Tag: women who kick ass

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Up-and-Coming Act Starcrawler Releases a Cinematic and Symbolic Visuals for Mosh Pit Friendly Ripper “She Gets Around”

With the release of last year’s critically applauded, self-titled debut, the Los Angeles-based indie rock act Starcrawler, comprised of Arrow de Wilde (vocals), Henri Cash (guitar), Austin Smith (drums) and Tim Franco (bass) quickly emerged into the national and international scene for a sound that is indebted to 90s alt rock — and for a feral live show. Since the release of their full-length debut, the Los Angeles-based quartet have been busy with a busy touring schedule that has seen them play at some of the world’s major festivals including Primavera Sound, Rock Am Ring, Download Festival, Voodoo Festival, FujiRock Festival, Reading Festival, Leeds Festival, SXSW and others; in fact, the band won last year’s SXSW Grulke Prize for best US act, after consistently kicking ass over the course of 9 shows in a grueling 4 or 5 day period.

Adding to a rising profile, the band opened for the likes of Foo Fighters, MC50 and Morrissey — and they were included as part of last year’s incredibly diverse crop of Vevo DSCVR artists; however, they were the only ones to have Garbage‘s Shirley Manson praise the band and their frontperson in a video testimonial. 2019 may arguably be an even bigger year for the up-and-coming band: their first single of this year “Hollywood Ending” received praise from NPR and Rolling Stone, and as a result, the track spent several weeks at #1 on speciality radio charts — and they’ll spend a good portion of this year opening for the likes of Beck, Cage The Elephant, Spoon and The Distillers to support their forthcoming, highly-anticipated sophomore album.

“She Gets Around,” the second single of the year from the buzzworthy, Los Angeles-based quartet will further cement the band’s reputation for crafting material that’s clearly indebted to 90s alt rock as the track is centered around scuzzy, distortion pedal-fed power chords, thunderous drumming, heavily down-tuned yet propulsive bass lines, snarled vocals and a rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hook delivered with a ass-kicking, name-taking self-assuredness and an unhinged fury. 

The incredibly cinematic and lush black and white shot video directed by Gilbert Trejo features de Wilde in an enormous parachute struggling to get get free and as a suspended angel — while her bandmates perform the song. As Trejo and de Wilde say of the song and video ““It’s about building someone up in your own head, deifying them, only to have that mental image destroyed in seconds. Not everyone is actually an angel, and sometimes we have to destroy our own marble, saccharine image of them in order to move on. Crow bars and baseball bats make it easier.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Up-and-Coming Angolan-Portuguese Global Dance Music Artist Pongo Releases Pastel Colored Surrealist Visuals for Sultry “Chora”

Pongo is an up-and-coming Luanda, Angola-born, Lisbon, Portugal-based pop artist. As a child, the Angolan-Portuguese pop artist’s family was forced to feel Angola to escape a lengthy and very bloody civil war that decimated their homeland. Pongo and her family eventually settled in Lisbon, where she’s lived ever since. 

The Angolan-Portuguese pop artist got the attention of the acclaimed, Portuguese act Buraka Som Sistema, an electronic dance music act that specialized in a sound that meshed tech beats with zouk, a rapid-fire  musical style from Martinique and Guadeloupe and kuduro, an up-tempo dance music genre from Angola that blends elements of soca and samba, in what was dubbed zouk bass and progressive kuduro. In 2008, Buraka Som Sistema released their smash hit, “Kalemba (Wengue Wengue), a single that went on to sell 10 million copies and eventually landed them a MTV Europe Award for Best Portuguese Act. Adding to a growing international profile, the track received co-signs from the likes of Diplo, Hot Chip and Shakira.

Released last year, Pongo’s solo debut Baia EP was a genre-blurring, globalist affair that found the Angolan-Portuguese artist pairing Portuguese lyrics with a sound that meshed elements of Angolan kiduro with Western styles like techno and bass. Released just before her appearance at this year’s Great Escape Festival, the expanded edition of the Baia EP features a new track, “Chora.” Deriving its title from the Portuguese word for “cry,” Pongo’s latest single meshes dancehall, soca and trap within a slick production consisting of glistening bursts of steel drum and snares, stuttering, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and self-assured and vaguely trap and hip-hop inspired vocal delivery from the Angolan Portuguese artist. The Baia EP expanded edition also features remixes of “Chora” by 20syl, who has remixed and re-worked material by King Krule, Schoolboy Q, and Rihanna — and a remix by Anoraak, which will be released through renowned French electronic music label Kitsune next month.

