Tag: Sigur Ros

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Hearts Hearts Returns with Feverish and Surreal Visuals for Genre-Defying Single “Phantom/Island”

Comprised of David Österle, Daniel Hämmerle, Johannes Mandorfer and Peter Paul Aufreitet, the Vienna, Austria-based quartet Hearts Hearts developed a reputation for crafting brooding, slow-burning and elegiac music indebted to classic musical and electro pop that drew comparisons to Sigur Ros, Flying Lotus, The Darcys and Radiohead as you would have heard on “I Am In” and “AAA” off their critically applauded debut album Young, an effort that thematically focused on tension and release — in the sense of someone desperately trying to break through and out of the familiar and debilitating patterns of their own life. 

During the release of the Austrian act’s debut Young, the band’s Peter Paul Aufreiter and Johannes Mandorfer sent two radically different sound snippets to their bandmate David Österle — an aggressive and jazzy piano loop titled “Phantom” and an electronic drum take recorded overseas titled “Island,” which interestingly enough is the German word for the country of Iceland. And as the story goes, Österle frantically began attempting to put these disparate pieces together; to synchronise what was never meant to be unified, and start singing over the results. The genre-defying album reportedly draws from the work of Bon Iver, Jamie XX and Son Lux while taking its thematic cues from the in between spaces and undefined borderlines in meaning, symbolized by the slash in every title on the album — with the band exploring both emotional and moral ambiguities, the ineffectiveness and confusions that the dichotomies and borderlines that define modern society. As the band’s Hämmerle says, the band prefers to think “think in options,” seeing the slash as representing an openness and flexibility in meaning; in similarities as much as in difference. 

The album’s first single “Phantom/Island” offers a heady and trippy taste of the overall aesthetic and sound of the album, as the band draws from jazz, electronica, indie rock, experimental pop in a way that immediately brings Kid A-era Radiohead, Flying Lotus and Kamasi Washington — and while being at their most sonically expansive and genre-defying, the track finds the band conjuring a mix of anguish and ecstasy, yearning and desire within a turn of a musical phrase, as you’ll hear a propulsive, almost dance floor friendly motorik groove during the song’s verses and a soaring, cinematic hook that conveys yearning and ache. The song finds the band at their most intimate yet cinematic,  experimental yet accessible, feverish and frenetic in what is arguably one of the most gorgeous and transcendent songs I’ve heard this year. 

Filmed and directed by Austrian artist Gabriel Hyden, the breathtakingly gorgeous visuals are a surreal and feverish dream inspired by Iceland’s equally surreal and gorgeous landscapes.  

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Christopher Franzen is a Gothenburg, Sweden-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer, whose solo recording project Lights & Motion began back in 2012 during a frequent bout with insomnia — and during the extremely dark Scandinavian winters, Franzen took to restlessly sequestering himself in a studio, where he would spend his time writing and recording music as a way to help battle his condition, and as a much- needed emotional release.  Interestingly, since Franzen has started the project, he’s been remarkably prolific releasing four cinematic, indie rock-like efforts,  2013’s Save Your Heart and Reanimation, 2015’s Chronicle and 2017’s Dear Avalanche, as well as two albums as soundtrack composer, 2014’s Dreamweaver and 2017’s Phenomenon — all of which have further cemented the Gothenburg, Sweden-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer’s reputation for crafting lush and cinematic material that balances a tightrope between melancholy and optimism.

In fact, Franzen’s latest effort Bloom, which be released through Deep Elm Records will continue in a similar sonic vein as its predecessors; however, thematically, the album focuses on rejuvenation and rebirth — and the album’s latest single “Vanilla Sky,” which prominently features twinkling piano keys, swirling synths, thundering drumming and power chords played through copious reverb around a soaring, arena rock-like hook that will remind some listeners of Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, M83, Sigur Ros and others. And while the song evokes a pleasant breeze on a glorious Spring day; but just underneath, the song’s warm and ethereal air, is a bittersweet note, as though there’s the brief acknowledgement of life’s fleeting and impermanent nature.

 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

With the release of “Golden,” the London, UK-based indie pop trio Mt. Wolf, currently comprised of Sebastian “Bassi” Fox, Stevie “Red” McMinn, and Al Mitchell, received both national and international attention across both major media outlets and the blogosphere. With the growing attention the band has received, they’ve played sold-out shows across Europe and the US; but adding to a rather eventful year, the band has gone through a brief hiatus and a lineup change, before recovering to write and record new material, with producer Ken Thomas, who has worked with M83, Sigur Ros and Daughter.

