Electro – Page 49 – 7th Level Music

Review: Kelly Lee Owens – Inner Song

It takes guts to open your new album with a Radiohead cover, but that’s exactly what Kelly Lee Owens does on her (no shocker, if you’d heard her amazing self-titled debut – which was my top album of 2017) excellent new record, Innner Song. Owens has stated in press releases that Inner Song follows “the hardest three years of my life,” and one could view the record (and her) as a phoenix rising from ashes.

That aforementioned Radiohead cover is “Arpeggi” (from 2007’s In Rainbows) and she starts it with subtle, humming bass that’s almost subliminal. Owens sings about letting go of things in the past that cannot be fixed on “On” – which has her voice moving and sounding like birds released from a cage. It builds into a thumping, bumping floor-filler. Owens excels at tracks like this that take you on a journey from peaceful meditations to booty-shaking workouts.

“Melt!” – a song about global warming that samples collapsing glaciers and people ice skating – deserves to be on every DJ’s hot list of dance tracks this year. “Free yourself with the truth that’s already in you,” Owens sings on the haunting “Re-Wild.” It’s advice all of us can use, and Owens’ use of echoing synths helps it sink in like acupuncture needle. “Jeanette” is all bouncy synths and beats that make you want to dance and then hug everyone and then dance some more.

“L.I.N.E.” (“Love Is Not Enough”) has Owens realizing that “love is not enough to stay…love is not enough alone” as she walks away from a dead-end relationship with someone offended by truth. “Corner of My Sky” features none other than John Cale on vocals singing and speaking poetry over Owens’ lush synths. “Night” blends house, ambient, and chill wave, and “Flow” is perfectly named as it bumps, grooves, sways, and, yes, flows along like a happy balloon bouncing down the street on a summer wind. The album ends with sort of a reverse lullaby on “Wake-Up.” The soft song is great for relaxation, but Owens tells us (and herself) to open our eyes and move forward (the only direction we can move in this life, really).

That fact that Owens could create an album as lovely as Inner Song after “the hardest three years of my life” is a testament to her fortitude. I’m glad she made it through the trials and came out, like a phoenix, stronger.

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Rituals of Mine releases “Exceptions” from upcoming album due September 25th.

Rituals of Mine – the immersive, hybrid R&B electronic project of Los Angeles-based songwriter Terra Lopez – shares the new single/video, “Exceptions,” from her forthcoming album, HYPE NOSTALGIA, out September 25th on Carpark Records. It follows previous singles “Free Throw (feat. KRIS)” and “Come Around Me.” For the bedroom pop-tinged “Exceptions,” Lopez wrote with a TC Helicon vocal effects pedal to reflect the track’s vulnerable lyrics and make her voice more of an instrument. It deals with the heavy realization that some people aren’t meant to be in each other’s lives forever. The accompanying video, directed by Leo Pfeifer, is based on Lopez’s childhood.

“During this time I had a big falling out with some key people in my life (including my longtime bandmate), friends that had been family for over a decade. I honestly thought I’d grow old with these people by my side and it was a heavy realization coming to terms that we just didn’t belong in each other’s lives anymore,” says Lopez. “It’s a song that acknowledges that in these situations, it’s a two-way street. There’s no need to shift blame on anyone, that won’t undo what happened. The chorus, ‘Take all of my pride, throw it out’ is me admitting that I was also part of the reason for the connection ending.”

In addition to her WNBA History Club podcast, Lopez announces HYPE NOSTALGIA TV, a podcast that reflects on nostalgia and how it directly impacts artist’s work. The first episode features Tegan Quin (from Tegan & Sara) and future guests include Chino Moreno (from Deftones), Nico Turner (from Cat Power) and KRIS.

Watch “Exceptions” Video:
https://found.ee/GlXc

HYPE NOSTALGIA follows 2019’s SLEEPER HOLD EP, which was filled with emotional intensity and self-reflective songwriting, confronting the emotional rollercoaster that came with the death of her father and later, her best friend.

On HYPE NOSTALGIA, Lopez didn’t want to solely focus on the heaviness of her life. Instead, she opted to create an album written from a pre-loss perspective. There are dark moments and devastation throughout, but what largely transpires is Lopez’s ability to reconcile with her emotional trauma by reimagining her past in a way that isn’t shrouded in total darkness, but glimmers of light and hope.

