Chicago’s Brett Naucke teamed up with two other well-respected Chicago musicians, Natalie Chami and Whitney Johnson, to create Mirror Ensemble– an album that combines synthwave, ambient, and even a bit of indie rock to make a meditative gem.
“Vanity Well” gets things off to a mood-altering start, and then “The Glass Shifting” comes in sounding like something from the new Dune film score. The longest track on the album, “A Look That Tells Time,” takes its time to stretch out and let you relax into it with its temple-like bell sounds and lotus flower-drifting-on-a-lazy-river.
“Catch Your Breath,” at a quarter of the previous track’s length, is a short meditation, while “Parallax” is the sound of sunlight shining through a prism. Trust me, you’ll feel this when you hear it. “Rose Water” is equally delightful, while “Sleep with Your Windows Open” is going to become your new favorite song to put on your bedroom speakers this summer. The closer, “Late Century Reflection,” ends the album with slightly up-tempo beats and synths that rise like a flock of birds from the edge of a still lake.
It’s a lovely record, suitable for meditation, making out, or even just walking around the neighborhood.
Keep your mind open.
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Named after the gardens people were encouraged to start and tend during World War Two, Cold Beat‘s new album, War Garden, is a lovely collection of synthwave, 1980s pop, and optimism created during the pandemic and written, in part at least, via Zoom.
Opening track, “Mandelbrot Fall,” begins with thick 16-bit video game bass and peppy blips while lead singer Hannah Lew sings “There’s nothing to explain, I’m trying anyway.” That’s basically been my motto for the last month. “SOS” starts off like a sad scene in an episode of Stranger Things, but soon blossoms into a happy skate around the roller rink. “Tumescent Decoy” has bright synths bouncing around lyrics about finding paradise within and within lonely times.
“Weeds” brings in shoegaze guitars that are as dreamy as the lyrics. “See You Again” sums up the band’s (and everyone else’s) feeling during the onset of the pandemic. It has a twinge of sadness to it, but an underlying hopeful vibe as Cold Beat knew they’d eventually reunite in person – or even beyond the void if (when) it came to it. “Arms Reach” is a soft caress while “Year Without a Shadow” is almost an industrial dance club floor-filler.
The synths on “Rubble Ren” are as soothing as a Jacuzzi. Lew’s vocals on “Part the Sea” flow like waves while the synths rise like crests and then splash onto the shore. “Leaves and Branches” is just as uplifting. The album ends with the optimistic “New World” – a track to give us hope as we emerge from our self-imposed exiles.
War Garden is one of the more hopeful albums of 2021. Give it a spin if you need a boost.
Following its genesis release from the label co-founder himself, Galway native KETTAMA invites Brisbane locals and close pals X CLUB. to lay down the riddims for G-TOWN002.
Having met the lads at their GRID night in Brisbane during his Australian tour, G-TOWN Records label head KETTAMA alongside Shampain are familiar with the dutty duo. Shampain actually interviewed the pair for the VSN World website (a concept that started as a club night run by the label heads), so you could say this is a dream link up of sorts. They may be on the other side of the world but make no mistake, X CLUB. are honorary G-TOWN members.
Following releases on Steel City Dance Discs and 1Ø Pills Mate, alongside appearances on Mall Grab and Miley Serious’ Rinse FM shows, the duo of Ben Clarke & Jesse Morath have cemented their reputation as one of dance music’s most exciting doublets with their distinctively large productions – channeling influence from grime, electro, hardcore and techno – and capturing the minds and hearts of dance music fans with their big-room, uncompromising attitude. Punishingly beautiful, devastatingly cinematic; X CLUB.’s back catalogue invites a sea of oxymorons to the shore, blending euphoria and darkness – with one eye on the past and another to the future – to perfectly capture the mood of the modern-raver.
‘Concentrate’ kicks things off with a swirling blend of textured atmospherics and driving kicks that soon manipulates into a steppy electro-techno hybrid drenched in heads down energy. ‘Inna Trance’ swaps the serious for the fun with something that sounds like a blend of quintessential X CLUB. and the progressive, trance-like sounds of Radiant Love in Berlin; bouncy techno for those that like to smile while they dance.
‘Sports That Require Petrol’ incites images of joyriding youths doing donuts in parking lots and sweaty bodies bumping into one another in packed-out clubs; an ode to the hardcore era that contributed to the birth of the X CLUB. concept, before ‘Elevation (Journey Mix)’ guides us on a blissed-out trip through emo-dreamscapes and tears-in-the-club energy that wouldn’t sound out of place dropped in the middle of a Bicep performance.
