Tag: singer/songwriter \

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Donnie Doolittle’s Darkly HIlarious “Resurrect Me”

Donnie Doolittle is a Charlotte-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Although Doolittle studied piano and guitar as a child, he cut his teeth fronting a series of popular local bands in the early 2000s, including garage pop act Stone Figs, doom rock outfit Little Bull Lee and dark, psychedelic solo project Dreamy D.

Back in 2018, Doolittle recorded the first version of upbeat psuedo-lovesong “When a Woman,” a song inspired by 1970s Aussie thrilled Wake in Fright, while visiting his friend, producer Jesse Clasen in New York. Originally conceived as a Dreamy D, the collaboration marked a shift in his songwriting and creative process, and later became the first single under his own name. “That song just felt different: I was evolving, and I wanted to start fresh, releasing tracks under my own name,” he says. “The new music feels more true to who I am as an artist and as a person.”

As a solo artist, Doolittle crafts moody, synth driven material that hover between dark, retro-pop and melancholy rock that blends bright, pop-leaning melodies into ominous and cinematic soundscapes. Described as “Southern New Wave,” to “Goth Americana” by the press, his genre-bending sound has frequently been compared to Orville Peck, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, and Iggy Pop. He pairs each release with carefully-honed imagery and thematic narrative videos, meant to engage a range of senses. “I want to provide a full experience—to use my resources to create a palpable ambiance,” Doolittle says.

Doolittle’s Jesse Clasen-produced self-titled, full-length debut is slated for an April 7, 2023 release. The 12-song album reportedly features arrangements that weave together modern and vintage synths (most notably, the Mellotron and 80s-era Roland Juno 106) with electric guitar, bass and drums to create songs that drift mood-wise between vibrant and gloomy. Informed by Doolittle’s love of the work of Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Lee Hazlewood, the album’s cinematic arrangements help to draw listeners into multifaceted sonic worlds, laced with sharp, narrative lyrics that touch upon religion, gender, pop culture and sexuality with a light, subtly ironic touch. “I like to play around with religion and sex,” says Doolittle. “Feeling jaded about God and the world, but also firmly attached to both. I think that’s a big part of Southern culture, and who I am as an artist…for better or worse.”

Along with the album announcement, Doolittle shared the album’s latest single, the slow-burning and broodingly cinematic “Resurrect Me.” Featuring twangy and reverb-drenched guitars, glistening and atmospheric synths paired with Doolittle’s baritone paired with big hooks and a buzzing guitar solo, “Resurrect Me” manages to sound a bit like a synthesis of the Twin Peaks soundtrack, Bruce Springsteen‘s “Tunnel of Love” and Orville Peck, while rooted in a bittersweet heartache.

“I started writing this song after learning about so-called ‘resurrection men,’ body snatchers in the 18th and 19th centuries that would exhume corpses from graveyards and sell them to medical schools for research and teaching purposes,” Doolittle explains. “I was interested in the idea of someone seeing value in these buried and abandoned vessels, and putting in the work to give them a second chance at showing their worth above ground. I related to the dead people in this scenario.”

Directed by North Carolina-based producer and director Josh Rob Thomas, the accompanying video is a darkly hilarious visual that follows Doolittle’s corpse on a wild adventure as its passed along a rotation cast of odd companions. “As heavy as the inspiration was, I thought we could lighten the mood with the video. Influenced by absurd films like Weekend at Bernie’s (which didn’t age too well) and Swiss Army Man, we took my corpse on an adventure with a rotating cast of companions,” Doolittle explains. “Fun was had with most of them, but only one character cared enough to put me to rest. I’ve assembled a very talented production team and we stepped up our game for this one. I hope you enjoy it.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Black History Month/Happy 75th Birthday, Rick James!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month — and the 75th anniversary of Rick James’ birth.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 72nd Birthday, Phil Collins!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Phil Collins’ 72nd birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Whose Rules Share Breezy and Anthemic “I Don’t Care”

Marius Elfstedt is a Norwegian producer, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who grew up on a flower farm in a Hasler, Norway, a rural area roughly an hour outside of Oslo. Four years ago, while exploring his family’s farm, he came came across an abandoned cabin and then re-purposed it into a recording studio, where he writes. produces and record music with his friends and artists like Dev Lemons, Tigerstate, Selmer, Ralph Castelli, Elah Hale, Isabelle Eberdean, Mall Girl, Svømmbesseng, Joe’s Truly, Bikelane, Fish, Overcity, Pikekyss, and others.