Created by French direction and production duo Rush Hour, the recently released video for “Chora” is a pastel-colored, Dadaesque, pan-African dream, centered around a stunningly beautiful, up-and-coming, global star. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: JOVM Mainstay Alice Phoebe Lou Performs “Galaxies” at Berlin’s Zeiss Planetarium for Majestic Casual Sessions

Over the past year or so, I’ve written quite a bit about the  Cape Town, South Africa-born, Berlin, Germany-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist and JOVM mainstay  Alice Phoebe Lou. And as you may recall, Lou grew up in a very creative home — her parents were documentary filmmakers, who took a young Lou to piano lessons. As a teen, Lou taught herself guitar; but when she turned 16, she went on a life-altering trip to Paris to visit her aunt. While in Paris, armed with an acoustic guitar, the young artist met some of that cit’s buskers and street performers — eventually learning poi dancing from some of them.

After completing her studies, Lou returned to Europe, first landing in Amsterdam, where she made money as a poi dancer. She then relocated to Berlin, where she quickly developed a reputation as a well-regarded busker and for a fierce, punk rock-like DIY approach to her musical career. With the release of 2014’s self-released debut EP, the Cape Town-born, Berlin-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist began to receive national and international attention, which resulted in performances at a number of  TED events in London and Berlin during the following year.

Lou’s sophomore effort, 2016’s Orbit was nominated for Best Female Artist at that year’s German Critics’ Choice Awards. And building upon a rapidly growing profile both nationally and internationally, she played at the 27th Annual Conference for the Professional Business Women of California, which featured keynote speakers Venus Williams, Judy Smith, and Memory Banda and shared bills with Sixto Rodriguez, Boy & Bear, and Allen Stone before ending the year with three, sold-out multimedia events at the Berlin Planetarium. (The Berlin Planetarium shows were so popular and in such high demand that she had to add two additional shows there to her tour schedule in 2017.)

Additionally, the live version of “She” amassed over 4 million views on YouTube and was featured in the major motion picture Bombshell: The Heady Lamar Story — all before the studio version of the single was even recorded or released. But for most of 2018, Lou worked on her Noah Georgeson-produced sophomore effort Paper Castles, which was released earlier this year. And as Lou explains, the album is “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.”

“Something Holy,” the album’s first single was a slow-burning 70s AM rock meets 70s soul-like track centered around shimmering guitar line, hushed drumming, a sinuous hook, a psychedelic tinged bridge and Lou’s aching vocals with the song’s narrator taking a deeply introspective and unvarnished look into her complicated relationships with sex, love, men and ultimately, with herself. The song reflects, as Lou explained in press notes, “the moment that I managed to get over the main hurdle of my past traumas with sex, with men and with my own deeper understanding of intimacy and what it means to be intimate.” 

Paper Castles’ latest single is the gorgeous and expansive “Galaxies.” Beginning with a shimmering and spacey introduction and Lou’s plaintive wailing, before the song turns into a spacey 70s jazz funk number, centered by a sultry, reggae-like bass line and a mournful saxophone solo and then morphs back into a shimmering and spacey coda — and while the song seamlessly shifts back and forth in a fashion reminiscent of Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights,” the song is imbued with a cosmic sheen. 

Majestic Casual invited the JOVM mainstay for a live session of “Galaxies” that was fittingly shot at Berlin’s Zeiss Planetarium.  Game of Throes star Maisie Williams opens the live session with a spoken word piece musing on humanity’s place within the cosmos directly inspired by the song. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Two from Grunge Legends L7

Currently comprised of founding members Donita Sparks (vocals, guitar) and Suzi Gardner (guitar, vocals) along with Jennifer Finch (bass) and Demetra Plakas (drums), the acclaimed and pioneering, Los Angeles-based grunge act L7 can trace their origins back to 1985, a full year after Gardner had contributed backing vocals to Black Flag’s “Slip It In.”

Once Sparks and Gardner formed the band, they were added by Finch and Roy Koutsky (drums). Koutsky left shortly after and was briefly replaced by Anne Anderson (drums) in 1988. After Anderson left the band, Plakas became the band’s permanent drummer. Although they formed Rock for Choice, a pro-choice women’s rights group that was supported by the likes of Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, and Rage Against the Machine, they’re best known for their third album, 1992’s Butch Vig-produced Bricks Are Heavy, which featured their seminal track (and smash hit) “Pretend We’re Dead.” “Pretend We’re Dead” spent 13 weeks on the US Alternative Charts, peaking at #8 and reached #21 on the UK Singles Chart.

After the release of 1994’s Hungry for Stink, which was supported by that year’s Lollapalooza tour with Smashing Pumpkins and The Breeders, the band went through a number of lineup changes: Finch left the band during the recording of 1997’s The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum, an album that featured bass playing by Sparks and Greta Brinkman; however, Belly’s Gail Greenwood joined the band.