Between St. Augustine, Florida and Los Angeles, Lopez collaborated with producers Wes Jones and Dev the Goon on HYPE NOSTALGIA. The result is a self-assured 13-track album interspersed with future R&B, electronic and pop, and layered with the softness of Lopez’s ethereal vocals. From tackling what it’s like to be a woman of color in the music industry to exploring intergenerational trauma, HYPE NOSTALGIA is an all-encompassing look at Lopez’s personal growth and resilience.

With HYPE NOSTALGIA, Lopez offers a glimpse into her own experience in the hopes that it will open the door for listeners to confront their own mental health challenges and serve as a touchstone as they find their own way to process and heal.
Watch “Exceptions” Video:
https://found.ee/GlXc

Watch “Free Throw” Video:
https://found.ee/Z4h5

Watch “Come Around Me” Video:
https://found.ee/Z6XU

Pre-order HYPE NOSTALGIA:
https://found.ee/uEkw

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Makeness earns a lot of “Friend Credits” with his new single.

Following in the footsteps of his highly acclaimed debut album, Loud Patterns,
Makeness invites us to jump aboard his latest single release – a laid-back downhill anthem.

A crafty blend of; east coast house, jazz laced chords, soaring leads and a lazy groove combine to give the track an effortless feel while the bridging elements and rhythmic breakdown create a euphoric path, awash with pathos and emotion. All this lays the foundation perfectly for Molleson’s ethereal vocal which floats over the top and drags you in even deeper.

Makeness, AKA Kyle Molleson, lives in South East London but has his roots in Scotland’s remote Outer Hebrides. These contrasting environments can be heard through his music with driving rhythms against a laid back pace and the embrace of both pop and the avante-guard. “Friend Credits” takes the listener on a journey of blissful fascination with its relentless building energy and sets a steady course for a summer classic.

Look out for remix duties by South East London’s prolific Ben Hauke released on 4th September, offering a definitive high octane flip to this original cosmic banger. “Friend Credits” was mastered at the Green Door Studios and is released digitally through EPM & Xelon (AU) on the 28th of August.

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[Thanks to Aaron at Paradise Palms Records.]

Kelly Lee Owens teams up with John Cale for “Corner of My Sky.”

Producer/musician Kelly Lee Owens collaborates with John Cale on a foreboding new single, “Corner Of My Sky (feat. John Cale),” from her forthcoming album Inner Song, out August 28th on Smalltown Supersound. The two Welsh artists first met in London while working on a song for Cale, which prompted a future collaboration for Inner Song. In “Corner Of My Sky,” Cale sings in both English and Welsh over Owens’ droning, psychedelic lullaby. The track follows a string of previously released singles and videos – “On,” “Night,” and “Melt!”

Cale comments, “It’s not usually this immediate that a productive afternoon brings a satisfying conclusion to a task. Kelly sent me a track she’d written – an instrumental that was a gentle drift – something comfortably familiar to what I’d been working on myself. On the first listen, the lyrics came with ease and a chorus and melody grew out of it. Even the Welsh phrases seemed to develop from a place of reflective memory which was a surprise since I hadn’t written in Welsh for decades. Once finished, I realized there existed a built-in thread we’d created together and apart – and her kind spirit pulled it all together and in quick order.”

Owens elaborates, “I knew with this album I needed to connect with my roots and therefore having the Welsh language featured on the record felt very important to me. Once the music for the track was written and the sounds were formed, I sent the track straight to John and asked if he could perhaps delve into his Welsh heritage and tell the story of the land via spoken-word, poetry and song. What he sent back was nothing short of phenomenal. The arrangement was done during the mixing process and once I’d finished the track, I cried – firstly feeling incredibly lucky to have collaborated with John and his eternal talent and secondly for both of us to have been able to connect to our homeland in this way.”

Listen to Kelly Lee Owens’ “Corner Of My Sky (ft. John Cale)”

Inner Song is the follow-up to Owens’ self-titled debut, which was recognized as one of the most critically praised albums of 2017. Inner Song finds Owens diving deep into her own psyche—working through the struggles she’s faced over the last several years while embracing the beauty of the natural world. Sonically, Inner Song’s hair-raising bass and tickling textures drive home that Owens is locked into delivering maximal aural pleasure, whether it be on a techno banger, a glimmering electro-pop number, or a Radiohead cover.
Watch “On” Video

Listen to “Night”

Watch “Melt!” Visuals

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Ela Minus releases “megapunk.”

