Week in Pop
GREY \\ WATER offered up a listen to their new single “Jimmy” that moves with the urgent motions of life & the reflections that go with. The track moves in manners reminiscent to classic Carly Rae Jepsen in a maximalist style that thrives on every hook readily available at their disposal. In Charlotte Grace Victoria’s own words:
I feel as though the story of “Jimmy” and his significant other reflects the same idea. On the surface, there is a couple in the midst of honeymoon love, yet along with that, there is an undertone of the pressure to change and evolve into something new.
Off the split titled Human Sun featuring Toronto’s own Low Sun & HUMANITIES available July 13 from Art of the Uncarved Block; we bring you Low Sun’s journey to the core of the solar planet with the psych ritual of “Into Sun”. The moody movements make for a full-on psychotropic experience where visions & realizations arrive in states & series of happenstance that will surely expand your consciousness. In the band’s own introductory words:
Lyrically I wanted to experiment with how I could dissect and ultimately expand on the seemingly mundane experiences we tend to let pass us by. Mostly, I was curious as to what separates an everyday, or random observation, with one that is powerfully religious in its essence. Sometimes we are unaware that attention and perception are the only things that separate the two.
Connecticut’s Mrs. Hopewell, oka Christopher Nicastro, drops the radical & triumphant DIY single “Alpha Rats Quarterback” featured off the upcoming album Goodbyes Are Just Shitty See You Laters. Thoughts & feelings of abandonment where the traces of folks moving away, moving on & more are connected in those web of complications that we all share where everything from the woe is me narratives & more collect in an expression of our understood (or barely to rarely understood) realities.
Off their new EP Fever Dreams available now, peep the eccentric, glamorous, DIY Austin Will video for Gold Casio’s “Last Song”. Grand finales & encores are compounded together & expressed in a zany, freewheeling array of electric stimuli to wake you up from your sleepy stupor.
Moniquea’s new album Blackwavefunk is available now MoFunk Records & the LA funk artist presents the Kid Boogie video for “Checkin’ Out”. Moniquea continues to fuse together your funk trope favorites from the 70s, 80s to now as that Los Angles rhythm & blues & beats is brought further to the future precipice of where the funk might be headed.
Des Moines, Iowa’s Pets With Human Names provided us with a listen to their album Creature Comforts that offers up a cycle of all the most exciting examples of guitar shredding action. From the solemn & sacred opener “Crystals” right down to the closing cataclysm of the prismatic reflections of “Mirrors”; Pets With Human Names break down the divisions between the animal classes & the hordes of humans that have discovered a primal connection between ourselves & avenues of audio amplification & the like.
Gringo dropped their album The Shores via the Portland label Hey Amigo Recordings and we give you the following listen. Instances of happenstance & more are welcomed on the opener “Sometimes” full of various analog-fi feels and more that runs it course all the way to the title track closer that brings everything back home with a whole lotta summer vibes to soak in. Drink it up, folks.
Featured off their second album As Far As Gardens Go available via Shattered Orb Records; Philly by Minneapolis’s Carroll presents their video for “Red Giant” made with Rigoberto Lara Guzman & Karl Cooney. The polychrome luminescent glow from club lights illuminates that Jon Low production as the group trades in their emotive & endearing signature sound that extends a hand to their fans with a whole lotta heart.
The upcoming album Gravity/Repulsion will be available September 19 from Michael Beach and the Melbourne musician provided us with the single “I Never Had Enough Time With You” that holds on to those moments & time that we never have enough of. Beach belts out the emotions that always fall short whenever time is of the essence and there is never enough time with said person available.
London’s BOYS presented us with the title track from their forthcoming EP available later this summer and we bring you the vision drenched luster of “Dreamland”. This is track for those that dream big, seek better days, better futures & better realities that exist in twee-spurned fantasies set to sentimental song.
Australia’s FAIRCHILD dropped the new single “So Long And Thank You” produced by Catherine Marks that offers up an electrified moments shared between two parting lovers where gratitude & goodbyes are exchanged in cinematic sound sweeps.
