Tag: Single Review

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay LutchamaK Shares Hypnotic “Lunar Ascending”

French electronic music producer and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK has had a busy 2024: 

  • The JOVM mainstay began the year with a two-track release through Techno Parade titled Job Done, which featured “Job Done,” a glitchy and swaggering bit of techno meets footwork featuring machine gun-like skittering beats, glistening synth arpeggios paired with tweeter and woofer rattling thump. It’s an accessible and euphoric club banger meant to be played loudly and meant to encourage you to dance and sweat.

  • He followed that up with Flip the Funk, a four-track EP, which was digitally released through British electronic label Biotech Recordings and featured EP track “Pride,” a lush and soulful bit of deep house-meets-techno that reminded me of house music nights on WBLS back in the day. 

  • Then there was the standalone track, “Acid Drift” a slick, seamless synthesis of tribal house, deep house and drum ‘n’ bass that slaps hard while being dance floor friendly, which was released through Rue des Trois Rois Records.

  • Over the summer, he released the eight-track mini album  Great Broken Masses of Land through his own TERMusik. The album featured album opener and album title track “Great Broken Masses of Land,” a trance-inducing, late night, club banger anchored around skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump and dense layers of oscillating yet melodic synths, a chopped up mantra-like vocal sample paired with his unerring knack for incredibly catchy hooks. “City Energy,” a crowd pleasing, club banger featuring glitchy oscillations, bursts of glistening synths and some industrial, tweeter and woofer rattling thump that showcases an artist, who actively pushes his sound and approach in new directions, while still remaining wildly accessible. And “B Queen V 2,” which featured glitchy oscillations, bursts of glistening and melodic synths, skittering beats and remarkably catchy hooks paired with a dreamy vocal sample.

The wildly prolific, French JOVM mainstay recently released the 4-track Lunar Ascending EP through Brique Rouge. The EP’s first single, EP title and opening track “Lunar Ascending” is a woozily hypnotic banger that’s heavily indebted to Detroit house and a bit of Tour de France-era Kraftwerk.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Droid Metal Share sultry Debut “Pleather”

Giuliano Pizzulo is a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and musician, whose career started in earnest with a stint in the acclaimed indie rock outfit Incan Abraham, an act that received praise from the likes of Pitchfork, NPR and Spin. Since then Pizzulo has spent the past decade as a touring musician for Lorde, Childish Gambino and Passion Pit.

Pizzulo’s solo recording project, Droid Metal sees the acclaimed Los Angeles-based musician crafting a sound that meshes elements of 90s rave music, industrial electronica and pop. His Droid Metal debut “Pleather” is a synthesis of Downward Spiral-era Nine Inch Nails and Tweekend-era The Crystal Method and JOVM mainstay Blak Emoji featuring dense layers of woozy synths and skittering breakbeats paired with Pizzulo’s sultry falsetto.

The acclaimed Los Angeles-based artist explains that the song came out of a dance with a dangerous muse that took him to some new, illicit places both literally and metaphorically.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Somos el Viento Returns with Forceful and Cinematic “Exodus”

Spanish-born and-based producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist Óliver del Barrio is the creative mastermind being the solo recording project Somos el Viento. And with his Somos el Viento full-length debut, Mar Negro, del Barrio quickly establishes a lushly layered and expansive soundscape that blends post-rock, space rock and ambient music. 

Mar Negro’s second and latest single “Exodus” is a slick synthesis of  Collapse Under the Empire and Mogwai-like post rock, metal and space rock within a cinematic soundscape.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Somos el Viento Shares Broodingly Cinematic “Fragments”

Spanish-born and-based producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist Óliver del Barrio is the creative mastermind being the solo recording project Somos el Viento. And with his Somos el Viento full-length debut, Mar Negro, del Barrio quickly establishes a lushly layered and expansive soundscape that blends post-rock, space rock and ambient music.

