Tag: singer/songwriter \

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Anthony DiBella is an emerging, 23 year-old, Long Island-born, Boston-based singer/songwriter. Currently studying songwriting at renowned Berklee College of Music, DiBella’s love of music was sparked when he was in fifth grade and began playing trombone.

Since then, the emerging Long Island-born, Boston-based artist has busily explored every aspect of music and performance, including classic, muscle theater, country, alternative and more. DiBella’s latest single “Can’t Let You” is a hook-driven. slickly produced bop with glistening synth arpeggios, a relentlessly driving groove paired with soulful, yearning vocals that reminds me a bit of Rush Midnight, St. Lucia and other contemporary acts, whose sound channels 80s synth pop.

Underneath the breezy song’s remarkably catchy hooks, the song tackles a universal experience: The inability to let go of someone and move on with your life.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Nick Kizirnis Shares Anthemic “Every Moment”

Nick Kizirnis is a Dayton, OH-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who has spent the past two-plus decades writing genre-twisting and genre-defying material on over ten solo albums, while also collaborating playing in bands like The Mulchmen, Tobin Sprout’s Eyesinweasel, Cage and others with a collection of up-and-coming local musicians. 

During the past decade or so, Kirzrnis has focused on guitar-driven compositions; but his last solo album, The Distance saw Kizirnis returning to writing lyrics and arrangements while simultaneously being a step forward stylistically, As Kizirnis explains, he had a desire to push himself beyond anything he had previously done. “I wanted it to be new and different from what people had heard from me,” he says,

Kirzirnis’ long-time friend, Austin-based drummer Mark Patterson had just temporarily relocated to Dayton to visit family and prepare touring and recording as a member of acclaimed indie outfit Son Volt. Patterson had offered to work on the material that Kizirnis had worked on, enhancing the material’s arrangements based on his experience playing in the Austin scene. During the creative process for the Patrick Himes-produced The Distance, Kizirnis began to feel that writing for his voice was limiting the material. He recruited Cincinnati-based singer/songwriter and cellist Kate Wakefield, one-half of the duo Lung, to contribute vocals. 

Wakefield’s background as an opera singer, plus her years of recording and performing helped pushed the fledgling album and recording sessions into high gear. “Kate brought a completely new dimension to the songs,” Kizirnis says. “The moment she sang them, they were transformed into something so much more.” 

Kizirnis’ forthcoming album Every Moment sees the Dayton-based artist collaborating with an All-Star cast including The Breeders‘ and Guided by Voices‘ Jim Macpherson, Foxy Shazam‘s and Lung‘s Daisy Caplan, Tod Weidner and Kate Wakefield and guest spots from Trashcan Sinatras‘ Paul Livingston and Guided by Voices’ Tobin Sprout. Sonically, the album’s material reportedly builds on a range of influences including Link Wray, The National, Guided by Voices, Neko Case and others paired with Kizirnis’ probing lyrics and textured, guitar atmospherics throughout.

Every Moment‘s latest single, album title track “Every Moment” is an anthemic track hat recalls Starfish-era The Church, Reckless-era Bryan Adams-like rock featuring some big fuzz and distorted pedaled guitar riffs, a driving rhythm section, big, incredibly catchy hooks and choruses paired with Kizirnis’ easy-going yet earnest croon.

Recorded remotely during the depths of COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions and later finalized in-person with Macpherson, Caplan, Wakefield, Weidner and Kyleen Downes, “Every Moment” as Kizrnis explains is about staying present during impending existential crises and the brink of collapse, which — well, considering everything seems all too fitting, y’all.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy Black History Month/Happy 84th Birthday, Smokey Robinson!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and Smokey Robinson’s 84th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy Black History Month/Happy 79th Birthday, Bob Marley!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month — and the 79th anniversary of the birth of Bob Marley.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay MAGON Shares Meditative and Introspective “Breakthrough Blitz”

I’ve managed to spill a copious amount of virtual ink covering the remarkably prolific, Israeli-born singer/songwriter, musician and JOVM mainstay MAGON. After the release of his fifth album, 2022’s A Night in Bethlehem, the Israeli-born artist, along with his partner relocated to Costa Rica, where he continued his ongoing prolific period with three more albums, 2022’s Enter By The Narrow Gate, last year’s Did You Hear the Kids? and Chasing Dreams.

