Tag: The 1975

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Mexico’s Glass Cristina Releases a Mesmerizing New Single

Led by founding members Bernardo Castilla and Lorenzo Engell, the rapidly rising Mexican electro pop act Glass Cristina was formed in Barcelona in 2016. Their five song, debut EP Circle Line, which featured attention grabbing singles like “La Reina De España” and “Dancing With the Devil” received attention in their native Mexico and elsewhere — despite the fact the material was unmastered and mixed at home, because the duo couldn’t afford to pay for professional mixing. But their debut EP established their sound: lush and atmospheric textures paired with soulful melodies while drawing from neo-sou, funk and electro pop. 

The band was on a hiatus when its founding members were living in different countries but in 2017, the band reconvened and expanded with the addition of Enzo Aquino (bass, synths, backing vocals), who has helped the band achieve a more organic live set. Last year the band performed at Sziget Festival with the likes of The 1975, Jungle, Twenty One Pilots, Foo Fighters and others. Along with that, the trio have been busy writing and recording their forthcoming album Nudity, Slated for a May 22, 2020 release through Vegan Caníbal Records, an imprint of Blanco y Negro, one of Spain’s most successful indie record labels.  Reportedly, the album is a result of a period of profound self-discovery through incessant work and composition — while showcasing the trio’s dedication to evolving their sound and identity. 

Nudity’s latest single, “Bali” is an atmospheric yet club friendly song centered around shimmering synths, blasts of Nile Rodgers-like guitar, a sinuous bass line, tweeter and woofer rocking beats an an enormous hook — and while arguably being one of the most hypnotic tracks on the album, it possesses a subtle jungle vibe that reminds me of early Doomsquad and others.  Interestingly, the song is a brooding ode to heartbreak and betrayal as the song essentially sets up a story about the swooning first pangs of a new relationship and its inevitable accompanying heartache. But instead of wallowing too deeply in bitterness, the song is meant to inspire the listener to get up and to dance, dance, dance it all away. 

The recently released and incredibly cinematic lyric video for “Bali” is fittingly set on Bali and features two masked figures dancing seductively in lush and verdant forests — and the result is something truly mesmerizing, 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Influenced by the likes of The Neighbourhood, LANY, The 1975 and John Mayer, the emerging Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada alt pop artist BENJII has an effortlessly cool take on pop that features moody electronics, shimmering guitars, atmospheric synths and ethereal vocals.

The Vancouver-based pop artist’s latest single, the slickly produced “I Won’t Die For You” is centered around layers of arpeggiated synths, thumping beats, a soaring hook and BENJII’s plaintive and ethereal vocals recalls St. Lucia, Stevie Nicks‘ “Stand Back,” and others, complete with a rousing hook — and while being a hook-driven banger, the track comes a rather dark place. “I Won’t Die For You” takes place in the clouded mind of someone going through the heartbreaking motions of addition and depression,” BENJII explains in press notes. “Though I’ve never found myself enveloped in this sort of darkness, I’ve witnessed so many beautiful people I love struggle in silence. It’s left me feeling broken and burning.”

“This song began as an outlet for me to cope with my feelings surrounding the existence of these things in my life, but now it’s yours to relate to whether you personally face these struggles or have someone you love who does,” the up-and-coming Canadian artist adds. 

 

 

 

 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of two childhood friends, who discovered that they had independently embark on electronic music careers while in college, the mysterious, Chicago-based electronic production and artist duo The White Panda have dominated the electronic music blogosphere with the release of five, critically applauded full-length albums — all of which have resulted in 35 #1 singles on Hype Machine, over 60 million SoundCloud streams and 25 million YouTube plays while being dubbed “the mash-up kings” by Vibe Magazine, and “a veritable party-mashup machine” by Entertainment Weekly. (At one point, The White Panda was one of SoundCloud’s top five most played artists — ever.)

Adding to an already immense and growing national profile, the duo has headlined several US tours, have played some of the country’s largest festivals including Lollapalooza, Firefly, Electric Zoo, and Bamboozle, and have opened for the likes of Flo Rida, Wale, Nelly, Twenty One Pilots, Dispatch, Steve Aoki, Tiesto, Mac Miller, Mike Posner, Benny Benassi, MGMT and others. And while working on their own original production work, the duo had also spent their time working on and releasing a number of remixes including a gigantic, festival rocking rework of Powers‘ “Beat of My Drum,” that I wrote about a couple of years ago. Now, it’s been some time since I’ve personally written about them; however, the Chicago-based duo have been rather prolific since then, including their latest single, a sultry, club-rocking and anthemic cover/re-work of The 1975‘s “Somebody Else,” that features a guest spot from Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter Verite — and while being a bold, tweeter and woofer rocking rework, the cover manages to retain the atmospheric original’s ache and longing.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Israeli Superstar Ninet Tayeb is Set to Take Over the World with Ass-Kicking Visuals for “Superstar”

With a relocation to Los Angeles and the forthcoming Stateside release of her fifth full-length release this fall, Tayeb hopes to become an international superstar — and with the aptly titled first single “Superstar” Tayeb may well be the next big thing. Although some have said that the Israeli-born singer/songwriter and actress seems to take cues from Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O., The Kills’ Allison Mossheart, sonically her sound reminds me quite a bit of Garbage — namely the self-titled debut and Version 2.0 — as the song is comprised of buzzing power chords, propulsive and thundering drumming, rousingly anthemic hooks and a towering self-assuredness that simply says “I’m here and I ain’t fucking around.”

The recently released music video directed by Yoni Ronn features Tayeb in action movie-like music video that features the singer/songwriter as a vengeance-seeking assassin, following her enemy through the streets of New York.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

21 year-old Paris-based, French-Brazilian singer/songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Yndi Ferreira is the creative mastermind behind indie electro pop project Dream Koala, a project that Ferriera started back in 2012. Interestingly, Ferreira developed a reputation of his production style as he quickly became a go-to remixer, remixing the work of Angel Haze, The 1975, BANKS and others — and as an artist, his debut single “We Can’t Be Friends” caught the attention of renowned acts including Fabolous, Doja Cat and the aforementioned BANKS.

Building on an increasing buzz around him, Ferreira released the critically applauded Odyssey EP and Earth. Home. Destroyed. EP which were informed by a variety of Ferreira’s influences including Flying Lotus, My Bloody Valentine, Radiohead, contemporary R&B which gave the material a spectral, shoegazer-like, introspective feel, along the lines of Beacon‘s For Now and The Ways We Separate while thematically exploring Afrofuturism and sci-fi.

Slated for a December 4 release, Ferreira’s soon-to-be released EP Exodus will reportedly continue thematically where the critically acclaimed Earth. Home. Destroyed. left off while cementing his reputation for crafting moody, spectral electro pop that seamlessly meshes elements of contemporary R&B, bass-heavy electronica and soft rock. “Dimension Sleeper,” Exodus‘ first single (and EP opener, by the way) pairs layers of slowly cascading synths, dub-inspired tweeter and woofer rocker bass fed through gentle washes of reverb and skittering drum programming with Ferreira’s plaintive and ethereal vocals in a song that evokes both the sensation of weightlessness and of wisps of smoke curling and rising heavenward before dissipating. And although possessing a retro-futuristic sound that would clearly sound at home in the early 80s, at the core of the song is a delicate and ancient ache that’s haunting and unsettling.

While playing this song I thought of the song’s narrator in a dying spaceship traveling through the cosmos, and the entire time the narrator is haunted by the lingering and inescapable ghost of a departed lover.