Chelsea Wolfe presents her new single, ‘Tunnel Lights,’ off upcoming album, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, out February 9 on Loma Vista. Centred around love and light, ‘Tunnel Lights’ conjures up a late-nite Twin Peaks feel until it cracks open into a swirl of analog and electric waves. As Wolfe explains, “‘Tunnel Lights’ is about actually living instead of just ‘getting by.’ It’s about waking up to the fact that you’ve been languishing in the dark and it’s time to start taking steps towards the lights that’ll guide you out of the tunnel-cave.” On She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, there are references to shedding exoskeletons, to excommunication, and to permanent fissures. “I’m sanctified in my lover’s eyes,” Wolfe leads with on ‘Tunnel Lights.’ “No way around it/No way to fight/A pull too strong/Don’t try to forfeit/The way is through/On tunnel lights.” Dense and minimal, raw and opulent, intimate and expansive, the production of the song and throughout the album breaks apart then rebuilds—samples of the band are cut and pasted back together, heavy guitars dissolve into trip-hop breaks; the vocal delivery feels sculptural and is both hushed and soaring. Following ‘Whispers in the Echo Chamber,’ the ‘Tunnel Lights’ video presents Wolfe collaborating once again with director George Gallardo Kattah and was also filmed in Colombia.
Lyon-based trio Oakman have released their brand-new single ‘Air Hunger’. An upbeat masterclass in spiritual survival set to a soaring electronic score, ‘Air Hunger’ sees Oakman collaborate with Aurélien Mariat once again for a beautifully retro and fantastical music video. “’Air Hunger’ is about the profound desire to escape one’s mental state and try to breathe again. Running away from reality is a solution that ultimately brings you back to the same issue” says Marine Lazillotta. She continues “it’s something I often do, something we all do. It’s how we turn life into a redundant anxiety and then we suffocate and struggle for air. Behind those moody notes and a quite joyful atmosphere, hides, as always, a touch of melancholy in Oakman. I wanted to share with you some of my feelings through our music, just what I felt, with honesty.”
Twee-extraordinaire Majorette releases a brand new track titled, ‘One Glove’. The song is the first single off of her upcoming EP, Forever Starts Tuesday, due January 23. ‘One Glove’ listens like a reverse strip-tease: totally bare with just a single vocal track and syncopated drum beat. Slowly layers are added on, culminating in a three-part round. Lyrically, the song is exactly the opposite. Singer Danielle Salomon tells the story of selling off her clothing one season at a time in order to make ends meet, finishing with the lyric “looks like this year, I’ll be completely nude.”Inspired by a lost mitten and an ill-fated water park incident where Salomon resorted to tobogganing in a pair of athletic shorts after selling her swimsuit— ‘One Glove’ is equal parts cheeky and tragic. The new single has been paired with a music video shot entirely on 16mm, featuring Salomon in a variety of vintage period-piece costumes she hand sewn herself. Drawing from pin-up style calendars and MGM musicals- specifically ‘Beautiful Girl’ from Singin’ in the Rain and Leslie Caron’s introduction scene in An American in Paris — the video for ‘One Glove’ is one minute and 30 seconds of decadent delusion. The video was directed by Paul DeSilva (Wetsuit), and shot by cinematographer Martin Parsekian, set design by Elizabeth Chaney, lighting and technical direction by T. Michael Culane. This video marks the 2nd collaboration with this team, after last years’ ‘Crockpot’.
