Synthwave – Page 18 – 7th Level Music

Jorja Chalmers releases “Bring Me Down” ahead of new album due May 28th.

Margate-based, Australian multi-instrumentalist Jorja Chalmers will release her new album ‘Midnight Train‘ on May 28th via Italians Do It Better. The first single from the record “Bring Me Down” is streaming online now.

Speaking about the first single “Bring Me Down”, Jorja said “It’s about the fragility of the perfect housewife.It’s basically about a woman that’s trying to be everything, and is cracking psychologically. It’s got a very haunting melody. There’s something there that’s a little bit beautiful and disturbing about it.”

The accompanying video is a piece of Lynchian performance art, an unsettling one-shot clip that shows a person on the edge. It’s all theatre however, Jorja Chalmers relishes in inhabiting a persona, one that may be entirely divorced from her own experiences. “There can be a healthy separation from using your creativity to make something that is almost like a duplicate of yourself, that you don’t necessarily associate with. If you make something dark, then it’s not necessarily your personality. It can be the opposite sometimes.”

Watch & listen to “Bring Me Down” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S3sZoiG20g

Jorja Chalmers enjoys a quiet life. The Australian born mother of two lives in Margate, the Kent coastal town that is turning into something of a cultural hub. Yet there’s another, shadow version of Jorja Chalmers, one that resides in a liminal realm; a saxophonist and composer, a brooding, vampiric, twilight soul who yearns for some sense of aesthetic transformation.

New album ‘Midnight Train’ comes close to severing the two. Constructed during the long winter lockdown, Jorja would put her kids to bed before closing the door in the spare room, building lengthy, undulating passages of cinematic terror, patching together European art-pop glamour with outsider electronics. It’s composed, intense, and challenging – but it’s also utterly exhilarating.

It’s not been a straight-forward path. Burned out following years of classical studies in her native Sydney, Jorja travelled half-way round the world looking for an escape. Settling for some ad hoc office jobs in London, she started kicking around in bands, playing saxophone for a friend’s new wave project. Someone from Bryan Ferry’s team spotted her at some flea-bit bar, and was infatuated – soon Jorja started touring the world with Roxy Music.

Jorja’s 2019 debut album ‘Human Again’ was sketched in hotel rooms across Europe and North America, ideas punched out on down-time between shows. This time round, however, things are a bit more defined. “A lot of those songs were one take jams, it was improvised. This is more refined,” Jorja insists. “It’s a natural progression, this second album. It feels more mature in that way.”

Mixed by Dean Hurley, David Lynch’s music engineer, ‘Midnight Train’ is a treasure trove of ideas. Indeed, it could well be the album Jorja had waited her entire life to make – aspects of minimalism sparked by a teenager who spent countless hours memorising Michael Nyman’s seminal film score for The Piano, set against cinematic electronics and swathes of huge, enveloping, classical dynamics.

“I want it to sound immersive, like it’s wrapping you in a blanket,” she says. Indeed, she cites Rachmaninoff’s epic work The Rock as a key touchstone on the new record. “It’s something that my parents used to blast out of their stereo when I was a kid. I heard it a million times. It’s strange to be hearing a song that is so dramatic when you’re that young. It’s a beautiful piece. It’s one of those things that leaves an imprint on you.”

At times, ‘Midnight Train’ gets very dark indeed. ‘Rabbit In The Headlights’ is a squirming piece of jet-black avant-pop, while ‘Boadicea’ is draped in the blood of the ancient British warrior queen. ‘The Wolves Of The Orangery’ was sculpted after a Roxy Music show in the Palace of Versailles, and it’s haunted by the oppression meted out to the servants, and the bloody revenge exhibited on the French regal classes. There’s light in those murky depths, however; take her brooding version of The Doors’ classic ‘Riders On The Storm’ – a blood-thirsty slice of dystopian electronics, it doubles as a salute to her father, who built himself colossal speakers to both entertain his daughter and terrify his neighbours.

A finessed, contoured vision of Jorja Chalmers’ undaunted creativity, ‘Midnight Train’ bristles with ideas. Breathy saxophone undulates on ‘Nightingale’, her homage to Yellow Magic Orchestra founder Haroumi Hosono, while mournful closer ‘Underwater Blood’ echoes the intensity of Goblin’s work on the Suspiria score, or even John Carpenter’s cinematic endeavours. “I grew up watching lots of movies. I was obsessed with the Terminator soundtrack. I remember hearing that for the first time, and just knowing my tastes were going to be changed forever.”

