Tag: singer/songwriter

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Emily Hamilton is a Gold Coast, Australia-based multi-instrumentalist and producer, whose solo recording project San Mei, began as a bedroom project that has quickly seen a growing national and international profile — and if you had been following this site over the years, you may recall that I wrote about “Wars,” the follow up to her debut single “Brighter.” However, since then Hamilton has seen praise from major media outlets including NME, Indie Shuffle, NYLON and Triple J, which featured “Rewind” on its rotation.

Hamilton’s fist single of 2017 and latest single, “Until You Feel Good” was produced by Konstantin Kersting, who has worked with The Belligerents, WAAX, and Tia Gostelow, and the mid-tempo single pairs Hamilton’s lilting and gorgeous vocals creating a lush melody, with fuzzy, power chords, a soaring hook and a moody undertone. While being rather radio friendly, the song manages to evoke a complex array of emotions — desire and longing, frustration and the sense of something being unresolved. But along with that, the song reveals some self-assured and ambitious songwriting, as well as a change in sonic direction towards a more organic, indie rock-leaning sound.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the last 6-8 months starting from the last few months of 2016, you’ve likely come across a handful of posts featuring Gothic Tropic, the solo recording project of Los Angeles, CA-based guitarist and vocalist Cecilia Della Peruti, who’s arguably best known as a touring and session guitarist for Charli XCX and BØRNS; however, with the release of “Stronger,” Peruti quickly established herself for crafting New Wave/post-punk inspired guitar pop with an infectious hook that sounded as though it drew from Go-Gos, The B52s and Too True-era Dum Dum Girls while her second single “How Life Goes” was a lush and atmospheric track with an anthemic hook.

“Your Soul,” Peruti’s fourth and latest Gothic Tropic single will also appear on her forthcoming effort Fast or Feast, which is slated for a May 19, 2017 release through Old Flame Records, and much like its preceding singles, it reveals an ambitious singer/songwriter, who has an innate ability to craft a sharp and rousing hook paired with punchy guitar chords, swirling synths and a propulsive rhythm section within a swooning and urgent song focusing on a fiery and passionate yet unrequited love between potential soulmates.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Wallace Gollan is a Wellington, New Zealand-born, Sydney, Australia-based singer/songwriter, who performs under the mononymic stage name Wallace, and she has received attention across New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere for her jazz-influenced, soulful vocals — and for an overall sound that effortlessly meshes jazz, soul, neo-soul, the blues and hip-hop. And unsurprisingly, she’s been compared by some to the likes of Erykah Badu, Little Dragon and Carmen McRae. Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site for some time, you may recall that I wrote about Gollan’s collaboration with Sydney-based emcee and poet  Sampa The Great “Beauty,” which paired Gollan’s expressive vocals singing a positive message of how we all have the power to transform our lives for the better with a skittering, off-kilter production featuring jazz and hip-hop-inspired beats, twinkling keys and a shuffling bass line.

“Diaspora,” the Wellington-born, Sydney-based singer/songwriter’s first single of 2017 is a collaboration with the Sydney-based, Nigerian-Australian producer and vocalist Crooked Letter and interestingly the single is inspired by Gollan’s own experience of being part of a Diaspora as her Dundee, Scotland-born father had moved to Wellington as a child — and the single features Gollan’s brash and almost coquettish jazz phrasing paired with a production based around a looping Nigerian funk sample, stuttering polyrhythm and chopped up yet ethereal samples of Gollan’s own father appearing briefly within the track.  As Gollan explains in press notes about her latest single and her collaboration with Crooked Letter, “I wanted to highlight the connection that we both feel towards places where we didn’t grow up. We bonded over the idea that looking back at our roots gave us a sense of affirmation and appreciation for what makes us who we are.” And as a result, the song possesses a profound sense of gratitude and connection to something far older than where you may currently call home.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Surreal and Gorgeous Visuals for Nick Hakim’s “Bet She Looks Like You”

Up until relatively recently, it had been some since I had written about the Washington, DC-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Nick Hakim; however, 2017 looks to be a big year for the renowned singer/songwriter as his much-anticipated full-length debut Green Twins is slated for a May 19, 2017 release through ATO Records — and if you had stumbled across this site earlier today, you’d remember that Hakim is currently on tour to build up buzz for the new material until its release.

