As you might remember, last December I wrote about Sophie Stern, the Los Angeles-based creative mastermind behind the (mostly) solo recording project Sophie and the Bom Boms. Initially, Stern’s career began behind the scenes as a songwriter, who was […]
Tag: singer/songwriters
Swedish singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist David Alexander and his solo dream pop/electro-pop Summer Heart has received international attention for a wistfully nostalgic, 60s psych pop-leaning, lo-fi sound that compares favorably to Caribou‘s earliest material, Washed Out, In Ghost Colours-era Cut Copy, Painted Palms and others; in fact, his 2011 Please Stay EP received praise from The Guardian and The Star topped Hype Machine‘s charts. In his native Sweden, Alexander has a reputation for being a pioneer of Sweden’s burgeoning dream pop movement, a movement that includes Moonbabies, The Land Below, Hey Elbow, Blind Lake and Emerald Park.
Interestingly, Alexander’s international profile has grown as several of his songs have appeared in TV series — including the NBC series, Whitney, which brought him the attention of millions of American TV viewers. Now, if you were frequenting this site last year, you might recall that I wrote about “Nothing Can Stop Us Now,” a song that consisted of jangling guitars, washboard-led percussion, layers of ethereal vocals and cascading synths with a warm buzzing summer afternoon warmth. His latest single “The Forbidden” off his forthcoming EP also named The Forbidden is a slow-burning and shoegaze-leaning single that pairs Alexander’s ethereal cooing with shimmering guitars and synths played through gentle amounts of reverb and jazz-like drumming. And although the song evokes the sensation of waking up from a pleasant dream, just underneath its placid surface is a wistful melancholy that will remind the listener that all things will eventually dissipate.
Alexander along with a backing band featuring some of his dearest friends will be making Stateside appearances at SXSW and Williamsburg Brooklyn’s The Knitting Factory later this month. Check out tour dates below.
SXSW:
Wednesday 16th March
The Townsend – 1:05am
Saturday 19th March
Icenhauer’s – 1am
NYC:
Wednesday 23rd March
Live In Brooklyn – The Knitting Factory –
http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=6437785
New Video: Wander Through Hidden and Surreal Los Angeles in La Sera’s New Video for “I Need An Angel”
Initially begun as a solo side project from her time in Vivian Girls and All Saints Day, Katy Goodman’s recording project La Sera has developed a growing national profile through the release of three critically applauded albums — the project’s self-titled […]
Over the past 15 years, singer/songwriter and musician Jordan Geiger has developed a reputation for being incredibly prolific — he’s been a member of several renowned indie rock acts including Shearwater, The Appleseed Cast, Des Ark and Minus Story, and he’s released three albums with his solo recording project Hospital Ships. Geiger’s fourth full-length Hospital Ships effort, The Past is Not a Flood is slated for a March 11, 2016 release through Graveface Records, and the album features a myriad number of Austin, TX-based collaborators including longtime friend, Swans‘ Thor Harris — and is Geiger’s sixth album with renowned producer John Congleton, best known for his work with St. Vincent, The Walkmen, Modest Mouse and others.
Thematically speaking, The Past is Not a Flood reportedly draws from Geiger’s own battles with mental illness, anxiety and depression, which will arguably make his fourth full-length album his most personal one to date. The album’s first single “You and I” possesses a gorgeous painterly quality as layers of twisting and turning piano chords undulating and chiming percussion and ominously ambient electronics are slowly added like brushstrokes upon a canvas — and then they’re paired with Geiger’s achingly tender vocals expressing vulnerability, shame, regret and confusion over a dysfunctional and fucked up relationship that’s at an impasse. While sonically bearing a resemblance to Amnesiac-era Radiohead, Remember Remember and Mogwai‘s most recent ambient experiments “You and I” manages to feel like a lingering and anxious fever dream.
New Video: The Lyric Video for Fleurie’s Atmospheric “Sirens”
If you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past year or so, you might recall that I had written about up-and-coming Canton, MI-born, Nashville, TN-based classically trained pianist and singer/songwriter Lauren Straham and her solo recording […]
Mikey Wax is a New York-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, whose profile has exploded nationally and internationally as a number of his singles and albums have achieved commercial success and placement in a number of major TV series. After “In Case I Go Again,” off his debut effort Change Again won South Florida-based WRMF 97.9 FM‘s Unsigned Artist contest, the song was featured on CBS‘s Ghost Whisperer, NBC‘s 2012 Summer Olympics coverage and ABC Family‘s Pretty Little Liars — and the music video was featured as part of YouTube‘s Music Tuesday spotlight, which garnered over 500,000 views. Wax’s 2011 self-released sophomore effort Constant Motion landed at number 6 on the iTunes Singer/Songwriter Chart, number 47 on Billboard Heatseekers Chart, with album single “Counting On You” receiving major radio airplay on major Adult Top 40 stations across the country.