Today, Marco Benevento shares his latest single, “At The End Or The Beginning” (listen/share). Diving deep down a psych-funk rabbit hole, the singer/songwriter/keyboardist captures the zeitgeist with lyrics like “we can walk and keep our distance, the whole world changed in an instant,” as he delivers a dose of blissed-out escapism where listeners can recontextualize these troubled times through a surrealistic-slanted optimism and the pure joy of an irresistible groove.
“Where are we? At the end or the beginning? It’s been a strange few years not being able to hug our close friends or play shows and to see so many people struggling from this pandemic that came out of nowhere,” says Benevento. “So the idea was inspired by what we’ve all been living through. The lyric says it all, we can’t wait for the clouds to lift up for us…this one time.”
Co-written with San Diego-based poet/lyricist Alfred Howard, “At The End Or The Beginning” hints at what’s to come from Benevento in 2022 as he puts the finishing touches on a new studio album. In the meantime, Benevento and his band featuring bassist Karina Rykman and drummer Dave Butler perform a handful of select shows to close out 2021, including a sold out two night run at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock this weekend, a three night stretch at one of his favorite rooms The Press Room in Portsmouth on November 11-13 and Brooklyn Bowl over Thanksgiving weekend.
Over the course of seven studio albums and countless shows around the world, keyboardist Marco Benevento has drawn praise from tastemakers far and wide. Los Angeles Times has written, “it’s safe to say that no one sees the keyboard quite like Marco Benevento’s genre-blind mashup of indie rock, jazz and skewed improvisation,” while NPR Music raves that Benevento combines “the thrust of rock, the questing of jazz and the experimental ecstasy of jam.”
Indeed, Marco Benevento’s music cuts a wide swath, seemingly connecting the dots in the vast space between LCD Soundsystem and Leon Russell, His songwriting is smart and earthy, yet simultaneously pulsating with dance rock energy. Benevento’s high energy live shows have led to numerous high profile appearances, ranging from CarnegieHall to Pickathon. In the studio, he’s collaborated with the likes of Richard Swift (The Shins, Nathaniel Rateliff), Leon Michels (Lee Fields, Freddie Gibbs) and Simone Felice (The Felice Brothers, The Lumineers) among others.
Upcoming Shows
November 13 – Portsmouth, NH – The Press Room (Sold Out) November 27 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Bowl December 11 – Miami, FL – North Beach Music Festival
Washington, D.C.-based band Beauty Pill today announced their new EP Instant Night out December 3, releasing on limited edition vinyl, CD and digitally via Northern Spy Records and available to preorder here. Alongside the announcement the band is sharing the official video for “You Need A Better Mind“. On the track, Beauty Pill’s Chad Clark says:
“The Roland TB-303 is an old Japanese synthesizer that was designed to convincingly mimic the sound of a bass guitar. It was introduced in 1981, it sounded like a toy and failed miserably, and it was ultimately discontinued in 1984. It makes freaky, wiggly, cartoony sounds. It sounds fuck-all like a bass guitar. Why am I telling you this? One ended up in my hands for a week. I did a lot of silly stuff with it. I did come up with this one worthwhile riff, which I built a song around. The song is called “You Need A Better Mind.”
“It was recorded with my band in a single take at the end of a recording session for another song. We were tired. None of us cared that much if we failed. The fun spirit you hear in this song is mostly exhaustion… that kind of punchy exhaustion you get late at night when you’ll laugh at anything. The lyrics were inspired by the spooky/funny 10-minute movie “Rachel”. “The song is about the scourge of American loneliness. It is by far the fastest, easiest song Beauty Pill has ever created. We hope you like it.”
The EP’s title track “Instant Night” was originally written by Beauty Pill bandleader Chad Clark in 2015 after he watched Ann Coulter, as a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher, predict that Donald Trump would win the 2016 US presidential election. The Washington, D.C. based artist recorded and surprise-released the single in October 2020 out of urgency to inspire people to vote in the presidential election. Because the song was being recorded during the pandemic, and because Clark has an artificial heart that puts him at high risk for COVID-19, it was recorded on a rooftop, with meticulously planned social distancing.
“Instant Night” is Beauty Pill’s first single without drums, and it is also the first Beauty Pill song to conspicuously highlight the band’s woodwind quartet. The single was released alongside a music video featuring time-lapse footage of Trump, Lindsey Graham, and Mitch McConnell being drawn and depicted as monsters. The video was created and directed by the artist [ex-Beauty Pill member] Ryan Nelson.
Audiovisual artist, vocalist and experimental producer DEBBY FRIDAY is back with a new single & video, “FOCUS“. The track originally premiered on Adult Swim on their latest Digitalis compilation.