1999’s Slap-Happy didn’t chart on either side of the Atlantic, and sometime after the release of that album, the Los Angeles-based grunge band went through yet another lineup changes with Greenwood leaving the band to be replaced by Stone Fox’s Janis Tanaka, who later played bass in Pink’s and Bif Naked’s backing bands.

By 2001, the members of L7 weren’t touring and were on an indefinite hiatus. During that time Sparks formed a new band, Donita Sparks and The Stellar Moments while Finch was a member of punk rock act The Shocker. Simultaneously during that period, Sparks was working on a documentary on the band, which was rumored to have a 2014 release date. And interestingly enough, by the end of 2014 the band announced that they would reuniting featuring the lineup with which they achieved their biggest success — Sparks, Gardner, Finch and Plakas.

The reunited L7 toured Europe and North America with a number of stops across the international circuit in 2015 including Germany’s Rock am Ring, Riot Fest stops in Denver and Chicago, and Austin’s Fun Fun Fun Festival.  The Sarah Price-directed L7 documentary, L7: Pretend We’re Dead was released in 2016 while the band was on a busy tour schedule throughout both 2016 and 2017.

Building upon the growing buzz surrounding the reunited band, the members of the Los Angeles-based grunge outfit released “Dispatch from Mar-a-Lago,” their first new song in almost 18 years in September 2017. They followed that up with “I Came Back to Bitch,” which was released in February 2018. The band’s recently released seventh album Scatter the Rats is the first album from the Los Angeles-based grunge outfit in 20 years and from album singles “Burn Baby” and “Stadium West,” the new album is sort of a return to form: scuzzy and distorted power chords, thunderous drumming, snarled lyrics and rousingly anthemic hooks. And interestingly enough, both singles reveal that the members of L7 have had a massive influence on contemporary indie rock — you can hear L7’s influence in the work of JOVM mainstays The Coathangers, Sharkmuffin, Dream Wife and others. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Luna Shadows is a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, electronic music artist and electronic music producer, who has developed a reputation for a staunchly DIY approach with the Los Angeles-based artist writing, performing, recording, producing, engineering and editing every note of her own work — and for sultry, melancholy pop that Billboard has called “. . . refreshingly soulful and haunting . ..” and has been compared by some as Lana Del Ray taking Lorde to the beach.

So far Luna Shadows work has amassed over 35 million Spotify streams, with tracks landing on tastemaker playlists like New Music Friday, Indie Pop, Weekend Beats and Weekly Buzz, reaching #7 on the US Charts and #18 on the Global Viral Charts.  Building upon a growing profile, the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, electronic music artist and electronic music producer has also received airplay on radio stations worldwide, including KROQ, BBC Radio 1 and Beats 1 — and she played a sold out, live debut show at renowned Los Angeles indie music showcase School Night. And amazingly, Luna Shadows has done that without a label.

Recently, Luna Shadows has begun collaborating with two acclaimed, mainstream indie pop producers, Now Now‘s Brad Hale and The Naked and Famous‘ Thom Powers to help shoulder the production and editing load.

2019 may be a big year for the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, electronic music artist and electronic music producer, as she signed to +1 Records, who will be releasing her first single of the year “lowercase.” Centered around a sleek radio friendly yet club-banging production featuring tweeter and woofer rocking beats, shimmering and arpeggiated synths, chopped up vocal samples, twinkling keys, Luna Shadow’s plaintive and sultry vocals and an enormous hook — and while infectious, the track is imbued with the bitterness, heartache and confusion of a dysfunctional relationship full of power plays and accusation.

“‘lowercase’ is a song about recognizing your power through awareness in a situation where you were made to feel incredibly small by another. This takedown is detailed through a central metaphor, a reference to the millennial digital communication ‘you break down to lowercase, the capitals you take for only you.'”

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Currently comprised of founding members Laila Hashemi (keys, vocals) and Lexi Funston (guitar, vocals) along with Staz Lindes (bass, vocals) and David Ruiz (drums, vocals), the Los Angeles-based punk act The Paranoyds can trace their origins to the longtime friendship of its founding members, who met when they were both in preschool. Eventually moving from the playground to the practice room, the band’s founding duo met Lindes and Ruiz, who joined the band in 2015.

Since becoming a full-fledged band in 2015. the Los Angeles-based punk quartet have  crafted material with the gritty spunk and dark playfulness of a cult-classic splatter film while developing what they’ve described as a “sister vocal act,” that effortlessly moves from scuzzy surf-pop to power chord-based garage rock. Interestingly, the members of the band have generally kept a low profile on social media, instead keeping in the old-school punk tradition of hitting the road, playing shows and kicking ass wherever they go; in fact, over the past few years, they’ve built up a reputation as an in-demand opener, opening for the likes of DIVV, Albert Hammond, Jr., Sunflower Bean and BRONCHO.

