April 2020 – 7th Level Music

Khruangbin’s new single, “Time (You and I),” is a stunner.

“Time changes everything.” — Khruangbin

Khruangbin, the Houston-based group comprised of bassist Laura Lee Ochoa, guitarist Mark Speer, and drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson, are pleased to announce their new album, Mordechai, out June 26th on Dead Oceans, in association with Night Time Stories. Mordechai comes two years after the release of their beloved and acclaimed breakthrough, 2018’s Con Todo El Mundo, and was preceded earlier this year by Texas Sun, the group’s collaborative EP with Leon Bridges. Today, they present the vibrant, Felix Heyes & Josh R.R. King-directed video for Mordechai’s lead single, “Time (You and I)”.

Khruangbin has always been multilingual, weaving far-flung musical languages like East Asian surf-rock, Persian funk, and Jamaican dub into mellifluous harmony. As a first for the mostly instrumental band, Mordechai features vocals prominently on nearly every song. It’s a shift that rewards the risk, reorienting Khruangbin’s transportive sound toward a new sense of emotional directness, without losing the spirit of nomadic wandering that’s always defined it. And it all started with them coming home.

By the summer of 2019, Khruangbin had been on tour for nearly three-and-a-half years, playing to ever-expanding audiences across North and South America, Europe, and southeast Asia in support of both Con Todo El Mundo and their 2015 debut, The Universe Smiles Upon You. They returned to their farmhouse studio in Burton, Texas, ready to begin work on Mordechai. But they were also determined to slow down, to take their time and luxuriate in building something together.

It’s a lesson Lee had recently learned with the help of a new friend, a near-stranger who had reached out when she was feeling particularly unmoored, inviting her to come hiking with his family. That day, as they’d all made their way toward the distant promise of a waterfall, Lee had felt a dawning clarity about the importance of appreciating the journey, rather than rushing headlong toward the next destination. When they reached the waterfall at last, Lee’s friend urged her to jump, a leap she likens to a baptism. As she did, he screamed her name—her full name, the one she’d recently taken from her grandfather. In that instant, Laura Lee Ochoa was reborn. She emerged feeling liberated, grateful for what her friend had shown her. His name was Mordechai.

Ochoa’s rejuvenation found its expression in words—hundreds of pages’ worth, which she’d filled over a self-imposed day of silence. As Khruangbin began putting together the songs that would make up Mordechai, discovering in them spaces it seemed like only vocals could fill, they turned to those notebooks. Khruangbin had experimented with lyrics before, but this time Ochoa had found she had something to say. Letting those words ring out gave Khruangbin’s cavernous music a new thematic depth.

Chief among those themes is memory—holding onto it, letting it go, naming it before it disappears. The sun-dappled disco of lead single “Time (You And I)” evinces the feeling of a festival winding down to its final blowout hours. Its accompanying video features comedian Stephen K. Amos and Lunda Anele-Skosana. The duo wander around London, placing singular sandcastles throughout the city’s various scenery.

Musically, the band’s ever-restless ear saw them pulling reference points from Pakistan, Korea, and West Africa, incorporating strains of Indian chanting boxes and Congolese syncopated guitar. But more than anything, Mordechai became a celebration of Houston, the eclectic city that had nurtured them, and a cultural nexus where you can check out country and zydeco, trap rap, or avant-garde opera on any given night. It is a snapshot taken along a larger journey—a moment all the more beautiful for its impermanence. And it’s a memory to revisit again and again, speaking to us now more clearly than ever.

Watch the Video for “Time (You and I)” –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc50wHexbwg

Mordechai Tracklist:
1. First Class
2. Time (You and I)
3. Connaissais de Face
4. Father Bird, Mother Bird
5. If There is No Question
6. Pelota
7. One to Remember
8. Dearest Alfred
9. So We Won’t Forget
10. Shida

Pre-order Mordechai –
https://khruangbin.ffm.to/mordechai

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Sam at Pitch Perfect PR!]

