Tag: San Francisco CA

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

 

Scott Hansen is a San Francisco, CA-based songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and electronic music artist, best known for his critically applauded and commercially successful solo recording project Tycho, and with the release of  2006’s Past Is Prologue, 2011’s Dive, 2014’s Awake and 2016’s Epoch, Hansen has developed a reputation for crafting material centered around vintage, analog synthesizers, ambient melodies, organic instrumentation and the frequent use of samples of the human experience, including weather broadcasts, talking, breathing and the like.

“Horizon” off Hansen’s Grammy-nominated 2016 full-length Epoch is a funky yet moody and introspective track centered around layers of arpeggiated synths, thumping, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, shimmering guitars, a sinuous bass line and an atmospheric melody.

Interestingly enough Hansen recruited Poolside, a Los Angeles-based electronic music artist, production and DJ duo, comprised of Filip Nikolic and Jeff Paradise, best known for crafting breezy, pop-tinged disco to remix “Horizon.” And the result is a breezy and summery, cosmic disco track with handclaps, a looped chorus sample, tribal percussion that creates a club banging vibe while retaining the atmospheric melody of the original. As Poolside’s Jeffrey Paradise explains “”It’s tricky to approach a Tycho remix because there are no vocals. By definition a remix would typically strip away the textures and layers, which are the signatures of Tycho, and use the vocals. We kept the original melody as the fingerprints and added classic Poolside synths and percussion. This remix essentially became a Poolside B-side through the process.”

Hansen and his backing band will be touring through the summer and it’ll include stops at Lollapalooza, Outside Lands and SummerCamp Music Festival. Check out the tour dates below.

 

Tour Dates:

15 MAY Sacramento, CA – B Street Theater

16 MAY Eugene, OR – McDonald Theater

17 MAY Spokane, WA – Knitting Factory

18 MAY Boise, ID – Knitting Factory

19 MAY Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot

21 MAY Morrison, CO – Red Rocks +

22 MAY Albuquerque, NM – Villa Hispana *

23 MAY Phoenix, AZ – The Van Buren *

24 MAY San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theater *

27 MAY Chillicothe, IL – Summercamp Music Festival

02 AUG Chicago, IL – Lollapalooza

11 AUG San Francisco, CA – Outside Lands

 

* w/ Phantogram

+ w/ Phantogram & Poolside

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

 

Polo & Pan are a Paris-based electronic music production and DJ duo, comprised of Paul Armand “Polocorp” Delille, and Alexandre “Peter Pan” Grynszpan, both of whom are acclaimed artists in their own right. Grynszpan has developed a reputation for being an insatiable crate digger, who has been known to collect a wide and diverse array of records from musical gems of the early 20th century to contemporary electronica and electro pop to 70s Nepalese psych rock and so on. Unsurprisingly Grynszpan is one of the founders of Radiooooo, an online encyclopedic radio station that was launched back in 2013. Delille is best known for his work with MAD Agency creating workspaces for artists in industrial warehouses but also as a renowned DJ; in fact, both Grynszpan and Delille were resident DJs at Le Baron, and when they met, they discovered a common musical interest — creating a genre- and time-defying sound that manages to be dance floor friendly. 

The duo’s first release Rivolta found the duo meshing 30s Italian standards with 70s Giorgio Moroder-inspired disco, and their full-length debut Caravelle, which was released earlier this year will further cement the duo’s meshing of genres and time periods to create their difficult to pigeonhole yet wildly crowd pleasing sound. The album’s material draws from the sounds of South America, Tajikistan, China, Congo Africa and elsewhere — and the album’s latest single “Canopee” is a breezy and sultry song that draws from French chanteuse-styled pop, flamenco, thumping Italian disco and African percussion with an effortlessly seamless and slick yet soulful production.

