Tag: interview

PREMIERE: Lesley Barth Shares Fish-out-of-Water Anthem “Nashville”

Photo Credit: Harish Pathak

“I’m not ready for the big time, baby,” sings indie-folk artist Lesley Barth on “Lower East Side,” the opening track of her forthcoming sophomore album, Big Time Baby. Having co-produced the album with Joe Michelini from the band American Trappist, the follow-up to Barth’s 2017 debut LP Green Hearts may prove otherwise when it arrives May 15th. The album explores themes of vulnerability and isolation, and details different paths for rebuilding your life and unmasking your true self along the way. We are excited to premiere her second single off the album, “Nashville,” exclusively on Audiofemme.

“It was empowering to find out what the songs require, and have much more of a hand in the vision of the songs this time around,” Barth says, when I ask what it was like to help produce the album. As we talked, her husband and fellow musician Chuck Ramsey is playing music on the other side of their New York apartment, where they’ve lived for the past nine years. They met when they both lived in Philadelphia and were teaching music lessons, which Lesley still does, although virtually these days. “There’s an energy and hustle to New York that we love – it’s easy to be a creative person here. People take you seriously.”

Her first seven years in New York were spent at a corporate job, relying on its predictability and stability while also trying to fit writing and playing music into her schedule. Struggling to balance full-time work and creative side projects led her to reconsider if she was “in a place where I needed to be.” Barth had a weighty decision she needed to make, and didn’t really “have a plan at all” other than wanting to move toward music as her full-time career path. She was facing the great fear that tries to prevent anyone from changing, and yet she was able to boldly follow a sink-or-swim mentality: “If you build yourself a boat, you’re going to go back to the mainland. But if you don’t build the boat, you’ll figure it out on the island.” Trading an office for a stage has paid off for her, as she’s built up her audience in an incremental fashion. Her connection with her listeners has grown in many ways in the past few years, including through her Patreon community, where she has shared original songs and offered monthly virtual concerts since 2017.

One of the unique ways she challenged herself during this transitional time in her career was to write thirty songs in thirty days to celebrate her thirtieth birthday. “Nashville” was one of the songs that survived the experiment, and became one of her favorites to play live. The narrative is based on a guy her husband had played music with in New York, who was “playing cover guitar at this late night bar/with his drawl and his cowboy hat” – longing to play country songs, but not quite bold enough to express his true self in a noisy East-coast bar. “He bought a leather jacket to try and blend in/but his steel-toed boots and sadness gave him up,” Barth continues, as the song complements this tension by moving from finger-picked acoustic guitar into a more full-band sound with synthy drums and strings. As Barth spent more time with this song, she realized that its narrative also applied to herself, and how out of place she felt in the corporate world. It helped her to make that final leap into the unknown experience of being her own boss.

Barth released her first single from Big Time Baby, “Woman Looking Back at Me,” a few weeks ago, which also delves into the search for an authentic self-image, but through a lulling, jangly disco beat. She wrote this after “trying to detach a bit from my inner critic and figure out who is living rent-free in my head.” Especially during this strange time, with the external world quieted down, many of us have been compelled to examine the internal, less pretty parts of ourselves. It can be disorienting to deal with all of our fractured selves while also just trying to exist. Barth encourages us to approach this task through a mode of curiosity rather than judgment: “And I’ve looked at this square so long/just thinking it’s a triangle/And I’ve looked at my face so long/craning my neck for the right angle/But who is the woman looking back/at the woman looking back at me?”

The album as a whole explores what it means to be vulnerable, to take emotional and vocational risks, and to trust yourself to be able to deal with the uncertainty and hurt that comes from living in an imperfect world. Barth’s strong, clear voice shines through, mostly showcased by sparse, jazzy instrumentation. “If love doesn’t change you/then loneliness will” she sings midway through the album, before moving on in “Making Decisions” to propose that loving someone is the ultimate proof that free will exists, that you have to choose it every day. And that having the stability of being partnered with someone who also makes that choice can help sustain you when the rest of your choices seem scary or painful.

These songs are mostly monologues, but transition into a duet with Ramsey in the energetic pop song “Preacher,” which Barth says was the last song they recorded in the studio. It definitely has a celebratory feel, which may seem strange for a break-up song, where both sides of the story examine their infatuation with each other, then merge their nostalgic thoughts in the chorus to see if they match up. “Thought I saw you yesterday/but it was just some guy preaching on the train/interrupting the peace of weary commuters” vividly describes the way you can see a glint of something in any stranger’s face that reminds you of a person you’ve lost, even if it’s a version of that person that only exists in your mind.

Like most musicians right now, Barth has had to re-calibrate the way she operates, most likely having to cancel the summer tour for this album, as well as an album release show she’d planned. When I asked how she’s coping with this new altered reality, she says, “It’s like watching a natural disaster in slow motion. And there’s no time or space to grieve, because people normally grieve by coming together. But I’ve been listening to a lot of my friends’ music, it helps me feel close to them.” She said this transition to solely playing music online “has been super strange, and will probably only get stranger” in the days ahead, but that she’s been brainstorming creative solutions in looking for ways to celebrate her accomplishments anyway.

This positive mindset ties in to the album closer, “Something Good,” which she says “empowers us to allow ourselves to feel good and to make good choices even within a tough situation.” It challenges us to take a chance and, instead of wallowing in our flaws, to choose to focus on happiness instead. It can be a lot easier to give others advice to be patient with themselves than to follow that advice in your own life, but the song encourages us not to lose hope and to honor each milestone crossed along the way.

“It feels weird releasing music right now, but it would feel weird doing anything. So it also feels nice to have something to offer up to people,” Barth says. As she began to share singles from album, Barth says she realized that “perfectionism is irrelevant. It’s also impossible right now – there’s no rulebook anymore. We’re all creating our own rules.” All the characters and versions of self in the album seem to agree, and they give us directions about how we might navigate the unknown days ahead in a gentler headspace.

Follow Lesley Barth on Facebook for ongoing updates.

Devil Doll Premieres “Back Home to Me” on the Eve of LP Release

Photo Credit: Tim Sutton

In January 2018, Colleen Duffy, front-woman of L.A.-based rockabilly band Devil Doll, emerged from a four-year health-related hiatus to announce a crowdfunding campaign for her third album. That album, Lover and a Fighter, has now been completed and comes out May 1.

Much of the album was inspired by Duffy’s journey with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, lead and mercury poisoning, and black mold toxicity, which led her to wake up paralyzed one morning and even reach the point where it was possible she could die. “I was writing out my will, and it just really kind of puts things in perspective as far as what is important to you. A pre-death-bed clarity,” she says. This experience inspired songs such as the slow jam “Mother Mary,” which she describes as her “Amazing Grace.”

The title Lover and a Fighter was intended to convey the same duality of light and dark as the name Devil Doll, plus the “fighter” mentality that got Duffy through her illness and other hardships in her life. “Just by being born, by coming into this planet, we have thousands of years of energetic imprinting and DNA that we’re walking into,” she says. “I just choose to embrace everything about myself, whether it’s pretty or not. That’s where the empowerment comes in.”

On her latest single off the album, “Back Home to Me,” she wistfully sings about pining for an absent lover: “The time, it ticks so slow/Wonderin’ if the wind will blow/You back home to me.” Musically, she considers it a nod to Otis Redding and Sam Cooke.

The theatrical track, like many of her songs, was inspired by her own life but became more about a common human experience. “I tried to dip into that whole collective unconscious to go with the bigger picture, so sometimes, I start a song that may be instigated by a situation, but then I sort of relax into the whole dynamic that’s happening and try to go archetypal,” she says. “Most people have had that experience of being left or being invested in something and that relationship ending, and there’s that moment where we go, ‘The sky is falling and life will never be the same again.’ It’s one of those ‘come to God’ and ‘dark night of the soul’ moments.”

The album also contains several covers, including a rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man” with dueling guitar and fiddle. “That song has been a spiritual magnetic north for me,” Duffy explains. “It is healing how many times that song has come into my life out of nowhere. There were times I would listen to that song over and over again when I didn’t know if I was going to die or not. So, that was kind of my gratitude toward that song, putting it on the record.”

Duffy also tries to combat female shame in her music, like her unapologetic ode to having casual sex, “One Night Stand,” which also appears on Lover and a Fighter. “We have so many sides to the female psyche,” she says. “Some have been hidden in a dark box. Some have been embraced more than others. Let’s just dump out the boxes, unrope them from the stakes they were going to get burned at, and celebrate who we are without apology.”

Duffy is currently working on several books about her life and health journey, as well as some abstract artwork that she plans to show within the next few years. She’s also creating new songs that she hopes speak to and uplift her fans, as her music has in the past.

“There’s something very magical that comes through in the writing,” she says. “Sometimes, I feel like I can’t even take credit for the songs because I feel like they write themselves, and the songs take on this power, this life force all of their own, and people connect with them. It’s like it carries them. I feel like it’s in cooperation for something greater than myself.”

Follow Devil Doll on Facebook for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: Deau Eyes Details Latest Plans For Visual Album Debut With “Full Proof” Video

Photo Credit: Joel Arbaje

Ali Thibodeau had a moment of clarity the day of her grandmother’s funeral. She and her brother Michael had been drinking margaritas all day to cope with the loss. On top of everything, Ali was still reeling from the cancellation of SXSW; her musical project Deau Eyes was about to head from Richmond, Virginia to Austin for the event, along with a few more tour dates to celebrate the release of her debut on EggHunt Records, Let It Leave. Sidelined by the impending pandemic and mourning all at once, she turned to her brother and said, “I’m gonna make a full video album.” The two spent the rest of the day coming up with ideas they could execute as the quarantine descended, like flying an enormous paper airplane off a hill. “We’re just doing these kind of outrageous, giant crafts that we don’t really know how to do, but we’re making it work and it’s turning out to be one of the truest-to-vision pieces I’ve ever done,” Thibodeau says. “Without that, I have no idea how I would cope with any of this at all.”

One of those videos, premiering today on Audiofemme, is for a song called “Full Proof,” one of the grungier cuts on Let It Leave, with jagged guitars and confrontational vocals that range from bourbon-sweet falsetto to hungover growl. There’s an latent rage to the song, which Thibodeau wrote while processing the sadness, frustration, and anger of bitter heartache. “It’s like the stages of grief, you know?” Thibodeau remembers. “I’ve kind of been feeling that in this time as well – it’s funny how songs transcend different time frames in your life. They just keep becoming more and more alive and carrying so many different stories.”

For the visual, which perfectly recalls the angsty aesthetic of ’90s MTV with its cross fades and chaos, Thibodeau started collecting free stuff from Facebook Marketplace that she could basically destroy: and oven, a television, a re-painted piñata. At one point she even smashes a guitar – while her brother, an actor and playwright whose love of film, Ali says, made him a natural director, filmed it all. It feels spontaneous, but even Thibodeau’s outfit was fully-thought-out symbolism.

“Writing for me has always been a tool in transitional periods in my life,” Thibodeau says. “‘Full Proof’ was written at a time when I was feeling like I was starting to become a fuller version of myself, like this phoenix.” Toxic people in her life once made her feel small, but “aggravated the beast” in the process – so that’s what Thibodeau becomes in the video, mixed with a little of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’.” “I wanted to represent that, so I just like, made more denim fringe and put it on the back of my jacket, and teased up my hair, and my makeup’s gonna be more dramatic and I’m gonna be a little bit madder.”

The costuming goes deeper, too, than simply representing Thibodeau’s metamorphosis. “There’s lots of Easter Eggs throughout these videos,” she hints, noting that the words bedazzled on her t-shirt are actually lyrics from “Paper Stickers,” another song that will appear on Let It Leave. It’s all meant to tie the videos together thematically, even if the songs on album rarely remain faithful to a single genre. “Parallel Time” is a wistful acoustic ballad about appreciating lingering memories, no matter how painful; “Dear Young Love” builds to ecstatic pop rock, and will get a one-take dance-oriented video; “Some Do,” boasts a twangy swagger that Thibodeau picked up while singing country music covers on a cruise ship somewhere between Alabama and Mexico.

It was in unlikely places like this that Thibodeau found her voice over and over again – from writing diaristic songs as a form of therapy in her bedroom as a teenager – ones she never wanted anyone to hear and says she “forgot about” as soon as she finished singing them – to busking in the New York City subways when musical theater auditions proved to be soul crushing. As formative as these experiences were, it was three important lifelong friendships that would become instrumental in bringing her solo debut to fruition, once she returned to Richmond: Jacob Blizard and Collin Pastore — known for their work on Illuminati Hotties’ Kiss Yr Frenemies and Lucy Dacus’ No Burden and Historian — came on as producers and helped her complete the tracks that would complete Let It Leave, while Dacus herself encouraged Thibodeau every step of the way.

“We grew up together and she was kind of the person that I would play my songs for, if I ever played them for anybody. She was like the only other person that I knew that wrote songs,” Thibodeau says of Dacus, who had signed to Matador just as Thibodeau was contemplating her next move. “Every time I’d get coffee with her she would always just be like ‘I think it’s time you moved back.’ Finally, after like four or five visits back home, I decided to, and I’m so glad that I did because I’ve been submerged into this incredible, loving, accepting community that’s so generous. That’s kind of where I started to really build these songs.” When it came time to finish the record, Dacus, Blizard, and Pastore encouraged Thibodeau to come on a weekend trip to Nashville to record at Trace Horse Studio. “That’s when everything changed,” Thibodeau says. “That was two and a half years ago. I feel like my whole life since then has been completely about this record coming out. It’s wild. I’m so grateful for them, and it’s just really serendipitous that we’re all kind of on the same path and in the same place at the same time. It’s really beautiful.”

Of course, it’s unbelievably disheartening to spend two years leading up to a debut release, only to have it thwarted by an unexpected quarantine. But Thibodeau admits she was “starved for this time to just live and be myself and make the thing I need to make,” though she admits she feels guilt that others are suffering, and has, of course, been grieving herself. But creating the visual element of the album has given these songs a new life, since touring behind the album is unlikely to happen. Thibodeau says she’s in “no rush” to get back on the road and “sleep in people’s basements,” and instead will likely focus on putting out the album and a half’s worth of material she’s written since recording Let It Leave – after she releases some eight more videos for each of its tracks, that is.