‘Midnight Train’ feels concise, sharpened, ready to pounce. Cannibalising her influences, Jorja Chalmers has been able to pursue her creative appetites to their most extreme. Yet even at its most challenging, her bold new album revels in the sheer joy of creation. “Making this album was really freeing,” she explains. “I loved writing this album. I always write in the same way, but I think that lockdown provided me with lesser distractions. Writing is such a personal thing for me – being in your little cave, and creating. That’s the beautiful moment for me.”

A solitary creation, a lockdown triumph, ‘Midnight Train’ is the moment Jorja Chalmers truly achieves transcendence.

Midnight Train track list:
1. Bring Me Down
2. I’ll Be Waiting
3. Rabbit In The Headlights
4. Boadicea
5. Love Me Tonight
6. Nightingale
7. Riders On The Storm
8. Rhapsody
9. The Poet
10. The Wolves Of The Orangery
11. On Such A Clear Day
12. Midnight Train
13. Underwater Blood

Links:
Jorja Chalmers Instagram
Italians Do It Better store
Italians Do It Better Instagram
Italians Do It Better Twitter

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[Thanks to Frankie at Stereo Sanctity.]

Oh Baby offer “Cruel Intention” from upcoming album due July 23rd.

Based between London and Manchester Oh Baby met via a chance meeting at a family members funeral. The pair, made up of distant cousins Rick Hornby & Jen Devereux, have just announced their new album ‘Hey Genius‘, which is laden with their romantic guitar-led synth-pop and is set for release July 23rd via Burning Witches Records. Today they’re sharing the first single from the record, “Cruel Intention“.

Speaking about the track, the band said “For ‘Cruel Intention’ we wanted quite a disposable sound, with a kind of plasticity to an almost one hit wonder-like song about the inevitable risks of love, the risk of never truly knowing someone until their ‘version A’ mask is lowered, and by that time you’re usually already too far in.”

Listen to “Cruel Intention” here: https://soundcloud.com/user-970545402/cruel-intention/

Hey Genius carries on from Oh Baby‘s last record, The Art Of Sleeping Alone almost like the flip side of an album, it has that kind of geography to it.

The duo are fascinated with machines conveying or creating emotion and the electronic take on the human condition. The human body actually has a very small electrical current running through it, with enough to power a 100watt lightbulb, the synth lines and arpeggiators on this album are written relating to that current, tapping into it and running alongside it.

Ever since they were children, the pair found the whole notion of electricity captivating, Hornby recalls spending hours as a child turning the radio dial just to hear the noise of interference and static, thinking this is how the world actually sounded. Inspired by 70s and 80s synth bands such as Kraftwek, Tubeway Army and Human League, as well as Philip K Dick’s dystopian sci-fi novel “Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep?”, which went on to become the Blade Runner film, the band look to explore the way electric currents work in conduction with human emotions and how these rhythms impact feelings in their new record.

The idea of the dancefloor being the end of a journey, the final destination for a track, is always in the back of Oh Baby’s minds when writing. All the emotions and drama that get played out on those few square metres that leads to the soundtrack.

Recorded primarily at Hornby’s home studio in Manchester, the band explained the process behind the creation of Hey Genius, saying “The writing process always follows the same pattern, we will hole up separately for weeks that become months, stockpiling ideas and venturing down rabbit holes of sounds, words, effects and riffs, then getting together to plug-in, switch on and start building the tracks. We set up an outside home studio during last year’s Summer lockdown, which ended up looking just how we wanted but being about as soundproof as a shower curtain so there are a few neighbours that got to know the basslines a bit too well.

Neither of us are particularly technically minded at all so working with synths there tends to be a lot of ‘see what this button does’ moments, discovering sounds as we write and a lot of trial and error which can be either rewarding or torturous depending on which day or night you catch us on. A lot of the 80s type sounds on this record come from an old Juno that’s been here forever and a Korg MS20 as a midi keyboard that we also use live. The drum machine parts are always first worked out on an old Boss DR55. We tend to try and wiring as much as we can out of what we have, and try to use those limitations well, partly for obvious financial reasons but also to try and not be overwhelmed by choice, which seems to be an easy trap to fall into in a home studio with wi-fi.“

Oh Baby have a pretty firm idea of the way they want everything to sound and when they finally take everything and de-camp to a studio for final production and mixing, by then they know that they have managed to stick to the only two rules they ever had: “We want it to sound like the truth, and we want it to be the sound of two people with a passion”.

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[Thanks to Frankie at Stereo Sanctity.]

Booker Stardrum’s new album, “Crater,” due July 2nd. His new single, “Diorama,” is out now.

Today, percussionist and electronic producer Booker Stardrum announced his third album CRATER will release July 2 via NNA Tapes. Along with the announcement, Stardrum has shared “Diorama” — a texturally rich and rhythmically dense sound sculpture.

CRATER is the sum of countless dynamic, highly active, moving components. Not just percussive phrases, but melodies, textures, sound, noise, and the cracks and crevices of vacant space between these bodies. Stardrum’s creative approach is a multi-tiered process — ideas discovered during improvisation feed into live performances, which then fuel compositional concepts, cycling back and forth until the final arrangements emerge.

As with the majority of Stardrum’s works, percussion is the epicenter, the nucleus from which all else grows. But the music splinters off and transforms from there, growing and evolving into the distinctive final form that is Stardrum’s solo work. Melody plays a prominent role as well, but it’s journey feels dictated and influenced by the unpredictability and spontaneous, human fluidity of the percussive action.

Another important piece of Stardrum’s process is collaboration. Both inspiration and sounds were provided in varying capacities by Stardrum’s musical peers and close friends, whether they performed in-studio, or provided the artist with source material to then be sampled and processed into the structure of the tracks. The foundation of CRATER was recorded in-studio with long-time collaborative partner John Dieterich (Deerhoof), who also handled the final mixes and mastering. These recordings were then further dissected by Stardrum in a solitary headspace through digital editing processes, eventually revealing the nine individual pieces that make up the album.

A sustained tension carries the listener from track to track, which plays out like a narrative structure using a purely sonic language. The result is an overall sound that feels expansive and immersive, where the listener can truly feel held and embraced inside the music that Stardrum has created. Through deep listening, one can feel contained in this sound world, with enough dimensionality inside to move around freely and explore one’s surroundings.

Read the full bio and pre-order CRATER from NNA Tapes here.

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[Thanks to NNA Tapes and Cody at Clandestine Label Services.]

Review: Black Light Smoke – The Early Years

At times chaotic, other times ambient, and other times danceable, Black Light Smoke‘s The Early Years is a collection of stuff electro-producer Jordan Lieb wrote back in the last decade. It covers a lot of cool ground.

Opening track “Up Up and Away” has nothing to do with a beautiful balloon (as far as I can tell), but has plenty to do with warped synths and beats that sound like they’re coming from a drum machine that’s been doused in bourbon. “Springtime for Rioters” could fit into another “Escape from…” John Carpenter film score with it’s bad-ass synth-bass, sampled screams, and industrial beats.

The driving beats of “123456789” are outstanding, and I love the way Lieb layers them with fuzzed-out guitars. “Black Light Smoke” is a weird, wonky tune that bumps and percolates while maintaining a sense of the bizarre. “Burn” has actual vocals as Lieb sings about having nothing to do on a Sunday since everything’s closed and his lover’s left him.

“North Korea” sounds like a forgotten Soft Moon track with its sinister synths and killer cyborg bass. Lieb sings / croons again on “The Figure” as his electro-groove simmer underneath him and simple, haunting piano chords keep time. The closing track, “Celeste,” showcases My Bloody Valentine‘s influence on Lieb with its soft vocals and “wall of fuzz” sound.

I’m glad Lieb decided to release this collection of early material. It will make you want to seek out more of his work, as any good collection should.

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[Thanks to Ryan at Clandestine Label Services.]

Throwing Snow releases mysterious new single – “Brujita.”

Throwing Snow, a.k.a. Ross Tones, will release his new album Dragons on June 25th via Houndstooth. Today he’s sharing the first single from the record, “Brujita“.
Speaking about the track, Throwing Snow said “‘Brujita’ is about the breaking of aural tradition and the suppression of cunning women and men. It’s a eulogy to lost folk wisdom.”

Listen to “Brujita” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg03mbuiZqI

Listen to “Brujita” via other streaming services here: https://hth.lnk.to/dragons

Throwing Snow’s fourth album is the audiovisually-augmented Dragons, a work that occupies the space between science and ancestral wisdom. It links music back to its prehistoric capacity for transmitting knowledge to new technology that can untangle the complexity of the contemporary world. Dragons’ ten tracks of heavy primal rhythmic productions incorporate the physicality of acoustic sources, from ancient ritual instruments to modern drum kit, and each track is accompanied by visuals generated by a neural network.