Elfstedt works and records his own material as Whose Rules. Back in 2020, the Norwegian producer and artist released his self-titled debut EP, which he followed up with a handful of collaborative releases with Dev Lemons.

The Norwegian producer and artist’s full-length debut, Hasler is slated for a February 22, 2023 through 777 Music. The album was created from the solitude found within the walls of pandemic-related isolation within the walls of his Hasler, Norway-based studio, in the middle of the Scandinavian wilderness. Wooden log walls, haplessly strewn posters, old second-hand couches and a teeming collection of guitars and synths helped create a perfect environment to escape into a world of creation.

Written and produced entirely by Marius, Hasler is the culmination of years of sonic experimentation and rumination — both melancholic and hopeful — over adolescence gradually blossoming into adulthood. Thematically and lyrically, the material touches upon loneliness. love, friendship and self-doubt while sonically the album pairs whiting electronics and indie rock.

Hasler‘s third and latest single “I Don’t Care” is a woozy yet breezily melancholic bop featuring shimmering, strummed acoustic guitar-driven melody, fluttering synths, and a buzzing guitar solo paired with Elfstadt’s languid, delivery, instantly catchy melodicism and a penchant for easy-going yet anthemic hooks. “This is the first track I made for this LP. After a long time with writer’s block, this song pops out of nowhere,”Elfstadt explains. “The dissonant guitar melody reminded me of Weezer’s ‘Undone’ and ‘Say it Ain’t So‘ which I thought was dope.”

Directed and shot by Fabio Enzo, the accompanying video for “I Don’t Care” follows the Norwegian producer and artist on the family farm, at the studio and while watching a glorious sunset.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Gabriel da Rosa is a Cruz Alta, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and guitarist. Growing up in rural, southern Brazil with a radio DJ for a father, de Rosa was exposed to a wide variety of music from his his homeland. But it wasn’t until he moved to Los Angeles that he began curating Brazilian records and DJ’ing himself. 

da Rosa wound up bonding with Stones Throw Records‘ label head, founder, artist and DJ Peanut Butter Wolf over their shared love of Brazilian music. The Brazilian-born artist began writing his own bossa nova, inspired by traditional bossa nova but with a contemporary edge with Pedro Dom, a musician, who has worked with some of Brazil’s best, internationally known artists like Seu Jorge, Rodrigo Amarante, and Latin Grammy Award-winner Ian Ramil. 

The Brazilian-born artist signed to Stones Throw last year. The label released his debut single, “Jasmin parte 1,” a song that details the enchanted feelings of first meeting someone, but doubting whether that connection will actually last. As de Rosa puts it, “the song is about “wanting to remain in an eternal fairytale.”

His second single “Bandida” was a swooning and swaying, wine-drunk Bossa nova rooted in its creator’s thoughts while in solitude, featuring strummed guitar, da Rosa’s heartbroken and weary delivery and a mournful sax line parried with the genre’s traditional, shuffling rhythms. As da Rosa explains, the song came about after an idle night spent in, drinking wine and strumming his guitar. “The wine and my guitar brought out some bittersweet thoughts — all day, I’m surrounded by amazing people, real friends and acquaintances, but at the end of the day, I’m alone,” he says. 

da Rosa’s full-length debut, É o que a casa oferece is slated for a February 17, 2023 release through Stones Throw Records. For Gabriel da Rosa, the appeal of bossa nova is its emotional as well as musical depth. He says, “When you listen to it, you feel blissful – it evokes happy memories. That’s what I’m trying to do on the album.”

The album’s latest single “Cachaça” is named for Brazil’s most popular spirit, and as a result, it evokes being in a Brazilian boteco (bar), swaying drunkenly to the music, lost in your thoughts and memories. But it’s not a sad song. Rather, it’s celebratory. It’s a song celebrating both love won and lost — and well, drinking a bit too much.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Reno McCarthy Shares Wintry “Picture in Picture”

With the release of his full-length debut, 2019’s Counterglow, Montréal-based singer/songwriter, producer, and JOVM mainstay, Reno McCarthy quickly received attention for his remarkably self-assured songwriting.

