Week in Pop
Jay Som live at The Masquerade in Atlanta, GA photographed by Kevin Brown.
Directed by Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner with Adam & Robert Kolodny, Tara Bayat & Omar Rodriguez Ulloa; Jay Som takes the audience for an East Bay adventure in the long awaited visuals for “The Bus Song” starring the multidisciplinary pop leader/visionary Melina Duterte, Dylan Allard, Zachary Elsasser, Oliver Pinnell, Sabrina Mai, Nat Lee, Hannah Hale, Juan Urrea, Karli Helm, Fil Cala & Kevin. From Lake Merritt marching band motions to hanging about at the house with friends, fellow bands, bandmates etc; this lively visual from the Polyvinyl album Everybody Works is yet another reason why the Jay Som phenomenon is one of the world’s great pop presences that are continuously influencing an entire aesthetic DIY global movement.
Featured off the upcoming album Junea available October 23 from Inner Ear; producer/artist extraordinaire May Roosevelt gifted the world with the rich electro ambience heard & felt on the single “Air”. From Roosevelt’s own lingering & haunting vocals whose sustained echoing deliveries permeate the entiriety of the track, May mixes in a host of expressive synths & rhythms that rumble with urgent beat sequences & liberating key structures that sail up stratospheric heights.
Moroccan by way of Paris artist MALCA presented us with the dazzling, effects-laden visuals from TBMA & Mohamed Sqalli for “Ya Layli” featured off the forthcoming Casablanca Jungle EP available November 17 through Berlin imprint Jakarta Records. Middle eastern tones & slowed progressions are channeled visually in equal measure that turns an already transcendental track into a psychedelic journey into a full on inter-dimensional trip to remember.
With the launch of the new LA imprint Good Villains spearheaded by Vicious Buzz’s Xavier Abraham—we introduce you to their artist J Rebbell with the culture & style claiming on the track “Black Trips”. The Inland Empire artist illustrates a variety of flow speed & structure that virtually plucks the listener out of their chair & into Rebbell’s own dojo with production that floats with something straight out of a 70s karate flick.
French producer Emmanuel Mario makes music under the moniker of Astrobal, readying the Memories of Stars EP available November 24 from Karaoke Kalk with a listen to the single “Australasie” ft. Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab fame. Having supplied percussion for Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble & produced four of Sadier’s solo albums; the two fuse a synergistic resonance that finds the two collaborating in the creation of their own nouvelle vague that stretches sound across the expanses of the stratosphere’s layers for those cosmic extentions into the arenas of the lesser documented frontiers.
Noumenal Loom presents the new single “Dr. Valentine” featured off the upcoming album Desert Dream from Chaz Allen available TBD. Chaz indulges in the DIY disco pop du jour that offers a sampler of vintage beat sequences & arrangements that entertain the entirety of the senses with clusters of clever keys & a snazzy vocal delivery that zaps all over the amp & map.
With the debut Mis+ress self-titled album available today from Somewherecold Records; Brian Wenckebach of Elika & Thee Koukouvaya offers a tranquil accompanying video piece for the album lead off single, “The History of Fishes”. From here Wenckebach blends tranquil guitar loops coupled with subtle effect swirls that are set to moving, intimate views of the wild life world of physical sciences in motion.
Jeremy Gustin of Rubblebucket, David Byrne & Marc Ribot fame sent word of new project The Ah with the video for “High Low” featured off the upcoming album Common Bliss available November 17 through the progressive futurists of excellent taste NNA Tapes. Featuring a collection of analog film & animation visuals set to the rhythm experimental expressions of experience; the artist who has supplied percussions for folks like Delicate Steve, Star Rover; Gustin has created The Ah to be something of an interactive co-op between artist & environment that Jeremy described as being a collaboration with [the] imagination and the world around him. By virtue of a meditative type of psychic osmosis, The Ah emerges as a dialogue between the creative spirit & an ever evolving world that expands & contracts in real time.
John Edge provided some holistic tunes for nature walks and the like with “Emerald City” ft. Blackmill. The introspective sentiments & getting lost in the woods by ones self are heard in every acoustic strum & vocal resonance.
Ant Beale today dropped the new single “Away Forever” that features production from Bynx of Charlie Heat’s imprint House of 99 designed to get you weekend wheeling forward toward hedonistic levels. The Jersey artist whose songwriting credits have appeared on Kehlani’s most recent record, from the previous callabo with Heat—Beale’s making moves that showcase an artist with versatile chops that remains a wonder to watch & listen for now & in the eras that have yet to arrive.
