least to me — a slow burning sense of dread and unease.

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the accompanying video for “Wall of Eyes” begins with the band’s Thom Yorke sitting in a front of a mirror in a meditative pose, and then follows him walking through a busy city and sitting in a crowded pub by himself. The world rushes by him with furious intensity before a surreal, Being John Malkovich-like ending.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Philly’s Mesa Jane Tackles Radiohead’s “All I Need”

Mesa Jane (short for Melissa Jane) is a Philadelphia area indie pop artist, who specializes in a sound that has been described as “alternative vibe pop.” Throughout her life and music career, she embraces bringing creative energy into physical form through a multitude of avenues including songwriting, production, composition, collaboration, music videos, album art, entrepreneurship and cooking.

Over the past decade, the Philadelphia-based artist has recorded two full-length albums, two EPs (one, which was self-produced and recorded during the pandemic) and a batch of singles, all of which she has supported with touring across the country, as well as sets at music festivals like SXSW and Toronto’s Indie Week among others. Mesa Jane has appeared on several compilations — and she has received nominations from the Independent Music Awards and the Hometown Heroes Awards. And adding to a growing profile, she recently had one of her songs placed on Hulu’s How I Caught My Killer.

The Philadelphia area-based artist is currently quite busy with several different projects: She’s working on several collaborations, co-writing for other projects and is also working on her third full-length album. And she’s doing this while being a mom of two boys. Talk about being a boss, right?

Mesa Jane’s latest single is a gorgeous and fairly straightforward cover of Radiohead‘s “All I Want,” which retains the original’s buzzing synths and pairs that with skittering beats and the Philadelphia area artist’s plaintive gently vocodered vocal. While a female vocalist does change some of the song’s context, it’s still rooted in a deep and uneasy yearning.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Lanterns on the Lake Perform “Rich Girls”

Acclaimed Newcastle-based outfit Lanterns on the Lake‘s recently released nine-song album Versions of Us is an existential meditation examining life’s possibilities; facing the hand we’ve been dealt and the question of whether we can change our individual and collective destinies. Ultimately, the album’s material may be the most hopeful of their growing catalog to date.

It shouldn’t be surprising that for the band’s frontperson Hazel Wilde, that motherhood has fundamentally shifted her perspective. “Writing songs requires a certain level of self-indulgence, and songwriters can be prone to dwelling on themselves,” Wilde says. “Motherhood made me aware of having a different stake in the world. I’ve got to believe that there’s a better way and an alternative future to the one we’ve been hurtling towards. I’ve also got to believe that I could be better as a person, too.”

Given some of the album’s themes, there’s a biting irony to the album’s creative process: An entire previous version of the album was scrapped. Mental health struggles and personal problems within the band impacted how the initial version of the album took shape. “Despite trying everything we could to make it work, we reached the point where we just had to stop,” Wilde explains. Ol Ketteringham (drums) left the band, something that Wilde says was “heartbreakingly difficult as we were and still are extremely close.”

The band scrapped nearly a year’s worth of work, regressing to song demos with just Wilde performing with a single instrument, as they began again with Radiohead‘s Philip Selway joining the album sessions on drums and percussion. “Philip brought an energy to the songs that reignited our belief in them,” Wilde says. “Within a few weeks we had a whole other version of the album and things felt very different,” the Lanterns on the Lake frontperson continues. “We had changed the destiny of the record.”

Version of Us‘ latest single “Rich Girls” is a big, heart-worn-on-sleeve anthem built around a relentlessly propulsive rhythm section, shoegazer-like guitar textures, buzzing synths, soaring violin passages paired with Wilde’s plaintive delivery and the band’s unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses. But underneath the brooding atmospherics is a narrator struggling to get past the unwieldy weight of life’s difficulties, and who expresses the desire to occasionally fake being happy, being sane or feeling competent and on on — if only for a few minutes.

The live footage of “Rich Girls” was recorded at the Old Church in Northumberland.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Smile Returns with Cinematic “Pana-Vision”

The Smile features a highly accomplished collection of familiar names and faces — Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood (maybe you might have heard of them?), and Sons of Kemet‘s Tom Skinner. The Radiohead and Sons of Kemet side project has released three critically applauded singles this year “The Smoke,” “You Will Never Work in Television Again,” and “Skirting On The Surface,” a gorgeous, meditative slow-burn centered around Greenwood’s looping and shimmering guitar, stuttering jazz syncopation, a supple yet propulsive bass line, mournful saxophone and Yorke’s weary falsetto singing lyrics contemplating impermanence and mortality.

