Video: James Blake – Say What You Will
GRAMMY® Award-winning UK singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer James Blake has announced his new album, Friends That Break Your Heart, due out September 10, 2021 – Available for pre-order HERE, via Republic Records. Blake joined Annie Mac on BBC Radio 1 for “Hottest Record in the World” to premiere the album’s first single, “Say What You Will”. The single was accompanied by the release of the official music video starring Finneas alongside James Blake – Watch HERE.
Of the single, James says, “The song is about finding peace with who you are and where you’re at regardless of how well other people seem to be doing. Comparison really is the thief of joy.”
Friends That Break Your Heart, follows the recently released Covers EP. A collection of Blake’s favorite covers, including his critically acclaimed cover of Frank Ocean’s “Godspeed,” which generated over 5 million views on TikTok.
This is James Blakes’ first new full-length album in three years. With Blake calling Friends That Break Your Heart a “concept album.”
James worked closely with artist Miles Johnston to design a cover reflective of the album. The result is a visual encapsulation of the emotions brought forth throughout the body of work.
FRIENDS THAT BREAK YOUR HEART Tracklist
1. Famous Last Words
2. Life Is Not The Same
3. Coming Back (feat. SZA)
4. Funeral
5. Frozen (feat. JID & SwaVay)
6. I’m So Blessed You’re Mine
7. Foot Forward
8. Show Me (feat. Monica Martin)
9. Say What You Will
10. Lost Angel Nights
11. Friends That Break Your Heart
12. If I’m Insecure
Video: Joon – Whisper
After signing to Italians Do It Better recently and releasing her debut album ‘Dream Again‘ last week, Maltese musician and producer Joon has shared a new video for her standout single “Whisper“.
‘Dream Again’ arrives fully formed ten years after she began writing songs, after a life-changing car accident clarified her musical ambitions. The 12 cuts of glacial synth pop on Joon shimmer with positive affirmations, heralding a new star in the Italians Do It Better cosmos.
Joon is inspired by dream worlds, mysticism and the supernatural, from her ethereal vocals and celestial synths to her self-directed music videos that take cues from B-movie tropes. Her lyrics are peppered with messages of hope for her listeners, which glide around cushioned beats and woozy layers of electronic sound, making her essential listening for fans of Fever Ray, Grimes and Molly Nilsson.
Growing up in Malta, Joon (aka Yasmin Kuymizakis) had no female role models for making electronic music. It was when she moved to London to study that she took a sound production course on a whim, and was encouraged by a tutor to pursue her own music. Soon after she suffered a devastating breakup and then a serious car crash which she was lucky to survive, a series of events which snapped her ambitions into sharp focus. “The car crash was a wake-up call,” she says. “It made me realise that life is precious. We only have one life – I started living the one I felt was worth living.”
Now, making music is a process Joon uses to overcome negative feelings and emotional pain, from loneliness and heartbreak to the need to belong somewhere: “During the writing of most of my songs I was sad about something – but I was dealing with it through making music. I make music to give advice to myself and to be optimistic. I’m trying to make myself feel better, by helping myself come out of that pain.”
The album opens with the irresistible extra-terrestrial ‘E.T.’ – a story of alienation via heartbeat dancefloor pulse and space-age laser melodies, where Joon flips between the fierceness of Karen O to the ice cool uncanny of The Knife. ‘Watch The Sky’ glitters with city lights on midnight drives, and the silky night-time pop of ‘Good Times’ takes airy cues from K-pop, flexed through a Julee Cruise soft late night lens. ‘Meaningful Life’ is a reflective manifesto for love and living well, sung with breathy melancholia and ‘Home’ is a song to the unknown stars, carrying radio echoes of Laurie Anderson’s legendary O Superman in its synth-soaked vocal lines and the hazy ‘Feathers’ dances on the edge of sleep in soft pastels.
Joon now lives in a town on the highest point of Malta, an island nation between Sicily and North Africa with a population of just 500,000 people, and where in her teenage years she could see no path for herself in music. After deciding she couldn’t sing, she instead began buying unimposing quirky instruments – a Stylophone and a small beatbox, among other things – to play around with for her own pleasure. Now, a decade later, she has upgraded to a Moog and a Korg, taught herself the software she needs, and has come to love her distinctive singing style.
After returning to Malta from London, Joon found only one other woman making electronic music on the island. Driven by a desire to make music possible and accessible for the next generation of women in a way she did not experience, she and founded the Maltese Sound Women’s Network with composer and academic Jess Rymer in 2017 (inspired by the Yorkshire Sound Women’s Network) aiming to encourage and support other women making electronic music in Malta. Now, the group has over 800 members in its online network.
Executive produced by Italians Do It Better’s visionary Jonny Jewel, Joon’s debut is a new star in the label’s glittering universe, an inspirational and a much-needed dose of inspirational pop that processes the bad and looks forward to the good, giving us all a way to move forward with hope for the future without ignoring the past. “There are always running themes of love, hope, and positivity in my songs,” says Joon. “Even if I’m sad or heartbroken, I remain optimistic. I want to grow old with no regrets.”
Dream Again track list:
1. E.T
2. Watch The Sky
3. Just Can’t Get Enough
4. Good Times
5. Whisper
6. Meaningful Life
7. Wait
8. Home
9. Orqod (video)
10. I.You
11. Me & My Sea
12. Feathers
Video: Olga Kouklaki – Haze
HAZE is the first single from Olga Kouklaki’s forthcoming album DUSTY DIAMOND ; coming out the 21st of September 2021. Find HAZE here 👉 https://bit.ly/2TzfbWg
Video: Parra for Cuva – Cuiva
Taken from Parra For Cuva’s new album JUNO, released July 16th – https://orcd.co/parraforcuvajuno.bio
Agnes Obel – Can’t Be (Rone Remix)
Agnes Obel’s ‘Can’t Be’ taken from her album ‘Myopia’. Remixed by Rone. Stream here: https://agnesobel.ffm.to/cantberemix.oyd
Video: Anchorsong – Remedy
Anchorsong plucks elements of jazz and udu drums on new single “Remedy”, taken from his latest LP ‘Mirage’. ‘Mirage’ is available to now via https://truthoughts.ffm.to/mirage.oyd
Anchorsong says: ““Remedy” has all the key elements of the album, which are wind instruments, choirs & subtle non-western touches, the udu drums in this case”
Video: Christian Löffler & FINN – Ballet
German electronic musician Christian Löffler and filmmaking company On A Whim Films announce the release of the music video for Ballet (Ki Records), taken from Christian’s 2020 album, Lys. Shot by director Asya Nikolaeva and cinematographer Pavel Brenner in San Francisco during lockdown, the music video for Ballet is out now.
Christian Löffler’s track Ballet receives an embodiment in a music video produced by On A Whim Films, the San Francisco based production company orchestrating the visuals specializing in short and documentary films, music videos and commercials. The production process spanned the distance from San Francisco through Germany to Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Director Asya Nikolaeva brought on board cinematographer Pavel Brenner, who has directed and shot music videos including Acid Rain by Lorn and Split by Brodinski.
Christian Löffler is a star of the Berlin electronic music scene. He began playing music at the age of 14. Living in a remote region devoid of a musical environment, he had to teach himself the basics of music creation. Soon he developed his own deep and moving sound, coloured with a melancholic tinge, music for the soul and body. Christian Löffler’sBallet (Ki Records) is a hauntingly mysterious ambient electronic ballad. Over distant sparse spacious keys and chilling vocal chants that act as an ominous hymn thunderous kicks, disjointed clanks, and abstract percussion all kick start the dance of Ballet.
On A Whim Films took the liberty and used empty cinematic landscapes of an abandoned San Francisco to create the music video. A production team of 12 people operated during the complete lockdown while everyone in the city sheltered in place. Much of this ambient atmosphere had to do with the actors, professional ballet dancers, who brilliantly convey the song’s aura. The sonic duet dance with the visuals heightens the emotion of the video and the artistic spirit is felt from the colour pallet of each frame, the placement and angle of each shot, and the abstract symbolism.
“We set to find a physical object and a symbol that could metaphorically convey people’s emotional state during the lockdown. And we chose ice to be that object. We imagined our new reality, where people have to distance themselves from one another and where human communication is simply dangerous. Numbing emotions is the only way to survive in such a world. Our characters are doing so by consuming ice. They are feeding on ice, bathe in ice, they search for it. This way by eating cubes of ice they freeze their human feelings and emotions from the inside. So now it seems they can survive despite the lack of human contact. But at the end, we see that any lockdown and shelter in place cannot suppress our human nature. After all, the only thing people cannot live without is other people” –
Asya Nikolaeva, Director