Mar Negro‘s latest single “Fragments” is a brooding and cinematic composition that sonically reminds me a bit of Collapse Under the Empire, Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, The Octopus Project and others while displaying an artist, who can craft an immersive and meditative soundscape.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: French Punks Seesters Share a Politically-Charged Ripper

Emerging French garage psych/psych punks Seesters — The Parisians‘ and Crush of Souls‘ Stevan Dinet and Sam Kaperski — pair political lyrics with garage and psych inspired sounds. Their second single “Gash” is a noisy and forceful ripper that brings a synthesis of The MC5, The White Stripes and The Stooges.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Laura Carbone Shares Brooding “Red Velvet Fruit”

Berlin-based singer/songwriter, guitarist, photographer and JOVM mainstay Laura Carbone‘s third album The Cycle was released earlier this year. The album, which debuted on North American college radio at #19 on the NACC Top Adds Chart, is a concept album that explores the emotional turmoil, triumphs and transformative experiences that the album’s protagonist experiences through the course of the passing seasons of a year. 

Each song of the represents an experience or inspiration associated with that particular season and the story of the album’s protagonist. 

Over the past handful of months, I’ve written about three of the album’s singles:

  • “Horses,” a slow-burning song built around lush and shimmering acoustic guitar, Carbone’s expressive and yearning delivery, paired with a supple bass line and dramatic drumming. Sonically bringing PJ Harvey’s “You Said Something” to mind, the song is set in the fullness of summer. The song’s protagonist is experiencing the heat, humidity and passion of the season — when fields become gold and heatwaves and wildfires turn them into ash. But there’s a reminder that Mother Earth will restore and reclaim burnt ground in time. 

  • “The Good,” a breathtakingly gorgeous song featuring shimmering and reverb soaked guitar, a supple and sinuous bass line, gently padded drumming and bursts of soaring organ serving as a lush bed for Carbone’s expressive vocal. At its core, the song is rooted in the lived-in personal experience and hard-fought, harder-won wisdom of someone who has lived a full, messy and complicated life. And a result the song is profoundly empathetic and understanding examination of human behavior that seems to say “I’ve been there, too.” Carbone explains that the track looks at our puzzling capacity for denial — not just of the truth, but of the embrace and love we owe ourselves. 

  • “Silver Rain,” a bittersweet ballad anchored around a propulsive rhythm section, shimmering reverb-soaked guitars, a cathartic hook serving as a lush bed for Carbone’s expressive, soulful vocal. While seemingly channelling Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea-era PJ Harvey, “Silver Rain,” as Carbone explains explores the relief a break-up can bring and the room in our hearts that such a bittersweet letting go creates.

The Cycle‘s latest single “Red Velvet Fruit” is a slow-burning, hauntingly gorgeous track anchored around a brooding and dramatic piano melody that seems locked in a velvety embrace with Carbone’s resonant yet ethereal delivery, which express the longing, frustration, heartache and shame that come about when one submits to temptation. But at its core, is the tacit understanding that the temptation may lead to one’s own demise — whether literally or figuratively.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Frenchie Teams Up with Frida Touray on Soulful “Love Reservoir”

Today has been a difficult day. Work has just felt stupid and next to impossible. I suspect that’ll be the case for the next few days. Pretending that things are normal and that any of this make sense right now,. is just fucking wrong. But here we are.

Initially, receiving praise from the likes of The Line of Best Fit, Clash Magazine and airplay from the BBC 6 Music’s Jamz Supernova, Jazz FM, Reprezent Radio, BBC London and BBC Introducing with the moniker, The Naked Eye, acclaimed French-born, London-based singer/songwriter Frenchie will be releasing her self-titled debut on March 28, 2025.

Produced by one of the UK’s leading lights in the jazz scene, Femi Teomowo, who has worked as a producer, guitarist, arranger and composer for the likes of Amy Winehouse, SAULT and Gregory Porter, the rising French-born, British-based artist’s highly-anticipated debut will see her collaborating with an all-star cast of some of the UK’s most talented musicians and vocalists, including Corinne Bailey Rae‘s and Chaka Khan‘s Luke Smith (keys), KOKOROKO‘s Ayo Salawu (drums), Hohnen Ford (vocals) and Frida Touray (vocals), along with additional instrumental and production contributions from Aaron Taylor, Alex Maydew, Chris Hyson and Jas Kayser.

The full-length album sees the acclaimed artist continuing to draw inspiration from the likes of Cleo Sol, Lauryn Hill, Khraungbin, Minnie Riperton, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Bob Dylan and The Meters to craft a sound that traverses soul, jazz and alternative R&B paired with honest, heartfelt emotion.