Speaking about the meaning behind the song, FRIDAY said “I wrote this song in 2019, when I first started thinking about writing an album and the possibility of pursuing my creative passions as my career was making itself known to me. I kept debating with myself, ‘do I want this? or do I not want this?’ It’s a heavy question. The video also speaks to this. The whole process was like undergoing some sort of fire baptism. It was difficult and chaotic and supernatural. I felt like I was the mountain, cracking open and spilling forth.”
The video for “FOCUS“, filmed on 35mm, opens on the astonishing scene of a live avalanche – a torrent of snow flying across a frozen mountain range. The vision behind it was created by FRIDAY herself and director Ryan Ermacora.
“The shoot took a few days, spread out over a week. First, Ryan and Jeremy went to film the avalanche in Kaslo. The avalanche crew had to take them up in a tiny helicopter with all the gear to an adjacent mountain so that they could set up the dynamite and then we could get the shot. Once that was done, myself and a skeleton crew drove out to Cache Creek to shoot in the mountains there,” said FRIDAY. Shot across various locations in British Columbia, we watch as FRIDAY runs through a deserted forest and icy woods, glitching between daytime and nighttime. The desolate frigid landscape is juxtaposed with the striking imagery of her bullwhip choreography. The blazing whip cracks in the twilight air as she stands fierce and unrelenting, decked out in futuristic winter gear. Paired together, the trumpeting bass and spellbinding images make for a vision of an apocalyptic future where FRIDAY has become the last woman on Earth.
On making the video, FRIDAY stated, “Getting the logistics of everything together was the most stressful part. It’s not everyday that you have to figure out how to make an avalanche and take fire bullwhip cracking lessons. Thankfully, I had a really supportive crew the whole way through. It took a lot but I feel like this song and video marks a turning point for me that I can’t exactly name yet.”
After finishing her Master of Fine Arts degree earlier this year, FRIDAY has set her laser focus on her forthcoming LP. With a secret title and rumoured accompanying short film, DEBBY FRIDAY is not slowing down anytime soon.
Born in Nigeria, raised in Montreal and now based in Vancouver, FRIDAY released her debut self-produced, rap adjacent EP, BITCHPUNK in 2018. In 2019, Deathbomb Arc ushered in her second, critically acclaimed EP, DEATH DRIVE, which throbbed with eroticised electropunk fervour and cleared a path for self-actualisation. FRIDAY also created and directed her “FATAL” video, which was subsequently nominated for the 2020 Prism Prize Award, as well as her first short film, “BARE BONES“. Earlier this year, FRIDAY released the video for her single, “RUNNIN“, and also shared “LINK SICK” – an audio-play written, directed and scored by FRIDAY herself. She is currently working on her debut full length, and will be appearing at Substance Fest in Los Angeles on November 28.
Keep your mind open.
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Recorded and composed with his son, Cody Carpenter, and his godson, Daniel Davies, after releasing the first two Lost Themes albums, touring the country, and re-recording many of his classic movie themes, John Carpenter‘s Lost Themes III: Alive After Death sees the trio exploring more dark themes as well as futuristic ones as they run with full, confident strides.
The title track opens the album with trademark Carpenter synth beats and adds a sharp guitar solo as well. “Weeping Ghost,” the album’s first single, is as creepy as you hope it will be. The bass in it hits like a racing pulse you feel in your neck. “Dripping Blood,” meanwhile, isn’t as creepy as you initially imagine and is quite lovely. “Dead Eyes” is another slow, brooding track, and “Vampire’s Eyes” is appropriately hypnotizing. It starts with brooding synths and then opens its red satin-lined cape to throw out a sinister guitar solo from Davies.
“Cemetery” and “Skeleton” are sharp dark wave cuts blended with krautrock rhythms. “Turning the Bones” is perfect for exploring either a dark catacombs or a dimly lit science laboratory. I’m sure film makers everywhere are clamoring to be the first to buy the rights to use “The Dead Walk” in their upcoming zombie movie. It would also work in a science fiction film, a post-apocalyptic action movie, or the next anime craze. The closing track is “Carpathian Darkness,” which could be the name of a death metal band (and probably is somewhere), and it blends sad piano with even sadder synths and growling guitars that sound like a horrible beast awakening in that darkness.
I love how John Carpenter’s career path has led him to create these albums. Fans of his film work and of dark wave will find much to love here.
Released as a surprise to his fans and the world in general, Ty Segall‘s newest album, Harmonizer, has him embracing and exploring synthwave and krautrock after a forced-upon two-year hiatus (Screw you, pandemic!) from releasing new material – which, to the prolific Segall, must have felt like two decades.