The renowned French electronic duo will be embarking on their first Stateside tour ever, and as a result of the album already amassing more than 23 million streams, their June 12, 2018 Bowery Ballroom stop; their June 19, 2018 Los Angeles stop at the Echoplex; and their June 20, 2018 San Francisco stop at The Independent are already sold out. Check out the tour dates below.
Tour Dates: 
6/12 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom (SOLD OUT)
6/14 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
6/16 – Montreal, QC – MTELUS
6/17 – Quebec City, QC – Imperial Bell
6/19 – Los Angeles, CA – Echoplex (SOLD OUT)
6/20 – San Francisco, CA – The Independent (SOLD OUT)

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Although currently comprised of founding member and primary songwriter Ripley Johnson (guitar, vocals), Dusty Jermier (trumpet, bass), Omar Ahsanuddin (drums) and Nash Whalen (organ), the renowned San Francisco, CA-based psych rock act Wooden Shjips can trace their origins back to 2003 when Johnson started the band with the intention of finding a group of non-musicians and creating music with them — with the underlying idea behind it being that untrained players would have a new outlook on what music is and how it’s played, and as a result bring something fresh to the table in a way that many of the garage punks of the early 60s and the Velvet Underground did. In fact one of the longest tenured members of the band, Jermier was originally recruited to play saxophone, an instrument he had never even picked up before while other members from their earliest iterations often had such a lack of interest in playing live for anyone that the band didn’t bother looking for gigs.

Eventually, the band settled to its current lineup — but this time, the intention was different: Johnson, a fan of seemingly impenetrable albums and arcane, small-press poetry books, was fascinated by the idea of books that went unread or became largely out of favor and/or of print that were rediscovered by collectors or some bored critic looking for something different, and praised for being lost and under-appreciated gems. And unsurprisingly, the band set about to make purposely obscure albums that Johnson envisioned leaving in libraries, thrift store bargain bins and on park benches. Eschewing a MySpace page, a Soundcloud account or a website with MP3 downloads, the band gave away a limited pressing of 300 copies of their debut 10 inch vinyl album, paying the shipping costs for out of town requests — and unexpectedly, the album received some rave reviews, including one from Rolling Stone, which raised the album’s cachet and the band’s profile, thanks in part to a sound that the band has described as “a minimal, droning kind of garage band-influenced psychedelia with a noticeable 60s Krautrock influence” with some comparing the band to Suicide, The Velvet Underground, The Doors, Soft Machine and Guru Guru.

Building upon the growing buzz surrounding them, the members of Wooden Shjips released 2006’s “Dance California”/”Clouds Over the Earthquake,” to mark the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which sold enough for the band to break even on their investment, and “Summer of Love 2007,” a single inspired by groups, who worked to make the world the kind of place they wanted to live in, like the Diggers, a local anarchist collective that founded the first Free Store and served free meals to Golden State Park to any and all comers with the proceeds from the single going to Food Not Bombs. Interestingly, their second real gig as a band was a single release show, opening for the psych rock legend Roky Erickson.
The band’s self-produced and self-recorded full-length debut was recorded in the band’s rehearsal space on an half-inch eight-track console that Jermier found, making the album an strictly analog affair aimed at getting high-quality and high-fidelity on an extremely low budget. Some tracks were layered up demos while others were live studio jams with drum parts added later, since they only had two tracks of the drums and no way to keep instruments from bleeding into each other noisily. But despite — or perhaps because of its DIY fashion, the album was released to critical applause that lead to the “Loose Lips”/”Start to Dreaming” 7 inch released by Sub Pop Records.Since then, the band has released three more full-length albums, 2009’s Dos, 2011’s West, 2013’s Back to Land and two compilations 2008’s Volume 1 and 2010’s Volume 2 — and they’ve managed this while the band’s Johnson has been busy with his side project Moon Duo, his acclaimed dup with Sanae Yamada that has released four full-length albums and one EP.  Interestingly, V, the Bay Area-based psych rock band’s fifth full-length album and first album in over five years, finds the band reportedly expanding upon their sound while lightening the overall vibes, with the material being decidedly laid back, almost summery jams.

 

Written last summer, Johnson viewed the material as a necessary antidote to the pervasive political anxiety and apocalyptic panic; in fact, as Johnson says in press notes,
“We had huge forest fires just outside of Portland and there was intense haze and layers of ash in the city. I was sitting on my porch every evening, watching ash fall down like snow, the sky looking like it was on fire. It was an apocalyptic feeling. Summer in Portland is usually really chill and beautiful, and we were working on a ‘summer record,’ but the outside world kept intruding on my headspace.” V., a graphic representation of the Peace sign, seemed apt to an album focused on the power of peace, beauty and resistance. The music is a balm against the noise and negativity.”
 Now, as you may recall V’s first single “Staring at the Sun” was an expansive and shimmering guitar pop sound with a steady groove that seemed as though it owed a big sonic debut to Buffalo Springfield‘s “For What It’s Worth” and Psychic Ills‘ Inner Journey Out; however, V‘s latest single “Red Line” is a bit of a return to form, with the band nodding at both classic psych rock and contemporary shoegaze as the track is centered around droning instrumentation and a propulsive and hypnotic, motorik like groove. But much like its predecessor, the band emphasizes slowing, down and pressing the reset button in a world gone absolutely mad.