Moving on to the next thing, like a shark that has to keep swimming, is in Thibodeau’s blood. Moreso than any one genre, that idea ties Let It Leave together. “This album as a whole, if I could pick one word as a theme, it’s resilience,” Thibodeau says. “I think it’s just [about] knowing that the only thing we can really count on in this life is change, and knowing that we’re gonna be okay through it all, no matter what’s happening, even if it’s heartbreaking.”

Follow Deau Eyes on Facebook for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: Weiwu “Ya Wei”

Vishnu Dass, aka Michael Gungor

Names are a strange thing. As a musician, a band name can become a costume of sorts, something you put on, but ultimately disregard as a caricature of yourself. It can become something one fights with their label about, a la Prince, or something one must ultimately shed completely. Vishnu Dass, fka Michael Gungor, knows all about labels. As one half the formerly Christian husband-and-wife alternative band Gungor, a quick Google of his name reveals incendiary articles on his faith, Twitter spats among fans, and some of his recent, more revealing projects like his existential podcast Loving THIS with Michael Gungor.

After Gungor’s farewell outing in 2019, dubbed “The End of the World Tour,” it was time to make new music with a new name altogether. He had adopted the name Vishnu Dass (meaning “servant of the creator”) in 2017 – it was given to him by the spiritual leader Ram Dass, aka Richard Alpert, author of 1971’s hippie manifesto Be Here Now. He detailed this choice on an episode of The Liturgists, a podcast he co-founded in 2014 with Mike McHargue, aka Science Mike, in order to explore “where faith, science, and art collide.” That name change signified a letting go, a release from the drama and pain of the past. A name that would lead him into a new future.

Now, Vishnu Dass has a new solo project he’s calling Weiwu, and it has been a long time coming. It is the culmination of a spiritual journey that started during a 2010 meditation retreat in Assisi, Italy, as Michael was struggling with his belief in God – which was a huge problem, considering he was, at that time, in a multiple Grammy-nominated Christian band with his wife Lisa.

“I was in spiritual crisis. I just needed to get away, figure out what was happening. Get my life back in some sort of manageable state,” Vishnu Dass says of that time. “I was questioning the existence of God a lot. I was questioning Christianity. What is true, what is not. Is there a God? What is God if God is real? I was meditating all the time and had this feeling or realization, this opening up – whatever we call God is just what is. I just remember writing in my journal: God is. Infinity is infinite. There is no parsing it out or dividing it.”

His revelation in the moment led to him dancing joyously in the fields in Assisi, finally at peace within himself. That peace, however, didn’t last long once he returned home. He chased that feeling of oneness, exhausting himself for years. It wasn’t until he fully let go of his obsession, that he came back to spirituality with a new sense of purpose. The name change, the podcast, and everything that came after – including a 2019 book he wrote titled THIS: Becoming Free, that details how he climbed out of the proverbial cave to meet the divine on his own terms – was a direct result of that reckoning of faith. Weiwu represents the next part of that journey.

Meaning “action that is not action,” Weiwu is a Taoist concept that Vishnu Dass utilized within the writing process of his upcoming album. He wrote the entire album in a “flow state,” resisting the urge to edit and forcing himself to stop and delete anything that was not created within flow. This may be the first music Vishnu Dass has written entirely by himself and for himself, a concept we spoke about in depth. In his band Gungor, the music was written, if not directly to God, most definitely for God, or as a way for the audience to praise or experience God. In this new work, Vishnu Dass has allowed himself to fully participate in all aspects of creation, from writing in flow to sound mixing the final edit. “When I take myself out of the equation, it’s not actually being selfless. It’s just being unconscious,” he says. The album is a mix of meditation and dance, meant to be listened to in one sitting, with the sound turned up.

“My friend Hillary McBride turned me onto this thing called Five Rhythms Dance,” Vishnu Dass explains. “Gabrielle Roth came up with this kind of philosophy, ways of moving your body through the world. Those five ways are flow, staccato, chaos, miracle, and stillness. I want this music to move my body in these ways. Get the music out of my head and into my body.”

The video for “Ya Wei” is a series of visuals, one form leading to the next in a seamless loop. It’s a mix of spiritual imagery with science, reiterating the themes Vishnu Dass has championed throughout his career. The song itself has many of the elements that Gungor was known for: the wall of sound technique, multiple layered voices rising to crescendo. Yet many of the instruments and music patterns in this latest work are drawn from other cultures, and move beyond the evangelical background that informed Gungor. It’s a promising new direction for a musician who has spent the majority of his career in service to religion. The themes remain mystical, but the statements of past songs are turned into questions.

Vishnu Dass, aka Michael Gungor, aka Weiwu, has a sense of humor when it comes to his journey as a musician. He doesn’t flinch from conflict or shy away from a difficult conversation. In the end, his new identity has given him the strength to be honest, the joy to create, and the wonder to approach every day with fresh eyes.

Follow Weiwu on Facebook for ongoing updates. 

PLAYING SEATTLE: Tomo Nakayama Finds Rebirth in Dream Pop with “Melonday”

For more than a decade, songwriter Tomo Nakayama has been a staple of the Seattle music scene—first as leader of the eight-piece chamber pop group Grand Hallway, and more recently as a solo artist known for his tender and nuanced indie folk.

But, after a prolonged period of feeling uninspired over the last couple years, Nakayama decided it was time he shake things up a bit for himself and his listeners. The result is the the newly-released, revelatory pop album, Melonday, his first collaboration with childhood friend Yuuki Matthews of The Shins, and a significant stylistic pivot for Nakayama, emphasizing simmering synth loops and a glossy dream-pop vibe a la Beach House, Matt & Kim, and Wild Nothing.

Beyond achieving a different sonic quality than albums past, the 8-track Melonday has an undeniable sense of  renewal and celebration about it—as Nakayama rediscovers inspiration, emotional truth, spontaneity and lightness through the songwriting process. By sheer coincidence of timing, this also lends Melonday a tremendous resonance and the ability to uplift a shaken world during the current pandemic.

In short, Melonday comes just in time.

Nakayama took some time to speak with Audiofemme about the personal impact of his new sonic direction, his childhood friendship with Yuuki Matthews, and the unexpected gift of releasing this album during the pandemic.

AF: The new album is definitely a diversion from the pared-down folk songwriting you typically do, and I’m wondering what inspired you to go a new direction? 

TN: I think ever since I stopped playing and touring with Grand Hallway, which was a big eight-piece band, I’ve been scaling things down musically and focusing on becoming a better solo performer. But at a certain point that approach peaked, and I could feel myself becoming complacent and uninspired. At the same time I was listening to a lot of pop music for my side job scoring music for TV and commercials, and while I loved a lot of the production and textures I was hearing, I noticed a lot of modern songwriting leaning more and more on linear, loop based structures that have no discernible hook or personality, which was very different from the new wave/dance pop music I loved growing up. So I wanted to take what I learned over the years as a songwriter and apply it to this genre, to see what I could add to the conversation and make it more interesting.

AF: I read that you were feeling a creative block. Do you remember the moment you finally felt “unblocked”? Can you describe it and where you were in the making of the new album?

TN: It was when I decided to put vocals over the instrumental for “Get to Know You,” which is the first song on the album and the first song we recorded. I improvised the melody and the words on the spot, and the whole thing more or less kind of tumbled out in one take. I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d made or what I was going to do with it, but I just knew that I really liked listening to it. So we kept going from there.

AF: Once you figured out your new direction, did you have some artists you were using as key inspirations to this new sound?

TN: Honestly, I didn’t really have a specific sound or artist in mind. I think my brain just kind of categorizes anything with a synth and drum machine as “pop,” so I was just accessing the general feeling that that music evokes in my head. Like, the feeling of singing karaoke with my friends, how the melody and structure just flows so joyfully and effortlessly. And all my favorite pop singers tend to be women – Robyn, Björk, Taylor Swift, Whitney Houston, Cyndi Lauper – so lyrically, I found myself approaching it from a more feminine perspective, more emotionally expressive and more willing to be vulnerable, maybe. 

AF: Tell me about your relationship with Yuuki Matthews. How did you meet and what did he bring to this new album that was vital to the final product?

TN: I’ve known Yuuki for years. We actually went to the same middle school together and grew up going to the same all ages punk shows on the east side. I’d followed his work closely, playing with Pedro the Lion and Sufjan Stevens, to his current gig playing and producing The Shins, but we’d never collaborated until he helped me mix my first solo album Fog on the Lens. We really hit it off right away, I think because we’re both self-taught, have similar backgrounds being Asian American suburban kids playing indie rock, and we have a similar DIY approach to recording and writing. He’d also been working closely with Richard Swift during this time in their project Teardrops, so I feel like a lot of his intuitive production techniques and anything goes approach to music rubbed off on our project by osmosis. Yuuki helped me shape these songs and really level it up to a whole new realm. He really encouraged me to keep working on this thing, not just as a genre experiment or songwriting exercise but to embrace it fully and make it part of my musical identity. On a deeper level the recording process was also kind of a therapy for both of us because we were both going through intense experiences of grief and loss. Each day we’d work for a few hours and then go get lunch and talk about our families and friends and being a musician and balancing that with our personal lives. 

AF: What’s the story or meaning behind the title, Melonday? 

TN: I’d initially toyed around with releasing this under a different name, and Melonday was going to be the name of our band. But starting a band from scratch is a super difficult thing to do these days, and all the advice I got from people at labels and other musicians encouraged me to release it under my own name. I was thinking specifically of the Japanese custom of gifting melons, which are sold at gift shops in these really fancy boxes for like $200 or more. The idea of taking an ordinary, organic object like a melon and dressing it up differently and thus changing its perceived value made me laugh, and I thought it was kind of fitting for a pop record. I also just really liked how the word looks and sounds kind of like “melody” or “Monday” – it’s simple and evocative.

AF: I know you’re going through a personal hardship right now, and like much of your music, I sense that this album was vital to finally coming to terms with it. Would you say that’s true? Does playing and writing music typically help you process the hard stuff?

TN: I often say the songwriter is the last one to understand what a song is really about. The interesting challenge I found with these upbeat, highly rhythmic songs is that there are a lot of syllables you have to fill, so I found myself writing without analyzing the words. And doing that kind of freewriting led to a lot of conflicting, contradictory emotions that I’d normally have edited or smoothed out. And this process ended up tapping into my subconscious and revealing a lot of feelings I’d suppressed in my personal life. It’s like that scene in Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon looks at a painting that Robin Williams has hanging in his office, and the therapist says “It’s paint by numbers,” and Will replies “Yeah? Is it also color by numbers?” and immediately identifies the torment in the guy’s life from his color palette. Art is such an interesting, revealing thing. It never lies.

AF: This album is so many things, but it is also unabashedly poppy and exceedingly radio-friendly. I love that aspect of the album, but I also know some artists look at “pop” as a dirty word. Was there a worry for you in going in more a pop music direction?

TN: One thing I knew going in was that I didn’t want to approach the “pop” genre cynically or from an ironic distance. If I’m going to do something I’m gonna fully embrace it and go all the way, which I think we did with this album. I did worry a bit about alienating my fans, the people who liked the quiet acoustic songs (which I still love as well). To me, this album isn’t a cash grab or a calculated ploy for a bigger audience. I did it because it was fun and exciting to me. Mostly I didn’t want to disappoint anybody or let them down. But I knew this is just where my heart was at this specific moment in time, and I couldn’t stomach the idea of creating something else just for the sake of pleasing someone else’s idea of who I am. At the end of the day, you really have no control about how your work is perceived or received anyway. My only duty as an artist is to be honest, and do what interests and inspires me, you know what I mean? And so far the reception has been super positive, which makes me very happy!

AF: Did you record this yourself? It’s so well-engineered.

TN: Yes, I did all of the initial tracking at home on Logic using their basic plugins. I used a drum machine app on my iPhone for all the beats. Yuuki transferred those files onto ProTools and then we overdubbed a bunch of parts at his house. Sometimes he would just listen to the ideas of the song and then strip it down to just the vocals, and we’d rearrange and replace all of my instruments, chop up the beats and form a whole new backing track. “Free to Go,” for instance, originally had more of a Hall and Oates sort of bounce, and Yuuki broke it down into this slower half-time groove, making it more of a hip hop beat. It was a super fun, easy process of collaboration. 

AF: What has it been like to release a new album during the pandemic? Have you been required to get more creative in how you promote it? I see you doing lots of small, FB live performances and you’ve got a virtual release show with Night Tapes coming. Tell me about those, too?

TN: Obviously it wasn’t my dream to release a dance album in the middle of a global pandemic, but in a way it has been a sort of blessing. I’m glad I’ve had something I could share with people that could help raise their spirits. I had an “album release show” at my house a couple weeks ago when the album came out and it was really cool to see so many people watching at the same time and chatting with each other. It really did feel like a communal event. I think it’s super important to stay physically active while we’re sheltered at home, so I’m hoping this music can be a soundtrack for people’s home dance parties. I’ll be playing a few other livestream events in the coming weeks, which people can follow on my Facebook and Instagram. The 4/30 show with Night Tapes was the original album release show at the Sunset that we had planned. It has been postponed indefinitely.

AF: The reception to this new album has been really great so far—#1 on KEXP, etc. How does that feel? Validating? Confusing? 

TN: A lot of the songs on the album are about finding true human connections in the modern world, and I think the current state has put a new context to that message, and I’m glad to see it seems to be resonating with so many people. KEXP and The End and other local stations and publications and all my friends and family have all been super supportive. I’ve been blown away by the love, and I am super grateful to them. It feels amazing and also not quite real because I haven’t been able to perform these songs live in front of people. I can’t wait until we can do that again. 

AF: What are some goals for yourself in the next year or so?

TN: My immediate goal is to stay healthy as I can and make sure my parents and family are healthy as well. That’s the only thing that matters to me at this point. Obviously it’s going to take a while for everyone to recover from this, and I want to do whatever I can help out in my community. Other than that, I’m just going to keep making music and going wherever my heart takes me. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Follow Tomo Nakayama on Facebook for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: Zoë Moss Claps Back at Music Industry Sexism with “The Operator”

“You move with a motive / But you can’t have control / Miss me if you don’t got a check / Don’t got time for you or your lack of respect,” grunge-pop artist Zoë Moss sings in her debut single, “The Operator.” The song appears on her debut EP, Stories, which comes out later this year, and serves as Moss’s reclamation of the sexism she’s experienced while working in the music industry.

“My household growing up was very agendered — we didn’t really think about gender roles in a traditional sense — so when I got into the world, I was a young, driven person getting into the music industry,” she recalls. “I had a rude awakening to the fact that the first thing society sees about me is that I’m a feminine female. The connotations of that are things I’ve been pushing and pulling with.”

Moss is inspired by artists like Madonna and Prince who presented themselves in both feminine and masculine ways. “The Operator” in particular is about her taking up space and having pride in who she is, especially when someone’s trying to bring her down. “When I am put in a box, I always want to push myself to find a way to surprise the listener, so that’s a bit of how I came into writing ‘The Operator,'” she says.

Another song on the EP, “The Mood,” is about the subtle sexism Moss experienced during a meeting with a publisher. “I thought he was understanding me and getting my perspective,” she remembers. “Then my manager had a followup meeting with him, and the only feedback he had was, ‘She needed to be more excited. She wasn’t excited enough.'”

Moss describes Stories as “a memoir of seven songs” with an overarching theme around gender and sexuality; she sings about love, heartbreak, and being pansexual. “All of these things explore human connection and the lifestyle of a songwriter or an artist in Brookyn,” she says.

As a songwriter, Moss has written for artists including Andy Grammer and Tate Mcrae. In addition, she sang on three songs from Grace VanderWaal’s last album. She found herself among very few female songwriters — one study found that only around 12 percent of songwriters were female from 2012-2018 — something that she hopes to see change, not just for women but for LBGT people and other marginalized groups as well.

“It’s more about putting less emphasis on female vs. male and just gender in general,” she says. “It’s about just being inclusive with perspective, whether it be a man, a woman, someone who’s non-binary, whatever their sexuality is, however they present themselves — it’s just about bringing in perspectives different from the norm.” She sees this happening more and more, with LGBT artists like Sam Smith, Halsey, and Troye Sivan gaining more attention, and thinks it will only continue, as people want to see something new.

“It’s another reason I call the EP Stories,” she adds. “There are so many different stories out there, so many things that aren’t covered enough, and when they are covered, people eat it up because it’s different and it’s fresh.”

Follow Zoë Moss on Facebook for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: Cheap Kisses Take Self Reflection Seriously in Debut Video for “Love Myself”

Heartbreak can cast your heart in stone and send you careening through dark depression and self-reflection. Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, lo-fi pop band Cheap Kisses ─ composed of musicians Aubrey Kay and producer Justin Black ─ observe a former relationship and the journey out of the mental muck. Originally written almost five years ago, “as a relationship was falling apart,” Kay says, their debut single “Love Myself” reconfigures Kay’s pain as a provocative bow. It’s the first single and title track from the band’s forthcoming EP release.

“During that weird time, I needed songwriting to use as a tool to get me through it and keep my depressive tendencies from taking over,” she tells Audiofemme, premiering the video today. “The lyrics really read as my own diary entry from that time. It’s about how self love can be a lonely process and falling out of love can be, too.”

Kay latches onto such influences as Angel Olsen and Waxahatchee, keeping the arrangement straight-laced, yet emotionally textured, with a healthy coating of Teen Suicide, Frankie Cosmos, and Flatsound for good measure. Most-known in the local scene as frontman of alt-country group Saw Black, Black twists the production with an Americana spritz.

Cheap Kisses’ debut soaks in the heartache’s aftermath, owed largely to Kay’s soft spoken performance. “Will I ever learn to love myself again?” she asks herself over and over again. That self-love tug-of-war stems from a very raw place in Kay’s feminist identity. She explains, “I resist that we are so heavily taught as women that we aren’t good enough in one way or another. For me, it’s important to love myself first and accept the complexities of me before I can approach being loved by another person. Loving yourself is an ongoing struggle, but it’s an essential one.”

The video, directed and co-produced by Kay’s girlfriend, Kathryn Ray, moves between intimate, bedroom confessions to performance-style snapshots backdropped with bright, shimmery curtains. The juxtaposition is aesthetically pleasing and gives further weight to the song’s message. “[Kathryn] wanted to create scenes that looked like they could be fun but also appeared somewhat artificial. We wanted to evoke feelings of loneliness for the viewer, because loving yourself is a difficult and lonely process sometimes,” says Kay. “We started with the concept for the album art where I was literally loving myself by kissing the mirror and built the rest of the video from there.”

She adds, “We wanted to show something that referenced my songwriting process, using my actual lyric journal, and further reinforced the emotional vulnerability I’m displaying through the song.”

Equipped with an arsenal of gear, including two mics on the drums and a Holy Grail guitar pedal, Black fully embraces the DIY spirit. “Love Myself” cuts with a hazy wash of guitars and a steady percussive kick. Paired with Kay’s rosy vocal tone, the duo entice the listener into a freeing expedition.

Most of their work begins through “really focusing on the song structures,” offers Black. “I was playing along on drums while Aubrey would play guitar and sing the songs. We’d work them to a point where they were interesting and fun to play. Once we had the songs ready, we spent four or five days recording the upcoming EP onto 1/4 inch tape using my 8 track (Tascam 388). We’d start by recording the guitar and drums live together in the same room. Then, Aubrey would track the vocals, and I’d start trying bass lines or little lead parts. When it was working, typically, Aubrey would be like, ‘Oh I like that, do that!’”

“To be honest, it was a really laid back environment being in my house and just having no pressure or money involved made it unique,” he continues. “I love the tape hiss and the bleed that we embraced. It’s been a very easy and fun project for me. Aubrey is a great songwriter and a good friend, so I hope to play a ton of house shows and parties this summer.”

Kay chimes in: “I’ve always been shy to show my own songs to other musical creatives, but Justin was always so supportive of my ideas and valued my input every step of the way. He has helped me feel more confident as a musician all around.”

Even a moniker like Cheap Kisses exudes a specific, low-key sensibility. “[That] was a phrase I just misspoke one day during practice with Justin. We immediately agreed that it’s a perfect band name for our twee pop sound,” admits Kay. “Aside from the cutesy vibe it gives off, I also like to think that ‘cheap’ kisses are the kisses you get from a lover or partner when you’re trying to pretend it’s all fine when your relationship is falling apart around you.”

Kay builds much of her work around such a thematic landscape, sifting through various ash piles of a long-dead relationship for inspiration. She adds, “A lot of my songs are about that exact moment when it’s falling apart.”

Identifying as queer-femme, Kay finds that while her identity doesn’t overtly play into the songwriting, it specifically “plays into how I experience the music scene and our representation in it,” she says. “My goal for this band is to boost femme representation in the Richmond scene. I’m sick of seeing cool bands play shows here and then seeing that the singer is the only one who’s not a dude. I hope that after this single drops, we are able to attract some rad femmes to play in [this band] with us, as it is only Justin and me making everything at this point. Representation matters.”

While Kay and her girlfriend both share ambitions to move to Nashville “when this pandemic is over,” she is more than happy with her life in this moment. “Richmond is a really great place to live so I can’t complain too much,” she says. From her show choir roots in high school to a solo project called Murabess, everything has led to this moment. But it took time, more than anything, for the pieces to fit together as they should. “Collaborating with someone else, especially someone so talented as Justin, has really helped me grow musically in a way I couldn’t on my own,” praises Kay.

Cheap Kisses display a sharp, soul-driven style, and given the right avenue, they will surely soar.

Follow Cheap Kisses on Instagram and Twitter for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: Hayley Sabella Finds Comfort in the Transformative ‘Cape Cod’

Photo Credit: Sasha Pedro

Hayley Sabella has a complicated relationship with Cape Cod – it’s a significant setting for her personal history, and she’s now recorded two versions of a song about its evolving role in her life, the latest version of which is premiering exclusively with Audiofemme.

The Massachusetts-based singer spent her high school years commuting across the bridge to attend Sturgis Charter Public School. Sabella’s family had recently moved back to Plymouth from Nicaragua, where her parents had been teaching in an American school, and her youthful eyes saw the Cape from a negative perspective with its long, dark winters that leave the streets and beaches barren for several months, creating a sense of isolation. “I had a painful association with Cape Cod,” Sabella admits. “It had a lot of melancholy to me growing up. I had this subconscious belief that nothing good happened there.”

Sabella’s transition from Central America to the United States wasn’t easy and left her craving a sense of identity. “I really repressed the way that it shaped me for a long time because you come back from the jungle and start middle school, the last thing that you want to do is stand out or be different. You want to blend in,” she explains. “My childhood was in Nicaragua, so I felt like a strange kid from the jungle. Interestingly enough, it filled me with this longing for that belonging, that sense of safety, that sense of really deep, strong community.”

Sabella’s view of Cape Cod transformed in her adult eyes, as she eventually found comfort in the isolation. Sabella was inspired to write “Cape Cod” after attending the Wellfleet OysterFest, a day that began reveling in the local food and art festival and ended with her bar hopping across town, meeting people who’ve been friends since kindergarten. She even found herself at a kind stranger’s home, the experience introducing her to the community she deeply desired in her youthful years. “It revealed to me that there is magic on Cape Cod,” she recalls of the memorable day. “I feel like I got more comfortable at that melancholy and the sense that it’s beautiful even though it’s austere.”

The song also serves as a bridge between Sabella’s past and present, its lyrics recalling a distinct moment when a childhood friend from Nicaragua came to visit her on Cape Cod. Sabella played the song for her friend, the lyrics expressing the feeling of being an outsider while making precious memories with “your pal since the third grade.”

“Cape Cod” first appeared on Sabella’s 2018 album, Forgive the Birds, in the form of a twinkling acoustic ballad. The new rendition, which is slated to appear on her upcoming EP, Flew the Nest, was born on a $50, light-weight classical guitar that hung above Sabella’s bed, making it easily accessible as she nursed a broken leg back to health. She invited her band members to play on a new recording of the song, giving it a fresh identity with the instrumentation that feels fuller while establishing another component of community. “’Cape Cod’ was definitely a release in a sense. It shifted that grief sense into a joy,” she observes. “It goes from this lonely, isolated version to inviting friends into the process. It’s a further expression, that movement from being isolated to realizing that there’s a community there.”

Sabella now sees Cape Cod as a place of solace, somewhere she can escape and appreciate the deserted beaches in the wintertime and quiet air that surrounds them, instilling her with the ability to enjoy her own company. “It’s a place of renewal I think. It’s a place where I go to rest,” she notes. “Getting comfortable with being alone is something I’ve been working on for years. I think it’s really important for my growth to have gotten comfortable with spending time by myself. Now I really look forward to it.”

The evolution of the song itself adds another layer to its symbolism as an anthem of change. “I feel like songs have this way of revealing things to you. Your subconscious reveals things to you before your conscious mind can make the connection. This song reveals things to me over time,” Sabella remarks. “That’s the healing power of music.”

Follow Hayley Sabella on Facebook for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: “Starting Over” Sees DC’s The North Country Doing Just That

Photo Credit: Mauricio Castro

America is having an identity crisis. As the talking heads on national news programs remind us daily: we’re in the midst of a pandemic that is calling into question the very foundation of our state. Releasing new music during this time (especially music that had been written pre-Corona) seems like a fool’s errand, but the new single from The North Country, “Starting Over,” proves that some songs may be predetermined for the moment at hand.

“Well if you don’t make a move / Everything stays the same / Nostalgia is a crutch / Don’t be afraid to make a change,” bandleader Andrew Grossman sings, his voice carefully mingling with bandmates Laurel Halsey and Margot MacDonald, gently encouraging the listener to expand their point of view. The D.C. band’s lineup has changed over the years, but currently includes Grossman, Halsey, and MacDonald, along with Austin Blanton (bass), Jon Harmon (guitar), and Kirk Kubicek (drums). The project is largely Grossman’s brainchild; the D.C. native developed an interest in music back in high school, after being gifted with a guitar at his bar mitzvah.

Chatting via Skype with Grossman, I wanted to dig deep into the religious imagery I’d heard on their albums and really understand what drives the existential nature of the band’s work. He admitted that initially his songwriting slanted toward the playful music he was drawn to in his childhood, like They Might Be Giants; it wasn’t until college that he began to explore the more heady, thought-provoking music The North Country would be known for.

“There’s an old Miles Davis quote: ‘It took me a while to learn how to play like myself,'” Grossman says. “It took a while for me to kind of figure out what The North Country was supposed to be. You listen back, there’s hints along the way of where it was heading. I think it’s [gotten] there within the last two years.” That evolution comes full-circle on forthcoming LP America and Afterwards (out June 26th), though unfortunately the SXSW appearances and tour they’d planned to promote it had to be cancelled in light of the pandemic.

The band’s rotating lineup of musicians doesn’t reflect an egocentric lead singer or volatile romantic interludes between band members (Grossman is happily married and lives with his wife, a dog, and a cat). Instead, Grossman’s changing musical style and evolving subject matter is mirrored in who he worked with in the project and when. Listening to the band’s evolution is, in many ways, listening to Grossman explore a variety of styles and musical motifs: bluegrass, Americana, psychedelia, electronic. “The synth thing is definitely a more recent development. The guitar, I had mined it for most of what I was gonna find in it. I had found it. A friend kinda turned me onto synths. There was a whole other way of approaching music, thinking about music, and it was unmined,” he says.

On the band’s Facebook page, Grossman has been exploring electronic work through live solo shows (even covering Bach’s Prelude in C from The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 on a synthesizer). In regards to sound, synthesizers initially proved difficult to manipulate; Grossman’s wife was mildly skeptical at his baby synth steps, wondering if the hours of “exploration” would eventually turn into music she could listen to. He said it didn’t take long, however, for him to begin incorporating these new elements into his work. His explorations have always been the framework for The North Country songs; Grossman jams out, exploring sounds on guitar and synth alike, keeping an ear out for a “spark” that will eventually lay the foundation for lyrics.

When I asked him if this time of turmoil has been one of contemplation or creation, Grossman said he spent one week binging on Netflix, then he got to work. “Starting Over” was a song the band had already been working on, performing it live at shows last year. It was a piece they were saving for their next album, but with COVID-19 derailing their tour, it seemed like the perfect moment and the perfect song to work on together at home. “The day after we cancelled, we got on a Zoom call with everyone,” Grossman remembers. “We’re like: What do we do? We can’t tour, we can’t see each other, but we don’t want to do nothing.” Grossman described the surreal aspect of months of planning and buildup to SXSW, only to cancel just a two days before they were set to leave: “It was like driving in a car going at like 60 miles an hour, and then all of a sudden I’m standing still.”

The video is a visual representation of feeling stuck. Little boxes containing pieces of a band. Each performer recorded their part solo, then the individual videos were stitched together to make a whole. “Starting Over” is a pleasant, gentle reminder we all need: that no matter how trapped we feel, the way out is always through.

Follow The North Country on Facebook for ongoing updates.

Charles Fauna Crafts Timely Sci-Fi Concept Album With Debut Yonder

You have to let Charles Fauna’s Yonder wash over you. It’s the kind of record that soothes an anxiety-ridden mind. His lush, effervescent soundscape ─ extracted from such influences as Kid Cudi, St. Vincent, David Bowie, and Joe Goddard ─ numbs you into a meditative state, and you begin a deep probing of your mental facilities to make sense of it all.

Yonder is a monumental debut, expansive yet immersive, brimming with hope and brightness, and it could not have arrived at a more appropriate time. During the massive COVID-19 pandemic, the 12-track collection deals out far more poignancy than even he could have expected. “I do feel as though one of the unintended consequences of the quarantine is a lot of time for self-reflection and reckonings with our internal selves,” Fauna tells Audiofemme. “I feel as though it’s the kind of album that wants to help people, so it would be weird to put it out during a gorgeous and peaceful summer, you know?”

Based in Brooklyn, the indie-pop mastermind juggles his desire to celebrate such an impressive bow and a new creativity already coursing through his body. “The moment I finish a body of work, I usually spend a few weeks head-over-heels in love with it and then am on to something else,” he confides. “With albums, you usually finish them, and it takes half a year or more to actually put them out. I look at this album very fondly and am so proud of it, like a parent watching their kid do a school play for the first time.” Yonder sets a high bar, but Fauna eyes even more soaring artistic heights. “Whatever comes next will exceed it in every way,” he says.

Part of Yonder’s triumph came from the pressure Fauna felt to make his debut LP memorable. He didn’t want to simply slap together 10 or 12 songs and call it an album. It needed to mean something in the world. “I wasn’t just writing for the sake of writing. I really wanted to create something profound and epic ─ the kind of album that might live longer than I would.”

“More than anything, I just didn’t want to do what was expected of me. It was important to me that this, at least in an abstract sense, feel like a real journey,” he adds.

“Over Yonder,” a wondrous spoken word introduction, sets the scene like a Greek tragedy. Initially written as a poem, almost as an “entity remarking on someone’s mental state,” he says, he soon realized the album needed to be framed through another’s perspective. “I decided then that I didn’t want these songs to be explicitly from my point of view, but rather to imagine the music through the eyes of someone else. A character,” he explains. “Apollo” follows, pummeling the eardrums as a rocket ship cruising through the Milky Way. It was within such a synth-y cosmic web that the story unfolded. Centered around the idea of “people in the future going to live on Mars because we had exhausted the Earth of resources,” the groovy little number cemented the album’s inevitable story arc in his brain.

“I thought to myself, ‘What if the character in the poem was one of these people who was forced to leave Earth and go to Mars? What would that actually feel like?’” Fauna then began piecing together his arsenal of songs and beats into a more focused, streamlined vision, and these common themes emerged: outer space, leaving home, and reckoning with the void. “I’ve always been a bit of a space cadet and am constantly writing and imagining stories in my head,” he says. Fauna shuffles through his own mental anguish and projects his findings through the eyes of a 16-year-old girl. The unnamed protagonist mounts an expedition away from the only world she’s known for a “journey of self-discovery,” he says.

Taking the notion of being a “hopeless millennial yearning for something profound” – an ache most of us feel these days – and reapplying it on a far grander scale, Yonder filters Fauna’s personal turmoils and anxieties over political, socio-economical, and environmental issues through a universal lens to tap into today’s swelling fears. “More than anything I learned how many people feel like I do,” he offers. “I realized that my feelings of existential malaise were in no way unique to me ─ that there are so many young people who feel deeply stifled by their lack of faith in humanity.”

From breaking soil on “Mars” to the celestial beauty of “The Divine” and the addicting, syrupy throb of “A Total Dream,” Yonder blossoms into a record “about exploring this lack of faith and trying to understand where to place one’s belief. Ultimately what I came to learn, and what I hope the record expresses above all, is that we place that faith in ourselves. And each other.”

Fauna also expresses spirituality in a freeing, unapologetically accepting way ─ a threshold which proved to be indescribably healing. “When I finished [the album], I felt in many ways that I had said all I wanted to say. It felt complete. That in and of itself was healing for me. I spend a lot of time trying to maintain social equilibrium,” he explains, “I’ve often kept my deeper, more spiritual opinions to myself out of fear of being judged. Expressing these ideas was very cathartic. It also heals me when someone who has heard the music reaches out to let me know that it meant something to them, or that they got something out of it. Even one person having heard me out makes it worth it.”

Yonder is a collective, hyper-realized journey. It’s not just Fauna’s or mine or my neighbor’s. It’s everyone’s, and we’re all in this together. “I want the listener to realize they are not alone. The philosophy behind [this album is] that we can always be better, that we can always improve, be kinder, be more open, more intelligent, more empathetic towards each other. And for them to find peace in searching for something entirely without the self.”

For much of his life, Fauna has been bound and tormented by his anxiety and, perhaps, “blind to some greater truth just beyond my sight,” he says. “I felt so trapped by the monotony of the everyday. More often than not, my head was tilted downward ─ obsessed with my internal world rather than the boundless external one. Where most of my music up to now reflects this, [this record] is my deliberate attempt to look up: to see more, to be open to anything, and to connect with others.”

Hunger for human connectivity glues the record together, and such craving has never been felt more right than now. “I can’t speak for everyone, but I can say that for me personally this has been an intense reminder as to the value and importance of my friendships. The next time I am able to meet my friends at a bar, to see them in person, hug them, celebrate being alive, I think I will probably cry,” he says of the ongoing global crisis. “There will be such overwhelming beauty in doing the simplest of things, in reclaiming normalcy. I will have gained a deep appreciation for things that a month or so ago I would have not thought twice about. I should hope that it expands the quality of our connections with others.”

Below, Fauna gives us a track-by-track Yonder breakdown, its many themes, and the journey of our protagonist.

“Over Yonder (Intro)”: The intro, interlude and outro of Yonder are where the bulk of its narrative is told (though in vague terms). The intro establishes our protagonist – a young person desperately seeking something more, in dire need of a change, feeling stuck and stagnant, seeking WONDER. She imagines a world where she could be the person she wishes to be.

“Apollo”: Real life circumstances grant the protagonist her wish as she and her family are among the first to leave planet earth as it nears the point of being inhospitable. “Apollo” is an unabashed leap into the unknown, knowing full well that some bones may be broken in the fall. It’s fraught with uncertainty and anger, a bitterness towards the people who have ruined this earth for our protagonists’ new generation, yet there is still hope within.

“Listen”: This song probably has the least to do with the overall narrative and is more just a moment of true vulnerability after an immense risk. More than anything “Listen” is meant to conjure feelings of empathy, toward any and everyone. I imagined that this song transpires during the journey from Earth to this colony on Mars where humans are relocating.

“Mars”: Here the protagonist and her family arrive on planet Mars where a high-tech colony, Project Yonder, has been established as a new capital of human civilization. Having narrowly escaped the fate of their home planet, people drink, sing, and revel in their successful brush with death. This disturbs our protagonist, who feels there is no cause for celebration and that we are responsible for a terrible catastrophe. The euphoric yet dark house vibe on the track is meant to play against that feeling of catharsis while also speaking to the layer of skepticism our protagonist feels underneath.

“Kerosene”: Here is the major turning point for the protagonist. Feeling lost, angry and disconnected from her fellow humans, the protagonist decides that this new Martian colony is not home for her. That even beside her loved ones, she cannot be content, she cannot be happy, and she cannot sit by while humanity repeats its same damning behaviors. Stealing her own small ship, she departs in secret completely by herself to an unknown destination in the cosmos. As she floats in space, the lyrics of “Kerosene” reinforce her mission, that no matter what she will survive. That no matter what she will prove to herself that there is more out there than what she has come to know. That Yonder couldn’t have been all there is.

“The Divine”: Another song that is more of an emotional moment than a narrative one. I imagine here that the protagonist has been floating in space for a few weeks, is probably low on food and questioning her decision to leave her family behind. She reaches out spiritually for some understanding, some sign from some god that things will be okay. That her search isn’t in vain. Musically and lyrically, this song is the speaker (and by extension me) on their knees, completely open and vulnerable to forces greater than themselves.

“One Foot First (Interlude)”: As if to answer her prayers, the voice in the interlude responds. Though, much like a Greek chorus, his words are meant more for the listener than the characters. The voice offers encouragement, imploring patience in times of tremendous change.

“A Total Dream”: Side two starts with a bang as our protagonist’s ship makes sudden contact with an alien world. She lands to discover a surreal, hyper colorful landscape: a place where dreams seem as real as any truth she has ever known. Pink skies, lush grass fields of lavender and orange, bioluminescent wildlife, a neon Eden. Full of elation and possibility, she sprints through this new world with reckless abandon, seemingly in harmony with her surroundings for the first time in months. Youthful, euphoric, indie rock.

“Wayfarer (Instrumental)”: As she continues to explore this new world, our protagonist finds herself in a forest – trees above obscuring the neon sky and glowing fauna on the ground drawing her into this mesmerizing wood. I used sounds here to imagine the chirps and squeaks of alien life. As she walks in silence, she begins to have visions of her loved ones. A concerned mother, a scared little brother, a young man (perhaps a boyfriend) staring at her picture on his desk. They are visions of her absence in others’ lives, and they begin to make her feel profoundly empty. What was once a place of pure freedom slowly becomes something darker, sadder and lonelier. Here she begins to realize: the farther out she goes, the farther away she gets from what makes her HER. Confused, she returns to her ship with the intent to send a message back home.

“Always You”: This song is lyrically written as a letter (or transmission) from the protagonist back to her worried parents on Yonder. She explains why she felt she had to leave, why their new life on Yonder was not enough for her. Why, even at the cost of her own sanity, she feels she had to do this. The more she writes the more she unravels, until by the song’s end, she realizes the desperation of her situation – alone and without food in an alien world. The song ends as she finally yields, and wishes she was home, whatever that means, and fades into a deep sleep. The song is dark, brooding and intensely intimate.

“Church”: Lights from above tell her that she is saved. Her transmission back to Mars was successful and her parents and brother have come to bring her home. Lyrically, this song is an examination of self-hatred, and how sometimes we push the people we love away when in reality we need them most. As the song builds, a thousand voices of doubt and loathing creep into the listeners ear, only to be dispelled by a violent STOP from the protagonist. “Church” is the euphoria of certainty: finally knowing what it is you have to do and what exactly has been hindering you for so long.

“Over Yonder (Outro)”: Having seen this alien world, the protagonist realizes that as much as she detests other human beings, her place is with them. That she is one of them. As the narrator says, her purpose is to “levitate, but not to fly free.” She finally sees that what she has been missing this whole time – the emptiness, the lack of connection, is not something that she sought from God, or nature but from PEOPLE. She had been alone. And so sought love and acceptance elsewhere. Anywhere. As she returns to Yonder with her family, she sees it in a new light. A young man waits for her on the landing dock as the ship lands on Mars. She looks down on him with a tearful smile, realizing she was never alone at all.

Sage Avalon Taps All Female Crew for Debut EP In Vivo

Sage Avalon is a sophomore studying biology at UC Santa Barbara — and she’s also a dedicated musician. Both these pursuits came together to create her debut EP, In Vivo.

The name of the EP was inspired by a biology class where she learned about in vivo experiments — ones done within the body. To her, it means “really appreciating that you’re alive and that you’re human”— or, in colloquial terms, “really in this bitch.”

With Avalon performing all the vocals, guitar, bass, production, and instrumental engineering and her female colleagues taking care of the photography, filming, and audio engineering, the project is entirely woman-made. The fact that she worked with other women who already knew and supported her helped her feel freer to try new things and make mistakes. “There was definitely a level of openness and willingness to experiment and a level of trust,” she says.

During her first year of college, Avalon had been writing and playing songs on her guitar, but she got tired of the same old sounds and wanted to learn to produce music. So, she got herself her first digital audio workstation, and she began to feel inspired to write more songs. “The EP is kind of just a snapshot of eight months of me learning my new writing style and finding my sound,” she says. “I learned a lot… and created this production that has a lot of layering and many instruments, and that was a huge learning curve.”

She would focus on school during the day and then work on In Vivo from her dorm room at night, with the exception of some of the vocals, which were recorded in San Diego. She ended up driving back and forth several times after realizing she didn’t like the way her voice sounded. “For two weeks, I didn’t sleep at all — I had 8 a.m. classes, and when I’m writing, I just want to get the song out,” she says. Still, she managed to both get good grades and put out the EP, which she says was influenced by artists such as Lana Del Rey, Placebo, and Björk.

Avalon’s rich, earthy, mellow voice narrates deep, emotional life experiences. The first single, “Pure December,” is about “recovery from addiction and seeing that life has so much to offer and embracing that, [like] seeing in color for the first time,” she says. She bought a five-string bass and used it for the first time just for this song. The title was inspired by a trip she took to Alaska in winter 2017, and the lyrics tell a story of struggle and triumph: “Keep my gaze wide/I am untied/In my purest form/You take me further/Love despite fear/Always a rollercoaster ride/But I am still here.”

Its accompanying music video encapsulates the mood of Avalon’s San Diego upbringing, featuring landmarks like Windansea Beach, where she’d go when she played hookie, and the 1950s-style Corvette Diner. Her cinematographer happened to be a friend who was visiting California for the first time, so they captured the footage while showing her around.