Behold Har-di-Har’s Shannon Brunette & Taylor Donskey video for “The Wonder” that revels in a surreal organic art pop/found sound intimacy. Captured in St. Paul, Minnesota at the Schmidt Artist Lofts, everything from close ups of hands, flickering CRT televisions & low-lit environments cast their own aura along with the mind-illuminating wonders of “The Wonder”.
George Glew delivered the passion with the heart holding single “Home Love New” available now Atomizer Records. The thrills & frills of your favorite festival can virtually be relived in the fleeting single’s three & a half minute run as the feeling of being at home anywhere is acknowledged in abundance.
Toronto’s Odonis Odonis presents the light show visuals from Cam Tomsett for the electro-body-music majesty of “Nasty Boy”. Found off the October 20 slated album No Pop from Telephone Explosion/felte; the trio’s trademark visceral & uncompromising aesthetic is taken toward more intense levels of aesthetic electricity that might overwhelm viewers/listeners in a vulnerable/sensitive state of being.
Check out the vintage visual mash-up for Brother Roy’s “Heartbreaker” that blends performance footage with classic stock film. A sing-a-long that is fun for the friends & family to jam along with, the throw-back style is the perfect fit for Brother Roy’s own big band modernist sounds that are steeped from the saloons, dives & other watering hole relics from the twentieth century.
Ryan Power provided some listens from the upcoming album They Sell Doomsday available October 20 from NNA Tapes that offers the latest inspiring experimental electric pop wonders. Warm & wistful feels flow freely on “The Cavalry” to the otherworldly adventures found on “Empty the Jewels” that encourages another option apart from running the proverbial jewels.
Foreign Air presented a listen to the single “Lying” mixed by the awesome Phil Ek that takes jabs at the internet troll culture that illustrates the worst in the haters of the world. With an electrical array of moody keys & cool chords, the culture of being mean anonymously by way of online avatars is called out in cyber-punk single that reflects our daily realities.
Sweden’s own Delsbo Beach Club present their debut single “All The Way Home” available now via Rama Lama Records that works with all the wavy, lo-frequency fun. The feeling of finding one’s way back home is exhibited like a transporting portal of wild, world-whirling senses of euphoria mixed with a sense of abode.
Behold the Ian Clontz video for “Altar” featured off Suno Deko’s, aka David Courtright, self-titled available today from Elestial Sound where we witness members from Hundred Waters partaking in a ritual of life & death. The course of changes are then told through rituals of dance, costumes & slow-motions made in the midst of nature & a bonfire.
Courtesy of Digital Analog Records, LA’s own Black Adidas brought the noise & the pain with “Free Shit” that turns over the merch tables & starts a full on rager wherever this little diddy is played. This is a little something for the freeloaders, for the radical & rebellious, the outlaws, the in-laws, the never-do-wells & the always do wells & everyone within ear shot of this ripper.
Experience the emotive & electric atmospheres & personal essences found on the single “Mother (Don’t Cry)” featured off Ella Vos’s upcoming debut album Words I Never Said available November 17. The shared empathy & feelings between a mother & daughter/son sing out in a sublime embrace that seeks to assuage the pain & fears of a beloved parent during times of strife, struggle, trouble & the seemingly unlimited adversity offered by an uncompromising world.
Take in the Wall E-esque animated visuals from Jack Anderson & Scott Blum for the single “Noise Field” off the notorious self-titled Gruntruck album available now from FOUND Recordings. Robotic identities are entertained in depictions of exchanges between construction machines & androids set in a post-apocalyptic world, accompanied by Gruntruck’s grunge-struck atmosphere altering assertive angst.
Skye Wallace presents the improvised dance moves in the Nathanael Vass video for “Scarlett Fever”. Featuring Sam Cash production from a forthcoming late-2018 slated full-length; Wallace entertains the heightened temperatures brought about by a barrage of overwhelming feelings & narratives involving star-crossed lovers that cumulate in a rising fever & infectious energy & excitement that makes the future seem as if it might be okay after all. Skye Wallace introduced the song with the following reflective words:
I wrote “Scarlet Fever” about a love story set in the Yukon. After a winter apart, Scarlet is arriving in the Dawson City harbor by boat and her lover awaits on land, petrified with uncertainty over the state of their devotion. The song’s energy evokes the messy turmoil of love and lust, and the music video, directed by Nathanael Vass, reflects the jittery, sexy, maddening thrill that comes with it.
