New Music, Emerging from your Local Scene
Sincere Engineer recently released their latest album, Bless My Psyche, via Hopeless Records. The album’s lead single, "Coming In Last", is accompanied by the video below.
This is the punk quartet fronted by powerful vocals of Deanna Belos. They are currently planning a winter tour that culminates with a show at Bottom Lounge on December 17th and a show at Cobra Lounge on December 18th.
Multi-talented, Neo-Soul artist Ro Marsalis recently released his latest EP, "Space(s)". The EP features contributions from Gold Haze, Greo, Josi Green, Southpaw Swade, Ausar, and Maven.
The EP’s lead single is called "Do Not Disturb" and was released over the summer.
photo credit: Athena Merry
Liily are four Los Angeles musicians—Dylan Nash, Sam De La Torre, Charlie Anastasis & Maxx Morando—who, up until now, were mostly known for their manic and cacophonous live shows. Those performances, alongside a couple of early singles packaged together into an EP entitled I Can Fool Anybody In This Town, drove the band to some surprising early successes. Now, Lilly have returned from the sonic depths with a new track, “Anvil,” taken from their eagerly-awaited debut long-player TV or Not TV and an accompanying music video. And it must be said that the shoegazey vibe they’re sending out with this latest work is both hard-hitting and compelling.
The track begins with sedate drums and slightly overdriven but gently-strummed electrics guitars, woozy with vibrato, with bass and vocals gradually entering (“I’ve made my death bed a lifetime too short / I like my hands on the steering wheel, already on course”). When the band unleashes the full shoegaze onslaught of massively distorted guitars, searing drums and ride cymbals, and mountainous bass, it’s a real punch to the face, even if you’re only listening through earbuds. The minimal chord changes during the chorus are tasteful and an impressive example of the “less is more” school of songwriting.
The video for “Anvil” (directed by De La Torre), meanwhile, chooses to contrast the sonic heft of the track with an odd choice of imagery: various snails are filmed interacting with each other in a doll house that seamlessly melds into a sort of wooded wonderland, complete with color-changing lights, offering an incongruous picture of the shelled gastropods interacting with common domestic amenities, like chairs, sofas, and desks. it’s a surreal, vivid collection of scenes that gain no small amount of added emotional weight form the muscle of the music.
Lilly has just begun a month-long tour that will end with them playing The Troubadour on Friday October 29th. Gabe Hernandez
Colleen Dow of Thank you, I’m Sorry has released their solo debut single, "Periwinkle", via the Michigan label Count Your Lucky Stars.
Dow’s approach as a solo artist finds them incorporating a more electronic and pop elements when compared to their work with the more Indie Rock and Punk sounding Thank You, I’m Sorry.
Thank you, I’m Sorry will be performing at Downstairs (at Subt) on January 29th.
Photo by Kay Dargen
Damager has released the lead single, "I Am Made of Solid Gold", from their forthcoming debut album, Best Team In Baseball, which is due out on November 5th.
This single is backed with a tracked called "Postcards from a Dude in Arizona" and both were mastered by Ryan Pollock of Kind of Red Records. The video was shot by Garrison Krotz and Ryan Pollock.
Photo by Jason Balla
Austin quintet The Belle Sounds capture lightning in a bottle with their latest single, “All About Love.”
Within the first few seconds, they lay down a groove that reels you in, hypnotically enticing you to start tapping your feet and bobbing your head. A disco-esque rhythm dances underneath upbeat synths, a funky guitar riff, and vibrant vocals. Perfectly paired with the music is a dazzling music video that keeps viewers’ entranced for the entire four and half minutes, a towering achievement and a testament to the group’s bright vision and brighter future.
Flowing with the beat are an array of talented roller-skaters wearing scintillating outfits and surrounded by flashing neon lights. The disco-themed production meshes flawlessly with the track’s ebullient atmosphere, and the skaters’ he constant movement parallels the endless dancing triggered by this track. “All About Love” is one of those rare instances where the music video is as epic as the song itself.
The Belle Sounds are reminiscent of a variety of acts, including Moon Boots, Tame Impala, and Fleetwood Mac. Yet, despite a wide range of influences, their sound is unmistakably modern and fresh, as they rejuvenate past ideas to concoct a rich, delicious sound they can claim as their own. Much of contemporary pop music is (fairly or unfairly) criticized as one-dimensional, lacking the substance and depth needed to create something timeless. However, The Belle Sounds aren’t afraid push the boundaries of what pop music can be.
Though one could be forgiven for believing the group, led by husband-and-wife power duo Noëlle Hampton and André Moran, hit their stride years ago, they are continuing to manufacture tunes that are groundbreaking and continue to set trends, rather than follow them. With releases of this caliber, The Belle Sounds—always ahead of the curve—continue raising the bar for not just Austin’s pop music, but pop music entirely. Check out their new EP below, and keep an eye out for shows soon.
Sunvolume has released their debut single, "Fever In The Funkhouse" b/w "Crystalizer".
This is the work of Justin Sanetra (Guitar/Vocals), Jimmy Russel (Bass), and Brett Sassetti (Drums).
You can help Sunvolume celebrate their debut at Beat Kitchen tonight, September 24th, with Blue Beam & Daisychain.
Photo by EAZ Photo
Whelpwisher (aka Ben Grigg of Geronimo!) recently released a new album called Eerie Dearie. Grigg is a multi-talented, multi-instrumentalist, who recently also played trumpet on the forthcoming Lightleak album.
This is Lo-Fi, noisey, garage pop with a solid core of melody. All proceeds from this album will be donated to International Refugee Assistance Project, which is offering legal services to displaced Afghans.
“Afar” is the third advance single off from Xeno & Oaklander’s upcoming seventh album called Vi/deo which is slated to be released on 10/22/21 and if you’ve got all the math figured out on that then you can move ahead to the music video below and attempt to keep tally of how many identical-twin Liz Wendelbo’s appear in quick succession (meanwhile bandmate Sean McBride is inexplicably absent, unless perhaps he’s been assimilated into the collective by the Borg) or who knows maybe it’s just my brain glitching again.
And once you’ve mastered the math then it’s time to brush up on your French proficiency skills because that’s the language the lyrics are in tho’ lucky for us the duo have shared a full translation free of charge on their Instagram page. Plus there’s some cognates in there which should help in cases like where “encens insencé” is translated to “senseless incense” which sounds quite lovely and poetic in either language. And did I mention Ms. Wendelbo does a convincing Vanessa-Paradis-meets-Jane-Birkin impersonation both sonically and kinesthetically (how do French people sound both bored and aroused at the same time? this must to be studied…) which must come naturally to a person of French-Norwegian extraction such as herself.
What’s more “Afar” provides further evidence there’s just something about electronic music with sensual French vocals (especially on the more dark ’n’ trancey side of things like Coldwave, Minimal Wave, and EBM-Wave (Electronic Body Music)) that works in a big way when it’s done right—which may have something to do with the language itself having such a natural sense of flow and élégance—and it’s done right by X&O on this track with a musical backing that likewise captures the so-cold-it’s-sizzling-hot Gallic vibe that very few English-language artists pull off convincingly with Boy Harsher being one exception that comes to mind.
“But nevermind all that,” you may say, “what was the inspiration behind the song and the upcoming album?” Well I don’t know how or why you’d expect me to know but fortunately for all involved Xeno & Oaklander have revealed the answer on their Bandcamp page: “Inspired by ideas of synesthesia, scent, star worship, and obsolescent technologies…Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride began conceiving the blueprint of Vi/deo while sequestered at their Southern Connecticut home studio during the pandemic. The context of isolation, streaming, and remote dreaming seeped into their chemistry, manifesting as both homage to and meditation on a certain cinematic strain of technicolor fantasy: the screen as stage, distance disguised as intimacy, where tragedy and glamour crossfade into one,” and I gotta hand it to these two because this artfully constructed statement-of-purpose makes me think maybe they should be the ones writing this blog.
“But wait,” you may say, “this is an electronic group so don’t they stare at screens all day long whether there’s a pandemic going on or not.” To which an omniscient voice from the sky may reply: “Au contraire, mon pear, because X&O are all about using self-contained vintage analog sound modules that have lots of buttons and knobs and spaghetti-like piles of patch cables threading in and out of assorted orifices in their various electronic doo-dads (sorry for all the technical language!) all of which is designed to be played live—for proof check out their set above from Vox Sinistra’s weekly Strict Tempo broadcast on Twitch which opens with an electrifying performance of “Afar”—so instead of starting at screens they’re constantly in motion with all kinds of button-pushing, knob-twisting, and cable-switching much like an old-school telephone switchboard operator which means there’s a real sense of physicality to their live sets, plus a palpable sense of liveness on their recordings" and boy is that omniscient voice long-winded!
Speaking of recordings, namely the upcoming release of Vi/deo, you’d be smart to go ahead and pre-order that puppy because special-edition colored vinyl goes fast even when it’s a recording of Sherpa sheep herders (cool stuff, actually) and don’t be a tightwad either because for an extra couple dollars you can get the record album with a special scented paper insert (read above: “synesthesia and scent”) which I’m guessing should be at least as fragrant as John Water’s Polyester scratch-and-sniff cards with exotic olfactory sensations matching the groovy moody synth-pop reverberations within. (Jason Lee)
photo credit: Daniel Yoon
Sunshine Boysclub, the new solo project by Sam Martin (lead singer and songwriter of local indie-pop veterans Youngblood Hawke), has released “Right Out The Window,” the latest single from his self-produced solo debut Hut on The Hill, out independently on all major streaming services.
The “hut” referred to in the title of the album is an abandoned shack on the side of a hill behind Martin’s suburban L.A. house, which he cleaned out and renovated, making it into a small studio which witnessed the creation of the Sunshine Boysclub debut. Consider it a more temperate West Coast version of Bon Iver’s legendary cabin in the Wisconsin woods. The music’s also much more energetic and uplifting, if the lyrics are less so, according to Martin: “…The one theme that runs through this album is failure, as dark as that may seem. These songs are me working through the past, trying to close that door and move into a new space with new thoughts. I spent years struggling with depression, I stopped making music and was ready to quit. Writing these songs helped me work through those years of struggle and taught me valuable lessons about creativity and happiness, and how connected those two things are for me.”
It sounds like Martin connected creativity and happiness almost perfectly. Take the new single “Right Out The Window,” for instance. It’s a thick, syrupy cut that recalls 70s Eurodisco through a 21st Century set of ears. The bass is nimble and insistent, the compressed “four-on-the-floor” drums are locked-in and ooze with vintage squash. and Martin’s vocals recall the falsetto acrobatics of the Bee Gees with a hint of distortion tucked into the mix for some added edge. The little whistling synth touches scattered throughout the track also add a wee bit of late-70s ABBA flavor to the proceedings.
Meanwhile, the music video (directed by Kate Hollowell) is a nifty one-shot production that finds Martin lip-syncing the song while coasting down the sunny hills of Mount Washington on a mountain bike, outfitted in retro blue baseball cap and jersey, living out some sort of second childhood. According to the artist, "I wanted to capture the ease and energy of the song and felt like one long, continuous ride would help display that. The giant hill I rode down in this video is the hill I looked up at everyday while writing this album."
Hut On The Hill is out now. Gabe Hernandez
Singer and instrumental polymath Ben LaMar Gay has released the lead single, "Sometimes I Forget How Summer Looks on You", from his forthcoming album, Open Arms to Open Us, which is due out via International Anthem/Nonesuch on November 19th.
Across this new album LaMar Gay enlists the talents of his unusual bandmates Tommaso Moretti on drums, Matthew Davis on tuba, and Rob Frye on woodwinds. In addition he recruited the talents of OHMME singers Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, bassist/vocalist/arranger Ayanna Woods, multi-disciplinary Rwandan artist Dorothée Munyaneza, poet A.Martinez, cellist Tomeka Reid, and vocalists Onye Ozuzu, Gira Dahnee, and Angel Bat Dawid.
Flex Sinatra has released the opening track, "Make A Song About Me", from his forthcoming EP, "Beyond Measure", which is set to drop tomorrow, September 24th.
Sinatra is half of the Hip Hop duo Hunit Boys and has released a series of singles this year. However, this EP feels like something vital and should not be slept on.
