Tag: single

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past couple of years, the world renowned soul label, Daptone Records. the label home of the late (and great) Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, has released a series of albums documenting and preserving the spirituals, gospel and church-based music from the Mississippi River Delta region — in particular, the small rural town of Como, MS located in the northern Hill Country, about 50 miles south of Memphis, TN. Historically speaking, the small Northern Mississippi, rural town has long struggled with the legacy of slavery, segregation, discrimination, agricultural decline; however, Como has simultaneously been known as a creative hotbed of sorts, as Fred McDowell, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Napoleon Strickland, Othar Turner, Luther Perkins (best known as Johnny Cash’s guitarist), Joe Henderson and a lengthy list of others have claimed roots in Como, MS.

Now, earlier this year, you may recall that I wrote about The Walker Family Singers’ “Jesus Gave Me Water,” off the familial unit’s debut effort, Panola County Spirit. Comprised of Raymond and Joella Walker, three of their four daughters, Alberta, Patricia and Delouse and their two sons Robert and Booby, the well-regarded gospel quintet not only have a long-held history of preaching and singing the gospel that goes back several generations, the patriarch of the family, Raymond at one point was so well-regarded as a vocalist, that he was once recruited by both Fred McDowell and the legendary Sam Cooke to back them on tour for what would have been a rather significant amount of money. And although seemingly apocryphal, as the story goes, Raymond Walker refused unless McDowell and Cooke gave up singing the blues and took up gospel. McDowell refused and the rest is history. . .

Daptone Records gospel music series continues with Move Upstairs, the forthcoming  effort from the Como, MS-based gospel trio The Como Mamas, slated for a May 19, 2017 release. Comprised of Ester Mae Smith and siblings Angelia Taylor and Della Daniels, the trio have been singing together in church since they were children. Much like Como’s other renowned musicians and vocalists, Della and Angelia come from a distinguished line of musicians themselves — their grandfather would frequently play music on their porch with a group of musicians that included the aforementioned Fred McDowell. In fact, the sisters remember when the famed folklorist and writer Alan Lomax, best known for his Land Where The Blues Was Born, stopped by their home in 1959 to record some of these jam sessions.  Now, interestingly enough with their appearance on The Voices of Panola County: Como Now! and their Get an Understanding, the trio quickly established themselves as an up-and-coming, powerhouse act in contemporary gospel. Interestingly enough, I actually caught the trio play their first show outside of their hometown at the legendary Apollo Theater as part of the Daptone Super Soul Revue back in 2015, an incredible showcase that featured many of the labels top names including Charles Bradley, the aforementioned Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Antibalas and others.

Naturally, taking advantage of the ladies time in New York, the folks at Daptone invited them to the House of Soul Studios to record with a backing band featuring some of the best musicians in their immense stable of musicians — including Jimmy Hill, Thomas Brenneck, Homer Steinweiss and Bosco Mann, who came together as The Glorifiers Band for the Move Upstairs session.

Album title track and first single “Move Upstairs” possesses a raw, dusty, classic blues and R&B-leaning sound — and by that think of Bo Diddley “and Muddy Waters’ Muddy Waters Folk Singer and others — that’s so incredibly period specific, that it sounds as though it were written and recorded sometime in 1947-1954 or so and was somehow surreptitiously discovered by an obsessive record collector. As as the actual song, a churning and propulsive arrangement consisting of guitar, drums and organ that’s comfortable and roomy enough for the Como Mamas using call and response vocals, to belt and shout with joy about how God’s love set them free from life’s drudgery and suffering.  And it’s a song that shuffles and struts as it does so.

Of course, unsurprisingly, much like the Walker Family Singers’ “Jesus Gave Me Water,” the Como Mamas’ makes an obvious yet forceful suggestion — that the the Blues, Rock ‘N’ Roll, R&B and hip-hop can trace their origins in some fashion to the gospels, spirituals and folk music of the Mississippi Delta while actively preserving some of America’s musical traditions.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Rodes Rollins is  Boulder, CO-born pop artist, who has spent time living abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina and now currently splits her time between New York and Los Angeles. Rollins first emerged into the national spotlight with “Young & Thriving,” the first single off her recently released debut EP Young Adult, a single that possessed a wistful sense of nostalgia, along with acceptance and wonder over the circumstances and people that initially seem random and serendipitous, but wind up influencing and dictating the course of your life paired with a sultry, subtly Spaghetti Western-tinged psych pop production.  With the attention “Young & Thriving” received, Rollins followed with the EP’s second single “Wes Come Back,” a single about the artist’s first love, a man who endured hardship throughout his life while reportedly drawing inspiration from Broken Bells and Ennio Morricone.