Slated for a July 12, 2019 release through Suicide Squeeze Records, the band’s “Hungry Sam”/”Trade Our Sins” 7 inch is a sort of one-off single that finds the band playfully expanding upon their sound and approach, before the release of more new material and a West Coast tour with blogosphere darlings Tacocat. “Trade Our Sins” is a slow-burning apocalyptic waltz centered around a simple arrangement of guitar, organs and drums that focuses on two lovers, in a now-or-never moment to share decadent, sinful delights before the end of everything. And while self-assured in a fashion that recalls JOVM mainstays The Coathangers, the song manages a sultry coquettishness.

Check out the tour dates below.

Tour Dates:

06/11/19 – Seattle, WA @ Belltown Yacht Club

06/12/19 – Spokane, WA @ The Bartlett w/ Tacocat

06/13/19 – Boise, ID @ Neurolux w/ Tacocat

06/14/19 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court w/ Tacocat

06/15/19 – Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge w/ Tacocat

06/17/19 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada w/ Tacocat

06/18/19 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall (upstairs) w/ Tacocat

06/19/19 – Austin, TX @ Barracuda (outside) w/ Tacocat

06/21/19 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf w/ Tacocat

06/22/19 – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar w/ Tacocat

06/23/19 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah w/ Tacocat

06/25/19 – Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg Theater w/ Tacocat

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Born Tessa Violet Williams in Chicago, the up-and-coming, Nashville-based indie pop singer/songwriter and vlogger, Tessa Violet can trace the origins of her music career to a school project in which she began daily vlogging in 2007 for a school project with the screen name Meekakitty while working in Hong Kong and Thailand as a model; however, by 2009 Williams quit modeling and relocated to New York, to focus on her vlog, which primarily focused on storytelling, skits and music videos — particularly, fan-made music videos for popular artists like Reliant K, Family Force 5 and MIKA.

Wiliams gained national attention after winning $100,000 in a YouTube competition by receiving the most comments on her video entry.  In 2011, Williams was featured in fellow YouTube creator Nanalew’s fan-made “Sail,” which went viral and has amassed over 310 million views. In 2012, The Chicago-born, Nashville-based indie pop singer/songwriter followed her appearance in “Sail” by appearing in the video for Family Force 5’s “Cray Button,” and then directing the act’s video for “Chainsaw,” which featured Tedashii.

By 2013 Williams began to focus on writing, recording and releasing music and the focus on her YouTube channel shifted to her original music, eventually leading to her dropping the Meekakitty moniker and using her real name Tessa Violet across all of her online platforms.

So far the past year or so has been a breakthrough, whirlwind year for the up-and-coming Chicago-born, Nashville-based indie pop artist: she’s released two critically applauded singles “Crush” and “Bad Ideas” — “Crush” has amassed over 18 million Spotify streams and the video has received over 36 million views. “Bad Ideas” became a viral hit. As result of the success of those two singles, Williams toured with her first live, backing band, which featured Jess Bowen (drums) — and that tour included her first sold-out headline shows at Los Angeles‘ The Troubadour and the Mercury Lounge. 

Building upon an exploding profile, she just finished her first UK tour, which featured a sold out London show, and Billboard featured her as one of 10 new festival artists to look out for this year. She was also named the first YouTube Foundry Artist of 2019 — and she’ll be making her Lollapalooza debut this year. Her full-length album Bad Ideas will be released one song a month or so throughout the year, and the album’s third and latest single “I Like (The Idea of) You” recently premiered on Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist and YouTube Music’s Pop Before It Breaks playlist. Centered around a disco meets New Wave-like bass line, the Chicago-born, Nashville-based pop artist’s latest single is a sultry and coquettish, late night strut that recalls DFA Records heyday.

“I was seeing this guy at the time, who I knew wasn’t into me. And even though I could see that, it was still so much fun to think and obsess about him,” Tessa Violet says of the song. “Replaying the way he said my name on the phone, imagining what I would wear or say the next time I saw him, thinking of things I could write about him. I remember that I could logically see it wasn’t going anywhere, so I thought maybe I should feel embarrassed about how much time I was spending on him. But it didn’t make me feel embarrassed, it made me feel sexy and powerful. So what if they’re not that into me? I like the idea of it and I’m going to enjoy that.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Led by founding members, primary songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Andrew Levy and Simon Bartholomew, the commercially and critically successful London-based soul act The Brand New Heavies were at the forefront of Britain’s emergent Acid Jazz movement, alongside the likes of Young Disciples and Grammy Award-winning and multi-BRIT Award-winning act Jamiorquai.

