Ohmme ghost you, Los Cumpleaños deliver a psychedelic sunrise, Jono Manson finds his way home, Marem Ladson moves in circles and more in today’s Roundup. I got up way earlier than usual today, but still ended up getting next to nothing done. Guess I’ll sleep in tomorrow and see how that goes.
1 | Ohmme | Ghost
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Ohmme — the Chicago-based duo of Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart — release a new single/video Ghost, from their forthcoming album, Fantasize Your Ghost, out June 5. Ghost opens with sparse instrumentation, blooming with layered vocals and heavy, experimental guitar licks. Its colorful accompanying video, directed, shot, and edited by Austin Vesely, features the band and shiny, dancing ghosts. “We’d been kicking around the idea of doing something like the Pop Musik video by M but darker,” says the band. “There’s a lot of darkness these days but it’s important to keep dancing. Austin said, ‘fancy ghosts’ and ‘can I press order on these California King satin bedsheets’ and we said ‘Yes, and YES!’”
2 | Los Cumpleaños | Sonrisa
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Los Cumpleaños have shared new single Sonrisa, along with an innovative music video using Google’s DeepDream technology. The track is the second to be released from their forthcoming debut Agua EP, out May 22. With influences as diverse as Colombian accordion legend Lisandro Meza, free jazz iconoclast Sun Ra, and genre-defying artists like Flying Lotus and Tame Impala, Los Cumpleaños are a group that could only have been birthed from the cultural landscape of New York City. Spanish for The Birthdays, the four seasoned musicians that make up Los Cumpleaños mix tropical rhythms and experimental sounds into an energetic, danceable, free-form musical experience. The video for Sonrisa was created using glitch art technology, including Google DeepDream processing. DeepDream coding works by asking a computer to locate and alter patterns in digital images over hours and hours of continuous loops, much like if a computer were dreaming. Over time, these targeted images become radically altered in bizarre ways, often resulting in swirls, shapes, and colorful highlights, or in Los Cumpleaños’ case, faces of dogs.”
3 | Jono Manson | Home Again To You
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Jono Manson will release his new album Silver Moon on April 10. Silver Moon is a milestone record for the cult musician, featuring superstar friends such as Joan Osborne, James Maddock, Warren Haynes, Terry Allen, Eric Schenkman, and many more. Jono was touring Italy in February and cut off his tour due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Upon arriving home to Santa Fe, he found out he had to be quarantined before returning to his family. Today, he released the eerily appropriate video for Home Again To You, which he coincidentally filmed in Italy. The new single features David Berkeley on harmony vocals and is sung from the point of view of a traveler just trying to get home.”
4 | Marem Ladson | Círculos
THE PRESS RELEASE: “After releasing her bilingual EP Azul last month, indie-folk singer-songwriter Marem Ladson has returned to share the video for Círculos, which tackles the concept of fate and destiny, and the uncertainty that everything we do is predetermined, leading us to ask: What if everything was already written from the beginning? “This is a universal question that many writers and philosophers have discussed throughout history, and it’s something that was on my mind when I wrote the song. If everything is part of a plan and there’s a bigger force that already knows what’s going to happen, then our lives are already determined.”
5 | Vân Scott | Wouldn’t It Be Nice
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Vân Scott made this parody of The Beach Boys’ Wouldn’t It Be Nice while being quarantined at home with his parents, sister, and two dogs in Thousand Oaks, CA. They had a lot of fun putting this together, together and I’m simply passing this along hoping to bring some smiles to you, your readers, listeners, followers, and viewers faces. Thank you and stay well. Vân Scott says, “I started making the video at the time President Trump had announced Easter as the date for returning back to normal. I wanted to make this because, like everyone else, the news has been making my family and I scared, anxious, stressed, and depressed. I had a very strong desire to break that tension. So, this is my attempt to bring a much-needed laugh to us and to everyone else as a reminder that we’ll get through this and to #stayhomestaysafe.”
6 | August Burns Red | Bones
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Two-time Grammy-nominated Pennsylvania quintet August Burns Red — JB Brubaker [lead guitar], Brent Rambler [rhythm guitar], Matt Greiner [drums], Jake Luhrs [lead vocals], and Dustin Davidson [bass]— have just shared the video for Bones. “The video for Bones is possibly the coolest music video we’ve ever done,” says Rambler. “It takes the song title quite literally, and creates an awesome and visually stunning video. It was a weird video for us to shoot, because for the vast majority of it we had to stand perfectly still, so all of the x-ray and other effects could line up properly. That’s definitely a departure from a usual music video where you are supposed to bang your head as hard as possible all day long. We’ve been at this for a while so our old ‘Bones’ (wink) were happy for the change of pace.”
7 | Perseide | Fade Away
THE PRESS RELEASE: “After already sharing two first excerpts from their upcoming effort with Sell Yourself and then Trick Or Treat, French alternative-rockers from Lyon Perseide just premiered another official music video for a new song called Fade Away. “Nothing’s eternal. Live the moment, enjoy your life, don’t discourage yourself fighting losing battles, don’t stake everything on ephemeral properties… How far did you go for virtual glory ? What did you harvest ? Anyway, time does its work… Look at you now : everything you love will fade away. Here is the meaning of this song.”
