JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 83rd anniversary of the birth of Jimi Hendrix.
Tag: vdieo
New Video: Tel Aviv-Born, Brooklyn-based Romi O Shares Woozy and Shapeshifting “M2M”
Deriving her stage name from her love of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romi O is an emerging Tel Aviv-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter who has been making music as long as she can remember. Initially writing and singing songs in Hebrew, the emerging Brooklyn-based artist eventually switched to writing and singing in English. Her earliest forays into songwriting saw the Tel Aviv-born artist leaning towards bittersweet and melancholy ballads. Her struggles with her own gender identity were accompanied by insecurity, self-doubt and self-hatred, which manifested as an aversion to the genre strictures and rules she found herself in, that she saw “too sweet, too girly.”
When she turned 22, the Tel Aviv-born, Brooklyn-based artist relocated to Brooklyn, where she sought a fresh start in music: She wound up joining JOVM mainstay act Ghost Funk Orchestra, contributing her vocals to three albums — 2019’s A Song For Paul, 2020’s An Ode to Escapism and last year’s A New Kind of Love. She’s also the co-founder of PowerSnap, which sees her and her bandmates specializing in a high-octane punk and garage rock-influenced sound, informed by a desire to break the stigmas she held of herself. With PowerSnap, she desired to ditch the soft persona of a “female singer/songwriter” — and pave the way for women, who didn’t want a traditional view of femininity to be the main attraction to their work. A couple of years ago, as part of a spiritual awakening, she rediscovered her feminine side, as she witnessed her sweet and heartfelt ballads touching listeners.
Romi O will step out into the spotlight as a solo artist with her forthcoming solo debut album, which will feature material that reportedly sounds as though it were influenced by TunE yArDs, Kimbra, Charli XCX, Dead Rituals, Trent Reznor and Bjork — but while not trying to ride someone else’s wave.
The album’s second and latest single, the Daniel Bloch-produced “M2M” is a woozy and mind-bending song featuring elements of alternative pop, singer/songwriter pop and doom punk built around a hypnotic and insistent groove, skittering beats and the Tel Aviv-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s self-assured, powerhouse vocals. While revealing an artist with a playful, forward-thinking sound and approach, the song according to Romi “deals with the idea of always being ready to question life choices and decisions and approaching everything without the fear of taking things too seriously,” to not “make a mountain out of a molehill,” as the song says.
Directed by Margot Bennet, the accompanying video features Romi O in a bare studio, shot from the shoulders up. But throughout subtle details and differences in her appearance manage to reveal elements of her personality, desires and even how she expresses herself and gender.
New Video: Acclaimed Canadian Multimedia Artist Sook-Yin Lee Releases a Euphoric and Playful Banger
Sook-Yin Lee is a award-winning Canadian filmmaker, musician, actor, visual artist and broadcaster, who has immersed herself in myriad creative collaborations across a wide array of media. Many of those collaborations were made with her life partner and frequent co-creator Adam Litovitz, including their 2015 electroacoustic album jooj.
While financial difficulties and external pressures contributed to the end of their romantic relationship, Lee and Litovitz remained best friends and creative partners, eventually continuing to work on the material that would eventually comprise their sophomore album together jooj two. As he was busy working on a soundtrack for Netflix, Litovitz gave Lee his blessing to continue working on their second album without him. Increasingly, Litovitz struggled with anxiety and depression, compounded by a prescription drug dependency that exacerbated insomnia and pain. Tragically, Litovitz committed suicide on July 16, 2019.
Litovtiz’s death’s a profound loss for Lee — and for those who loved him. As it turned out, Lee saw pieces of Litovitz’s irrepressible spirit — as well as the story of their relationship — contained within jooj two’s material, and was determined to share it with the world. With the assistance of Steve Chahley, Lee finished the album, which was released last month through Mint Records.
Despite the tragic circumstances that surround its completion, jooj two is a celebration of life — especially Litovtiz’s. Much like its predecessor, jooj two’s material its centered around the duo’s life-long love of pop music and playful experimentalism. Interestingly, the album features songs that tap into moments across pop’s vast history paired with a unique songwriting approach that initially came about when Lee responded to a musical phrase with vocal melodies and stream of consciousness lyrics. Litovitz transcribed and interpreted this experiments and retuned them to Lee, who would further refine them. The end result is an album that evokes the feeling of being thrown into the shorthand created between those who intimately know each other.
jooj two’s latest single “Ship It Out” is a euphoric and playful dance floor friendly banger featuring buzzing synth arpeggios, thumping beats, an insistent, motorik-like groove, bursts of cowbell and syrupy, stream-of-consciousness delivered lyrics. Sonically the track — to my ears, at least — manages to recall a slick, hook-driven synthesis of Lipps, Inc.’s 1979 smash-hit “Funky Town,” Kraftwerk’s “The Man Machine” and Giorgio Moroder’s Munich Machine. Personally, if the song doesn’t make you get up and start dancing, there’s something wrong deep in your soul. “When Adam and I made ‘Ship It Out” it made us laugh hard and of course dance!” Sook-Yin Lee recalled in press notes. “I have no idea where the syrupy vocal chorus bubbled up from inside of me… but I’m glad it did!”
