Tag: singles

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Funk Legend Steve Arrington Releases a Shimmering and Much-Needed Bit of Spiritual Uplift

Dayton, OH-born and-based singer/songwriter and drummer, Steve Arrington got his start with the acclaimed Dayton-based funk and soul act Slave in the 70s, eventually becoming known for singing lead vocals on the act’s smash hits “Watching You,” and “Just a Touch of Love.” Continuing an incredible run of professional success, Arrington went solo, releasing a handful of albums before leaving the secular music world in 1991 to focus on spiritual and ministerial work.

As Arrington focused on the spiritual matters, an impressive and eclectic array of artists have been influenced by his work, with artists like Jay-Z, A Tribe Called Quest, Pharrell, 2Pac, Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J, Mariah Carey, N.W.A. and a lengthy list of others sampling his work in Slave and as a solo artist.

After nearly two decades away, Arrington returned to secular music in 2009 with the release of that year’s Pure Thang, which he followed up with 2013’s collaborative album with Dam-Funk, Higher, released through Stones Throw Records. Since then the Dayton-born and-based funk legend has had a number of attention-grabbing guest spots and collaborations with Snoop Dogg, Kool Moe Dee, George Clinton, and Thundercat.

The funk legend’s first solo full-length album in 11 years, Down To The Lowest Terms: The Soul Sessions is slated for a Friday release through Stones Throw Records, and the album reportedly sees Arrington finding peace with himself and God, while casting an easygoing yet razor-sharp critical eye on the world around him. Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few months, you may recall that I’ve written about two of the album’s previously released singles: the slow-burning Quiet Storm-like pimp strut “Soulful I Need That In My Life,” a song that offered prescriptive advice for listeners in a time of heightened anxiety, uncertainty, stress and despair — and proud and defiantly hopeful and shimmering “Make a Difference,” which reminds the listener that while we have achieved so much, we still have a lot of hard work to do to achieve Martin Luther King’s and John Lewis’ vision of America.

“The Joys of Love,” Down to the Lowest Terms’ fourth and latest single is a shimmering, neo-soul strut, centered around twinkling Rhodes, boom bap-like drumming, an infectious two step-inducing hook and Arrington’s imitable crooning. Considering the bleak and unending Kafkaesque hellscape that is our current world, this song is frankly a much-needed blast of spiritual uplift.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay LutchamaK Releases a Swaggering Banger

I’ve managed to spill quite of virtual ink covering the French electronic music artist, producer and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK over the past year. And as you may recall, the French JOVM mainstay grew up as a voracious music listener and fan with eclectic and wide-ranging tastes that include hip-hop, rock. techno and countless others. As a solo artist, LutchamaK’s work is deeply influenced by and generally draws from techno — but while reflecting his lifelong devotion to eclecticism: his work generally possesses elements of techno, deep house and EDM among other electronic music genres and subgenres.

During that same year period, LutchamaK has been incredibly prolific, releasing new material through an increasing number of EPs, standalone singles and a couple of albums, which now includes his latest album. the recently released Moments. The French electronic music artist and producer has released three singles off the album, and I’ve already written about two of them — the album’s opening track Moment,” and “Their Future.” The album’s third single “Won’t Be Scared” continues a run of sleek, futuristic productions. Centered around rapid fire, stuttering beats, glistening synths and a sultry vocal sample, the JOVM mainstays latest club banger manages to add a hip hop-like swagger to an enormous house anthem.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Led by frontman Zac Woolery, the London-based post-punk act DEADLETTER emerged into the national scene with the release of their debut single “Good Old Days” earlier this year, which received airplay on regional BBC and BBC 6. Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the rising London-based act’s second single “Fit For Work” is an angry, attention-grabbing track featuring the angular guitar attack that recalls Entertainment!-era Gang of Four, centered around an alternating quiet verses, a No Wave-like, explosive chorus and call-and-response vocals.

Although the song has a decidedly British point of view, the song thematically focuses on our seemingly unending Kafkaesque hellscape of cruelly indifferent bureaucrats, and ridiculous laws and regulations that crush dreams, hopes and lives — in particular, governments and institutions that force people to work in the most absurd situations to get by — or to get a little bit of money from the government. “‘Fit For Work’ was a concept a long time before it was a song,” DEADLETTER’s Zac Woolery explains in press notes. “As a band, and as a writer, we [I] have always regarded the call and response strategy as biblical. The idea of having a conversation during the delivery of art leads to this absurd metaphysical tangent of acknowledging your art is art whilst performing it; similar to when artists use the line “I wrote this song for you because…” what they are doing, when you think about it, is taking away the idea that what they’re creating exists in itself, and is in fact an entity that exists in a wholly real world.