The EPs their single “Feedback” much like the EP’s previous singles draws from Rollins’ most formative experiences of her youth, told in a sort of nostalgic flashback — with the perspective of someone who now sees how the various decisions, foibles, and events of her life have influenced where she is at this moment. In the case of “Feedback,” the song’s narrator looks back towards a confusing and heartbreaking love affair/fling she had when she was young — and in one way, the song suggests that the narrator’s trust was profoundly shaken, while also hinting that that the experience had shaped how the narrator proceeds in her relationships for better or for worse.

Sonically, the song balances moody atmospherics with a soaring and anthemic hook that gives the song a dramatic ebb and flow, while being roomy enough for Rollins’ sultry and smoky vocals while revealing that the up-and-coming artist can write an infectious hook.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Comprised of David Fairweather and Daniella Kleovoulou, the London, UK-based electro pop duo The Glass Children have developed a reputation for crafting moody yet upbeat, 80s synth pop-inspired electro pop featuring lush production and etheral production as you would have heard on  the uptempo single “Undone,” which was remixed by JOVM mainstays Moonbabies. Now it’s been some time since I’ve written about the London-based electro pop duo but their latest single “Anything Else” will further cement their reptuation as the single consiss of a sparse, miminalist production featuring stuttering drum programming, ambient and shimmering synths paired with Kleovoulou’s etheral vocals floating over a Portishead/Goldfrapp-inspired mix.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the better part of the past 6-9 months or so, you’d likely be familiar with JOVM mainstay producer and electronic music artist KC Maloney, and although he’s best known as being one-half of renowned electro pop act Radar Cult,  Maloney has received an increasing national profile with the release of last year’s LXII EP with his solo side project Adult Karate, a project that expands upon the sound of his primary project a is it draws from several different styles and sub-genres of electronic music — including house, acid house, techno, ambient electronica and others. And building upon the buzz that LXII received, Maloney’s Adult Karate follow up Indoors is slated for a March 31, 2017 and the effort will reportedly see Maloney’s side project taking on a decided sonic departure as the material generally possesses elements of post-punk and post-rock reminiscent of mid 80s New Order and In Ghost Colours-era Cut Copy.

“From The Dust,” Indoors‘ first single while being a marked sonic departure, also managed to be a thematic departure as the song is less introspective than the material off LXII; however, the song possessed a swaggering confidence — the sort of confidence that can only come from living a fully-lived in life, in which the song’s narrator has had his heart broken made mistakes, and has found some hard-fought wisdom, by living life in his own terms. And Maloney does all of this in what may arguably be one of the breeziest songs he’s released to date.  The EP’s latest single “Friction” consists of an ethereal, Kate Bush meets contemporary electro pop production featuring featuring thumping 808-like beats, swirling yet ambient electronics and twangy blasts of guitar, shimmering cascades of synths and a swooning hook paired with Maloney’s and Adeline’s breathy cooing. Lyrically, the song continues in a similar vein as its preceding single; but in this case, the song captures the sensation of attempting to break forward from heartbreak or a dysfunctional past, towards a new relationship — with the hope that this time, that blind leap of faith will be result in something different than all the previous ones.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of “Now I’m Alive,” the first single off his forthcoming Refugee EP, the fairly mysterious Tel Aviv, Israel-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer O Mer has been compared to the James Blake, Tame Impala and Arthur Russell; however, the Tel Aviv, Israel-born, Brooklyn-based producer has cited renowned Malian singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ali Farka Toure, father of equally renowned Malian singer/songwriter and guitarist Vieux Farka Toure, Greek vocalist Aris San, The Yardbirds and others. “Icarus,” the second and latest single off his forthcoming EP features O Mer’s ethereal and tender vocals paired with a stark and haunting production that features stuttering drum programming, shimmering, arpeggio synth chords. The song manages to evoke a fractured psyche ruled primarily by a visceral and uncomfortable amount of regret and self-loathing while to my ears slightly nodding to Bonobo and others.