Rewind Review: Gary Wilson – Alone with Gary Wilson (2015)

I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to hearing and buying Gary Wilson‘s 2015 album, Alone with Gary Wilson. It might be because Mr. Wilson was prolific in the last decade and that I was too busy buying his Christmas album, his outer space-themed album, his album about returning to Endicott, New York, or any of the other ones he released in the 2010’s. Shame on me for missing this one, because it’s one of his funkiest.

The album starts with the short jazz oddity, “Last Night I Kissed You,” which makes one think Wilson’s head was swirling from the kiss. “You Called Me on the Phone Last Night” follows. It’s a tale of Wilson crying “all night long” as he wishes his dream of a phone call, just a phone call, from his lost love would happen. The electric piano in it is delightfully peppy, making you think that Wilson isn’t too glum.

“Let’s Walk in a Dream” puts down a funky beat as Wilson sings about dancing with his girl in the park, but his band, The Blind Dates, sing, “Gary walked away into the park. He was all alone crying in the dark.” during the chorus. It’s all a dream, but at least in his dreams he can “make the scene” with his girl. “I should’ve listened to Dear Abby’s advice,” Wilson sings on “Linda Walked Away.” The whole tune slinks along as seductively as the tick-tock of Linda’s hips, but Linda still wants nothing to do with him.

Wilson reveals that he’s the (in)famous “Chromium Clown” in a quirky track that reveals he just wants to make his girl laugh, but she’s too full of despair to enjoy a ride on a merry-go-round or anything else he has planned. The groove of “Every Night Is Friday Night” is smooth. Damn smooth. “A Thousand Trees Were Dancing in the Park” has Wilson feeling as cool as he did in high school, but then feeling weak when he sees his girl’s lovely eyes. All he can do is walk into the North Side Park and wonder how he can build the courage to approach her. Why can’t she tell (judging by the groovy swing of the tune) how cool he is?

“I Know That You Kissed Me” has some of Wilson’s sauciest lyrics as he puts down some great electric organ riffs and sings about wrapping his girl in a sheet. “Please Don’t Make Me Cry Tonight” has him lying alone as the sun goes down on another Friday night and he can only dream of taking a walk to the lake with his girl. The song dissolves into a weird nightmare.

“You Looked So Cool While You Were Dancing” is serious bedroom rock. Wilson and the Blind Dates are at the top of their funky forms on it. “I Really Dig Your Smile” has this cool beat breakdown in it before Wilson whispers the names of his secret loves. “Sea Cruise” isn’t a cover of the song by Frankie Ford (although that would be amazing), but rather Wilson singing a nice little love song about taking his girl on a nice cruise to get the both of them away from their troubles and dance the nights away at sea.

“I Will Do What It Takes” proclaims Wilson on the next track. He will do what he needs to do to take his girl fall in love with him – be it take her on a sea cruise, a date at the bowling alley, or just a walk in the park or to the beach. The slow jam sexiness of the track practically drips like honey off a spoon. The album ends with another freaky instrumental, “One More Kiss.” That’s all Wilson wants. That’s all any of us want, really.

Don’t miss out on this album like I did for five years. It’s too good for that.

Keep your mind open.

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Sofia Bolt’s “All She Wants” was designed to make you move.

“Amélie Rousseaux moved halfway across the world to heal, and it is a pleasure to hear her processing.” – Pitchfork

“Bolt trades in understated indie rock ” – The Guardian
Sofia Bolt (a.k.a. Amélie Rousseaux) shares a new single, “All She Wants;” the second standalone single since the release of her debut album, Waves, in 2019, which drew praise from Rolling Stone, Stereogum, Pitchfork, and more. “All She Wants” was recorded live at Electro-Vox Studios in Los Angeles, a song written for listeners to move to. The video was created by animator Jenna Caravello.

“I always wanted to write music for people to dance to at my shows,” says Rousseaux. Her songwriting was influenced by harmonies and guitar riffs found in 1970s jazz-funk records. “My goal was to play around with tension and release while keeping a forward momentum. I listened to a lot of The Meters, Cymande, Roy Ayers while working on ‘All She Wants.’”