Following the death of his father in 2020, McCarthy wrote Angels Watching Us Dance EP, an effort which saw the Canadian artist crafting stopped down, strikingly sensitive material informed by loss and heartbreak.

McCarthy’s sophomore album, 2021’s Run Up River featured three singles I wrote about on this site:

  • The introspective yet upbeat “Sundown,”

  • The slickly produced, St. Lucia-like ode to hesitation and indecisiveness, “For A Moment.”

  • “Nothing Less, Nothing More” is a slow-burning song that manages to evoke the uneasy swoon of a new relationship with both sides entering uncharted waters with themselves and each other. 

The Montréal-based JOVM mainstay began the year with the recently released Picture in Picture EP, which features title track “Picture in Picture.” Featuring strummed acoustic guitar, gently padded yet skittering drum beats, a sinuous bass line paired with fluttering and atmospheric synths paired with McCarthy’s plaintive crooning and his unerring knack for big, razor sharp hooks, “Picture in Picture” sees the Canadian artist balancing folk intimacy with pop bombast. Thematically, the song touches upon the existential threat of environment damage and the alienation of modern life, while evoking cold Montréal nights.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 85th Birthday, Sam Cooke!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 85th anniversary of Sam Cooke’s birth.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 37th Birthday, Kevin Parker!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Tame Impala mastermind, Kevin Parker’s 37th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Laure Briard Shares ’70s-Inspired “The Smell of Your Hair”

Laure Briard is a Toulouse, France-based singer/songwriter, who has a had a highly uncommon path to professional music. Briard bounced around several different interests and passions for some time: She studied literature and criminology and even acted a bit, before concentrating on music full-time in 2013.

After the release of her debut EP, 2013’s Laure Briard chante la France, Briard met Juilen Gasc and Eddy Cramps, and the trio began working on the material that would eventually become her full-length debut, 2015’s Révélation. Inspired by Françoise Hardy, Margo Guryan and Vashti Bunyan, Révélation featured modern and poetic lyricism. 

Briard then signed with Midnight Special Records, who released her sophomore album, 2016’s Sur la Piste de Danse. Repeated trips to Brazil inspired and informed her next three efforts –2018’s Coração Louco EP, 2019’s Un peu plus d’amour s’il vous plâit and 2021’s En Voo EP, which were heavily indebted to Bossa Nova and saw the Toulouse-based artist writing and singing lyrics in Brazilian Portuguese and French. Those three efforts were rooted in a successful series of collaborations between the Toulouse-based JOVM mainstay, the equally acclaimed JOVM mainstays,  Latin Grammy Award nominated, Brazilian psych rockers Boogarins, Marius Dufflot, and her longtime collaborators Vincent “Octopus” Guyot

The JOVM mainstay’s fourth album Ne pas trop rester bleue is slated for a February 10, 2023 release through Midnight Special Records. Inspired and informed by Joshua Tree, a remote national park that’s a no man’s land, where space and time seem to stretch on forever. An odd fantasy land, where America’s simultaneously obsolete and haunted by its myths and past legends. But ultimately, the album celebrates rebirth and letting go.

Although Ne pas trop rester bleue took three long years to finish, the album was enriched and informed by her travels, and as a result, the effort was liberating. Reportedly much lighter and more optimistic than Sur la piste de dance, an album rooted in broken destinies, disillusionments and heartbreaks, Ne pas trop rester bleue is a cathartic, deeply autobiographical effort that allows the Toulouse-based JOVM mainstay to essentially free herself from lingering ghosts — and to conjure new ones.

The album’s material is influenced quite a bit by the legendary Carole King, Lee Hazlwood, the poet Don Gibson and Bobbie Gentry. Briard continues her ongoing collaboration with Julien Gasc and Vincent “Octopus” Guyot, who assisted in the material’s arrangements. Sonically, the result is an album that draws from soul, pop and country featuring string and brass arrangements paired with the JOVM mainstay’s breezy delivery.