“The Electric” is the oceanic first single off the band’s still untitled, forthcoming EP finds the trio pairing moody atmospherics with a towering and soaring, arena rock-friendly anthemic nature as the slow-burning song that ebbs and swells as it builds up in intensity; but interestingly within that slow ebb and flow there’s an unresolved tension that never quite gets released. And as a result, it gives the song a certain ambivalence and uncertainty that is familiar — it evokes the ambivalence, uncertainty and confusion of our own lives and relationships and the hope that somehow we find a way to figure it out to the best of our abilities.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Vienna, Austria’s Hearts Hearts Return with a Brooding and Artistic Meditation on Identity, Self-Invention and Perspective

“AAA” is the Austrian quintet’s latest single off Young and sonically it’s a song that nods at Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail to the Thief-era Radiohead as shimmering guitar chords, stuttering drum programming, swirling electronics, twinkling keys and a lush string arrangement with Österle’s tender and aching falsetto expressing a deep yearning for more while possessing an underlying uncertainty at its core. Interestingly enough as the band’s frontman David Österle explained about both the song and its video treatment: “I think that the world is a place, where we can dare to pretend. ‘AAA’ deals with that basic feature of the human condition. We fake it till we make it, and thereby go (at least sometimes) astray in the plethora of metamorphoses in that societal masquerade. I think that by assuming different roles we ourselves are fulfilling the requirements of the economy, demanding excessive flexibility and changeability. As a result we all feel like faceless puppets sometimes.

“We wanted to make a video that visually underscores this figuration of identity as a permanent process of self-inventions. The video is much about showing people in different perspectives. The images are blurry, sometimes they are overlapping and merging together seamlessly. What the lens captures, is actually the performance of a performance, the play in a play.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this year, I wrote about the South Devon, UK-based shoegaze/dream pop/indie rock duo Matthew and Me. And with the previous release of singles such as “Patterns” and “Kitsune,” the duo received a reputation across their native UK for a sound that seemed to draw from the likes of Sigur Ros and Mogwai, and as a result, the duo received airplay on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 6, XFM, and they’ve made appearances at some of Britain’s largest festivals including  including Field Day, Somersault, Port Eliot, and Glastonbury. Now “Joy,” the single I wrote about at the time, was a slow-burning and expansive song that began with a lengthy, delicate and hazy introduction in which Board’s aching falsetto was paired with shimmering and swirling guitar chords and gently padded drumming — with each individual chord feeling as though it were painter’s brushstroke adding color and texture in a fashion that was reminiscent of both the aforementioned Sigur Ros and A Storm in Heaven-era The Verve.

“Silver,” the is the duo’s latest single and the first single off their forthcoming EP Startpoint, which is slated for a November 18, 2016 release through Beatnik Creative Records. Recorded between their home studio, Deep Litter Studios and Startpoint Studios, and was produced by Chris Bond, who has worked with Ben Howard and Eliza Shaddad. Interestingly, the single  is an sparse and atmospheric song in which shimmering guitar chords, swirling and soaring electronics, and a steady backbeat are paired with Board’s plaintive and aching falsetto to craft a song that sounds reminiscent of Death Cab for Cutie‘s Narrow Stairs — but with an anthemic hook.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Brooding Sounds and Visuals of Vienna’s Hearts Hearts

Comprised of David Österle, Daniel Hämmerle, Johannes Mandorfer and Peter Paul Aufreiter, the Vienna, Austria-based quartet Hearts Hearts specialize in a brooding slow-burning, elegiac sound that meshes elements of classical music and contemporary electro pop in a way that […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Towering and Cinematic Sounds of Denver-based Shoegaze Quartet, A Shoreline Dream

  Comprised of Ryan Policky, Erik Jeffries, Adam Edwards, Kevin Keim, the Denver, CO-based quartet A Shoreline Dream are pioneers of a subgenre  described as melodipsych, which pairs lush sampled textures, layered vocals and a […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Dreamy, Summery Pop of New Zealand’s Glass Vaults’ New Single, “West Coast”

Featuring primary members and co-founders Richard Larsen and Rowan Pierce, Wellington, New Zealand-based indie band Glass Vaults are a sextet of close friends, who formed the band in 2010. And over the first few years […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been following JOVM since the very beginning, you may be familiar with the New York-based indie dance pop sensation AVAN LAVA. Initially formed by producers and multi-instrumentalists Le Chev and Ian Pai, the […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

if you’ve been frequenting JOVM for the past few years, you may be familiar with indie dance music sensations AVAN LAVA. Initially formed by producers and multi-instrumentalists Le Chev and Ian Pai, the creative masterminds behind […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Initially formed by producers and multi-instrumentalists Le Chev and Ian Pai, the creative masterminds behind dance pop trio AVAN LAVA can trace their origins to a conversation the duo had about their mutual adulation of Prince, Daft Punk, R&B, […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Sam Ricketts and Tom Clarke, the British-based duo of Cloud Boat, are part of a growing scene of songwriters who consider production and songwriting to be one in the same, much like blogosphere darling James […]