Orchestral string instruments and keyboard give “9 Lives” a darker sound as Avalon sings about a broken relationship: “If you wanted a war/Well I hope I gave you everything and more/I will make it alone/Swallow my fear as I’m stepping into the unknown.” The vivid imagery carries through on “Lightning in a Bottle” as it explores the destructive sides of love: “Bite me like a snake/Shoot me up with all your poison/Beating in my heart/Squeeze it tight til you destroy it.”

Another track off the album, “Shallow Rivers,” is a cover of a song written by Everlucyd, a friend of Avalon’s who passed away several years ago. Avalon has been playing this song live for some time and decided to include it as a tribute. The singer-songwriter has also covered artists like R.E.M. and Gnarls Barkley in her live performances.

Music has long been part of Avalon’s life. She’s been singing since elementary school and playing guitar since she was 15. Since producing her latest EP, she’s written two more songs, which she may release either as singles or as part of another EP.

She’s unsure what exactly her future holds at this point, but she hopes to make it as a full-time musician after college, and whatever happens, she plans on making music throughout her life.

Follow Sage Avalon on Facebook for ongoing updates.

Emma McGann Premieres “Anyone Else,” Announces Virtual Tour

British pop singer Emma McGann has always been a pioneer in promoting her music online, and she’s now using this skill to her advantage. She created a hybrid tour format that includes both virtual and in-person elements last year, and now, with many artists’ tours shutting down due to the coronavirus, she’s putting the virtual element to use.

Inspired by artists like The Runaways, The Donnas, Katy Perry, and Alanis Morissette, McGann’s music is uplifting and adrenaline-pumping, presenting classic pop conventions with a twist. She spent her early career living in a van and touring around England, then quickly discovered she could get more attention by live-streaming her performances. The in-person elements of her upcoming “Duality Tour” have to be rescheduled due to the pandemic, but online, the show goes on.

The tour will support her forthcoming EP, Monsters (April 17). Ahead of its release, McGann is premiering her catchy, danceable new single “Anyone Else” exclusively on Audiofemme. On it, McGann describes an all-consuming love: “I don’t know, I don’t know / How to love anyone else / Anyone else but you / Holding up a flare and it burns for us / I’ll always find my way back to what I love / Fingers in the air to the other ones / They’ll never know how to love you enough.”

We talked to her about her new music and how she’s taking advantage of technology during these strange times.

AF: What inspired the song “Anyone Else”?

EM: “Anyone Else” is about carving out a future with someone while the roots of the past creep to the surface. It’s inspired by my own relationship. My boyfriend and I have been together for 10 years. We’re partners in this sense, but also in the studio, too. James, or MIRLYN (his producer name), is a wildly talented and underrated producer, and it was a very raw experience bringing this one to life together. The tone is darker compared to what I usually write, so it felt like new and exciting territory for me during the writing process. We’re both so proud of it. It’s the first chapter of my Monsters EP. 

AF: What else is Monsters about? 

EM: For Monsters, I wanted to throw out the fluffy pop sound I usually go for, bring some gritty realness, and expose love for what it is: in every case, imperfect. “People can be monsters when in love.” That’s a line taken from another track on the EP. We’re the Monsters. It’s a term of endearment for ourselves and the people we love, because we’re all imperfect.

Many want to live up to the lives they see online – they question their own relationships and compare what they have to what others have. But IRL, relationships aren’t polished Instagram moments. They go much deeper, they’re multi-faceted… uglier. And that isn’t a bad thing. It’s a very real, beautiful thing. A lot of what I’ve written for the new EP sets out to unearth these darker sides of love from a positive perspective. Monsters will celebrate recognizing the beauty in the imperfections we all have in ourselves and in our own relationships.

AF: Tell me about the hybrid in-person/virtual tour you’ve created.

EM: Last year, I set out to create a touring business format that could work for the online creator — a model that would make touring financially viable for someone whose core audience lives online, or for someone touring for the very first time. I wanted to create a hybrid in-person/virtual live-streamed run of dates called the Duality Tour that would be inclusive for supporters on the other side of the world, who might never get the opportunity to experience a live show if you don’t ever tour their country.

So, I created the Virtual Tour Pass, which gives the holder exclusive access to the livestream shows, as well as other perks. It was important to me to make this option affordable and community-centric. One VT Pass ($25) not only gives supporters access to all livestream shows on the tour, but also brings other perks – every purchase plants a tree, their name is written on my guitar case, etc. They can also buy bulk passes for others in the community, which brings even more rewards.

As has been the case for many other artists out there, COVID-19 has meant I’ve had to postpone the in-person element of the tour. It would’ve been the biggest tour of my career to date — 21 dates across the US. But the virtual element remains, and I’m happy to say that the originally-scheduled virtual shows will still take place from April 22nd.

Traditional touring determines where your fans are at: You decide the locations you play, and by default, your fans and traction typically come from those places. With the evolution of music-streaming platforms, playlist placements almost determine that for you, leaving many artists out there with a good chunk of streams online, but sporadically placed fans dotted everywhere around the world. This means traditional touring success falls short. No one is localized. I see my idea for Virtual Tour Passes as something that could balance things out. I think it could benefit online creators looking to tour, as well as artists who have found streaming success but lack that localized following to tour in a financially viable way.

AF: How else have you used live-streaming in the past?

EM: Over the last six or seven years, live-streaming has enabled me to grow a connection with supporters that I could never have done by just traditionally touring alone. It’s like I’ve opened up a window to my life as an artist, showing them the real ins-and-outs of what it takes to create, release, and perform independently. Over the years, I’ve streamed behind-the-scenes during music video shoots, broadcasted takes from the vocal booth, streamed for eight hours on a single release day in 2015 with my community helping me reach the Top 15 in the iTunes Charts in real-time… and at one point, my supporters even helped me raise $30,000 during my livestreams for a Kickstarter campaign to release a 23-track album. The level of support for my music through the medium of live-streaming has always been unreal. More often than not, though, we keep it casual — I share my music and we just… hang out. It’s that simple.

AF: How do you see live-streaming changing music?

EM: In recent years, we’ve seen live-streaming become integrated into social platforms we all use daily. More and more artists over these last few years have begun to integrate the live-streaming format into how they connect with their audience. As someone who started experimenting with live-streaming at the beginning of its inception, it’s really exciting to see it being used so widely today.

In the beginning, I had a job explaining to most people what it was and how it was benefiting me as an artist. I think a lot of people didn’t understand the concept… that is, until they tuned in or I went live and showed them how instantly I could connect with viewers who would jump straight into the broadcast.

I live-streamed for YouNow (my primary livestream platform) during a panel they were on around four years ago at SXSW. The panelist asked the audience at the conference if anyone had a birthday, and the room erupted with joy when I was prompted in the chat to sing Happy Birthday to that person, live in real-time. It was a unique moment for a lot of people then who hadn’t experienced live-streaming before. I think the audience during my TEDx Talk felt that same experience. It’s weird that it’s now the norm and it’s a format that everyone knows, understands, and has experienced.

I think it has already changed the industry. More and more artists are letting down their walls and allowing their audiences to hang out with them. People finally understand that musical content plus personality-driven content is a recipe for success.

AF: What role does social media play in your work?

EM: Connection to audience is the most valuable thing any individual, artist, or business can have. The internet plays a crucial role in what I do day-to-day as an artist. Whether it’s a YouTube upload, a Q&A on Instagram, or a livestream, it’s at the core of how I work and reach new and existing supporters.

As the broadcaster, interacting in real time does put you in a vulnerable position. If you make a mistake, that’s it. It’s live. There’s no smoke and mirrors. People see you for who you are. I think that’s what a lot of audiences crave to see from their fave artists. I think for a long time, people have been afraid to break down that mystique that artists are expected to uphold. But I truly think audiences look up to you not just as a means to hear the music you have, but to see a part of themselves in you too. We’re all human. Viewers appreciate you sharing your music in that vulnerable way. The internet can be malicious and toxic at the best of times, but it has undoubtedly connected us in very positive ways, too.

AF: Which other artists have inspired you?

EM: I’m hugely inspired by women who are using their voices and platform beyond their own music and profile to stand up for what’s right. Lady Gaga, P!NK, Taylor Swift… all fine examples. But I’m largely inspired by those who are doing things completely differently, too. Amanda Palmer and Imogen Heap come to mind. Imogen is a pioneering artist in music tech… Amanda’s TED Talk blew my mind when I first saw it as a student. These women and many more continue to inspire me. There’s a quote by Stevie Nicks that I adore and have pinned up in my broadcast studio. It reads: “Don’t be a lady, be a legend.”

AF: What are you working on now?

EM: I’ve been fundraising in an effort to help nurses and doctors on the front lines, particularly for healthcare professionals working in ICUs during the COVID-19 outbreak. I wrote and recorded a raw, acoustic 10-track album in the first 10 days of lockdown and have made that available on Bandcamp, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the Intensive Care Society in the UK. That mini-album is called Jungle Tapes.

I’m also working on my first podcast series, which will be a weekly discussion highlighting inspirational women across different industries, diving into their stories of success and outlooks on life.

Follow Emma McGann on Facebook and Instagram for ongoing updates.

Little Shrine Teases New LP with Premiere of “Sound Barrier” Single

Photo Credit: Ginger Fierstein

Jade Shipman used to be in several Bay Area rock bands, though never as the main songwriter. But after going through a difficult period involving a divorce and the loss of several people she loved, she funneled her emotions into songwriting – and now, as the leader of Little Shrine (featuring guitarist Tony Schoenberg, violinist Ryan Avery, drummer Andrew Griffin, and keyboardist Garrett Warshaw) she’s returned with a sophomore album that showcases those heartfelt songs.

“They were tender and sensitive, definitely not rock songs, and it pissed me off, actually,” she remembers. “I don’t like sharing that side of myself unless I’ve built trust with someone. Yet I felt this weird sense of responsibility to the songs, almost like they were little kids that needed to be cared for. I felt like it was my job to shepherd them somehow, and that I’d regret it if I didn’t.” Following 2017 LP Wilderness, Little Shrine will release The Good Thing About Time on April 17.

The album features the single “Sound Barrier,” which is about “that moment where you realize you have to get out of a situation,” says Shipman. She wrote it after a partner of hers decided to get a pastry and “chill” at a coffee shop instead of meeting her at the hospital when she was sick.

“This song is essentially me saying no to the relationship,” she explains. “Maybe that’s why the chorus repeats three times at the end. Like no, no, and no again. Do I have to yell it? Because I totally will.” The quick tempo and happy-go-lucky tune add humor to the dark situation described in lyrics like, “Each month zooms, we push faster still / The speed of it makes me ill / I pull the eject, your anger reflects, confirming expectations.”

The rest of the album addresses issues that are both personal to Shipman and common to many women, like “I’m a Ghost,” which tackles the toll of emotional labor, and “Lost Potential,” which is about Shipman’s abusive father and how, “as women, we have to worry about pleasing a man to stay alive,” she explains. “To grow up like that, it takes a big toll. That fear of someone bigger and stronger than you, it’s very visceral,” she says. “I spent a lot of time trying to be small and not anger him. I felt like a piece of paper, trying to flatten myself against a wall. It’s taken a lot of work to make myself 3D again. I’m still working on it.”

She describes “Come On,” another song on the album, as a piece about pushing against the limitations described in those songs. “I almost didn’t put it on the record because I felt it sounded bratty to sing that ‘I want what I want, and I don’t want to say I’m sorry,'” she says. “When I was talking about it with our producer Ben Bernstein, we discussed how a man would probably not hesitate. So I thought, let’s do it. It turns out it’s one of the most fun and freeing songs to perform live, especially as a full five-piece band with Garrett Warshaw on keys and Andrew Griffin on drums. I feel alive and unselfconscious, which is a real antidote to the fear I felt growing up.”

Shipman sings in an almost conversational manner that invites the listener into her inner world, and the music combines standard rock instrumentals with violin, which gives it a folk vibe. All in all, she hopes her music inspires “liberation, people freeing themselves from their patterns and other people’s crap, and really anything that holds them back.”

She’s currently spending her days “singing to the cat” and getting inspired on walks through an empty San Francisco. “The city’s landmarks, like the Palace of Fine Arts or the paths leading to the Golden Gate Bridge, look incredibly different with zero people,” she says. “There’s a surreal vibe, but in a way, the emptiness is a sign of love. Some of that feeling might make it into a song.”

Follow Little Shrine on Facebook for ongoing updates.

Ayelle Discusses NOMAD Mixtape and Shares “Overtime” Single

Photo Credit: Polly Hanrahan

On an overcast drizzling Friday morning, I gave independent R&B pop chanteuse Ayelle an audio call on zoom, a tool we’ve come to know all too well during an era of social distancing. We discovered we were only a few blocks away from each other, and connected over the daydream that in another reality we could have met up at an actual coffee shop. The Swedish-Iranian Ayelle recently moved to New York, the perfect scene for passionate, nomadic storytellers. “Throughout, my life I’ve never felt fully rooted anywhere,” Ayelle admits. “On my dad’s side my family comes from a nomadic tribe called Qashqai and this resonates with me a lot as I can never seem to stay in one place for too long.”

Known for her bittersweet, emotive vocals and compelling, vulnerable lyrics, Ayelle draws inspiration from her own life experiences, exploring a range of topics such as self-worth, power dynamics within relationships, and challenging the status quo. She recently released “Overtime,” the latest single from her NOMAD mixtape (out May 15th), a collection of songs written over the past two years whilst traveling every two to three weeks between places like London, New York, Los Angeles, Texas, Valencia, Barcelona, Bali, Cambodia, Vietnam, Stockholm, and Amsterdam. “Every song on this mixtape represents a part of that journey and something I’ve learnt about myself, or something I’m still trying to figure out,” she explains.

From an industry perspective, Ayelle is one to watch. With over 500,000 monthly listeners on Spotify alone, she’s garnered support from Billboard, Pitchfork, Complex, BBC 1Xtra – the list goes on.

In an era of media streaming and the hype of chasing stats and reposts, it’s easy to lose track of an artist even being human, let alone having a backstory. Ayelle’s sonic range, unique beauty, and universal cool echoes an uncanny resemblance to the iconic Lil Miquela (a computed-generated Instagram influencer). Luckily, the mystical Ayelle remains the furthest thing from an avatar.

