The Tracys - Alessi’s Ark - Super Hi-Fi
The Tracys - People Scare Me.Background - If you're feeling stuck in a repetitive blur of everyday life, NYC old-school punk-rockers The Tracys new single and music video "People Scare Me" will jolt you awake with a blast of sonic power. The single comes with a darkly alluding and paranoiac music video, that will leave you looking over your shoulder when you're next traveling alone.
The band utilizes the track to question the current state of the world, with the actions and behaviors of others developing a slow-building anxiety of questioning where society is headed. The band shared, "'People Scare Me' is a humorous jaunt into the feeling of alienation, derived both by the day to day struggle of living in a city that has largely given away its creative, cultural heritage in favor of impossible real estate values and self important millionaires, and living in a world controlled by social media that celebrates and rewards Tide Pod eaters and elects narcissistic half-wits to the highest office in the land."
Directed and edited by Benoit Gabriel, the video for "People Scare Me" features drummer Matt Ernst's son, Jonah, an amateur boxer. Cutting between live shots of the band and following Jonah's day throughout the city, an increasingly unsettling feeling of worry and fear is formed through simple yet powerful scenes and split screens. Jonah's portrayed as, "an alienated and possibly deranged young man, stalking the band and perhaps being stalked (by Matt)... or is that all in his mind?"
The video was shot on-location at Ernst’s home in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, along with scenes from the NYC subway system, and Hank’s Saloon in Brooklyn. "[Hank's] is one of the last great punk rock venues in NYC, slated to be demolished at the end of the year," the band shared remorsefully, as regulars of Hank's musical rotation.
The Tracys upcoming third full-length album Humdinger is scheduled for release on March 23; the band will celebrate that night will celebrate their record release show at Hank's Saloon on March 23, with Live Ones, Cash Register, and The Measurements. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
Lets liven things up a little with 'People Scare Me' a scrumptious classic punk rocker with all the trimmings including, energy, manic vocals and a band that are on fire. At just two minutes duration, that's all the boxes ticked for a refreshing blast of pure punk.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background - London based singer-songwriter Alessi’s Ark AKA Alessi Laurent-Marke releases a warming video this winter for the single ‘DLD (Door Light Dream)’ from her new album Love is the Currency, produced by Mercury Prize nominated producer Jago Jago, and in collaboration with Felix and Will White of the Maccabees.
DLD (Door.Light.Dream), is the directorial debut for long-time friends Aude Chagnon-Caument and Paris based photographer, Julien Bourgeois. Having collaborated on the album cover of Love is the Currency, Julien and Aude were the natural pairing for Alessi's new video.
DLD captures the closing of British summertime on the beautiful Isle of Wight. Weaving through the hills and along the coast, the video follows two strangers while they independently traverse the same route through a Victorian seaside town. For a moment, their paths intersect. However, the strangers never actually meet.
The video closes as Alessi discovers a photograph of the two strangers together, looking out to sea, and we're left wondering whether the photo is a premonition of the two strangers eventually finding one another.
Hailing from Hammersmith, Alessi Laurent-Marke takes influence from bands such as Broken Social Scene to incorporate electronic elements into folk songwriting. Her work has seen her tour with the likes of Laura Marling, Jenny Lewis, M. Ward and John Grant. FACEBOOK.
Hammersmith is an old stomping ground of mine and the Isle Of Wight is my favourite UK Island therefore Alessi's Ark has my geographical interest before even playing the video! 'DLD' is in fact a graceful and melodic song, where the vocals hold my attention and the soundtrack adds some layers whilst allowing the singing to standout, wonderful...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Super Hi-Fi - Gone.Background - The process of creating Super Hi-Fi's new video for "Gone" started when bassist Ezra Gale snuck into the Pratt Institute and hung-up fliers advertising a need for filmmakers. It wasn't long after this stealthy mission that Gale connected with aspiring cinematographers William Bermudez, Sam Friedman, and Caden Ghen, who were eager to collaborate. From there, the conceptual vision for "Gone" quickly came into focus; a vision that would lead the group to Dead Horse Bay and what they would come to jokingly refer to as their "Revenant" experience.
"Gone," was filmed on a freezing December afternoon in Dead Horse Bay. It is this one-time Brooklyn landfill that provides the bleak setting for Super Hi-Fi's mysterious music video for "Gone." Littered with old bottles and debris, the polluted beach in Dead Horse Bay is the perfect backdrop for a song that uses the concept of pining for lost love as a metaphor for mankind's fragile relationship with mother earth. Actor Gus Cuddy stars in the video, playing the role of a man who is desperately trying to repair an old shipwrecked boat to search for his lost love. He wanders the shoreline futilely picking-up bottles and trying to clean-up a mess that far exceeds his capabilities. After stopping to rest, he awakens to discover that the boat has vanished, and all that is left is the trash-strewn beach and a small blue vial containing a mysterious note.
The song itself is built upon a slow-moving reggae groove that features Super Hi-Fi's signature, interweaving trombone melodies. At times the music builds to almost cacophonous heights, with wild flourishes of experimental electric guitar, only to ease back down to its original relaxed pace. Much like the lyrical content, the music for "Gone" conveys a sense of losing control, or feeling powerless in the face of unnameable forces.
"To me, the song "Gone" is supposed to work on two different levels; on the surface it's a song about a relationship and pining away for someone who doesn't care about you, but on a deeper
level it's about our relationship with the earth, assigning all these protective feelings to 'Mother Earth' when in fact the planet is indifferent to us." - Ezra Gale. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
This is our second feature for Super Hi-Fi in a matter of weeks this time with 'Gone' which is another refined and catchy reggae affair. Vocals and harmonies are a fine fit for the genre, the musicianship is fabulous, Super Hi-Fi are naturals through and through.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments