Month: July 2019

Ash Walker releases new single, “Finishing Touch,” ahead of upcoming album – “Aquamarine.”

In advance of his forthcoming album, Aquamarine (out July 19th on Night 
Time Stories),  the London-based multi-instrumentalist Ash Walker shares new single, “Finishing Touch”, featuring the smooth voice of Laville, alongside
it’s Louis Hvejsel-Bork-directed video. 

 Watch Video For New Single, “Finishing Touch” —
https://youtu.be/3BbobhRJpQY

“Set in an uncanny valley of a richly coloured world, we see Ash navigate and explore his world through music and curiosity,” explains Hvejsel-Bork.
“Through the power of his music, he unlocks something deeper within a
totalitarian society. A lost individual is awoken by his music, forsaking her
enslavement and planning an escape to a freer future.” 

In order to create an otherworldly look, the video was shot with an infrared
camera using a brand new filter that replicates the old Kodak Aerochrome 
look. There’s only one company that makes this filter, which was shipped
specially for this project from the US. Originally, Aerochrome film was used
during WW1 for better aerial surveillance, allowing unseen details of terrain. This was later adopted in popular culture through people like Jimi Hendrix 
and Frank Zappa in photography.

Aquamarine is a projection and culmination of all Ash has absorbed. A cosmic explosion of sound and colour, rhythm, shape, and patterns. The arrival of an unassuming dreamer now projecting his unique flavour of expression. 
Aquamarine is the take-off of this audial spaceship, a sound discovered in the
grooves of thousands of records, united in one.

Ash will celebrate the release of Aquamarine with a special secret show in 
Central London on Saturday, July 20th where he’ll perform the album in its
entirety for the first time. The location will be revealed only to ticket buyers.
Tickets are available for purchase here. 
 Stream “Under The Sun” (Feat. Laville) —
https://youtu.be/Uy_9g3v8uhw

Pre-order Aquamarine —
https://orcd.co/aquamarine

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Mexico City Blondes – Blush

Blush is a lovely electro record from Mexico City Blondes (Greg Doscher and Allie Thompson) that blends dub beats, trip hop touches, and lounge jazz.

The album opens with the snappy, funky “Out to Dry,” with Thompson’s vocals hopping around Doscher’s processed beats and effective rhythm guitar work. As soon as you hear “Addio,” you realize the decision to make it the first single from Blush was a no-brainer. The Blondes make no attempt to hide their love of Portishead as Thompson’s vocals move like a warm breeze across a rooftop nightclub full of frisky people.

“Road Noise” builds to a cool groove for the afterparty following that rooftop nightclub. Thompson’s vocals on “Thick as Thieves” remind me of Emily Haines from Metric, but Doscher keeps the track from drifting into stadium rock by rooting it with elements of synth wave in-between the electro-pop. The rattlesnake-like beats of “Yellow Sunshine” add a thrilling touch to the adventure offered by Thompson’s lyrics (“We are only looking for peace of mind. We are always keeping our eyes on the prize.”).

“Thin Line” has Thompson revealing dark secrets as she sings, “I know what it’s like on the other side.” Doscher brings in an acoustic guitar to surprise us at the beginning of “Crimson” as the beats and Thompson’s vocals swell to a trippy bliss. Thompson’s vocals are especially lovely as she sings about the risks of love on “Off the Hook.” “Sunny Day” is deceptively heavy (and those little saxophone flairs!) and deserves to be mixed by DJ’s worldwide. “All night, I keep on thinkin that you’ll never change,” Thompson sings on “All Night.” She knows she’s in a relationship that will ultimately go nowhere, but she can’t resist the moments as they come. “Reasons Why” flows well between dance beats, ambient synths, and trip hop flavors. The album closes with “Planet Caravan,” the sexiest song on the album with its languid guitars, Thompson’s mirage-like vocals, and slow seduction beats.

So far, Blush is the best make-out record I’ve heard this year. It’s also one of the best chill records and electro records I’ve heard so far in 2019. You’ll dig it.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Bad Sports – Constant Stimulation

Texas punks Bad Sports (Daniel Fried – bass and vocals, Orville Neeley – guitar and vocals, Gregory Rutherford – drums) have been blasting in the indie scene for over a decade, and their newest album, Constant Stimulation, brings fire, rage, wisdom, snark, and riffs. Plenty of riffs.

They’re off to a fast start off with “Giving In,” with its Social Distortion-like swagger. “If it feels like giving up, it’s giving in,” they sing, calling on all of us to keep fighting. “Don’t Deserve Love” and “All Revved Up to Kill” bring in a touch of pop-punk and 1960’s garage rock vocal stylings. “Comes Close,” like the two songs before it, are love songs, or rather songs about the sometimes frustrating / fun nature of love. “When one comes close, but you don’t get no answer…” they sing, deciding not to finish the sentence because we all know what they mean. Nelly’s guitar solo vents our and their frustrations.

“Gains and Losses” is a middle finger at the current U.S. economy, its inequality, and the emptiness that wealth can bring (“Doing nothing, saying nothing, paying someone after the fact.”). “Leave your conscience behind,” they sing on “Ode to Power” – a fitting lyric aimed at those who crawl over the weak to get where and what they want. The title track focuses on our addictions to technology and our fears of silence (“I need constant stimulation, in my ears and in my eyes. I need constant stimulation or I don’t sleep at night.”). It’s a post-punk gem with great drumming from Rutherford, who puts down a beat that sounds simple but is actually damn hard to play once you realize how good he’s keeping (fast) time through the whole track.

The groove on “Easy Truth” is as hard as the lyrics (“All the things I knew I could rely on, they’re not there anymore, to hold true. And I tried for so long to deny it, anyway, but nothing’s going to change for me or you…Nothing’s going to change unless you want it to. Something has to change soon. That’s the easy truth.”). It’s a bit of a Ghandi reference, encouraging us to be the change we want to see in the world. It seems to me that they dabble a lit bit in psychedelia with “Everything We Wanted” (the upped fuzz taking front stage from the low-volume vocals).

“Cardboard Suits” again encourages us to change our worlds, be they local or global, for the better (“Reading headlines won’t make being here get any better. You can’t just wait for things to be divine while falling face-first for egregious disguises.”). Fried’s bass groove on “Distant Life” brings Joy Division rhythm to a fist-raising anthem.

The song closes the digital download of the album, but the CD has seven additional tracks. Among the standouts are “Don’t Get Your Hopes Up” (a great punk title on a fun punk track about hypocrisy in religion.), the sizzling “Living with Secrets,” the heavy / fuzzy bass-driven “Anymore,” and the almost-goth “Pacify My Love.”

It’s a cool record that I’m glad I stumbled upon last month. You’ll dig it if you like indie punk.

Keep your mind open.

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Jacques Greene and Cadence Weapon brings us to “Night Service.”

Photo by Brad Casey

Producer Jacques Greene is pleased to present new single, “Night Service” b/w “Silencio”, both featuring Cadence Weapon, via LuckyMe. Greene teams up with a longtime friend, Canadian rapper and poet Cadence Weapon, to give us the most direct banger since his breakthrough, “Another Girl.”

Originally teased in a mysterious YouTube upload by Greene in 2018 where he showcased an hour of new music, “Night Service” was heavily requested in the comments, and has been in-demand ever since.

“Rollie and I have known each other for years,” says Greene. “Finally making music together for his last full length felt long overdue and ever since we’ve met up in Toronto and made a bunch of stuff. ‘Night Service’ and a few others felt… different. To the point where there was a moment when we wondered whether we should fully form a band and pursue this ‘vibe’ we’d stumbled upon. It’s always felt quite special to me and so does ‘Silencio’. It’s a pleasure to finally share them with the world. A love letter to the club.”

Cadence Weapon adds, “After working together on two songs from my 2018 album Cadence Weapon, Jacques Greene and I continued working on music whenever we’d hang out. ‘Night Service’ is the result. The song is inspired by our personal nightlife experiences in Montreal and the enduring history of underground dance music in New York, specifically Larry Levan and Paradise Garage, as he was one of the first DJs to make the connection between religious devotion and club music.”

Since the dawn of dance music there have been parallels drawn between the church and the club, with the steady thrum of “the one” in Gospel music inspiring early house, typified in Larry Levan’s mix of “Stand On The Word” by The Joubert Singers. For 40 years of dance music we’ve become accustomed to house, prog and trance offering ascendant experiences to those looking to God as a DJ. Now more than ever, the idea of finding salvation in gritty, marginal, underground-spaces makes perfect sense. Greene is a producer who has always basked in wide cathedral reverbs on vocals, set amongst hardware synthesisers tugging back and forth on the threshold of melancholy and euphoria. A producer who brought 1200 people to rave in the esteemed East London church, St John of Hackney, “Night Service” is a song that perhaps was always on the cards.

