PopMatters

“When You’ve Found It Out” is a wandering behemoth of a song, equal parts immense rocker and wispy pop specter. Sara Rachele’s coy, mirthful wail darts in and out of the dusty bass and jagged distortion of her Skintights bandmates, creating an effect both impactful and evanescent. It plays out like a mirage — quick and substanceless, but also impactful and resonant. When the final chorus thuds in with the force of a guillotine, you’ve got nothing left to do but to let the song’s raw power take its course. READ MORE…

 

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Raised on a farm in Missouri but now based in Berlin, Americana singer-songwriter Ian Fisher released his latest album Nero last month. He’s put together a video for his gorgeous and plaintive title track, which you can see below.

“I wrote the song ‘Nero’ on a lonely guest bed in the 16th District of Vienna, Austria, in the autumn of 2009,” he tells PopMatters. It, like myself and the city in which it was written, is drowned in a type of hopeless nostalgia. A type that is aware of its own fickleness, but persists in spite of its futility. My personal brand of nostalgia that found its way into the song comes from two common themes. The first being youth and, more specifically, that slow climb down the side of the fence that separates it from adulthood. The second being the destruction and subsequent reconstruction of the idea of home. I suppose those are two pretty natural themes for a 22-year-old expatriate.

“This is a special video for me. I made it this summer with some old friends in the city where the song was born, Vienna. It could only have been made there and only with those specific people. It was directed by Jakob Kubizek and filmed by Valentin Wanker. The star of the video is the Austrian comedian Hosea Ratschiller. The three of them were some of the first people to hear the song soon after I wrote it back in 2009. After hearing it one time, Hosea had already given the song its current title and Jakob had come up with the concept for the video. Little did we know then that it would be six years before I’d release the track and we’d make the video. Fortunately, the concept aged well with time. I’m proud to watch it now and see just how deeply the actor and director understood the song. It feels like they made it their own and there’s nothing more beautiful than writing a song that is no longer only yours.” WATCH HERE…

Los Angeles rapper F.Y.I. releases his new EP Age / Sex / Location today, and you can hear the track “Hueman” below. Combining clever wordplay with a strong message to listeners that there’s a lot more to individuals than mere black and white. Couple that with a strong, boisterous backing arrangement, and you’ve got yourself a potent track.

“‘Hueman’ sounds like revolution,” he tells PopMatters “It’s raw. It’s rap meets rock, but not in a corny or forced way. Live guitar was fitting on a track like this. It’s an anthem for people that want to express themselves without being boxed in. It’s part of my message over mayhem mantra. All the people that follow my music and like what I represent, I call them “Huemans.” By combining the words ‘hue’ and ‘man’ I’m saying people are colorful, not one dimensional as sometimes presented in in this very black and white world we live in. I ultimately want a rap crew called Huemans which consists of me and like minded rappers and producers. I felt it was appropriate to make a statement song about the idea behind the name and that’s how the concept and song was created. ‘Hueman’ is edgy and energetic, so I’m super charged to see how people will react to it.” LISTEN HERE…

Best known for an aggressive yet melodic style of punk rock similar to that of the Distillers, Chicago queercore band 8 Inch Betsy were on the cusp of a breakthrough thanks to a reputation as a terrific live band and the strong 2007 debut This Time, Last Time, Every Time. Although the follow-up The Mean Days was recorded over the course of several years since 2010, it was never quite completed, and sadly this past January singer/guitarist/songwriter Meghan Galbraith passed away at the age of 35. As a tribute to her, The Mean Days will finally be released posthumously by Knox Records on 13 November, and you can hear the new track “Grotesque” below, a song that was not only a departure from the band’s sound but was never supposed to be on the album in the first place.

On 21 March, 2008, bassist Eli Burke received an email from Galbraith that read, “This one was way fun. I found a vocal filter that makes me sound like a dude. Or dudes. Or robot dudes.  Don’t ask what the song is about, I made most of it up on the spot.” LISTEN HERE…