The band is currently touring to support their forthcoming fifth album, and you can check out the tour dates below.

Tour Dates:

 

April 20 – Half Moon Bay, CA – Old Princeton Landing [tickets]

April 21 – Santa Cruz – Michael’s On Main [tickets]

April 29 – Austin, TX – Levitation Festival

May 25 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios [tickets]

May 26 – Seattle, WA – Crocodile [tickets]

June 1 – Nelsonville, OH – Nelsonville Music Festival

June 2 – Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle [tickets]

June 4 – Detroit, MI – Marble Bar [tickets]

June 5 – Toronto, ON – Horseshoe Tavern [tickets]

June 7 – Los Angeles, CA – The Lodge [tickets]

June 9 – Sonoma, CA – Huichica Music Festival

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

 

Currently comprised of founding member Luisa Black (vocals, guitar), August Churchill (guitar), Jonny Naismith (guitar) and Gavin Haag (drums), the New York-based indie rock band, which specializes in a sound that meshes elements of British art work with American garage rock initially began as a solo project of its then San Francisco, CA-based founding member, after the breakup of her previous band The Blacks, and evolved around a series of demos Black wrote while she was living in London. Since then, the band has worked with a rotating cast in which they’re often a trio but occasionally a duo — and interestingly enough, with the release of a handful of EPs, the band has developed  following in the UK and the European Union.

Rich Girls’ recently released full-length debut Black City finds the band pushing their moody minimalist sound into new directions, and while they retain the reverb-drenched guitar-based sound that first won them attention, the album’s material employs the use of vintage, analog synths and marimbas, as well as some ambitious songwriting that finds the band further blurring genre lines as the material swings back and forth between a pop-leaning focus on melody and a punk-leaning focus on urgency.

“Wayne” Black City‘s latest single is a slow-burning and anthemic, ballad that sonically reminds me of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps,” Concrete Blonde’s “Joey” and Mazzy Star, thanks in part to a sparse arrangement centered around reverb-drenched power chords, thundering drumming, a soaring hook and Black’s vocals singing heartbreaking lyrics on a post-addiction love; but underneath the song’s ache is the self-assuredness of old pros, who can craft an ambitious, arena rock friendly torch song in a way that feels both profoundly sincere and effortless.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Although currently comprised of founding member and primary songwriter Ripley Johnson (guitar, vocals), Dusty Jermier (trumpet, bass), Omar Ahsanuddin (drums) and Nash Whalen (organ), the renowned San Francisco, CA-based psych rock act Wooden Shjips can trace their origins back to 2003 when Johnson started the band with the intention of finding a group of non-musicians and creating music with them — with the underlying idea behind it being that untrained players would have a new outlook on what music is and how it’s played, and as a result bring something fresh to the table in a way that many of the garage punks of the early 60s and the Velvet Underground did. In fact one of the longest tenured members of the band, Jermier was originally recruited to play saxophone, an instrument he had never even picked up before while other members from their earliest iterations often had such a lack of interest in playing live for anyone that the band didn’t bother looking for gigs.

Eventually, the band settled to its current lineup — but this time, the intention was different: Johnson, a fan of seemingly impenetrable albums an arcane, small-press poetry books, was fascinated by the idea of books that went unread or became largely out of favor and/or of print that were rediscovered by collectors or some bored critic looking for something different, and praised for being lost and under-appreciated gems. And unsurprisingly, the band set about to make purposely obscure albums that Johnson envisioned leaving in libraries, thrift store bargain bins and on park benches. Eschewing a MySpace page, a Soundcloud account or a website with MP3 downloads, the band gave away a limited pressing of 300 copies of their debut 10 inch vinyl album, paying the shipping costs for out of town requests — and unexpected, the album received some rave reviews, including one from Rolling Stone, which raised the album’s cachet and the band’s profile, thanks in part to a sound that the band has described as “a minimal, droning kind of garage band-influenced psychedelia with a noticeable 60s Krautrock influence” with some comparing the band to Suicide, The Velvet Underground, The Doors, Soft Machine and Guru Guru.

Building upon the growing buzz surrounding them, the members of Wooden Shjips released 2006’s “Dance California”/”Clouds Over the Earthquake,” to mark the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which sold enough for the band to break even on their investment, and “Summer of Love 2007,” a single inspired by groups, who worked to make the world the kind of place they wanted to live in, like the Diggers, a local anarchist collective that founded the first Free Store and served free meals to Golden State Park to any and all comers with the proceeds from the single going to Food Not Bombs. Interestingly, their second real gig as a band was a single release show, opening for the psych rock legend Roky Erickson.
The band’s self-produced and self-recorded full-length debut was recorded in the band’s rehearsal space on an half-inch eight-track console that Jermier found, making the album an strictly analog affair aimed at getting high-quality and high-fidelity on an extremely low budget. Some tracks were layered up demos while others were live studio jams with drum parts added later, since they only had two tracks of the drums and no way to keep instruments from bleeding into each other noisily. But despite — or perhaps because of its DIY fashion, the album was released to critical applause that lead to the “Loose Lips”/”Start to Dreaming” 7 inch released by Sub Pop Records.

Since then, the band has released three more full-length albums, 2009’s Dos, 2011’s West, 2013’s Back to Land and two compilations 2008’s Volume 1 and 2010’s Volume 2 — and they’ve managed this while the band’s Johnson has been busy with his side project Moon Duo, his acclaimed dup with Sanae Yamada that has released four full-length albums and one EP.  Interestingly, V, the Bay Area-based psych rock band’s fifth full-length album and first album in over five years, finds the band reportedly expanding upon their sound while lightening the overall vibes, with the material being decidedly laid back, almost summery jams.

Written last summer, Johnson viewed the material as a necessary antidote to the pervasive political anxiety and apocalyptic panic; in fact, as Johnson says in press notes,
“We had huge forest fires just outside of Portland and there was intense haze and layers of ash in the city. I was sitting on my porch every evening, watching ash fall down like snow, the sky looking like it was on fire. It was an apocalyptic feeling. Summer in Portland is usually really chill and beautiful, and we were working on a ‘summer record,’ but the outside world kept intruding on my headspace.” V., a graphic representation of the Peace sign, seemed apt to an album focused on the power of peace, beauty and resistance. The music is a balm against the noise and negativity.”
V‘s first single “Staring at the Sun” is an expansive, laid-back, shimmering delay pedal effected, guitar pop with a steady groove that sounds as though it owes a big sonic debt to Buffalo Springfield‘s “For What It’s Worth” and Psychic Ills‘ Inner Journey Out paired with a slowly building narrative centered around the gentle push and pull between the desire for sun and escape and the pressing tug of anxiety and uncertainty — with peaceful resistance to that anxiety and uncertainty winning the day and guiding the overall tone.   At one point, the song’s narrator seems to say “come on, man slow it down, daydream in the sun for a bit,” and you know what, goddamn it, the guy is right. Even in the face of a world constantly on the brink of annihilation, of a government on the verge of collapse and a social order being shredded apart, sometimes you need to push the reset button or you’ll go crazy.

 

The band will be embarking on a tour to support their newest effort and you can check out the tour dates below.

Tour Dates:

April 13 – Portland, OR – Bunk Bar [tickets]

April 14 – Bellingham, WA – Shakedown [tickets]

April 20 – Half Moon Bay, CA – Old Princeton Landing [tickets]

April 21 – Santa Cruz – Michael’s On Main [tickets]

April 29 – Austin, TX – Levitation Festival

May 25 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios [tickets]

May 26 – Seattle, WA – Crocodile [tickets]

June 1 – Nelsonville, OH – Nelsonville Music Festival

June 2 – Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle [tickets]

June 4 – Detroit, MI – Marble Bar [tickets]

June 5 – Toronto, ON – Horseshoe Tavern [tickets]

June 7 – Los Angeles, CA – The Lodge [tickets]

June 9 – Sonoma, CA – Huichica Music Festival

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: RidingEasy Records and Permanent Records Release Bluesy, Anthemic, Fist Pumping, Second Single from Sixth Brown Acid Compilation

Over the past few years, Permanent Records’ and RidingEasy Records have collaborated on an increasingly expansive series of proto-metal and pre-stoner rock compilations, Brown Acid. Now, as you may recall, each individual edition of the series is based on RidingEasy Records’ founder Daniel Hall’s and Permanent Records co-owner Lance Barresi’s extensive, painstaking research and curation — with Hall and Barresi spending a great deal of time tracking down songs’ creators, most often bands that haven’t written, played or recored together in 30 or 40 years, and then encouraging them to take part in the compilation process. As Permanent Records’ Barresi has explained in press notes regarding the previous editions of the compilations “All of (these songs) could’ve been hits given the right circumstances. But for one reason or another most of these songs fell flat and were forgotten. However, time has been kind in my opinion and I think these songs are as good now or better than they ever were.”

Naturally, by having the original artists participate as much as possible in the compilation process, it can give the artists and their songs, a real, second chance at the attention and success that they originally missed. Additionally, these songs can help fill in the larger picture of what was going on in and around the underground music scenes during the 60s and 70s. Following the critical and commercial success of its first five volumes, RidingEasy Records and Permanent Records’ sixth volume of 60s and 70s proto-metal and pre-stoner rock Brown Acid: The Sixth Trip is slated for an April 20, 2018 continuing what I hope will be an annual rite of passage. And much like the previous five editions, the sixth edition continues on Barressi’s and Hall’s exhaustive, painstaking research and curation with the duo continuing to discover that the well of hard rock, psych rock and proto-metal 45s from the period is incredibly deep — with the sixth edition featuring 9 deep cuts from bands based in Continental USA and one Canadian act.

Each edition of Brown Acid has begun with an barn burner of a track and the sixth edition also continues that honored tradition with a swaggering yet frenetic, mind-melting, guitar pyrotechnic-fueled track from San Francisco, CA-based act Gold, “No Parking” recorded circa 1970. Reportedly, the band used to open their sets with the song — and as soon as you hear it, you’ll hear why: it captures a band that’s completely unafraid to kick ass and take names. Interestingly, The Sixth Trip’s latest single is Flight’s “Luvin’, Huggin’ & More,” a single that to my ears sounds like a fist-pumping, beer chugging and beer raising, anthemic, amalgamation of Quadrophrenia-era The Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business” but featuring a narrator, who gives his new lover a list of relationship requirements/demands, including the prerequisite luvin’ and huggin’ — with an emphasis on more. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Alice Merton Performs Viral Hit “No Roots” on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”

Alice Merton is a Canadian-born, Berlin, Germany-based singer/songwriter and pop artist, who has lived a rather nomadic life, as she was raised in Canada, finished high school in Germany and then with the rest of her family, relocated to England. Of course, music was a major part of her life, no matter where on Earth she was; she started taking classical piano lessons when she was five and by the time she was nine, she was introduced to vocal training. As the story goes, after spending the better part of a decade being classically trained, Merton discovered contemporary songwriting during one of her high school courses in Germany. And from that point forward, she went on to study songwriting and began pursuing her dream of becoming a professional singer/songwriter.

Naturally, while in school Merton would up working with a number or producers on projects and as you can imagine, finding the right producer, who can both compliment and challenge a singer/songwriter as a true collaborator is a rarity. And when she met Berlin-based producer Nicolas Rebscher, Merton quickly recognized that she finally found her musical match; in fact, the duo have managed to specialize in an anachronistic  sound that features Merton’s soulful pop belter vocals over a slick production consisting of analog synths, classic soul music-inspired instrumentation paired with hook driven, contemporary songwriting. 

Merton’s swaggering and bluesy debut single “No Roots,” features Merton’s self-assured and soulful pop belter vocals paired with a Rebscher production that features enormous, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, a sinuous bass line, brief blasts of funk guitar, squiggly blasts of synths and a rousingly anthemic hook that nods at Amy Winehouse, Lorde, Taylor Swift and others but while managing to feature a narrator that simultaneously expresses a wizened and resilient spirit; but just underneath there’s a visceral ache over a life frequently thrown in disarray with sudden moves before the narrator could get adjusted to a new place, and the realization that she’s never quite belonged. 

