Tag: premiere

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.

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. 

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.

PREMIERE: Sans Soucis Embraces the Incomplete on “Unfinished” EP

Photo Credit: Luca Perrin

When an artist releases a body of work, it’s often expected to be polished and perfected to their liking. But that’s not always how it feels. London-based singer-songwriter Giulia Grispino, aka Sans Soucis, decided to embrace this incompleteness by titling her second EP Unfinished.

“We’re so focused on figuring out things, and I wanted to make a big statement: unfinished is not something bad,” she says. “We are unfinished, which means we still need to figure out things and we’ll always be figuring out things.”

Dramatic orchestral instruments give the title track a haunting, nostalgic sound a bit reminiscent of Joanna Newsom, as Grispino sings of coming to terms with childhood trauma. The second track, “Red,” is sweeter and gentler, with angelic harmonies providing the backdrop for Grispino’s poetic narration of a story about a lonely woman: “I colored the walls of all the cities I know / Red is my heart, my blood and soul.”

On the last song on the EP, “Make One From a Two,” strings figure heavily for a simultaneously classical and poppy sound. This was Grispino’s first time working with string instruments, which was a long-time goal of hers.

Grispino started making music and producing it independently in college and started a band, then began her career as a solo artist under the name Sans Soucis last year. The moniker is a French nickname that Grispino’s grandmother gave her when she was little, and it translates to “no worries” — a spirit she strives to bring to her work.

“When I decided to embark on this project of mine, it felt like my songwriting had to be in tune with my childhood, which is the best version of anyone,” she says. “Experience makes us heavy, but I wanted to make sure my music was liberating for me and other people.”

Even though her music carries the positivity and curiosity of childhood, it still deals with weighty subjects; much of it centers on examining and overcoming trauma. She hopes her music conveys to listeners that “traumas don’t define us,” she explains. “It’s something that we deal with day by day. Purposes stay the same, but goals change, and overcoming trauma allows us to actually keep changing and keep being unfinished.” Her past releases range from the indie-pop-esque “Visible” to the spiritual, harmony-driven “Unchained.”

Her influences also represent a wide range, from jazz to rock to folk, with Nick Drake inspiring her latest EP. “I loved his music and wanted to create this songwriting that is evocative and folky and has string elements and reminds me of jazz,” she says. “It brings me back to childhood for some reason.”

Grispino feels the EP’s timing is appropriate given what’s going on in the world. “It’s something really intimate, and I know that when people listen to music, they need to be in the mood for it,” she says. “I think isolation is the best mood for this EP, and I hope it brings a bit of introspection for them.”

Follow Sans Soucis 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.

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.

The Gods Themselves Return with “Saved” Video; New LP due in May

Seattle-based dance-punk band The Gods Themselves are known for their ’80s-inspired sound and retro fashion, and the video that accompanies “Saved,” the first single from their upcoming fourth studio LP New Excuse (out May 1st), goes heavy on both.

In the video, Astra Elane (vocals, guitar) and Dustin Patterson (vocals, baritone), both dressed in bright colors, look whimsically out windows as they belt emotive lyrics like “I can’t stand to be myself / can you make me someone else?” and “Your eyes are open and I’m out of my head” with exaggerated gestures and dance moves. “I won’t save your life again,” Elane sings in the chorus, to which Patterson responds, “This will be the last time.”

The band — which counts The Talking Heads, Blondie, New Order, and LCD Soundsystem among its influences — has been around since 2014, after Elane’s previous project Atomic Bride came to an end. She originally worked with two other members and recruited Patterson based on a video of him coming in third at Seattle’s Amateur Elvis Competition (he was “intimidated” by her at first, she says, but she talked him into it). They’re also now working with bassist Andrew Imanka.

We talked to them about their past, present, and future projects, as well as the time their song “Tech Boys” got them onto a Parts Unknown episode about Seattle’s tech takeover.

AF: What is the song “Saved” about?

DP: “Saved” was originally called “Disembodied Voices,” but our producer Stephen Hague disliked the title so much he encouraged a rewrite! The song’s about a desperate relationship of shifting power dynamics. Many of our songs begin one way and, through collaboration, become something totally different, like a Pokémon evolving.

AE: Dustin had a great idea for this track about hearing a song on the radio. When Stephen suggested we change the name, we started re-working the lyrics a bit. Fun fact: the chorus lyrics were initially supposed to be just a placeholder, but they ended up sticking and inspiring the title of the song!

