Week in Pop
Available today from Father/Daughter Records, introduce yourself to Vagabon’s moving Infinite Worlds that is certain to provide infinite inspirations for these uncertain & often unsettling eras. Offering up warmth with a melodic & rocking original sound; songs like “The Embers” will warm you up with paradigms of small fish & big fishes in small ponds while “Fear & Force” examines the intimate tug-o-war between two people while “Minneapolis” sees frontwoman Lætitia Tamko drawing from her own set of anarchic organization of dissonance. Certainly one of the year’s most moving releases.
Also off their upcoming Party Damage self-titled, spend an afternoon with Jessica Dennison + Jones’ “God Of Love” that updates all your revisionist late-60s fields of love fantasias with the sound of idle springs. J & J have succeeded here in making a genuinely brilliant soft pop ballad for the ages with a gem that transcends constructs of religion & deity in a track that emphasizes the important of taking some transcendental rest & relaxation self-care with a strong emphasis on the importance of having love in your life.
Celebrating Valentine’s with news of upcoming remixes, Shey from Brooklyn, oka BK Beats, shared something for all former “Strangers” turned lovers with an amorous array of emotive inducing sounds. Sampling iChat response sounds & a host of evocative synths; BK Beats continues to chronicle our collective human experience with textures that relevant in soundtracking our entire lives.
Part Time & Drinking Flowers ready their Volar Records split &” for release February 24 with a listen to DF’s “Nite Time”. The feeling of evening is felt with that cold sentiment of entrapment by way of isolation with romantic hope ringing righteous & true all along.
Filmed via Super 8 on locations in Oakland and San Francisco from back in 2015, Benjamin Finger presented us with a look at his self-made video for “Distance of a Shadow (Ghostflowers)”. Featured off the forthcoming album Ghost Figures available March 7 from Oak Editions; Finger’s own piano piece observes Bay Area lives in transit, youth playing piano in a forestall setting & more bring together constructs of the current & ancient in one moody audio/visual piece.
Evalyn lets the dollars and hedonistic rumors fall like reign on “Filthy Rich” that revels in tales of that decadent life. With restrained production, Evalyn places all the drama center stage wearing all emotions & issues proudly upon the hem of her sleep.
EMP provided the woozy track “Pink Nights” that keeps that syrup sipping strong with production courtesy of Eestbound, known for his work on Travis Scott’s addictive “Antidote” single. EMP exudes the hedonism & sedated weirdness of late night decadence where conflicts, fall-outs, freak-outs & more spill-out into the ultraviolet light of the breaking dawn.
Charity sends a song that sounds bathed by the morning mist with “Metal Boy” that sends out a romantic ode toward a clandestine outlaw romantic other. The Little Rock by way of Nashville artist fashions a classic neon dipped ode to all your favorite 80s cinema favorites full of feathered hair, dangerous liaisons & grand finales that almost always end in some sort of sordid factory setting-standoff.
Take in the Lily Rose Thomas video for Little Cub’s video for “Too Much Love” off the upcoming Domino album Still Life available April 28 that illustrates the daily expressions of affection & the effect of what occurs when you gave out but don’t give yourself enough of what you need. The visuals act out those dance bent expressions with a whole lot of experiences & situations for thought that will have you psycho-analyzing the reasons & whys behind the causes & effects of why we do the acts we act out.
O Mer delivered a ballad dedicated to those who fly to close to the sun with “Icarus” off his forthcoming EP Refugee available this spring. Playing Brooklyn’s Alphaville March 16 & NYC’s Rockwood Music Hall; O Mer creates an epic that is hinged around the virtually rhetorical inquiry repetitions of “why do you do this to yourself?” that casts the off-stage/off-screen as a derelict framed only in the glorious dramatics of the track’s arrangement.
Fresh out of Toronto, do not be the last to miss this amazing new single from Plaza with the jam “Over” that traps like a haunted house on some tricked-out hydraulics. “Over” brings about those lewd evening urges cast with a production that feels like infinite midnight.
Allan Rayman has signed to Communion Records readying his album Roadhouse 01 for February 24, sharing the sad, sweet & sentimental story video for “The Bird”. Allan stars opposite Lindsay Vrckovnik in a contrast of hearts that depicts the sting of the break that occurs in the fallout of a bond that becomes broken.
From the forthcoming album What If available March 31 from City Slang and Temporary Residence; feast your senses on Hauschka’s “Constant Growth Fails” accompanied by Daniel Gray’s direction & CUB Animation that could possibly alter your day or evening in a single viewing/listen.
Continuing the coverage of the current Bloomington, Indiana artist proliferation boom—meet Moor Hound, oka Steve Marino who shares a listen to his introspective new EP Green that offers some warmth for restless winter days. Performing at The Darling Recordings Showcase in Indianapolis, Indiana at Musical Family Tree on February 17; Moor Hound’s new EP exhibits the inner feelings in outward expression & actions like the troubadour/drifter character heard on “I Went South”, the confessional nostalgic memory collection “Scrapbooks”, the emotional ennui of “Bored in Love”, the slow galloping “See You Around”, as the howdy partner becomes the slow twang of “Happy All At Once” to the trad-jangle-strumming pen-pal ode with a wanderlust, “Laramie, WY”. Keep an ear out for more from Moor Hound.
London duo The Rhythm Method dropped the RND Media video directed by Jacob Wyatt & Alistair Baines for “Cruel” that was produced by The Streets’ Mike Skinner featuring Zoee. What occurs is something more than just your usual pub karaoke fare that couples humor & hedonism with some skanking back beat riffs.
Forget about your shitty work week & wave up your arms & hands in unison to The Wild Wild’s ultra-pop single “Alright” produced/mixed by Andrew Dawson. This the track that is full of big time radio tricks & reassurances that things just might actually be alright in the end.
