Tag: The Sultan Room

women who kick ass by William Ruben Helms

VIdeo Interview: Le Couleur’s Steeven Chouinard

Montréal-based pop outfit and JOVM mainstays Le Couleur — currently founding members Laurence Giroux-Do (vocals), Patrick Gosselin (bass) and Steeven Chouinard (drums) along with newest members Phillipe Beaudin (percussion, synths), Jean-Cimon Tellier (guitar) and Louis-Joseph Cliche (synths, vocals) — debuted over a decade ago with 2013’s Voyage Love EP. And since then, the Canadian outfit has released 2015’s Dolce Désir EP, their critically applauded full-length debut, 2016’s P.O.P. and 2020’s Concorde, which have seen them plumb the depths of human desire, while firmly establishing a glittery and vintage-inspired electro pop sound that draws from a variety of influences including 70s erotica, psychedelia, disco, yéyé and French chanson.

Their long-awaited third album Comme dans un penthouse was released earlier this year through Lisbon Lux Records. The album is a concept album that sees Le Couleur revisiting a past album character: Barbara, the assistant, who stole her former employer’s fortune on 2016’s P.O.P. Giroux-Do was drawn back to Barbara when upon returning from the Montréal-based outfit’s most recent UK tour, she began feeling that her life was “flat, beige and pointless” and developed a “fear of falling into a routine,” while Barbara’s “search for novelty, new feelings, an addiction” was roughly the opposite. 

Over the past year or so I’ve managed to write about the following album singles:

  • “Sentiments nouveaux,” a sleek, slickly produced bop that to my ears sounded like a synthesis of Tame Impala, VEGA Intl. Night School-era Neon Indian and Nu Shooz.

  • “Autobahn,” a song fittingly built around a relentless Krautwerk-like motorik pulse, glistening synth arpeggios and the Montréal-based outfit’s penchant for crafting razor sharp, catchy hooks paired with Laurence Giroux-Do’s ethereal and sultry delivery.

  • “À la rencontre de Barbara,” another glittery, disco and electro pop-inspired track that features glistening Giorgio Moroder-like synth oscillations, squiggling Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar, tight four-on-the-floor, and a relentless motorik-like pulse. But underneath the disco vibes is a tension that’s sultry, unnerving and irresistible while simultaneously nodding at classic spy thriller soundtracks and French chanson — thanks in part to a guest spot from Choses Sauvages‘ Standard Emmanuel. 

  • “Addiction,” which continued a remarkable run of fun, glittery disco-tinged material that saw the Montrealers pairing a sinuous bass line with glistening bursts of keys, squiggling funk guitar and Laurence Giroux-Do’s ethereal and yearning vocals with catchy hooks. To my ears, “Addiction wouldn’t sound out of place on Roxy Music’s Avalon, Duran Duran’s self-titled debut or Rio. 

So with JOVM, I’m always up for experimentation and using different tech and apps. On Monday, I had a Zoom call with Le Couleur’s Steeven Chouinard. The conversation was illuminating, fun and wide-ranging. And in this nearly 40 minute interview, we chatted extensively about one of my favorite cities in the entire world, from where you should go to get a sense of the town and its locals, if it was your first time in the French Canadian city, to our favorite poutine shops, the city’s incredible Francophone and Anglophone music scenes and acts that Chouinard thinks should get more love. We also talked about their new album, Comme dans un penthouse, one of my favorite albums released this year and how it fits into their growing catalog and more.

The Montréal-based JOVM mainstays will be playing a free, album release show at The Sultan Room on November 29, 2023. Fellow Montreal pop artist and JOVM mainstay Ormiston will be opening. It’ll be a fun night of dance floor friendly hooks and grooves.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Alice Phoebe Lou Shares Dreamy and Summery “Shelter”

Cape Town-born, Berlin-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and JOVM mainstay  Alice Phoebe Lou grew up in an intensely creative home: her parents were documentary filmmakers, who took a young Lou to piano lessons. As a teenager, Lou taught herself guitar.

When she turned 16, the JOVM mainstay went on a life-altering trip to Paris to visit her aunt. Armed with an acoustic guitar, Lou wound up meeting some of the city’s buskers and street performers — and she was instantly hooked. She even learned poi dancing from some of them. Upon completing her studies, Cape Town-born, Berlin-based artist returned to Europe, where she quickly developed a reputation as a highly-regarded busker — and for a fiercely DIY approach to her career.