AF: What was the inspiration behind the video?

AE: Locations were a big inspiration for the vision of the video. We found these two great spots on Peerspace and kind of built the storyline around them. We knew we wanted the imagery to match the sound, so locations had to be stark and colorful. We also wanted some sexy dance moves, so I hit up my choreographer friend Kat Murphy, who directed all the dancing for our “Tech Boys” video. Kat flew up from LA and brought in two other incredible dancers, Shay Simone and Charlotte Smith. Our director Domenic Barbero, who had been the DP for our “Cool” video a few years prior, captured all the magic. We love Dom’s eye and knew he’d make us look amazing.

DP: The original concept was to show the two of us apart, and then we come together at the end. The song is a bit like that – we sing back and forth, separate until the big coda. We knew we had to shoot it quick, with only a couple locations, so we found the most interesting locations and built the idea around that. One location was a funky Korean karaoke place in Pike Place Market. To contrast it, we found an old White House that is often rented out for wedding photos.

AF: I saw you were on Anthony Bourdain’s show — what was that like?

AE: It was surreal. I still remember the day we got the e-mail from the production company. I had to keep reading it – I thought it was a scam at first. The producers and crew are a fantastic group of people. They flew out from NY several times to meet with us and to shoot our Capital Hill Block Party performance. Later in the summer, we met with them again when we shot the segment with Tony at Pacific Inn Pub. We were super nervous, as we had months to anticipate this life-changing fish and chips meal, but when he actually sat down and started rapping with us, all inhibitions immediately melted away. He was completely down to earth and just easy and fun to talk to. He was indeed hungover and was “very much looking forward to hitting up the weed store and smoking a joint in his hotel room” after our big lunch. Crew did a spectacular job editing down a near two-hour meal to thirty seconds. In the end, we were sad to say farewell to those folks.

 

DP: He was very rumpled from the night before. I think he had been out with Mark Lanagan from Screaming Trees. He was such a pro, though, from the moment we started shooting: calm, curious, very generous with his time. His team warned us not to bring up punk rock because he could get going pretty far down that rabbit hole. Of course, we asked him anyway. He was very candid about his New York days. He also recommended several horror movies, including one with his girlfriend Asia Argento called Stendhal Syndrome which he praised as “indefensible.” There was a sweetness to him that was so charming. It was a shock when he died and a heartbreaker, too. He’s someone you feel you know right away. It was a big break for us. I think about him often, wishing he had just held on.

AF: What inspired the song “Tech Boys” that led to that encounter?

DP: I was a contract designer at Amazon during the inaugural Prime Day. The experience was so uniformly negative, I actually left designing for a while to walk dogs around Seattle. I was left with this lingering resentment about how that company treats its people. My anger would flare up all the time in practice. The song was a channel for that anger. It’s pretty heavy-handed. I don’t resent all tech boys (or girls). It’s more about an unexamined corporate culture that devalues and dehumanizes its employees and gentrifies entire cities. But that isn’t as catchy. It’s funny because some tech people really hate that song, but some find it really funny and love it.

AE: I remember vividly how grumpy Dustin would be coming to practice after working that shit gig at Amazon. Around the same time, we were seeing many artists and musicians getting pushed out of their homes in Seattle to make way for new high rises to house the ambitious tech bros. It was disheartening. Ironically, we both work for different tech companies now, which treat their employees better than Amazon, and the fact remains that there are assholes everywhere, just as there are benevolent people everywhere – be it tech worker or artist.

AF: What inspires your distinct fashion style?

AE: Mainly the retro vibe comes from the music we are influenced by but we dig style and swag and try to deliver that in our music and appearance.

DP: Astra and I both love to dress up. The stage is a great excuse to do that. I have a closet full of cheap suits: pink, white, patterned. Crazy shoes. One of the best parts of being in a band is looking the part.

AF: What’s behind the name of your band?

DP: Our name is from a book called Catch 22.

AE: Lies! It is in fact from an Isaac Asimov novel The Gods Themselves. In the story, there is an alternate universe where the alien beings function in a triad. To reproduce, two males and a female are required. The name was fitting for us when we started as a trio…with two dudes and a chick. It’s a mouthful of a name. Many folks refer to us as TGT now.

AF: What are you working on right now?

DP: We’ve got a few more videos on the way, including one giallo-inspired video in which we are stalked and murdered by a masked killer. So all the haters can really enjoy that one.

The Gods Themselves release New Excuse on May 1. Follow the band 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. 

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.

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.

