Tag: Steph Marziano

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: HotWax Shares Driving “One More Reason”

With the release of their first two critically applauded EPs, last year’s A Thousand Times and Invite me, kindly, the Hastings, UK-based indie rock trio HotWax — Tallulah Sim-Savage, Lola Sam, and Alfie Sayers — exploded into the national and international scenes. The trio played over 150 shows over the the past 18-19 months or so, including packed headlining shows in New York and Los Angeles, a North American tour with Royal Blood and showcases at last year’s SXSW. Building upon a growing profile. the trio have made the rounds of the European festival circuit, playing sets at Reading and Leeds Festivals and Mad Cool.

The rising British trio’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Hot Shock is slated for a March 7, 2025 release through Marathon Artists. Co-produced by Catherine Marks, Steph Marziano and Warpaint‘s Stella Mozgawa, the 10-song album features blistering, adrenaline-jolted anthems that were meant to be played live to a crowd, loudly and with abandon. Described by the band’s Lola Sim as “an explosion of color,” the album’s material is visceral and immediately gets under the skin.

Lyrically, the material draws from Fontaines D.C., Autolux and Sonic Youth while reportedly anchored around a bold, groove-based sound with rich arrangements. In a “complete experiment,” as the band’s Alfie Sayers says, “the band recorded songs live in front of a crowd at London‘s RAK Studios, capturing the energy of a HotWax set. 

Thematically, Hot Shock sees the band tackling a broad range of challenging topics — selfhood, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, and more — while allowing for reach band member’s personality to shine. While the album’s material may traverse the unsettling terrain of entering adulthood, the album’s material has an underlying playfulness rooted in the band’s desire to nurture and sustain their personal and creative partnerships: The band’s Sim-Savage and Sam are childhood friends, who have been writing songs together since they were 12. Sim-Savage later met Sayers at music college five years later. Sim-Savage says. “We know how each other’s brains work so well. We couldn’t do any of this without each other.” 

Late last year, I wrote about “Wanna Be a Doll,” a rousingly anthemic ripper that brings 90s grunge and riot grrl punk to mind, but underpinned with a raw urgency and vulnerable pulse. “This is the first song we wrote for the album and we re-wrote it in so many different ways,” HotWax’s Sim-Savage says. “And it ended up pretty similar to the first version, which seems to be how it goes. It’s a song where I am writing about myself from someone else’s point of view, being self aware of my bad, sometimes destructive, traits.”

Hot Shock’s latest single “One More Reason” is a desert rock-meets-festival rock track anchored around a relentless and hypnotic motorik bass line-driven groove, thunderous drumming, slashing guitars and an expressive guitar solo paired with punchily delivered vocals. Resembling JOVM mainstays Dream Wife and others, “One More Reason” was recorded with Mogzawa in Joshua Tree, CA and as the band’s Sim-Savage says “We wanted it to feel like the opening song at a festival set, we wanted it to be relentless and addictive. It’s about loving someone so much you kinda hate it, which is relentless and addictive.” 

Directed by longtime collaborator Josh Quinton, the accompanying video features a collaged punk catwalk starring underground legend Princess Julia and the members of the band in clothes designed and styled by Greta.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Prima Queen Shares Jangling and Anthemic “The Prize”

Rising transatlantic indie outfit Prima Queen’s highly-anticipated, Steph Marziano-produced debut album, The Prize is slated for an April 25, 2025 release through Submarine Cat Records. Recorded at London‘s Angelica Studios back in late 2023, the band — Louise Macphail (vocals, guitar) and Kristin McFadden (vocals, guitar) — approached the album’s recording sessions with the intention to paint all of their emotional revelations on a rich sonic canvas anchored around effusive melodies.

Drawing from the shimmering pop of Haim and Jenny Lewis paired with an open spirt, The Prize‘s 12 songs are partly inspired by the euphoria they experienced over while touring with Olivia Dean, Wet Leg, Whitney and others. Thematically, the album continues the pair’s reputation for crafting songs that regularly play like a love letter to radical power of friendship while showcasing the pair’s charismatic storytelling.

The album’s third and latest single, album title track “The Prize,” is a lush and hook-driven bit of jangle pop that brings a mix of JOVM mainstay Joseph and Stevie Nicks to mind while rooted in an enthusiastically much-needed message for the listener — to never let anyone dim your shine or make you feel small.

“Writing ‘The Prize’ felt kind of magical — we thought we had finished the album but this song suddenly came to us while we were writing in the stdio with our producer Steph (Marziano) and we knew it had other be album title-track,” the duo say in press notes. “It felt like it tied all the other songs together in a really special way. It’s a song to remind you that YOU’RE THE PRIZE, which is easy to forget sometimes!”

Directed by Mike Upton, the accompanying video for “The Prize” captures the close, almost Vulcan mind-meld of the core duo’s deep and abiding friendship in a way that’s just adorable.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sophie Jamieson Shares Devastating “Sink”

Rising British singer/songwriter Sophie Jamieson released two EPs back in 2020 that caught the attention of Bella Union Records, who signed Jamieson — and will be releasing her full-length debut, the Steph Marziano-produced Choosing. Slated for a December 2, 2022 release, Choosing is a subtle rework of the sound that Jamieson quickly established through her first two EPs: While those EPs flirted with playful experimentation, Choosing‘s sound is both more organic simpler and intimate, featuring arrangements of live drums, bass, cello and piano, which are roomy enough for the British singer/songwriter’s mesmerizing vocals to take the spotlight.

Jamieson has described the songs on those two EPs as “black holes” and while Choosing covers similar ground, it reportedly never takes it eyes from what lies beyond, never fully releases its grip when everything is telling her to let go. The album is a deeply personal documentation of a journey from the painful rock bottom of self-destruction to a safer place, imbued with the faint light of hope. Focusing on the bare bones of each song, the album’s material is influenced by songwriters like Elena Tonra, Sharon Van Etten and Scott Hutchinson, and sees Jamieson singing openly about longing and searching, of trying, failing and trying again, and the strength of love in its varying forms.

“The title of this album is so important,” Sophie explains. “Without it, this might sound like another record about self-destruction and pain, but at heart, it’s about hope, and finding strength. It’s about finding the light at the end of the tunnel, and crawling towards it.” 

Ultimately, the album asks the listener to look deep within themselves and to show them that they can take whatever pain they’re experiencing, and choose, to some extent, how they let it affect them; whether they let it burn them down or whether they choose to look it straight in the face. “The songs are bursting with something, and that energy just needs to be reshaped into love for the self,” Sophie explains. “I can say this from a place of having learned now how to love and care for myself. The love that reverberates through this album is like the green shoots of something I have happily learned to nurture into my present day.”

“The few times I have listened to this album from start to finish, I have realized that there is a huge amount of love in it,” Jamieson says “I think there is a strong potential for real, healthy, healing love. It’s like a line of relief that runs along through all the songs. It’s never unleashed, it hasn’t yet learned how, but it’s present in an underlying tension and potential.” 

Choosing‘s first single, the devastating “Sink” is centered around a sparse arrangement of twinkling and wobbling keys that seem both childlike and ironically detached, skittering boom bap-like drumming that’s roomy enough for Jamieson’s weary and heartbroken delivery to take the lead. The song is an unflinchingly honest look at someone on the edge — and not quite knowing what’s next. “Sink” was written as a love letter to alcohol amid an increasing dependence upon it, informed by a recurring image Sophie had of herself on a desert island, a quiet, calm place that was just too good to be true. “’Sink’ presents a purgatory between being able to choose and begging not to be pulled under,” Sophie explains. “It’s about teetering on the edge, looking over the cliff, asking not to be pulled over before realising you only have to choose not to jump.” 

Co-directed by Jamieson and Rosamund Bullard and filmed and edited by Bullard, the accompanying video follows Jamieson taking a train to the coast. We follow her as she walks along the shore, looking at the horizon in front of her. “This song began as a love letter to alcohol, written from the cusp of falling into addiction. I had begun to trust this tool but I could feel it turning on me, like a bad friend,” Jamieson says of the song and accompanying video. “I knew I was close to losing control over it, and realized that I had to choose whether to fall in or not. This song exists at the brink of choice: whether to abandon yourself, or whether to make the colossal effort to rescue yourself. The video, like the song, approaches the edge – the tantalizing mystery and comfort of it, the openness of possibility and also the quiet knowledge of the dead end. The shoreline is that edge: beautiful, eerie, infinite, and empty.”