Interestingly enough, as the story goes, Hakim can trace the origins of the material of Green Twins to when armed with the masters for his first two EPs Where Will We Go Part 1 and Where Will We Go Part 2, the DC-born singer/songwriter and guitarist relocated from Boston, where he was based at the time to Brooklyn. And as soon as he got himself settled, he spent his spare time fleshing out incomplete songs and writing and recording sketches and lyrics using his phone’s voice memo app and a four-track cassette recorder. He then took his new, demo’d material to various studios in NYC, Philadelphia and London, where he built up the material with a number of engineers, including frequent collaborator Andrew Sarlo (bass, engineering and production), who were tasked with keeping the original spirit and essence of the material intact as much as humanly possible.

As Andrew Sarlo explained in press notes about the writing and recording process for Green Twins, for many artists, a demo typically serves an extremely rough sketch of what the song could eventually become and sound; however, with the Hakim, the general sense is that the demos are much more like building a holy temple — and as a result, as a producer and engineer, he was tasked to clean, furnish and prepare entrants for a religious experience. Thematically speaking, the material on the album reportedly focuses on unique and rather particular aspects of his life with the bulk of the songs based on specific things he was thinking and feeling at the time he was writing and composing. And as a result, the album consists of a series of different self-portraits — and in a similar fashion to Vincent Van Gogh’s famed self-portraits, the album’s song captures the artist sometimes in broad strokes but frequently in subtle gradations of mood, tone and feeling. Hakim adds, “I also felt the need to push my creativity in a different way than I had on the EPs,” The record draws from influences spanning Robert Wyatt, Marvin Gaye and Shuggie Otis to My Bloody Valentine. We wanted to imagine what it would have sounded like if RZA had produced a Portishead album. We experimented with engineering techniques from Phil Spector and Al Green’s Back Up Train, drum programming from RZA and Outkast, and we were listening to a lot of The Impressions, John Lennon, Wu-Tang, Madlib and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.”

Green Twins’ first single, “Bet She Looks Like You,” will further cement Hakim’s growing reputation for deeply intimate, confessional songwriting that manages to be heartbreakingly visceral while being a subtle expansion upon the sound that first won attention as it retains a spectral quality but with a subtle, bluesy swagger reminiscent of Roy Orbison. Interestingly, the recently released video for the song follows Hakim as he walks to a studio space in what appears to be Sunset Park, near Industrial City where he takes part in a surreal play full of dream-like imagery, missed chances, miscommunication — and some popping and locking.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Julian Japser is a San Diego, CA-born, Los Angeles, CA-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who has publicly describes his own sound as being a 21st century Steely Dan or a lapsed Todd Rundgren after he had crossed paths with Ariel Pink — and although maybe to some that may be true, to my ears “2AM,  Chinatown” and “I Don’t Mind,” the first two singles off his forthcoming 2AM, Chinatown/I Don’t Mind EP remind me quite a bit of Oracular Spectacular-era MGMT, Tame Impala and Milagres as both singles possess soaring and infectious hooks, swaggering strutting vibes and a funky bass line; however, both singles thematically focus on a desperate and gnawing loneliness and isolation — in particular “2AM, Chinatown” has its narrator reminiscing over a lover he hasn’t seen or spoken to in some time, and as a result, the lonely narrator of the song is desperate to connect with that lover or with anyone really, as long as he felt some connection with someone, even if it were brief. “I Don’t Mind” possesses a funky, 70sAM rock feel that evokes a lazy morning with a lover — the sort in which limbs and sheets are hopelessly entangled and entwined, and you spend much of the day making love and chatting about all manner of things big and small. And as a result, it’s the sexiest song of the two; but underneath the surface there’s this sense of all things coming to its inevitable conclusion. All things lead to the same result — the endless search to not be as lonely as you were before, and both songs capture that with an uncanny verisimilitude.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Francis Novotny is an up-and-coming Gothenburg, Sweden-born, Paris, France-based singer/songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, who grew up under the influence of his five older siblings and their eclectic record collections. As the story goes, after finishing school, Novotny moved to Paris, ostensibly to study French — but in reality, to work on music in relative peace and in new environs. Interestingly, for a brief period, Novotny felt compelled to try his hand at house music, before finding his true musical voice and sound, a sound that draws from a mix of styles including glitch-hop, R&B and electro soul while seemingly being influenced by Hudson Mohawke, Cashmere Cat and Gorillaz. And with his latest single “Hit N Run,” the Gothenburg-born, Paris-based artist reveals a imitable sound in which stuttering synths and chopped electronics, razor sharp beats and an insistent ear worm of a hook are paired  with Novotny’s ethereal yet soulful vocals singing lyrics in which the song’s narrator describes reluctance and cynicism that have hardened him a bit and made it difficult for him to open up to a new, potential romantic partner. And yet it’s an incredibly sensual song that sounds unlike anything I’ve come across in some time.