Directed by Lee and Dylan Gamble, the recently released video follows an Earthling protagonist — played by lee — as she stumbles upon a curious, interstellar traveler, who engages her sense of curiosity and wonder. Fittingly, the interstellar traveler and our Earthling protagonist initially communicate through dancing. Eventually. the traveller reveals the secrets of the Universe to her, and it includes an urgent warning about the fate of the world she inhabits. Maybe we all need to heed that warning, huh?
New Video: Up-and-Coming French Artist Aurélie Billetdoux Releases a Trippy Animated Visual for “The Path”
Aurélie Billetdoux is a Paris-born and-based singer/songwriter, composer and multi-disciplinary artist, who also studied classic dance for about 15 years. In her early 20s, Billetdoux relocated to London, where she busked in the Tube while working a local restaurant. The Parisian-born and-based singer/songwriter and multi-disciplinary artist returned to Paris, where she spent three years studying at the Superior National Conservatory of Drama School. And while attending drama school, Billetdoux created a live show covering the work of old-school French vocalists, accompanied with an accordion player.
After the success of her show covering the old-school vocalists, Billetdoux decided that it was time to focus on her own original material — eventually completing her debut EP which is slated for an October release. In the meantime, “The Path,” the latest single off the EP is a decidedly cinematic track, centered around a Ennio Morricone-like arrangement of shuffling drumming, reverb-drenched guitars and Billetdoux’s sultry vocals.
While possessing an anachronistic quality, the track sounds as though it could easily have been part of the soundtrack of a Quentin Tarantino film — perhaps The Hateful 8 or Django Unchained? — but with a swooning romanticism and aching longing. After all, the song is a brooding meditation on fate and destiny — that questions when people know if it’s fate or free will.
The recently released video is an animated visual that features constantly morphing shapes and figures — at one point, a glass of wine turns into a person and so on. But at its core it captures the longing at the heart of the song,
Throwback: Mos Def “Umi Says”/Black Lives Matter
With yet another senseless, televised police murder of a black person, I’ve felt angry and exhausted, demoralized and depressed. When will this nightmare end of unnecessary death end? When will we be free of this?
It just felt necessary to post one of my favorite Mos Def songs, off an album I turn to whenever racism and injustice seems to hurt me to my very core — “Umi Says,” off Black on Both Sides.
Simply put, I want all my black people to be free. Black lives matter. All the time. Every single day.
New Video: Mexico City’s Sotomayor Releases a Trippy Visual for “Sin control”
Over the past couple of months, I’ve written a bit about the Mexico City, Mexico-based sibling electro pop duo Sotomayor. The act, which the duo founded in 2015 features arguably two of their hometown’s most accomplished musicians: Paulina Sotomayor (vocals) is known for her work as a drummer in local rock/folk act folk act Jefes del Desierto, and Raul Sotomayor (production), best known for his work as one-half of award-winning jazz/funk duo Beat Buffet and for creating DayOff, a Sunday afternoon party that presents global bass acts from around the world.
Since their formation, they’ve released two albums –2015’s Salvaje and 2017’s Conquistador — that have received attention from Vice, MTV and KEXP for a sound that meshes elements of cumbia, Afrobeat, dancehall, Peruvian chicha and merengue with modern electronic production and rock ‘n’ roll-like urgency. Adding to a growing profile, the act has toured across the UK, the States and Colombia.
Recorded in studios in Puerto Rico and Mexico, the duo’s recently released Eduardo Cabra-produced, third full-length album Origenes further cementing their sound — while further drawing from the sounds of Latin America’s clubs and streets. Possessing a strong sense of tradition, the album’s material is centered around their unerring knack for pairing pop friendly melodies with rock ‘n’ roll urgency. But unlike their previously released work, the Sotomayors add and explore Afro Caribbean percussion to their overall sound and aesthetic.
“Sin control” Origenes’ third single continues a run of club friendly material — but in this case, the track is a decidedly Larry Levan-era house inspired track centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, thumping Latin-influenced percussion and Paulina Sotomayor’s sultry and ethereal vocals. Nodding at the work of artists like Sango and Branko, the track is an infectious and summery bop written and designed to get asses shaking on the dance floor.
Directed by Drew Boyle, the recently released video for “Sin Control” features some mind-bending and lysergic computer animated visuals — also by Boyle — that at times pulsate to the music’s hypnotic beats.
New Video: Belgium’s Whispering Sons Release an Ominous and Creepy Video for “Hollow”
Initially formed in 2013, the Brussels, Belgium-based post punk act Whispering Sons, comprised of Fenne Kuppens (vocals), Kobe Linjen (guitar), Sander Hermans (synths), Tuur Vanderborne (bass) and Sander Pelsmaekers (drums) received attention nationally with the release of their debut EP, 2015’S Endless Party through Wool-E-Tapes with a vinyl reissue in March 2016 through Minimal Maximal. The following year, the band won one of their homeland’s most prestigious music competitions Humo’s Rock Rally, which they followed up with two 7 inches, 2016’s “Performance”/”Strange Identities” and 2017’s “White Noise.”
Building upon a growing profile across Belgium, the Brussels-based post-punk quintet released their full-length debut, the Micha Volders and Bert Vliegen-produced Image through Cleopatra Records here in the States and Smile Records throughout the rest of the world last year. Recorded over a ten day period at Waimes, Belgium’s GAM Studios, the album finds the band attempting to capture their live sound — and the sense of anxiety and alienation that each individual bandmember felt when they relocated to Brussels.
Now, as you may recall album single “Alone” was centered around shimmering and angular guitar lines, a propulsive and sinuous bass line, thunderous and mathematically precise drumming, an area rock-friendly hook derived from a cryptic bit of dialog spoken during Twin Peaks’ first season and Kuppens’ Ian Curtis-like vocal delivery. Much like its predecessors, the album’s latest single “Hollow” further cements the Belgian band’s reputation for crafting an ominous post-punk sound reminiscent of Joy Division, Actors, Deathlist, True Moon, and Second Still among others — but while evoking the overwhelming sense of dread, anxiousness, isolation and outrage of our current sociopolitical moment, in which we (as a collective whole) seem to be marching lockstep towards oblivion.
Directed by Pieter De Ridder, the incredibly cinematic and downright creepy visuals for “Hollow” further emphasize the end-of-days vibes of the song it accompanies. There’s no murderous cyborgs or aliens sent from the far reaches of space and time to exterminate humanity; there’s no Revelations-like four horsemen riding through towns with demonic glee; nor are there godly folk being immediate raptured to heaven; instead the doom the video focuses on, is as the old poem suggests — that the world will end not with a bang but with a whimper. In fact, the video follows a collection of young people, including the members of the band gathering at a proverbial “tree of life.” Every single person the band and the viewer encounters is looking up at the sky in a trancelike gaze. Whatever is coming from above, no one seems frightened or overly concerned; it’ll be as it’ll always be. It’ll leave a lingering chill down your spine.
New Video: Acclaimed Singer/Songwriter Gerald Toto Releases a Cinematic and Symbolic Visual for “Away Alive”
Last year, I wrote about the acclaimed trio of Toto Bona Lokua, comprised of French-Antillean singer/songwriter Gerald Toto, Cameroonian jazz musician Richard Bona and Congolese singer/songwriter Lokua Kanza, and as you might recall, with the release of 2004’s, critically applauded sophomore effort Totobonalokua, the pan-African act received attention across world music circles for a sound and aesthetic that effortlessly blended several different traditions, cultures and languages; in fact, the album was a commercial success in France, despite very little promotion and no touring.
Since the release of Totobonalokua, the members of the trio have pursued a series of diverse solo projects, which kept them incredibly busy. Of course, because of the success of their sophomore album, the individual members of the trio would frequently be asked by fans and the press if they would be reuniting to write and record new material — or if they had any plans to tentatively do so. Although the individual member of the trio’s paths seldom crossed, they managed to stay in touch, and as the story goes Gerald Toto suggested that it might be time to reconvene the trio and try to write new material. Bona and Kanza quickly agreed and while it took some time to synchronize the schedules of three extremely prolific and busy artists, they found time to write and record their third full-length album Bondeko, which was released earlier this year through French record label Nø Førmat. (By the way, the album’s title is derived from the Lingala word for “friendship” or “fraternity.”)
This year has been a very busy one for Gerald Toto, as he followed the release of Toto Bona Lokua’s third album with his latest solo album Sway, and from the album’s first single “Away Alive,” Toto will further cement his reputation for crafting infectious and breezy pop that’s mischievously difficult to categorize. In fact, “Away Alive” is centered around a languid and tropical groove, featuring gently strummed guitar, brief bursts of arpeggiated synths and an infectious hook paired with Toto’s yearning falsetto. Sonically the song hints at Tropicalia, Bossa nova, 70s soul, Afro pop, French pop and folk while not being one thing in particular; but perhaps more important, the song encouragers the listener to slow down and pay close attention to gentle sway of life’s rhythms every now and then.
Produced by Paris-baed company La Sucrerie and directed by R&D, the recently released — and incredibly cinematic — video follows Toto as he wanders about the desert. Speaking about the video, Toto says “The desert is an allegorical dream. An inner space where one seems initially lost, without reference or bearings, before finding, within, an anchor point from which to walk. With a heart open to all encounters.”