“As a song, “Fit For Work” is about more than just the Department for Work and Pensions. It provides a mirror to the world, and specifically the Britain of today.  The ideas explored within the track are seemingly exaggerated accounts of reality but, upon close examination, have worrying roots in true experience, with the track aiming to parallel the savagery of the narrator in the song with the actual brutality of our government.

“The declaration of someone as ‘Fit For Work’ is symptomatic of the apathy and bureaucratic cruelty prevalent in society, where being unable to meet a certain ticked number of boxes (either literally or metaphorically), equates to the surrender of personal autonomy, and by extension, individual identity.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Memphis’ Optic Sink Releases a Tense and Neurotic New Single

Optic Sink — Nots’ Natalie Hoffmann and Ben Bauermeister — is a Memphis-based act that specializes in a genre-defying sound that morphs from cold wave to psychedelia to distorted noise rock, often within the same song. Thematically and sonically, the duo fragment and reassemble sounds, concepts and verbal constructs while attempting to find beauty in the journey despite what the final resolution may be.

The duo’s self-titled debut is slated for an October 2, 2020 release through Goner Records — and the album’s second and latest single “Exhibitionist” is a tense and minimalist track centered around arpeggiated synths and chintzy Casio-like metronomic beats paired with Hoffmann’s insouciant delivery. And at its core, is an uncertain and neurotic narrator, who’s rightfully a bit paranoid. “From the pressure to constantly commodify yourself, market yourself, appear to be a certain thing –– the BEST thing –– on social media, to the cold machine eye on the other side that is always watching, taking notes, fitting all of us neatly into its algorithm, and selling this idea of the best version of ourselves back to us,” Optic Sink’s Hoffman explains. “And the overwhelming evidence is that we’re buying it, but what are we actually paying for it?”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially founded in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico by Estrella del Sol Sanchez and Amor Amezcua, the Mexican shoegazer act Mint Field quickly received international attention with the release of their debut EP Primeras Salidas, eventually playing sets across the North American festival circuit, including Coachella and SXSW, as well as venues across both the States and their native Mexico. Building upon a growing profile, Mint Field’s full-length debut, 2018’s Pasar De Las Luces found the act establishing a clearer sense of what they wanted to do sonically — primarily, as a result of finally having access to the tools to do so. The end result was an album’s worth of material that drew from dream pop, krautrock, stoner rock and shoegaze, imbued with sorrow and nostalgia.

The past couple of years since the release of Pasar De Las Luces has been rather eventful for the Mexican shoegazer act: they’ve toured extensively across the North America and the European Union, playing over 100 shows. Continuing that momentum, the band recorded Pasar De Las Luces’ follow-up, last year’s  Mientras Esperas EP, which they supported with further touring across the States, Canada and Mexico — with two sold out shows in Mexico City.

During that same period, the band relocated to Mexico City and upon relocating to the Mexican capital, the band went through a massive lineup change: Amor Amezcua left the band, and the band then expanded into a trio with the addition of Sebastian Neyra and the band’s newest member, Ulrika Spacek’s Callum Brown. Capping off a series of monumental changes for the acclaimed Mexican act, they signed to Los Angeles-based post punk label Felte Records.

Slated for a September 25, 2020 release, the band’s Syd Kemp-produced sophomore album Sentimiento Mundial was recorded at London‘s Wilton Way Studio, and the album reportedly sees the band’s sound shifting towards a decidedly minimal, rhythmically focused approach. The album will feature the meditative “Natural,” and the motorik groove-driven “Contingencia,” and the lushly textured  Pink Floyd-like “Delicadeza.”

“Aterrizar,” Sentimiento Mundial‘s fourth and latest continues a run of slow-burning, painterly material, centered around shimmering yet angular guitars, propulsive drumming, del Sol Sanchez’s plaintive and ethereal vocals and a soaring hook. Interestingly, the track manages to recall Slowdive and The Verve-like shoegaze — but imbued with an aching nostalgia for a seemingly innocent past that we can’t get back.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay LutchamaK Releases an Industrial Influenced Banger

Throughout the course of this year, I’ve spilled quite a bit of ink covering French electronic music artist, producer and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK. LutchamaK grew up as a voracious music listener and fan with eclectic and wide-ranging tastes that include hip-hop, rock. techno and countless others. As a solo artist, LutchamaK’s work is deeply influenced by and generally draws from techno — but while reflecting his lifelong devotion to eclecticism: his work generally possesses elements of techno, deep house and EDM among other electronic music genres and subgenres.