 

 

 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Madeleine Dopico is an up-and-coming Sleepy Hollow, NY-born, Brooklyn, NY-based singer/songwriter, who has received a bit of attention over the past 12-18 months or so — “Nice Boy,” which she released late last year has received just under 220,000 Spotify streams and with the release of her latest single “Me to Bleed,” the Sleepy Hollow-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter has begun to receive press from both sides of the pond. Adding to a growing profile, Dopico has performed at some of the area’s most renowned and beloved venues including a residency at Piano’s in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

 

 

Just on the heels of her set at The Knitting Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I spoke to the up-and-coming singer/songwriter in a playful and revealing interview about a variety of subjects including some of the following:

  • the stories and influences behind her three biggest, attention-grabbing singles “Nice Boy,” “Done,” which is one of my personal favorites and her latest single “Made to Bleed”
  • how she could trace her love of music, singing and performing to being a 3 year old, who one day burst into the 4-year-olds’ daycare class and began singing “This Land is Your Land,” complete with a mic drop-like moment
  • what she ascribes to her early successes and the role her supporters have played in it
  • the careful and deliberate ways she attempts to set herself apart from a very crowded and competitive music scene
  • her songwriting process, along with her influences
  • her recent listening, which has included a deeper foray into hip-hop, along with some suggestions by yours truly
  • the moment she took the biggest risk of her life — quitting a successful and secure day job and began focusing on music
  • and much more

Just based on this young artist’s earnestness and determination to succeed, along with pop star belter vocals, I think that 2017 will be a huge year for Dopico. Check out the interview.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
With the release of her Jimmy Logic-produced, debut single “Then” and her debut EP The Coffee Shop, the London-based pop artist Kemi Ade received national and international attention from the likes of Complex,  Artistic Manifesto, Fame Magazine, Reprezent Radio, First Ear and others for a song that meshed elements of alternative neo-soul, jazz, hip-hop and folk seemingly drawing from the likes of Jill Scott, Musiq Soulchild, Erykah Badu and others, and paired with Ade’s introspective and fearlessly honest songwriting.

The Coffee Shop‘s highly-anticipated follow up O.W. Nesty EP is slated for release later this year, and the EP’s latest single “Third” will further cement Ade’s burgeoning reputation for introspective and fearless songwriting and for a maturity and self-assuredness that belie her youth; but it also manages to reveal a subtle refinement of the sound that first caught attention as the song consists of a production featuring woozy and wobbling looped synths, stuttering beats, swirling electronics, shimmering keys and some subtle industrial clang and clatter. And yet, the production manages to be roomy enough for Ade’s effortlessly soulful and jazz-leaning delivery in a coquettish come hither song, in which the song’s narrator express vulnerability, need and longing simultaneously — with a bit of wish fulfillment.
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Mark Lanegan is a Ellensburg, WA-born, Los Angeles, CA-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, best known as the frontman, and founding member of  Seattle-based grunge rock pioneers Screaming Trees, and for collaborating with an incredibly diverse array of artists and bands throughout his lengthy career including Nirvana‘s Kurt Cobain on an unreleased Lead Belly cover/tribute album recorded before the release of Nevermind. The Ellensburg-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter was also a member of renowned grunge rock All-Star supergroup/side project Mad Season with Alice in Chains‘ Layne Staley and Pearl Jam‘s Mike McCready. After Screaming Trees broke up in 2000, Lanegan joined Queens of the Stone Age and is featured on the band’s last five albums — 2000’s Rated R, 2002’s Songs for the Deaf, 2005’s Lullabies to Paralyze, 2007’s Era Vulgaris and 2013’s . . . Like Clockwork. He’s also collaborated with The Afghan Whigs‘ Greg Dulli in The Gutter Twins and has collaborated with former Belle and Sebastian vocalist Isobel Campbell on three albums. Additionally, he has contributed or guested on albums by Melisa Auf der Maur, Martina Topley-Bird, Creature with the Atom Brain, Moby, Bomb the Bass, Soulsavers, Greg Dulli’s The Twilight Singers, UNKLE and others. And although he’s managed to be rather busy throughout the years, Lanegan has also developed a low-key solo career in which he’s released nine studio albums that have been critically applauded and have seen a fair amount of commercial success.

Lanegan’s 10th full-length effort Gargoyle is slated for an April 28, 2017 release through Heavenly Recordings and interestingly enough, Lanegan can trace the origins of the album’s material and sound back to early 2016. At the time, the renowned grunge rocker was working on some ideas for what might be a new solo album, when he received an email from a friend and collaborator, the British based musician Rob Marshall, who he had first met several years before when Marshall’s former band Exit Calm had supported Soulsavers, a band that Lanegan had been fronting. The email thanked Lanegan for his participation on an album that Marshall had recorded with his newest project, Humanist while offering to write music for Lanegan to return a favor to the grunge pioneer. As Lanegan recalls in press notes, his response was along the lines of “Hey man, I’m getting ready to make a record, if you’ve got anything? Three days later he sent me 10 things… !”