Welsh DIY pop stars Seazoo dropped the new single “Roy’s World” the title of their debut album that illustrates the group’s pursuit of worlds that are intersected & interconnected in intuitive manners.
Arizona’s own Fairy Bones dropped the Jeremy Tremp video “No One Can Suffer Like I Can” that is a wild ride out to uncharted territories & rocking destinations. Following up their Dramabot debut, the Phoenix group takes you on a summer trip that seeks newfound adventures, realization, actualization & more.
Created at Baltimore, MD’s Magpie Cage Studio with J. Robbins; Vinny Vegas offered up a look & listen to the Scott Siskind animated video for Vinny Vegas’s “Lung Benders” that brings about a plethora of passion pop featured off the upcoming Clear The Walls album available July 21.
Nova Scotia artist Mo Kenney is readying the forthcoming album The Details available September through Toronto imprint Pheromone Recordings & presents the lyrical video for “If You’re Not Dead”. Inquiries about identity & volition are met with conflicts of dead weight lazy bones that won’t get out of bed in the morning/afternoon while you toil about the day’s eventus & itineraries. Mo makes it personal, stating it like it is & how it’s gonna be while ripping inspired chords of pure uncut confidence & all around coolness.
LA’s KRON who are formal friends & collaborators of synth-wizards S U R V I V E presented us with a look at their speed-bike-racing video for “Raptoid” courtesy of Ring the Alarm. A plethora of digital visual effects are brought on board to compliment the driving, thumping & pumping rhythm machine of the track.
Witness the tail-shaking title track “Negative Boogie” featured off David Nance’s upcoming Ba Da Bing Records album of the same name available July 14. Nance operates on an ethic that is like a witnessing nature recording a full-on electrical storm where everything can be heard going haywire in a searing single to wake up all the future lethargic ages.
Following up 2015’s Phrases EP with the debut album Faux Linear; Topaz offered up a warm assemblage of chic beats tropic insinuations of sound on “Patterns”. This is the single to get every single person’s summer vacation holiday in full swing where the allure of azure oceans & skies awaits all with ears to listen (even if that mythic getaway is but a vicarious mirage).
NYC’s Ross Goldstein (a photographer, visual artist & member of Devin Gary & Ross) announced the upcoming album Inverted Jenny available August 11 from Northern Spy Records & shared the photogenic single “Pocket Camera” that moves with style, grace & excellent taste. With a touch of brass, harpsichord, piano notes, bass & a host of electric vibes; Ross makes a single of smooth & sweet proportions that sounds good today, tomorrow & yesterday.
Feel the music & ecstatic/eccentric late evening vibes with Happy Hollows’ Josh Anderson video for “Feel the Moon”. Late night rituals & cryptic dance maneuvers summon something of a lunar spirit hiding out in the moon as howls & motions make a connection with the other side.
Siv Jakobsen offered up a listen to the single “Shallow Digger” (available June 30) featured off the forthcoming song cycle The Nordic Mellow August 25. Organic folks hymns are sung in the concentrated spirit of winter to add some ice to your summer season.
Future Lives (the reincarnation of King of Prussia with former Drive-By Truckers members) released their new album Mansions and we bring you a look & twangy listen to some of the big singles. The lyric video for “California Vibe” takes you out on a west coast road trip through the highways & road-side attractions that mixes together an array of vintage throwbacks & a rustic back-to-basics sort of sound.
Also peep Future Lives’ video for “The Knowing” that strolls out toward the lesser occupied places & spaces to share adventures & intimate expressions to a rustic, jangling modern hymn.
The Rich Hands presents a first listen to their third album Take Care available July 4 from Resurrection Records (via wax & digital) & Lolipop Records (via cassette) that takes you through a series of modernist honky-tonks that will have you cutting up rugs & ballroom floors in no time flat. The TX group takes you through the old world saloons & everywhere else you want to go & listen to a cycle of songs that are ripped straight from the unfiltered consciousness of the heart. From the road rallying & ripping “Fast and Loose” to the closing bonus cut “Low Down Man”; The Rich Hands run the gamut of the ups, downs, highs & lows that move at the speed of life in actualized real time.