Growing up in Sweden with her conservative father and stepmother, Ayelle didn’t fit into the Swedish archetype of beauty. In her predominantly white suburb, she suffered from social isolation and experienced backlash with opposition to her father’s vision and hopes she’d take a more conventional path. Musical guidance and support first came from her music teacher Ted Krotkiewski, who began nurturing her original writing. During every break at school, he would mentor Ayelle through lessons in songwriting and vocal technique. Her first studio experience was recording a demo in his classroom, as part of her alternative project-based education. At fourteen, when Ayelle went to live with her more progressive mother full time in Valencia, Spain, she brought this demo with her.

Like many ambitiously musical children, Ayelle craved a lifestyle of freedom to grow and make mistakes, without the backlash of criticism from a conservative household. Her creative life blossomed and expanded under the guidance of her supportive mother, a professional fortune teller, which never seemed out of the ordinary to Ayelle. “I just thought it was cool,” she remembers. “I’ve just grown up with her always reading me my tarot cards. I’ve always believed in it. It’s always made sense. It’s always been this guiding light in my life whenever I had a doubt or didn’t know if I was on the right path. I could turn to her and the cards and get some clarity.” Ayelle would eventually discover her own unique practice of spiritual mindfulness.

As a teenager in Valencia, Ayelle stumbled upon some of the only people making R&B, like producer SammySuprm. She became mentored by these producers through lessons in Cubase, an accessible audio production DAW for beginner producers. This led her to enroll in Creative Musicianship, a four year program at the British Institute of Modern Music. Although given the opportunity to find her own sound through sonic experimentation, she also experienced a wall of deep depression. “I was in a really dark place, and it wasn’t until then that I read the book The Power of Now, which my mom had been recommending I read for years,” she remembers. “That book just flipped everything – it was like a switch, and the first time I was able to quiet my mind and not have any thoughts. The relief was so huge it was like a opened a portal inside of me.”

In her early adulthood Ayelle turned to a practice of meditation, harnessed with magical thinking, to create a mindset that would enable her to block out frustrations. She gained clarity, differentiating her authentic self from negative responses to past trauma. Ayelle built a fortress to protect and cultivate her creativity, and discover her true voice. “There’s a little voice in your head that’s constantly talking. You think that that’s you. Whatever that voice says, you identify with and you think that it’s your inner monologue,” Ayelle points out. “Actually, you’re the person that’s choosing to listen to that voice. How can you be that voice, if you’re listening to that voice? There’s a duality going on within you – that little voice is programmed by everything you’ve experienced in the past and projected. You don’t have to take everything seriously that it says. Just observe it, and if it’s negative just realize it’s not you – it’s regurgitated information.”

Photo Credit: Polly Hanrahan

In London she was exposed to and inspired by exciting new left field experimental genres of pop music, and began collaborating with London-based producers. Building industry contacts through self-releasing music on the internet, Ayelle slowly built momentum, and a professional team. “Whenever people tell me the industry works a certain way, I let it go in one ear and out the other. I decide how I want the industry to work instead,” she explains.

Listening to Ayelle’s recordings, there’s a prevalence of the perfection of Swedish pop influence. As a developing writer, revisiting her homeland through writing camps enabled her to discover a deep appreciation and respect for the legacy of her heritage, and fundamental foundation of her music. You can hear the reclaiming of her Swedish sound through effortlessly smooth tracks and iconic hooks on tracks like “Overtime” and “Choice.”

“I wrote ‘Choice’ with one of my favorite people – and London collaborator – Rationale,” she says. “When two broken people start falling for each other, a lot of old fears can start resurfacing, and you have a choice of whether to go through the fear or avoid it. That’s a choice we’re all entitled to, and even though it hurts when someone decides not to take the risk of allowing themselves to fully fall for you, that’s still their choice and no one else’s.”

Ayelle is a feminist, both with her own artistic agency and a collaborative vision for the next wave of independent female artists. She strives to actively flip the narrative, and shift from cut-throat competitiveness to an open, optimistic, and inclusive vision of success. “Celebrating other artist’s successes doesn’t take away from one’s own power,” she says, agreeing that there’s still a long way to go to achieve gender equality in the industry, especially when it comes to music production.

“The best we can do is to try and break the mold by lifting more women up, by offering opportunities whenever we can and shift the narrative,” she says. “I believe that if all of us start to create our own reality, to believe in ourselves, it will change. You have to believe in something to be able to do it, even if it seems impossible. I believe that it can become a reality. That’s how I’ve shaped my career.”

Follow Ayelle on Facebook for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: Satellite Mode Navigates Technological Dystopia in “Click Now”

We’re living in strange times, where the internet age has taken on an entirely new meaning, thanks to the coronavirus and social distancing. This makes the latest single from NYC electro-rock duo Satellite Mode, consisting of Jessica Carvo and Alex Marko, especially timely.

“Click Now,” off the band’s EP Robots Vs. Party Girls, to be released this summer, is about “cutting through the haze of modern life to foster connection,” says Carvo. “It paints a satirical picture of a tongue-and-cheek dystopian future, calling our listeners to strive for clarity and purposeful living in our detached world.”

“Hey kid / your life is now or never / you can have everything we choose,” she sings in the catchy chorus. “Hey kid / click now for your new future / there is no future left to lose.”

The video features lyrics flashing across various screens, depicting how “technology is always stalking us, lurking in the background and informing a lot of how we interact with the world,” says Marko.

The role of technology in our lives has always been a topic of interest for the duo; their original band name was Aeroplane Mode (a riff on “airplane mode”). But the idea for “Click Now” came to them while they were on tour. “Alex and I noticed the stark contrast between our lives on the road, where adventure was so tangible and present in the physical world, versus everyone living their ‘best life’ while glued to their iPhones, comparing themselves to others on social media, all the while being sold to and surveilled,” says Carvo.

Carvo describes the EP, which combines traditional singer-songwriter roots with dance beats, as “a cry for truth and transparency,” which is particularly relevant today, when accurate information is crucial for our health and well-being. “There’s no time for dancing around the heart of the matter — we are vulnerable, and it’s dangerous for us to be scrolling through any curated feeds of partial lies,” she explains.

The title Robots Vs. Party Girls was inspired by two alter egos of Carvo’s, one of them being a “party girl” named Stacey. She’d evoke this character when she wanted to sing with “a little hoopla and eccentricity” instead of her usual “matter-of-fact or stoned-sounding” vocals. “I like to imagine her as a 1994 party girl with bleach-blonde hair, tied up with a hot pink scrunchy, colorful cocktail in hand,” she says. The other alter ego, the robot, is the monotonous voice you hear in “Click Now.”

“The Robot (algorithms) and the Party Girl (influencers) symbolized two archetypes in social media that serve to mask and disrupt real truth and connection between humans,” says Marko. “We saw that to be truly happy, we had to use technology to connect with people instead of using it as a tool to project what we think our lives should be like.” That’s a message many people could benefit from hearing right now, whether they’re party girls, robots, or a little bit of both.

Follow Satellite Mode on Facebook for ongoing updates.

Bizou Premieres Stilllifeburning EP For a World on Fire

Photo Credit: Kristin Cofer

It’s one of those days. The sun is bright, but the news is bad and everyone’s eyes are on the clouds, peering from the windows of our hermetically-sealed homes, perfectly composed as if to somehow stave off chaos. On the surface, things almost seem normal, even as a slow-moving blaze encroaches. Enter post-punk outfit Bizou, with their latest EP Stilllifeburning: a fierce, yet plaintive collection of darkwave vignettes made for those solitary hours in a world on fire.

While Bizou’s sound has an inherent freshness to it, the LA-based quintet is comprised of veteran musicians – singer Marissa Prietto (Wax Idols, Glaare), multi-instrumentalist/producer Josiah Mazzaschi (Light FM), bassist Nicole Fiorentino (Cold and Lovely, Smashing Pumpkins, Veruca Salt), drummer Erin Tidwell (Tennis System, Jennie Vee) and guitarist Nicki Nevlin (Light FM). Time and experience has clearly benefited the band, as each single on Stilllifeburning comes across as the perfect synth soundtrack for days spent daydreaming about nights downtown, rubbing elbows with leather-clad shoe-gazers, eating ramen in the early hours after a show.

It begins on an urgent note: “Now there’s crashing sky / in your green eyes / a crashing sky / crushing you, crushing me too,” Prietto sings, apocalyptic visions swimming in the mirrored reflection of her lover’s eyes. “Burn Your Name” takes us racing down a darkened street, looking for a shadow, a memory of the person she once knew: “Fire to change you / fire to tame you / fire to burn your name / fire to chase you / fire to save you / fire to burn your name.” “Kiss The Stars” taps into the slow burn of a doomed romance; the lofty synths and Prietto’s sullen, wistful vocals give off some killer Say Anything vibes, if Lloyd Dobler had been really into to The Cure. Stilllifeburning is a story told in the alleyways, neon lights blaring in the windows of a club; it immediately gives off the sensation of watching a silent film, faint images flickering with only music to accompany each scene. Prietto hints at watching that disintegration from afar on “Trapdoor” as well as in a press statement about the record as a whole that uses the same metaphor: “If you could dive into the subconscious of another person totally separate from you, as if through a trapdoor — that to me would describe the feeling of these songs,” says singer Marisa Prietto.

Listen to AudioFemme’s exclusive stream of Stilllifeburning below and read our interview with the band.

AF: As a band, your pedigree is fire. How has the experience of working together in Bizou differed from past projects?

JM: We were all friends first so it’s very platonic in this band. We’re all really easygoing. and have many similar musical tastes.

NF: It always feels very natural working with these three. There’s a lightness to it, a flow that hasn’t necessarily been there in every project I’ve been in. It makes it really easy and fun to be creative!

NN: This has by far been one of my favorite experiences with a band. we get along so well and we are pretty much 100% on the same page about everything. It’s kind of rare!

MP: It’s really different starting a band from scratch as opposed to entering an established band with existing dynamics and work flow. I think that has made collaborating really easy for us. There is no hierarchy. Regardless of which of us brings in a song or an idea, we all have equal input on how that idea is ultimately executed.

AF: What aspect of the song-writing process is your favorite? A hook, a line, a melody? The moment someone layers on a sound that gives it that certain something?

JM: A lot of our songs stem from Marisa’s or my demos. When Marisa sends me a demo I get excited to chop her song ideas up in Pro Tools and add my own parts and melodies.

NN: I love the process of creating guitar lines with Josiah. Also love the moment the vocals are laid down on the track – you can hear the magic come together.

MP: I love it when Josiah chops up my songs. It always makes them exponentially better. As a singer it’s satisfying for me to discover a hook, but arranging and listening to my bandmates lay down their parts is my favorite.

AF: Tell us about the genesis of this new EP. You’re just released your self-titled debut last year. What did you go into the studio hoping to convey?

JM: I’m always in the studio, so for me my approach was trying to dedicate as much attention to detail and critical listening that I give to all the projects that walk into my studio.

MP: This EP is so different from our last one. The demos started from this much moodier, and I wanna say, straightforwardly post-punk sound. We wanted to mess with that format and tweak it until it became something more our own.

AF: Which song is the most personal to each of you and why?

JM: I really like how “Burn Your Name” turned out. It sounds like a goth Go-Go’s song! Marisa’s vocals sometimes reminds me of Belinda Carlisle.

NN: I think “Call of the Wild” will always have a special place in my heart because it’s the one that brought us all together.

MP: “Kiss the Stars” is the most personal for me. It’s a catastrophic breakup song sourced from one of my first-ever demos. I felt vulnerable bringing it to the group. The lyrics aren’t as distanced or metaphorical as some of the ones I write. It makes it a little unnerving to perform live sometimes which I guess isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

AF: At what age did each of you start playing music and what were your first songs about?

JM: I started playing drums when I was 12 in band and then in punk/hardcore and industrial bands in my later teens.

NF: About 14, I started playing bass. I was really into riot grrrl at that time so all my songs were about feminism!

NN: I started playing guitar at 13 and only played Hole and Breeders songs over and over in my bedroom!

MP: I started playing piano and doing voice lessons when I was 8 but I didn’t write any songs until I was like … 28? Seriously. And I didn’t play any of them for ANYONE until I was in my 30s. Late to the party but happy to be here.

AF: You have such a clear, distinctive sound and style as a band. Do you ever write a song or hook and you’re like: “Damn, this is not a Bizou song. This is totally Roy Orbison.”

JM: I’m always throwing song ideas at the band. If I write something that doesn’t sound like us they’re usually like, “nah.”

NN: Sometimes something super clubby will come out of the studio, which is a lovely surprise!

MP: Me and Josiah pass around demos all the time and sometimes we are like fuck this is cool but this is completely, like, not a Bizou song. Josiah makes so much music it’s insane, and not limited to any particular genre, which I love. Going forward I’d like to incorporate more of that, and take more risks with our sound. I don’t think want to be confined to a specific genre.

AF: What bands/music inspire you, but are out of Bizou’s genre?

JM: I’ve been working with this industrial/post-punk band called Aurat. They sing in Urdu. It’s really unique. They are within our genre but their background is definitely different but cool!

NF: Neko Case, Tegan and Sara, Nina Simone, Jenny Lewis, Fleetwood Mac.

MP: I’m not even sure what our genre is, but if I had to guess, it’s goth and goth-adjacent? I’m actually scrolling through my most recently played stuff and I it’s chaotic as usual: Clinic, Ariana Grande, Cleaners from Venus, Material Issue, Eartheather, Hunny, Holly Herndon. I don’t even know what to make of that.

AF: You’re an LA-based band. What about the city gets you going creatively? Any favorite spots?

JM: So many amazing bands from all around the world come here. It really is a global melting pot. Inspiring!

NF: My favorite spots are The Bootleg, The Hi Hat, Satellite. There are so many great venues here it’s hard to list! We have an incredibly supportive community. I’ve always felt that way living here. It doesn’t feel competitive here the way it does in some other major cities.

MP: I grew up in and around LA. As cheesy as it sounds, I do get a lot of creative inspiration from being here because I am bonded to the place and it really has always felt like home. Even in my worst times I’ve always felt in control and empowered just like, driving around on the freeways here because I know them so well. Being here gives me a sense of continuity that makes me feel grounded enough to stay creative.