The Smile’s fourth single, “Pana-vision” is centered around a mesmerizing piano line, jazz syncopated drumming, a supple bass line and a gorgeous string arrangement paired with Yorke’s imitable falsetto singing the refrain “like a newborn child” throughout the song. While sonically bearing a bit of a resemblance to Amnesiac era Radiohead, “Pana-vision” possesses a remarkably sublime, cinematic quality.

The accompanying visual features Stanley Donwood‘s haunting artwork coming to life through Sabrina Nichols‘ gorgeous animation.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Radiohead and Sons of Kemet Side Project The Smile Share Meditative Visual for “Skirting On The Surface”

The Smile is a new act featuring some familiar names and faces: Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood (maybe you might have heard of them?), and Sons of Kemet‘s Tom Skinner. The act has released two critically applauded singles so far this year — “The Smoke” and “You Will Never Work in Television Again.”

The alt-rock All-Star act’s third and latest single together, “Skirting On The Surface” is a stunningly gorgeous and meditative slow-burn centered around Jonny Greenwood’s looping and shimmering guitar lines, stuttering jazz syncopation, a supple yet propulsive bass line, mournful sax and Thom Yorke’s imitable, achingly weary falsetto singing lyrics contemplating human mortality and impermanence.

The accompanying video was shot in the depths of the disused Rosevale Tin Mine in Cornwall, UK on 16mm black and white film by BAFTA-winning writer/director Mark Jenkin. The visual follows Thom Yorke, as a cart-pushing miner through the mine’s narrow passageways and tunnels. He sees water go about strange, almost supernatural phenomenon. And at one point in his journey, the exhausted miner stops, dumps his load and begins filling in a passageway. It’s as gorgeous, meditative and as surreal as its accompanying song.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Deriving their name from a nickname that was given to its frontwoman while she was in college, and now seen as the band’s motto representing their approach to life and music, the emerging Los Angeles-based indie rock act Mihi Nihil (pronounced Mee-Kee, Nee-Keel) — Mihi Vox (vocals), Benjamin Montoya (guitar), Nick Sternberg (bass) and Adam Alt (drums) — currently feature a former New York-based opera singer and three self-taught rock musicians. Interestingly, the band can trace their origins to a free-flowing batch of sessions that the longtime friends jokingly called “Whiskey Rehearsals,” which helped to quickly establish a sound that draws from an electric array of influences including early Radiohead, The Clash, Ennio Morricone, Sixousie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, Neil Young and Pixies.

Eventually, those “Whiskey Rehearsals” between the four friends led to the material which would eventually comprise their Adam Lasus-produced full-length nine-song, self-titled debut album. Recorded and written by the band in one room, the album’s material captures their simpatico and collaborative working relationship.

In the lead-up to the album’s release, the band released four singles over the past few months: two of the singles have appeared in two major motion pictures, with all four appearing in a handful of media outlets across 15 countries, as well as on 45 playlists. Their self-titled album’s fifth and latest single “Gold” is a slow-burning desert rock-like dirge centered around Mihi Vox’s expressive vocals, rumbling bass lines and gently swirling guitars that slowly builds up until a rumbling roar with soaring hooks. And while possessing a patient, almost painterly quality, “Gold” evokes sand-swept blacktop that reminds me The Fire Tapes‘ Phantoms, PJ Harvey and Chelsea Wolfe among others.


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Veteran indie producer Adam Lasus (Yo La Tengo, Helium, Madder Rose) captured the band’s live energy to tape, revealing an album imbued with a timeless, lush and layered sound that’s meant to be savored and slowly ingested. Like colorful rock formations, the music encompasses a myriad of subtle tints and bold textures. Recorded without a click track, MIHI NIHIL naturally expands and contracts, pushes and pulls, moving with ease. Whether it’s the cinematic echo of Ennio Morricone in “Verberation” or the ominous yearning for connection in the more soporific electro “Space Invader,” MIHI NIHIL shifts tonal presentations effortlessly with maximum emotional thrust.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

FORM is a mysterious, enigmatic and emerging French electro pop trio featuring Aksel, Adrien and Hausmane. The trio’s latest single, the slow-burning and atmospheric “Equation” is a sleek synthesis of Quiet Storm-like R&B and alt pop centered around plaintive yet soulful vocals, twinkling and shimmering synth arpeggios and industrial clang and clatter. Sonically, the track reminds me — to my ears at least — of JOVM mainstays Beacon and Kid A-era Radiohead.