Colombia-born/raised and Brooklyn-based musician Ela Minus debuts her new single, “megapunk,” via Domino. It follows “they told us it was hard, but they were wrong,” an invigorating single Minus released this spring that was recently remixed by Fort Romeau, DJ Python and buttechno. “megapunk” is on the same motivating wavelength. It’s driven by an array of shifting instrumentation – blipping techno, a thumping drum beat, and Minus’ tempered vocals. Written last year and prescient given today’s progressive social movements, “megapunk” is defiant, and an encouraging reminder to surge forward, despite resistance: “you don’t want to understand // you’re choosing to lead us apart // but against all odds // you still won’t make us stop.”

Ela comments, “When I wrote this song last year, I was worried it would lose context if not released immediately. I could not have been more wrong. This is the perfect time to put this out. We have to keep going. Ánimo y fuerza.”
Watch Ela Minus’ Video for “megapunk”

Preceding her path of making electronic music, Ela drummed in a teenage hardcore band. She joined the band when she was just 12 and played with them for almost a decade. Then, Ela moved to the United States, where she attended Berklee College of Music and double-majored in jazz drumming and synthesizer design. This expansive background instilled in Ela a belief that we all have the power to change things, and as she delved deeper into her work with synthesizers, she saw a clear connection between the freedom of the DIY scene she grew up in and club culture.

Ela uses only hardware synthesizers to perform, write, produce and record. Her music exudes a vibrant warmth, and a stark, celebratory affirmation that our breaths aren’t infinite.
Watch Ela Minus’ Video for “they told us it was hard, but they were wrong”

Listen to “they told us…” Remixes

Remezcla “Hardware” Episode

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Remington Super 60 – New EP

Christopher Schou of the Norwegian dream pop band Remington Super 60 recently asked me to check out his band, which he described as being “inspired by everything from the Beach Boys to New Order with a little dash of Stereolab
and Velvet Underground in the middle.” How could I pass that up? I decided to check out their cheekily-named record, New EP.

It turned out to be a smart decision because it’s a lovely record. The opening track, “The Highway Again,” has those Velvet Underground synths and driving-around-at-3am drums that are always perfect for such endeavors. “I Don’t Wanna Wait” is perfect dream pop with subtle, sexy vocals from Elisabeth Thorsen. The psychedelic-tinged guitars of “Fake Crush” provide a bit of a hedonistic backdrop to lyrics about lust and erotic confusion.

The perfectly named “Tropical Drone Pop” is ideal for that space station Tiki bar you’ve been designing in your head since you began reading rediscovered issues of Omni magazine. “Dreaming of Summer” puts Schou’s love of The Beach Boys on full display with Thorsen’s vocal styling, mellow southern California guitar, and hypnotic synths. The closer, “Dina Hender” (“Your Hands”), pops and bubbles like a happy robot toddler.

Remington Super 60 plan for another record to be released this autumn, and having a record as bright and lovely as New EP land in the time of falling leaves, pumpkin spice, and further COVID-19 blues seems like a great idea. I’m eager to hear it.

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Review: Yila – Functional Collaborations & Combinations Vol. 1

British producer / sound engineer / beat maker Alastair McNeill, also known as Yila, recently decided to stick it to The Man by going back to house music / rave music culture doing what it does best – energize people.

He linked up with French DJ (and sometimes Kasabian drummer) GIOM and drum and bass maestro Christian Croupa, also known as Alleged Witches, for Functional Collaborations and Combinations Vol. 1 – a double-sided single that accomplishes its mission. It will make you move.

“Scam Pan,” the team-up with GIOM, had such a wicked synth-bass beat that sneaks up on you and takes your groove to a different level. The Alleged Witches collaboration, “Murmurs,” has a great horror movie-like synth line running throughout it and that is highly suitable for futuristic disco dance floors.

It’s a sweet addition to any DJ’s set list or any playlist you have for house music.

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Tricky releases new single, “Thinking Of,” from new album due this September.

Pioneering producer Tricky shares a new single “Thinking Of” and announces UK and European tour dates for next year (tickets are on sale now). “Thinking Of” is the captivating opening song of his forthcoming album Fall To Pieces, out September 4th via False Idols. As with debut single “Fall Please,” it demands repeat listens, drawing you in further with the unique signature that could still only ever be attributed to Tricky.

