Nik Havert

Review: The Beths – Jump Rope Gazers

Most, if not all, of The Beths‘ new album, Jump Rope Gazers, was written while the New Zealand band (Tristan Deck – drums, Jonathan Pearce – guitar, Benjamin Sinclair – bass, Elizabeth Stokes – guitar and lead vocals) was touring North America and Europe. They were thrilled to be making a dream come true, but still missing everyone back home and across the world as they made new friends.

Opening track, “I’m Not Getting Excited,” has Stokes singing about the thrill of those dreams and the tenuous grasp she has on them (“I’m not getting excited, ’cause my fight and my flight are divided, and so I don’t enthuse, keep my grip on joy loose.”). Pearce’s guitar solo on it is a ripper, and the following track, “Dying to Believe,” has Stokes breathing easy after cutting the cord on a bad relationship (“There was a weight that you were weighing down on me. Six months ago I could hardly breathe, and now I’m lighter, finally.”). The beat on it is great. It will get you moving with a joy that sneaks up on you.

The title track has Stokes missing a love separated from her by time and distance (“I’ve never been the dramatic type, but if I don’t see your face tonight, I…well, I guess I’ll be fine.”). It’s a lovely track with bright guitar chords to keep it from being too melancholy. The power pop groove of “Acrid” is a great contrast to the song’s title. “Do You Want Me Now” has some of the boldest lyrics about missing someone while on tour – “Long distance is the wrong distance. There has never been a gulf quite as great as the one we wished into existence.” Damn. That is real.

Deck’s drum work on “Out of Sight” is excellent, knocking out wicked snare licks and rim taps so fast that he sounds like a typewriter (Remember those?) being operated by the Flash. “Don’t Go Away” is a song directed at a friend of the band who “flew north, left us in the south” and has the band unleashing heavy Weezer-like riffs made for blasting out of your dorm room windows.

“Mars, the God of War” is a great song of rage disguised in a power pop tune. Don’t believe me? Then you’ll probably believe Stokes’ lyrics of “I wish I could wish you well, instead I’m hitting my head and hitting backspace on ‘Can’t you just go to hell.’ Boom. “You Are a Beam of Light” is a beautiful acoustic track about seeking bright light and feelings in dark times. The closer, “Just Shy of Sure,” has Stokes tip-toeing back into the pool of love, but asking her lover to be patient. She’s been gone for a long while and has almost forgotten how to engage in the “real” world.

It’s another lovely record from The Beths. Stokes is a keen lyricist who gets better with each record.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

So long, Maestro.

Ennio Morricone was probably the greatest film director who never directed a movie. Morricone‘s approach to creating a film score was that the music was never just a supplement to a film. Music was a character in the film.

Morricone’s impact on music and film is immeasurable. His Internet Movie Database profile lists 520 films scored. It’s probably more than that. The Italian film industry in the 1960’s and 1970’s was churning out so many movies per month that it was difficult to keep track of them all. Film scholars and historians will probably discover lost Morricone film scores for years.

He’s best known for his work in the Sergio Leone “Dollars” trilogy, otherwise known as the “Man with No Name” movies – A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. He scored many other westerns apart from that, including A Pistol for Ringo, Bullets Don’t Argue, Seven Guns for the MacGregors, Navajo Joe, and others both great and obscure. He scored action films, sci-fi films, dramas (His score for The Mission is legendary.), comedies, giallo films (many for Dario Argento), and horror films – notably John Carpenter‘s remake of The Thing. Carpenter and his band played Morricone’s main theme to The Thing when I saw Carpenter perform in Detroit.

He also composed a lot of great Bossa nova music and orchestral pieces. His music is instantly recognizable. You’ve heard it not only in hundreds of films, but also in thousands of TV shows from Moonlighting to The Simpsons.

He will be greatly missed, but he had an amazing life and career. The world is better for him being in it.

Rest well, Maestro.

Also, if you ever wondered what song I want played at my funeral, it’s this.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Chunky Shrapnel

The cover of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard‘s “first” live album (not counting the three live recordings they released earlier this year to benefit Australian wildlife charities), Chunky Shrapnel, features an image of a seven-headed hydra (the same number of guys in the band) surrounded by speakers hooked up to analog equipment to produce weird digital images signifying their already tremendous output of albums and songs, such as Infest the Rats’ Nest (bottom middle), “People Vultures” (bottom right), and even the cyborg Han-Tyumi from Murder of the Universe (second down from the top on the right).

It’s a neat image because it not only tells you what’s in store for you on this great live album, but also a nod to the blending of music and modern technology. The band released a Chunky Shrapnel concert film in a limited stream earlier this year. A full-blown theatrical / wide streaming release is in the works, but this album is a great taste of what to expect from it – and any live KGATLW show (which never disappoint).

The album is sprinkled with studio instrumentals (“Evil Star,” “Quarantine,” “Anamesis”) and the rest is stuffed with live tracks recorded in Luxembourg, Madrid, Manchester, Utrecht, London, Brussels, Milan, Berlin, and Barcelona) over the course of their 2019 world tour. The first live track is a wonderful, jazzy version of “The River.” It’s a neat choice to open your live album with a mellow track (that blooms into an epic jam around the three-minute mark) to get the listener grooving. “Wah Wah” gets the Madrid crowd chanting and jumping. “Road Train” is a nice, crazy follow-up, and the trippy “Murder of the Universe” lets them jam at will as Han-Tyumi’s vocals echo around them from some unseen machine.

The version of “Planet B” unleashed on the London crowd is downright dangerous, somehow sounding twice heavier and faster than the album version (which is already damn heavy and fast). “Parking” is a fuzzy two-minute drum solo that leads into the blazing “Venusian 2” and “Hell” that threaten to incinerate and / or flatten the Milan venue.

The bluesy, swaggering “Let Me Mend the Past” gets the Madrid crowd whooping and hollering. “Inner Cell” brings back a bit of menace. “Loyalty” and “Horology” both flow well together and ease us back down before nineteen minutes of “A Brief History of the Planet Earth” pieced together from four different shows. The song ebbs and flows, being manic one moment and euphoric the next. It’s full of noodling jams and more fuzz than a koala bear. There’s even a moment when they pass a beer through the crowd to their sound man accompanied by frenzied riffs.

It’s another great, stunning album from KGATLW – who by now are obviously unstoppable.

Keep your mind open.

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Neon Coven “Blame It on the Drugs” with new single.

Neon Coven, the darkwave, alternative rock band from Los Angeles, CA, featuring Jacob Bunton (Mick Mars, Adler, Lynam) and Ace Von Johnson (LA Guns, Faster Pussycat) has released its brand new single “Blame It On The Drugs” today via New Ocean Media. The song is the first single from the band’s upcoming debut full-length album Future Postponed. The lyric video is available on the band’s official YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1hhGIA50jE

Neon Coven is comprised of Anthony Montemarano (vocals), Jacob Bunton (Keyboards/guitar/bass), Ace Von Johnson (guitar), and Kyle Cunningham (drums). The band’s debut full-length album Future Postponed will be released October 30th. Produced by Jacob Bunton, the album features 11 tracks ranging from songs about survival and balance to emotionally charged anthems of empowerment. The songs live in the space between challenging the need for certainty and, ultimately, learning to accept uncertainty. “Future Postponed is set to inspire, intrigue and terrify all at once,” states guitarist Ace Von Johnson. “The material within runs a musical gamut, in which we as a band proudly exercise our ability to take bold strides in diversity. From dance-pop to goth rock, each song will take you twisting down a new road. I’ve worked on a lot of albums in my career, and thus far, this is the one I’m most proud of.”

FUTURE POSTPONED track listing: 01. Blame It On The Drugs 02. Every Part Of Me 03. A World Without You 04. I’m The New Hit 05. Manic 06. Purgatory 07. Kiss Of Death 08. Spirits In The Hall (feat. Ramsey) 09. You’re Never Getting Out Alive 10. Dead To Me 11. The Other Side Of Nowhere

From Los Angeles, CA, Neon Coven abandoned much of the ethos of the tradition of heavy rock to create an intellectual and theoretical sound, linked to an emphasis on anthemic, synth-heavy dance-music. The band came together when Von Johnson, Bunton, Montemarano and Cunningham formed the band as a side project on the suggestion of a mutual friend. “We were all on the Monsters Of Rock Cruise,” explains Bunton. “Our mutual friend April Lee said, ‘you guys should start a band.’ Ace and I had been friends for years, and we both met Anthony on the cruise. After we got back to LA, we started writing songs whenever our schedules would align.” The band released their first EP Risen in 2017 containing the songs “Bleeding Love” and “No One Knows You’re Dead,” both appearing in the horror movie Hesperia. The band followed the EP with a cover of Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again” in 2018. In 2019, the band released its second EP, The Haunting.

For more information: Facebook: www.facebook.com/neoncoven

Sound Cloud: www.soundcloud.com/neoncoven

Instagram: www.instagram.com/neoncoven

YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC1tGFRXHUJGkQqeo2q-_oXA

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/ycnmlpk5

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Gerard at New Ocean Media.]

Review: Automatic – Signal

I stumbled upon Los Angeles trio Automatic while listening to a radio station from somewhere in southwestern France. I was immediately hooked by their goth / no wave sound and had to find more. Luckily, their new album Signal was already available. I knew after one listen that I had to own it.

Halle Saxon‘s fretless, fuzzy bass opens the album on “Too Much Money,” and Izzy Giuadini‘s synths add a buzzy air of menace throughout it while Lola Dompé‘s drums are as precise as an auto assembly line. “Calling It” was the track I heard on French radio that made me sit up and think, “Who is this?” Dompé’s drums take center stage on the track and the echoed vocals are cold and sexy at the same time. “Suicide in Texas” is a goth-wave / David Lynch movie dream track. Automatic have cited Mr. Lynch and Dario Argento as major influences, so that already makes them great in my book.

“I Love You, Fine” is one of the best song titles I’ve heard all year, and the lyrics might be the best ones about female empowerment in a relationship since The Waitresses‘ “I Know What Boys Like.” “Highway” is a danceable industrial gem suitable for your next late night drive to an after-party. Saxon’s bass groove on the title track is undeniable.

“I see you turn into humanoid,” they sing on “Humanoid,” which I can’t help but think is influenced by Gary Numan‘s work. Giaudini’s synths and Dompé’s percussion on it sound like some of Numan’s work with Tubeway Army – which is never a bad thing. “Damage” is another killer goth-wave track as Automatic sing about walking away from a relationship that they know isn’t going to end well.

“Electrocution” has Dompé and Saxon in perfect synch on an upbeat track about what can be a downbeat subject – emptiness (“The sound of laughter, and then it’s over. There’s nothing after.”). “Oh no! We’re goin’ nowhere!” they sing on “Champagne,” which I think is a song about superficiality. The closer, “Strange Conversations,” is like something out of a goth prom night with its romantic bass line, slightly bright synths, and almost-slow dance drumming. Lyrics like “I thought I told you, I can’t stand anyone at all.” and “I’ve lost my patience. All you do is let me down.” also help boost the goth feel of the track.

The album mixes goth, synth wave, and no wave so well it’s difficult to tell where one influence begins and another ends, but who cares? Automatic blend everything so well that Signal becomes a lovely, hypnotic record that will surely be among my top releases of 2020.

Keep your mind open.

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Psycho Las Vegas to return August 19 – 22, 2021 with nearly the same lineup as the cancelled 2020 festival.

The Psycho Las Vegas music festival announced its return in 2021 at the Mandalay Bay Casino Hotel August 19th (if you count the Psycho Swim daytime events, and why wouldn’t you?) through August 22nd.

Most of the original lineup has been announced as returning in 2021. Unfortunately, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Ty Segall aren’t listed as being part of the 2021 festival, but losing just two big bands out of a big lineup like that is a pretty good deal. Tickets for the 2020 scenario will be honored in 2021, and you can probably still buy tickets for the 2021 festival since many people who’d planned to attend this year won’t be able to make it next year.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Live in Brussels ’19

One of three live albums released by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for Australian wildlife charities, Live in Brussels ’19 is a wild, heavy set drawing on a lot of material from Murder of the Universe, Nonagon Infinity, Infest the Rats’ Nest (their newest album at the time of this tour – October 2019), and Fishing for Fishies.

Opener “Evil Star” is a fuzzy instrumental appetizer to the meaty, heavy “Venusian 2.” The crowd is in full battle mode when they arrive at the sludgy “Superbug.” Lead singer Stu Mackenzie‘s vocals sound shouted to the moon and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Lucas Harwood‘s bass rooting the tune in a solid stoner metal groove. “The Lord of Lightning” begins as a neat psychedelic jam that gets the crowd clapping and grows into the powerful story of a wizard fighting a monster.

“Altered Beast IV” has some of Michael Cavanaugh and Eric Moore‘s best double drumming. The crowd goes wild for “People Vultures” – and rightly so, since it seems to be played at double the normal speed of the album cut. The groove of “This Thing” is undeniable, and Ambrose Kenny-Smith‘s harmonica work on it is always top-notch.

“Sense” slows things down to a happy vibe. “The Wheel” might be the trippiest song on the album. Kenny-Smith’s vocals are warped, and Mackenzie, Cook Craig, and Joey Walker‘s guitars move around each other like cats high on catnip. “The Bird Song” is always a delight – live or otherwise. The band always sounds happy while playing it, and you can’t help but partake in their joy.

“Down the Sink” has a fun new wave vibe to it. “Work This Time” floats the audience about five feet off the hall floor with its hazy, meditative feel. Plus, the guitar solo on it is great. The band then gets the crowd roaring again with “Robot Stop.” The opening chords alone make the audience frantic before it explodes into chill-inducing mania. “Big Fig Wasp” continues the chaos with its microtonal riffs. “Gamma Knife” comes at you like a whole swarm of the aforementioned wasps.

The closer, “Float Along – Fill Your Lungs,” is jaw-dropping. It’s a stunning piece of psychedelia that floats along for over twelve minutes and probably left the Belgian audience euphoric.

It’s another great slice of the King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard pie and does what any good live album should do – make you want to see them live as soon as possible.

Keep your mind open.

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Kelly Lee Owens’ new single, “On,” shows she continues to do no wrong.

Techno producer/musician Kelly Lee Owens unveils a new single/video, “On,” from her forthcoming album, Inner Song, out August 28th on Smalltown Supersound. Following “Night” and “Melt!,” “On” is a rustling electro-pop glimmer that gives way to yo-yo synths and a tough-as-nails techno backbeat. It’s the alpha and omega of the Kelly Lee Owens experience, reflective of her ability to contain sonic and emotional multitudes within just one song. Shot on the Norwegian coastline, its accompanying video sees Kelly collaborating once again with Kasper Häggström, who also directed her “Throwing Lines” video. Like the song, it tells the story of a breakup.

“This is perhaps the most intimate and personal song I’ve written so far – the two halves of the track reflect upon sad acceptances of the truth and then the joyous aftermath of liberation that can come from that,” says Owens. “This can definitely be heard in the production and arrangement of the track – the first half sonically connecting to the inner revelations and the second half, the liberation in action, the forward motion.”
Watch Kelly Lee Owens’ “On” Video
Inner Song is the follow-up to Owens’ self-titled debut, which “introduced an extraordinary artist packing a hefty one-two combination of intimate, powerful electronic pop and cavernous, brain-melting techno” (MOJO), and was recognized as one of the most critically praised albums of 2017. It finds Owens diving deep into her own psyche—working through the struggles she’s faced over the last several years and exploring personal pain while embracing the beauty of the natural world. Sonically, Inner Song’s hair-raising bass and tickling textures drive home that, more so than ever, Owens is locked into delivering maximal aural pleasure, whether it be on a techno banger, covering Radiohead, or collaborating with fellow Welsh artist John Cale on a psychedelic lullaby.
Listen to “Night” by Kelly Lee Owens

Watch Kelly Lee Owens’ Visuals for “Melt!”

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Fenne Lilly’s new album, “BREACH,” is due this September, but the lead single, “Alapathy,” is available now.

Bristol-based musician Fenne Lily announces BREACH, her second album and first for Dead Oceans, out September 18th. It presents a newly upbeat and urgent streak to her songwriting, immediately evident with lead single “Alapathy,” and its accompanying video directed by Benjamin Brook. BREACH is an expansive, diaristic, frequently sardonic record that deals with the mess and the catharsis of entering your 20s and finding peace while being alone. It’s the follow-up to 2018’s On Hold, a tender collection of open-hearted songs written during her teenage years which deemed Fenne “a new and extraordinary voice capable of wringing profound and resonant moments out of loss” (The Line of Best Fit).

Fenne wrote BREACH during a period of self-enforced isolation pre-COVID, after a disjointed experience of touring Europe, followed by a month alone in Berlin. The album deals largely with “loneliness, and trying to work out the difference between being alone and being lonely.” Although its subject matter is solitude, it sounds bigger and more intricate than anything Fenne previously released. She recorded with producer Brian Deck at Chicago’s Narwhal Studios, with further work at Electrical Audio with Steve Albini who helped flesh out her sound with vast, rich guitars.