Lou self-released her debut EP, 2014’s Momentum. She followed that up with her full-length debut, Orbit, which was released to widespread critical applause, including a Best Female Artist nomination at that year’s German Critics’ Awards. The Cape Town-born, Berlin-based artist closed out a whirlwind year with three, sold-out multimedia shows at the Berlin Planetarium. Those Berlin Planetarium shows were so popular and in such high demand that additional shows had to be added to her tour schedule in 2017. 

In 2018, the live version of “She” amassed over four million streams on YouTube and was featured in Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story — before the studio version of the single had been recorded or released. Lou then spent the bulk of that year or so, writing and recording the material, which would comprise her sophomore album, 2019’s critically applauded, Noah Georgeson-produced Paper Castles. According to Lou, the album was “about nostalgia, about growing into a woman, about the pain and beauty of the past, about feeling small and insignificant but finding that to be powerful and beautiful, about acknowledging that childhood is over but bringing some of it with you.”

2021 saw Lou, much like countless others readapting her way of working. The result was her third album, 2021’s self-released David Parry-produced Glow, an album of visceral, glittering songs in which the JOVM mainstay articulated her deepest thoughts and emotions with her trademark unvarnished honesty. With touring at a standstill throughout the bulk of that year, Lou focused on writing and recording another album. The JOVM mainstay, along with her friends and collaborators Ziv and Daklis traveled to British Columbia to work with David Parry. Employing a simple and intuitive process, which allowed the songs to grow into themselves, the material they worked on was recored on 8-track tape machine, the end result was her fourth album and second of the that year, Child’s Play.

Lou’s latest single “Shelter” is the first single off her forthcoming fifth album, which from my understanding will be announced soon. But in the meantime, “Shelter” is a decidedly 70s album rock-inspired tune featuring glistening and arpeggiated keys, strummed guitar, a sinuous bass line and a propulsive backbeat paired with Lou’s achingly yearning vocal, bathed in a bit of distortion and reverb. While the song evokes warmly nostalgic thoughts about summer, the song’s narrator seemingly finds herself at an uncomfortable, uneasy balance: Although she points out that underneath her armor is a tender and vulnerable soul, she readily admits a need to put herself first.

Shot on 8mm film and edited by Andrea Ariel with additional footage from Jasha Hase and Alice Phoebe Lou, the accompanying video for “Shelter” features behind-the-scene footage of the acclaimed artist while on tour last year. Capturing Lou at her most playful and beguiling, the video is rooted in sweet, sun-kissed memories.

The acclaimed Cape Town-born, Berlin-based artist will be embarking on a lengthy international tour to build up buzz and support the new album. The tour will kick off with a May 9. 2023 stop at The Sultan Room. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their first two albums’ 2020’s All News Is Good News and Daylight Savings, the Melbourne, Australia-based instrumental, jazz-funk outfit Surprise Chef — Lachlan Stuckey (guitar), Jethro Curtin (keys), Carl Lindberg (bass), Andrew Congues (drums) and their newest member, Hudson Whitlock (percussion, composition and production) — quickly amassed a fanbase internationally, while establishing their self-proclaimed “moody shades of instrumental jazz-funk” sound, which draws from 70s film scores, the samples that form hip hop’s foundations and jazz fusion and jazz funk. 

But while inspired by the sounds of the past, the Aussie outfit actively push the boundaries of instrumental soul and funk with an approach honed by countless hours in the studio, studying the masters, and perhaps more importantly, “the tyranny of distance” that helps create a unique perspective to their work. 

The band was limited in the fact that there weren’t many people making or even talking about instrumental jazz/soul/funk in Southeast Australia, let alone putting out records. And as a result, this gave the band an opportunity to develop their sound and approach in a sort of creative isolation, where a small circle of friends and like-minded musicians fed off each other. 
“Being in Australia, being so far away, we only get glimpses and glances of this music’s origins,” Surprise Chef’s Lachlan Stuckey says. “But hearing a label like Big Crown was one of the first times we realized you could make fresh, new soul music that wasn’t super retro or just nostalgic.” 

