Tag: Tennis

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Liverpool’s Courting Shares Acerbic “Tennis”

Liverpool-based post-punk quarter Courting — Sean Murphy-O’Neill (vocals, guitar), Sean Thomas (drums, vocals), Josh Cope (guitar) and Connor McCann (bass) — exploded into the the national scene with last year’s Grand National EP, a critically applauded effort that led to coverage from the likes The Needle Drop, CRACK, Dork, NME, Clash and London Evening Standard — and landed on a number of end of year lists, including NME‘s 100, Dork‘s Hype List 2022, Daily Star‘s Ones to Watch 2021 and DIY‘s Hello 2021. Adding to a rapidly growing national profile, the act landed two singles on BBC Radio 6′s playlist.

Building upon last year’s incredible momentum, the Liverpool-based post-punk outfit recently signed to [PIAS] and they announced a run of UK tour dates slated for September and October. Along with that, they released a new single “Tennis,” the first bit of new material from the band since the release of last year’s Grand National.

The James Dring-produced “Tennis” sees the members of Courting expanding upon their sound with smatterings of electronic fuzz, bloops, bleeps and feedback that explodes into cacophony paired with angular guitar lines, a driving bass line, forceful rhythms and an enormous, shout-along worthy hook-driven chorus paired with Murphy-O’Neill’s sardonic lyrics delivered with vocals, which vacillate between a restrained monologue and a bristling and acerbic spittle and bile-fueled singing. The song captures the push and pull, and the bitter and endless back and forth within a dysfunctional, transactional relationship with an uncanny sense of realism.

“‘Tennis’ is a paypig’s personal redemption narrative, set in ‘the city’, and told in two parts. A twisted tale of two lovers’ back and forth, bound by cricket, bodybuilding, and money. A story as old as time,” the members of Courting explain. “We named the song ‘Tennis’ as a logical (but unrelated) sequel to our two previously released sports-related songs. To us, this felt like a natural ending to that idea. Dynamically, the second part of the song is supposed to represent a shift in tone for the character in which they realise their own worth and leave the situation that is set within the first part of the song.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Beauty Queen Releases a Playfully Absurd Visual for Shimmering and Nostalgic “Two Of Us”

Katie Iannitello is a Maui, HI-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and the creative mastermind behind the rising indie pop act Beauty Queen. Growing up Iannitello had a distant apathy towards pop music that marked most of her teen years; however, she had instilled, an appreciation for 50s pop and doo-wop. The Maui-born, Los Angeles-based artist learned to play piano and sing as a teen — but it wasn’t until she was in her early 20s that she started writing her own songs. 

Interestingly, the material that Iannitello has written with Beauty Queen is on the sonic edges of dream lo-fi, hazy alt-pop and dream pop with the material centered around coming-of-age stories where bewilderment can turn into clarity and with narrators lost in the reveries and aches of loneliness and unrequited love. 

Last year, Iannitello’s Beauty Queen debut EP, the Henry Nowhere-produced Out of Touch was released through pronoun’s Sleep Well Records. Iannitello has started off 2020 with new material written and produced over the course of three days at Tennis’ Alaina Moore’s and Patrick Riley’s Denver-based home studio — and those sessions ended with “Sweet Memory” and her latest single ‘Two Of Us.” Centered around shimmering, analog synths, a galloping 70s AM rock drum pattern, an infectious and soaring hook, a chugging motorik-like groove and Iannitello’s expressive vocals, the song manages to sound like a slick synthesis of The Carpenters and JOVM mainstays Pavo Pavo — but while capturing a romantic couple that’s so much in love that they just escape the world. 

Directed by Budd Diaz, the recently released video for “Two Of Us” depicts the songs lyrics through the prism of the absurd: we follow two Sasquatches, who are so much in love that they’re oblivious to the Sasquatch hunter, who’s relentlessly stalking them as they go about their annual day out in the world, which includes a much-needed shave, a stop at the movies and a Beauty Queen show. Thankfully, for their sake the Sasquatch hunter is as inept and incompetent as Elmer Fudd! “This music video was an absolute blast to make. If all my future videos could be Sasquatch based, I would be pleased,” Iannitello shares. “It’s two Sasquatches on their ‘day out’ where they shave and go out in the world. Huge thank you to Budd Diaz and his team and the actors involved for making this happen!”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Moody Sounds and Visuals for Blake Brown and The American Dust Choir’s “Up in Arms”

Blake Brown is a Denver, CO-based singer/songwriter, who after participating in a number of collaborative projects, founded Blake Brown and The American Dust Choir in 2013 with the idea that it’d give him the flexibility of playing solo while collaborating with a revolving cast of friends, who could play whenever they were able to do so; in fact, the revolving cast behind The American Dust Choir has featured members of The Fray, The Films and Tennis. However, after three EPs and countless live shows, the band has settled on a permanent lineup featuring Brown, his wife Tiffany Brown, and longtime friends Jason Legler, Adam Blake, and Trent Nelson.  

The Joe Richmond-produced Long Way Home, Blake Brown and The American Dust Choir’s full-length debut was released earlier this year and the album while further cementing the band’s reputation for a sound that meshes indie rock with folk/Americana paired with complex melodies and heartfelt lyrics based around experiences within Brown’s personal life — in particular, heartbreak, deception, reflection, growing up and becoming adult and so on. Adding to a growing profile, the band kicked off the release of their debut with an official SXSW showcase, in which they opened for Keith Urban. 

“Up in Arms,” Long Way Home’s latest single is a twangy bit of indie rock that nods at Fleetwood Mac and 70s AM rock, complete with a rousingly anthemic hook and some impressive guitar work and while being unhurried, the track manages to be tinged with the bittersweet memories and experiences within a relationship; in fact, the recently released video is shot with superimposed double exposures, meant to evoke the duality between the inner and outer worlds of its protagonists. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Griffith Synder (vocals), Charles Kern (guitar, programming) and multi-instrumentalist Julia Mendiolea, the Denver, CO-bassed indie electro pop/dream pop trio Inner Oceans formed back in 2013 over a mutual desire by each of the band’s three members to create music that’s personal while embodying a spiritual mystery and elegance that’s just out of touch. And with the release of their early singles “8 Cousins” and “Everything’s Alright,” the Denver-based trio received both national and international attention as both singles landed on several high-profile Spotify playlists, and have opened for the likes Tennis, Wild Nothing, Hundred Waters, Big Data, Moses Sumney, On an On, Holy Fuck and Shigeto among others. And of course, since the release of those singles, the trio have received quite a bit of attention from major media outlets and the blogosphere alike including Westword, who named the trio 2014’s “Best New Band,” Idolator and No Fear Of Pop and others.

Earlier this summer, the duo released two singles “Wild” and “Apparition,” which revealed that the trio has increasingly moved towards an aesthetic that’s difficult to pigeonhole or tie down. Interestingly, the trio’s latest single “Call Through The Wire” is a slow-burning bit of synth pop in which Snyder’s plaintive and tender falsetto floats over atmospheric and shimmering synths and a simple yet propulsive rhythm — and in some way, the song nods at Quiet Storm-era R&B and Tame Impala‘s psych-leaning pop.

The recently released music video employs a fairly simple concept –the trio’s frontman Synder singing the song in front of a psychedelic background and in some way, it nods at Michael Jackson‘s “Rock With You.”