Listen to Tricky’s “Thinking Of” HERE

The track features Marta Złakowska on vocals – the singer he discovered during a Polish tour when he was left without a vocalist on the opening night: the local promoter suggested a girl who worked in a nearby bar, and when she arrived she had already learned the chorus to Tricky’s song “When We Die”. It sounds fortuitous – much like when Tricky encountered his original female vocalist Martina Topley-Bird by chance when she sang outside his front door. But of course he has an intuition too. “Yeah, I can tell when someone is humble and down to earth. Marta doesn’t care about being famous, she just wants to sing.”

Fall To Pieces was recorded in Tricky’s Berlin studio in late 2019. Tricky is keen to point out that the tracks on the record can be deceptive; often short, ending abruptly and moving on to the next without warning. Although instrumentation varies from bursts of tense synths, distorted dial tones, and samples, the song’s lyrics can be dark and dense.

Tricky might be over three decades deep into his music career but he’s currently on an especially prolific run. In the last year, he dropped the enchanting 20,20 EP and put out an acclaimed autobiography, Hell Is Round The Corner.
Watch Tricky’s Video for “Fall Please”

Pre-order Fall To Pieces

2021 Tour Dates
Feb. 2 – Copenhagen, DEN @ Hotel Cecil (SOLD OUT)
Feb. 3 – Oslo, NOR @ Parkteatret – TICKETS
Feb. 6 – Hamburg, GER @ Elbphilharmonie – TICKETS
Feb. 8 – Cologne, GER @ Gebäude 9 – TICKETS
Feb. 9 – Berlin, GER @ Metropol – TICKETS
Feb. 16 – Warsaw, POL @ Praga Centrum – TICKETS
Feb. 17 – Poznan, POL @ TAMA – TICKETS
Feb. 18 – Krakow, POL @ Kwadrat – TICKETS
Feb. 19 – Cluj-Napoca, ROM @ Form Space – TICKETS
Feb. 20 – Bucharest, ROM @ Quantic Club Outdoors – TICKETS
Feb. 23 – Belgrade, SER @ Dom Omladine – TICKETS
Feb. 24 – Zagreb, CROA @ Močvara – TICKETS
Feb. 26 – Budapest, HUNG @ A38 – TICKETS
Feb. 27 – Milan, ITA @ Magazzini Generali – TICKETS
March 1 – Amsterdam, NETH @ Paradiso – TICKETS
March 3 – Bordeaux, FRA @ Le Rocher De Palmer – TICKETS
March 9 – Paris, FRA @ Le Trianon – TICKETS
March 10 – Strasbourg, FRA @ La Laiterie (Club) – TICKETS
March 12 – Lyon, FRA @ Ninkasi Kafé – TICKETS
March 13 – Tourcoing, FRA @ Le Grand Mix – TICKETS
March 14 – Brussels, BEL @ Botanique Orangerie – TICKETS
March 16 – Manchester, UK @ 02 Ritz – TICKETS
March 17 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton – TICKETS
March 23 – Helsinki, FIN @ Ääniwalli – TICKETS
March 24 – St. Petersburg, Russia @ Kosmonavt – TICKETS
March 26 – Yekaterinburg, Russia @Fabrika – TICKETS
March 28 – Moscow, Russia @ GlavClub – TICKETS
March 29 – Minsk, Belarus @ Re:Public Club
March 30 – Kiev, Ukraine @ Atlas – TICKETS

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[Thanks to Brid at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Katie Gately’s new single, “Flow,” is haunting and beautiful.

Earlier this year, Katie Gately released her new album Loom on Houndstooth. The album is a haunting collection of songs in which Gately channels the loss of her mother, using loaded sound samples including earthquakes, explosions, wolf howls, peacock screams, grinding stones and more.

Today, Gately shares the video for “Flow;” a delicate, ghostly track in which she sings from her mother’s perspective with an otherworldly sense of acceptance and calm. Gately says, “Five years ago I was up in the middle of the night and out of nowhere ‘Flow’ came into my head. It arrived all at once – melody, harmony, lyrics, structure – and I jumped out of bed to record it. As I sang the lyrics, I had an eerie feeling but assumed it had to do with insomnia and nothing else. I saved the session, went to sleep and forgot about the song for three years.