The insistent percussion of the album’s first single, “Alapathy,” mimics the anxious racing thoughts Fenne deals with as an overthinker and chronicles how she “started smoking weed to switch off [her] brain.” The title is a made-up word that merges “apathy” and “allopathic” (as in Westernized medicine). “Western medicine generally treats the symptoms of an illness rather than the cause,” explains Fenne. For Fenne, taking medication to improve her mental health didn’t solve her problems — she felt like she was only treating the effects of her discomfort, not the reason for it. Its stylized accompanying video features Fenne enjoying solitude in various ways.

It’s that journey to find peace inside herself that underpins the whole of Fenne’s second album. Its title, BREACH, occurred to Fenne after deep conversations with her mum about her birth, during which she was breech, or upside down in the womb. The slippery double-sidedness of the word – which, spelled with an “A”, means to “break through” – drew her in. “That feels like what I was doing in this record; I was breaking through a wall that I built for myself, keeping myself safe, and dealing with the downside of feeling lonely and alone. I realized that I am comfortable in myself, and I don’t need to fixate on relationships to make myself feel like I have something to talk about. I felt like I broke through a mental barrier in that respect.” Even though it also carries implications of awkwardness, rebellion, and breakage, it’s a wide-reaching word, representing new beginnings and birth.
Watch Fenne Lily’s Video for “Alapathy”

Listen to “To Be A Woman Pt. 2”

Listen to “Hypochondriac”

Pre-order BREACH

BREACH Tracklist
1. To Be a Woman Pt. 1
2. Alapathy
3. Berlin
4. Elliott
5. I, Nietzsche
6. Birthday
7. Blood Moon
8. Solipsism
9. I Used To Hate My Body But Now I Just Hate You
10. ’98
11. Someone Else’s Trees
12. Laundry And Jet Lag

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Jess Cornelius’ “Body Memory” is a lovely ode to heartbreak.

Los Angeles-based musician Jess Cornelius releases a new single/video, “Body Memory,” from her debut album, Distance, out July 24th on Loantaka Records. It follows the Roy Orbison tinged rave-up, “Kitchen Floor.” On “Body Memory,” the last song she wrote for the record, Cornelius intones over a calming electro-rhythm “When we met I used to make you laugh/then we lost the baby and it broke my heart,” adding later: “My body has a memory and it won’t forget.” Its accompanying video, the second she’s made since the start of the pandemic lockdown, was created by Cornelius and her partner and filmed on an iPhone at Lake Isabella, California. Cornelius elaborates on the video:

“Originally I had a much more elaborate, narrative-based concept, where I was this woman running away from a cult, (hence the tracksuit and Nikes), to be filmed in Oildale and Posey where my partner, Joe, is fixing up an old cabin. At the last minute, we decided to drive to Lake Isabella because of supposed good visuals there. I was grumbling all the way there about how the location wouldn’t fit with my shot list, but when we got there and I started dancing on rocks, we just threw away the shot list and made it up as we went along. The editing was fun because I’m teaching myself Premiere Pro (thanks YouTube tutorials) and I got to throw every hilarious video effect at it. We were also heavily influenced by Laraaji’s videos, obviously.”
Watch Jess Cornelius’ Video for “Body Memory”

Cornelius first began writing the songs that would comprise Distance after moving from Melbourne, Australia to Los Angeles. At the time, she was excited to start fresh after several years as the primary songwriter in the band Teeth and Tongue. But the distance she addresses over the album is hardly a geographical one. The journey over Distance is a celebration of newness. New beginnings and new perspectives on endings. From the chaos of a vagabond lifestyle to expecting a child just weeks before the albums’ release and researching how to tour as a mother in the coming years.

While the sonic tones and textures on the album evoke certain classic staples of Americana, soul and rock and roll, Cornelius’ lyrics anchor the songs to a deeply personal place. She sings of a miscarriage, a messy romantic affair, and the frustrations that come with having a partner. Distance finds a deft songwriter analyzing the space between society’s expectations for her and her own dreams, the illusion of love and the reality of disappointment, and a past she is ready to let go of and a future she could have hardly imagined.

Watch Jess Cornelius’ “Kitchen Floor” Video

Watch “No Difference” Video

Pre-order Distance

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]