The Aussie outfit’s third album Education & Recreation is slated for an October 14, 2022 release through Big Crown Records. Their Big Crown Records debut sees the band putting their unique sound and approach on full display. Now, earlier this month I wrote about album single “Money Music,” a strutting and funky pimp walk featuring an expansive arrangement consisting of skittering breakbeats, twinkling key and vibraphone, a sinuous and propulsive bass line paired with a wah wah pedaled guitar that ends with a dreamy fade out. Sonically “Money Music” struck me as being a slick, mischievous and remarkably self-assured synthesis of Polymood and Sauropoda-era L’Eclair, old school hip-hop breakbeat compilations and jazz funk within a mind-bending twisting and turning song structure with rapid tempo changes. 

“Suburban Breeze,” Education & Recreation‘s latest single clocks in at a little over two minutes and yet manages to be an expansive and trippy composition that features elements of Return to Forever and Headhunter-era Herbie Hancock, hip hop breakbeats and film scores centered around twinkling keys, bursts of organ arpeggios, soulfully fluttering flute, sinuous bass lines and metronomic-like percussion. Sonically, the song evokes breezy, easy-going summer afternoons of daydreaming and hanging out without anything in particular to do.

The Aussie jazz funk band will be embarking on their first North American tour this October. The tour includes a stop at this year’s Desert Daze and an October 13, 2022 stop at The Sultan Room. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

Surprise Chef Tour Dates

Oct 1-2 – Lake Perris, CA – Desert Daze

Oct 4 – Zebulon – Los Angeles, CA

Oct 5 – Bottom of the Hill – San Francisco, CA

Oct 7 – Star Theater – Portland, OR

Oct 8 – Fox Cabaret – Vancouver, BC

Oct 9 – Barboza – Seattle, WA

Oct 13 – Sultan Room – Brooklyn, NY

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Thus Love Shares Angular and Anthemic “In Tandem”

Brattleboro, Vermont-based outfit Thus Love — multi-instrumentalists Echo Mars (she/her) and Lu Racine (he/him) and bassist Nathaniel van Osdol (they/them) — is a rising indie trio with a bond cemented by their individual and collective experiences as outsiders looking in: They’ve ascribed to a DIY ethos that not only reflects their musical vision but their very existence as three self-identifying trans artists.

The band can trace its origins to Mars’ and Racine’s serendipitous meeting at a local print show back in 2018, when the multi-instrumentalists agreed to collaborate on a new musical project. The band’s lineup was finalized when Mars and Racine were finally able to convince their roommate van Osdol to join the band in 2019.

From the band’s inception, its members have lived together under the same roof, designed and produced their own merch, and even created their own recording studio from scratch. “I realize that most artists don’t live this way,” Thus Love’s Echo Mars says. “But for us, it was never really a choice. The art we make is so tied to who we are and the community we’re a part of, that this is the only way we can possibly do it.”

The trio was just starting to regularly headline renowned local venue The Stone Church when the pandemic struck and everything came to a sudden and screeching halt. “The pandemic hit everyone hard, but I think it was especially difficult for new artists like us that rely on live shows to spread the word,” Thus Love’s Lu Racine says. “At that point, we had a couple of demos and we weren’t sure what the future would hold.”

Rather than idly wait, the band decided to take their future in their own hands. Armed with their innate curiosity and a ton of YouTube videos, Mars constructed a makeshift studio in their downtown Brattleboro apartment and the band set to work recording during the odd hours when their next-door neighbors were out and about.

The end result is the rising band’s full-length debut Memorial. Slated for an October 7, 2022 release through Captured Tracks, Memorial is reportedly a remarkably self-assured and accomplished album, considering the circumstances surrounding its creation. While sonically, the album’s material draws heavily from classic post-punk and indie rock, the band manages to tap into that sound and approach and find a way to find their own voice — and to tell their story.

Looking back now, Mars is glad the band decided to forge ahead. “I obviously would never want to go through a pandemic again, but I’m pretty confident in saying that this album would not be coming out in 2022 if we hadn’t had the forced downtime.”

While the album does deal with grief and loss, the band’s Racine suggests that working through those feelings are a necessary prerequisite to true and meaningful healing. He points to his own process of transition as proof. “I was in a dark place for a long time even when we were making this record. I knew what I had to do, but it didn’t make it any easier. There was a long period of mourning.” Racine completed top surgery last September, an important step in a years-long journey to embrace his true self. “Even though I was struggling at the time, the happiness I feel now makes it all worth it. I will always have positive associations with this record.”