The act began to make waves with the release of their debut single, the celebrated club classic “Got To Give,” which was released through Chrysalis Records. The London-based neo-soul act eventually signed to Acid Jazz Records, who released their applauded self-titled debut album in 1990 across Europe and elsewhere, while the album was picked up in the US by renowned hip-hop label Delicious Vinyl. Now, if you were around in 1990, you may recall their debut album’s Top Three R&B smash-hit “Never Stop,” which led to the album being on the R&B Album charts for the better part of a year — and to the act winning an MTV award for the track. And unsurprisingly, the album may arguably be the most successful of their career, as it went Gold in the UK.

Interestingly, The Brand New Heavies’ full-length debut proved to be both popular and influential in hip-hop circles, and as a result the members of the band have collaborated with an impressive array of hip-hop luminaries including A Tribe Called Quest, and Kool G. Rap, Gang Starr and Main Source for Heavy Rhyme Experience.

The London-based neo-soul act’s follow-up two immediate efforts — 1994’s Brother Sister and 1997’s Shelter — went Platinum, with the act eventually scoring 16 Top 40 hits including “Dream Come True,” “Stay This Way,” “Midnight At The Oasis,” “Sometimes,” and “Dream On Dreamer.”

As a result of their massive commercial success in the UK, the band led by Levy and Bartholomew have been lauded by Mark Ronson, who invited the band to play at his 40th birthday celebration. Interestingly, the act’s first bit of new material in five years, “Getaway” finds the act returning to their longtime label home Acid Jazz Records, as well as collaborating with longtime collaborator, vocalist N’Dea Davenport, with whom they’ve earned their biggest charting, best-selling work.

Centered around a warm, disco-influenced groove, a horn line that hints at Cheryl Lynn‘s 1978 disco smash hit “Got To Be Real,” a massive hook, and Davenport’s soulfully sultry vocals, the track is a dance floor friendly escapist fantasy, expressing the desire of getting away from the world and its stresses and routines with a love-interest/lover, and to simply enjoy the moment.

The Brand New Heavies will be playing a number of dates across the UK over the next few month with more dates to be announced soon; but in the meantime, check out the recently announced tour dates below.

TOUR DATES

 

May 24-26 – Upton on Severn, UK – Mello Festival

May 31 – Bedford, UK – Corn Exchange

July 05-8 – Lewes, UK – Love Supreme Festival

July 12-14 – Moseley, UK – Jazz Funk & Soul Festival

July 12-14 Caversham, UK – Readipop Festival

Sept 07 – London, UK – Electric Soul Festival @ 02

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Little Galaxies is an up-and-coming Venice Beach, CA indie rock quartet, currently comprised of founding members Jeanna Fournier (vocals, guitar) and Amir Eshraghi (guitar, theremin) along with Andreas Kvinge Sandes (bass) and Christian Johnson (drums), and the band can trace its origins to when Fournier and Eshraghi met and fell inn love. With the release of their full-length debut 2013’s Patterns, the quartet quickly established a textured sound that draws from psych rock, pop, folk and soul. 

The Venice Beach indie quartet has received praise across a number of renowned sites across the blogosphere including Earmilk, Buzzbands LA , The Bay Bridged and print publications like OC Weekly, and The Deli Magazine; in fact, the band won The Deli Magazine‘s Emerging Los Angeles Artist of the Year Award, which led to a feature in that publication’s SXSW print edition. Building upon a growing profile. the band also won KSCR‘s Best Music Video and Best Feel Good Video award for “Tonight.” Building upon a growing regional and national profile, the band has played shows and festivals across Southern California, toured up and down the West Coast, eventually making their way as far east to Austin, TX. Most recently, the band was commissioned by the Mayor of Salton Sea’s West Shores to compose the closing song for the documentary SOS: The Salton Sea Walk.

After a three year hiatus in which Fournier recovered from incurring injuries in a car accident, the band returned the stage last year with shows at the Townhouse, The Satellite, The Viper Room and others with those shows featured the band’s new rhythm section — Johnson (drums) and Sandnes (bass), both of whom have been instrumental in the band further expanding upon the sound that won them attention. 