The trio explain the song’s creative process was focused on one goal — to retain their stripped down and sincere essence as much as possible. Interestingly, the song finds the trio comparing social conventions to equations: “We mathematically react to things in our lives depending on our values, principles, education, culture . . . This song is very dear to our hearts because it perfectly draws how the future is gonna look like for us, musically.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Ninety’s Story performs on Groover Obsessions’ Les Capsules

Childhood friends Guillaume Adamo and Florian Deyz are the creative masterminds behind the rising Nice-based indie act Ninety’s Story. And with the release of their debut single “KIKUKYU” and their debut EP, the duo quickly established a sound and approach inspired by the French Riviera and acts like Phoenix, Daft Punk and Air. The duo, along with their backing band have opened for Archive, Morcheeba, Pale Waves and Puggy and others.

Childhood friends Guillaume Adamo and Florian Deyz are the creative masterminds behind the rising Nice-based indie act Ninety’s Story. And with the release of their debut single “KIKUKYU” and their debut EP, the duo quickly established a sound and approach inspired by the French Riviera and acts like Phoenix, Daft Punk and Air. The duo, along with their backing band have opened for Archive, Morcheeba, Pale Waves and Puggy and others.

Adding to a growing profile. the duo wrote the music for a Citroën C4 Aircross ad campaign that aired in China —  with the band representing the company at the Paris and Hangzhou Motor Shows. Since then the band has been busy releasing a handful of singles including the breezy and anthemic “APO” and the sultry, R&B-inflluenced “Home.”

Recently the duo along with their live band played a Groover Obsessions‘ Les Capsules sessions at La Marbrerie that featured two songs:

“Heaven,” a slow-burning and brooding song that reminds me a bit of JOVM mainstays Ten Fe and Palace Winter: deliberately crafted, anthemic songs centered around expressive and bluesy guitars, shimmering synths, plaintive vocals and lived-in lyrics.
“Ride,” a strutting bit of pop rock that — to my ears, at least — brings a slick synthesis of Steely Dan and Radiohead to mind.

\Of course, the live footage gives a great sense of the band’s energy and vibe as a live unit — and it makes me miss shows so very much.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: mxmtoon Releases an Atmospheric Cover of Radiohead’s “Creep”

Maia is an Oakland-born and-New York-based singer/songwriter, YouTuber, gamer, multi-instrumentalist, producer and creative mastermind behind the acclaimed solo recording project mxmtoon. The 20-something artist, who’s Chinese-American on her mother’s side and German and Scottish on her father’s side — but culturally, she grew up Chinese-American. The Oakland-born, New York-based artist became interested in music at a very young age: her brother took violin lessons and while in first grade, Maia joined him. A few years later, she began playing classical cello and trumpet.

When Maia was in fifth grade, she auditioned for her school rock band. Expecting to audition to cello, she was asked to sing Oasis’ “Wonderwall” and wound up joining as a vocalist, eventually singing Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle.” The following year, her father taught to play guitar. The Oakland-born, New York-based first used the name mxmtoon on her Instagram account, where she drew cartoon sketches for her followers.

While in junior high school things got interesting: she started her YouTube channel and began playing the ukulele. She wrote her first song when she was 13, eventually recording her original material in her parents’ guest bedroom, creating percussion tracks with hair straighteners and GarageBand. In 2017, she began releasing her songs on YouTube as mxmtoon. After somewhat unsuccessfully attempting to write comedy songs, she started to write sincere martial that embodied her emotions and feelings.

Although she initially released material secretly to the public, Maia was compelled to tell her friends and family after her work started to go viral. Singles like “feelings are fatal,” “Falling For U,” a collaboration with Japanese producer Peachy have amassed over 55 million and 40 million Spotify streams respectively since their release. Maia released her mxmtoon debut 2018’Ss Plum Blossom EP to critical applause from the likes of Earmilk, i-D and Hypebeast — with the EP eventually amassing over 100 million Spotify streams by the following year.