“In Tandem,” Memorial‘s latest single is centered around angular, reverb-drenched guitar attack, glistening and atmospheric synths and a relentless, motorik punch paired with a rousingly anthemic chorus. While sonically “In Tandem” brings 4AD Records‘ heyday to mind, the song is simultaneously rooted in bitterness, heartache and hope. As the the band explained to the folks at FLOOD, “Written in 12 hours of digestion of emotional turmoil, ‘In Tandem’ is a sonic promise to hold awareness of a fundamental truth: we are nothing but star-dust.”

Directed and edited by Erin Vassilopoulos, the accompanying video for “In Tandem” is simultaneously nightmarishly surreal and playful as it follows the band performing the song — and as a John Waters diva-esque monsters posing for pictures and eating breakfast at a divey diner.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Elephant Stone Go on a Trippy Journey Through Space in Visual for “M. Lonely”

Rishi Dhir is a Brossard, Quebec-born, Montreal-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He’s a grizzled Montreal indie rock and psych rock scene vet with stints in bands like The Datsons and The High Dials. Dhir is also an in-demand sitar player and bassist, who has collaborated with the likes of Beck, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Black Angels, The Soundtrack of Our Lives, The Dream Syndicate, psych rock supergroup MIEN and countless others.

The Brossard-born, Montreal-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist founded the acclaimed JOVM mainstay psych rock act Elephant Stone back in 2009. Along with collaborators and bandmates Miles Duper (drums), Gab Lambert (guitar), Robbie MacArthur (guitar) and Jason Kent (keys, guitar), the Canadian psych rock outlive has released five albums centered around a sound that incorporates elements of traditional Indian classical music with Western psych rock, rooted in his own personal experiences.

Dhir’s own journey in music, frequently found him trying to find a place that fit him until he decided that what he made was worth sharing in the space that he had created for himself. “I only write about what I know and think I understand. As long as there’s Rishi, there’s going to be Elephant Stone,” Dhir says in press notes.

Slated for a February 18, 2022 release through Elephants on Parade, Elephant Stone’s soon-to-be released EP Le voyage de M. Lonely dans la lune reportedly picks up on the personal aspects of survival explored on their previous album Hollow and what that means on a dying planet with — or without people. “I built this storyline about a hermit who is very content in his solitary world, until a world event happens that causes everyone else to stay home as well…sound familiar?” Dhir explains. “He sees this as a mockery of him and his choices, deciding instead to build a rocket ship to the moon to be left alone.” 

Over the course of the EP’s four songs, the EP’s main character M. Lonely “ultimately realizes he was happier back on imperfect earth with all of its imperfect people,” Dhir says.

The EP’s latest single “M. Lonely” is centered around an expansive and mind-bending psych rock arrangement with rousingly anthemic hooks, some blazing solo work, a dreamy acoustic-driven bridge, and Dhir’s propulsive bass lines. While most of their output features lyrics written and sung in English, Le voyage de M. Lonely dans la lune is a departure for the band, as the material is written and sung exclusively in French. According to Dhir, the EP doubles as a love letter to Montreal and to all of their Francophone fans around the world.

“M. Lonely” actually sets the stage for the EP’s storyline: the EP’s titular character is upset about a worldwide epidemic that forces the rest of the planet’s population to stay home for their safety. M. Lonely decides that he needs to leave Earth for his own reclusive sanity.

“The riff from this song dates back to my time playing with The Black Angels in 2012,” Dhir explains. “Following our gig in Nashville, Christian Bland (The Black Angels’ guitarist) and I proceeded to get drunk backstage and started jamming. Coaxed by Alex Mass (The Black Angels’ vocalist), we came up with the idea of creating a new band called The Woodpeckers: playing primal 60’s garage while wearing Woody Woodpecker masks. We both came up with tunes on the spot and, 10 years later, mine ended up evolving into ‘M. Lonely.’ Anyhow, I’m still waiting for those Woody Woodpecker masks…” 

Directed by Daniel Ross and Vincent Gauthier, the recently released video or “M. Lonely” features the band in mod-style outfits playing in front of trippy animations and effects by Vivid_AV. The video hints at the EP’s larger story with Dhir dressed in an Elephant Stone spacesuit, and a spaceship traveling through the cosmos.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Austra Releases a Surreal and Dream-like Visual for Cinematic Album Single “Anywayz”

Katie Austra Stelmanis is a Toronto-based singer/songwriter, composer and producer, and the creative mastermind behind the critically applauded electronic music act that takes her middle name, Austra. Over the past decade, Stelmanis has released three full-length albums 2011’s Feel It Break, 2013’s Olympia and 2017’s Future Politics, which she has written, performed and produced — and  has maintained a busy touring schedule both as s solo performer and with a backing band of rotating collaborators. All of this led to a devoted fanbase and countless sold-out shows across the globe; however, despite her growing success, Stelmanis had began to feel stagnant and uninspired. “I was losing faith in my own ideas,” the acclaimed Canadian singer/songwriter, composer and producer explains in press notes. During that period. Stelmanis unwittingly got into a toxic relationship that was tearing her apart. 