8 | Rabia Sorda | Destruye
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Erk Aicrag, the well-known frontman of Mexican Aggrotech Devils Hocico, strikes back with his solo project Rabia Sorda and releases a brand new video single Destruye! “Sonically speaking we want to deliver an atomic bomb and I think that’s what it is!”, Erk comments about Destruye. “The song is full of forceful sounds and a driving energy. It is the perfect track to get lost into and bang your head to!” Between Industrial Metal and Harsh Electro, Rabia Sorda initiates a fresh way of combining Electronics and guitar sounds. The Spanish lyrics are telling a very personal story: “Destruye is a song about burning down the negative experiences of your past and building a future from the ashes of them. The lyrics are dealing with the pain of seeing someone I love drifting into a world of drug abuse.”
9 | Heaps | Softly
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Indie rock band Heaps banded together during time apart to create a social distancing session of their beautifully crafted debut song Softly. Lead vocalist Warren Frank shares, “After a few days of social distancing we were at a loss for what to do. Our next single release was pushed, our shows were postponed, the record release as a whole is being shifted on a daily basis. We want to continue to write and grow, so we re-imagined ‘Softly’ from the confines of our individual home studios. Sending back and forth different tracks, different takes, different mixes, embracing the opportunity to create within a restricted environment with whatever gear was on hand. A small step in figuring out this new reality, but the first of many more to come.”
10 | Khost | Night Air
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Birmingham, UK-based industrial metal duo Khost present a new video for the track Night Air, from the band’s recently released fourth album Buried Steel. On Night Air, hallucinatory, misshapen forms emerge from the shadows, via the insular, monochrome, spoken word delivery of Stephen Ah Burroughs. A descriptive voyage into a nocturnal mindset, offset by Khost’s notorious monolithic guitars. The video for the track was created by Lagomorphosis. The follow-up to Khost’s2017-released Governance album, Buried Steel delivers themes and sonics ranging from granite and impassive to dreamlike and somnambulistic. The recording of Buried Steel was plagued with unexplained events including a studio fire which destroyed the masters of some songs. Several tracks on the album had to be pieced together from burnt fragments of tape and recovered segments of damaged hard drives. From this point, the dynamics of some of the songs were altered, shifting their eventual outcome, particularly the tone of ambient work on Buried Steel.”
11 | Matt Evans | Spinning Blossoms
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Matt Evans is a drummer / composer who’s been passionately listening to air conditioning units for as long as he can remember. Since moving to Brooklyn in 2012, he has maintained numerous musical projects, working in cross-disciplinary contexts, playing in bands, performing with new music ensembles, and producing performances that integrate music and physicality. His upcoming album New Topographics is an aqueous collection of drum driven, ambient adjacent, hypnotic soundscapes that radiate from a liminal zone between the physical and the digital. Director Vanessa Castro says this about the film for the song Spinning Blossoms: “Matt, who scored this song and video, performs the various percussive and melodic loops that steady the rhythm of the song, while simultaneously falling out of sync with the actual performance of sound. Mel, the video’s choreographer, performs in another form of abyss, an empty office supply warehouse overflowing with detritus of corporate America.”
12 | One In The Chamber | Blow
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Toronto rock band One In The Chamber have released the official music video for Blow. “When I see a band live, I want to leave feeling like they have left their heart and soul onstage. I want energy, passion, and raw emotion to flow out of every note they play. I want to connect with this band in a way that leaves me with a high, and lingers long after they walked off stage. This is what One In The Chamber gives you every night. This is what Blow gives you every second.” Since the release of their 2018 debut studio EP, One In The Chamber have been compared to the likes of Guns N’ Roses, Led Zeppelin, Velvet Revolver, Soundgarden, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Mötley Crüe.”
13 | Kris Kelly | More
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Kris Kelly is pleased to share the song and video for his newest single More. Director Kris Moyes is well known for his innovative music videos for artists such as Sia, Beck, Grizzly Bear, The Presets, and others. The video, like the song, is hypnotic, mesmerizing, and slightly disturbing. As Kris Kelly puts it: “More is a song about the journey for fulfillment and happiness and looking in all the wrong places expecting to find it. We look to pills, sex, drugs, TV, even ‘love’ from our partner, to feel good but none of it ever does in the long term, and it all often makes us feel even more empty in the end. There doesn’t seem to be an end to the search for more and more and more to fill that endless void inside. In More, the narrator has given up on the uncomfortable inward journey of learning to love himself, and instead seeks out any escape. Because why bother when the modern world offers so many ways to numb him from moment to moment, day to day?”