After graduating from high school, the acclaimed Oakland-born, New York-based artist took a gap year to focus on music and on touring: Her first tour, which was initially scheduled for five US shows with fellow Californian Khai Dream wound up being extended to a full-fledged tours of North America and Europe, including opening for fellowYouTuber Cavetown in the UK. Last year continued an enviable run of success for the 20 something artist: she released her full-length debut the masquerade and its follow-up dawn and dusk EP to critical applause while singles like “prom dress,” “bon river” and “fever dream” were certified Gold by the RIAA.

So far, the 20-something artist has amassed over 500 million steams and more than 4 million followers including 1.4 million on TikTok, 846,000 on YouTube, 1.2 million on Spotify and 207,00 on Twitch, where she battled Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez in a live-streamed game of Among Us, which wound up being the first largest Twitch stream in its history. Interestingly, the past year has also seen Maia relocate to New York — and she made her NPR Tiny Desk debut, filming her set on the world’s largest desk.

Adding to a rather busy period, the 20-something artist and avid gamer announced her involvement in the next installment of the highly-anticipated Deck Night Games created, Square Enix published gaming series, Life Is Strange, titled Life Is Strange: True Colors. Maia will provide the singing voice for the game’s central character Alex Chen and provides musical backdrop for the game. Additionally, she contributes to the Life Is Strange soundtrack with a hauntingly cover of Radiohead’s beloved smash hit “Creep,” that replaces then guitars of the original with atmospheric electronics while retaining the song’s familiar melody. The end result is a cover that finds the 20-something artist grabbing hold of and pulling out the song’s desperate isolation, longing and self-deprecation in an eerie direction.

“Really excited to share my cover of ‘Creep’ by Radiohead!” mxmtoon says in press notes. “It’s nerve-wracking to make your own version of such an iconic and established song, but ‘Creep’ is a classic and i had so much fun being able to put my own spin on it. Hopefully other people can be inspired to make versions of their own favorite songs and put them out in the world to share as well.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Pierre Grech is a Toulon, France-based singer/songwriter, composer, producer and guitarist, who has long been influenced by folk, indie rock, hip hop, jazz, contemporary classical and electronica. Grech began writing songs as a child but he can trace the origins of his music career to the early 2000s: He was the frontman of experimental electronica act SLiDD — and around the same time, he co-wrote and arranged material on three Jen H. Ka albums.

As a solo artist and bandleader, Grech has played shows across Paris and Southern France with re-arranged and re-imagined renditions of his material in several different iterations including electro rock, acoustic, cello-guitar duo, rock trio and more. But over the past few years, the French singer/songwriter, guitarist, composer, arranger and producer has been refining and honing his songwriting and compositional approach, as well as his guitar playing. The en result is Grech’s latest project _telemaque_, which finds the Toulon-based artist drawing from his long-held influences while crafting energetic and sensitive pop.

Grech’s _telemaque_ debut, June EP was released last Wednesday and the EP’s latest single, EP title track “June” is a gorgeous and deliberately crafted track featuring shimmering acoustic guitar, Grech’s plaintive falsetto, propulsive drumming and a soaring hook. And while sonically bringing OK Computer-era Radiohead and JOVM mainstays Husky to mind, the song is centered around earnest lyricism and accessible, pop-leaning songwriting.

Beyond the recording of the album, a collaboration with New York artist Dani Choi is underway to illustrate each track on the album.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of 2014’s “Splice”/”Sleep Attack” 7 inch and 2015’s Tom McFall-produced, self-titled debut EP, which featured “Warning Pulse” and “California (Will Burn),” the Portland, OR-based indie rock act Rare Monk received praise across the blogosphere, as well as college radio airplay.

In 2016, the Portland-based indie act went through a series of lineup changes that included the departure of their original guitarist and violinist, who was later replaced by Hugh Jepson. With Jepson’s addition to the band, the newly reconstituted quartet started writing material that’s seen as a marked sonic departure from their previously released work. The end result was 2017’s self-released, full-length debut A Future, which featured songs with bigger guitar parts, dueling leads and falsetto harmonies, as you’d hear on “Happy Haunting,” the quartet’s biggest track to date.

Never Really Over, the Portland, OR- based indie rock act’s sophomore album is slated for release next year — and although the material was originally written and recorded between 2018-2019, the album manages to capture our current moment with an eerie prescience. The central thematic thread is an omnipresent and seemingly unceasing dread: of the end of the world as we know it; of impending financial collapse, of a slow decline and devolution full of paranoia, the demonization of science, constant surveillance, persecution and cruelty at increasingly efficient scales, rampant greed, idiocy and inescapable death. While those initial fears have become frighteningly real, Rare Monk’s Dorian Aites says “Hope is definitely not lost, it’s just become more difficult. We’ll get through and we hope the songs help.”