The French JOVM electric music artist, producer and JOVM has managed to remain remarkably prolific, releasing new material through an increasing number of EPs, standalone singles and a couple of albums, which include his latest album, the recently released Moments. So earlier, I wrote about the album’s opening track “Moment,” and as it turns out the JOVM has released several singles off the album simultaneously, including “Their Future.” Featuring aggressive synth arpeggios, twinkling blasts of keys, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and vocoder’d vocals, “Their Future” continues a run of sleek club banging material — but unlike its immediate predecessors, it has a retro-futuristic and industrial air.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Brian J is a New Orleans-based multi-instrumentalist and Grammy-nominated producer, best known for his work as the bandleader and frontman of the party rock road warrior act Pimps of Joytime. He also has a Grammy-nominated country blues collaboration with Cedric Burnside. Interestingly, Brian J’s latest recording project Gitkin was conceived as a way for the Pimps of Joytime frontman and producer to “explore tonalities I’d never mess with,” as he puts it. Eventually,. the instrumental project became a release from “having to write lyrics or involve my voice,” Brian J explains.

With the release of Brian J’s 2018 Gitkin debut, 5 Star Motel, the Pimps of Joytime frontman, multi-instrumentalist and producer quickly established a style that he has dubbed “Outernational Psychedelic Twang.” Drawing from a wide range of sounds and styles including Peruvian Chicha, 60s Pakistani surf rock, 5 Star Motel‘s material was centered around expansive arrangements, featuring dynamic guitar playing and hand-clapping grooves. And with a backing band featuring an impressive collection of players, Gitkin has built up buzz playing exclusive and spirited shows in San Francisco and NYC.

Recorded at this New Orleans-based home studio, Brian J’s sophomore Gitkin album Safe Passage reportedly finds the multi-instrumentalist and producer expanding upon an already rich sonic palette with melodies informed by Greek and Middle Eastern modalities, Peruvian Chica and Tuareg Saharan guitar styles — with the end result being a mix of stomping blues and gritty funk. “Nosotros Tambien,” Safe Passages‘ latest single is a gritty and funky track featuring a looping and bluesy guitar lines, twinkling Rhodes, dense Afrobeat and Afro pop-inspired polyrhythm within an expansive, mind-bending arrangement. Centered around a dusty, unfussy yet deceptively anachronistic production, the cinematic composition sounds like a warm synthesis of Expensive Shit/He Miss Road-era Fela Kuti and Tinairwen.

Wonderwheel Recordings will be releasing Safe Passage on September 18, 2020.


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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bodywash Releases a Slow-burning and Shimmering New Single

Bodywash is a Montreal-based dream pop act, that can trace its origins back to when its founding (and core) duo — Chris Steward (vocals, guitar) and Rosie Long Decter (vocals, synths) — were students at McGill University. Bonding over a mutual love of shoegaze and dream pop, Steward and Decter quickly found an immediate musical and creative simpatico when they started jamming together in at a McGill University basement rehearsal room.

Last year, the Montreal-based dream pop act released their full-length debut Comforter, and the album firmly established their sound: slow-burning, contemplative and hazy dream pop centered around atmospheric electronics, shimmering synths, effect pedaled guitar. plaintive and ethereal vocals and trip-hop-like beats that seemed to bring Slowdive, and Lightfoils to mind.

Bodywash’s latest single “Follow” is the first bit of new material from the band since last year’s Comforter and the track is a slow-burning, Sade/Quiet Storm-like take on shoegaze centered around shimmering and bluesy guitar lines, atmospheric electronics, stuttering beats and a soaring hook. But at its core, is a steadfast desire to stop repeating patterns that end up in heartache and bitterness, to proudly move forward as best as you can.