Those looking for a Ty Segallian good time should get wild & wacky to the heavy psych shred-fest found on Crazy Bones’ single & visual accompaniment for “Melting”. Featured off their upcoming Cosmic Drips EP; this is everything you love about gritty garage aesthetics where everything roars & rumbles with a stoned yet solid & sturdy style that the world can never get enough of. To quote Crazy Bones’ introduction to the track:
I wrote this song when I was living in Tofino sitting by the ocean one day. The sun was huge and everything seemed beyond bright. Anemone and sun stars of all different colors getting bashed by waves, everything looked like it was melting. I thought it would be alright if I just melted into the ocean with everything else around me.
Sera Cahoone laments the tragic loss of her cousin Tawnee Baird on “Ladybug” that sends out a prayer to her fallen kin that needlessly left the world too soon. Featured off Cahoone’s upcoming From Where I Started available March 24 through Lady Muleskinner Records; Sera offers a holistic & human voice to everyone caught in the grips of struggles, taking a stand against domestic violence & sticking up for those whose stories have never properly been told, let alone sung.
New York siblings Paperwhite dropped their new single “Human Nature” that entertains the human spirit in conjunction with electro-pop tones galore. With news of an upcoming third EP that follows up last year’s Escape; Paperwhite continue to turn the pages of digitally enhanced hyper ballads that work to provide new takes & captures of the human experience. The siblings shared the following introduction for the new track:
Writing for Paperwhite has always been about trying to discover what we stand for. We’ve always written with broad themes in mind. Our first EP, Magic, focused on galactic and ethereal themes and with Escape we brought it down to earth a little bit and spoke of exploring our world. While writing our third EP, we wanted to dive even deeper. These thoughts led us right to our first single, “Human Nature”. No matter how much we may fight it, we are flawed, we are strong and we are in this together. We are human.
Those looking for a wild & ripping new tune; we highly recommend Test from LA who caught our attention with “Hallways”. With a pedal-to-the-metal style, Test puts their moniker to proper use as their sound is best described as putting the most beefy sets of high-horsepower engines to test against their limitations.
Lucy Mason also brought elements of evening with the piano progressions of “Feels Like Midnight” featured off the upcoming Going Home Broke EP available March 31. Reflections of past tribulations with passions for the future collide together as Mason’s voice takes over everything, including the accompanying acoustic glow of the keys.
Los Angeles’s Rough Church presented a view of their video for “5 AM Shadows” featured off their forthcoming album Queen’s Sacrifice that offers up calming reflections and blindfold dancing visuals. A video by Chris Carlone that was filmed on location in Porto Portugal; the gentle & introspective sound of Rough Trade offers up a hymn of benediction that conjures up the thoughts & feelings & experiences that only five o’clock in the morning can ever bring.
From Scosh Films, view the video for Seasaw’s excited, eccentric & electric “Into The White” that was accomplished in one take that features choreography from Meg Golz.
With her Young Adult EP available today, hear Rodes Rollins’ “Feedback” that works in electrified calls & responses that provides more than reactionary notes to environments, acts & arts observed & understood.
Helsinki’s own Phantom dropped the single “Lost” found off their debut album MMXII that offers up derelict sentiments that resound the feeling of being stuck at a crossroads between points unknown. The recently wed duo couples electronic items to encompass sentiments of emptiness that convey the hollowed feeling of not knowing the surrounding locales or the strange situations at hand.
Take a run on Indian Rocks Beach, Florida with FayRoy for a fun evening outing in the Michael Joseph Azcui video for “Life and Death” featured off the upcoming album Heaven at Twenty Seven that exhibits the alive in the world sentiment that stands on that proverbial suspension bridge between the worlds of life & the deceased.
Get down with Berlin’s Gurr with a visual performance of “#1985” courtesy of Duchess Box Records that offers up all the punky-artistic conceits that will keep you dancing about the living room with uncontrollable glee.
FAMLY is comprised of Jeff & Suzy Capel & their kids who share a listen to their single “Waiting” that mulls over the stresses & fears & anxiety of everything that parents worry about while rearing their progeny into the mess that is the world we all inhabit. Suzy & Jeff illustrate the edges & pangs of anticipation like the feeling of waiting for a pot of water to boil, or staring intently at the clock to strike a certain hour of interest. In the couple’s own words on the single:
“Waiting” is a song about the strange place we find ourselves in. Right now, all around the world, a sense of things building up, from Brexit, the election of Trump to climate change. Things are going to happen, most likely not for the better. Yet nothing in our day to day lives has changed, it feels like we are just waiting for something to happen.
In case you missed it, we present the video for The Courtneys’ “Silver Velvet” featured off their Flying Nun debut II that features a fun sunny afternoon with friends filmed in reverse slo-mo. An outdoor performance complete with bike, skateboard tricks & more perfectly embodies the perfect pop sound of The Courtneys that the rest of the world has now finally discovered. The Courtneys introduced their video with the following insights—right before taking over our Week in Pop feature on the next page:
Our video for “Silver Velvet” is a homage to the video for “Splat” by New Zealand band Bailter Space, who are a Flying Nun band. At the time we made the video, we didn’t even know we’d be working with Flying Nun! We were just big fans. Ryan Dyck of Hockey Dad Records did the cinematography, and the video features cameos from our recording engineer Jordan Koop, “Curly Courtney” (Hugo Noriega), and members of our friends bands Dead Soft, B-Lines, Dead Ghosts, Woolworm, Flyin’, Nervous Operator, Needles//Pins, plus vehicle cameos from our old van the Courtneymobile, Courtneys convertible, and Macy’s van with the mushroom window, which is basically famous for appearing in most Vancouver music videos. Plus, a dog cameo from Lady Dog.