Throwing Snow, aka Ross Tones, developed Dragons’ neural network with artist, designer and technologist Matt Woodham. The structures and changes in Tones’ music trigger corresponding changes in accompanying moving images, which combine life in three scales, from microscopic views of rocks to large scale maps. “Everything that happens musically triggers the algorithm to do something,” Tones explains. “This isn’t controlled or predictable, and the music becomes an instruction for the algorithm to make its own decisions about datasets, images, speed, movement and other manipulations.”

The tracks on Dragons match Tones’s ambitions for the album in weight but not complexity. They are intentionally dazzlingly simple in their means, for maximum effect, with repeating motifs, locked basslines, cosmic patterns and full-frequency mids. Often built from four or fewer elements, Tones allows sound to accumulate into his unique take on ritual music for the 21st century. Throbbing ritual dances contain half-remembered earworms revealing glittering night skies of synthesizer patterns – ‘Halos’ stabs and stutters like a dance atop a longbarrow; ‘Purr’ reverberates in silky vibrational motifs; the heavyweight ‘Brujita’ is nu-metal for a past-future ceremony of uncertain purpose.

Tones says he often uses his music as allegory and container for the concepts and theories he’s immersed in – he studied astrophysics, and is fascinated by crafts, archeoacoutics, history, evolution and psychology. In Dragons, he wanted to explore the purpose of music from the beginning of human history. “We have Palaeolithic minds but find ourselves in an increasingly complex and interconnected world,” Tones explains. “Music and art have always been ritualised as a tool for memory, knowledge and emotion, and humans make sense of existence by using tools. Songs were tools of understanding, passed down from our ancestors. Now, things are complex and interrelated, so we can’t use that ancestral knowledge, and need to invent new tools – that’s where machine learning comes into it.”

As is typical for Tones’ Throwing Snow project, the album contains a bold and eclectic mix of instruments, from a bodhrán and daf to cello, with their uses rooted in their inherent acoustic properties. Tones also essentially built his own sample pack for the percussion patterns, working with drummer Jack Baker (Bonobo, Kelis, Alice Russell, Planet Battagon) on an intensive two-day session.

Tones is a Houndstooth stalwart, and Dragons is his fourth full-length album on the label, along with a string of 12”s and EPs. His first album was Mosaic in 2014, followed by Embers in 2017, and Loma in 2018. Originally from the North Of England, for the last few years he has worked from The Castle, his studio an hour outside Bristol/Bath, where he can both forage his own food and find the headspace to make music and experiment with modern technology. He is currently recording a new album with his trio Snow Ghosts, and a soundtrack for a Netflix documentary.

Dragons is a new form of inter-disciplinary album, which is neither wholly electronic nor acoustic, sonic or visual, and pulls from an equally diverse range of inspirations, from texts such as Steven Mithin’s The Singing Neanderthals and Margo Neale and Lynn Kell’s Songlines to the 1982 animated film Flight of Dragons. “I’m into putting music back into history,” Tones explains. “I want to make you think about what music is, what its purpose has been. I’m asking about the scientific aspect to folklore and ancient knowledge, and looking at why it’s still useful. This album is a doorway – if you choose to listen like that.”

Pre-order Dragons here: https://hth.lnk.to/dragons

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[Thanks to Frankie at Stereo Sanctity.]

Review: Kalbells – Max Heart

Max Heart, the new album by Kalbells, is lovely synth-pop created by four ladies who have a love of grooving and jamming. Led by Kalmia Traver, the band started as a solo project for her but she and her touring bandmates bonded so tight that they became a regular thing and started creating funky psych-synth tunes that seem effortless. The band (Angelica Bess, Zoe Becher, Sarah Pedinotti, and Traver) have often spoken about this Zen-like state of locking into each other’s energy and letting thins naturally occur. Much of Max Heart is centered around love – finding it, embracing it, losing it, and rediscovering it – and the Zen mantra of “Let go or be dragged.”

