Tag: women who kick ass

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps best known as a founding member, primary songwriter and frontwoman of renowned indie rock act Howling Bells, along with Glenn Moule (drums), her brother Joel (lead guitar) and Gary Daines (bass guitar), the Sydney, Australia-born, London-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Juanita Stein has developed a reputation as a solo artist of note with the release of last year’s solo debut America, an album that thematically focused on the iconography and cultural landscapes of a country that had always fascinated her from afar.

Slated for an August 31, 2018 release through Nude Records, Stein’s sophomore album, Until The Lights Fade will further cement her long-held reputation for crafting twangy and old-timey country-tinged indie rock — but this time, the album thematically speaking is concerned with thoughts, feelings, stories and characters rooted far closer to home. “I feel like the two albums are different sides of the same coin,” Stein explain. “If America was the starting point of a journey — the musical equivalent of me spreading my wings, but also treading carefully, trying to figure myself out having come from such an intense period of camaraderie in the band; then this record is me starting to gain a bit more traction, feeling more confident in where I’m coming from and what is I’m doing.” When the opportunity arose last year to spend a week in Austin, TX with Stuart Sikes, who has worked with Cat Power, The White Stripes, Loretta Lynn, Stein grabbed it. “When you reach a certain point in life and moments like that appear, you have to go with it. Up ’til now, everything I’ve done has been planned and laboured over, but this album was very impromptu, very spur of the moment — a couple of the musicians I was working with, I had only met for the first time that week. It was like nothing I’d ever done before.” Naturally, that impromptu nature of the recording sessions wound up influencing the material’s overall sound — and with album single “Easy Street,” there’s a ramshackle and free-flowing vibe that underlies the material’s deliberate attention to craft that brings to mind 70s AM radio rock, thanks in part to the song’s anthemic hooks, twangy power chords. As Stein says of the song, “‘Easy Street’ was written very immediately. Everything about it felt intuitive and direct. Touring the songs off America for the last couple of years has given me some unique insight into people and their situations. You’re clocking up some good miles across various cities and countries, you see people getting by, doing what they can, being inventive with their realities. Hope/desperation isn’t limited to geography, everyone’s looking for an easy way out essentially. This song is about someone running from their reality and trying to find a better life for themselves.”

Adding to a growing profile as a solo artist, Stein had a recent run of dates opening for The Killers that included a SXSW stop — and since then she’s toured with renowned Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry, made some stops across the international touring circuit that included Latitude Festival, Green Man Festival, and Black Deer Festival. Building up buzz for her sophomore effort, Stein will be playing a number of dates across the UK. Check out the tour dates below.

Tour Dates 
24th     June     Black Deer Festival, Tunbridge Wells
8th       July      TRNSMT Festival, Glasgow
14th     July      Latitude Festival, Southwold
20th     July      Spain, Benicassim Festival
24th     July      Finland, Helsinki Arena (with The Killers)
26th     July      Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Rockhal (with The Killers)
18th     August Green Man Festival, Crickhowell
Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Swaggering Sultry and Bluesy Sounds of Germany’s Sky Blue Skin

Comprised of founding member and creative mastermind Olivia Solner (vocals, electric slide guitar), Vincent Kusche (drums) and their newest member, Jakob Heeren (keys), the German indie rock trio Sky Blue Skin derives their name from the title of an unreleased Jeff Buckley demo that Solner was obsessed with. Initially, the project began as a solo project that began to receive a bit of attention for a series of live shows, before Solner recruited Vinzent Kusche. Jakob Heeren is a recent recruit, who makes his debut with the band on their recently released debut EP.

“Mirror Mirror,” the EP’s latest single is a scuzzy and swaggering blues rock with enormous, arena rock friendly hooks and power chord riffs that immediately brings The Kills, The Black Keys and PJ Harvey to mind. As Solner told me in an email, “Mirror Mirror” and the rest of the EP is the culmination of a difficult and emotionally intense period which resulted in the realization that nothing and nobody is what it seems — and that resulting disillusion is a good thing. Edited by the band’s Olivia Solner, the recently released video is a surreal and hallucinogenic mash up of found footage and old movies.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Floral and Femme Punk-Inspired Visuals for Taleen Kali’s “Half Lie”

Last month, I wrote about Taleen Kali, an up-and-coming Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and musician, who’s best known for being a member of TÜLIPS, and as  you may recall, after the band broke up, Kali decided go to solo — and within a relatively short period of time, she developed a reputation for being one of her hometown’s next big artists, as she’s opened for the likes of Madame Gandhi and Kimya Dawson, and has played sets at Echo Park Rising Festival, Mothership Festival and Women Fuck Shit Up Fest.

“Half Lie,” the first single off her soon-to-be released Kristin Kontrol-produced EP Soul Songs, has received to attention from the likes of Stereogum and others, and it shouldn’t be surprising as it’s a decidedly New Wave-like take on noise rock that will remind some listeners of Gothic Tropic,Dum Dum Girls, Dirty Ghosts — but while interestingly enough nodding at Go-Gos and others, complete with an infectious, arena rock hook. And much like “Lost & Bound,” “Half Lie” reveals an artist, who can effortlessly walk a tightrope between a slick studio sheen and a scuzzy punk rock air — without feeling contrived or ridiculous.

Centered around a concept devised by its director Leila Jarman, the recently released video is all about bright, springtime colors and as Kali told The Grey Estates,  “The video for ‘Half Lie’ is all about floral femme with a punk rock edge…it expands on the theme of the song, which is about half truths we hear from others, and the lies we tell ourselves. In the video, we celebrate the journey into new truths, turning them into ceremonies. The visuals depict lush rituals performed by some of my favorite L.A. artists, Madison René Knapp and Kayla Tange, who lead us up into the grand spiritual unveiling at the end.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Alice Merton Returns to Inspire Youthful Rebellion in Visuals for Anthemic EP Single “Lash Out”

Over the past year or so, I’ve written quite a bit about Alice Merton, a Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany-born, Berlin, Germany-based singer/songwriter and pop artist, and as you may recall Merton has lived a rather nomadic life: most of her formative years were spent in Canada but she finished high school in Germany before relocating to England. Unsurprisingly, music managed to be a major part of her life, no matter where she was; in fact, as the story goes, Merton started taking classical piano lessons when she was five, and when she was nine, she was introduced to formal, vocal training. After spending the better part of a decade in classical training, the Frankfurt-am-Main-born, Berlin-based pop artist and singer/songwriter discovered contemporary songwriting during one of her high school courses while in Germany. And from that point onward, Merton went on to study songwriting and began pursuing her dream of becoming a professional singer/songwriter. 

Of course, while studying in school, Merton would wind up working with a number of producers on a variety of producers, and finding the right producer, who can both compliment and challenge a singer/songwriter as a true collaborator in the creative process is an increasing rarity. But when she met Berlin-based producer Nicolas Rebscher, Merton quickly recognized that she found a musical match, and so far their collaboration together has been wildly successful — the duo’s swaggering, hook-driven and attention grabbing smash hit debut single, “No Roots,” which was inspired by her nomadic youth held the #1 spot for 2 weeks on the Alternative Radio Charts in the States and held it for 8 weeks in Canada. The song cracked the Top 30 on the pop charts, the Top 15 on the Hot Adult Contemporary charts and entered Billboard Hot 100. Adding to a rapidly growing profile, the song has been synced in a Mini Cooper ad campaign — and earlier this year, she was featured in Rolling Stone‘s “One To Watch” and Billboard‘s “Chartbreaker” section, which has previously featured artists such as Cardi B and Khalid. Also, she’s made the rounds of national, late night TV with appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Late Late Show with James Corden.

And now, building upon the buzz surrounding her since the release of “No Roots,” Merton’s latest single “Lash Out” is an incredibly hook-driven song centered around a young woman narrator, who feels the need to speak up boldly (and loudly!) about what she wants and needs, about what she’s ready to fight for — and perhaps, more important to confidently answer her needs as she felt fit, in her own way. It’s an earnest, empowering feminist anthem that says to its listener, you better go out there, be bold and get what you deserve because no one else is going to be paying attention or care. 

Co-directed by Max Nadolny and Jonas Stark, the recently released video features sequences shot in Berlin and South Africa and focuses on a diverse cast of people, including Merton, who through a series of similar yet very different circumstances have rebelliously broken out against tormentors and social norms. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of core members and primary songwriters Bill Rousseau and Dahlia Gallin Ramirez, the San Francisco, CA-based indie duo Billy & Dolly can actually trace their origins to their first band together, a Moog-centric project called The Monolith, which was formed back in 2004. After a five year run, The Monolith split up; however, Rousseau and Ramirez continued to work together, eventually holing up in Ramirez’s basement to write songs before re-emerging as Billy & Dolly — and as Billy & Dolly, they’ve recorded and released two albums together, and shared stages with The Apples in Stereo, Dr. Dog and Corin Tucker.

For live shows, Rousseau and Ramirez play with Elliott Kiger (drums) and Charley Hine (bass); but with Five Suns, the band’s soon-to-be released Five Suns, which was recorded at Oakland’s New, Improved Recording with their longtime collaborator Jay Pellicci, finds the band officially recording as quartet, capturing them in their proper element — as a muscular and sweaty live unit. But interestingly enough, the album’s material balances goofiness and sweetness as the material touches upon post-apocalyptic love, galactic desperation and Jane Eyre, among other things.

As you’ll hear on “Can’t Stay Still,” Five Suns‘ fourth and latest single, the song is centered by arpeggiated keys and a propulsive rhythm, an infectious hook and an uncanny sense of harmony to create something that sounds like an amalgamation of Elvis Costello and bubblegum pop but with a sweet and goofy sensibility. “‘Can’t Stay Calm,’ is one of the first songs we wrote fro what would become the Five Suns album,” Billy & Dolly’s Dahlia Gallin Ramirez explains in press notes. “It’s about finding a kindred blue soul, someone who knows what it’s like to be a kid roaming the foggy streets of San Francisco.”  

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Incendiary Pop of Giselle

Giselle is an up-and-coming New York-based pop artist, who has received attention with the Not Ready to Grow Up mixtape, which was released last fall — but far and away, the highlight of the mixtape is the incendiary  Adam Tilzer-produced single “Fuck ’em. Brand ’em. Leave ’em.” The track is centered around a sparse, dusty and production featuring an old-timey strummed blues guitar figure and stomping drumming paired with the mononymic pop artist’s boozy pop star belter vocals, which will draw some comparisons to Amy Winehouse and Heartless Bastards’ Erika Wennerstom. Much like those two insanely accomplished vocalists, Giselle’s vocals express an aching and earnest vulnerability, a quiet yet defiant and resolute pride and strength that seems to belie her relative youth.

Unsurprisingly, the song’s earnest nature comes from lived in personal experience — in this case, the horribly misguided, inappropriate and fucked up advice Giselle received from an adult she knew, when she was a young girl. “This was a person I’d spent so much time with growing up,” Giselle explains in press notes. “As I
started to get older, I started noticing that he’d bring different women around all the time and my curiosity began to grow. ‘Why did they all have the same tattoos? Why were there so many of them?’ When I questioned it, he told me exactly what the song opens with: ‘I fuck’em, I brand’em, and then I leave’em.’ These women would literally get tattoos with his name or symbols dedicated to him and he treated them as if they were disposable. Ironically, he thought he was trying to teach me a lesson… But the lesson I learned was much different.”

The Meghan Ianiro-produced official video, which I have the pleasure and honor of premiering on this site, draws from Giselle’s childhood — in particular, the moment that actually inspires the song, and as the Ianiro says in press notes,  “I wanted to really highlight a stark contrast between childhood trust and innocence, and the harsh reality of growing up and seeing how dark the world can be sometimes, which is the very essence of Not Ready To Grow Up itself. The scene sequence of a young Giselle innocently being given a friendship bracelet, for example, while one of the objectified women is being given a diamond necklace, or the scene of her playing with two female dolls and one male doll, are moments that I wanted to capture in order to make the presence of those two distinct-but-coexisting realities palpable.” Interestingly along with that, the video makes a couple of point about sex, men and their relationships with women that’s — well, undeniable: most men can manage to be both tender and kind to someone who they’d never have anything more than a platonic or familial relationship with, and they can be scumbags with everyone else. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Perhaps best known as a member of Los Angeles-based band TÜLIPS,  the singer/songwriter and musician Taleen Kali decided to go solo after the band broke up — and in a relatively short period of time, Kali has developed a reputation as one of her hometown’s up-and-coming talents, as she has opened forthe likes of Madame Gandhi and Kimya Dawson, and has played sets at Echo Park Rising Festival, Mothership Festival and Women Fuck Shit Up Fest. And with the release of “Half Life,” the first single off her forthcoming Kristin Kontrol-produced EP Soul Songs, Kali has begun to receive attention from the likes of Stereogum and others, quickly developing a reputation for a New Wave take on noise rock and punk reminiscent of Gothic Tropic, Dum Dum Girls, Dirty Ghosts and others.

Building upon the growing buzz surrounding her, Kali recently released the EP’s latest single, the anthemic, hook-laden, dance floor friendly  “Lost & Bound,” and  that the single reveals an artist, who can effortlessly walk a tightrope between a slick studio sheen and a scuzzy punk rock air — without feeling contrived or ridiculous. Interestingly, there’s a subtle hint of triumph over something deeply daunting that adds to the song’s danceable vibe and anthemic hooks; in fact, as Kali explains in press notes, “‘Lost & Bound’ is about finding yourself again after being lost. I wanted to write a song that was really dark but also danceable, so I wrote a dirge dedicated to a ‘lost self,’ and I added a disco beat to add this sense of movement, of celebration, of making it to the other side.”  

Kali is playing a handful of live shows in the Los Angeles area over the next few weeks. If you’re in the area, check them out, below.

Tour Dates
05.20 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hi Hat (Dum Dum Zine Kickoff Party For L.A. Zine Week)
05.27 – Pasadena, CA @ Pasadena Convention Center (LA Zine Fest)
06.26 – Los Angeles, CA @ Resident (Record Release show)

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Valley Queen Releases Thoughtful and Cinematic Visuals for “Supergiant”

Currently comprised of founding member Natalie Carol (vocals, guitar) and early lineup member Shawn Morones (guitar, vocals), along with newest members Neil Wogensen (bass, vocals) and Mike DeLuccia (drums), the Los Angeles, CA-based indie rock band Valley Queen can trace their origins back to their formation in 2014. With a handful of singles under their belts, the band quickly saw a growing profile, which resulted in a relentless touring schedule and an increasing amount of time away from home — and although the band found their own magical pocket musically, the strain was too much for original lineup members Morones and Doot, who left the band.

Carol continued onward with a series of session musicians and ringers, and while the band continued to play bigger clubs, the chemistry that Carol had felt and began to depend on was missing, With growing buzz surrounding her and her bandmates, the members of Valley Queen landed a record deal — a dream that many bands desperately wish to achiever; however, Carol recognized that the band was much more than her concentrating on lyrics with session musicians being paid to play and record the material as directed; in fact, Carol wanted the band to be about the chemistry and relationships between the members of the band, all of which helped the band land their record deal in the first place.  So before writing and recording the material, which would eventually comprise their Lewis Pesacov-produced full-length debut Supergiant, Carol called Doot, who couldn’t re-join the band; however, Mike DeLuccia joined. Then Carol called Morones, who after a series of lengthy conversations, before decided that re-joining the band would be worth the risks involved.

Interestingly, Pesacov, who has worked with Best Coast, Fool’s Gold, Nikki Lane, FIDLAR and JOVM mainstays The Orielles, continues to cement his reputation for raw production while focusing on the urgency of the album’s material and the musicians performances — and for the band, the album was about the collective whole exploring and creating together. As for the album’s lead single and opening track, Carol says, derive their names from the most massive, luminous, and yet the fastest burning known stars in the universe. “The song ‘Supergiant’ is about how we’re all made up of the same stuff as stars, and I liked the idea of tying the whole album together with that metaphor,” says  Carol. “It takes all the drama you hear on the record-the aggressive, chaotic moments, and the more beautiful or quieter moments-and puts it all into a more galactic perspective.” As a result, “Supergiant” has a noticeably cinematic air while possessing elements of 80s New Wave and 70s AM rock in a way that will bring to mind the likes of Heart and Linda Ronstadt, if they were covering Concrete Blonde, or Heartless Bastards covering — well, just about anyone, as the seemingly anachronistic single is centered around Carol’s soulful belting, well-crafted songs and exceptional musicianship.

Directed by Matt Bizer, the incredibly cinematic video for “Supergiant” follows a contemplative Natalie Carol, as she starts her day and meets up with her bandmates, who drive around town while listening to the radio, capturing people with nothing much to really do and nowhere to really go that are longing for something — although they don’t quite know what it is. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: JOVM Mainstays The Coathangers Perform “Hurricane” at Alex’s Bar — Long Beach CA

Over the bulk of this site’s history, I’ve written quite a bit about the Atlanta, GA punk rock/garage rock band and JOVM mainstays The Coathangers, and as you may recall, the band, which is currently comprised of Julia Kugel (vocals and guitar), Meredith Franco (bass), and Stephanie Luke (drums) have released a handful of singles, three EPs and five full-length albums during 12 years together — and each album has found the band carefully refining their sound and songwriting approach, while balancing a brash, raw and seemingly spontaneous simplicity with a feral and biting urgency.  Interestingly, the band’s last two efforts 2016’s 2016’s Nosebleed Weekend and 2017’s Parasite EP found the band writing some of the most rousingly anthemic hooks they’ve ever written.