As as a result of his rapid success, Wax was selected by New Music SeminarNew as one of their “Artists on the Verge” and was featured by iHeartRadio as an “Artist To Watch” in 2012 — and “Counting On You” was featured during the elimination montage on every episode of Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance that season. Additionally, the song was featured in the trailer for the major motion picture Playing for Keeps which lead to coverage from USA Today and Young Hollywood. “For Better Or Worse” was featured on Lifetime‘s Dance Moms while “So Crazy” appeared in a promo teaser for Brazilian TV network GNT, which led to the song charting on the Top 100 iTunes Pop Chart Brazil and a sub-publishing deal with Warner/Chappell South America.
The New York-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist’s self-titled, third full length effort was released in 2014 and featured “You Lift Me Up,” which debuted on iTunes US Top 200 Pop Charts and has since been placed on MTV‘s The Real World and The Challenge: The Battle of the Exes II, the season 10 promo for E! Entertainment‘s Keeping Up With The Kardashians and all Fox Sports NBA games throughout the second half of the 2015 season. Building on the success he’s received to date, Wax’s “Love Always Wins (#LoveWins)” was also featured on the promo for E! Entertainment’s I Am Cait and on the SoundHound app homepage.
I have to add that the New York-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has toured with the likes of Parachute, Andy Grammer, Jon McLaughlin, Matt Wertz, Rachel Platten, Howie Day, Tyler Ward, Ryan Cabrera, Tyler Hilton, Tony Lucca and others.
“Bottle of Jack,” Wax’s most recent single pairs Wax’s soulful vocals with a neo-soul-like arrangement of shimmering keyboard chords, loose and funky guitar chords, propulsive drumming, soaring synths and a sinuous bass line to craft an radio-friendly pop confection that has its narrator describing the sensation of being in love to drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels. And at points, it certainly can feel that way! In any case, Achtabahn released a house music remix of “Bottle of Jack” that pairs Wax’s effortlessly soulful vocals with a warm, Random Access Memories-era Daft Punk production consisting of a sinuous bass line, warm blasts of Nile Rodgers-like guitar shimmering neo-soul like keys, handclap-led percussion, swirling electronics, bleeps and bloops and wobbling, tweeter and woofer wobbling drops that makes the song dance floor friendly while retaining the radio-friendly pop confection spirit of the original.
Over the almost six year history of this site, Katy Goodman and her current musical project La Sera have become a JOVM mainstay. And over that period, La Sera, which was initially begun as a solo side project from Goodman’s time with Vivian Girls and All Saints Day developed a growing national profile with the release of three critically applauded albums — the project’s self-titled debut, Sees the Light and Hour of the Dawn. Each successive album had Goodman expanding upon and experimenting with her sound — with 2014’s Hour of the Dawn being the most punk-leaning album she had released to date. Goodman’s fourth and upcoming album, Music For Listening To Music To will further cement her reputation for continually expanding upon her sound, while revealing an artist show has gone through major personal and artistic transitions. In fact, one of the biggest personal transitions that has informed and inspired the album thematically and sonically is the fact that Goodman’s husband Todd Wisenbaker, best known as a member of Music For Listening‘s producer Ryan Adams‘ backing band, has joined the project as a guitarist and cowriter.
Now, if you’ve been on this site in the past month or so, you may recall that I wrote about Music For Listening‘s first single “High Notes,” a song that paired the shimmering guitar chords of The Smiths and the propulsive, old-school chugging rhythm of Johnny Cash (in particular, think of “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Jackson” and countless others) with Goodman’s wistfully ethereal coos. “High Notes” makes a vital connection between punk, post-punk and renegade country that countless others have done before but while pointing out an irony at the heart of any relationship that’s busted up — that you may be take the high road, not because you actually believe it’s the best thing or the adult thing to do but because you want to appear as though you’re not as petty as you might really be and feel and because on another level you want to make sure that you’re the only one who could get the last word. And it may be the most honest and heartfelt sentiment you’ll come across in a song in some time.