Already “No Roots” has won the up-and-coming Merton an immense amount of attention across the European Union, Stateside and elsewhere, as the song has already seen millions of streams on Spotify and YouTube, and has recently been added to the playlists of several Stateside Adult Alternative Album radio stations, including stations in Los Angeles, Austin, Dallas, San Francisco, Minneapolis, the NYC area, as well as Sirius Alt Nation. Adding to a growing profile, thanks in part to the success of her debut single, Merton recently signed to renowned indie label Mom + Pop Music. Recently Merton, along with her backing band recently made their national television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where she performed her viral hit. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Eric Sharp is a Los Angeles, CA-based electronic music producer, artist, DJ and promoter, who has developed a reputation for being one of the most accomplished tastemakers on the West Coast. As a DJ/producer and electronic music artist, he has a reputation for crafting intelligent, sophisticated house music that could comfortably fit at an intimate private party, at the club and at massive festivals simultaneously. And with material that ranges from deep and nuanced to the driving and syncopated, the Los Angeles, CA-based producer and artist has had his music licensed by Major League Soccer, Sony, CSI: Miami, Hitachi, and others.

2010 saw the launch of Sharp’s label Rock It Science Laboratories, a label and platform for like-minded producers and artists, many of whom played at the warehouse parties he tirelessly promoted. Eventually, Sharp retooled his focus from underground warehouse parties to major club residencies and appearances on the festival circuit — including Coachella, Outside Lands, Amsterdam Dance Event, Decibel Festival, SXSW, Symbiosis Gathering, Miami Music Week and others. Interestingly, a growing profile in the electronic music scene coincided with a relocation from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and as a result he found himself collaborating with a number of his new hometown’s up-and-coming artists including Anna Lunoe, Daisy O’Dell, Siouxsie Black and George Cochrane on his 2013 EP Sharp Cuts.  Additionally he has remixed the material of Melanie Martinez, Jars of Clay and others, which have expanded his profile.

Last year, Sharp ramped up his output of original music significantly, releasing collaborations with Capital Cities’ Spencer Ludwig and up-and-coming artist Gavin Turek and others and it has continued well into 2017 with a number of Hype Machine chart topping songs.  Building upon the release of Hype Machine #1 track “Take This Time,” feat. Zhao, Sharp’s latest single “Night Turns To Day” is a shimmering and mid-tempo house track featuring arpeggiated synths, thumping and stuttering drum programming and a sinuous hook paired with Somme‘s sultry vocals — and much like Octo Octa‘s Between Two Selves Sharp’s latest single possesses an bracing iciness while managing to walk the tightrope between chill out session and club banger.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Gorgeous and Soaring Sounds of Dublin’s Cloud Castle Lake

Currently comprised of Daniel McAuley (vocals, synths), Brendan William Jenkinson (guitar, piano), Rory O’Connor (bass) and Brendan Doherty (drums), along with a rotating cast of collaborators and friends, the Dublin, Ireland-based act Cloud Castle Lake derive their name from a Vladimir Nabokov short story about a voyager, who finds a place so beautiful that he wants to spend the rest of his life there, but is cruelly dragged back to reality. And with their 2014 self-released debut EP, Dandelion, the Irish act received attention for a sound that routinely juxtaposes dark and despairing lyrics with a euphoric catharsis that increasingly draws from the work of Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders while being equal parts pastoral folk and soaring post-rock crescendos. And adding to a growing profile, the band has opened for touring acts such as Glasser, Lisa Hanningan and Ultraisa. 

Cloud Castle Lake had recently re-surfaced with the release of “Twins,” their first single in quite some time and building upon the buzz of that single, the Irish quartet released the stunning and breathtakingly gorgeous, Amnesiac-era Radiohead-like single “Bonfire,” which features twinkling, arpeggiated keys, and jazz-infected drumming and a tender yet soaring melody. As the band’s Daniel McAuley explained in press notes, “Bonfire is based around a pretty simple melody I came up with a few years ago. I kept being drawn back to it periodically and steadily adding and expanding it until it grew out into a full song. Writing it felt like a meditative task – what I’d imagine knitting a scarf is like. The choir parts were performed by our pals Tonnta, a contemporary choral group from Dublin. The giddiest day of recording for me was probably the first day they came in and sang through their parts. Getting to hear such talented musicians turn all that midi data and notation into music feels like magic. The lyrics have to do with doubt and denial and keeping secrets. They’re very loosely based on an old Irish/Welsh myth about rival tribes trying to find out the secret name of the other’s god in order to defeat them.”