“Follow comes from a lot of things: a gig gone wrong; a run-in at a birthday party; a coat rack I was too lazy to put up,” the duo explain. “I wrote it during a period when I was realizing that a lot of my relationships were rooted in trying to ‘help’ or change people. Mostly, it’s about wanting to break that pattern, and to make peace with the fact that some people are better off apart. Sometimes you have to let go and hope that the person you miss is doing well, wherever they are.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Temples Release a Dance Floor Friendly and Kaleidoscopic Sean Ono Lennon-Produced Single

Kettering, Northamptonshire, UK-based indie rock/psych rock act Temples — currently founding members James Bagshaw (vocals, guitar) and Tom Walmsley (bass) with Adam Smith — can trace their origins back to 2012 when its founding members started the band as home-baed studio project, featuring two musicians, who had known each other through their hometown’s scene. 

Bagshaw and Walmsley uploaded four self-produced tracks, which caught the attention of Heavenly Recordings founder and label head Jeff Barrett, who signed the band and agreed to release their debut single “Shelter Song” later that year. Shortly after signing to Heavenly Recordings, Bagshaw and Walmsley recruited Samuel Toms (drums) and Adam Smith to flesh out the band’s live sound — and to complete the band’s first lineup. Since then the band has released two critically applauded and commercially successful albums — 2014’s Sun Structures, which landed at #7 on the UK Charts and 2017’s Volcano.  Building upon a growing profile, the British psych rock act has made appearances across the UK, European Union and North American festival circuits. They’ve shared stages with the likes of Suede, Mystery Jets, Kasabian and The Vaccines among others — but over the past few years, they’ve transitioned into a headlining act that has also made Stateside national television appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

2018 saw a number of major changes for the band: Samuel Toms left the band to focus on his solo recording project Secret Fix, and later joined the equally acclaimed Fat White Family. Temples also left their longtime label home Heavenly Recordings and signed with ATO Records, who released last year’s Hot Motion, which they supported with a busy touring schedule that included a stop at the Desert Daze Festival. The members of Temples caught their labelmates The Claypool Lennon Delirium’s set and shortly after they found themselves chatting about music with them band’s frontman Sean Ono Lennon. 

Several months later, ATO Records asked the band about releasing a previously unreleased Hot Motion sessions track as a single, and they immediately thought of Lennon and asked him to produce the track. “We couldn’t think of any greater mind than his to create with on this track,” the band’s Tom Walmsley says.  “When I first heard the demo for ‘Paraphernalia’ I knew they had a great tune,” says Lennon, who enlisted Dave Fridmann to mix the track.  “Paraphernalia” is a slick and kaleidoscopic synthesis of psych pop and disco pop featuring a sinuous and propulsive, dance floor friendly groove, shimmering guitars, twinkling keys, soaring strings and an anthemic hook paired with Bagshaw’s plaintive vocals. Sonically, the track reminds me of Fantasm-era Starlight Girls  but as the band explains the song is about the disconnect between reality and the online world. “In an age of constant distraction, we all strive to find focus and a sense of calm. ’Paraphernalia’ questions the depth of ‘real’ connections in a digital world,” the band says. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Portland’s Lore City Releases a Shimmering and Mesmerizing New Single

Currently based in Portland, the indie rock duo Lore City can trace its origins back to 2011 to when Laura Mariposa and Eric Bessel met in Brooklyn and started the band. The duo’s forthcoming third album Alchemical Task is the first batch of new material from the band in six years — and while it’s the follow-up to their sophomore album, 2014’s Kill Your Dreams, the album also finds the duo going through a radical change in sonic direction with their sound incorporation elements of psych rock, post rock and dream pop. 

“Lore City’s music is born from the transformational power of sound. We hand over words, instruments and rhythms; trading back and forth until everything belongs to both of us,” the duo explain in a statement. “Until we are indistinguishable. We create from the belief that we are all one, and that we’ve been here before. Song fragments are shimmering all around us, ready to transport. We tune in and transcribe. Deep knowing, alongside the unfathomable unknown is where we reside. Sonic soundscapes give way to archetypical figures and voices materialize. Sometimes we are just singing along with the ghosts that emerge from our chorus of effect pedals.” 

The duo go on to explain that their six song album “expresses how we are spiritual beings have a human experience — that’s our alchemical task.” The album’s latest single is the mesmerizing and expansive “Into Your Blue.” Centered around a repeated polyrhythmic pattern, layers of shimmering and droning synths and ethereal vocals, “Into Your Blue” is a slow-burning song meant to dial up and tune into a higher plane of existence. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Funk Legend Steve Arrington Returns with an Upbeat and Positive New Anthem

Steve Arrington is a Dayton, OH-born and-based singer/songwriter and drummer, who got his start with the acclaimed Dayton-based funk and soul act Slave in the 70s, eventually becoming known for being the lead singer on the act’s smash hits “Watching You,” and “Just a Touch of Love.” Continuing an incredible run of success, Arrington went solo, releasing a handful of albums before leaving the secular music world in 1991 to focus on spiritual and ministerial work.