AF: With Coronavirus keeping everyone at home, have ya’ll been meeting up via video chat? Are you still writing or just taking a break for the moment?

JM: I’m working from home and not in my studio. I’ve busted out an old 4-track recorder from my garage and have turned my couch into my studio.

NF: Just taking a little time to reflect on everything that’s going on in the world and how it affects me, my loved ones, our community. I think there’s gonna be a lot of amazing art that comes out of this time. But I also think it’s important to slow down for a minute while we can (and have to). Really puts a lot of things into perspective. Already I’m seeing the things I’ve taken for granted and already I can see the ways I am going to be different after all is said and done.

MP: I’ve definitely been writing— it all sounds like shit though! Until we can get into the studio with Josiah, it’s going to remain sounding like shit, and I am going to keep writing, because I need something to do with my hands in the time of Corona. I think we do have a band FaceTime scheduled in the next couple days. I miss everyone. I miss playing together.

Preorder Stilllifeburning HERE. Follow Bizou on Facebook for ongoing updates. 

Bad Honey Offer Sweetness with a Twist on Awake Tonight EP

It’s hard to listen to London-based soul-pop duo Bad Honey and not feel uplifted. College buds Lydia Clowes (vocals) and Teresa Origone (keyboard, synth) produce laid back, dreamy music that sounds like the soundtrack to a night in with your best friend. Their latest EP, Awake Tonight, released March 27, is a welcome burst of sunlight during a dreary time, covering new love, the joys of being alone in nature, and building emotional support in relationships.

“When I listen to it now, you can hear that it was made in the summer,” says Origone, who was inspired by Tyler the Creator’s Igor during the creation of the four-track EP. The super catchy “Easily” describes a relationship that “comes naturally,” while “Circles” is about working through conflict with a partner and coming out stronger on the other side. “Stillness” was inspired by a road trip taken by Clowes and deals with “appreciating feeling lonely and realizing it’s OK to feel lonely,” she says, and “Blissfully Unaware” addresses the way people turn a blind eye to climate change and other world issues, featuring a rap interlude by the members’ friend Mercy (MEI).

The duo has a playful, flirty sound, with quirky percussion, warped vocals, and lo-fi electronic instrumentals. Even the songs that deal with heavier subjects make you want to get up and dance around your living room.

Origone and Clowes’ close friendship allows them to sing about deeply personal topics they’ve discussed with each other. “As soon as you start working with someone else, you have to start talking about some things that you don’t really talk to many people about if you really want to write a good song,” says Origone.

The name of their band comes from Clowes’ love of bees, plus the desire to convey a tainted sweetness. “Some of the music is quite peaceful and nice to listen to, but if we used the word ‘honey’ in the band name, it has a risk of sounding too sweet, and I guess that’s why we decided to use ‘bad,’ because it’s a juxtaposition of two things,” Origone explains. For similar reasons, they describe themselves on social media as “a jar of honey traveling through space.”

“It’s sweet but with an extra something — it’s open for interpretation,” says Origone. The members’ image fits this sentiment as well; their style is the epitome of twee.

Bad Honey has released a few EPs previously — In Limerence and Better in Time — and is already at work on new music. Awake Tonight came out at an opportune time, as the band hopes it makes people feel “a bit lighter about the whole situation that’s happening,” says Origone. “Music kind of relaxes me and brings me into myself a bit more, and so I hope people can find a nice, sunny side in themselves with they listen to it.”

Follow Bad Honey on Facebook for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: Mima Good Teases Debut LP With “Sad Club Night” Single

Photo Credit: Michelle LoBianco

We’ve been following Mima Good, the alter-ego of NYC-based anti-pop songwriter Raechel Rosen, from the start, covering her debut Good Girl EP and last year’s one-off track “Holly Golightly.” She returns to the ever-evolving project with single “Sad Club Night,” off her imminent full-length debut Hydra.

Rosen describes her Mima Good character as a “dramatized version” of herself: braver, more performative, more extroverted and aggressive. “I think she’s the woman I dreamt of becoming when I was a child,” Rosen admits. This dramatization allows for a narrative arc to Rosen’s songwriting; when we met Mima Good on the Good Girl EP, she was emerging from the ashes of an abusive relationship. Rosen says that letting go of that baggage “clear[ed] space for me to face more universal demons” – no longer is she getting over one boy, one toxic relationship. Now she’s taking on the entire system that subjugates women as less than, but with a higher BPM and a greater sense of apocalyptic doom: “more Trinity from The Matrix than Powerpuff Girl,” she describes.

She wrote “Sad Club Night” last year after a night out that felt particularly apocalyptic. “I felt like we were all dancing waiting for the world to end,” she remembers. Layered under wobble bass, Rosen’s vocals sound almost playful as she recounts a late night dancing with friends, “beautiful people covered in black garments and red eyeliner that made them look kind of ill.” The visceral imagery led her to consider the aestheticization of depression, how we’re living in a society so devastating that we perform our despair almost as a trend. This becomes all the more relevant as we collectively face the present circumstances, how we no longer even have the release of a night out with loved ones.

The new album itself is named for an ancient monster, a “10-song quest inspired by the story of Hercules versus Hydra.” In the myth, Hercules tries to defeat Hydra by chopping off its head, only to have two more grow in its place. Things grow more dire each day now it seems, as overwhelming as Hydra’s many heads, but Rosen emphasizes the importance of taking it one day at a time. Though she’s pausing preparations for the tour she had planned for the fall in light of current uncertainty, she’s still writing music and practicing her craft. “My mental health struggles are not really unique to me, [but] in my album at least, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I wrote victory into the game.”

Follow Mima Good on Facebook for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: Movie Club Star in Their Own Mini Action Film With “Bones” Video

Photo Credit: Leo Erickson

Jessamyn Violet began playing piano when she was little, and while she was in grad school, she became interested in drumming. It intimidated her that the drums seemed to be a “man’s world,” but her first drum teacher told her, “just play with your soul,” and she ended up joining several bands including Bambi + Felix and Picturas. Vince Cuneo started off playing drums, but later switched to guitar and played in the project Violet Rose. They met at the Hollywood pub Cat & Fiddle in April, 2017 and created what is now the Venice, CA-based band Movie Club.

Movie Club is known for its minimalist sound, usually only consisting of Violet’s drumming, Cuneo’s guitar, and sometimes another guest musician. Such guests have included bassist Erick ”Jesus” Coomes (Dr. Dre, Lettuce, Kanye) and, on their next EP Man o’ War, bassist Tim Lefebvre (David Bowie, Black Crowes).

Man o’ War comes out on March 31, and they’ve just released the cinematic music video for the EP’s lead single, “Bones.” We talked to the band about the concept behind the song and video, their minimalist style, and the musicians who have influenced and collaborated with them.

AF: What’s the concept behind the video? 

JV: We were interested in making music videos that are almost like mini action movies. Obviously, our name makes this relevant, but also we wanted to develop some entertaining proof-of-concept for our songs because a goal of ours is to get our music into films and TV. 

AF: What’s with the wolves?

JV: In order to make any action movie good, you need captivating bad guys. We live on a street in Venice with a surprisingly high number of huskies, so we joked about asking the neighbors to lend us their wolves for some cool music video shots. Then, miraculously, these two white wolf masks were just sitting there at our local costume shop, waiting to be put into action. To get into character, we watched old cartoons featuring the “big bad wolf.”

VC: We shot “Moonbow,” the first of our interchangeable white wolves mini features, on our home turf in Venice. “Bones” was filmed at an abandoned water park called Dolores Lake out in Barstow. Dustin Downing, our talented Director of Photography for both these videos, discovered the spot driving back and forth from Vegas. Both music videos include fun references to some of our favorite films and music videos, including Mad Max and Indiana Jones, among others.

AF: What’s behind the title of the song?

JV: Since we don’t have lyrics, we usually pick a name based on the vibe of the song.

VC: “Bones” is a badass yet simple song, and has a desert rock kind of feel. 

AF: Why do you tend to keep your music to three instruments?

JV: Movie Club was formed on the principal of doing what we can with what we have. We embrace the minimalist union because it makes us different from other instrumental bands. Our songs have strong cores. We perform live as a high-energy duo but have always believed in putting great bass on the recordings.

VC: Sometimes, we have special sit-ins for our sets, and that’s really fun. But overall, we’ve gotten positive feedback on the duo performances, so we’re gonna keep riding that wave.

AF: What else would you say is unique to your style?

JV: We think the most unique part of our package is how our songs are short and to-the-point.

VC: We’re basically making no-frills rock songs without lyrics. 

AF: Who are your biggest influences on this EP, and in general?

JV: Man o’ War is definitely a heavier album than the first two because of certain artists we’ve been listening to lately.

VC: Bands like Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, and The Budos Band are certainly rubbing off on us.

JV: Overall influences include ’90s grunge as well as Khruangbin, who showed us that the world is warming to instrumental bands with a strongly developed sound.  

AF: Who are your favorite musicians you’ve collaborated with?

The bass players who have played on our albums are both extraordinary people and musicians. Erick “Jesus” Coomes is a funk/hip hop legend and writes the grooviest bass lines on the spot. It’s incredible to watch him work. We discovered Tim when he was playing with Vince’s favorite guitarist, Derek Trucks. Tim’s work on the last David Bowie album made us think, well, any band would be lucky to have him in the mix, but having him on our newest tracks would be a great fit. He was amazing to work with, so professional, and he added a cool sonic element to the tracks on Man o’ War.

AF: What are you working on now?

VC: We’re using the quarantine time to work on writing and recording demos for our first full-length album, which we hope to lay down whenever the world is in a safer place. 

Follow Movie Club on Instagram for ongoing updates.

PET POLITICS: Amelia Bushell Talks Grim Streaker, Belle Mare, and her Extra Special Pup

Amelia with her punk band Grim Streaker.

Amelia Bushell is one of Brooklyn’s most versatile frontwomen. You can catch her powerful yelps and hollers in hardcore band Grim Streaker, surf some dream-pop vibes with her duo Belle Mare, or hear an intimate and melodic serenade from her latest project Extra Special.

After releasing the single “Gut” and an EP, Girl Minority, in 2017, Grim Streaker released their debut LP, No Vision, last year. Belle Mare most recently released their EP Liars in October 2018, following Heaven Forget (2016) and The Boat of the Fragile Mind in 2013. Extra Special has yet to make a debut release, but when it does, I’m sure it will be extra special indeed. Basically, Amelia Bushell is a very busy lady.

I have had the pleasure of catching Amelia in multiple projects in very different settings, from DIY venues in Brooklyn, to outdoor gigs in Austin, to stripped down pizza parlor acoustic gigs in the neighborhood. Whatever genre she tackles, she does it with heart and charisma. Along with a passion for music, Amelia shares another love with yours truly: animals. Amelia has one particular fluffy, pawed pal name Charlie. I had the opportunity to talk to Amelia about Charlie, her history of pets and music, and the scoop on her current musical projects!

Amelia Bushell (Photo Credit: Michael Lavine).

AF: Please introduce us to your furry friend.

AB: This is Charlie, my family dog.

Charlie the Precious Pup (Photo Credit: Amelia Bushell).

AF: How did you two come across each other?

AB: My mum brought him home from Kelowna in British Columbia after spotting him at an event. His old owner had a young daughter that used to shake him so they needed to give him up.

AF: Did you grow up with any pets?

AB: My first pet was Goldidania, the goldfish that we won at a fairground. He self-combusted (i’m not joking) in his tank about a year later. Then we had a rabbit whose teeth grew too long and he strangled himself. We also had two guinea pigs. One attacked the other and we think he had a heart attack from fear. Our first dog was an Old English Sheepdog called Oscar, and while Oscar was still alive we got Charlie. 

AF: When did you move to Brooklyn and what prompted the move?

AB: I moved in 2011 for University. 

AF: When did you start playing music and what was your first instrument?

AB: I was forced to play piano at age 4 and although I hated it, I’m very grateful my parents made me do it because it gave me the musical foundation that ended up sparking my future projects. 

AF: First band name?

AB: Beachtits.

AF: Tell us a bit about your current musical projects.

AB: My most recent is called Extra Special and it’s my first solo endeavour. I say solo because I wrote the songs, but I wouldn’t have been able to get it off the ground had I not had help from my very talented band including Sharif Mekawy, Louis Cozza and Ray McGale. The first EP, produced by Gary Atturio, is due out this year. Gary also plays in my other dream pop project called Belle Mare and has just produced our latest single that will come out soon. Grim Streaker is my punk band.

Extra Special (Photo Credit: Michelle Lobianco).

AF: How did you meet your bandmates?

AB: I met Thom, my co writer in Belle Mare, at an open mic night. The rest I just met through connections in the Brooklyn music community. 

Belle Mare.

AF: Which of your projects do you think your pet would be most likely to play in, and on what instrument would he accompany you?

AB: Probably Extra Special because he’s very lazy and a lot of my songs are about being lazy. He would play the triangle because it doesn’t require much effort.

AF: Have you ever written a song about a (non-human) animal?

AB: I haven’t but I will. 

AF: Favorite song about a (non-human) animal?

AB: “Goodbye Horses” by Q Lazzarus.

AF: What (non-human) animal do you think you’re most like?

AB: People have said a bird…

AF: What do you miss most about your pet when you are on tour?

AB: Fluffy cuddles.

Sweet, Snowy Charlie (Photo Credit: Amelia Bushell).

AF: How does your pet respond to your music? 

AB: Don’t think he gives a shit.

AF: Does he have a favorite band or genre?

AB: I think he’s deaf.

AF: Do you have a favorite city to play on tour?

AB: Montreal hands down. I love the enthusiasm of the people and the food.

AF: Any funny tour stories?

AB: The time we locked Bill out of the car because he bought a soggy tuna sandwich from a gas station somewhere in the South and we were NOT letting him bring that in the car.

AF: If your pet was a human, what career would s/he embark on?

AB: He would have that job where NASA pays you to lie in bed for months.

AF: What are your plans for the rest of 2020?

AB: I’m planning on releasing music with all three bands!

AF: Any upcoming tours?

AB: It’s in the works!

PREMIERE: Sydney Jaffe Cautions Players With “Boys Like You”

Sydney Jaffe is currently a sophomore in college, and her music incorporates both the struggles and attitude of youth and an artistic maturity beyond her years. The singer-songwriter’s songs are flirty and playful, yet strong and self-assured. She sings about refusing to be viewed as interchangeable on previous single “Collection,” while “Complicated” voices her frustration with a partner’s indirectness, and “Reckless” is an anthem for teenage rebellion.

Jaffe’s Youtube channel is full of covers of artists like Charlie Puth, Lady Gaga, and Adele, which were the first songs she recorded before writing her own music. She released the EP You Know Me in 2018 and is planning to work on another EP or album soon.

The 20-year-old’s latest single, “Boys Like You,” is perhaps her most refined thus far, both musically and thematically. You can hear hints of Ariana Grande in her voice as she belts over catchy electronic beats, “Hands to yourself / You can touch it when I say so / I swear I’m an angel / Can’t you see my halo? / I been dancing on the tables / Got me feeling good / Call you back the morning after? / Bet you wish I would.” The track goes on to describe a rowdy night where Jaffe is letting loose yet still very much in control.


“I wanted to send a message to people who try to play around with not only me, but just girls in general, that when it comes to the people we actually value in our lives, it doesn’t end up including people who are just playing around with us,” she says. “It can be fun, it can be a crazy time, but in the end, it’s not a game, and it’s still real life, so we should all have respect for whatever people want to do.”

Several of Jaffe’s songs deal with sexuality and sexual self-discovery, which she says is not a conscious choice so much as a byproduct of her being generally open in her lyrics. “I’m not really afraid to talk about anything in my music, and sexuality has just been one of those things, along with many others,” she says.

Jaffe’s openness is part of an overall thread of empowerment that she hopes people take from her music. “I want people to get this sense of confidence out of my songs,” she explains. “As much as I see feminism as empowering women, which most of my music does address, it really just means equality for all genders, and confidence in who we are is the best way to achieve that.”

Jaffe is currently studying at the University of Southern California’s music school, and she plans to continue making music after graduation. “I’m surrounded by people who do music every day, so it pushes me to keep doing my thing and doing it well,” she says. “I really just want to continue to find my sound and take that wherever it leads my music. But we’ll see where life takes me.”

Follow Sydney Jaffe on Facebook for ongoing updates.

 

PLAYING NASHVILLE: Ellen Starski Demands “More” Independence in New Song

Photo by Anna Haas

Ellen Starski has a way of creating dynamic female characters, a gift she channels into her new song, “More.”

Premiering exclusively with Audiofemme, “More” centers around a woman who is determined to claim her independence after a series of failed relationships. Starski’s husband Shawn came up with the song’s melodic groove on his guitar one day while sitting in the kitchen, the lyrics of the first verse instantly coming to Starski’s mind as he played. She later took the idea to her producer and manager who recommended that she work with co-writers to complete it, connecting her with Michelle LeBlanc. Starski rounded out her songwriting trio with one of the most important people in her life – her father, Henry Deible.

When Starski’s parents came to visit her in Nashville, she invited her dad to help her and LeBlanc finish writing “More,” crediting him for adding an “extra layer” to the songwriting process. “He’s very poetic,” Starski describes, recalling how she used to read the love letters he sent to her mother during college. “I think he’s a main inspiration for the way that I write.” But the singer herself struck gold when she identified the defining line in the chorus that helped shape the core message of the song. From that spark came a protagonist who “just needs more for herself and is not willing to settle for anything but what she needs,” Starski details.

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to see/I’m not sure what I’m supposed to hear/I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say/Still I need more/So I stand here without you,” Starski sings with her whimsical voice, referencing the ancient Japanese proverb “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” “I feel like that’s almost a clash with the way that this person is stepping out and becoming everything that she needs to be, because those are the things that they tell you [not to do]” she describes of the lyric. “But it would kind of deter a person from being everything that they can be because you have to be able to speak your mind and see your truth and hear your truth.”

“More” is featured on Starki’s sophomore album, Sara’s Half Finished Love Affair. The peculiar title is inspired by two of Starski’s favorite songs that are both named “Sara,” one recorded by Bob Dylan and the other by Fleetwood Mac. “Sara became a character through all of the music that I appreciate. A ‘half finished love affair’ is something everyone can relate to and something I have been through personally,” Starski explains of the title. Accompanying the album is a story about a fictional character named Sara that Starski says was born in her subconscious. In the story, Sara is a time traveler who voyages across the world with her one true love, but ends up losing him along the way. While on her journey to find him, Sara and Starski meet in three distinct places across North America that Starski has visited: Nova Scotia, Montana, and Key West. Starski will share a new piece of Sara’s story with each single she releases.

“I didn’t realize it, but she was coming out in these songs through stories about everything – relationships that I’ve been through, all these different bits and pieces of my life,” the ethereal singer explains, adding that the people she met in each of these three places helped inform her alter ego. “Sara is a part of who I am.”

“More” will officially be released on March 27 and Sara’s Half Finished Love Affair drops May 8. And as the world hangs in the balance of the COVID-19 pandemic, Starski’s parting words offer empathy and encouragement. “Everybody take care of each other. It’s a crazy time, everything seems so uncertain, and it’s good to be getting music out for people while we’re all in quarantine,” she concludes. “I just hope it helps people get through it.”

Follow Ellen Starski on Facebook for ongoing updates.

Parlor Walls Juxtapose Beauty and Horror with Video for “Game”

Parlor Walls photo by Michelle LoBianco.

Post-punk darlings Parlor Walls weave a deadly spell in their latest music video for “Game.” The initial drone, followed by an unnerving pulse of a beep, reminiscent to a heartbeat on a hospital monitor, is almost as unnerving as the video itself. It comes from the band’s most recent LP, Heavy Tongue, released in February.

The Brooklyn-based duo comprised of Alyse Lamb and Chris Mulligan utilize an element of surprise in their videos, as well as in their multi-layered live performances showcasing Lamb’s electric guitar and Mulligan’s synth-savvy. The way they build each song in a live setting amounts to a slow boil, adding each new element slowly: first synth, then drums, guitar, and finally Lamb’s eerie vocals, laying out the vision in full.

“Game” has a similar trajectory, beginning with glitchy colors, bubbles floating up from the dark, settling on a woman’s masked face looming above a bathroom floor. It’s the repetition of those initial heartbeats that pull the listener in, the odd angles which make it difficult to see whether there is one woman or two, and then suddenly seeing both women, in early 1900s bathing suits. laughingly repeating the chorus into the frame. In that split second of a frame, we see they are beautiful to the eye, but what lengths did they to go to in order to achieve perfection? The song questions what beauty is, who defines it, and asks whether we can pull ourselves away long enough to make a difference.

Read our interview with the band and watch an exclusive premiere of “Game” below.

AF: Why do you make music? To feel something or to say something?

CM: Definitely to feel something. I’m sure Alyse is different as she is certainly saying something with her lyrics, but for me music is about expressing something you don’t know how to put into words. It’s like when you go outside at night and it’s warm and the smell of the wind gives you this overwhelming visceral reaction. You feel connected to something in a gut way. There’s no anxieties in that moment, time stretches out and goes silent. You feel present and have total perspective that we are in space right now but it is okay and not scary. Like I said, it’s a feeling I don’t know how to put into words without sounding like a 14-year-old stoner. But yeah, I hope to get to a point where I can make something and it gives someone that kind of reaction.

AL: I make music to process what is going on in the world around me – it helps me like a filter. It also builds connection. Connecting with one another is soooo important to me – it’s imperative for any attempt at harmony and understanding. I also just looove the physical aspect of playing as well – it shakes me up.

AF: When did you start writing music? And what was your first song about?

AL: I got a Casio keyboard when I was seven. I played around on that thing every day. My mom had a seamstress/costume shop in our basement and my first song was about her being in the dungeon weeping with the spiders. It was a sweet little tune with dark lyrics. Clearly I was watching a lot of Conan The Destroyer and Nightmare on Elm Street (shout out Freddy Krueger). In middle school/high school I would write a lot about my relationships, stresses and insecurities. I’ve always needed it.

AF: The band has gone through just a couple lineup changes over time. How have you and Chris’s musical relationship changed over the years? Do you write in a similar way to when you first started?

AL: When Chris and I first started playing music, it was very loud and very fast. We were exercising some demons. Eventually we settled on a mostly atonal, discordant landscape with sweet melodies hovering above. I love playing with harshness and softness and mixing it up. It has been a beautiful journey to examine all these little cracks and flows, and sort of let the tide take us where it wants. We keep digging deeper and deeper and uncovering new sounds.

AF: There’s a beautiful tension to your live performances, especially as you each settle into your instruments at the start of a song. Do you improvise at all during your concerts?

AL: Yes! We love improvising live. It keeps us on our toes, and it lets us read the room before going into our set. We always improvise transitions between songs too – it’s such a treat to hear what Chris has up his sleeve for the night.

AF: Your Instagram has a glitchy, 1970s LSD symposium vibe to it. How do visual arts play into your music? Are there certain fine artists you identify with as inspiration for Parlor Walls?

CM: Don’t know if this is considered fine art, but we’ve been obsessed with Triadisches Ballet by Oskar Schlemmer. It’s otherworldly and extremely simplistic at the same time. Better than any pop song.

AL: We are both visual artists so yes, it’s a large part of our process in Parlor Walls. Our album art, music videos, live visuals, merch… everything is connected. Chris found a bunch of amazing public domain footage from the 1950s and ’60s, very blown out and campy, and this has influenced some of our art for Heavy Tongue. I’m very much inspired by Dorothea Tanning, Egon Schiele, Kandinsky, Hen Douglass, and the composer Erik Satie.

AF: Tell us about the music video for “Game.” What’s the narrative here (or is there one)?

AL: The song is about my frustration/disgust with certain people in the spotlight pushing and pedaling toxic ideas and products to young people. It is unfathomable how some celebrities use their voice and platform for money and profit rather than making this world a better place. This directly ties in with body image – we are taught from a young age that we are not enough. There’s always something being pedaled to us to make us prettier or more beautiful (Jameela Jamil is deeply inspirational to me, she has been a frontline soldier in this fight!). I stumbled upon an article about Helena Rubinstein’s Glamour Factory of the 1930s. Women went to absurd lengths in the name of “beauty.” The video for “Game” reflects the grotesque and bizarre. I wanted it to feel like being trapped inside a horror house. I’ve co-directed a number of videos but this was my first solo directing project. Chris edited it, Emma McDonald shot it, and my co-star was Andrya Ambro (Check out her band Gold Dime). Chris and I run an art collective/production company called Famous Swords. This is our latest visual project.

AF: What music are you currently listening to purely for pleasure?

CM: Resavoir. That’s the band name and album name. It gives me that feeling I was rambling about in that first answer.

AL: Too Free’s new album is wonderful. They’re a group from DC.

AF: What’s your favorite NYC spot right now?

We recently played a show at TV Eye in Ridgewood. Check it out, it’s a beautiful space!

AF: I’ve left a Parlor Walls show. I’m having a drink with friends at my local haunt. What feeling or message do you hope I’ve left with?

Shaken up. Titilated. Feathers ruffled. Inspired to create.

Parlor Walls’ latest record Heavy Tongue is out now. 

Love You Later Teases New EP With Video for “Making Plans”

For her synthpop project Love You Later, Lexi Aviles writes honest, open lyrics that make you feel like you’re reading someone’s diary. The 21-year-old artist released her first EP, How Many Nights Do You Dance With Tears in Your Eyes?, in 2018 and has since put out several singles that deal rawly with heartbreak, growing up, and other emotional topics.

Born and raised in Orange County, Aviles has been writing songs since she was 13. She moved to Nashville right out of high school to make it as a singer-songwriter and has since settled in LA.

Her songs are relatable not just because of their subject matter but also because of the conversational tone she writes and sings in. “It’s weird I find my comfort in the city / I miss my mother / cause she’s not here / no, she’s not here / I’m going home this weekend and I’m thinking about / not leaving / and it’s kind of weird,” she sings in 2018 single “Growing Season.” She candidly addresses a lover on 2017’s “Emily,” “Well you can say you’re sorry for nothing / Cause I know that you’re feeling something with her / So go get her.”

Love You Later’s latest single, “Making Plans,” is about a phenomenon many people can relate to: dating as a means of self-distraction. Her second EP, which includes this track and others, is set to come out this spring. We talked to her about her latest song and video and her future plans.

AF: What was the inspiration behind the song “Making Plans”?

LA: It’s hard to be alone. As humans, sometimes we just need someone to pass the time with to get our minds off of the bad stuff. It’s so easy to feel isolated and drowned out in such a big city with so much happening but no one to do it with. I wrote this song from a state of isolation, self reflection, and transparency, which hopefully people can relate to.

AF: What was the concept behind the video?

LA: The video illustrates me and this guy having this exciting and sweet date night, really just to get my mind off of things. He is acting as a placeholder more and more as the night carries on. The shots go back and forth from me enjoying the date to me getting frustrated with myself for choosing to go on this date in the first place because it stems from selfish reasons (loneliness, sadness, emptiness, depression, desperation, etc.).

AF: Does your music aim to help people with the kind of loneliness you sing about? 

LA: I definitely hope to reach people through my music. Vulnerability is such a special part of being an artist. Having a platform to share my story and express my honest feelings is a privilege, and I strive to create a safe space where people feel like they can connect. That’s why I do this whole music thing in the first place. I’ve learned that when you open up, other people will, too.

AF: What other themes do you explore on your upcoming EP?

LA: The EP sums up the freedom, relief, and liberation I felt after I ended a relationship that wasn’t good for me. All of these songs show the progression of that relationship – before, during, and after. The EP is very transparent and emotional, but at the same time, more lighthearted and self aware than the first EP. I’m so excited to release it into the world. I can’t exactly tell you the name yet, but it has five songs featuring “Making Plans” and “Said That You’d Be There,” my two singles leading up to the release.

AF: Who are your biggest influences?

LA: The Japanese House, Bleachers, Caroline Polachek, No Rome, King Princess, MUNA, Clairo, Charlie Puth, LANY, The 1975, and anything ’80s.

AF: Speaking of making plans, what are your next plans?

LA: Releasing my EP in April, playing some shows in the spring/summer, another video coming very soon, and lots more!

Follow Love You Later on Facebook for ongoing updates.