When Twin Shadow released his album Caer in April of this year, it brought a sense of relief to fans – not only did it signify recovery from his bands’ catastrophic tour bus crash, the music felt like a return to form. His first two records, 2010 debut Forget and its 2012 follow-up Confess, gained him indie acclaim thanks to their epic ’80s synth pop sound, but 2015’s Eclipse saw him all but abandon his hallmark style in favor of a more pop-friendly sound. Unfortunately, Eclipse didn’t make a good, or lasting, impression on critics or fans, while the bus accident nearly ended his career in the process of promoting it.
Caer sees Twin Shadow – real name George Lewis, Jr. – return to the nostalgic sound that made his music so immediately accessible, without sacrificing his serious pop star ambitions. There’s no one track on the album that emphasizes this more than feel-good jam “Saturdays;” it even features pop rock sister act HAIM. The video for the track doubles down on the nostalgia, as Lewis digs into his childhood memories of wiling away the weekends in front of a fuzzy television set. The video follows a young George Lewis, Jr. look-alike enthralled by what can only be a direct throwback to Nickelodeon’s “You Can’t Do That on Televison” and on into the teenage intrigue scrambled late-night signals, offering an enthralling journey through the visuals that shaped Twin Shadow.
DeJ Loaf is back, and showing fans her softer side. When she broke onto the scene with “Try Me” and followed it up one year later with “Back Up,” her sound was that of a woman trying to prove herself in the male dominated hip-hop scene. But “Liberated” represents the newfound freedom she’s found in defying convention and refusing to play by someone else’s rules. It opens with a potent depiction of the Black Lives Matter movement, eventually encompassing a number of grassroots protests that have taken hold in these challenging political times. The message is clear – the only way to get “Liberated” is to do it for oneself.
With a provocatively titled new track and sensual clip to match, Anna Calvi announces her return to rock, and perhaps her intent to destroy gender roles once and for all. She’ll release Hunter, her third full-length record – the follow-up to 2013’s critically lauded One Breath – on August 31st via Domino.
Trippy Brooklyn music collective Pendulum People continues to invite audiences into their world of spectacle and illusion. This latest video for their song “Paradise” pulls imagery from their live shows, and highlights the elaborate costuming and dance the crew’s fans have come to expect.
We couldn’t be more excited about the return of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s experimental rock project Low. This week they teased the September 14 release of Double Negative with a triptych of videos for “Quorum,” “Dancing and Blood” and “Fly.” The new songs and their accompanying clips find beauty in the dark, dramatic, and unsettling.