Sofia Bolt is the project of French-born musician and songwriter Amelie Rousseaux. In early 2017, pent-up in Paris and searching for transformation, Rousseaux moved to Los Angeles. Her first few months in LA were a revelation – she found herself surfing every day, reflecting on her relationship, and immersing herself in American culture and music. This shock to the system brought a creative blossom that gave rise to the sweeping, beautiful, honest, and acclaimed debut album Waves, released in July 2019.

Recorded live in a whirlwind five days by a cast of LA all-stars, Waves is at once casual and tightly constructed, with Rousseaux’s pop melodies leaping and diving over a bed of guitars and roomy drums. Since the release, Rousseaux has created the soundtrack to Hedi Slimane’s winter 2020 Celine collection and has toured both the States and Europe, opening for Sharon Van Etten, Interpol, and Stella Donnelly.
Watch Video for “All She Wants”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXQCI7RUck0&feature=youtu.be

Watch/Listen/Share:
Waves album stream
“Heart Is A Rock” video
“Les Journees D’Automne” stream

Sofia Bolt Tour Dates:
Mon. June 8 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom
Tue. June 9 – San Francisco, CA @ Swedish American Music Hall

Keep your mind open

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[Thanks to Jim at Pitch Perfect PR!]

Kelly Lee Owens’ “Night” is a great gift from her for self-isolation dancing.

“The pounding four-on-the-floor rhythm section on ‘Melt!’ makes for both a club banger and a political comment, a dazzling dance macabre for impending environmental collapse.”
— Pitchfork, “Best New Track”

“[Kelly Lee Owens] makes skittish techno that makes the hairs on your neck stand up and demands to be heard in a dripping warehouse.” — The Guardian

“a fathomless, flickering techno banger” — Gorilla vs. Bear
Convention-blurring techno producer/musician Kelly Lee Owens releases a new song, “Night.” The track appears on her new album, Inner Song, which has been moved to August 28th on Smalltown Supersound. Following techno banger “Melt!,” “Night” opens with a monopoly synth and Owen’s soft, intimate vocals, before transforming with a danceable, staccato rhythm and jockeying beat.

“This track speaks as to how feelings and insights are more accessible to us at nighttime – how the veils are thinner somehow and therefore how we are more able to connect to our hearts true desires,” says Owens. “I wanted to release this track as a gift to you during this crazy time, to give a part of my heart to you all.”
Listen to “Night” by Kelly Lee Owens
https://KellyLeeOwens.lnk.to/night

Watch Kelly Lee Owens’ Visuals for “Melt!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kW0vbVEIXE

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts V: Together

Ghosts V: Together is one of two instrumental albums released for free by Nine Inch Nails as gifts to everyone during the COVID-19 pandemic. The albums are meant for meditation, reflection, or ambient sounds for study or work or pleasure.

As the title suggests, this album is meant to inspire a sense of belonging despite separation. The titles of the tracks evoke hope and courage. “Letting Go While Holding On,” the album’s opener, is over nine minutes of meditative drones and minimalist percussion and lets us know that releasing our grip on the past is the only way to move forward. “Together” is over ten minutes of ambient sounds that resemble radio static, as if NIN is reminding us of our connection over distant miles as we try to tune in to stations we can barely hear. “Out in the Open” follows, reflecting what we all hope we’ll be soon. Its shiny synths bring to mind images of sunlight breaking through dark clouds.

We can get there “With Faith” – a song that blends simple, soft percussion with chant-like synths. “Apart” is the longest track at thirteen minutes and thirty-five seconds. It’s fitting, as sometimes it seems we’ve been apart during this pandemic for ages and will continue to be that way for the foreseeable future. “Your Touch” brightens things up a bit as it helps us remember the warmth of human contact.