14 | Ghostpoet | Nowhere To Hide Now
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Ghostpoet is pleased to share new track Nowhere To Hide Now, which is taken from his new album I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep, that will be released on May 1. Nowhere to Hide Now is a blast of tense, alt rock driven by Obaro Ejimiwe’s idiosyncratic vocals and rangy, jagged storytelling, fueled by fear, exhaustion and anger. More than simply becoming a purely cerebral exercise however, the end result is visceral and alive, a potent reminder of just how unique and essential a talent Ghostpoet is. The two-time Mercury Prize nominee follows up 2017’s acclaimed Dark Days + Canapés with a record which couldn’t feel more prescient, a dystopian snapshot of the universal unease and anxiety we feel as we enter into this new decade, an uncertain future distilled across these 10 vital tracks.”
15 | Lesser Glow | The Great Imitator
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Atmospheric doom/sludge metal merchants Lesser Glow will release their Nullity full-length May 29. “We wanted to make the record sound more forward and driving, while implementing a lot more movement into the sounds and mixes,” relays guitarist Andrew Nault of the release. “Pull the drums forward. Up the grit a bit more. Give the record more teeth in the heavier moments and more lush space in the melodic and ambient passages. We gave ourselves a lot more time in the studio to track this one diving deeper into tones and choices along the way and leaving time for plenty of experimentation and improvisational passages written in the studio. Overall, our approach was consciously much more immersive this time around.”
16 | Mare Berger | The Moon is Full
THE PRESS RELEASE: “The Moon is Full is about the sudden loss of a loved one, and the pain and the healing that comes. It’s about the process of letting go and also starting a new life cycle of planting seeds. When in the midst of despair we don’t know for sure if the pain will lighten, but we can plant a seed and hope for it. The mantra at the end, “I pray that the seed will grow,” starts off in a moment of blinded pain, and then starts to really expand into a larger awareness. More and more people start to sing and we know that when we are held in our grief by community, we can get through it,” says Mare Berger.“
17 | Luka Kuplowsky | Me For Real
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Luka Kuplowsky is sharing another new track from his upcoming EP of covers from some of Kuplowsky’s deepest influences titled Judee Justin Arthur Mary, out April 24. Me For Real “holds Arthur Russell’s lyrical mantra: Do What I Want,” says Kuplowsky. “Discovering his music in the past 10 years has provided such insight into the freedoms of songwriting. Our tribute is in doing what we want, while retaining Arthur’s impulse to be equally harmonious and disruptive.” For the new EP, Luka Kuplowsky (voice, guitar, harmonica) brought together a cast of some of his most familiar Toronto players including U.S. Girls and Andy Shauf collaborator Evan Cartwright on drums, Thom Gill (Sam Amidon, Bernice) on electric guitar and organ, the incredible jazz player Josh Cole (Sandro Perri, Martha Wainwright), on bass, and Bahamas’ Felicity Williams for backing vocals. Together, they’ve taken these songs and re-imagined what they could look like in a truly collaborative process to extract something new from each composition.”
18 | Jordan Paul | Strange
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Jordan Paul’s style is distinctive, boasting notes of delicate, spacious, exploratory alt. folk/rock—all with a shadowy edge. He has been dubbed “Canada’s Jeff Buckley” by three-time Grammy-winning producer Chris Birkett. Paul’s music has appeared in The Secret Circle, When Paintings Come Alive, Real World, and LaJoie De Vie’s short film Best Budz. Paul’s forthcoming album was recorded at Jon Anderson’s Protection Island Studios in Maple Ridge, BC and mastered by Noah Mintz. “Music is the fabric that weaves a bond between us, lessening the distance we feel from our counterparts.”
19 | One Eyed Jack | Nice Day
THE PRESS RELEASE: “After three years of silence, One Eyed Jack release Nice Day, a psych stoner song. It’s the first single of the band new era and it’s about parallel dimensions, time leaps. There’s not a true narrative in the lyrics, it goes from organ transplantation to betrayal, from reincarnation to desperate love. “Characters are all mixed up as it happens in our daily life, in a variety of planes of existence, apparently unrelated. Nice Day is based on a very simple stoner/grunge riff repeating infinitely, then it all goes in a psychedelic rarefied atmosphere. It’s a rock song, we didn’t want it to sound like a stoner genre cliché and I think it doesn’t.” One Eyed Jack was born in 2014 as a power trio in Brescia, Italy. Taking influence from both the Sub Pop early releases and the post-hardcore scene of the 80’s, One Eyed Jack developed their own sound: raw heavy guitar, solid and loud rhythms supporting surreal lyrics and catchy vocals.”
20 | The Great Palumbo | Let Me Down
THE PRESS RELEASE: “The Great Palumbo started with an American living in Hanoi, Vietnam, writing songs and playing them in small clubs around the Vietnamese capital. After a long wandering journey home, through Burmese jungles and Himalayan mountain passes, he crash-landed in Nashville, where a reliable cast of collaborators began to emerge. Slowly, the project moved from crude iPhone voice memos, to make-shift rehearsal space, to ACTUAL rehearsal space, to small venues, to — finally — the studio. Throughout 2019, when the boys in The Great Palumbo weren’t busy playing shows or releasing music, they were back in the studio, working towards an eventful 2020. February saw the release of their first single of the year, Lover on the Run, followed in April by their sophomore release Let Me Down.”