The next time I opened up the session my mother was nearing the end of her life. I made a cartoonish gasp as I listened to my vocals realizing that while the voice recorded was my own, the narrator of the song was definitely not me. It was my mother. My mom moved through the world with her rib cage cracked right open: heart out front and center. When you live this way, armor-free, you get zapped often but you also get to feel life as fully as it can be felt. Every little miracle is allowed in to have a party. There is a real muscularity to this kind of vulnerability and this song tries to capture it. In part, to make a pretty song. In whole, to keep my mother’s voice loud and bright.”

Director Jola Kudela gives the track a suitably celestial visual treatment, commenting, “I particularly loved the tone and the subject of Katie’s song, it’s hauntingly beautiful, it’s about how to find peace in your grief and pain, and how to accept it. As I was visualizing the video, I imagined a sort of journey of a spirit that doesn’t despair after death but continues its movement through the world.I have used volcanic and snowy landscapes as a base, and worked graphically on them to create a sensation of the world being transformed by a vision of someone who is not from our dimension anymore. I wanted to achieve the feeling of open space and silence, a sort of transcendental calm.”
Watch “Flow” Video:
https://youtu.be/0hoC6iOwv4g
Following remix work for Björk and Zola Jesus, productions for serpentwithfeet, and her debut album on Tri-Angle, Loom is a remarkable album, dedicated to Katie’s mother who passed away in 2018 due to a rare form of cancer. Gately channels her loss through a multitude of sounds and samples, including seismic rumbles and earthquake recordings alongside her signature adventurous sound design and unexpected earworm melodies, signifying how grief like this is like the shifting of the earth.

Where her debut album, 2016’s Color, deployed fractured rhythms, fierce licks, bold samples and paintbox pop hooks, Loom reveals crepuscular textures. Her voice is more forward in the mix, often densely layered in choral laments above a coarse foundation of hard and brittle sound design, the latter of which is rooted in her film school training. As well as earthquake sounds, Loom includes more samples chosen for their associative power – pill bottles shaking, wolves howling, a shovel digging, a paper shredder and heavily processed audio from her parent’s wedding.
Watch “Flow” Video:
https://youtu.be/0hoC6iOwv4g

Stream/Purchase Loom:
https://hndsth.lnk.to/KatieGately

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Ric Wilson and Terrace Martin encourage you to dance on “Don’t Kill the Wave.”

Chicago-based musician, activist, and organizer Ric Wilson and GRAMMY-nominated producer Terrace Martin are thrilled to share their new video for “Don’t Kill The Wave,” a standout track off the pair’s collaborative EP, They Call Me Disco, a “jubilant six-song burst of summertime grooves and throwback funk” (Pitchfork) out this past May on Free Disco/EMPIRE/Sounds of Crenshaw. “Don’t Kill The Wave” is joyful and motivating. Its accompanying video, directed by A Solo Vision, is reflective of its energetic spirit as Wilson and his friends have a living room dance party. “I made this song for the dance floors at the block party, the cookout, the weddings, the rallies, the covid19 living room clubbbbbbbbs,” says Wilson.

Watch Ric Wilson & Terrace Martin’s Video for “Don’t Kill The Wave” –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB1p3lS2kG8

2020 is shaping up to be another busy year for Wilson. Shortly after the release of They Call Me Disco, Wilson dropped his acclaimed protest song “Fight Like Ida B & Marsha P”. Produced by Norbert Bueno, “the song combines a funky, bouncy bass line, a little Detroit house influence and handclaps with powerful subject matter,” according to Cool Hunting.

“I hear people quoting a lot of black men who were freedom fighters, which is valid,” says Wilson, who has spent time organizing with the likes of We Charge Genocide, Black Youth Project 100, Chicago Freedom School, and much more. “But when I think about next level courage to ball your fist up and look bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia right in the eye and fight against it, I feel like blk women like Ida B. Wells and non-binary folks like Marsha P. Johnson are of the bravest of us all and if ima fight any injustice I wanna have the courage of freedom fighters like them. The liberation of black womxn and black trans womxn lead to the liberation of all black people.”

Listen to “Chicago Bae” (Feat. BJ The Chicago Kid) (Co-Prod. by Ted Chung) –
https://youtu.be/ql-yoviDQas

Watch Video For “Move Like This” –
https://youtu.be/57NT3t8Nlo8

Purchase They Call Me Disco –
https://empire.ffm.to/theycallmedisco

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