“Red Marker” begins with spacey lounge vocal stylings as Traver tells us to “kiss her inner bouncy ball.” and that she’s “in her element although the skies are getting darker.” “Flute Windows Open in the Rain” is a peppy tale about Traver finding happiness in self-isolation and moving forward after a break-up. The warped bass and sexy groove of “Purplepink” make it a standout on the album. It’s great for rainy late night drives, making out, or even dancing around in your kitchen while making backed macaroni.

The simple beats of “Poppy Tree” blend well with the space-age airport hangar keyboards throughout it. Besides having a fun title, “Hump the Beach,” also has sexy French vocals, bubbling synths, and even a weird horn section piece. “Pickles” is full of double entendres, especially when guest rapper Miss Eaves unloads some fun lyrics on it. The beats on “Bubbles” sound like a sped-up ping-pong game played underwater in a dream in which you’re also playing hide and seek with a lovely woman who might be a mermaid. It’ll make sense once you hear it, trust me.

The electro beats on “Big Lake” sizzle like water flicked into a hot skillet. “I woke up with a fish tank in my hips,” Traver sings on “Diagram of Me Sleeping.” It’s a witty, weird, and sensual lyric that puts into mind the joke of Groucho Marx watching a femme fatale walk away from him with her hips swaying, and then Groucho turning to the camera and saying, “That reminds me, I need to get my watch fixed.” The saxophone solo on the track is a nice touch, too. The title track closes the album with a joyful sway, keyboards that sound like giddy birds, a jazzy piano solo, and fat synth-bass.

It’s a fun record, and a much-needed uplifting album as we (here in the U.S., at least) emerge from winter and isolation to embrace the sun and, hopefully, the beginning of a return to human interaction.

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[Thanks to Cody at Clandestine PR.]

Review: Blanck Mass – In Ferneaux

I’m not sure calling Blanck Mass‘ new record, In Ferneaux, an “album” is correct. It’s only two tracks (“Phase I” and “Phase II”), which makes it seem like an A-side and B-side single, but each is about twenty minutes long. So, is it an EP? EP’s rarely cover as much ground as In Ferneaux, so that doesn’t seem right either. It’s more of a soundscape than an album, a strange journey instead of a musical experience.

In Ferneaux is a “soundscape journey.” Yeah, I think that works.

The record is a collection of live “in the field” recordings of ambient sounds, bits of conversation, city cacophony, psychedelic musings, and, of course, Blanck Mass / Benjamin Power‘s signature shimmering synths and beats that often surprise you no matter how far away you hear them coming.

“Phase I” alone blends all of these elements in just the first five minutes. It almost sounds like it could be a sci-fi movie theme or the theme to the next World Cup tournament, and then it becomes something like a robotic dream from Philip K. Dick’s mind. It drifts into drone, and at one point seems to have the sounds of a boat bumping against a dock and futuristic bacon made from grub worms sizzling in a skillet. Bird and / or whale song floats into the track, as do the sounds of busy streets, children talking, and possibly distant video game noises.

“Phase II” starts us off in the middle of some kind of dystopian future nightmare thought up by an android with a migraine headache, but then it dissolves into a recording of a conversation Powers had with a street preacher saying things like, “It’s hard to handle the bitch-ass misery…Be ye transformed by the renewal of your mind…” and other gems of knowledge about giving and receiving blessings. The man’s words are brought to the front and then are replaced with bright, ambient synths and white noise to cleanse your mental palate. Those sounds grow into a wild swarm of cybernetic wasps hovering treacherously close. Weird chants / screams and tribal drums emerge, throwing you into either a panic or an intrigued hush. The track, and the album, ends with more sounds of water, and Powers’ lament that a passing truck is ruining his recording.

Again, a record like this is hard to classify, but that’s part of the point. It doesn’t need classification. It simply is. All of us simply are, but most of us fail to realize this liberating truth. In Ferneaux has Powers coming out of the metaphorical fire of 2020 with a deeper appreciation of the simple things around him. We could all use some time in that purifying heat.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Psymon Spine – Charismatic Megafauna

The opening track of Psymon Spine‘s new album, Charismatic Megafauna, “Confusion,” is pure dream / synth-pop bliss and lets you know that you’re in for a treat. The whole album mixes dance grooves with synth hooks and funk and inspires you to move and / or chill.

Bright synths, cool bass, and sweet disco beats are all over this record. Psymon Spine’s founders, Noah Prebish and Peter Spears, describe the slightly dark “Modmed” as a break-up song about leaving their previous band – Barrie. The bass on it is as thick as a dozen donuts eaten during a self-pity binge that becomes a “You know, what? Screw it. I’m eating these donuts because I’m moving on.” celebration. “Jacket” moves and sways like it has some junk in the trunk.