Check out upcoming tour dates, below.

Tour Dates

03/16 – Alphaville – Brooklyn, NY
05/27 – Rockwood Music Hall – New York, NY

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Charlie Mischer is  Los Angeles, CA-born, Brooklyn-based jazz drummer and electronic producer and artist, who has written and recorded several singles last year under the name Paideia that received attention across the blogosphere; in fact, “Restless Child” was featured on Idolator’s Top 16 Alt-Pop Songs of the Year (So Far) playlist. Under the moniker Charles Fauna, Mischer further cement his growing profile for crafting thoughtful singer/songwriter-leaning electronic music — and as you’ll hear on Mischer’s latest single “Hypnosis” Mischer pairs lyrics that describe both a change in mentality and embracing the vulnerability that comes up by challenging your own point of view with a house music-leaning production featuring arpeggio-like piano chords, stuttering drum programming and swirling synths and electronics. And all of that gives the song a swooning, reeling urgency — the sort of urgency that comes when one’s established worldview is rocked by uncertainty.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of founding members Ryan Walker (guitar) and Alex Hartman (bass), along with Suki San (vocals), the Los Angeles, CA-based post-punk trio Second Still can trace their origins to when Walker and Hartman met in 2007 in Los Angeles. By the time Walker and Hartman relocated to New York in 2011, they had recorded over 100 instrumental demos, which were largely inspired by French coldwave and No Wave. And as the story goes, after the band’s founding duo, while in New York they searched high and low for a vocalist that they felt could match their intensity and creative output, eventually meeting Suki San, with whom they felt an instant simpatico.

The trio’s first show was a party at the now-condemned McKibbin Street Lofts that was famously shut down by the police during their set’s second song. And building upon the buzz of that incident, the band recorded their debut EP, Early Forms, which was released last March as a limited edition cassette that quickly sold out.  While they were living in Brooklyn, the members of the band wrote the material, which would eventually comprise their forthcoming, self-titled, full-length debut — and the material on the album thematically covers deeply post-modern subjects: depression, frustration, anxiety and alienation. And before they all relocated to Los Angeles in November 2015, the members of the band hunkered down at Brooklyn’s Studio G and Seaside Lounge Studios to record their Hilary Johnson co-produced debut in two days.

Interestingly, between the release of their debut EP and their forthcoming album, they released “Walls,” a single that revealed that the material on their self-titled album would be a decided sonic departure from their EP; in fact, as you’ll hear on their album’s latest single “Recover,” the band’s sound nods to 80s post-punk — in particular Sixousie and the Banshees as San’s gorgeous vocals, which to my ears bear an uncanny resemblance to Sixousie Sioux’s are paired with angular and shimmering guitar chords played through reverb and delay pedal, a propulsive bass line and stark, industrial-leaning drum programming. And as a result, the song simultaneously possesses a brooding chilliness and a motorik groove.

The band will be touring up and down the Pacific Coast around the time of the album’s official release. Check out tour dates below.

TOUR DATES

03.30 – The Acerogami – Pomona, CA
03.31 – Venue TBD – La Puente, CA
04.01 – Venue TBD –  San Diego, CA
04.04 – The Knockout – San Francisco, CA
04.05 – Starlight Lounge – Sacramento, CA
04.06 – Venue TBD – Oakland, CA
04.07 – Out From The Shadows Festival – Portland, OR
04.08 – The Black Lodge – Seattle, WA
04.16 – Part Time Punks @ The Echo – Los Angeles, CA

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Rudie Edwards is an up-and-coming Dover, UK-born, Kent, UK-based singer/songwriter and producer, who has been influenced by a wide range of music including disco, Joy Division, gospel, Ray Charles and others. And although Edwards became obsessed with making music, she recognized that she had to move out of Dover. “It’s a very small town,” the up-and-coming British singer/songwriter and producer says in press notes. “I knew I had to move out of there. Music was the easiest way for me to escape. My sisters and I were the only mixed race kids at school. It’s a beautiful place, but i knew it wasn’t where i was going to be spend the rest of my life. i was bursting at the seams. I needed more. I wanted more. I was longing for the stage. I had to get to London.”