Little Galaxies are currently working on the finishing touches on their forthcoming sophomore full-length album, and the album’s first official single “It’s Natural” is centered around towering layers of shimmering guitars fed through delay and other effects pedals, a regal horn arrangement, a propulsive rhythm section and Fournier’s sultry and languid vocals. And while bearing an uncanny resemblance to JOVM mainstay Oddneese, the song as the band explains in press notes, “is about letting nature take its course when thing are out of our control and in dire circumstances, allowing oneself to become enlightened through these experiences. We wrote the song during the band’s hiatus while our singer was healing from injuries from a car accident. After watching our world collapse around us, we learned that we have the power to shift our perspectives and look at these pitfalls in a positive light. We took three years to rebuild what we had lost, and now see that this experience helped us to grow and come back stronger. This song is a call to embrace the natural ebb and flow of life and find the ‘diamonds in despair.'”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this year, i wrote about the up-and-coming Bristol, UK-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Katey Brooks, and as you may recall, with the release of 2016’s I Fought Lovers EP, Brooks quickly earned a national and international profile for a sound and songwriting approach that has been compared favorably to the likes of Jeff Buckley. In fact, material off the EP received enthusiastic airplay on  BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 6 and  the CBC, and praise from Billboard, Pride and The Advocate. Adding to a growing profile, Brooks has shared bills with an eclectic yet impressive list of artists that includes Newton Faulkner, Ghostpoet, Martin Simpson, Deaf Havana, Lamb‘s Lou Rhodes, Mike and the Mechanics, and Mystery Jets, and has played at some of the world’s biggest festivals including Glastonbury, WOMAD, the 2012 Paralympics and Australia’s National Folk Festival. She also has appeared on a compilation with Anais Mitchell, Ane Brun and Marissa Nadler and recorded a track with The Rolling Stones’ Bill Wyman and Paloma Faith. 

Interestingly, Brooks has a complicated and messy upbringing. She grew up in a cult, and as a child, she found refuge in music.“It was a very chaotic upbringing, full of some pretty colourful and sometimes unsavoury, characters. But when I sang, I felt free and connected. For as long as I can remember, it’s been my way of getting what I need to say out,” she reveals in press notes. She began singing gospel, old spirituals and the songs from the likes of John Lennon and Elvis Presley — but by the time she was a teenager, she entertained her peers with soul renditions.

When she turned 16, the Bristol-based singer/songwriter turned down a spot at the renowned BRIT School. “It would be interesting to know what would have happened if I had gone there, but I try not to dwell on that,”Brooks says in press notes. “I always think that you’re where you’re meant to be. And if I had gone, I probably would have ended up writing slightly less authentically to myself. But who knows, because if all the things that have happened in my life nevertheless happened, maybe I still would have written the way I do.”

When Brooks turned 20, she became extremely ill and her life was on pause as she was convalescing; but as she was convalescing she joined a songwriters group led by her friend, Strangelove’s Patrick Duff. “We would get together and play our songs to each other. It was really therapeutic.” Around this time Brooks was convinced that she had to devote her time to music. “So one day I just put on my own gig at the (Bristol) Folk House,” she laughs. “I sort of became an artist and promoter overnight,” Brooks recalls.

Sadly, shortly after making the decision to focus on her music, the Bristol-based singer/songwriter experienced a turbulent period of heartbreak and tragedy: the year she turned 22, her mother became ill and died — and shortly after that, one of her best friends went missing and died. “That’s definitely had an effect on the course of my life, and my writing,” Brooks says in press notes. “People have come up to me after gigs, particularly after songs I wrote during that time, saying ‘there’s a lot of sadness in your songs’ and it’s like ‘well, yeah.’ But I guess I’m lucky that I have songs that I can write, as a means to deal with things.”

Along with those hardships, Brooks has struggled to come to terms with her own sexuality. “In my most recent work I’ve finally been able to sing directly about women instead of using the mysterious ‘you,’” Brooks mentions in press notes. “I’m a private person in a lot of ways and I never wanted to be a poster girl for anything. But a few years ago I just thought screw it; I want to sing completely honestly. It felt like a weight lifted.”

Brooks latest single is the classic soul-inspired ballad “All of Me.” Centered around a spectral arrangement featuring a looping 12 blues guitar, a gospel-like backing vocal section, a two-step inducing rhythm section and Brooks achingly plaintive and soulful vocals, the new single will further establish the Bristol-based singer/songwriter and guitarist’s ability to mesh craft, earnestness and ambitious songwriting in a thoughtful and natural fashion. But along with that much of Brooks’ material comes from real, lived-in places — in particular, the song’s narrator bitterly calls out a lover on their ambivalence. It was inspired by a personal situation with someone I was prepared to give my world to. They proclaimed deep love, but then proceeded to behave in ways that were completely incongruent with that proclamation”, revealsBrooks. Words can be very powerful and beautiful, but ultimately, when it comes to showing someone you love them, they’re cheap and easy to deliver. Actions tell us everything we need to know about how someone feels about us, and if they respect us – in every kind of relationship.” 