“Jump Rope” is a sexy romp with female vocals about meeting and defying expectations. “Milk” features Barrie – the lead singer of Prebish and Spears’ former band – doing backing vocals on another cool, bass-heavy track. “The game is called ‘Channels,” they sing on “Channels” – a fast dance-punk track about the drudgery of work and going along with the crowd when you really want to go off-road, forge your own path, and tell your doubters, “Get the fuck out of my face.”

“Different Patterns” mixes acoustic guitars with Knight Rider bass for a weird, dreamy effect. “Real Thing” bubbles and pops with synths that remind me of God Lives Underwater tracks and electric drums hit so snappy they could be a breakfast cereal. “Solution” bounces with a wicked house music beat that builds to a floor-filling frenzy. The album ends with “Unwound” – a bit of a psychedelic treat to send us off on a trippy note.

It’s a pretty cool record that blends its multiple influences well – making you dance and think. That’s not an easy task, but they make it seem easy.

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[Thanks to Cody at Clandestine PR.]

Blanck Mass releases “Starstuff” from upcoming “In Ferneaux” album.

Blanck Mass – the project of musician Benjamin John Power – presents a new video for “Starstuff” (Single Edit) from his forthcoming album, In Ferneaux, out February 26th on Sacred Bones. The video, created by Danny Perez, visualizes the track’s vibrant, erratic sound. “I have been a fan of Danny’s for years, I feel a strong connection to his use of texture and colour in an emotional sense,” says Power. “I felt that because the music of In Ferneaux is highly expressive, emotive and insular; by giving Danny free creative control of the video for Starstuff, it would only add to the experience. I always find it exciting to see how others interpret my music visually.”

Watch “Starstuff” (Single Edit) Video

The follow-up to 2019’s Animated Violence Mild, In Ferneaux explores pain in motion, building audio-spatial chambers of experience and memory. Using an archive of field recordings from a decade of global travels, isolation gave Blanck Mass an opportunity to make connections in a moment when being together is impossible. The record is divided into two long-form journeys that gather the memories of being with now-distant others through the composition of a nostalgic travelogue. The journeys are haunted with the vestiges of voices, places, and sensations. These scenes alternate with the building up and releasing of great aural tension, intensities that emerge from the trauma of a personal grieving process which has perhaps embraced its rage moment.

A blessing is often thought of as a future reward, above and beyond the material plane. With In Ferneaux, Blanck Mass wrangles the immanent materials of the here-and-now to build a sense of transcendence. Here, the uncanny angelic hymn sits comfortably beside the dirge. The misery and blessing are one.

Watch “Starstuff” (Single Edit) Video

Pre-order In Ferneaux

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Kalbells paint the world “Purplepink” with single from upcoming EP.

Kalbells—led by Kalmia Traver (of Rubblebucket) with her bandmates Angelica Bess (Body Language), Zoë Brecher (Hushpuppy, Sad13), and Sarah Pedinotti (Okkervil River, LipTalk)—have announced the release of their sophomore album Max Heart, out March 26 on NNA Tapes.

Max Heart explores what happens when we let go of what doesn’t serve us in order to leave space for the blessings that do. The album’s ten vibrant and subtly layered tracks of mesmerizing psychedelic synth pop (co-engineered with Luke Temple) were birthed from the band’s practice of listening and accountability, rejoicing in their queerness, and promoting each other to be their most genuine selves. Max Heart is a portrait of badass women harnessing their improvisational magic.

A prime example of Kalbells furthering their sum energies is the effervescent funk of lead single “Purplepink,” out now. Co-written between Traver, Bess, and Pedinotti, a hyper synth bass darts around elongated keyboard sighs. The video, conceptualized and directed by Lisa Schatz, features 3D animated rocket ships, faceless furry creatures, a 30 foot glittery hologram of Maddie Rice (Jon Batiste’s Stay Human, Saturday Night Live Band) shredding on guitar, and Kalbells as warrior space queens. Read the full bio here.

Max Heart is available to pre-order on standard black & “Salty Pickle” green vinyl, as well as on compact disc and digital formats here. The album will be available on “Red Marker” red vinyl exclusively from local indie record stores.

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[Thanks to Cody at Clandestine PR.]