Chasing Dreams saw the JOVM mainstay collaborating with local indie rock outfit Las Robertas, who acted as his backing band for the recording sessions. Sonically, the album continued a slow-burn expansion of his sound with the incorporation of string arrangements, which add a lush and dreamily cinematic quality to the material.

The JOVM mainstay begins 2024 with the announcement of his eighth album The Writing’s On The Wall. The album’s first single “Breakthrough Blitz,” pairs MAGON’s laconic, easy-going delivery with a simple yet propulsive backbeat, glistening keys, and a bluesy, Keith Richards-like guitar riff with a big hook. Thematically, the song touches upon the freedom and connection found in simple, everyday moments with the sort of contented sigh that can only comes from someone, who has lived a full and messy-life — and understands that he is truly very lucky.

Shot in the fields of Oaxaca, Mexico, the video stars MAGON and his family — and features the JOVM as a sort of magical taxi driver, who picks up a woman and her young kids (the JOVM mainstay’s partner and two kids) on a dreamy and slow-burning trip through the verdant green, golden yellows and mountainous Mexican countryside.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Godiva’s Cinematic “Lions and Mermaids”

Godiva is an emerging, 20-something Jacksonville, FL-based singer/songwriter. She can trace the origins of her career to when she was a child: The classically trained North Floridian started performing with the Jacksonville Children’s Chorus when she was eight. She then moved to pageantry and singing competitions.

Enjoying writing and performing her own original material, she began recording and releasing material while gigging at local restaurants and performing at private events. She admits that while she enjoys doing covers and writing custom songs for clients, her favorite aspect of her work is performing her own material.

Her latest single “Lions and Mermaids” pairs a cinematic, trip-hop-meets-alt-pop-like production and arrangement featuring twinkling keys, strummed acoustic guitar and hushed, skittering beats with the Jacksonville-based artist’s soulful, smoky croon. Sonically, “Lions and Mermaids” reminds me a bit of Goldfrapp’s gorgeous Tales of Us, thanks to a similar film noir-like quality.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay Jonas Shares Sexy “Turn Down The Noise”

Jonas Rendbo, best known as the mononym Jonas is singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and neo-soul artist, who has widely hailed by the international music press as the Godfather of Scandinavian soul. Throughout the course of his two-plus decade career, the acclaimed Danish artist has managed to be remarkably prolific, continuously releasing copious amounts of original material, which he has supported with tours with Omar, John Legend, Joss Stone, Lynden David Hall and Bilal among a lengthy and growing list of others. The acclaimed Danish artist also won Artist of the Year and Best Video at the 2016 Scandinavian Soul Music Awards.

Since 2004, Rendbo has split time between Copenhagen and London, where he met his wife and started a family. While in London, he started collaborating with London-based producer and multi-instrumentalist The Scratch Professer, who coincidentally is Omar’s brother. Rendbo and The Scratch Professor had an instant musical simpatico and a couple of songs they wrote together wound up on Jonas’ sophomore album 2009’s W.A.I.T.T. 

That collaboration also managed to produce a handful of songs that Rendbo kept in the vault for the better part of a decade — until the four-song EP, 4ward Fast To Future, which was recorded, produced, mixed and mastered during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in April 2020. The EP, which featured “Pick Me Up” and “What’s Cooking” was a return to the warm, vibey neo-soul sound of his earliest work paired with Rendbo’s sultry and yearning falsetto and his uncanny knack for infectious hooks. 

4ward Fast To Future received praise from SoulBounce.com and ScandinavianSoul.com and it was a featured album on SoulTracks.com. And the EP’s material received airplay on soul music radio stations across the globe.

Building upon that momentum, the Danish singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist released the 4ward Fast to Future (Remixes) EP, an effort that features remixes of the EP’s material by friends and musical collaborators done in completely different styles. 

2023 was a big year for the Danish-born JOVM mainstay: Last year, he shared “Too Much To Mention,” a song rooted in earnest, lived-in lyricism and Rendbo’s unerring knack for razor sharp hooks.

The Danish artist finally released his long-awaited album Be The Light last Friday. Rendbo had been sitting on the album for some time: First, he didn’t know how he was going to release it. Should he release it through the DSPs or some other way? But more importantly, he had much more pressing and exciting concerns on his mind: Early last year, he and his wife had their third child.