The album’s latest single “I Need An Angel” is reminiscent of The Smiths “This Charming Man” and “Hand In Glove” as it pairs gorgeous and shimmering guitar chords and a propulsive rhythm with swooning and lovelorn lyrics sung from the prospective of the achingly and desperately lonely and unloved. Certainly, if you’ve ever been alone on Valentine’s Day — or if you’re alone, now — it’s a sentiment that feels deeply familiar.
If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few months, you may recall that I’ve written about San Francisco, CA and Big Sur, CA-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and producer Jenny Gillespie. Gillespie can trace her musical career to he childhood — during drives to and from the Springfield, IL area, where she was born and raised, she spent quite a bit of time harmonizing in the backseat with her sister, who is a gifted and renowned pianist. When the San Francisco and Big Sur-based singer/songwriter was 13, she picked up her mother’s Martin guitar and began putting the poems she had been writing to her own original music. Gillespie’s life was further changed when a local record store clerk gave her album from three of the 90s most renowned singer/songwriters Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan and Shawn Colvin — all of whom quickly became major influences on Gillespie’s music and songwriting.
After stints living in Virginia, Paris and Texas, Gillespie relocated to Chicago, where she self-produced and then released her sophomore album, Light Year, a folk and alt-country album that received quite a bit of praise. And as a result the attention Light Year received, Gillespie met Darwin Smith, an Austin, TX-based multi-instrumentalist, with whom she wrote her third full-length effort, Kindred, a sparse, experimental, electronica-based effort recorded in an old house in Wilmette, IL with contributions from Steve Moore, who has worked with Tift Merritt and Laura Veirs and Dony Wynn, who has worked with the legendary Robert Plant.
Inspired by a volunteer trip to Kenya that led her to an African fingerpicking class at the Old Town School of Folk Music and studying for an MFA in Poetry at North Carolina’s Warren Wilson College, Gillespie found her sound and songwriting approach expanding and becoming more refined. By the fall of 2011, she traveled to NYC to record the EP Belita with Shazard Ismaily, a multi-instrumentalist who has worked with Lou Reed, Bonnie Prince Billy, and St. Vincent. Interestingly, that effort possesses elements of pop, folk music, African and Asian rhythms and tones.
Featuring contributions from Emmett Kelly (Bonnie Prince Billy) on guitar and Joe Adamik (Califone, Iron and Wine) on drums, her last full-length effort Chamma was released to critical praise, including landing on Billboard Magazine‘s Top 25 Albums of 2014 List. Naturally, that has seen Gillespie’s profile grow nationally — and continuing on that buzz, the singer/songwriter is set to release Chamma‘s follow-up, Cure for Dreaming through Narooma Records at the end of the month. Recorded over the past couple of months and featuring contributions from Paul Bryan (Aimee Mann), drummer Jay Bellerose (Robert Plant and Allison Krauss’ Raising Sand), guitarist Chris Bruce (Meshell Ndgeocello), guitarist Gerry Leonard (David Bowie), and pedal steel player Greg Leisz (Lucinda Williams, Bon Iver), the album reportedly possesses elements of folk, progressive jazz, and 60s and 70s AM pop.
The album’s first single “No Stone” paired Gillespie’s unhurried and husky vocals with a spacious and subtly jazz-like arrangement of keys, guitar, bass, gently buzzing electronics and hushed drumming in a song that felt as intimate as a lover whispering sweet nothings in your ear. And at the song’s core was a conversational lyricism that possessed a novelist’s attention to detail — both physical and psychological — as you can picture a woman who hides her face by the ocean, cherry blossoms in bloom, and someone peering through a keyhole to see a depressed woman struggling to just start her day. And as a result the song’s narrator feels like a fully-fleshed out person, desperately struggling to push forward.
The album’s second and latest single “Part Potawatomi” pairs Gillespie’s unhurried and ethereal vocals with a hummable melody, a deceptively simple arrangement of guitar, drums, bass and ambient electronics that sonically bears a resemblance to Junip — and their frontman, Jose Gonzalez‘s solo work. And much like much like the album’s first single “No Stone,” “Part Potawatomi” reveals a Gillespie’s remarkable attention to detail, as the song frankly discusses the slow and seemingly inevitable dissolution of a romantic relationship metaphorically described as a storm brewing over the shore. The song’s narrator seems to evoke the sensation of being trapped in a relationship that’s going nowhere out of familial and moral obligation — and as a result, the song possesses a subtle yet increasing feeling of frustration and regret, while being one of the more beautiful songs I’ve heard in the past 10 days.