 

 

 


Video by William Ruben Helms

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.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Dublin’s Submotile Releases a Lysergic “120 Minutes”-like Visual for “Eastern Sky Sundown”

Comprised of Irish-born, Dublin-based Michael Farren (guitar) and Italian-born, Dublin-based Daniela Angione (vocals), the Dublin-based indie act Submotile initially began as an experimental, ambient project. The project’s sound evolved considerably when Angione began to add vocals to Farren’s guitar experiments, which eventually resulted in their first proper collaborative track “Signs of My Melody.”

The duo’s debut EP We’re Losing The Light was released to significant interest in shoegazer circles. Farren and Angione were encouraged to pursue their long-held dream — writing and recording a proper full-length album. Released digitally a few weeks ago, the duo’s full-length debut Ghosts Fade on Skylines finds the duo blurring the lines between shoegaze, noise rock, ambient, post-rock and pop — all while drawing from Slowdive, Warpaint, Smashing Pumpkins, Swans, Spiritualized, Nirvana and others. “We wanted an album that ebbed and flowed, with nine diverse songs that complimented each other without being too different from each other. The idea behind the music is to express the dualism of warmth over hostility, passion over frustration, all these dynamics projected onto a sense of hope and renaissance. I’m not sure if we succeeded, but hopefully it works,” Daniela Angione says in press notes.

“Having quit music in 2009 due to the frustration of never having been able to translate the sounds in my head to tape, Ghosts Fade on Skylines was recorded during a wonderful period of rebirth and rejuvenation, a period where I was discovering all the great new music that was out there, whilst simultaneously finding out just how far music production technology had evolved,” Michael Farren explains in press notes. “This evolution allowed us to come that bit closer to the sound in our heads, enabling us to labor over songs, adding hundreds of tracks and experimenting with samples, guitar pedals and tones – many a happy hour was whiled away tracking this music. If someone out there enjoys listening to it a fraction as much as we enjoyed making it, then to me it’ll be a success.”

Interestingly, the album’s latest single, the immersive and enveloping “Eastern Sky Sundown” is centered by layers upon layers of buzzing and reverb-drenched guitars, four-on-four-like drumming, a rousingly anthemic hook and Angione’s ethereal vocals floating over the lysergic and oceanic mix — and while bearing an uncanny resemblance to The Jesus and Mary Chain and Smashing Pumpkins, the track bristles with the newfound self-assured of a band that found their sound. Unsurprisingly, the recently released video for “Eastern Sky Sundown” features appropriately psychedelic imagery while recalling 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock.

Look for a limited edition run of Ghosts Fade on Skyline through Midsummer Madness Records this summer.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Sultry and Cinematic Visuals for Winona Oak’s “He Don’t Love Me”

Born Johanna Ekmark, Winona Oak is an up-and-coming Solleron, Sweden-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist. Oak has had one of the most unique backstories I’ve come across in some time. Growing up on the small Swedish island known as the Island of the Sun, the Solleron-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist grew up encountering more animals than people; in fact she grew up as a trained horse acrobat — and because she grew up in a musical home, she was encouraged to pursue creative endeavors as much as possible: she began playing violin when she was 5, piano when she was 9 and she wrote poetry and songs at a very young age.

Ekmark eventually moved to Stockholm to pursue her passion in music; but a leap of faith to attend a Neon Gold Records writing retreat in the Nicaraguan jungle led to her to meet Australian-born and based hit making producer and pop artist What So Not. From this seemingly serendipitous meeting, she went on to co-write “Better” and “Stuck In Orbit,” before stepping out into the spotlight as both the writer and featured artist on the Aussie producer and pop artist’s “Beautiful,” which was released last year.

Adding to a busy 2018, the Solleron-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist covered HAIM’s “Don’t Save Me” for Neon Gold Records’ 10th anniversary compilation, NGX: Ten Years of Neon Gold. She closed out the year with a co-write and vocal contribution to The Chainsmokers viral hit “Hope,” a track that has amassed over 250 million streams across all digital platforms globally — including over 100 million streams on Spotify. And as a result of a rapidly growing profile, Oak signed to Warner-Chappell Music Publishing and to Neon Gold/Atlantic Records.

Oak’s long-awaited debut single “He Don’t Love Me” is centered by sleek, trap meets electro pop production featuring twinkling and arpeggiated synths and keys, stuttering tweeter and woofer rocking beats, and the Solleron-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and pop artist’s ethereal yet sultry vocals — and while revealing an ambitious songwriter, who can write a sultry and infectious hook, the song has an achingly bittersweet air. “We’re all capable of falling for people who don’t value us, grasping for a leaving hand. But we must understand that we’re just as capable of realizing that our worth does not lay in those heavy hands,” Oak says of her debut single.