Featuring twinkling keys, brooding and shimmering strings and soulful brass arrangements paired with Briard’s coquettish delivery, Ne pas trop rester bleue‘s latest single “The Smell of Your Hair” sounds as though it could have been a unreleased track from the Tapestry sessions that was cut from the album. And much like Tapestry, “The Smell of Your Hair” tells a story about a heartbreaking encounter — but in this case, with a lonesome cowboy type in Joshua Tree, where fleeting passion under the desert sun was lulled by birdsong and the sound of wind. And instead of lamenting over the inevitable separation and giving into bitterness, heartbreak or even melodrama, the song’s narrator attempts to turn heartbreak into a playfully sunny and sensual memory.

Directed by Benjamin Marius Petit, the accompanying video for “The Smell of Your Hair” features Briard and her band playing in a full, behind-the-scenes styled visual. Fittingly, Briard and band are in ’70s-inspired costumes, playing in a ’70s-styled white box studio. Shot from four different camera perspectives, the clip utilizes diverse image styles and distortion effects (wide angle, fisheye, 360 tracking…), evoking “a psychedelic LSD trip in Woodstock, but also a mixing of eras, with visual references that could belong at once to the 70’s and to contemporary times,” explains the director Benjamin Marius Petit. “The goal was not to make a strictly ‘retro’ clip but, to best reflect the atmosphere of Laure’s music, to keep one foot in the past and the other in the present.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Dayglow Performs “Then It All Goes Away” on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”

Sloan Struble is a 20-something  Aledo, TX-born, Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and JOVM mainstay best known as Dayglow. Struble can trace the origins of Dayglow back to when he was a teen, growing up in a Fort Worth suburb that he has referred to as a “small football-crazed town,” where he felt irrevocably out of place. 

Much like countless other hopelessly out of place young people everywhere, Struble turned to music as an escape from his surroundings. “I didn’t really feel connected to what everyone else in my school was into, so making music became an obsession for me, and sort of like therapy in a way,” Struble recalled in press notes. “I’d dream about it all day in class, and then come home and for on songs instead of doing homework. After a while I realized I’d made an album.”

Working completely on his own with a minuscule collection of gear that included his guitar, his computer and some secondhand keyboards he picked up at Goodwill, Struble worked on transforming his privately kept outpouring into a batch of songs — often grandiose in scale. “Usually artists will have demos they’ll bounce off other people to get some feedback, but nobody except for my parents down the hall really heard much of the album until I put it out,” Struble recalled. With the self-release of 2018’s Fuzzybrain, Struble received widespread attention and an ardent online following — with countess listeners praising the material’s overwhelming positivity. 

In 2019, Struble re-released a fully realized version of Fuzzybrain that featured Can I Call You Tonight,” a track that wound up being a smash-hit back in 2020, as well as two previously unreleased singles “Nicknames” and “Listerine.” 

2021 saw the release of Stubble’s sophomore album  Harmony House, an album that was inspired by the 70s and 80s piano-driven soft rock that he had captured his ears. Interestingly, around the same time, he had been watching a lot of Cheers. “At the very beginning, I was writing a soundtrack to a sitcom that doesn’t exist,” Struble recalls. And while actively attempting to generate nostalgia for something that hadn’t ever been real, as well as something most of his listeners had never really experienced. Thematically, the album concerns itself with a deeply universal theme — growing up and coping with change as being an inevitable aspect of life. 

The album featured the infectious and sugary pop confection “Close to You,” a track indebted to 80s synth-led soul — in particular Patti Labelle and Michael McDonald‘s “On My Own” Cherelle’s and Alexander and O’Neal‘s “Saturday Love” and other duets, but imbued with an aching melancholy and uncertainty. He then made his national late night TV debut on Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he, along with his backing band, played “Can I Call You Tonight.” 

Last year, Struble released his third Dayglow album, People In Motion. Entirely written, played and produced by Struble, the 10-song album continues his reputation for crafting upbeat, optimistic, hook-driven pop rooted  in his desire to steer clear of conflict and offering someone something to love. 

The album featured “Second Nature.” Arguably the funkiest and most dance floor friendly single Struble has released to date,””Second Nature,” is sort of like a slick synthesis of 80s pop, Daft Punk, The 1975, and LCD Soundsystem, with glistening synths, Struble’s plaintive vocal, an infectious vocodered vocal-driven hook and an in irresistible, feel good vibe.