Eliza and the Organix Explore Intergenerational Trauma in “Broken Sky”

Photo Credit: David Moriya

Brooklyn-based band Eliza and the Organix have a unique sound that blends funk, rock, and hints of folk and jazz. Their second album, Present Future Dreams: Part II, is set for release on May 1 and will include their new single, “Broken Sky,” which vocalist and guitarist Eliza Waldman describes as a song about intergenerational trauma.

Waldman, who has a powerful voice a bit reminiscent of Alanis Morissette, sings of disillusioned dreams in the track: “Broken sky, paper dolls / When your whole life feels too small / When the best you know becomes the worst of all.” Due to the hit musicians have taken because of the coronavirus, Waldman is encouraging listeners to support the arts and download the track on Bandcamp for $.99 or more.

We spoke to her about her music, the impact of intergenerational trauma, and what having a female-fronted band means to her.

AF: Tell me about how your band got started. 

EW: The band started originally at Vassar College in 2011. Me and my friends Kristen Tivey and Vanora Estridge were all in the jazz program, which was a mostly male program at a college that was historically all-female until the 1960s. That was, to say the least, a disappointing dynamic. So, immediately part of the band landscape for us was wanting to create a place for ourselves that felt more comfortable to improvise and explore what we could DO making music, and we found that with each other.
At the time, I was listening to a lot of the bands Cake and Morphine, and I was in love with the saxophone. I was really getting into textures, horn arrangements, all the layering that Cake would do on their albums. The saxophone really appealed to me because it’s like a musical gut punch. It’s a very forward instrument, and I found that aggressive energy very appealing. I was also really into Amanda Palmer and the Dresden Dolls at the time, which attracted me for a lot of the same reasons. She was loud, she was angry, she had a lot to say.
I had just really started writing songs in college – for years before that, I was very focused on classical guitar and did not really think of myself as a songwriter. But it started to come together part-way through college, and I realized, Oh hey, actually, I’m pretty good at this and I love doing it. 
 
So it started out with me on guitar, Kristen on saxophone, and Vanora on keys jamming with a lovely drummer Erik Snow. When we started out, it was all super new, and our sound was very raw. Funk-punk energy is how I would describe it. It was a mix of soul grooves and me being super loud and playing around vocally. I was just having the best time.
Photo credit: Ella Sanandaji
AF: What made you want to write about intergenerational trauma? Is it something you’ve dealt with?
EW: I’m really glad to have the opportunity to talk about this subject, because it’s something I care deeply about. I think for years I was writing about intergenerational trauma without ever knowing it. I look back on my earlier work, and I can hear it everywhere in the songs, how I was trying to process things without really knowing how to. “Broken Sky” is one of those songs where I didn’t realize what I was writing about at first, and I was listening back to it, and it suddenly clicked for me. Oh, it’s about these patterns that got passed down to me that I now find myself living out over and over.
I’ve had quite a journey over the past few years emotionally. I think that the way we’re raised affects so much in how we think about and process the world, and it’s so ingrained that it’s easy not to realize. Both of my parents had rough childhoods, and I was raised with this mentality that no one will give you anything. Don’t ask for help. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Never show emotion, never let them see you cry. And several years ago, I went through some very rough stuff involving a relationship that I found myself completely unequipped to handle emotionally. I didn’t know how to be kind to myself when I wasn’t doing well. I didn’t seem able to pull myself up by my bootstraps, and I was really hard on myself about that for a long time. I didn’t know how else to cope. I realize now that my coping mechanisms and my mindset were not letting me break free of these painful patterns.
I was lucky that I discovered therapy, and I have to say it was an incredibly liberating experience. I feel like these patterns from the past are something I may always be dealing with, but I feel much more in control of my life at this point. I learned as a child to avoid conflict, and that’s something that has been the hardest pattern for me to break free of, to actually get to a place where I believe that my thoughts and my feelings matter. I know that’s something a lot of women can identify with. But I’m in such a better place with myself at this point, and I feel incredibly lucky to be living my best life, out there making my music in the world.
AF: Do you think a lot of women are dealing with intergenerational trauma right now?
EW: I don’t know if I’m just more attuned to it than I used to be, but I feel like I see and hear women dealing with trauma pretty much everywhere recently in the arts and media. I read an article a couple days ago where Reese Witherspoon was talking about how every woman on the set of Big Little Lies was dealing with some form of trauma. That really hit me. Millennials have been called the therapy generation, and I think there’s so much that’s been pressurized in our culture for so long that’s finally starting to come out. There’s been a cultural shift where things that used to be seen as normal, women are starting to say, “No, actually, this isn’t normal, this isn’t acceptable.”
Photo credit: David Moriya

AF: What would you say the rest of your album is about? 