Opening track “Learning” throws bright synths, processed beats, and 1980s keyboard blips together as an introduction to his new obsession. “Whisper” adds funky bass and scorching guitars to the mix as he sings about loss of identity through circumstances beyond one’s control (“Look into the mirror and see it. Who is it?”). The deep synths on “Erased” add even more menace to the dark lyrics about being drowned out in a sea of anger, rage, noise, and psycho-babble.
The title track blends the industrial synths and chainsaw guitars well and is another song about the complexities of language, communication, and the desire to be heard. It’s not hard to imagine this was how Segall was feeling during two years of not being able to tour or meet with his bandmates, let alone how a lot of us felt during the last election when fringe voices were given the forefront.
“Pictures” gets all sorts of synth-crazy for a while and then makes a right turn into synth-funk suitable for slow dances in a goth nightclub. Plus, the guitar solo on it is pretty damn cool. “Ride” introduces us to the character of Waxman, who is the subject of the following track and might be a frightening vision Segall had of his possible older years. It’s a heavy bass thumper that would probably melt wax if played at the right volume.
“All I want to do is play,” Segall sings at the beginning of “Play.” That probably sums up how he felt during self-isolation. It’s a neat cut to boot, flashing wild guitar and synth bass over a beat that hip hop DJs are probably stealing even now. “Feel Good” might be the most erotic track Segall’s ever written, and his wife Denée’s vocals on it are sexy yet distant. It’s a great post-punk track that sings of desire and lust but also tells you through its delivery that you might deserve neither. The album closes with the hopeful “Changing Contours” as Segall realizes that things might be turning around for him and the world (“And now it’s finally changing contours, and when I’m being, I am free. New perspectives seen. Now I’m breathing in all I see.”).
We shouldn’t be surprised that Segall recorded an album during lockdown, nor should we be surprised at how good Harmonizer is. The guy doesn’t seem to miss.
Keep your mind open.
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Toronto-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Robin Hatch has released the new single “Mockingbird” today, a sublime peace floating on spacious synths featuring Nick Thorburn of indie rock staple Islands and The Unicorn on synth and drum machines. The track comes from the upcoming album T.O.N.T.O., out October 29th on Robin Records, which was written and recorded during a 4-day residency on the behemoth synth that the album takes its title from.
Robin describes the equipment used to make the recording, working with Thorburn, and where the track’s title comes from.
“Mockingbird features the Maestro drum machine built into the TONTO synthesizer. I improvised this song on the second day of my residency. The bass line is a study in triggering the envelope filter of its Moog Modular 3 system as the arpeggiator runs to create a wah-pedal type sound reminiscent of Jan Hammer Group or Penguin Cafe Orchestra. The outro has the Yamaha CS80 and features Randy Bachman’s Space Echo pedal. I threw in a VST of a CMI Fairlight to give it an Enya touch in the chorus.”
Besides his prodigal output as an indie frontman, Nick is also a real deal composer and he helped me flesh out this song with an Atari chiptune synth, Roland Jupiter 4, Korg M1, and Compurhythm drum machine.
The title is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the duet by James Taylor and Carly Simon.”
Keep your mind open.
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JacquesGreene announces ANTH01, a collection of tracks and out-of-print 12”’s spanning the earliest years of his career. Arriving ten years after his groundbreaking single, “Another Girl,” ANTH01 features classics that introduced Greene to the world, such as “The Look,” and also includes collaborations with Koreless and How To Dress Well, plus tracks from Greene’s releases on 3024, NightSlugs and his own Vase imprint. In conjunction with today’s announcement, Greene shares “I Won’t,” a certified live favorite and highly requested unreleased gem; one of two exclusive, previously unreleased tracks to appear on ANTH01.
Greene has been making music “about the club” for over a decade. Over the course of multiple EPs, singles, and two full-length albums – 2017’s FeelInfinite and 2019’s DawnChorus – his sound has developed into an emotional haze. Outside of his own releases, Greene has explored his relationship with the club in a variety of contexts, from remixing Radiohead to producing for KatyB, Tinashe and touring with Thexx.
“Time became quite slippery in the past year and a half,” says Greene. “As the years go it’s strange how some things feel like just yesterday while others are seemingly lifetimes away. It was equal parts challenging and fun to revisit some of this material that laid the foundation for this Jacques Greene project. ‘ANTH01’ is a form of anthology: a collection of songs meant to tell the first few chapters of that story. From bedroom studios in the Mile End in Montreal at the start of the 2010s to now. Thank you for listening.”
ANTH01 Tracklist: 01. I Won’t 02. (Baby I Don’t Know) What you Want 03. The Look 04. Tell Me 05. These Days 06. Arrow (feat. Koreless) 07. Ready 08. Faded 09. On Your Side (feat. How To Dress Well) 10. Faithful 11. Quicksand 12. Another Girl