“‘Second Nature’ is one of the most ambitious songs I’ve made so far. I didn’t think it would be a ‘Dayglow’ song until the rest of People in Motion started to take shape,” Struble says in press notes. “I made so many versions of it— I just kept writing more and more melodies and ideas. The Logic file ended up being like this 15 minute jam that I eventually condensed to be the near 6 min song it is.

I was really inspired by songs like Lionel Richie’s ‘All Night Long,’ Michael Jackson’s ‘Wanna Be Starting Somethin’, and of course Daft Punk. I just love songs that have repeatable chord progressions that never seem to even reach their potential— they just keep going on and on. Lyrically and musically I wanted to create a song that felt like that. A song that just celebrates itself and the joy of dancing and making music. It doesn’t even feel like ‘Second Nature’— it feels completely innate and natural to make music to me. I love it more than anything and it feels like what I was made to do, and ‘Second Nature’ just grasps that idea and runs with it confidently.”

The JOVM mainstay was recently on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he performed album single “Then It All Goes Away,” an exuberant, feel good, pop anthem, which sees Struble harmonizing over a strutting bass line, twinkling keys, copious, DFA Records amounts of cowbell and the JOVM’s unerring knack for big hooks. Even in a live setting, Struble and his backing band are having themselves a helluva time, playing a fun song.

“I made “Then It All Goes Away” after coming home from my Fall 2021 North America tour. I started writing the bassline during my morning coffee and I finished the full composition by the end of the day. It felt so fresh and natural to write-I was just having fun honestly. It felt like a year’s worth of unconscious ideas all came to the front of my brain at once and just spilled out. I was really just thinking of my fans the whole time making it and imagining ‘how can I make a Dayglow song that feels so familiar, yet feels like a brand new experience entirely?”

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 77th Birthday, Dolly Parton!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Dolly Parton’s 77th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Soccer Mommy on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert

When Sophie Allison says to the assembled friends and coworkers assembled around NPR’s Tiny Desk, “We’re finally doin’ it,” she really means it. Just about three years ago, Alison released her sophomore Soccer Mommy album, 2020’s color theory to critical applause. The album marked significant strides forward in the JOVM mainstay’s songwriting and production With the rapidly growing buzz surrounding her a the album, a big year was in store for her and for her bandmates.

The best laid plans of mice and men, right? The band’s visit to NPR’s Tiny Desk, scheduled for March 30, 2020 was the first of many to be canceled because of the pandemic. That particular moment in time required a lot of lemonade-making from just about everyone: Not too long after the start of the lockdown, Allison was the first to record a Tiny Desk (Home) performance for NPR — recorded by Alison on her iPhone.

Clearly for all involved, it was a deeply emotional experience to finally welcome Alison and her backing band — Julian Powell (guitar), Rodrigo Avendano (keys), Nickolas Widener (bass) and Rollum Haas (drums) — to NPR’s Tiny Desk for their long-awaited in-person debut.

Soccer Mommy’s four-song, Tiny Desk set is career spanning set featuring slightly stripped down versions of “Shotgun” off last year’s Sometimes, Forever, “circle the drain” off 2020’s color theory, “newdemo” off Sometimes, Forever and “Still Clean,” off 2018’s Clean. The NPR Tiny Desk set reveals a remarkably self-assured performer and artist, who crafts introspective songs rooted in lived-in experience.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Vanille Shares Shimmering and Ethereal “M’as tu vu passer?”

Rising Montréal-based singer/songwriter Rachel Leblanc, best known to the outside world as Vanille, specializes in a sound that exists somewhere between ’60s folk and French chanson and brings the listener into a dreamlike world of dense forests and swooning heartbreak.

Leblanc’s sophomore Vanille album, the Alex Martel and Leblanc co-produced La clairière is slated for a February 3, 2023 release through Bonbonbon Records in Canada and Boogie Drugstore in Europe. Recorded at Wild Studio and Le Pantoum, La Clairére sees Leblanc retaining elements of the dream pop sound and approach that won her attention — but while leaning heavily into 60s English baroque folk.