The album’s latest single “Love Reservoir,” a collaboration with Swedish-born, London-based artist Frida Touray is a slow-burning, Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu-meets Soul II Soul-like take on soul, anchored around a strutting bass line, glistening Rhodes, ethereal bursts of harp, and skittering boom bap serving as a lush bed for Frida Touray’s soulful delivery and a French spoken word bridge by the acclaimed French-born, London-based artist.

Inspired by the work of SAULT, the new single thematically addresses a desire to replenish the emotional stocks of relationship, pulling things back from the brink.

“‘Love Reservoir’ lyrically explores the theme of seeking to refuel and revitalise a relationship’s emotional reservoir, symbolising a desire to overcome challenges and nurture love and connection,” Frenchie explains. “Femi and I wrote the song together – and I knew I wanted my talented friend Frida Touray to feature on the track. When she came down to record her vocals, the song was elevated to a whole new level.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Terrain Vague Shares Breezy “Funambule”

French indie duo Terrain Vague — Marion and Valentin — can trace their origins back to when the pair met at a party in Southern France. During that party, the pair talked about their common passions for Michel Berger, Haruomi Hosono, Elli and Jacno, Bonnie Banane, Véronique Sanson and André Breton’s poetry.

The following day, they texted with each other with “our duo should be called Terrain Vague.”

Terrain Vague’s latest single “Funambule,” is a breezy and mischievous synthesis of krautorck, psychedelia, 70s library music and tropicalia featuring glistening and arpeggiated analog synths, a fluttering flute line, bursts of angular guitar and a propulsive, motorik-meets-70s am rock-like groove paired with dreamy vocal melodies and harmonies singing lyrics inspired by the board game Snakes and Ladders. While sonically “Funambule” may draw comparisons to Laure Briard, Corridor, Pavo Pavo, and others, with a hint of wistful nostalgia, the song as the duo explains is inspired by the a member’s father, a former clown and magician, who spent his life walking a fine line.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Jody Vukas Shares Soulful and Euphoric “Set Me Free”

Since the late 90s, electronic music label head and artist Jody Vukas has been a mainstay in the American electronic music scene for a sound that features elements of tribal house, progressive house, tech house and techno. Vukas’ latest single “Set Me Free” is a melodic and soulful bit of house, featuring dense layers of shimmering and arpeggiated synths, skittering tribal-influenced beats paired with a sultry, pop starlet vocal and Vukas’ uncanny knack for catchy, euphoria-inducing hooks.

“‘Set Me Free’ is a modern day spin- off of the early 2000s vibes,” Vukas explains.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Technasia Shares Euphoric “Together We Shine”

Technasia is a renowned French electronic music artist, who is known for a swinging take on tech house and high-energy performances. After a two-year hiatus from music, the renowned French artist launched his own label Humans Alike, which marks a new chapter in his acclaimed career.

His latest single “Together We Shine,” is one of the labels first releases, and it’s a slick and hypnotic synthesis of French touch, 90s house and breakbeats anchored around euphoric hooks and a soulful, chopped up vocal hook. It’s a fun club banger that brings memories of Stardust‘s “Music Sounds Better With You” and others.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Charles “Wigg” Walker Shares Optimistic, Two Step-Inducing “(Feels Like) Things Are Comin’ Our Way”

Tracing the origins of his nearly eight decade-long career back to when he began singing at an early age in church and then later in school, Nashville-born and-based soul singer/songwriter Charles “Wigg” Walker released his first single back in 1959 through Ted Jarrett‘s legendary and beloved Champion Records.

Walker relocated to New York, where he became a frontman for the J.C. Davis Band, an outfit that shared bills with James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Etta James, Otis Redding and Sam Cooke. His first group, Little Charles and the Sidewinders because a New York nightclub scene staple in the early 1960s, and would then go on to record and release material through Chess and Decca Records.

After spending over a decade on the road, Walker took a staff writing role with Motown in the 70s. By the start of the 80, Walker relocated to Europe. where continued to find enthusiastic audiences. But the blues, R&B and soul revival movements that started in the 90s ultimately brought Walker back to Nashville.