New Video: The Gorgeous and Surreal Video for Bedouine’s Sultry and Jazzy, New Single “The City”
The Los Angeles, CA-based singer/songwriter Bedouine‘s work has largely been inspired by a nomadic youth. As the mysterious singer/songwriter explained in press notes “I love exploring different places and sounds. My childhood was this amalgamation […]
Although she’s the daughter of Alan Menken, the pianist and musical theater and film composer famously known for composing the scores of several beloved Disney animated films — including Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pocahontas and others, the New York-based singer/songwriter and JOVM mainstay artist Anna Rose has developed a growing national profile with the release of her self-titled EP, her full-length debut effort Nomad and her sophomore effort, Behold A Pale Horse. Whereas both her self-titled EP and Nomad were mostly acoustic-leaning singer/songwriter efforts with conversational and confessional lyrics, Behold A Pale Horse was a both a change of sonic direction and a bold, brassy announcement of an artist who finally found her most natural and singular voice. But if there’s one thing that holds all three of those efforts together, it’s the fact that all of them reveal that New York-based singer/songwriter and guitarist as a complicated and interesting woman who kicks ass and takes names, who is strong yet vulnerable, seductive yet innocent, wizened through experience and yet youthful.
Slated for release in 2016, Strays In The Cut EP is the long awaited follow-up to Behold A Pale Horse and the EP reportedly has the New York-based singer/songwriter pushing her musical and songwriting boundaries. As Anna Rose explains in press notes “I am very much an album artist and a storyteller, so the idea of scaling it all back to the size of an EP was a challenge in itself. It forced me to look at the songs in a different way, the production, everything. These six songs needed to tell the whole story. The limitations I placed on the length made the process so much more imaginative in every other aspect.” “Start A War,” Strays In The Cut‘s first single possesses a somewhat stripped down, country and blues-leaning arrangement that’s roomy enough for Rose’s unhurried and expressive vocals. It’s a slow-burning and spectral ballad full of lingering ghosts of past relationships and lovers, past resentments and a past that routinely finds a way to poke its way through your present at a random moment. But the song does so with a quiet and understanding acceptance a a subtle sense of regret.
With the release of his 2013 full-length debut effort to critical acclaim, Ghosts In The Attic, Austin, TX-based indie folk singer/songwriter Reed Turner exploded on to the national map. As a result of the attention on the album, Turner wound up sharing stages with an impressive list of acclaimed artists including Gary Clark, Jr., Mark Broussard, Will Hoge and Jessica Lea Mayfield, among many others — and the album wound up on several “Best Of” lists that year.
After a year of solitude marked by health issues, Turner turned his backyard shed into a makeshift workspace and studio, compelled to create rather than wallow. Along with his backing band, Turner and company wrote and recorded material that would wind up comprising his forthcoming Native Tongue EP live to tape on an old Studer A827, much like how they did during the Sun Records days.
As you’ll hear on Native Tongue‘s first single and EP opening track “I Got Love” possesses a bluesy, shuffling stomp and swing reminiscent of Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf — in particular I think of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” and “Get Rhythm,” Howlin’ Wolf’s “Poor Boy (The London Sessions version),” Muddy Waters’ “Mean Ol’ Frisco Blues,” and Bo Diddley‘s “Who Do You Love” (although George Thorogood‘s version is infinitely better). And much like those songs, it feels as though it could have been recorded around that period, as it possesses the looseness of a band playing at a dirty whiskey bar or an old fashioned honky tonk. But interestingly enough the song balances an old-timey sweetness beneath the stomp and braggadocio; it’s the sort of song you’d can picture couples line dancing, swing dancing or blues dancing late into the night.
Adelaide, Australia-born and Palm Springs, CA-based singer/songwriter Sia has had quite a career, as she can trace her career’s origins to when she was the vocalist in Adelaide-based acid jazz act Crisp in the mid 1990s. After the band’s breakup in 1997, Sia released her debut effort, OnlySee through Flavoured Records and relocated to London, where she provided vocals for British duo Zero 7.