EW: This album is actually rather high concept! It’s a two-parter. The first half of it came out in 2017 and was called Present Future Dreams: Part I. And now, in 2020, finally, Present Future Dreams: Part II is coming out. The artwork was done in collaboration with my good friends Nick Cohen and Marlee Newman and features a rubber chicken under a car tire, the concept being that for millennials in their 20s, you are this rubber chicken out there on the highway of life getting run over and bouncing back and run over and bouncing back. There’s so much learning and processing that’s going into finding your place in the world, and sometimes learning experiences can be brutal, so there’s a kind of dark humor to it. But the chicken always bounces back and tries again, so it’s hopeful, too. The songs are really a series of vignettes about those experiences of growing up in your 20s.
AF: You’ve played at a few different women’s music festivals — what’s that like coming together with other female musicians like that? 
EW: It feels really great! I’ve met so many really talented, badass human beings through festivals like Womxn Fuck Shit Up DC, Swan Day CT, and Ladybug Festival in DE. I really appreciate those festival organizers for putting in all the time and energy it takes to create these amazing spaces where we can come together and nurture each other. It’s such a special experience.
AF: What do you have coming up next?
EW: Our local NY release show for the new EP is happening May 1 at Pianos with our friends HARD NIPS and Sarah FM, and then we’ll be performing at Froggy Daze Festival in Narrowsburg, NY May 15th. April 24th we’ll be in Somerville, MA at the Jungle and April 25th, we’ll be appearing on WECS FM (Eastern Connecticut State University) and playing at Gaiafest in Southbridge, MA with some NYC locals Basic B-tches. We’re also planning out some dates for our summer tour, so we’ll be doing some traveling in July, those dates TBA!

Stefan T Premieres Party Anthem “All Night”

“Growing up in Vegas taught me how to throw a good party,” Stefan T says, and his new single “All Night” certainly has the swagger of the strip: lights, dirt, a sideways smile.

From his upcoming album NightShift, due out April 24th, “All Night” is a departure from the album’s previously-released alt-R&B-tinged singles, “Keep Me Guessing” and “One” (featuirng B. Rose) with their sensual lyrics and electronic, glitchy background sounds. “All Night” takes the party out of the bedroom and onto the dance floor.

Stefan T (which stands for Tisminezky), started playing classical guitar at age 10 and graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in Electronic Music Production and Sound Design. After moving to Los Angeles, Tisminezky put his music production chops to work, writing music under the moniker The Saint Machine. The music he created was a mutli-layered, fast-paced whirlwind into the future, awash with robotic signatures and lengthy solo synth attacks; it was a cathartic release of energy, stemming partly from Tisminezky’s then-recent sobriety.

Craving to create something with more commercial appeal, Stefan began to play around with chord progressions; “All Night” was a collaboration with his friends Spencer and Levi. They supplied the guitar riffs and Stefan “filled in the rest.” Synths are prominently featured throughout, specifically a Moog Mother 32 and DFAM, as well as a Korg Minilogue. These alien sounds, like vibrations from a time warp, help to raise the nu disco to another world altogether.

Listen to AudioFemme’s exclusive stream of “All Night” below:

Follow Stefan T. on Instagram for ongoing updates. 

San Mei Premieres Dreamy Title Track from Cry EP

Photo Credit: Joshua Bilhan

It’s no doubt that up-and-coming artists can struggle to find their footing or assert their identity in an increasingly crowded music industry. For Emily Hamilton, an Australian singer-songwriter from Gold Coast who releases music under the name San Mei, that journey has been, at times, frustratingly slow. But with her forthcoming EP Cry (out March 20 via Sydney’s etcetc Records), San Mei set out to vent those frustrations, resulting in some of her most personal and relatable songwriting yet. Finally settling squarely on a dream pop indebted sound, Cry sees Hamilton coming into her own as a musician and producer, and with her unparalleled work ethic, there’s not much to get in her way.

Except a global health crisis. When I spoke with Hamilton on the phone, she had just arrived in Austin, Texas. Having played nine shows there at last year’s South by Southwest around the release of her second EP Heaven, Hamilton and her three bandmates had high hopes for the live debut of Cry. When SXSW was cancelled due to the coronavirus threat, they decided to go anyway and play whatever unofficial showcases were left, as they’d already invested quite a bit of their own money to come. But by the time they’d landed, those showcases we cancelled, too, with only virtual showcases in the works. Now, she’s looking at it as a much-needed vacation for the band.