“Hope We Can Again” sums up the mood of a lot of people well. It combines simple music box tunes with simmering synths that reflect a simple warmth that everyone hopes to have again. The closer is “Still Right Here,” which, thankfully, most of us are. We are here, biding our time, seeing changes that are happening and ones that need to be made, and looking forward to coming out to embrace each other, and the upbeat drums of this final track are there to encourage us.

Don’t expect industrial beats, trance floor-fillers, and angry yelling on this album (or the next). This record isn’t made for that. It’s made to calm all of us down. Let it happen.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: The KVB – Only Now Forever (2018)

Recorded and self-produced in their Berlin apartment, The KVB‘S 2018 album, Only Now Forever, is a neat mixture of contrasts. It is melancholic, yet ebullient. Somber, yet hopeful. Moody, yet joyful. It’s an honest look at modern living and a warning against its trappings. The title of the album itself is a suggestion of presence. We only have now, this moment, forever. The past never existed. The future never will. We can embrace this divine truth or we can stay buried in a past long gone or worry about a future that doesn’t yet exist – and will be completely different from what we expect when it does arrive…in the now.

Opening single, “Above Us,” is a shadowed electro-pop tune with definite Berlin krautrock influences to its beats and bass as Kat Day and Nicholas Wood sing about rising above the drudgery of modern life. “On My Skin” is a beautiful track with haunting synths by Day and playful ghost-like guitar work by Wood as he sings a tale of a relationship that’s come to an end for reasons unknown to him.

The title track opens like a lost early 1980’s film score that backs a race on some sort of futuristic motorcycle. Day’s synth bass and beats are like android heartbeats. “And the past has all been done. The circle comes ’round again. All I fear will go away. It’s only now just begun,” Wood sings. Fear, like all things, is impermanent (if we allow it to be), and The KVB encourage us to step off the treadmill of fear and move forward under our own power. I’m sure “Afterglow” has been remixed and spun in multiple Berlin industrial / dance clubs by now because it evokes images of Replicants seducing humans and vice-versa.

“With everything, there comes a price,” Wood sings at the beginning of “Violet Noon,” which the band describes on their Bandcamp page as “a romantic ode to the apocalypse.” I can’t describe it any better than that. Day’s breathy vocals on “Into Life” will make your pulse quicken and your spine shiver. “Live in Fiction” is another warning from them. “Everything in the world has changed. I cannot find the truth,” Wood sings. People have embraced fiction over truths that upset their comfortable realities, even when those truths would improve their lives and the lives of those around them.

“Tides” is appropriately named because Day’s synth swell and ebb like the tide, almost catching you off-guard now and then with their sudden burst of energy. “No Shelter” slinks into the room like a femme fatale walking into a detective’s office in a 1950’s dime novel. The album ends with the upbeat “Cerulean,” which has Day laying down a wicked synth-bass groove and her backing vocals feeling like a cool mist as Wood’s feel like a warm canyon wall echo.

Only Now Forever encourages us to accept truth and embrace the present. It’s themes resonate even more in 2020 than they did two years ago.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: The UFO Club – self-titled (2012)

Released just a year after their split EP with Night Beats, The UFO Club (Christian Bland, Danny Lee Blackwell, and Skyler McGlothlin) took the four tracks they had on the EP and added seven more to create a spooky, trippy, solid album.

It starts with “July” – a song I once presented to a woman who described herself as “an original hippie.” She loved it. It’s hard not to love with its opening acoustic guitar chords, Blackwell’s heavily reverbed vocals, McGlothlin’s stumbling drunk beats, and Bland’s warped electric guitar. Their cover of The Ronettes‘ “Be My Baby” follows with its guitars that sound like a swarm of stoned bees. Blackwell is a known Bo Diddley fan (Night Beats often covers Diddley’s “Keep Your Big Mouth Shut” live), so their song “Bo Diddley Was the 7th Son” is a roaring, sweaty tribute to him. It almost sounds like they told McGloghlin to just go nuts on the drums, and he did.