Following a series of successful releases with ‘Love Myself’ and ‘Deadweight’, former Hot Chip and Kano vocalist Valentina drops her much awaited EP All Are Lost. Alongside the EP, she releases the focus track ‘Flutes Over Dudes (The Last Time That You Cried)’ and the accompanying music video. Written back home in London after returning from a soul-searching trip travelling across LA, Mexico and Costa Rica; ‘Flutes Over Dudes (The Last Time That You Cried)’ is a sombre, yet playful musing on the idea of being ‘too much’, after being broken up with in the middle of Costa Rica, and realising she had repeated a pattern that she really wanted to break with that relationship. The lyric “If it seems like I’m too much, maybe you’re not enough. I don’t want more, I want it all” is the beating heart of this track and a line that many others will be able to relate to. With her signature hazy vocals layered over airy pads and atmospheric flute instrumentation, Valentina captures an audience with a hauntingly honest tale of finally putting herself first. Of the track, Valentina said “To the people I’ve had in my life who do not take responsibility for themselves, and who almost wear it as a badge of honour, expecting someone else to do the emotional labour for them – “You’re proud you can’t remember the last time that you cried, but you hurt everyone around you in the meantime”. I wasn’t going to downplay or undermine myself anymore or make myself less intimidating or more agreeable for people. I wasn’t going to pretend I didn’t need things that I needed. It feels like maturing, growing into yourself in a way, and letting yourself inhabit space that’s been squashed or stifled for a long time.” Alongside the focus track, Valentina drops the music video for ‘Flutes Over Dudes (The Last Time That You Cried)’ inviting us into the artistic, minimalistic and somewhat surreal visual imagining of the track. On the video, Valentina says: “Working with the director Alex Corona on this video, we were looking to be playful with the tone and juxtapose against the rawness of the lyrics. The photographic and contemplative setups in black and white felt like it sat in the right space for the theatrical plays on emotional states of being.”
Minneapolis trio VIAL have been having fun this year, whether that means taking on the bold task of covering Nirvana’s ‘Territorial Pissings’ or unleashing an angsty ska-like song called ‘just fine.’ Now, they’re back with more antics: a track called ‘ur dad.’ ‘ur dad’ is, essentially, a gender-swapped ‘Stacy’s Mom.’ At under two minutes, it packs in enough father-seducing to kill a Victorian child: “And, I hope this doesn’t make things weird between me and you/ But I loved seeing him at his barbecue/ Grilling weenies in his cute little apron/ Oh GOD, he really gets me going.” [via Stereogum]
Dove Cameron has released a new video from her debut album. ‘Sand’ follows on from recent drop ‘Lethal Woman’, and is from her full-length Alchemical: Volume 1, out now via Disruptor Records/Columbia Records. “‘Sand’ is about a person who I loved very much, and who I thought I was going to spend my life with,” she shares. “It’s about the experience of having that seemingly perfect relationship end so suddenly and without warning, the feeling of shock and overnight disintegration of the future you built together, realizing no matter how much I gave of myself, I still had so little of him in the end, and the feeling of being unable to get back even the smallest pieces of myself that I had given away. I hope when you hear this song, it helps you learn to trust your instincts when you fall for someone, and hold out for the one where the more you give, the more they give. Don’t be afraid to lose the ones who can’t possibly see you, not because you aren’t incredible, but because they never could in the first place.” Of the album, she adds: “Alchemical: Volume 1 is a report from the void of my own personal experience with love, sex, loss, trauma, darkness and eventually transformation and healing. I hope you hear yourself and we can meet in these moments in time together.” [via Dork]
For nearly a decade now, Albuquerque-based rockers Prism Bitch have evolved their balance of garage-rock riffing and playful theatricality that bleeds into much of their discography (to say nothing of their famously over-the-top videography). They’ve released a slate of singles since 2021’s PERLA LP—most recently this past April’s ‘Woman,’ which mercilessly drags just about every song with that title written by a man over the past 50 years—and now they return with their most fascinating period piece to date. ‘City Nights’ is a pastiche of mid-’80s haze, with the electronic drumbeat and ambient synths bringing to mind the decade’s stadium-filling pop hits and the muscular guitars and cowbell of the chorus swinging in the direction of the glam metal fad (all of which makes Lilah Rose’s occasional exaggerated butt-rock vocals feel ahead of their time). The track, of course, comes paired with a ludicrous video which continues to pay homage to the ’80s by using James L. Brooks’ romcom Broadcast News as a jumping off point as it depicts the local news in comic tones. “We were able to get all this help from our community in Albuquerque and ended up making something really fun,” the band’s Lauren Poole shares. “It’s important not to disengage from the world around us with all the intense and very scary things happening. It’s also important to keep fun alive, and we really hope that this song and video will brighten someone’s day.” [via FLOOD]