Last year, San Mei played more than 45 shows, mostly in Australia, supporting touring bands like Ali Barter, Jack River, G. Flip, and K. Flay on weekend jaunts. “It feels like it was every weekend. It probably wasn’t but touring can get really tiring,” says Hamilton. “It just reiterated to me that it’s all about working hard if you wanna do well in music.” In some respects, she says, it made her question if this was the work she wanted to be doing. “Even energy-wise, I was like, I’m exhausted. I dunno how people who are in really successful bands just constantly tour. So what I got out of that was just like, this is a huge part of making music, and do I want to keep doing that, and the answer was yes.”

Those feelings of physical fatigue, feeling constant pressure to succeed, and feeling so far from her career goals were Hamilton’s biggest inspirations on Cry, most of which was written as she reflected on her accomplishments at the end of last year. An early single, “Hard To Face,” voices those frustrations most succinctly: “I know that time can be cruel when it’s wasted/But I know that if you run to the prize you can make it to the end/Running out of time, am I losing my mind?/Running for my life, why can’t I get peace of mind?/ Does it get better?” While supporting bigger artists on tour was an “amazing” experience for Hamilton, she said she found herself comparing their successes to her own trajectory and feeling inadequate, and eventually, she just had to get those feelings out.

“I’m usually a bit more private and careful about what I write, but I just had to say it,” Hamilton says. “It’s actually been a good challenge for me to be more vulnerable in my lyrics. I always have tried to be a bit more cryptic. I’m kind of at the stage where I just want to say what I mean and for it to obvious so people can be like, oh, I feel that too. So that’s where those songs came from.”

Elsewhere on the EP, Hamilton gets personal about hiding her faith (“Love in the Dark“) and also takes time to enjoy the company of others (“Cherry Days,” which Hamilton self-produced). But the title track, premiering exclusively on Audiofemme, differs in that it’s almost a mantra, a reminder that these moments – whether frustrating or exhilarating – will pass by in a flash, and sometimes it’s better to live in them and learn from them than let them slip away.

“You’re wishing all your time away/You wanna feel something else/Do you have enough to give away?” she asks; though her questions are addressed to another person, they could just as easily be the voice in her own head. Luckily, that voice reminds her “It shouldn’t make you feel so bad/You only have one heart to break/Keep it whole.”

“Cry” is an uplifting centerpiece for the EP, one on which Hamilton solidifies her sound squarely in the realm of dream pop. She says she was inspired initially by Lykke Li and Grimes, but also classic shoegaze artists like Cocteau Twins, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and My Bloody Valentine. “[That music] really resonated with me and it feels natural to me to write that way; I guess it wasn’t so much of a ‘oh, I wanna sound like that’ – it was more ‘oh, I connect with that, and that sounds like what comes out of me naturally, too.’”

Still, San Mei’s music never loses its pop grounding – Hamilton’s voice is clear and emotive, its breathlessness almost communicating the kind of whirlwind that the project has been caught up in. And that’s intentional – now more than ever, San Mei wants to connect with her audience on a personal level. “I’ve been very private, and now I want people to know my personality, know who I am now, what my message is,” Hamilton says. “It’s not just about me – if they can connect with who I am as a person then they can relate to those songs and not feel alone. So that’s kind of what I’m trying to work on at the moment; I hope that these songs can help other people too.”

San Mei’s Cry EP is out March 20th. Follow the band 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. 

PREMIERE: Madame Gandhi Shares “See Me Thru” Remix

Photo Credit: Djeneba Aduayom

“We should be emotionally intelligent instead of brute-force aggressive, collaborative instead of competitive, and pursuing a relationship that is linked and not ranked,” says Kiran Gandhi. Known by her stage name Madame Gandhi, she spoke with Audiofemme earlier this week between a trip to India and a U.S. tour stopping in LA, Denver, and Brooklyn. “That’s a very feminist style of leadership regardless of your gender identity.”

Gandhi has been advocating for these values, which she considers part of fourth-wave feminism, ever since she made headlines for free-bleeding while running the London Marathon on her period in 2015. Even before that, she played drums on M.I.A.’s recordings, and she’s also drummed for the likes of Kehlani and Thievery Corporation. She released her first EP as a solo artist, Voices, in 2016, and her latest album Visions came out last year to critical acclaim.

Gandhi describes Visions as a collection of music about “looking inward to imagine your best self outward.” She elaborates, “The Instagram inspiration culture around posting things that make you feel good is so popular because all of us are motivated to get that stimuli externally, but for me, the times when I’ve really made progress with my mental health have been when I’ve taken the time to ask myself what sounds like it would make me happy and what matters to me. Each song speaks to that theme in its own way.”

The video for the album’s latest single, “See Me Thru” — which Gandhi says describes her “vision for a healthy relationship” — gained attention not only for its depiction of queer love but also for Gandhi’s decision to work with an entirely female and gender-nonconforming cast and crew, which she did for the “Top Knot Turn Up” video as well.

“I feel more comfortable and respected by other women,” she explains. “To collaborate with anyone, people have to believe that if they take their own opinion or the other person’s opinion, the result will be fruitful no matter what. And I find that to be the case when I’m with other women based on a heightened sense of care for a person’s well-being. With men, there’s a lot of talking down, a lot of lack of respect for my contribution.”

Gandhi is preparing to release an EP consisting of remixes of songs from Visions, the first being a “See Me Thru” remix by DJ Sarah Farina, who imbues the track’s angelic harmonies and infectious rhythms with magical-sounding instrumentals and warps Gandhi’s already dream-like voice for an almost psychedelic effect. Farina, who remixed the album’s other songs as well, works with a style she’s dubbed “rainbowbass,” incorporating bass-heavy footwork, futuristic beats, R&B, and UK Funky.

Gandhi’s other recent projects include drumming for Oprah Winfrey’s 2020 Vision Tour (which she describes as “incredible,” as she’s a huge Oprah fan) and playing at the Bulova brunch at the Grammy museum during this year’s Grammys. “I like bringing my drumming and energy and positive vibes to more traditional spaces,” she says. At SXSW this year, she’ll participate in nine events total, including a panel discussion titled “How To Be Political In An Apolitical World” and a performance at the Women of the World Showcase presented by She Shreds x Word Agency.

Photo Credit: Djeneba Aduayom

As Gandhi takes over the world, her aim is giving people music that’s empowering rather than oppressive. “So often, when I go to the gym or in a dance club setting, I always hear the newest music, and I’m just kind of aghast at how we tolerate misogyny in this culture,” she says. “I’m not here to tell other people what to write about or sing about, but I am here to provide an alternative. Making music that beat-wise is exciting and interesting but providing lyrics that don’t contribute to the oppression of anyone else is very important to my mission.”

She also hopes to empower young people to make their own music and use it to express their thoughts, which has led her to work with organizations such as Beats by Girlz and Girls Make Beats. “As a young person, I was given piano and singing lessons, but nobody taught me how to write a song — it was just to regurgitate the song someone else wrote, and that education is so problematic,” she says. “You don’t develop the skillset of owning your own voice, telling your own story.”

Gandhi walks the walk of supporting and uplifting the people around her. During our phone call, she spoke in a confident, kind tone that made me feel genuinely appreciated, ending our conversation by declaring, “We killed it!” She embodies the paradox of being aggressively kind, firmly and unwaveringly soft, and the world needs more of that.

Catch Madame Gandhi live in Brooklyn at Elsewhere on March 10th, and follow her on Instagram for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: Anna Lynch Explores Love in the Age of Tinder on “Do You Miss Me Yet”

In the first lines of her new single, “Do You Miss Me Yet,” Asheville-based singer-songwriter Anna Lynch sings, “Do you miss me yet/ Or are you watching the phone?/Am I on your mind/ Or am I already gone?” It’s one of the most present and poignant songs on her lush, bittersweet new album, Apples in the Fall, the much-awaited follow-up to  her 2013 self-titled debut.

On the album’s cover, drawn by Colin Derham, Lynch brandishes an apple in the strong pose of Rosie the Riveter. It’s a nod to her roots in Sebastapol, CA, once known as the “Gravenstein Apple Capital of the World” before being overtaken by wine vineyards. “The apple industry died in my hometown… it’s a little tragic because it was this great small town thing but now there isn’t an industry anymore,” explains Lynch, noticing that the story there mirrors the death of her own simple, romantic naivety.