I’ve had the pleasure of catching the Atlanta, GA-based JOVM mainstays twice over the years, and live their set is frenetic and furious, and there’s a palpable sense of love, loyalty and intimacy between the bandmembers that makes their sets feel like an enormous punk rock love fest — and now, the members of The Coathangers have put their live sound to wax, with the release of their first live album, aptly titled Live, slated for a June 1, 2018 release through their longtime label home Suicide Squeeze Records. Now, as you may recall, Live was recorded during a two night stay Alex’s Bar in Long Beach, CA, and the album’s latest cut is a loose, jammy and feral barn burner-like rendition of “Hurricane.” Much like the live album’s first single “Gettin’ Mad and Pumpin’ Iron,” there’s accompanying live footage that captures the band’s frenetic, high energy live set.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Jangling and Anthemic Guitar Pop of Australia’s BATTS

Tanya Batt is a Melbourne, Australia-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind the recording project BATTS — and with release of last year’s 62 Moons EP, Batt quickly received attention across the blogosphere for a sound that has drawn comparisons to Angel Olsen, Courtney Barnett, Mazzy Star, Sharon Van Etten and others. Adding to a growing international profile, Batt received airplay from BBC Radio 1, KCRW and Triple J.

Building upon a growing profile, Batt toured her native Australia with Didirri, and she recently played her first UK shows with Cub Sport as part of the Communion Music tour; but more important, Batt’s newest single is a jangling bit of guitar pop that manages to nod at Fleetwood Mac-like AM radio rock, complete with an anthemic rock but underneath the easy-going and self-assured vibes of the song is an urgent desire to change things for the better — although in a lot of cases that’s impossible. After all, the human condition is to be endlessly disappointing. There’s also this desire to go off and colonize someplace else, and start over with different rules — that maybe it’d better on Mars, Jupiter or someplace else. 

Directed by Dyllan Corbett, the recently released video for “Shame” stars Tanya Batt, Olaf Scott, Daniel Moulds, Nkechi Anele, Melanie Scammell, Megan Kent and Alice Kent, and as Corbett explains of the video treatment “Thematically, we were after a sliding door effect of having two separate outlooks/moods and the outcome that each one has on your happiness.” 

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New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Dan Sultan is an acclaimed Fitzroy, Australia-born, Melbourne, Australia-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who started playing guitar when he was four and wrote his first song when he turned 10. As the story goes, his mother’s friend gave the young Sultan an old electric guitar, and he began playing gigs at local pubs. In 2000, Sultan met a fellow singer/songwriter and guitarist Scott Wilson at a Williamstown, Australia pub and the duo began writing songs together. As Wilson recalled in an interview “What struck me at first was that he [Sultan] could play piano and guitar, and he was a great foil for what I was doing . . . After a while playing together, he said, ‘Can I Sing this one?’ I said, ‘Do you know the words?’ . . . [he had a] mighty voice. A lot people can play guitar . . . not many can sing like that.”

Sultan’s  Scott Wilson-produced, full-length solo debut, the genre-defying Homemade Biscuits was released in early 2006 and consisted of tracks written by Wilson or co-written by Sultan and Wilson, and a featured number of local musicians and collaborators, including Lazare Agneskis, Neil Gray, Elijah Maiyah, Lochile McKlean and Ben Wicks. Sultan’s debut also featured two attention grabbing tracks — “Your Love Is Like a Song,” which won a 2007 Deadly Award for Single Release of the Year, and “Rosyln,” a song Sultan wrote about his mother, who was a member of the Aboriginal “stolen generations,” which he performed during 2007’s National Day of Healing concert. Adding to a growing profile that year, Paul Kelly invited Sultan to record a cover of Kev Carmody’s “This Land Is Mine” for a compilation tribute album of Carmody’s work titled Cannot Buy My Soul — and with a backing band of Eugene Ball (trumpet), Ben Gillespie (trombone), Joshua Jones (bass), Peter Marin (drums), Ash Naylor (guitar) and Gina Woods (keys), Sultan and company played Australia’s festival circuit over the next two years or so, including set at the Sydney Festival and the Queensland Music Festival.