The album’s release comes at an interesting point in his life. The acclaimed Danish-born artist celebrates his 50th birthday this month. And he thought that would be a great occasion to celebrate himself and a full life in music by finally releasing the album. “It is expected that you raise a flag when you turn a big corner like that, but I feel that if I release the album on my birthday, then the focus is not so much on me, but more on the music — which I prefer,” Rendbo says in press notes. 

Late last year, Rendbo shared “You Are Amazing,” a hook-driven and vibey bit of neo-soul built around a strutting, feel-good, two-step inducing groove that was roomy enough for Aaron Wood to contribute some buoyant, fluttering flugelhorn paired with Rendbo’s effortlessly soulful croon singing lyrics detailing the sincere affection and appreciation he has for his wife. It’s an old-timey and sweet thank you for everything that seems rarely heard these days.

Be The Light’s latest single, “Turn Down The Noise” is a lush and vibey, neo-soul built around a strutting two-step inducing groove, twinkling keys, bluesy and squiggling bursts of guitar paired with Rendbo’s yearning delivery and his penchant for catchy hooks and lived-in, earnest lyrics. “Turn Down The Noise” is a grown-ass sexy song that features a narrator, who tells his lover “put down that phone, turn off that TV and let’s get to it.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: New Orleans’ Britti Shares Lush and Yearning “Lullaby”

New Orleans-based singer/songwriter Brittany Guerin, best known as the mononymous moniker Britti was gifted with a voice that has been described as bridging the distance between delicacy and flint — and like many singer/songwriters can’t remember she can’t remember a time when she wasn’t singing. “According to my mom, I was singing before I could talk,” Guerin says, likening herself to a Disney character. “I would sing throughout the halls of the house, throughout the aisles of the grocery stories, in my car seat,” the Louisiana-born artist recalls. “I was just a little bird, doing what came easy.”

Raised by her mother and grandmother — whom she does dubs “brown sugar and cayenne pepper,” respectively — Guerin continued to nurture her talent everywhere, sining in the school chorus and the church choir, between learning dance steps and playing soccer. “Singing is my passion,” she says. “But simultaneously, it’s also my purpose.”

Guerin relocated to the Crescent City and earned a degree in music performance from Loyola University in the mid 00s. But shortly after, was when when the clock began to slow down to a crawl on her vision, with her diploma collecting dust, as she landed into a retail grind that was both tantalizingly and depressingly performance adjacent. She spent a decade selling instruments and sheet music to aspiring musicians and artists while deferring her own. “For this 10-year span, I just stayed in that safe space of just thinking, ‘Oh, I’ll get to it. I’ll live my dreams eventually. I’m young.’” 

While singing always came naturally, promoting herself just didn’t. But when a long-term relationship ended just before the pandemic, ironically her former partner’s parting gift was to urge her to pursue what she was clearly meant to do, proving that sometimes the wrong person can have the right idea. “He broke my heart into pieces that you would need a magnifying glass to find,” Guerin says, but it also set on a path to creativity for the first time in several years.

“I remember saying this out loud in prayer, ‘What if I actually try believing in myself?’ I had this whole dialogue with my ancestors, my spirit guide, and the divine like ‘What if I try?’,” she recalls. During a two-month furlough in the midst of the pandemic, Guerin began running meditating and — after buying her dream Martin guitar — writing songs.

“I was perfecting these songs at 2:00 in the morning, because there was no time limit because I wasn’t working.” Except, she was. “I started treating myself like a business and putting myself out there and posting videos at least once a week, and just really building my self-confidence,” she says of early clips that saw her covering some of her favorite songs like Sheryl Crow’s rendition of “The First Cut Is the Deepest” and Lainey Wilson‘s “Rolling Stone.”

The Wilson cover caught the attention of a country A&R executive, who saw her talent but also understood that Guerin was a little too left-of-center for Music Row. Others expressed interest but didn’t quite have a handle on her sound. “There were a lot of nights sitting on the floor crying and thinking ‘Okay. These darts are going forward, but they’re not hitting anything,’ and feeling very discouraged.”

Then she decided to cover her favorite Dan Auerbach song “Whispered Words (Pretty Lies).” “I’ve always really enjoyed his writing style, the New Orleans-based artist says of The Black Keys frontman and producer. “As joyful of a person as I am, I love a good melancholy song.”

“I was praying every single day that I would find somebody who would be able to hear my voice, see my potential, and have the resources to help me cultivate my dream,” she says. No one was more surprised than Guerin that that person turned out to be actually be Auerbach.