“Wolfman” is another track from the EP that’s wild, crazy fun with Blackwell taking on the role of a werewolf and Bland and McGloghlin howling behind him. “Doubts” slows things down before we totally lose our minds. The sad organ and sorrowful drumming highlight Blackwell’s pleading vocals for love. “John the Cat” has such a swagger to it that it might topple your speakers and puts Bland’s love of early Pink Floyd on full display.

“Fuck shit up!” the band yells at the beginning of “Surf Shitty,” a dangerous track best suited for 1960’s juvenile delinquency film soundtracks. “Chapel” follows it. It’s a stand-out track on the EP as well as here. It’s fuzzed-out psychedelic bliss about inward meditation. “Up in Her Room” is over seven minutes of psychedelic garage rock with Blackwell singing about gettin’ his freak on in his girlfriend’s apartment. “Natalie” might be that girl up in the room. She’s a weird one if that’s the case because the song is a wild, organ-heavy freak-out that sounds like someone slipped something funky into the band’s tea at the recording studio. The closer, “Last Time,” is a short, warped version of the Rolling Stones‘ classic track.

It’s a cool, weird record, and a must-have gem for fans of The Black Angels and Night Beats.

Keep your mind open.

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Liam Kazar’s debut single, “Shoes Too Tight,” is a home run in his first at-bat.

Liam Kazar, a Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, releases his debut single/video, “Shoes Too Tight.” Throughout the last decade, Kazar has been recognized for his adaptability and deftness in the studio and on stage, leading to tours and collaborations with Jeff Tweedy, Chance the Rapper, Steve Gunn, Daniel Johnston, Kids These Days, amongst others. His first offering, “Shoes Too Tight,” presents Kazar’s joyful and vulnerable world.

“Shoes Too Tight” is born from the strange and quick combination of the well-worn sound of a clavinet, blended with whatever noise you get when you turn on that weird synth sitting in the corner of the studio. The track features childhood friends Lane Beckstom (bass) and Spencer Tweedy (drums), who have shared stages with Kazar since they were young, plus vocals from Ohmme. It follows a single theme through all its nooks and crannies to a warm, tender end; a collage of lyrics that deal with lost time, lost chance, and the reconciliation of the two. In the accompanying video, directed by Austin Vesely and shot at Chicago’s Constellation, he and his background dancers channel 60s crooners, Lindsay Kemp, and Kazar’s own contemporary groove, daring you not to join them.

Since filming “Shoes Too Tight,” Kazar has spent the last many weeks staying at home in Kansas City, where he sometimes lives. He’s recorded a new song, “Holding Plans,” and created an accompanying lyric video. Additionally, Kazar is raising money via his Bandcamp for Constellation and the Hungry Brain, a treasure and hub for Chicago’s music community.

Watch Liam Kazar’s “Shoes Too Tight” Video –
https://youtu.be/sqAWtd-nBpA

Watch “Holding Plans” (Demo) Lyric Video –
https://youtu.be/x4jOR9pmqwg

Download hi-res images & jpegs of Liam Kazar
pitchperfectpr.com/liam-kazar/

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Rewind Review: Cosmonauts – Lazerbeam (2012)

The EP Lazerbeam from Los Angeles, California shoegaze rockers Cosmonauts is a great introduction to their forceful and hypnotizing sound if you haven’t heard it before now.

The title track opens the EP, sounding a bit like a Hanni El Khatib track at first with its echoing vocals and early 1960’s garage rock beats, but then that fuzz comes in and takes you to another dimension. The song’s about realizing a relationship is coming to an end and not being able to do much about it (“Please don’t leave me, man. You’re the only one I can stand. Begging you not to leave me, babe. You’re the only thing that is sane…”).

“Cut Your Hair” gets off to a heavy start with guitars set to maximum growl and the dual vocals about embracing “the dark side of pain” set to heavy reverb. “Crocodile Teeth” keeps the fuzzed-out shoegaze sound going as the dual vocals of Alexander Ahmadi and Derek Cowart bounce off each other so much (and so well) that you’re not sure where one ends and the other begins. Oh yeah, their dual guitar work does the same thing, producing a mind-altering effect that’s hard to describe.