After the release of Healing Is Difficult, an album inspired and informed by the death of her-then boyfriend Dan Pontifex and Colour the Small One, the Australian-born singer/songwriter, who was deeply displeased with the fact that her work was struggling to connect with a mainstream audience, relocated to NYC and began touring the US. During a two year break in which she “retired” as a pop performer and focused on being a pop songwriter, Sia developed a reputation as go-to co-songwriter and songwriter as she’s credited with writing or co-writing songs for and by an incredibly diverse and impressive list of mega-hit artists. A short list of her writing credits include Ne-Yo‘s “Let Me Love You (Until You Learn to Love Yourself),” Rihanna‘s “Diamonds,” Kylie Minogue‘s “Sexercize,” Beyonce‘s “Standing On The Sun,” Katy Perry‘s “Double Rainbow,” Britney Spears‘ “Perfume,” Beyonce’s “Pretty Hurts,” Christina Aguilera‘s “You Lost Me,” Lea Michele‘s “Cannonball,” Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez and Claudia Leitte‘s “We Are One (Ole Ola),” and countless others. (This shouldn’t be terribly surprising as Sia’s sound and aesthetic draws from hip-hop, funk, soul and pop while managing to sound unlike any of her contemporaries.)
Interestingly, Sia’s first taste of international stardom came in a rather unexpected fashion. She initially wrote “Titanium,” for Alicia Keys but the song wound up being sent to EDM superstar David Guetta, who included Sia’s demo vocals on the song and released it as single in 2011. The song was a massive commercial success as it peaked on the top of record charts across the US, Australia and Europe. But it was “Chandelier,” the breakout hit off her sixth, full-length effort, 1000 Forms of Fear was a commercial and critical success. The single was nominated for four Grammys last year — Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop Solo Performance and Best Music Video; and she nabbed several ARIA Awards and MTV Music Awards, which established the Australian-born singer/songwriter as an internationally-recognized star, in the same lines of the artists she had written for during her “retirement.”
Sia’s seventh, full-length album This Is Acting is slated for a January 29, 2016 release, and in an interview with NME, she has mentioned that the forthcoming album is much more pop-orientated than its predecessor. And interestingly enough, the album’s third and latest single “Alive” was co-written by Adele and was intended to be on Adele’s latest album 25. When you hear the song, you can actually hear Adele’s influence on the song — the piano-led introduction and the song’s soaringly anthemic hooks; however, as gorgeous as Adele’s voice is, the song just feels and sounds as though it just had to be Sia’s. Not to say that Adele hasn’t had profound experiences at a young age but lyrically, the song conveys a sense of wisdom, pride and triumph over life’s fucked up circumstances — deprivation (financial and emotional), heartache, despair, loneliness and worse. And when you hear Sia’s voice crack ever so slightly when she sings “I’m still breathing/I’m still breathing/I’m alive,” during the song’s anthemic hook, it feels like a punch right in the ribs or in the solar plexus. Of course similarly to Gloria Gaynor‘s “I Will Survive,” the song possess an infectious “you can and will get through anything/you go-girl” optimism. It’s honestly the sort of song that the women of your life will lustily yell along to while driving to or from the club.
Recently Sia announced a remix package of “Alive” that features remixes and reworks from Maya Jane Coles, AFSHeeN, Boehm, Cahill and fellow Australian, Plastic Plates. In a recent interview with The Fader, the Australian producer was asked how the “Alive” remix came about, and as he explained to the publication, “Sia and I first met in Sydney 2001. Sam Dixon and I shared an apartment in Bondi and Sia crashed at our place. Until 2010, I played drums on Sia’s albums and toured around the world in her band. This is my 3rd remix for Sia, “Cloud” in 2010, “Chandelier” in 2014 and now “Alive.”Given our musical history, reinterpreting Sia’s vocals is effortless and pure joy for me.”
Plastic Plates’ rework turns the torch burning pop song into a slickly produced synth-based club-banger as his production includes stuttering drum programming, cascading synths, wobbling and tumbling low-end, sirens and other assorted bleeps and bloops while retaining the song’s anthemic hooks and Sia’s achingly heartfelt vocals.
New Video: The Gorgeous and Sort of Animated Video for Adam Busch’s “Tiger”
About two weeks ago, I wrote about singer/songwriter Adam Busch and “Tiger” the latest single from his recently released and long-awaited full-length debut, River of Bricks. Busch is probably best known for stints as the frontman and primary […]