It’s video roundup time! Once again, Howl And Echoes are coming in hot with the freshest, most eyeball-stimulating music videos to be dropped by the artists you love and some of the artists you don’t know you love yet this week. We do all the dirty work and herd them all into one convenient web-based location for you to enjoy every Friday so that you don’t have to. Have yourself a good old gander at the latest offerings from:
Tiny Little Houses – Milo Tin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjWIakdCWzc
Winning this week’s award for ‘Most Australian Song Title’ is Milo Tin by Melbourne dudes Tiny Little Houses. The track follows up their breakout EP from 2015 You Tore Out My Heart and stands as their first new material for 2016. The 90s rock throwback vibes are large, big jangly riffs coupled with shoegazey vocals, the chorus is one of the catchiest you’ll hear.
The video, co-shot and directed by Tiny Little Houses themselves alongside friend and previous collaborator Daniel Dunn. It sees the band jamming out in the back section of a St. Kilda corner shop, juxtaposed with the many day-to-day trials and tribulations of a beaten down clerk. Singing about keeping your things in Milo tins while you mung down a couple of Mentos and nick a cup of Mi Goreng off the 7-11 shelves? Pure Australia.
Catch Tiny Little Houses on their Milo Tin Tour round Australia in April and May.
BROODS – Free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDsxtBVLyss
Crossing the Tasman next up is the latest single from Auckland duo BROODS. Simply titled Free, the single saw its world premiere over the weekend and is a certified belter. An a capella opening from vocalist Georgia Nott lulls you in before supersonic, pulsating beats from her brother and producer Caleb absolutely bowl you over. The verses burn a long and threatening fuse before the chorus sends you soaring. Free is driving and powerful, another excellent example of some of the new wave of clever pop.
The video visualises the vibe of the song, Nott playing a tormented protagonist stuffed into a virtual reality helmet and forced to experience what must be some fairly strange shit by a pair of smug-looking villains. Her freedom eventually coming via the crashing waves and solitude of the beach.
Touring with Ellie Goulding across the USA in April, BROODS are swiftly on the rise.
Landings – My Bones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbUuH0W4-RY&feature=youtu.be
Heading back to my home for this next one, the debut single from Brisbane trio Landings. The Two Door Cinema Club and Last Dinosaurs vibes are huge, dance-y guitar riffs and a chorus that takes flight, this is a very auspicious debut.
If you’re mired in the doldrums at work and your next holiday is well and truly over the horizon this music video may hurt you. A lot. The three guys recently completed a writing trip across Europe and documented it in all its adventurous glory just to make you feel as bad as possible about your life decisions. Picturesque scenes for a cracker of a song though? Perfect.
This may very well be the beginning of much bigger things for Landings.
Imarhan – Imarhan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YKmRKcYW90&feature=youtu.be
And now to a place that I don’t think has ever been covered by this roundup in Algeria, and quintet Imarhan. Black Sabbath had Black Sabbath on their debut album Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden had Iron Maiden on their debut album Iron Maiden and now Imarhan have Imarhan on their debut album Imarhan.
Their music is described as ‘new wave Tuareg’, the music of the Tuareg people, the principal inhabitants of the Sahara Desert. Classic rock guitar riffs are here coupled with infectious rhythms, the vibe a swirling and psychedelic desert rock number. The video was shot in Imarhan’s hometown of Tamanrasset, Hoggar in South Algeria, full of dust and relentless sunshine and refreshingly depicts a part of the world that wouldn’t even appear on the radar of most Western music fans.
Imarhan is out April 29th on City Slang via Inertia.
Suuns – Brainwash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phDPMLdbxnk&feature=youtu.be
This one is super interesting. The latest single from Montreal electronic rock foursome Suuns have released their latest single (the third as part of a triptych leading up to the release of their third studio effort Hold/Still) titled Brainwash as both a music video and an interactive virtual reality video game.
The track is a slow-burn, a softly strummed electric guitar giving way to huge distorted synth noise, easy listening and starkly confronting all at the same time. The video for it is lo-fi to the point of looking like a glitched out Nintendo 64 game, but the concept is unique and one that more and more artists may look to adopt given the current rise of VR. I don’t have access to a VR headset to actually play the game shown in the video but if you’re lucky enough to (we’ll totally pretend you didn’t buy it for porn) you can download and play it from here.