Greene will play select dates this fall, including shows in Berlin, London, Manchester, Brooklyn, LA and Montreal. A list of dates is below.

“Night Service” Feat. Cadence Weapon – YouTube – https://youtu.be/S1JaoIYJ-PE

Buy / Stream – https://jg.luckyme.net/

“Silencio” Feat. Cadence Weapon – https://spoti.fi/2ITscm1

Jacques Greene Tour Dates: Thu. Oct. 17 – Berlin, DE @ Burg Schnabel Fri. Oct. 18 – London, UK @ St. Pancras Old Church Fri. Oct. 18 – Manchester, UK @ Warehouse Project (DJ set) (late show) Wed. Oct. 23 – Brooklyn, NY @ National Sawdust Fri. Oct. 25 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo Sat. Oct. 26 – Montreal, QC @ Ausgang

Keep your mind open.

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WSND DJ set list for July 01, 2019

It was a “Best of 2019 So Far” show Monday morning (with a couple requests sprinkled in there).  Thanks to everyone who listened.  Here’s what I played:

  1. Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor – Lily Dust (She’s a Pariah)
  2. Gary Wilson – I Don’t Want to Be Alone
  3. Monomotion – Mango
  4. And Now the Screaming Starts radio ad
  5. Nikka Costa – Like a Feather (request)
  6. spoony bard – extralewd 2
  7. Flat Worms – Into the Iris
  8. The Black Keys – Lo / Hi
  9. Drugdealer – Fools
  10. Ladytron – Paper Highways
  11. Delicate Steve – Selfie of a Man
  12. Bob Mould – Sunshine Rock
  13. Escape from the Planet of the Apes radio ad
  14. Andre Bratten – HS
  15. Durand Jones and the Indications – Morning in America
  16. Pink Mexico – Dirty and Stupid
  17. Chromatics – Time Rider
  18. BODEGA – Can’t Knock the Hustle (live)
  19. The Liberation of L.B. Jones radio ad
  20. Vulfpeck – Darwin Derby (request)
  21. Bayonne – Drastic Measures
  22. L7 – Stadium West
  23. Warish – Voices
  24. French Vanilla – Suddenly
  25. Mavis Staples – Slippery People (live)
  26. Cass McCombs – Absentee
  27. Jake Xerxes Fussell – Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues
  28. Claude Fontaine – Pretending He Was You
  29. The Well – Death Song
  30. Mdou Moctar – Asshet Akal
  31. Priests – Jesus’ Son

I should be back on air at midnight EDT on July 08, 2019.  I’ll be back with all the games and special segments.

Keep your mind open.

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Monomotion gives us some tasty “Mango” on his new single.

Photo courtesy of FAKE Music

Monomotion, the project of French electronic musician Erol Engintalay, is pleased to share a new single, “Mango” (with FEYNMAN) from his forthcoming EP, Fujisan, due July 26th via FAKE MUSIC. Following the gentle, evocative beats of lead single, “Ecocline Patterns,” “Mango” lusciously unfolds into tick-tock techno. It’s “the result of one of those magic moments we share in the studio with Yoann,” says Engintalay. “I’m really thankful that these are still happening after ten years of collaboration.”

Written and recorded over a year and a half, the seven-track Fujisan EP is a reflection on the positive aspects of life—a sense of breaking through and moving forward that imbues the project as a whole. Inspired by a warm Japanese spring, Engintalay describes Fujisan as “a life test after every challenge I’ve gone through, physically and musically. It’s very spiritual, representing climbing mountains and breaking through walls to get further in life.” Yoann Feyman, in addition to appearing on “Mango,” contributed to sound and the art direction of the EP.

Stream “Mango” (With FEYNMAN) – https://soundcloud.com/monomotionmusic/mango-x-feynman/s-f4LIm

Listen to “Ecocline Patterns” – https://soundcloud.com/monomotionmusic/ecocline-patterns/s-EcsS0

Pre-order Fujisan — http://smarturl.it/FM024_FUJISAN

Keep your mind open.

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