“Statistic Vandals,” Never Really Over‘s latest single features shimmering, reverb-soaked guitars, angular bass lines, driving rhythms and ethereal vocals. — and while the song sonically seems indebted to OK Computer-era Radiohead, the song is centered around a seething and uneasy fury inspired by a word of constant data collection, aggregation and warrantless surveillance.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Laura Carbone Performs “Cellophane Skin” at Rockpalast

With the release of her first two albums — 2016’s Sirens and 2018’s Empty Sea — the rising Berlin-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and photographer Laura Carbone received attention across the European Union and elsewhere for a sound and approach that frequently draws comparisons to PJ Harvey, Shana Falana, Chelsea Wolfe, St. Vincent and others. Additionally,. Carbone published a limited-edition book of photography, also named The Empty Sea.

Carbone and her backing band have opened for The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, developing a reputation for a self-assured and explosive live show, which she further cemented with a headlining tour across Europe last year. The Berlin-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and photographer then followed that up with a stop at SXSW Levitation Festival/Creem Magazine Showcase and a headlining North American tour with The Natvral that included a stop at Baby’s All Right.

Carbone and her backing band were slated to go into the studio in May to record her highly-anticipated third album — but as a result of pandemic-related restrictions, the rising Berlin-based artist’s plans were placed in an indefinite hiatus, much like countless other artists across the globe. Last year, the rising Berlin-based singer/songwriter and guitarist and her backing band performed on the famed German, live concert series Rockpalast — and for Carbone, who grew up in a small town in Southwestern Germany watching the show, appearing on the show was the accomplishment of a lifelong dream: Rockpalast has recorded and broadcasted a who’s who list of influential and important artists, playing some of their most memorable performances, including Siouxsie and The Banshees, Radiohead, Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, Sinead O’Connor, David Bowie, R.E.M., Echo and the Bunnymen, Screaming Trees, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bob Marley and the Wailers and an amazing and very lengthy list of others.

As a result of pandemic-related shutdowns, an idea emerged with Carbone and her band: “What if Rockpalast would let us release that show as a live album?” Released yesterday, Laura Carbone — Live at Rockpalast is just that. Taken from her Rockpalast set at Harmonie Bonn last October, the live album features a career-spanning set, centered around her first two albums, and an unexpected cover, Hewing as closely as possible to their live sound, the album was mixed in Los Angeles by The Jesus and Mary Chain‘s Scott Van Ryper and mastered by Philipp Welsing at Hamburg‘s Original Mastering with no overdubs.

Last month, I wrote about the live album’s first single, “Who’s Gonna Save You.” The live rendition accurately captures Carbone and her band’s forceful live sound and Carbone’s irresistible stage presence, While the song itself finds the band balancing menace, power and sultriness, it should also serve as an introduction to an artist, who in my book is adding her name to a list of powerful rock goddesses.

To celebrate the release of the album, Carbone released the live album’s second single, “Cellophane Skin.” Performed as the first song of their encore, the live rendition finds the band taking the tension of the original and informing it with a feral and ferocious power, informed by dozens of shows across Europe and North America — and by the occasion. And as a result, the song finds its narrator — and perhaps the artist herself — turning into a seductive and vengeful force of nature, much like the sirens of the ancient myths. At its down core, the song finds its narrator forcefully tearing down the bonds of poisonous social norms that have imprisoned her while demanding that we — particularly men — examine ourselves. Of course, much like its immediate predecessor, the song captures a woman with mighty and fearsome roar.

Directed by Olga Dyer, the recently released video for “Cellophane Skin” is split between gorgeous and seductive footage of Carbone in a black gown being touched by a series of seemingly disembodied hands and black and white footage captured on stage.
“The feminine point of view has always been much more difficult to articulate,” Olga Dyer says in press notes. “And once articulated, alas, quite often it becomes a point of vulnerability, seen through the prism of sexual objectification, helpless stereotypes and indecency. It’s literally stripped of its actual meaning or even possible interpretations. To me, this is what ‘Cellophane Skin’ is about. People jump to conclusions, so quick to assume that they can see through someone. Personally it doesn’t offend me, I only find it banal and boring. I love creating beautiful and dark sequences, inspired by noir surrealism.”