Hold/Still is out April 15th on Secretly Canadian via Inertia.
Jessy Lanza – It Means I Love You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C216ZRVOM5A
Staying in Canada although this time in Hamilton, Ontario is the new single from songstress Jessy Lanza. She has a brand new single ahead of the release of her sophomore album Oh No this year. Straightforwardly titled It Means I Love You, it’s a unique blend of noise, tropical rhythms behind sharp bursts of synth and frequent pitch changes in her cloud-soft vocals. As more and more layers of noise are added the song gets positively frenetic.
The video is intriguing, shots of Lanza across a dreary background leading to her clad in a shimmering gold robe in a smoky greenhouse full of green and leafy plants. The plants are no coincidence, Lanza having taken to filling her home with them to improve the air quality in the lead-up to Oh No.
Oh No is out May 13th via Hyperdub.
The Dandy Warhols – You Are Killing Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vth5ywXSXJ4
With their 10th (!) studio album Distortland touching down today, perhaps Portland, Oregon’s greatest alt-rock export of the last two decades in The Dandy Warhols have released the music video to accompany their latest single You Are Killing Me.
The tune is a simple chugging rocker guided by some drone-y vocals from frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor. The video stars ‘Warhol superstar’ Joe Dallesandro (you may remember his crotch from the cover of Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones) and is a black and white neo-noir clip featuring Dallesandro as a tortured, whiskey and cigarette fuelled writer whose part gets crashed by a bunch of people in animal costumes (Dandys keyboardist Zia McCabe is the rabbit!). It’s uh… certainly interesting.
Distortland is out now via Dine Alone Records.
Plaitum – Jagwa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-YYdJfHtCE
And wrapping up this week are Colchester multi-instrumental electronic pop noisemaking duo Plaitum and the title track from their just announced EP Jagwa. The ethereal vocals of Abi Dersiley combine beautifully with some absolutely huge production from partner-in-crime Matt Canham, generating an absolute tidal wave of noise that crashes over the chorus and ebbs away in all the right places.
Directed by In/Out, the music video to go with it is as multilayered as the soundscape behind it, vibrant reds and blues coating everything, the subjects of the video floating into darkness. As far as first tastes go, Plaitum’s latest EP is shaping up to be something special.
Jagwa is out May 20th via Wolf Tone/Caroline Australia.
Colchester is a town that lies about 80km outside of London and by the looks of it, it could easily be the set of a British period drama. With claims to be the oldest town in Britain, it’s pretty little alleyways and historical buildings are about as quaint as a postcard. Then, to imagine tucked away in a bedroom studio, noise blaring out and bouncing off the aged brick, a pair of youth making the most darkly intricate electronic walls of sound; it’s the best kind of juxtaposition. And it might be a little bit romantic, but that’s how I picture the sounds of Plaitum coming to life.
We recently posed some question to the childhood friends and duo, Matt Canham and Abi Dersiley, as the waves of chatter continued to build over breakout track LMHY and equally affecting follow up Carousel. At twenty years old, it is little wonder that the pair’s music makes you feel like simultaneously screaming and dancing like you’re in the bedroom of your first share-house.
With heady layers of noise that are deeply introspective but also highly relatable, there is a constant push and pull between the soft and the hard. The soaring voice of Dersiley gives way to her piercing shriek, and it’s so damn good that it should come as no surprise that midas producer Paul Epworth just had to sign them to his label Wolf Tone. With a long list of luminaries on his resume including Adele, Florence and The Machine, Crystal Castles, Lana Del Rey and Glass Animals (to name a very few), the Plaitum moniker joins a golden class.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KKuHOuHLTU]
When asked about the impact Epworth has had on their sound, the pair are glowing about his influence.
“He’s really helped us grow as artists,” Dersiley said, “helping us adapt and perfect our writing techniques. Like listening to particular tracks with fresh ears, pushing the hooks to the foreground and trimming away rough skin.”