Sultan’s sophomore album 2009’s Get Out While You Can was a massive, commercial success as it charted on the ARIA Albums Chart Top 100, eventually reaching #1 on the independent Australian charts and was a Triple J featured album. Along with that, Sultan won ARIA Music Awards for Best Male Artist and Best Blues & Roots Album, and Australian Independent Records Awards for Best Independent Artist and Best Independent Blues & Roots Music Music.

In early 2014, Sultan opened for Bruce Springsteen‘s Melbourne and Hunter Valley shows during his Australian tour, which Sultan promptly followed up with the release of his third full-length album Blackbird, an album that reached #4 on the ARIA Albums Charts and spent 13 weeks in the Top 50 — and the album won a Best Rock Album Award at that year’s ARIA Awards. Building upon an impressive year, Sultan released the Dirty Ground EP, which reached the ARIA Albums Chart Top 100. Sultan’s fourth album, 2017’s Jan Skubiszewski-produced Killer was nominated for three ARIA Awards — Best Male Artist, Best Rock Album, and Best Independent Release.

Interestingly, Sultan’s soon-to-be released Killer Under a Blood Moon was recorded over the course of four days and while it continues Sultan’s commercially and critically successful collaboration Skubiszewski, the EP finds the duo collaborating with some of their country’s brightest and talented, up-and-coming artists, including  A.B. Original, Camp Cope, Meg Mac and Gang of Youths‘ Dave Le’aupepe to reinterpret a series of tracks from Sultan’s fourth album as a way to give his material new bodies, new ways of being while having a good time doing so. Now, as you may recall, last month I wrote about Sultan’s reworking of “Drover,” which featured Gang of Youth’s Dave Le’aupepe taking over vocal duties on a swaggering, arena rock-friendly blues centered around power chords, stomping beats, a looped choral sample and a muscular and anthemic hook reminiscent of The Black Keys.

The EP’s latest single is a reworking of Killer‘s album title track “Killer” that features Meg Mac — and while the original is a shuffling yet anthemic rock song with an infectious hook, the EP’s rework turns the song into a Fleetwood Mac/Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks-styled duet that retains the hook and melody but adds a sultriness to the song’s heartfelt vibe.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Throughout this site’s almost 8 year history, I’ve written a bit about the Gold Coast, Australia-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Emily Hamilton and her solo recording project San Mei, which began rather humbly as a bedroom recording project but gradually began receiving attention from this site and a number of major media outlets including NME, Indie Shuffle, NYLON and Triple J. Interestingly, with the release of debut EP Necessary, Hamilton’s sound adding more organic instrumentation, drawing Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Cat Power, and Feist  — and a result, the EP found Hamilton moving away from the bedroom synth pop that first captured the attention of the blogosphere towards fuzzy, power chord-based dream pop.

Hamilton met songwriter, producer and overall musical phenom Oscar Dawson, who has worked with Holy Holy, Alex Lahey, Ali Barter, British India, Robbie Miller and Joyride at BIGSOUND last year, and the pair immediately hit it off. According to Hamilton, taking Dawson on as a producer and collaborator — and early on, the collaboration between the pair have found them refining ideas, exploring different soundscapes and laying down the foundation for the sonic progression of San Mei. As Hamilton explains in press notes “[Dawson and I] hit it off straight away and it seemed like he understood where I was coming from, even if I had trouble conveying certain ideas in the demos I made at home.”

Hamilton’s latest single “Wonder” is the first single since the release of Necessary EP and while the single in some way continues in a similar vein of as the material on her critically applauded EP, it manages to be a subtle refinement that finds Dawson and Hamilton crafting an anthemic, radio friendly and arena rock friendly track centered around a razor sharp, infectious hook, fuzzy shoegazer rock-like power chords and thundering drumming. And yet interestingly enough, the single may be among Hamilton’s most sincere song, as it captures the swooning, butterflies in the stomach sensation when someone who’s unknown to you captures your attention and you can’t quite pin down why. That unknown person becomes part of a mysterious daydream to you, in which you begin to wonder everything about them — and yet, there’s a part of you that isn’t certain if you want them to become more than just some brief, intoxicating illusion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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