“I saw a video of her singing and strumming the acoustic guitar in her bedroom,” Auerbach recalls. “I thought she had an intriguing delivery, and I wanted to learn more. So we flew her up to Nashville to meet.” “

“You know when something feels wrong, and you know when something’s meant to be,” Guerin says of the meeting. “This is who I had been praying for.” On the day she flew up to Nashville, Auerbach says “we instantly hit it off.” And the pair began writing right away with The Black Keys frontman and producer brining in various co-writers, who he thought would complement the direction the two were heading and “lend an interesting flavor to the album,” including Roger Cook, Bobby Wood and Pat McLaughlin.“For someone who hadn’t done any of this, she took to it really quickly, and we just hit the ground running as soon as we started these writing sessions.

”“I’m sure he’s great with everybody, but we definitely vibe,” says Britti of the locked-in nature of the collaboration. “To the point where I’m just like, ‘Can I write with him until I’m 115, please?’”She also was thrilled by the speed with which the album came together, and the remarkable group of players Auerbach convened to bring the songs to life. “I felt like I was being heard, seen, and felt. I’m still in awe,” she says of the estimable group which included Robert Plant & Alison Krauss‘ and Sharon Van Etten‘s Jay Bellerose (drum), Sheryl Crow’s and Stevie Nicks’ Tom Bukovac (guitar), Yola‘s and Don Henley’s Mike Rojas (keys), Auerbach himself and a talented cast of collaborators. “I just pick people who I really respect and are very talented and get them in the room together,” says Auerbach of this first-time configuration of players. “Very rarely do bad things happen. They fed off her energy ultimately.”

And although she’s a relative newcomer, Auerbach believes that Britti was ready. “She grew up in the most musical environment in the world. It’s in her DNA,” The Black Keys frontman and producer says of Britti’s Louisiana upbringing. “She knows more about music than she ever realizes.”

Guerin points out that she honed her ear listening to contemporary R&B stations driving in the car and then signing hymns with friends and family in church. She would delve into blues, Zydeco and Motown with her grandmother and then switch to classical music with her grandfather. An uncle played jazz and schooled her in its intricacies on forays to and from New Orleans.

All of those sounds and more inform her 11-song, Dan Auerbach-proruced full-length debut, Hello, I’m Britti, which is slated for a February 2, 2024 release through Easy Eye Sound. Naturally, the New Orleans-based artist is heartened by what she sees as “progress in the world of understanding fluidity.” ”When I got together with her, it was clear that she was interested in all types of music. We talked about Sade a little bit, how much she loved her stage presence. And we talked about Aretha’s songs, Blues Brothers’ stuff, New Orleans music, we talked about all kinds of stuff,” adds Auerbach on the album’s varied influences and moods.

Fittingly, Hello, I’m Britti‘s 11 tracks tell their own compact stories with the album’s material rooted in the spectrum of emotions flowing from the haze of heartbreak to the electricity of new love to the quest for self-understanding and self-acceptance. The continuous thread that holds it all together is the New Orleans-based artist’s unique delivery.

Hello, I’m Britti‘s latest single, the gently swaying “Lullaby” pairs shimmering and yearning pedal steel, twinkling keys and understated percussion with the New Orleans-based artist’s vulnerable, heart-worn-on-sleeve vocal in a way that’s hauntingly gorgeous and cinematic. The song is an old to the comfort and security of a hard-won — and perhaps harder-earned — intimacy.

Directed by Vanessa Pla, the cinematic, mostly black and white visual for “Lullaby” is a retro-chic and glamorous look at the artist’s private and public life that explodes into lush color for the last third, in which we see Guerin on stage performing.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Angela Colombino is an Sassari, Italy-born pop artist and performer, who eventually decided to write and producer her own material, starting in 2018 with the release of the critically acclaimed five-song ep Io rimango a letto . . .

Adding to a growing profile in her native Italy, Colombino has also collaborated with Shelf, Herbert Stencil, Enola Bit and others.

Earlier this year, the Sassari-born artist released “E’ Festa,” a slickly produced synthesis of Larry Levan-like house, and Giorgio Moroder-influenced Italodisco, and Version 2.0-era Garbage industrial electro pop built around tweeter and woofer rattling thump, glistening synth oscillations, and a relentless motorik groove paired with Colombino’s sultry delivery. While being accessible and club friendly, “E’ Fiesta” possesses a noticeable cinematic quality.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay MAGON Shares Shimmering and Introspective “I Don’t Take You For Granted”

Over the past handful of years, I’ve managed to spill copious amounts of virtual ink covering the remarkably prolific Israeli-born singer/songwriter, musician and JOVM mainstay MAGON. Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site during that particular period, you might recall that shortly after the release of his fifth album,  A Night in Bethlehem, the Israeli-born artist, along with his partner and young daughter relocated to Costa Rica, where he continued an ongoing period of remarkable prolificacy with his sixth album, Did You Hear the Kids?