An impressive and eclectic array of artists have drawn influence from Arrington’s work with artists like Jay-Z, A Tribe Called Quest, Pharrell, 2Pac, Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J,Mariah Carey, N.W.A. and a lengthy list of others sampling his work in Slave and as a solo artist.

After nearly two decades away, Arrington returned to secular music in 2009 with the release of that year’s Pure Thang, which he followed up with 2013’s collaborative album with Dam-Funk, Higher, released through Stones Throw Records. Additionally during the past decade, the Dayton-born and-based has had a number of attention-grabbing guest spots with the aforementioned Snoop Dogg, Kool Moe Dee, George Clinton, and Thundercat.

Down To The Lowest Terms: The Soul Sessions is the funk legend’s first solo full-length album in 11 years, and the album. which is slated for a September 18. 2020 release though Stones Throw Records reportedly sees Arrington finding peace with himself and God while casting an easygoing but still razor-sharp critical eye on notes world around him. Last month, I wrote about the album’s second single “Soulful I Need That In My Life,” a slow-burning, Quiet Storm-like pimp strut centered around twinkling and gurgling synths, a sinuous bass line, plucked bursts of guitar and Arrington’s sultry crooning. And while bearing a resemblance to his work in Slave, the song offered some advice for listeners in a time of uncertainty, stress and despair — “downshift,” slow down and take it easy. 

Produced by DJ Harrison, “Make a Difference,” Down To The Lowest Terms: The Soul Sessions’ third and latest single continues a run of strutting and sinuous pimp struts  featuring a a shimmering arrangement of twinkling and reverb-drenched Rhodes, a sinuous bass line, sunny horn lines and a stuttering boom-bap like beat. But unlike its immediate predecessor, the track is centered by a proud and defiantly hopeful message: at its core, the song reminds us that although we haven’t quite achieved Martin’s promised land yet, we’ve made a lot of progress towards that — and we can’t let that go. That bright and glorious future is coming and we all need to work our asses off to get there. 

“Make a Difference” address “the current state of things in this country,” Arrington says. “As far as the racial tensions . . . so much of it is being promoted by politicians with agendas. And you have moments like Black Lives Matter, and different races coming together to say: ‘We’re not going back. We’re not stepping back into the forties and fifties.’ This song speaks to that. The great John Lewis — the message that he left for all of us, to understand and move forward, not making a difference for a few months, but a lifetime of living.” 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

1996 · 1996 – Around You

 

Mike Lee is an Austin, TX-based multi-instrumentalist and producer, best known for his work with acts like Letting Up Despite Great Faults, Fanclub and others. His latest recording project 1996 thematically focuses on some of the most formative years of our lives — our teenaged years, as a way to remind the listener of the feelings and thoughts of one’s youth, as a way to forge a deeper connection with today’s youth.

Every 1996 will feature a different artist from a different city with the hopes to make that literal connection remind the listener of the first time that we really felt connected to anything or anyone. The project’s latest single “Around You,” features Lauren Massa of Houston-based act Velveteen Echo.  The track which is centered around stuttering beats, a New Order-like bass line, dusty sounding electronics and Massa’s plaintive vocals, manages to sound a bit like The Postal Service — but while capturing the complicated and often confusing emotions of a swooning first crush/first love, the song also evokes the inevitable push and pull of adult decisions and their implications on you as you make those decisions.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Palace Winter · Won’t Be Long

The Copenhagen, Denmark-based pop duo and JOVM mainstays  Palace Winter — Australian-born, Copenhagen-based singer/songwriter Carl Coleman and Danish-born, Copenhagen-based producer and classically trained pianist Caspar Hesselager — can trace their origins to the duo’s mutual familiarity and appreciation for each other’s work throughout a number of different projects over the years. Naturally, that mutual familiarity and appreciation for each other’s work led to the duo eventually deciding to work together.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, Palace Winter’s sophomore album, 2018’s Nowaways found the duo expanding upon the sound and songwriting approach that won them praise, as they paired breezy and melodic, radio friendly pop with heavy thematic concerns — in particular, the album touched upon the loss of innocence of adulthood, the accompanying tough and sobering lessons as you get older, the freedom and power that comes as one takes control of their life and destiny and the like. But it’s all underpinned by the profound grief of inconsolable loss. Life, after all is about recognizing that immense heartbreak and devastating loss are part of the price of admission, and that somehow you have to figure out a way to move forward.

