Tag: singer/songwriters

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

 

With the release “Help Yourself” and several other singles, Western Wales-born, London-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Sarah Howells’ solo recording project Bryde has received praise from Nylon, The Line of Best Fit and Earmilk and airplay from BBC Radio 6, BBC Radio Wales, Radio X and Huw Stephens’ BBC Radio 1 show for a sound that’s been compared to the likes of Jeff Buckley, Sharon Van Etten, Ben Howard and London Grammar, as her early work so far has thematically focused on complex and ambivalent relationships that can simultaneously entangle. Her latest single “Wouldn’t That Make You Feel Good” is a boozy and woozy dirge in which Howells’ aching vocals are paired with bluesy yet shoegazer rock-like guitar chords in a song that builds up to a cathartic and explosive bridge before gently fading out. Interestingly, Howells’ latest single sounds to me as though it could be indebted to the likes of PJ Harvey as it possesses a similar earnest yet stormy and dramatic quality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Renowned British-born Singer/Songwriter Miten’s Elegantly Simple Cover of a Beloved Beatles Tune

Miten’s recently released Temple At Midnight is his first solo English language work in over a decade and in many ways the album finds him returning to his musical roots while writing deeply personal material inspired and influenced by his own journey to renewal, faith and love. And interestingly, the album’s latest single is an elegantly simple cover of The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” in which Miten’s soulful and wizened vocals are paired with a sparse arrangement that has Miten accompanying himself with guitar, a bit of piano here and there, a mournful string arrangement and some backing vocals from his partner and collaborator Deva Premal. And while radiating a quiet assuredness and tranquility, Miten’s cover also possesses the same wistfulness of the original.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Jangling and Anthemic Guitar Rock of French Singer/Songwriter Pamela Hute

Pamela Hute is a Paris-based singer/songwriter, who began her music career in earnest at a very young age — as a teen she formed The Mashed Potatoes before going solo in 2006. And as a solo artist, she’s released two albums, 2010’s Tales From Overseas and 2013’s Bandit, with Bandit being mixed by John Agnello, who has worked with the likes of The Kills, Sonic Youth and Cyndi Lauper. Interestingly both albums revealed that Hute specialized in jangling guitar pop and synth pop with rousingly anthemic hooks paired earnest lyrics as you’ll hear on The Breeders and 90s alt rock channeling “Banshees,” the second and latest single off her self-produced effort Today. But at its core, Today manages to reveal what may arguably be Hute’s most personal songwriting, influenced by a trip she took to California.

The recently released music video is shot in a gorgeous and cinematic black and white, and captures Hute with her backing band performing “Banshees” live at La Fourmi in Limoges, France.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Sawyer Gebauer is a Wisconsin-born, Oakland, CA-based singer/songwriter, who has spent a great deal of his musical career moving back and forth between the States and Europe. When he was 19, Gebauer relocated to Sweden, where he founded and formed Brittsommar, a musical project that featured a rotating cast of musicians and received quite a bit of attention across Continental Europe with the release of their 2011 debut effort Day Of Living Velvet. After the release of Brittsommar’s debut, Gebauer relocated to Berlin where he recored 2013’s The Machine Stops in a dilapidated warehouse. Eventually, Gebauer returned to the States, recording the final Brittsommar effort 2015’s Mary Me EP at TRI Studios in San Rafael, CA.  

After Brittsommar ended, Gebauer started his latest musical project Catch Prichard, which draws deeply from Americana; in fact, Gebauer has publicly cited Townes Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen‘s 1995 release The Ghost of Tom Joad as major influences on his latest project, and that he wanted to write and record a collection of stripped down songs based around narrative and melody — and the end result is the soon-to-be released Eskota EP, a five song EP named after the Texas ghost town in which it was recorded. 