Did You Hear The Kids? featured what may arguably have been the broadest and most expansive sonic palette of any of his previously released work — and a collaboration with Paris-based indie duo SOS Citizen. 

The Isreali-born and now-Costa Rican-based artist’s seventh album, the recently released Chasing Dreams sees him collaborating with local indie rock outfit Las Robertas, who acted as his backing band for the recording sessions. Chasing Dreams sees the JOVM mainstay continuing a slow-burn expansion of his sound with the incorporation of string arrangements, which add a lushly cinematic and dreamy quality to the material.

In the lead-up to the album’s release, I wrote about two of the album’s previously released singles:

  • Album title track “Chasing Dreams,” a song built around strummed acoustic guitar, shimmering pedal steel and gentle drumming paired with Magon’s dreamily laconic delivery. “Chasing Dreams” seems indebted to Exile on Main Street-era Rolling Stones and Harvest-era Neil Young with some subtle nods to country and folk. Much like the material on his last two albums, “Chasing Dreams” is rooted in the sort of deep, heartfelt introspection informed by living a full, messy and well-lived life and getting older — with the song touching upon themes of maturation, love and enjoying cherished family and personal bonds while you have them.

  • “Under the Sea,” a child-like lullaby that sounds a bit like Yellow Submarine and “Octopus Garden”– perhaps as a result of a lush, 60s psych rock-inspired arrangement performed by the JOVM mainstay and his new collaborators Las Robertas, and an unfussy production. But at its core, the song is rooted in the pure and whimsical sense of exploration and curiosity of childhood.

“I Don’t Take You For Granted,” Chasing Dreams‘ third and latest single is a lush and introspective bit of psych rock/psych folk built around glistening, finger-plucked guitar, shimmering and cinematic strings and gently padded drumming paired with the JOVM mainstay’s laconic delivery. Much like its predecessors, “I Don’t Take You For Granted” is rooted in the same introspective, deeply lived-in lyrics that reflect a hard-earner, harder-won maturity and a contented sigh of recognition that adult love is so very difficult to find and harder to keep.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Heartafiya Shares Sleek and Yearning “Don’t Leave Me”

Barbadian-born California-based reggae artist Heartafiya is well known within the global reggae scene for pairing thoughtful, earnest lyrics with soulful music. His latest single, the dance floor and lounge friendly “Don’t Leave Me” features a sleek, percussive Afrobeats-influenced riddim paired with Heartafiya’s yearning delivery and a remarkably catchy chorus.

The California-based reggae artist’s latest single reveals a songwriter, whose songwriting seems rooted in lived-in, personal experiences with the song exploring the depths of love while baring the raw feelings of fear of loss, despair and hope.

The accompanying video features a collection of gorgeous sisters wining and grooving to the remarkably catchy, hook-driven bop.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Fabien Gravillon Shares Breezy Pop Confection “Je t’attends”

Fabien Gravillon is a Paris-born singer/songwriter, pop artist and actor, who may be best known in France for starring in the smash-hit soap opera Plus belle la vie. As a singer/songwriter and pop artist, Gravillon has specialized in a sound that draws from Zouk, Kizomba and Afro pop.

After the release of his debut album through Because Music, Gravillon went to Los Angeles and appeared in several videos by internationally acclaimed artists including Macklemore and  Patrick Stump‘s “Summer Days,” Collapsing Scenery and others. He also participated in several projects filmed at Fox Studios in Hollywood and for The Jim Henson Company.

Gravillon’s latest single “Je t’atends” is a slickly produced bit of hook-driven pop that meshes elements of reggaeton and chanson in a way that’s crowd-pleasing and accessible. Much like his previously released material, “Je t’attends” is an earnest plea of devotion to a lover that feels and sounds sweetly old-fashioned.

Directed by Roger Artola and Griffit Vision, the accompanying video for “Je t’attends” was shot on a gloriously summer day in Los Angeles and tells a classic tale of deception, cheating and devotion.