Miles Francis has today released they/their new album titled ‘Good Man’. And today we have the double treat of showing you that album as well as getting an insight from the one they/them in the form of an exclusive interview with Miles Frances via Zoom as well as feature they/their upcoming and original performances in support of ‘Good Man’.
One thing you have to know about Miles, from the start, is that this is an artist that you can’t simply peg into a specific genre, gender, style, or art. You simply can’t. And, after you get to know Miles, you realize why should you. Isn’t classification something that can hinder, or even hurt, and artist? Or a person, for that matter? We are slowly learning that lesson with the monumental shifts in society that we are experiencing at this point in history, and it is people like Miles, and many, many more, that light the way in distinguishing the socially and creatively relevant from the white noise of society. Helping us go from ‘You can’t’ to ‘Why not?’.
And, in this interview, we get a glimpse of the mind behind the music and the heart behind the soul in this conversation style interview on originality and beyond.
Check out our other features with Miles Francis HERE.
Get your copy of ‘Good Man’ HERE.
About Miles Francis
Polymathic artist Miles Francis is already known amongst musicians as one of the best kept secrets of the NYC music scene. Since they started playing – first the drums at 6, then guitar, bass, keyboards, other percussion – they have been an audiophile of the highest order. As a working musician, Miles has collaborated and performed with Sharon Jones, Amber Mark, Angelique Kidjo, Allen Toussaint, Tunde Adebimpe (TV on the Radio) and many others; toured the world with Will Butler (Arcade Fire), Antibalas, and EMEFE; and appeared on shows like Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and The Late Show with David Letterman.
LINKS:
https://www.milesfrancis.com
https://www.facebook.com/instamiles
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCngQ9Zv0-UjEQrVZ8azA8Ng
https://instagram.com/instamiles
https://twitter.com/instamiles
https://soundcloud.com/instamiles
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4dpiWnUskWeie5Psmc2HG3
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/miles-francis/400088007
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The Academy of Sun Release ‘The Parts That Need Replacing’ Video (The Week in #Indie Segment)
The Academy of Sun has just dropped their new video for the track titled ‘The Parts That Need Replacing’. As we said in our original review of the single, ‘…delivers sustenance within that creative void’. The video adds to that in the fact that the visuals are timed and beautifully representative of the music that is the single. Almost an art-house accompaniment, the video adds that visual something that lends more of a creative touch as a separate stand-alone and not so much of a bonus to the song. Music for the senses.
‘The Parts That Need Replacing’ is out now, available across online stores and streaming platforms such as Spotify. The full album ‘The Quiet Earth’ will be released in the summer of 2020 on CD, as well as digitally.
Check out our exclusive interview with The Academy of Sun’s Nick Hudson HERE.
Watch the full episode of The Week in #Indie HERE.
Click HERE to watch Season 6 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 5 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 4 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 3 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 2 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 1 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.ABOUT THE ACADEMY OF SUN
Formed in Brighton nine years ago, The Academy of Sun is a four-piece comprised of Nick Hudson (piano, synths, Hammond organ, harmonium, vocals, percussion, synths), Kianna Blue (bass, synths), Guy Brice (guitars) and Ash Babb (drums).
Together, they present dystopian fantastic creations that combine the deeply personal and the poetically arcane. Dark yet buoyant, this is a controlled explosion of psychedelic and dark power pop with atmospheres couched in vast and expansive landscapes and cinematic arrangements.
The video for this single was directed and edited by Nick Hudson with cinematography by Samuel Horn. It features Wolfgang Storm with dinner guests Mark Walter, Gillian Rodgers and TAOS frontman Nick Hudson in what seems to be a red-brushed-culinary spread of grisly delight held in a gothic lair.
“The Parts That Need Replacing’ was written to sate my desire to ‘reconsecrate’ 16th Century Hungarian countess and noblewoman Elisabeth Bathory, whose reputed cannibalism and serial murders were most likely reputation-staining fantasies dreamed up by the church out of institutional jealousy. How could a woman possess such vast wealth and estates AND resist conformity with the church’s ways of being. Same tarring-brush as used on Jeanne D’Arc and Gilles de Rais. Usually, Bathory is immortalized in doom and black metal, so I wanted this reconsecration to take place by feeding these myths, scenarios, and allegations of bloodbaths, black magic, and eternal life into the medium of a hyper-catchy, high-energy pop song,” says Nick Hudson.
“The video, just as the song, alludes to various parts of the Elisabeth Bathory mythos – the alleged bathing in blood to replenish her youth, the cannibalism, the occult, and gnostic preoccupations, the aristocratic sensibilities, etc., whilst also ‘queering’ Bathory by having her played by the 23-year-old musician and artist Wolfgang Storm. The local butchers are getting fairly accustomed to my infrequent but memorable extra-curricular requests for off-cuts. As the song states “the best special effects are those you cannot see”… we shot it in one, fevered, orgiastic and insanely fun day. The dinner sequence was as deranged to shoot as it looks to be in the resultant video.”
Following 2017’s ‘Codex Novena’ LP, a hypnotic, doomy opus that found its way onto both Dangerous Minds and Sweeping The Nation end-of-year lists, ‘The Quiet Earth’ offers a colossal meditation on dystopia, irradiated landscapes and extreme states of human emotion. This 15-track collection of post-punk, chamber ballads and darkly prog studio epos was recorded at Church Road Studios with Paul Pascoe, whose work includes the last 2 albums by Barry Adamson (Magazine / Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds).