It wasn’t until Stelmanis was ready to face her insecurities, that was she was able to see a path forward. “My creative and personal relationships were heavily intertwined, and i knew the only answer was to part ways with all of the people and comforts that I’d known for the better part of a decade and start again,” Stelmanis says. Along with making much-needed changes in her personal life, her fourth album HiRUDiN, which is slated for a May 1, 2020 release through Domino Recording Co. reportedly finds Stelmanis taking an entirely different and free-spirited approach to her songwriting and production: she took up a collage approach to sampling, arranging, writing and producing the album’s material. She also sought new collaborators, at one point booking three days of sessions in Toronto with improv musicians she hadn’t met: these musicians included two-thirds of contemporary classical improv group c_RL; Kamancello, a cellist and kamanche duo; Pantayoa, a kulitang ensemble; and a children’s choir. Additionally,  Rodaidh McDonald and Joseph Shabason were brought in to co-produce the album’s material with Stelmanis. 

Deriving its title from the peptide that leeches releases that’s the most potent anticoagulant in the world, HiRUDiN points inward, following a deeply personal and intimate journey towards regeneration and salvation, while touching upon the fallout of toxic relationships, queer shame and insecurity, letting go of harmful and hurtful influences, breaking harmful behavioral problems and cycles,  and finding the power and wherewithal to rebuild from scratch. Rooted in hard-fought and even harder-won personal experience, Stelmanis’ fourth album may arguably be the most introspective and forward-thinking of her growing catalog to date. 

“Anywayz,” HiRUDiN’s second and latest single is an expansive and cinematic track centered around twinkling keys, oscillating synths, four-on-the-floor-like beats, a rousingly anthemic hook and Stelmanis’ and achingly plaintive vocals, and sonically, the slickly produced  song — to my ears — seems to draw from Kate Bush, classical music, experimental pop and synth pop. The song “explores the fear associated with leaving someone, and the terrifying realization that without them in your life, the rest of the world will continue unscathed as if nothing has changed.” 

Directed by Jasmin Mozaffari, the recently released video for “Anywayz” continues an ongoing collaboration between the director and the Canadian artist — and the video employs a surreal and dream-like quality while being uneasy and chaotic, as we follow a protagonist, who’s pushed onward — even if she doesn’t initially want to.  “I wanted the video to feel as dramatic and chaotic as heartbreak can be, bringing this fear into fruition. The concept focuses on Katie as a heightened version of herself, sequestered inside a barren mansion that resembles a cage of her own spiralling thoughts,” Mozzaffari explains in press notes. “She resists moving on, yet as time persists and the outside world thrives, it eventually forces itself upon her.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Bobby Lees’ Feral Take on a Blues Classic

The Bobby Lees are a young, rapidly rising Woodstock, NY-based garage punk act, featuring Kendall Wind (Bass), Nick Casa (Lead Guitar), and Macky Bowman (Drums) — and over the past 18 months or so, the band has received attention for a frenzied and energetic live show, opening for a who’s who of contemporary indie rock — including The Black Lips, Murphy’s Law, Boss Hog, Future Islands, Daddy Long Legs, The Chats, and Shannon & The Clams. 

SKIN SUIT, the Woodstock-based punk outfit’s forthcoming  Jon Spencer-produced full-length album is slated for a May 8, 2020 release through Alive Naturalsounds Records finds the band mixing classic garage punk hits, raw and emotive storytelling and some of the most blistering guitar work I’ve heard in some time. Now, as you may recall, last year I wrote about “GutterMilk,” 94 seconds of explosive punk that will remind some listeners of Fever to Tell-era Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Jon Spencer‘s work with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. The forthcoming album’s second and latest single is a feral and unhinged cover of Bo Diddley’s “I’m A Man,”‘ that nods a bit at George Thorogood — but with a defiant, gender bending boldness.