According to Canham, he provides guidance as needed: “I produce the tracks but he helps gear them towards completion – looking at the bigger picture of the song and making little structural changes, helping steer us towards a certain “sound” or just helping find the song and tighten up the melodies. He’s also a bit of a guide – if we’re stuck with anything he’s a great place to turn because he has a way of making you think about stuff in a way you haven’t previously. He also helps us make stuff sound really gritty.”
And while the output is just starting to come to light, the union isn’t a new one. Back in 2012 the pair contributed track Geisha to a Kitsune compilation, and soon after started working with Epworth to write new material.
“We were 16 when we wrote Geisha and didn’t really have many other tracks ready so we just spent some time building up some songs and growing up. A bit,” Canham noted.
It was during high school that the creative relationship between the two friends began, and they fill us in on the kinds of music and experiences they first bonded over. Canham recalled, “we were always into the same kind of music, we would always send each other tracks we were into and talk about what we liked in them. We also have a really similar taste in films, so as soon as we started spending time together outside of school we found a way of writing in which we’d put on a film silently and write to that – almost like a live soundtrack. I think this is why a lot of our tracks have such a cinematic sound.”
“We bonded over our love of music and our friendship just grew from then on,” said Dersiley.
Canham also ventured into some of the bands that shaped those early days and might have contributed to their sound in some way.
“We were really into Gorillaz together, before we found a whole host of bands we liked in the “Witch House” movement in 2011, bands like Salem, oOoOO and White Ring all really inspired us and we used to just sit listening to those for hours on end. During an old music exam we finished early and decided to try making something like that – it ended up just being a way to find some sounds, but the next week we made Geisha.”
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/58772442″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=’450′ iframe=”true” /]
The lyrics that overlay the tracks that we have heard to date are rich in emotion with Dersiley noting in previous press releases that LMHY traces the honeymoon period of a relationship and Carousel documents how it feels to be drowning in someone else’s deception. I posed the question of whether the songs are a bit of therapy in a way, and have helped navigate those tumultuous late teen years.
“Most definitely, most the tracks are written about experiences we’ve had. It’s very therapeutic, especially if you’ve been through some nasty stuff. Some tracks are just scary stories based on real life murders, twisted tales and what not,” she replied.
On the collaborative process and how the songs come to life, there is a real sense of oscillation between nurturing each others personal ideas, and creating from shared experience.
“Most often they’re individual ideas that we build the song around. One of us will come to the other with the idea and we’ll spend a few hours fleshing it out and seeing if it goes somewhere – usually it’s me making a beat then Abi adding instruments and vocals to it to flesh it out,” Canham noted.
“We do often start from scratch together though, it’s a much more open way of writing and can lead to some better results, because you both want to get your best ideas down together.”
With only a couple of tracks in the public sphere, there are already big critical comparisons to other artists that populate this dark and moody electronic sphere including Purity Ring and CHVRCHES. Without giving it too much thought, the pair seems to be just taking it in their stride, and doing what feels right to them.
“I don’t feel any different before or after the comparisons, we do our thing they do theirs and all is well in the forest,” Dersiley said.
“I think our “sound” is something I spent a lot of time trying to hone, so it’s nice being compared to those particular artists who’ve done the same thing and have a specific sound and feel to their work, we try and make stuff as dark and heavy as possible, then sharpen everything up in the studio. We always try to do something we – or anyone else for that matter – haven’t done before,” added Canham.
And despite some similarities, there is definitely a sense of something new and fresh in amongst all that grinding bass and those pulsating synths. With the EP left to complete and everyone wondering what’s up next, it looks like we will have to wear these tracks out for a little while longer, with a wait until 2016 for any new additions to the repertoire or live shows.
“We’ll probably head on the road early next year – Christmas isn’t a great time to do the kind of shows we’ll do. We’re planning some more releases for the beginning of next year so we’re pulling those into shape now ready for it, and we’ll probably do shows when they come out,” Canham said.
And according to Dersiley, “We are humbled by the feedback, It’s great that people are vibing off the tracks, so far.”
And vibing we certainly are. We look forward to tracing the trajectory of a duo that are already leaving a trail of light like shooting stars racing across the night sky. It is going to be so exciting to see where they land and paw over their particular brand of darkly majestic stardust.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/233442812″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=’450′ iframe=”true” /]
It’s video roundup time! Once again, Howl And Echoes are coming in hot with the freshest, most eyeball stimulating music videos to be dropped by the artists you love and some of the artists you don’t know you love yet, of this week. We do all the dirty work and herd them all into one convenient web-based location for you to enjoy every Friday so that you don’t have to. Have yourself a good old gander at the latest offerings from:
Fascinator – The Traveller
Johnny Mackay, the artist otherwise known as Fascinator is at it again with the second track off of his much-anticipated debut album Man and its music video. The track is titled The Traveller, and is deliciously off-beat, layers of funk and dream pop punctuated by haunting vocals and regal trumpets befitting of the subject of the video, which is excellent in its simplicity.
It’s a day in the life of your average New York City dwelling, decked in full battle armour knight. Eating his morning serve of Special K, riding the subway to and from New York’s Renaissance Fair (where of course nobody bats an eyelid, because New York) and going medieval on everybody’s ass getting in on all the fun.
Man is due out early 2016 via Spinning Top Records.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7C7-eV0wDs&feature=youtu.be
Manor – Grand Mal
Melbourne duo Manor have been on our watchlist of late. They just last week released a new tune, Grand Mal, and this week released its music video counterpart. The track itself is an odd and spinetingling hybrid of psychedelic and industrial, vocalist Caitlin Duff’s ghostly vocals wrapped up in some jarring instrumentation from Manor’s other half Nathaniel Morse.
The video is a kaleidoscope of colours and shapes interposed with overlapping shots of Duff, it fits the sonic appeal of Grand Mal perfectly. The track is from their upcoming EP, and if this and previous single Can You Hear Me Talking At You are anything to go by it should be a solid bedrock of a debut release upon which the duo can build bigger things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVcsnnhAviM&feature=youtu.be
Daughter – Numbers
London-based trio Daughter have an album of their own due out in the waking light of 2016, their sophomore LP Not To Disappear. They’re getting all kinds of ambitious with it as well, this week releasing the second installment in a cinematic trilogy they’ve commissioned for the album. The first was Doing The Right Thing earlier in the year and now we have a sequel in Numbers.
The tune kicks off with some minimalistic instrumentation surrounding the gorgeous vocals of frontwoman Elena Tonra before taking flight via the aid of an unrelenting drumbeat that dances around some nifty low-key guitars, and from there it doesn’t touch the ground again. The kind of song made for late nights and loneliness, Daughter do a wonderful job of bringing the listener all but to their knees. The journey of the woman in red around a neon-drenched after dark urban wonderland is beautifully shot and only enhances a wonderful song.
Not To Disappear is out January 15th, 2016 via 4AD/Remote Control Records.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-fD3PIRSO8
Tindersticks – Lucinda
Nottingham rockers Tindersticks have been plugging away for more than two decades, putting out ten albums in total so far and just a few months shy of releasing their 11th, The Waiting Room, in January of next year. It’s set to be an ambitious record both sonically and visually, with each song to be accompanied by a short film.
Hey Lucinda is one of those songs and it’s absolutely bone-chilling in both sound and context. It’s a duet between Tindersticks frontman Stuart Staples and Lhasa De Sela, a friend of his who tragically lost her life after recording the track. It burns slowly and builds beautifully throughout, the video a dusky wander through the seen-better-days nightlife of an English town.
The Waiting Room is out January 22nd, 2016 via Inertia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxZS7uXSvEU
Plaitum – LMHY
Another London-based act, this time a duo, is Plaitum. They’re another one we’ve had our eye on for quite a while and their latest single and video for LMHY, from their forthcoming and eponymous debut EP, are keeping them glued firmly there. It’s electro-pop gone through a grimy shredder, urgent vocals that alternate between ethereal and screaming, twisting and writhing around stark and shuddering synths and off-kilter trap beats.
The video is a mesmerising lo-fi light show, shots of the duo filtered through all manner of clashing greens and oranges that arrests your eyes as much as the sound does your ears.
Plaitum is out December 4th via Wolf Tone/Caroline Australia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KKuHOuHLTU
Here We Go Magic – Be Small
Brooklyn indie rock trio Here We Go Magic recently released their newest LP Be Small, their first since 2012s A Different Ship. Critically acclaimed as an album, the band have since released the eponymous first single from it as well as a video to go with it.
I loved it, a contemporary grim reaper who wears uh… sandals and wheels around a suitcase along with the traditional tattered black robes and hood, wandering around the pedestrian parks and streets of Hudson New York like it ain’t a thing.
Be Small is out now via Secretly Canadian on Inertia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Ab4_3OgWM&feature=youtu.be
Ivan Ooze – Fire
Ivan Ooze, apart from sharing the name of that evil purple motherfucker who brainwashed all the parents in the Power Rangers movie, is a Melbourne MC who continues to drop jaws everywhere. His latest single is FIRE, both in title and in general sonic terms.
The video is awash with scuzz and sleaze, featuring burning dictionaries, tables, laptops, spliffs (you name it, he’ll burn it) and an array of 0ther pyrotechnics around an orange-jumpsuited Ooze, whose snarling machine gun flow never once hints at relenting. The production is fittingly industrial and stomps along wonderfully as Ooze shrieks over the chorus ‘I bring the fuckin’ fire’ (pronounced ‘fiyahhh’ of course).
Not your conventional Aussie hip hop by any means, refreshingly bizarre and masterfully crafted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2zdtDj2AAE&app=desktop
Elizabeth Rose – Shoulda Coulda Woulda
I’m not someone who thoroughly enjoys pop music usually, but Sydney songstress Elizabeth Rose has really captured me with latest single Shoulda Coulda Woulda. Co-produced by M-Phazes, the track has been spun like a spiderweb on Australian airwaves since its release, hypnotic and warped synths the driving force behind Rose’s sugary (but never saccharine) pop voice.
That’s what ensnared me, the sound is sonically pleasing pop but not in the traditional sense. Everything about the track, the lyricism and the production in particular, are highly intelligent and deftly-crafted. The video is mesmerising too, featuring Rose trapped in a 360 degree mirror room, alternating neon lights and rhythmic dancing all but chokeholding the attention of your eyeballs.
The track is from her upcoming debut LP Intra, all indications thus far suggesting Australia has produced yet another wonderfully talented pop artist in Elizabeth Rose.
Intra is out March 4th via Midnight Feature/Inertia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HhL0V_EnRE
MS MR – Criminals
Heading back to the Big Apple for the next video, we’ve got the latest from much-acclaimed duo MS MR. Their latest offering is for single Criminals. It’s nothing short of infectious, each verse guided along by the heavenly vocals of singer Lizzy Plapinger until the driving chorus drops in and grabs you by the collar. The production from the MR of MS MR, Max Hershenow, is nothing short of stellar. Criminals is multi-layered dream pop with lashings of darkness and its thumping chorus will have you hitting the repeat button to no end.
The video landing with it is a neon dream, directed by Charlotte Rutherford, who has previously worked with artists like Charlie XCX and Marina And The Diamonds. Like the song it visualises, the video is full of glitzy neon lights but with a shadowy vibe throughout. Watch it and be enthralled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1jI774ZWF8
Polish Club – Beeping
Having dropped their debut EP just last month and winning over damn near everyone, Sydney power-duo Polish Club are set for a massive breakout very soon. Their raucous old time rock and roll sound, driven by the raw and guttural vocals of frontman Novak that are damn near inimitable, is catchier than the clap and few new releases from an Australian band have grabbed me the way theirs did.
Beeping, their third single from their eponymous debut, was one of those tracks. Two and a half minutes of raw, foot-tapping rock and roll straight out of the garage. The video is lo-fi renaissance art in itself, made using a fucking photocopier. I don’t even want to know how many hours this took to put together, just watch and appreciate and tell everybody you got on the bandwagon while there were still seats.
Polish Club is out now via MGM Distribution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-iy8ns0CLg