Edwards eventually relocated to London, where she attended the renowned BRIT School, the alma mater of Adele, Amy Winehouse, Imogen Heap and others. By 2012, Edwards’ music career had started in earnest as she was splitting her time between Los Angeles and London, writing for CeeLo Green, Erik Hassle, Beatrice Eli and others. And with her later single “Lover Like You,” Edwards reveals that as a solo artist, her material is fueled by a sensual, hold nothing back confidence and a sassiness that’s reminiscent of I Feel For You-era Chaka Khan while simultaneously  drawing from 80s synth pop, disco, soul and contemporary synth pop — and in a way that’s reminiscent of Escort‘s Adeline Michele. More important, the song is a slickly produced and seductive, club banger featuring layers of arpeggio synths, electronic bleeps and bloops, an 80s-like guitar solo, stomping beats and an infectiously  anthemic hook; it’s the sort of song you’d fully expect to lustily shout along with at the club around 2am.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Nathan Lithow (vocals, bass), known as a touring and recording bassist for My Brightest Diamond, Inlets, and Gabriel and the Hounds; and Garth Macaleavey (drums), a former Inlets touring percussionist and head sound engineer at Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s newest and intimate National Sawdust, the Brooklyn-based post-punk duo NØMADS incubated and forged a sound and songwriting process that owes a debt to Nirvana, Fugazi and Girls Against Boys — while subtly updating it in a way that reminds me of Zack De La Rocha’s post-Rage Against the Machine project, One Day As A Lion and Japandroids.

The duo received some attention with the release of their 2014 full-length debut, Free My Animal, an effort that reportedly drew from Death From Above 1979 and Queens of the Stone Age. After a year hiatus from touring and recording, the Brooklyn-based duo have re-emerged with new material off their newest effort, PHOBIAC, a conceptual collection of 12 songs, based on a different phobia — all approached in a very abstract, almost clinical fashion, capturing the inner thoughts of someone in the grips of their own fears. But just underneath the frantic, paranoid and irrational surface is a rather cautionary and rational message — that when we succumb to irrational fears, chaos will ultimately be the end of result. And with the current sociopolitical climate, the Brooklyn-based duo’s newest material is incredibly fitting and necessary, especially in light of the fact that there are large groups of people, who are currently ruled by their fears of “the other,” to the point of actually endangering everyone.

Each song off the album will be released every month over the next year, with the full album being released in 2018. The album’s latest single “Achluphobia” focuses on a fear of darkness, and throughout you can feel the narrator’s palpable and overwhelmingly primal dread and fear as darkness begins to envelope everything around him  — and it’s further emphasized by angular and forceful bass chords, thundering and propulsive drumming and Lithgow’s growled vocals. But the subliminal message of the song is that fear turns something that’s perfectly natural and normal into something horrible and dangerous.

 

 

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Samuel Joseph Kim is a Canadian-born, San Francisco, CA-based singer/songwriter producer and multi-instrumentliast, arguably best known as a member of San Francisco-based band Museums and for a solo recording experimental side project, Mount Vermont. He also works as a freelance soundtrack composer, who has clients like Canon, Deloitte, TED, and others. Kim also recently released material under his own birth name — and that music as he describes on his website “is an evolving blend of organic guitars and electronic experimentation. Whatever the instrumentation or approach, it retains its melodic and emotive nature: haunting, intimate and sincere.”

“Gone” the EP opening single off Kim’s 2016 effort Lost/Found EP is a hazy post-punk-inspired song featuring a sinuous bass line, lush, swirling layers of shimmering synths and precise drum programming paired with Kim’s crooning vocals. Sonically speaking, the song nods at The Harrow, the 4AD Records sound, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division and others and while possessing a similar swooning and urgent Romanticism — and much like its (presumed) influences, the song focuses on visceral and profound heartache and confusion that has enveloped its narrator.