Early on in the writing process, Lanegan had written “Blue Blue Sea,” a rippling mood peice that he thought and felt would be more fruitful direction for the songs on the album. “It’s almost always how my records start,” the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter explains in press notes. “I let the first couple of songs tell me what the next couple should sound like, and it’s really the same process when I’m writing words. Whatever my first couple of lines are, tell me what the next couple should be. I’ve always built things like that, sort of like making a sculpture I guess.” Within about an hour, Lanegan and written words and recorded vocals for two of the instrumental tracks Marshall had written and recorded at Mount Sion Studios in Kent UK. Interestingly, the music Marshall had written had managed to fit perfectly with the direction Lanegan had been thinking of for some time — an expansion of the Krautrock-inspired electronic sounds and textures of his previous two albums Blues Funeral and Phantom Radio. Eventually Marshall wound up co-writing six of the album’s 10 songs with the remainder of the album being written and produced by Lanegan’s longtime collaborator Alain Johannes at 11AD Studios in West Hollywood.

As the story goes, everything was polished and finished within a month, which has been unusually fast by Lanegan’s recent standards. “I definitely feel like I’m a better songwriter than I was 15 years ago,” Lanegan stays in press notes. “I don’t know if I’m just kidding myself or what, but it’s definitely easier now to make something that is satisfying to me. Maybe I’m just easier on myself these days, but it’s definitely not as painful a process, and therefore I feel I’m better at it now. But part of the way that I stay interested in making music is by collaborating with other people. When I see things through somebody else’s perspective it’s more exciting than if I’m left to my own devices.”

Gargoyle‘s second and latest single “Beehive” pairs Lanegan’s imitable boozy, growling baritone vocals with a bluesy and swaggering production featuring shimmering guitar chords and enormous tweeter and woofer rattling beats, essentially pushing Lanegan’s recent forays into the blues into the 21st Century; but in a way that feels both warmly familiar and yet new.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Up-and-Coming Australian Pop Artist Woodes Live at The Line in Melbourne Australia

Best known as Woodes, Elle Graham is an up-and-coming, 24-year-old, Melbourne, Australia-based singer/songwriter and producer, who first came to national attention across Australia with a commercially and critically successful collaboration with fellow Australian producer Elkkle on a single that wound up becoming one of 2015’s most played songs on Triple J’s Unearthed Radio. Building upon a growing national profile, Graham collaborated with an impressive list of contemporary artists and producers including FØRD, Golden Vessel, Atticus Beats and North Elements. Adding to a growing profile, Graham released her 2016 self-produced self-titled debut EP, which debuted in the iTunes Top 20 Charts in 7 countries and received more than 2 million streams, while receiving praise across the blogosphere from Indie Shuffle, Pigeons and Planes, i-D, as well as from actress Emma Roberts, who has tweeted about her love of “The Thaw.”

“Bonfire,” Graham’s latest single consists of a looped, handclap-led production featuring tribal polyrhythm, shimmering and moody guitar chords, twinkling keys, buzzing and atmospheric electronics with Graham’s ethereal yet soulful vocals with a soaring hook. And while drawing from a cherished childhood memory of being both fearless and carefree, the song manages to sound unlike anything in contemporary pop today.

Just in time for her Stateside and SXSW debut and the release of three remixes of the song, Graham released both the live video of her and her backing band performing “Bonfire” at The Line in Melbourne.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps best known for this time spent in New England-based psych rock band MMOSS, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Doug Tuttle quickly developed a reputation as a solo artist of note with the release of his solo debut, an album that was widely praised for paring his dexterous guitar work and a jittery, love-lorn anxiety with psychedelic-leaning guitar pop. And if you had been frequenting JOVM over the course of 2016, Tuttle’s sophomore effort It Calls On Me, which featured lead single an album track “It Calls On Me” further cemented the New Hampshire-born singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist’s reputation for crafting psych-leaning pop but with more of a dreamer and ethereal feel that its predecessor — all while subtly nodding at The Doors‘ “Light My Fire.”