You might think a song called “Slower” would be a mellow way to end an EP, but Cosmonauts flip the script a bit and end the album with a rocker instead. The drums are like a chugging freight train while Ahmadi and Cowart’s vocals boom off the back walls of your house and the guitar riffs hit you in brisk waves.

Lazerbeam is short, but loud and bold. It takes you by surprise and immediately makes you wonder what else these cats can do. Check out any of their full albums for more great shoegaze.

Keep your mind open.

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The Beths release “Dying to Believe” ahead of new album coming in July.

“[The Beths are] brilliant at bright guitar frenzy, instantly memorable melodies and tune-mad group sing-alongs with the joy of Sixties bubblegum rock; there’s a love of pop formula here… but they never lose the sense of discovery at heart of rock and roll.” — Rolling Stone

The Beths announce their new album, Jump Rope Gazers, out July 10th via Carpark Records, and share its lead single/video, “Dying to Believe.” Jump Rope Gazers is the follow-up to Future Me Hates Me, “one of the most impressive indie-rock debuts of the year” (Pitchfork). The album received glowing praise and appeared on many year-end lists including Rolling Stone, NPR, Stereogum, and more. Jump Rope Gazers tackles themes of anxiety and self-doubt with effervescent power pop choruses and rousing backup vocals, zeroing in on the communality and catharsis that can come from sharing stressful situations with some of your best friends.

After touring non-stop for a year and a half, playing to crowds of devoted fans and opening for acts like Pixies and Death Cab for Cutie, The Beths regrouped to write and record Jump Rope Gazers. The band – composed of Elizabeth Stokes (vocals/guitar), Jonathan Pearce (guitar), Benjamin Sinclair (bass), and Tristan Deck (drums) – settled down at Pearce’s Auckland studio, where he recorded and produced the album.

Stokes’s writing on Jump Rope Gazers grapples with the uneasy proposition of leaving everything and everyone you know behind on another continent, chasing your dreams while struggling to stay close with loved ones back home. Rambunctious lead single “Dying to Believe” reckons with the distance that life necessarily drives between people over time: “I’m sorry for the way that I can’t hold conversations // They’re such a fragile thing to try to support the weight of,” Stokes sings. The accompanying visual is an eccentric four-step “How to be the Beths” instructional video featuring the band.

Touring far from home, The Beths committed to taking care of each other while simultaneously trying to take care of friends living thousands of miles away. That care and attention shines through on Jump Rope Gazers, where the quartet sounds more locked in than ever. Jump Rope Gazers stares down all the hard parts of living in communion with other people, even at a distance, while celebrating the ferocious joy that makes it all worth it.

Acoustic versions of “Dying to Believe” and Future Me Hates Me favorites “Great No One” and “Little Death” as well as a Q&A with The Beths can be viewed from their recent livestream here.

Watch “Dying to Believe” Video:
https://youtu.be/CkzI93Aqztk

Pre-Order Jump Rope Gazers:
https://smarturl.it/thebeths_jrg

Jump Rope Gazers Tracklist:
1. I’m Not Getting Excited
2. Dying to Believe
3. Jump Rope Gazers
4. Acrid
5. Do You Want Me Now
6. Out of Sight
7. Don’t Go Away
8. Mars, the God of War
9. You Are a Beam of Light
10. Just Shy of Sure

The Beths Tour Dates:
Sun. Nov 8 – Perth, WA @ HBF Park*
Wed. Nov. 11 – Melbourne, VIC @ Marvel Stadium*
Sat. Nov. 14 – Sydney, NSW @ Bankwest Stadium*
Tue. Nov. 17 – Brisbane, QLD @ QSAC Stadium*
Fri. Nov. 20 – Dunedin, NZ @ Forsyth Barr Stadium*
Sun. Nov. 22 – Auckland, NZ @ Mt Smart Stadium*

*w/ Green Day, Weezer and Fall Out Boy

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Pitch Perfect PR!]