In Lynch’s case, that naivety has been replaced with self-respect and understanding. “Do You Miss Me Yet”  is one of several songs on the collection that calls out the pitfalls of online dating culture—a culture Lynch, who’s now happily partnered, spent many years wading through. She felt dehumanized as she swiped on Tinder, found herself “ghosted,” and spent hours overanalyzing her dating situations. Apples in the Fall documents every painstaking step in that journey — from the radiant highs of connecting with a potential lover to the sullen, dejected low of meeting your own loneliness.

For its part, “Do You Miss Me Yet,” lives where heartbreak and denial meet at the end of an amorous fling, pulling in her frustration and confusion in the Tinder age. Lynch, who cites Patty Griffin as a major influence, wrote the song in the airport in Austin, where she spent two months visiting friends a few years back, and where she began seeing a man knowing full well it wouldn’t last past her stay in the city. As a result, “Do you Miss Me Yet” is present in a difficult emotional place—its repeating minor melody leaps and falls like a once-optimistic lover, while her lyrics both enjoy and protect against her feelings for this person. It’s a strangely familiar suspense, and Lynch masterfully pulls the listener into it, as do many of the songs of Apples in The Fall.

“I am currently in a relationship. Can’t say it’s perfect but it’s really interesting how once you’re in one, none of that Tinder stuff even matters,” says Lynch. “You can spend hours and even years – ask me how I know, ha – spinning yourself in circles: ‘Okay so this guy, I texted him last night, but then he hadn’t texted me this morning, but should I text him or should I wait, am I going to seem like a jerk like I’m playing games, does he want me to play games?’ It turns your romantic little-girl self into this almost-machine of who is going to one-up the next person. Like, am I going to ghost them or are they going to ghost me? That’s not a real thing, that’s not how people calculate a relationship. The Tinder thing doesn’t make any sense.” With her tender voice, Anna Lynch offers the insight she’s gained from struggle, now stronger and wiser for the wear.

Austin Synthpop Duo Moonray Document Marital Bliss with Honeymoon EP

Honeymoon EP

Honeymoon EP

Indie Pop duo Jonray and Barbara Higginbotham may be living the ultimate millennial dream: they live in Austin, Texas and are making sweet, synth-infused music together. Their latest EP Honeymoon is mellifluous without being saccharine, tonally reminiscent of early Matt & Kim or Mates Of State. The album was partially funded by their honeymoon money (their wedding included a cake shaped like a synth, glow sticks, and a vinyl guestbook). With that first sacrifice as a wedded couple, the Higginbothams stepped firmly into the music scene.

“Heartbreak Hotel” starts the album off with a kind of 1980s poolside scene, two single people meeting for the first time, tangoing on the dance floor. From its opening beats, “Cotton Candy Disco Pie” brings us fully into Moonray’s multicolored, Memphis-design sound; you can almost picture graphic shapes swirling on the ceiling above crimped hair and bouffant skirts. “I can’t get myself together / I can’t let you go / In the night, in the night, in the night / We’re no strangers to love,” Jonray croons in unison with Barbara on “No Strangers To Love;” with its Spanish break, catchy lyrics, and playful back-and-forth, the single is a stand-out on the album. In a Top 40 EDM world, it’s pleasant to hear guitar solos breaks and the funky robot voice vocals on “When You’re Around.” The album rounds things out with “Come Away,” a trippy waltz for young lovers who are totally down to grow old together. It’s a love letter to couples who happen to be creative partners, written with self-awareness and humor, memorializing long nights spent talking and writing music – a perfectly splendid way to spend a honeymoon.

Read our interview with Jonray and Barb and listen to Audiofemme’s exclusive stream of Honeymoon below.

AF: Alright ya’ll. Tell us about your courtship… Jonray, you’ve said that it was a bit of a cat and mouse game at first?

JH: Yes, it was. When she gave me her number, it took around three weeks and five attempts to get her to hang out. When she finally said yes, we hung out for a whole week every day. Then she got scared and ran away a few times and I had to chase her around. It never lasted long – we couldn’t get enough of each other and still can’t.

AF: What was the first thing you noticed about the other person that was a turn on?

JH: I was at Baker Street after getting off work, watching a friend’s band play. I saw Barb up at the bar ordering, and I immediately stopped what I was doing and had to go up to her. She was just so beautiful, I didn’t care if I looked like a fool. I had to take a chance. Best choice I made.

BH: His friendliness and smile. He came up to me and said he had just moved to town. He asked if I could show him around. I love Austin and couldn’t resist not showing him around. He had a sweetness to him and somehow didn’t come off as a creepy guy at the bar.