The first single from the EP “Hometown” is an elegantly simple track featuring Gebauer’s gorgeous and moody baritone, accompanied by his dexterous guitar strumming, and gently padded drumming — and the result is a sparse, spectral song that’s indebted to folk as much as it country, while possessing a narrator’s attention to physical and psychological detail. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Return to Primal Nature with Noelle Tannen and the Filthy No Nos

“Skin,” the first single off the band’s forthcoming, self-titled, full-length debut, slated for an October 14 release consists of a complex, almost maximalist arrangement that includes key changes, a slow-burning psych jazz intro and coda and ethereal harmonies,followed by a sultry, jazz-leaning section a wild salsa-leaning bridge, complete with call and response vocals, and Cowie’s swaggering and strutting solo. And it’s held together by Tannen’s ridiculously expressive vocals — which manage to be jazzy, soulful, coquettish and mischievous within a turn of a phrase, and her dexterous keyboard work. As Tannen explained in an email “Harmonically, and arrangement wise, while writing this song I really didn’t want to settle for anything. It was all about finding and exploring every possibility. Lyrically the song is about femininity and life and death. Its kind of about how I feel like as a woman in our society everyone is constantly trying to protect you; we are often looked at as the vessel of life and in many ways we are. However, a lot of women live a life with this underlying tone of over protection (Some face it more than others.)”

As Tannen continued, the song and the accompanying video directed and produced by Matthew Speno are both about breaking free from that sense of over-protecting.
“Visually we wanted to tie this concept into different living parts of nature. That’s why we start on solid earth, move to water and the finish with fire. Earth and water are matter and fire is a release of the energy inside those elements,” Tannen explains. Interestingly, the video manages to suggest a primal return to nature as being completely freeing with its characters free of social restraint or concern about appearances.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Hauntingly Gorgeous Visuals and Sounds of Benjamin’s Brother’s “Room 505”

Benjamin’s Brother is a fairly mysterious British electro folk/electro pop act comprised of a producer and songwriter, who writes and records under the moniker of Benjamin’s Brother and a rotating cast of collaborators and friends who pair haunting and ambient productions with songs that lyrically focus on death, desire and pain, among other subjects. The act’s latest single “Room 505” is an eerily sparse production featuring contemplative piano chords, plaintive, falsetto vocals, stuttering drum programming and brief burst of mournful horns. Sonically, the song reminds me of BRAIDS’ impressive Flourish//Perish but with an aching yearning at its core.

The recently released video features a dancer performing in sparsely arranged room with her doppleganger — but is it all an delusional within her head? Interestingly, the video manages to suggest the internal struggle between our real, internal self and the self we project out toward the world.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps best known as the haunting and ethereal voice of Mazzy Star, Hope Sandoval has had an equally lengthy solo career, collaborating with a number of artists including Massive Attack and My Bloody Valentine’s Colm O’Coisog in her long-running post Mazzy Star project, Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions. Interestingly, Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions is a major departure in terms of theme, instrumentation and mood. Whereas Mazzy Star’s sound was shimmering and moodily atmospheric and featured sparse arrangements of guitar and drums, The Warm Inventions’ sound at times is reminiscent of twangy 70s AM radio and soul as you’ll hear on “Let Me Get There,” the first single off the project’s forthcoming third, full-length effort Until the Hunter, slated for a November 4, 2016 release.

Featuring a guest spot from acclaimed and prolific singer/songwriter Kurt Vile, the song consists of the sort of tender, slow-burning, Sunday morning soulful and hypnotic groove that you can two-step to with a lover, paired with soaring and trembling organ keys and Sandoval and Vile’s call and response vocals evoking both the warm, comfortable and playful familiarity of a long-term couple as they’re about to make love or as they’re in the middle of making love — and that sense of curiosity and discovery those first few times you’ve begun to see a lover naked. Interestingly, the song also manages to suggest that when it’s right, a relationship should feel much like musicians who automatically have a sense of simpatico and can intuitively follow wherever the other leads.

 

 

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Júniús Meyvant Returns with More Carefully Crafted 60s-Inspired Sounds and Striking Visuals for His Latest Single

With the release of Floating Harmonies’ third and latest single “Beat Silent Need,” the Icelandic singer/songwriter will arguably cement himself as one of the finest, contemporary, blue-eyed soul singer/songwriters on either side of the Atlantic as his sound nods at 60s and 70s soul, paired with thoughtful and heartfelt lyrics. In this case, this particular song focuses on loneliness and the desperate need for love and to be desired, the self-doubt, confusion, misunderstandings and fear that frequently sabotage our relationships, the difficulties of honestly connecting with others and the blind hope that in every subsequent relationship that we’ll somehow get it right — although most of us fail miserably some way or another.