Palace Winter’s highly anticipated, third album . . . Keep Dreaming, Buddy is slated for an October 23, 2020 release through Tambourhinoceros Records — and unlike their preceding albums, . . .Keep Dreaming, Buddy‘s material was written through a long distance correspondence as the band’s Coleman was residing in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. “Caspar was sending me these synth hooks and drum loops from Denmark, so I started coming up with melodies and lyrical ideas to record into my phone,” Coleman says of the writing sessions. While Coleman’s lyrics were inspired by Tenerife’s unique landscape, drawing metaphorical parallels between Mt. Teide, a dormant volcano, which also is one of Spain’s tallest peaks and the looming fear of a relationship disintegrating, Hesselager’s instrumental parts were inspired by Copenhagen’s landscape. And as a result, the album’s material is literally a tale of two cities and two different emotional states.

Last month, I wrote about the album’s first single “Top of the Hill,” a perfect example of the album’s literal tale of two cities: shimmering and icy synths, thumping beats and an enormous, arena rock hook were paired with Coleman’s lyrics, centered round volcanic imagery to describe the bubbling and broiling feels of dissatisfaction, boredom, frustration, deceit and distrust of a relationship on a brink. But with everything in our lives, there are difficult decisions to be made, and the song subtly hints that despite it all, there’s a dim chance that the central relationship could possible survive — even if both parties know, deep down that it shouldn’t.  Interestingly, “Won’t Be Long” is arguably one of the album’s most ambitious and expansive songs. Drawing from arena rock and glam rock and synth pop, the track is centered around a rousingly anthemic hook, a crunchy power chord-driven riff, hot, shimmering synth arpeggios, strummed acoustic guitar, the song is deceptively (and perhaps, ironically) upbeat.

Last year, Palace Winter’s Carl Coleman received a shock when he learned of a loved one’s urgent illness. And as a result, the song actually is centered around the reckoning of imminent loss, of anticipatory grief — and our attempts to escape the inevitable. But loss and despair are always just around the corner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Marble Mammoth · Have The Sun Lick Your Mind

Led by Tobias Bergholm (singer and guitarist), the Stockholm-based indie rock act Marble Mammoth features members who have played in acts like The Unisex and have collaborated with the likes of MC5s Mike Davis and The Hellacopters‘ and Imperial State Electric’s Nicke Anderson. With the release of 2017’s self-tiled, debut EP and a handful of singles including “Wrecked Ship,” “Glitter Amongst Gravel” and others, the Swedish quartet received attention nationally and internationally for crafting a sound that draws from riff driven classic rock and melodic psych rock.

Released earlier this month through Klorofyll Records, Marble Mammoth’s latest single “Have the Sun Lick Your Mind” is centered around an arrangement of twinkling keys, a bluesy and shimmering guitar line, a soaring hook and a propulsive rhythm section. Continuing a run of Brit Pop-tinged psych rock, “Have the Sun Lick Your Mind” may be the most expansive and ambitious songs they’ve released in their growing catalog — but at its core, the song is decidedly upbeat. “Have the Sun Lick Your Mind’ is about healing, abotu starting over and about feeling hope for the future, even thought it might look dark at the moment,” the band’s Tobias Bergholm explains.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Color Red · Death by Dub – Kibosh | Color Red Music

Led by founding members and creative masterminds Dan Africano and Scott Flynn, the Denver-based act Death by Dub is a deeply collaborative effort between its founders and a collection of the Mile High City’s finest players, in which everyone equally contributes  their input and talents — typically during the studio sessions, with the studio being an integral part of the project.

The Denver-based act’s latest single “Kibosh” derives its name from the death hood, a condemned prison would hear leading up to their beheading. Centered around a mournful and lyrical horn melody, shimmering Rhodes, stuttering riddims and reverb and delay-drenched dub effects,  the track evokes the slow walk a condemned prisoner would take to the gallows, before ending with a slow fade out. The single will appear on the band’s forthcoming EP Resurrection, which is slated for an September 18, 2020 release through Color Red.