Last summer, I wrote about “À bientôt,” a swooning and expansive bit of psych folk-meets-psych rock featuring a lush arrangement of strummed reverb-drenched guitars, gently padded drumming paired with Leblanc’s achingly tender falsetto. And at its core, is tale as old as time itself: a heartbroken narrator, in the aftermath of the devastation of a newly-ended relationship i left with their memories — and the bitter taste of their heartbreak.

La clairère‘s latest single “M’as tu vu passer?” continues a run of gorgeous, baroque folk-inspired material featuring strummed guitar, atmospheric synths, gently padded drumming and percussion paired with Leblanc’s plaintive and ethereal cooing. “M’as tu va passer?” is simultaneously a song about heartbreak and depression, and of dark and cold Montréal winters without anywhere to really go or anything to really do.

Directed by Rachel Leblanc and Irina Tempea, the accompanying visual for “M’as tu va passer?” is shot on Super 8 film to give it all a hazily nostalgic, old-timey air. The video references winter in several different instances: Leblanc laying down on a furry blanket with fake snow falling on her, Leblanc holding a snow globe and edited footage of a couple fighter skating.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Heartworms Shares Startling and Cinematic Visual for Brooding “Retributions Of An Awful Life”

Jojo Orme is a South London-based singer/songwriter, producer and mastermind behind the rapidly rising, goth-inspired post-punk outfit Heartworms. Uniformity plays a huge role with Orme and Heartworms: the metronomic music and meticulous fashion of acts like Interpol and Kraftwerk have been a major influence on the South London-based artist. But she also cites PJ Harvey, whose dark sense of humor and lyrical dexterity permeates her own songwriting.

Orme’s Heartworms debut, “Consistent Dedication” quickly exploded across both the British and international scene: She received nods from the NME 100 and Dork Hype List for 2023, and she received critical applause from The FADER, The Quietus, Loud and Quiet, The Line of Best Fit, So Young Magazine, Clash Magazine and a lengthy list of others. The song was added to BBC Radio 6 Music‘s playlist following airplay from the station’s Chris Hawkins, Steve Lamacq, Lauren Laverne and Tom Ravenscroft. And the song received airplay from Radio X‘s John Kennedy and BBC Radio 1‘s Jack Saunders and Gemma Bradley.

She has also made a name for self on the national live circuit in the past year: She played DIY Magazine and So Young Magazine showcases at The Great Escape. She opened for Lime Garden. And lastly, Sports Team invited her to play their annual Margate bus trip.

Building upon a growing profile, the rising South London-based artist’s debut EP A Comforting Notion is slated for a March 24, 2023 release through Speedy Wunderground. The EP’s latest single “Retributions Of An Awful Life” further cements an uneasy and deeply goth-inspired take on post-punk featuring ambient noise, glistening synth oscillations, skittering beats and slashing guitars paired with Orme’s defiant and swaggering delivery, which seems equally indebted to hip-hop and punk rock. The song reveals a singular artist, crafting something completely new from the familiar, while delving deep into her own psyche.

Directed by Niall Trask and Dan Matthews, the accompanying video for “Retributions Of An Awful Life” is shot in a cinematic yet intimate black and white, and stars Orme, along with Natalia Tonner, Lizzy Walsh, Lizzy Walsh, Pip Smith, Marko Andic, Tom White, Simone Reca and Jazz as a military regiment going through some brutal military training exercises. Throughout we see the members of the miserable regiment, covered in dust and mud, wincing in pain, fighting to continue through the wet and cold. Their suffering is real and difficult to watch yet compelling and symbolic: We all have to figure out some way to push through in the face of terrible suffering — whether from outside forces larger than us or from within — and in face of our own fears.

“The song itself lyrically is deeply unsettling, I wanted it to come alive in action. I had an idea of being kitted up in full militaria of no specific regiments, in black and white, putting my body through cold water and wet mud,” Orme explains. “This was stepping outside my comfort zone because I’m not a skilled swimmer; deep water frightens me immensely, especially when cold and in full military gear.”

She continues: “Not many artists/bands I know have done something this raw. I didn’t want to go for a fancy video with pretty dancers or lovely wallpaper plastered with an airbrush filter – I wanted to imbibe a new pain, bring to life punishment, fight fears while abiding relentlessness with my friends by my side. To have put my body through something I found frightening just for the art… there’s something exhilarating about it.”