AF: Barbara – your folks didn’t want you to major in theatre or the arts, so you graduated college with a degree in business. Since you’re now a professional musician, do you find that degree has come in handy in terms of managing the band?

BH: Oh, absolutely, 100%! I am so grateful they were against me majoring in Theatre Arts, [though] at the time I did hate it. My mom said to get a business degree and after I can do whatever I want. Although I did manage to sneak in a minor in Theatre Arts, taking piano and photography as electives. It wasn’t just the degree but also the experience I had while attending St. Edward’s University in Austin – I went from running organizations as VP, Chair and sitting on event committees. I believe all of that has prepared me for managing our band, branding, creating budgets and thinking outside the box.

AF: Are your parents cool with your life on the road?

JH: Yes, we are very lucky! Our parents are very encouraging of us performing and traveling.

AF: Jonray, your great grandmother was Marie Two Moon, a Native American from the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Moonray’s name came from a camping trip you both took to Inks Lake, but was also partially inspired by Marie. Did you know her very well?

JH: I had it wrong, it turns out my great great grandmother was Cherokee not Oglala Sioux like I thought. She died well before I was born and there were no official documents but notations were passed down and written in the family bible as documents. She was an extremely strong woman; her tribe settled in southern Tennessee in the 1700s where she eventually married a Mexican cowboy (surname Garcia). She did pass down traditions to my grandma including the art of preserving fruits and vegetables, making their own lye soap, farming, being completely self sufficient and wasting nothing. They even made preserves out of the leftover watermelon rind. She was born on a night where the moon had two rings. That’s how she got her name and Two Moons also inspired a song for us to be released in the future.

AF: If you could create a moodboard with images of the artists / animals / general vibes that inspired Moonray the band, what would it look like?

BH: We have one! I guess we have more of a vision board. Although we do create moodboards on pinterest related to songs. Some inspirations include Madonna, Abba, Eurythmics, Yaz, Tame Impala, Prince , Pink Floyd, 100% CHVRCHES, Some of the vibe words on our board include: Nostalgic Explorations, Time Traveler, Wild by Design, Feeling Young, Here Now, Become your most empowered self, come to life, Hidden Treasures, empowerment, sparking joy, Turn your passion into purpose.

JH: Cats, definitely cats. And Synthesizers.

AF: Moonray’s Instagram is fire. Who is in charge of the band’s branding?

JH: Wow! Thank you so much. That would be Barb.

BH: Yes, Thank you for saying that – sometimes we wonder if we are on track with it. We both do it! Sometimes, I create a Pinterest board with ideas on where we want to go with our brand depending on the release, other times I like to pull out watercolors and see what colors come to mind when listening to a song, other times I look for clippings. Jonray helps me to bounce ideas and finalize what we are going to post and he’ll sometimes take over the insta stories.

AF: Tell us about your new EP Honeymoon. What was the impetus of the album? A tune? A feeling? A story?

BH: Well, we did use our Honeymoon money to fund this EP. We still do plan on going on a Honeymoon but soon after we got engaged songs started pouring out and we wanted to make it an EP to encapsulate our love and journey as a couple.

JH: Each song depicts a phase in our relationship from the beginning of when we first met up to our marriage. Each song is dedicated to love in all its forms. The feeling we wanted to go for was one of a nostalgic journey filled with peaks, valleys and starry nights.

AF: What’s your favorite track on the EP and why?

JH: They’re all really special to me. I can’t pick a favorite!

BH: If only choosing one, “No Stranger to Love” is my favorite. Initially we hadn’t thought of adding Spanish, my native language. But we felt it needed a little shift and decided to switch part of the bridge to Spanish. It also encapsulates a special time during our relationship where things were a bit more hectic (facing alcoholism) yet love held it all together. But they’re all special in their own way.

AF: How do you prepare for a live performance? Do you have any pre-show rituals together or apart?

BH: We like to say a prayer before a performance, spend some quiet time together even if it’s five minutes.

JH: We like to do vocal warm-ups in the car. Barb likes to make essential oil roll-ons to lift our spirits as well as a cup of tea.

BH: Some yoga stretches when we arrive and shake our bodies all around.

AF: As artists, what do you hope to convey with your music? Is there a message you’re hoping to get out there into the universe?

We are so grateful to be able to create music and be able to share it with other beautiful souls. We hope our music sends a message of love and light into the universe. A beacon of light during dark times. And well, we hope to make people dance or even a head bop.

Follow Moonray on Facebook for ongoing updates.