This Love Is Gonna Last is the first album from the Nashville-born and-based soul artist in over a decade, while also being the first album since his stint fronting The Dynamites in the early 2010s. Recorded with longtime organist and collaborator Charles Treadway, the album’s material reportedly shifts seamlessly between different and distinct ears of soul, bouncing from Philly to Motown, to Memphis and more. The album’s richly lush arrangements are owed to Walker’s chemistry with his core backing trio — Treadway, along with Chet Atkins‘s and Lyle Lovett‘s Pat Bergeson (guitar) and Average White Band‘s and Tom Jones‘ Pete Abbott (drums).

While superficially joyous, thematically, the album’s material is underpinned by the wizened and insightful recognition of our own impending and inevitable morality, of time’s inexorable march, and the lessons and losses that come with all of it.

Underneath the album’s joyful truce, there’s the wizened recognition of time’s inexorable march, of our own mortality and the lessons and losses that come with it. In fact, the album is a dedication to Walker’s late wife, who died earlier this year.

Ultimately, the album reportedly is the sort of album he’s been building towards for his entire lengthy career, and a showcase not only for his vocal, but also for the unparalleled emotional range that’s defined his work for over 50 years. Now, with his unflagging faith and dedication as the bedrock of This Love Is Gonna Last, Walker may finally be getting his due. “I feel more appreciated now than ever,” he says. “There’s something different about this album. It just feels right.”

This Love Is Gonna Last‘s first single “(Feels Like) Things Are Comin’ Our Way” is the perfect tune for your grandma and grandpa or your uncle and auntie to sweetly sway and two-step together at a Black barbecue or a Black wedding. Those of y’all, who know, know what I’m talking about and can immediate picture it in your mind’s eye. Sonically resembling a slick synthesis of Luther Vandross‘ “Never Too Much,” Keni Burke‘s “Risin’ To The Top,” The Isley Brothers‘ legendary 70s output and gospel, “(Feels Like) Things Are Comin’ Our Way” is a sweetly earnest and school declaration of the sort of love that we all long for — the love that’s there with you, through the ups, downs and everything in between.

“This song sums up this whole album for me really,” says Walker about the new single. “After all the places I’ve been and all the bands I’ve performed with and all the recordings I’ve made, it feels like things are finally starting to come my way.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Micheal Ellsworth Shares Club Thumping “Lantern”

Michael Ellsworth is an emerging electronic music producer and artist. His latest single “Lantern” is a woozy, deep house banger, anchored around scorching synths, tweeter and woofer rattling skittering beats and a seasonal vocal sample […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bad Robot Shares Spooky House Banger “Zombie Process”

Micheal Ricker is a Delaware-based electronic music producer and artist best known as Bad Robot. Over the course of hit year, I’ve written about a small handful of Ricker’s Bad Robot material, including:

  • The aptly named “Supermassive,” which features skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling thump, scorching bass synths and a woozy and wobbling synth melody. Fittingly, it’s the sort of club and festival banger that sounds as though it should knock a building over. 

  • “Close To You,” which according to Ricker, is “a bit of a departure into a brighter, more ‘pop’ sounding progressive house style.” Built around an almost mantra-like glistening synth phrase, shimmering synth arpeggios and skittering beats, the motorik-like “Close To You” is both summery and remarkably catchy, while seemingly nodding at Discovery-era Daft Punk-like French touch.

  • Max Blücher‘s remix of Year One single “Aero III.” The Blücher remix retains the original’s woozy polymeric melody but pairs it with more aggressive, skittering tweeter and woofer rattling thump, some brief bursts of industrial clang and clatter, and some ethereal synths that create a spacey, house music feel. “Inspired by the gritty sound design and frantic polymetric melodies of my original track ‘Aero III,’ Max has taken the musical DNA and infused it with his own. While the original is great, Max definitely improved the quality of the track with his production skills and imagination,” Ricker explains. “This house remix is an ethereal journey through space and time with elements of Deadmau5 that are felt even in the cover artwork.”