Directed by Andreas Öhman, the sultry and recently released video for “He Don’t Love Me” pairs cinematic black and white footage with brief bursts of animation, the use of prisms, gender-bending doppelgängers to create a visual that’s captivating yet imbued with heartache.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Brighton’s Up-and-Coming Penelope Isles Release a Lysergic Visual for “Chlorine”

Comprised of Devon, UK-born, Isle of Man-raised sibling songwriting duo Jack Wolter and Lily Wolter, along with Jack Sowton and Becky Redford, the up-and-coming Brighton, UK-based indie rock at Penelope Isles is centered by the bond between the Wolters, a bond that ironically was strengthened when Jack, who’s six years older moved away to study art when he was 19. “By the time I moved home, Lil was not so much of an annoying younger sister anymore and had grown up and started playing in bands and writing songs. We soon become very close. I had written some songs, so we started a band called Your Gold Teeth. We toured a bit and then Lily left for Brighton to study songwriting.”

While Lily Wolter studied in Brighton, she met Jack Sowton and Becky Redford, with whom she formed a band. As the story goes, when Lily Wolter returned home for the holidays, the idea of a forming a new band rapidly developed. Though Jack and Lily have long written separately, they chucked their disparate songs into a shared song pot, their new band was fueled by a passion for DIY alt rock/indie rock — and are influenced by the likes of Deerhunter, Pixies, Tame Impala, Radiohead and The Thrills among others.

The up-and-coming Brighton-based indie rock act recently signed to renowned indie label Bella Union Records, who will be releasing the British act’s full-length debut Until the Tide Creeps In. Slated for a July 12, 2019 release, Penelope Isles’ debut thematically is informed by the Wolters’ shared experience — in particular leaving home, moving away, dealing with the various transitions in life and growing up. “We are six years apart, so we had a different experience of some of this, but we share a similar inspiration when writing writing music. Family, leaving home, disconnection and connection all ring bells!”

Until the Tide Creeps In’s latest single, the Sleepy Sun-like album opener is centered around an arrangement that bridges shimmering dream pop and shoegaze with fuzz pop, gorgeous harmonies and a soaring hook — and while buoyant and seemingly ethereal, the song possesses a bracing quality, like a cold shower. But underneath that is an emotional push and pull; the sort of complexity brought about by obligation and duty and the need to go out on your own. The recently released video employs the use of collages, found footage and superimposed footage of the band performing the song to create a visual that’s appropriate lysergic.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Hannah Scott is an Ipswich, UK-born, London, UK-based singer/songwriter, whose work is heavily influenced by a year spent working on an olive press in rural Tuscany, Italy in her late teens.

Several years later, Scott met her collaborator, Italian-born multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Stefano Della Casa when they were both in London, but interestingly enough, they both recognized that they may have encountered each other years earlier, when she used to regularly pass through the train station that Della Casa worked in. When the duo began collaborating, they quickly recognized that they had an incredible connection despite coming from vastly different backgrounds: Della Casa had a difficult upbringing and troubled early adulthood while Scott had been lucky to have a supportive family and happy childhood — although as an adult, Scott was diagnosed with a form of arthritis, which causes severe joint pain and fatigue.

Both artists firmly believe that their musical collaboration has provided an outlet to support each other through difficult times, and the duo have received quite a bit of buzz over the past couple of years: they’ve been featured in MOJO, Songwriting Magazine , Clash Magazine and in The Guardian as a “New Band of The Day.” They’ve also received airplay on  Bob Harris’ and Dermot O’Leary’s BBC Radio 2 shows and have been on  BBC Introducing’s “Track of the Week” three times. They’ve opened for  Seth Lakeman and 10cc , and played at Mondo.NYC Festival a couple of years ago.

Last year’s  Pieces of the Night quickly established Scott as one of her country’s emerging singer/songwriters with the album pairing emotive and heartfelt songwriting with a warm and effortless production that meshed organic instrumentation — primarily acoustic guitar, cello and vocals — with atmospheric electronics. Building upon a rapidly growing profile, both Scott and her collaborator Della Casa have signed publishing deals with Ultra Music Publishing and Chelsea Music Publishing respectively.

Scott kicks off 2019 with the gorgeous, Parachutes and A Rush of Blood to the Head-era Coldplay-like “Walk a Wire.” Centered around Scott’s plaintive vocals, a soaring hook and spectral arrangement of acoustic guitar and atmospheric electronics, the song is inspired by a friend of Scott’s, who had a disability and out of fear of rejection and heartbreak, closed herself away. And as a result, the song is a plea to the listener to take a chance and open up to life and possibility.