Next month, the members of the Irish quartet will be embarking on a 5 date North American tour with stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and a February 6, 2018 stop at Rockwood Music Hall. These tour dates will serve as a bold re-introduction to the band, as well as building up buzz for the band’s Rob Kirwan-produced debut, slated for a Spring 2018 release. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Breezily Nostalgic Visuals and Sounds of JOVM Mainstays Cones’ Latest Single “First Time”

Throughout this past year, I’ve written quite a bit about the San Francisco-born, Los Angeles-based sibling duo Cones — and as you’d recall, the duo comprised of Jonathan Rosen, a pop music influenced, acclaimed hand-drawn animator,  who has created music videos Toro y Moi, Eleanor Friedberger and Delicate Steve, and who played Johnny Thunders for the HBO series Vinyl; and Michael Rosen, a classically trained pianist, commercial/film composer and experimental sound artist can trace the origins of their collaborative project together to when they began playing together as members of NYC-based indie rock Icewater. Eventually,  the members of Icewater began playing as the session and touring band for Eleanor Friedberger’s New View, and while touring with Friedberger, the Rosens began to conceptualize what their new project would sound like, ultimately deciding that their project would fuse Jonathan’s pop sensibilities with Michael’s lush, atmospheric soundscapes and keyboard-based instrumentation. 

Shortly after the tour to support Friedberger’s New View, the Rosens along with a bunch of friends, associations and collaborators wrote and recorded the material that would comprise their debut EP, Whatever You’re Into, which featured single “Echoes On,” a single that paired Jonathan’s dreamy falsetto with a twangy, psych country-like arrangement with a breeziness reminiscent of 70s AM radio. The EP’s follow up single, “Back In The Brain” further cemented their growing reputation for crafting breezy and ethereal synth pop with soaring hooks — but with that song, there was a darker undertone, as it was an ode to solitude.

“Later,” which the band released a few months ago found the duo retaining the shimmering and atmospheric, synth-led arrangements that first caught the attention of this site and the rest of the blogosphere — but interestingly enough, it may arguably be one of the most dance floor friendly singles they’ve released, as the song pairs lush atmospherics with a funky, two-step inducing bridge. But underneath the joyous vibes, the song as Jonathan Rosen explained was much more ambivalent than what the listener should actually expect. “I wrote ‘Later’ a few years ago when I was moving back home to California from New York. I finished it on Highway 1. It captures that moment in a breakup when you finally start to find peace, but some of that bitterness is still hanging around. It was originally a bit somber, but Michael and I realized it worked pretty well as a dance track, so we went for it,” as Jonathan Rosen explains in press notes.

“First Time,” the JOVM mainstays latest single is a breezy bubblegum pop-inspired track that manages to nod at early Beach Boys and contemporaries like Pavo Pavo and others while featuring fluttering synths, ethereal vocals and propulsive, four-on-the-floor drumming. As a result, the song has a sincere and wistful nostalgia over a profound universal experience — falling in love for the very first time with an expected naivety. 

The recently released video features Jonathan Rosen’s hand drawn animations with live 8mm footage, specifically chosen to evoke the nostalgic feeling within the song.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting this site throughout the course of the year, you’ve likely come across a few posts featuring San Francisco-born, Los Angeles-based sibling duo Cones, and as you may recall, the duo comprised of Jonathan Rosen, a pop music influenced, acclaimed hand-drawn animator,  who has created music videos Toro y Moi, Eleanor Friedberger and Delicate Steve, whose own rock ‘n’ roll dream started in earnest when he played Johnny Thunders for the HBO series Vinyl; and Michael Rosen, a classically trained pianist, commercial/film composer and experimental sound artist can trace the origins of their collaborative project together to when they began playing together as members of NYC-based indie rock Icewater. Eventually. the members of Icewater began playing as the session and touring band for Eleanor Friedberger’s New View.

While touring with Friedberger, the Rosens began to conceptualize what their new project would sound like, and ultimately, they decided that the project should fuse Jonathan’s pop sensibilities with Michael’s lush, atmospheric soundscapes and keyboard-based instrumentation. Shortly after the tour to support New View, the Rosen Brothers along with a bunch of friends, associates and collaborators wrote and then recorded the material that comprised their debut EP Whatever You’re Into, which featured single “Echoes On,” a single that paired Jonathan’s dreamy falsetto with a twangy, psych country-like arrangement with a breeziness reminiscent of 70s AM radio. “Back In The Brain” further cemented their growing reputation for crafting breezy and ethereal synth pop with soaring hooks — but with that song, there was a darker undertone, as it was an ode to solitude.