Ricker’s latest single “Zombie Process” is an another deep house banger featuring tweeter and woofer thumping beats, scorching synths and a horror movie sample that’s perfect for the spooky season. Dress up in your scariest, bloodiest costume and hit the dance floor y’all.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Jaco Jaco Shares Breezy and Funky “Favorite Kind of People”

Tulsa-born, Philadelphia-based musician and visual artist Jacob Theriot’s career began in earnest when he began writing and recording music in grade school with his brother and childhood friend. Those early efforts led to the acclaimed […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: BUÑUEL Shares a Furiously Primal Ripper

BUÑUEL — OXBOW‘s Eugene S. Robinson, Afterhours and A Short Apnea‘s Xabier Iriondo (guitar), The Framers‘ Andrea Lombardini (bass) and Il Teatro Degli Orrori’s Franz Valente (drums) — is a transatlantic supergroup that specializes in heavy music that’s been described as beautiful, merciless and unforgiving. 

Creatively, the band has always been led by instinct and the id-like impulse to expressed completely unfiltered and unvarnished emotion through song. And through their close musical alliance, they’ve displayed a seemingly innate ability to craft material that warps and buckles with complexity, freedom, tenderness and primeval energy — simultaneously. 

“BUÑUEL is a name that embodies a certain cultural and literary reference, which evokes an entire world,” the band’s Franz Valente says. “Like his films, our Buñuel is surrealism. We take the listeners into a place that’s suspended between dream and reality.” Eugene S. Robinson adds “What we’re doing with BUÑUEL is to carve out a very specific glimpse… partly into hearts of darkness, but more specifically into the depth of our secrets. Secrets we keep from each other, ourselves and whatever futures we’ve imagined for ourselves. We are ultimately trying to communicate something direct and deadly about the human condition.”

Slated for an October 25, 2024 release through SKiN Graft Records and OVERDRIVE Records, the transatlantic supergroup’s latest album, the Timo Ellis-produced Mansuetude derives its title from an archaic word, which means “meekness’ or “gentleness.” Certainly, for a band known for being punishingly heavy, the title seems like an ironic juxtaposition. Firmly anchored in the band’s long-held penchant for surrealism, the album reportedly sees the band taking every opportunity they can to stretch their musical tendrils towards discomfort and the deconstruction of tradition, all while reaching absolute abandon. Sonically, the album’s material encompasses many moods — sometimes simultaneously — while blurring elements of post-hardcore, avant-noise, hard blues, post-industrial, symphonic thrash, metal and free-jazz, played at great cost. The record is, in Robinson’s words “extreme but articulate.” 

The album also features guest spots from Converge‘s Jacob Bannon (vocals), The Jesus Lizard‘s Tomahawk‘s and The Denison Kimball Trio‘s Duane Denison (guitar), Andrea Beninati (cello) and David Binney(alto sax, vocals). 

Earlier this month, I wrote about “Class,” an urgent, amygdala-driven teeth-bared, id-fueled ripper built around Robinson’s primal shouts and howls, thunderous drumming and scorching riffage. Seemingly featuring elements of heavy metal, No Wave, thrash punk and noise rock, “Class” sonically seems like a forceful synthesis of Boris, Bo Ningen, The Stooges and several others while being deliriously artful. But underpinning it all, the song is rooted in incisive socioeconomic criticism that’s furious yet very funny. “America is schizophrenic about class and class attributes,” BUÑUEL’s Robinson explains. “On the one hand we claim it doesn’t exist here, on the other hand like Paul Fussell lays out in his book on class it works its way through every aspect of American life and living. The song itself eviscerates the notion by placing it where it most needs to be placed: in the iD fuelled [sic] underworld.”

Mansuetude‘s latest single “American Steel” features The Jesus Lizard’s, Tomahawk’s and the Denison Kimball Trio’s Duane Denison continues a run of unhinged, amygdala-driven, id-fueled rippers anchored around Robinson’s primal shouts and howls, thunderous drumming and scorching riffage. Sounding much like a man, who has gone absolutely mad, “American Steel” captures a certain kind of power madness with the song pays tribute to something particularly American: our love of big bore hemis, assault weapons, tanks, violence and Harleys.

Duane Denison says. “Eugene Robinson’s vocals have the effect of listening to a desperately flailing drowning man, and my guitar serves as a malfunctioning floatation device–it never quite makes it long enough to provide actual safety.”