The recently released video begins with a couple in the middle of a bitter argument as the man drops his woman off for a pregnant woman yoga class taught by a neglectful asshole. When the women bolt from their class, they are subsequently chased by both the yoga instructor and our protagonist’s boyfriend. And it ends with the pregnant woman, worriedly driving herself and her companions to a hospital as they all experience labor pains — without the asshole men in their lives.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past couple of months, Philadelphia, PA-based indie rock quartet Oldermost, led by its frontman Bradford Bucknam have received attention across the blogosphere and this site in particular for a sound that draws from  Nick Drake, Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd and 70s AM radio rock as yo would have heard on the band’s first two singles “Honey With Tea” and “Finally Unsure.”

The band’s third and latest single is a cover of Graham Nash’s “I Used To Be A King.” And as Bucknum explains in press notes “Songs for Beginners is not necessarily a unique find in a record store bin, but the record still feels like a special discovery when you first set on eyes on the simple and somewhat lusterless album cover. ‘I Used To Be A King’ starts with a tempo just slow enough to hold the listener in a state of suspension. You think: there is a release on the horizon. And then Nash sings ‘It’s alright …’ and the song picks up, but only to build more tension and then there is the most rewarding part of the song at the tail end of the chorus—’No one is going to break my heart again’—where the listener experiences that sweet release. This track also seemed like a great opportunity to highlight the string arrangements that have helped make our musical output stand apart. There’s also a sweetness and a melancholy to the song and it takes a healthy dose of both to mix up an Oldermost song.” While being a fairly straightforward cover, it’s a shimmering, gorgeous cover that emphasizes the bittersweet nature of the original.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially begun as a solo side project from her then-primary projects  Vivian Girls and All Saints Day, singer/songwriter and guitarist Katy Goodman has developed a burgeoning national profile with the release of her first three critically applauded albums with La Sera — including, the project’s self-titled debut, her sophomore effort Sees the Light and her third effort Hour of the Dawn. And with each successive album found Goodman experimenting and expanding upon her sound with Hour of the Down revealing an 80s guitar pop influence, in particular The Smiths, The Pretenders, and others.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site for a while, you’d know that Goodman released her fourth La Sera album, Music For Listening To Music To earlier this year, and the material on the album revealed an artist, who has gone through a series of personal and artistic transitions including  Goodman’s newlywed husband Todd Wisenbaker, who may be best known as a member of Music For Listening To Music To‘s producer  Ryan Adams‘ backing band, and as the producer of Goodman’s third album Hour of the Dawn joined his wife’s project as a cowriter, guitarist and collaborator. Sonically, the material continues along the veins of its predecessor — sounding deeply indebted to the aforementioned The Smiths and The Pretenders while at times also nodding at Johnny Cash (in particular, think of “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Jackson” and countless others.) And lyrically, the material focused on romantic relationships — whether our desire to be and feel loved, the raw and bitter ironies exposed during the breakup of a relationship and more. Of course, adding to the retro feel and tone of album was the fact that the material frequently employed the use of male/female vocals on top of a familiar and beloved sound featuring shimmering guitars played through reverb as you’ll hear on album singles “High Notes,” and “I Need an Angel.”

Beginning in October, Goodman Wisenbaker and company will be embarking on a month-long national tour — and just before the tour, the members of the project will be releasing the digital-only release Queens EP. The EP’s title track is a propulsive and upbeat bit of shimmering guitar pop that was written while Wisenbaker was on a leisurely stroll through East Hollywood at dusk one night. And as Goodman adds, “To me, the song stands for being an important, passionate, loving person in your own life, every day.” While sonically the song continues to cement the act’s reputation for crafting swooning nd shimmering, 60s and 80s inspired guitar pop, the song lyrically deals with the passing of time and the experience of small yet profound joys with someone you love.