The duo’s latest single “Later” while retaining the shimmering and atmospheric synth-led arrangements that first caught the attention of this site and the rest of the blogosphere, may arguably be one of their most dance floor friendly with the duo subtly nodding to disco and electro pop thanks to a two-step inducing bridge, which gives the song a playful, funky air; however, as the band’s Jonathan Rosen explains, the song is much more ambivalent than what you’d expect, “I wrote ‘Later’ a few years ago when I was moving back home to California from New York. I finished it on Highway 1. It captures that moment in a breakup when you finally start to find peace, but some of that bitterness is still hanging around. It was originally a bit somber, but Michael and I realized it worked pretty well as a dance track, so we went for it.”

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Shana Falana Releases Vivid and Surreal Visuals for “Cool Kids” That Focus on Acceptance and Inclusion

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site for the better part of the past year or so, you’d be familiar with JOVM mainstay Shana Falana, and as you may recall, Falana is a California-born, Upstate New York-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who can trace the origins of her musical career to  San Francisco‘s D.I.Y. scene, as well as a stint in a local, Bulgarian women’s choir. By 2006, Falana had been in New York for some time and was struggling through drug addiction and financial woes, when she lost part of an index finger in a work-related accident. And under most normal circumstances, the accident for most people would be considered either extremely unlucky and perhaps even tragic; however, the settlement money she received provided a much-needed period of financial stability and a desperately-needed period in which she could get sober and find a new focus in her life and music. You’ll also recall that, her sophomore effort, Here Comes the Wave, which was one of my favorite albums released last year, was conceptualized and written during two different parts of Falana’s life — while she was struggling with drug addiction and trying to get sober, and in the subsequent years that have followed in sobriety. Naturally, the material at points was rewritten, revised and refined with the growing sense of perspective and awareness that comes when you’ve gotten older and hopefully much wiser than what you were. As a result, the material winds up being centered around a universal duality — in this case, how its creator once thought, felt and once was and how its creator now thinks, feels and is. But along with that, the material focuses on transformation as a result of emotional turmoil, the inner strength and resolve to overcome difficulties, the acceptance of time-passing, aging and one’s own impending mortality., as well as the death of her father. 

Falana’s sophomore effort found her continuing her collaborating with producer D. James Goodwin, best known for his work with Bob Weir, Whitney and Kevin Morby and with her long-time partner, collaborator and drummer Mike Amari, with Goodwin and Amari playing much larger roles on the album, as the trio of collaborators boldly went for much more audacious sounds, more heightened moments and an emotional vulnerability — while remaining relentlessly and infectiously upbeat and positive. And in a subtle fashion, the material suggests as TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe said during last month’s Meadows Festival, “Everything turns out okay in the end. If it isn’t okay now, well clearly, it isn’t the end yet.” 

Waves’ latest single “Cool Kids” while being decidedly among the album’s most shoegazer-inspired tracks manages to be simultaneously meditative and anthemic, as it possesses some enormous and rousing hooks, propulsive drumming and a shit ton of distortion with looped vocals and unsurprisingly, the song has an overwhelming positive message. As Falana explains in press notes, “The song, which I wrote last year, is about embracing yourself and letting go of judgements against others.” As she adds, “Like most of my work, it meditates on one tone, one note, attempting to create a space where people can relax, and dream.”

Interestingly, the recently released Bon Jane-produced video is a mischievous mix of 70s hair product commercials and workout video, as it features a diverse array of people blow-drying their hair in slow motion while on stationary bikes. There’s also a lot of rainbow flag waiving — and of course, Falana herself is seen sporting felt hearts, the same ones that she’s been sewing onto people’s clothing and passing out at her shows. “I’ve been sewing felt hearts onto people’s clothing and asking them to make a pledge to be more vulnerable, empathetic, and to actively take care of others in their communities,” Falana says in press notes. (Of course, the video makes me wish I still had hair; but that’s another issue.) 

In terms of the video, Falana says “This is about as political as I get. This year has forced so many of us to re-proclaim the basics of human rights and decency. It’s been heartbreaking to see so many friends in my local community, who have been under attack and marginalized further, and so how could that not be on my mind when making a video for ‘Cool Kids’?

“When Bon Jane, who brilliantly shot and directed this, and I got together, we both loved the idea of presenting that dreamy, meditative state through people blow drying their hair in slow motion. This video is about re-affirming my belief in the future. During the shoot, we kept calling the group o people on bikes an ‘Army of Love,’ because that’s what we’re doing. Going to war for love.”