Tuttle’s third full-length effort Peace Potato is slated for a May 5, 2017 through renowned Chicago, IL-based label Trouble In Mind Records and the album’s first single, “Bait The Sun,” is a bubblegum pop meets White Album-era Beatles inspired track in which Tuttle’s dreamy falsetto is paired with shimmering guitar chords, soaring organ chords, a gorgeous horn arrangement, and a breezy, infectious hook — and in some way, the song evokes a lucid dream; but just under the surface, there’s a wistful nostalgia at something that’s just out of reach.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Karolina Rose is an up-and-coming Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, who I caught over the summer playing an acoustic, solo set at Kelsey Warren’s wildly eclectic Festival 8 last summer; however, her Andros Rodriguez produced debut single “Move With Me” is an anthemic 80s synth pop and New Wave-leaning single in which the Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter’s achingly vulnerable yet sultry and assertive, pop star belter vocals are paired with shimmering arpeggio synths and four-on-the-floor led drum programming. Sonically, the song nods at A Flock of Seagulls and Florence and the Machine, thanks to a dance floor friendliness but more important, the song possesses an urgent intensity; in fact, as the Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter explains in press notes, the song is “about that struck-by-lightning feeling you get when love first hits you. It’s a paralyzing intensity in a good way that makes you want to snap out of it, race forward and indulge in it evermore.” But even with that passionate excitement, there’s also an uncertainty of what will happen with any new romantic connection and while acknowledging that she could get hurt, the song’s narrator soothes herself by reminding herself that “what will be, will be.” And while some will think it’s fatalistic, the song is also a reminder that love, like anything else in life is a blind, leap of faith.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Swedish Dream Pop Sensation Linnea Olsson Takes You to Hell — and Back in New Video

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of months, you’ve likely recall that I’ve written about Swedish singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Linnea Olsson. After collaborating with Peter Gabriel, Sting, Ane Brun and Maia Hirasawa., Olsson quickly established herself as a go-to cellist; however, the Swedish singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has recently begun to receive international attention for her self-described cello-driven fantasy pop.

“The Weekend,” which was released at the end of last year, was a swooning track featured Olsson paired a gorgeous and lush, classical string arrangement with highly modern and ironic lyrics describing a neurotic and delusional narrator, who escapes into her own revenge fantasies. And yes, Olsson’s latest single “Hall of Tragedy” will further cement her growing reputation for crafting swooning and gorgeous pop, and for her equally beautiful and plaintive vocals; however, while “The Weekend” possesses a quirky mischievousness and an atmospheric chamber pop quality, “Hall of Tragedy” pairs that atmospheric chamber pop sound with a brooding seriousness reminiscent of Ocean Rain-era Echo and the Bunnymen.

Featuring Olsson’s stop-motion animation, the recently released animated video is according to Olsson an “apocalyptic children’s book video for grown-ups” that manages to illustrate what falling into deep, unyielding depression would feel like from the song’s narrator’s perspective. And as a result, it adds a deeply visceral and haunting feel to the proceedings.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Growing up listening to an eclectic variety of music including Patti Labelle, Jill Scott, Bob James, Stevie Wonder, D’Angelo, Bjork and The Black Crowes among others, up-and-coming, Edmonton, AB-born, Toronto, ON-based soul artist Tanika Charles quickly developed a reputation locally as an emerging solo artist, whose puts a modern spin on the classic Motown soul sound — frequently meshing it with swaggering, hip-hop-like beats and deeply, confessional and honest lyrics, reminiscent of Mary J. Blige, Kelis and others. And as a result, within Canada’s soul scene, Charles has largely been considered her country’s next big thing; in fact, interestingly enough, over the past couple of years Charles transformed from being an emerging solo artist to being a commanding performer and bandleader, as well as one of the scene’s staples. Adding to a growing national profile, Charles has collaborated with Estelle, Lauryn Hill and Macy Gray, and has made regular appearances on CTV, Global and CBC Radio.

Produced by Slakah the Beatchild, best known for collaborating with Drake, Charles’ latest single “Soul Run” is the first single off her self-titled, full-length album, slated for an April 7, 2017 release through Italian soul label, Record Kicks, and the single will further cement the Edmonton-born, Toronto-based singer/songwriter’s burgeoning reputation for crafting confessional lyrics based around her own personal experiences with “Soul Run” based around Charles’ experience of feeling trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship in rural Canada — until she decided to “borrow” her then fiancée’s car and left for Toronto to start her music career, never looking back. Considering the personal nature of the song, Charles as the song’s narrator expresses regret over her own foolishness that wound up with her being hopelessly trapped in an abusive and fucked up relationship and desperate desire to get away and start over. You can almost picture Charles, jumping into the car with whatever possessions she could manage and hitting the road without an idea of where she was going or what would happen — and yet feeling true freedom to do whatever she wanted.