Gong Gong Gong ride ride ride, BSS try some AI, Gon comes alive, Shvpes join the vrmy and more in today’s Roundup. RIP Robert Hunter.
1 It’s not every day you see a music video shot in Beijing. Thankfully, today is one of those days. Even better: It’s a video for Canadian-Chinese art-punk duo Gong Gong Gong’s Ride Your Horse 騎你的馬, the latest preview of their Oct. 4 album Phantom Rhythm 幽靈節奏. Saddle up. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Described by the band’s bassist Joshua Frank as “a complete statement about what Gong Gong Gong is as a band,” the track travels on a mesmeric groove, that evolves in unexpected ways across its sections, which were inspired, as guitarist/vocalist Tom Ng explains, by classical Chinese structures: “Playing this song, I feel like I’m the last Cantonese cowboy in the galaxy,” says Ng. “The different sections of Ride Your Horse were inspired a bit by the structure of classical Chinese writing: 起承轉合, or “introduction, elucidation of the theme, transition to another viewpoint and conclusion.” I was just gonna say something about east meeting west, but that sounds way smarter:
2 It was only a matter of time until somebody used AI to make a psychedelic music video. And perhaps unsurprisingly, that somebody has turned out to be Broken Social Scene, who get all technologically freaky on your ass with this mindbending clip for the song Can’t Find My Heart, from their latest EP Let’s Try The After (Vol. 2). Strap on your VR goggles and fire up the lava lamps. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Directed by Josh Usheroff, the visually-captivating video features an endless vortex of performance footage run through a series of style transfers and surreal artificial intelligence-created textures. This cutting-edge approach was developed in collaboration with Alex Mordvintsev, a pioneer in neural network generated visuals and creator of Google’s DeepDream. “I am fascinated by the changes that AI and machine learning are bringing to all aspects of our culture. I wanted to see how this technology was being used in more creative disciplines,” explains Usheroff. “I started researching generative art and came across a video by Alex Mordvintsev. The video featured a series of still images zooming and transforming into one another. The results were mesmerizing.” Dig the scene, man:
3 Speaking of reality, New York singer Gon’s new video for the song Alive is billed as “a dreamlike video that conjures alternate realities.” Admittedly, it just looks like a bunch of dudes dancing in puffy shirts to me. Goes to show what I know. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “The Alive video shows one man who learns to embrace his psychological blocks (and by living with them lets them go), and one who chooses to stay small, and live an unending loop of self-destruct.” Um, if it’s an unending loop, he’s not doing a very good job of self-destructing, it would seem:
https://youtu.be/vtfQvZZ724U
4 Scream for me, Shvpes fans. The U.K. rockers — whose frontman Griffin Dickinson just happens to be the son of a certain Iron Maiden vocalist who shall remain nameless — return with their latest single and video One Man Army. Or One Mvn Vrmy, if you’re sticking with the whole typography thing. Which I clevrly vm. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “This one’s for all the people who keep marching on through all the self-doubt because there’s that glimmer of self-belief. Even when you haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re doing & it’s all being thrown back in your face, we keep on pushing trying to ward off the thought we’re flogging a dead horse. One Man Army’s about throwing everything you’ve got into something, hoping that one day it’s going to come together… All the while, treading that line between self-belief and self-doubt; how that hunger for perfection can eat you up and leave you constantly comparing your shit to other people’s… The lyric that sums this song up for me is “there’s no peace in self-belief.” ” And no I in vrmy:
5 L.A. electro-popster Disco Shrine also refers to herself as Persian Barbie. Her words, not mine. Hopefully she means it in an empowering way — based on the fact that she also calls her new video Alright a girl-power dream-pop anthem. At least some of those words don’t sound too awful, right? SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “When I first started in music a lot of men would tell me how I should sound, what I should look like, and it usually involved me being hyper girly and sexual. They would make me feel inferior. This video is the embodiment of me finding that power and taking it back. It’s proof that girls can appreciate a cliche without being one.” Phew:
6 Well, this seems interesting: California Christian-punk veterans The Blamed are about to release their first album in a decade — and it’s called The Church is Hurting People. Unless they mean that ironically, it looks like somebody’s going to have some explaining to do. They might as well start now, with the single Overwhelming Love. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Mixing equal parts heaviness and raw delivery with the enlightened lyrics of a band with a lot to say, The Church Is Hurting People is a cry out for change and a message of love for those searching for meaning in this life.” Spoiler alert: There isn’t any. Sorry to break it to ya:
7 And speaking of disco, for some of us, a disco ball is just a glittery bauble. For others, it might be a sign of the Apocalypse. For Montreal singer-songwriter Little Scream — not her real name, just in case you were wondering — it’s a symbol of hope from her Oct. 25 album Speed Queen. I will let Laurel Sprenglemeyer explain it herself. Mainly because I don’t really get it. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Disco Ball incorporates many of the observations from being on the road with the last album, feeling a sense of recognition in the down-and-outness of the places we visited. Identifying with that sense of having been duped for following your dreams in every closed shop window we passed. Thinking about how that book The Secret must be responsible for a countable percentage of the subprime mortgage crisis. Thinking about struggling as a musician, but having that be the thing that allows me to make a disco ball out of all the smashed mirrors of my past. Taking all of this and thinking about how to make an anthem of hope for times when you feel you have nothing.” Now you’re up to speed:
8 You know about the Book of Love. You know about the Book of Mormon. You may even know about the Book of the Dead. Now you can learn about the Book of Hera — the latest single from Seattle singer-songwriter Ian Kurtis Crist’s upcoming Beret album Jesus White. Read on. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “I tried to express the human desire of wanting someone to save you from your struggles. The best versions of ourselves are needed out in the world today. No matter how well-intentioned, we can’t rely on the finity of another humans power to unlock this version of ourselves.” For those looking for the hidden Word of the Day, you found it: Finity. Congratulations:
9+10 Look back or move forward? For The Cowsills, the answer is simple: Yes. The pop vets are heading in both directions today, sharing a new a cappella version of their hilarious hirsute-hippie classic Hair to celebrate its 50th anniversary — and following up with up a rough mix of the new song Ya Gotta Get Up, from their 2020 album The Rhythm of the World. Don’t ask me why, ’cause I don’t know. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “During a recent recording session, American pop icons The Cowsills decided to have some fun with a song they’d released 50 years earlier. The result is a new and even hipper version of the classic Hair, with no instruments other than Bob, Paul and Susan’s voices. And if you didn’t realize they could sing like this, it’s time to do a little catching up.” Flow it, show it, long as God can grow it:
11 We all want good love all the time. We all get bad love from time to time. And that list includes folks like Best Ex’s Mariel Loveland, who’s even written a song about it. So at least you’re not alone. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Honestly, my entire life, I’ve wondered who the heck is the type of person that drinks cocktails at hotels in Manhattan. Yet, I somehow found myself there, stirring the ice in my $20 cocktail and thinking about why I’m always following the type of love that I know is going to hurt me,” she admits introspectively.” I’ll drink to that:
12 You might expect the video for a song called I Move in Shadows to be a dark, gloomy work of brooding solitude. And in the case of Brooklyn quartet Office Culture, you’d be completely and totally wrong — based on the home-made crapshoot meta-video they just dropped. So when it comes to what to expect from their Nov. 1 album A Life of Crime, your guess is as good as mine. Though I will predict it’s about kitties and chocolate. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “I Move in Shadows is the first song I wrote for the record. It’s about feeling like you’re playing some bizarre long game in the interest of trying to keep a relationship together. I was thinking a lot about the idea of “compromise” — what that actually means in practice, and whether that is actually the key to two people being able to co-exist and stay in love with one another. I was listening pretty much exclusively to Curtis Mayfield at the time, especially There’s No Place Like America Today, which is one of my favorite albums of all time.” That’s life:
