Tag: Talking Heads Speaking In Tongues

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays The Orielles Release a Trippy and Shimmering, Dance Floor Friendly Single

I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the rapidly rising Halifax, UK-based act The Orielles over the past couple of years. Founded by siblings Sidonie B. Hand-Halford (drums), Esmé Dee Hand-Halford (vocals, bass) and their best friend Henry Carlyle Wade (guitar, vocals), the JOVM mainstays built up a great deal of buzz, when Heavenly Recordings‘ head Jeff Barrett signed the band after catching them open for labelmates The Parrots in late 2016.

2017’s critically applauded, full-length debut Silver Dollar Moment found the band establishing a genre-defying sound that meshed elements of psych rock, pop and disco centered around  surrealistic observations of every day life. Interestingly, after Silver Dollar Moment, the band’s founding trio recruited Alex Stephens (keys) as a full-time member of the band, expanding the band into a quartet. And with their newest member, they went into the studio to record material that included “Bobbi’s Second World” and a cover/rework of Peggy Gou’s “It Makes You Forget (itgehane).” Those two singles saw the band’s sound increasingly (and playfully) leaning towards Speaking in Tongues-era Talking Heads, ESG and the like, while featuring rock-based instrumentation. 

Last year, the JOVM mainstays were busy working on their highly-anticipated sophomore album Disco Volador. “Its literal interpretation from Spanish means flying disc but everyone experiences things differently. Disco Volador could be a frisbee, a UFO, an alien nightclub or how you feel when you fly; what happens to your body physically or that euphoric buzz from a great party,” the band’s Esme Dee Halford suggests in press notes. “But it is an album of escape; if I went to space, I might not come back.”

Slated for a February 28, 2020 release, Disco Volador continues the band’s ongoing collaboration with producer Marta Salogni while reportedly finding the newly constituted quartet pushing their sound towards its outer limits with the band being astral travelers, creating progressive and trippy material that draws from samba, 70s disco, boogie funk, dance floor grooves and 90s acid house. And they do so while expanding their influences further to include the work of Italian film score composers Sandro Brugnolini and Piero Umiliami, as well as contemporary acts like Khruangbin and Altin Gun. “All the influences we had when writing this record were present when we recorded it, so we completely understood what we wanted this album to feel like and could bring that to fruition,” the band’s Sidonie B. Hand-Halford says in press notes.

Disco Volador also manages to capture the rapidly rising British indie act riding high off the success of their debut, which included a lengthy and successful summer tour with festival stops Green Man and bluedot. Late last year, I wrote about “Come Down On Jupiter,” Disco Volador’s first single further cemented the band’s genre-defying sound, as it was centered around an expansive song structure: starting with a slow-burning and brooding into, the song quickly morphed into a breakneck guitar pop with a psychedelic-tinged freak out. While retaining the razor sharp, infectious hooks that helped the British indie act win attention nationally and internationally, “Come Down On Jupiter” also managed to be an example of how versatile the British JOVM mainstays can be. “Space Samba (Disco Volador Theme),” the album’s latest single is a shimmering disco-tinged track, featuring propulsive polyrhythm led by four-on-the-floor drumming, layers of reverb-drenched, shimmering guitar, a sinuous bass line, Esmé Dee Hand-Halford’s ethereal vocals, arguably making it one of the most dance floor friendly and trippier songs they’ve released to date. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

If you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past couple of years, you’ve likely come across several posts on Toronto, ON/Montreal, QC-based electro pop act Doomsquad. Comprised of  siblings Allie, Jaclyn and Trevor Blumas, the electro pop act initially began as an acoustic-leaning folk act but with their shared admiration and love of electronic music, electronic dance music and electro pop, the Blumases began increasingly experimenting with electronic beats, synthesizers, electronic drums and contemporary electronic music production techniques. The trio won attention won both national and Stateside attention with the release of their full-length debut Kalaboogie, a downtempo electro pop-leaning effort that evoked what art, life and music would sound like post-apocaylpse as stark minimalist beats, shimmering synths and alternating chanted and call and response vocals.

The Blumases followed Kalaboogie with 2015’s Pageantry Suite EP and EP singles Apocalypso,” and “Two Way Mirror” revealed a group that relentlessly experimented with their sound as they employed Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar lines, African and Caribbean-inspired polyrhythms, ambient electronics, shimmering synths and sinuous bass lines were paired with half spoken, half sung vocals leading a call and response harmonized vocal section at the song’s hook, which interestingly enough pushed their sound a bit closer Talking Heads’ Speaking in Tongues and Fear of Music. And much like those two albums, the material on Pageantry Suite evoked a neurotic anxiousness over an impending doom that may — or may not happen.

 

Doomsquad’s sophomore full-length effort, Total Time is slated for an April 29, 2016 release through renowned indie label Bella Union Records globally and Hand Drawn Dracula Records throughout Canada. Reportedly inspired by some of the trio’s favorite artists — Georges Bataille, Richard Tuttle, Tanya Tagaq, and Genesis P-Orridge, Total Time was largely recorded in the New Mexico desert and thematically, the material was specifically written to lead the listener to a genderless experience of transition — from owning time, losing time and becoming timeless while making you move your ass.  Interestingly, the album’s second and latest single “Pyramids On Mars” manages to continue on the sonic path of Pageantry Suite as the song begins with an ambient intro of gently undulating synths and off-kilter vocals and quickly becomes a propulsive and shimmering dance-floor ready track that pairs shimmering synths, wobbling low end, chanted and call and response vocals, African and Caribbean-inspired vocals, funk guitar — and much like their most recent tracks sounds as though it could have been released as a B-side to a Talking Heads single.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Kishi Bashi’s Swooning and Romantic Cover of The Talking Heads “This Must Be The Place”

As a child, I was a huge fan of Talking Heads. I’ve probably seen and heard Stop Making Sense more times than about 80% of the population before I turned 15 and several of their albums — […]