As I mentioned the band will be on tour throughout October and it includes two NYC area dates — October 22, 2016 at the Mercury Lounge and an early October 23, 2016 at Baby’s All Right. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

TOUR DATES: 

10/07 Pomona, CA @ Glasshouse
10/08 San Diego, CA @ The Hideout
10/09 Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
10/10 Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf
10/12 Austin, TX @ Sidewinder
10/13 Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
10/14 Kansas City, MO @ Riot Room
10/15 St Louis, MO @ Firebird
10/16 Nashville, TN @ High Watt
10/18 Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
10/19 Chapel Hill, NC @ Pinhook
10/20 Washington, DC @ Song Byrd
10/22 New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
10/23 Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right (early)
10/25 Boston, MA @ Brookline Teen Center
10/26 Buffalo, NY @ Mohawk
10/28 Toronto, ON @ Silver Dollar
10/29 Detroit, MI @ El Club
10/30 Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
11/01 Denver, CO @ Lost Lake
11/02 Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
11/03 Reno, NV @ Holland Project
11/04 San Francisco, CA @ Swedish American Hall
11/05 Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg Theater

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

 

Born in California, New York-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Shana Falana spent time in San Francisco‘s D.I.Y. scene and and in a Bulgarian women’s choir before relocating to New York. By 2006, Falana had been struggling through drug addiction and money woes when she lost part of her index finger in a work-related accident. And while under most normal circumstances that might be considered extremely unlucky, the settlement money the California-born, New York-based singer/songwriter received actually provided her a period of financial stability that allowed her the much needed time and space she needed to overcome her addictions and find a new focus in her life and music. Reportedly, much of the music on Falana’s much-anticipated second full-length effort Here Comes the Wave was conceptualized both during one of the most difficult periods of her life and in the subsequent years that followed, and has been continually refined — and as a result, the album manages to thematically be centered around the duality of “then and now,” while sonically covering diverse moods and possessing elements of shoegaze, gothic pop and indie rock.  Of course, thematically speaking the material focuses on change, transformation and emotional turmoil; in fact as Falana says in press notes ““Somehow, I knew those songs would serve me well later,” and at least one of Here Comes the Wave‘s songs reportedly foreshadows its creator’s eventual sobriety while other songs reportedly accept the passing of youth, the death of her father and other themes that come up as one gets older.

Interestingly, Here Comes the Wave also manages to be the second collaboration with producer D. James Goodwin, best known for his work with Bob Weir, Whitney and Kevin Morby and with her long-time partner, collaborator and drummer Mike Amari. And the album has Goodwin and Amari playing much larger roles than on Falana’s debut as the collaborative trio went for audacious sounds and heightened moments — and for being bold as possible.  The album’s first single “Lie 2 Me” has Falana and Amari pairing enormous and buzzing power chord-heavy riffs and thunderous drumming with Falana’s anguished howls before ending with an explosive blast of feedback before slowly fading out. Lyrically, the song is full of bitter recrimination, accusation, self-doubt, self-flagellation and dysfunction –and as a result, the song feels bilious and fucked up while sonically nodding at L7, PJ Harvey and others.

 

 

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Bonnie Whitmore (vocals, bass) is a Denton, TX-born, Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter, who can trace the origins of her musical career to when she started playing in her family’s band, Daddy and the Divas. Shortly after that, a teenaged Whitmore picked up gigs playing in several Dallas-Ft. Worth area bands; however, her first professional band The Brent Mitchell Band lead to studio work with an impressive array of artists including Susan Gibson, Shelley King, Mando Saenz, Justin Townes Earle, Hayes Carll, Colin Gilmore and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Aaron Lee Tasjan and Sunny Sweeney. As a solo artist, Whitmore’s work is influenced by Tom Petty, Bonnie Raitt, Fleetwood Mac, Roy Orbison and The Replacements while drawing from deeply personal experiences — although her her third and latest album Fuck With Sad Girls, which features a backing band comprised of Scott Davis (guitar), who has worked with Band of Heathens and Hayes Carll; Craig Bagby (drums), who has worked with Sherman Colin Herman; and Jared Hall (keys), who has worked with Velvet Underground and Colin Gilmore, the album thematically focuses on the social and cultural stigmas placed on “imperfect” women.

 

Fuck With Sad Girls‘ latest single is “Fighter,” and the gorgeous song has Whitemore, Davis, Bagby and Hall pairing twinkling keys, accordion, lap steel guitar, gentle pads of percussion and Whitmore’s expressive and plaintive vocals in a song that manages to be psychologically revealing, vulnerable and honest as the song’s narrator admits to living a full, complicated and messy life, a life full of joy, mistakes, regrets, difficult and uneasy decisions and compromises, and throughout the song’s narrator reveals herself to be a resilient, modern woman — the sort of woman you’d likely known and encountered in your own life.

 

 

 

 

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