Nick Hudson’s musical juggernaut has been active in various incarnations since 2012, always transcending expectations. The Academy Of Sun has collaborated with Massive Attack’s Shara Nelson, members of NYC’s Kayo Dot, David Tibet of Current 93, Asva and Matthew Seligman (Bowie, Tori Amos, Morrissey). Hudson has also collaborated with Wayne Hussey of The Mission, as well as Canadian queercore icon GB Jones.
Known for explosive and psychedelic live shows, The Academy Of Sun has performed in a medieval castle in Italy, a boat on the Thames, an abandoned railway carriage in Offenbach, colossal churches, The London College of Fashion, The Old Market theatre in Brighton, the MS Stubnitz in Hamburg, Brighton Dome, and a string of L.A. shows in 2019. Having toured 3 continents, highlights include appearances with Mogwai, Toby Driver and Keith Abrams from Kayo Dot, and Timba Harris (Mr. Bungle, Amanda Palmer).
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/TheAcademyOfSun
https://nickhudsonindustries.bandcamp.com
https://www.twitter.com/theacademyofsun
https://www.instagram.com/The_Academy_Of_Sun
https://www.youtube.com/user/NickHudsonMusic
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5CxsNgEPz9v8iBgO52VUUd -
Jammerzine’s The Week In #Indie for 1/30/2017
This week we have a Jammerzine exclusive interview with former AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd! We also have new video premieres and reviews from September Mourning, SPC ECO (Space Echo), Phil Rudd, and new singles from Stoke, UK based trio Peter118 and Ummagma collaborating British musical duo A.R. Kane. And this week’s top five most voted in our weekly feature “The Blue Soap Box”, by Blue Soap Music.
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Ethan Gold Releases ‘Not Me.Us’ Video (The Week in #Indie Segment)
Ethan Gold has officially released his new video for the single titled ‘Not Me. Us’. Beginning as a somber anthem the song slowly builds up to the hook with pop-sensibility and a craft only a good songwriter can achieve, ‘Not Me. Us’ gives a poignant reflection on the better qualities of humanity with the craft of a poet and the form of an artist.
‘Not Me.Us’ is out now everywhere digitally, including stores such as Apple Music, and streaming platforms like Spotify.
Watch the full episode of The Week in #Indie HERE.
Click HERE to watch Season 6 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 5 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 4 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 3 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 2 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 1 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.ABOUT ETHAN GOLD
With the slogan ‘Make Sensitivity Cool Again’, Gold makes lullabies of strength for the quieter half of the human race. This is catchy art rock, for people who still dream. With personable flair and depth, Gold sings about the longing for human connection in the city, and also for the natural world.
“I wrote ‘Not Me. Us’ as an anthem to reflect the times. I started with the then-current Bernie slogan “Not Me Us” – a simple phrase, a moral protest against the lack of compassion, lack of empathy, and narcissism that’s become a point of pride for current political leadership in many countries. As a person who’s primary political motivator is a concern for our biosphere, I found this phrase very appealing, as it respects the interconnectedness of all life,” says Ethan Gold.
“Musically I went with a sound that’s more traditionally American. There’s a power in those idioms. I wanted to call out the hard fight everyone is having in the country, while also allowing everyone to feel, in a time where the dominant feelings are factionalism and fear, that the things which unite us could still be greater.”
Raised in San Francisco during the long extended hangover after hippie times, Ethan Gold is son to Beat author Herbert Gold and Melissa Gold, a collaborator and girlfriend of legendary concert promoter Bill Graham – the two died together in a helicopter crash. A childhood of constant change and chaos may have led Ethan to the unique way he approaches music. Today he lives and dreams songs, writing much music while asleep.
“There’s huge economic inequality destroying American life. A country that pioneered the notion of everyone being able to be comfortably middle class is now breaking into bitterness and division as a huge majority of the population is frightened, living paycheck-to-paycheck, and at the risk of bankruptcy from one unexpected illness or job loss. Even people working multiple jobs are having trouble making ends meet,” says Ethan Gold.
“So I put a mosaic of families in the song and video. A father who’s sick but can’t afford treatment. A son falling into hatred. A mother working two jobs but barely surviving. A young daughter hopeful. Proud grandparents who see their life’s work crumbling as their children slide down the economic ladder. We could all be all these people; this is every family. The struggles so many are having aren’t so different from each other.”
In 2013, Gold suffered a serious head injury. After a long recovery, he now credits the temporary dissolution of his cognitive ability with upgraded inner power, creativity, and clarified mission: in a world that seems more and more combative, bringing sensitive people and quieter things – music and poetry and the living earth – back into their magnificence.
The ‘Not Me. Us’ single follows Gold’s most recent offering – ‘Never Met A World Like You’, an environmental song with highly impactful video, to coincide with the first climate strikes. He also performed, for the first time after his head injury, at three L.A. rallies in late 2019.
Following his acclaimed ‘Songs From A Toxic Apartment’ LP during his recovery, 2018 brought the release of the naive-electronic ‘Expanses (Teenage Synthstrumentals)’ and Gold’s tribute to childhood favorites ‘Live Undead Bedroom Closet Covers’. Gold also handled film scoring for Blumhouse supernatural thriller ‘Don’t Let Go’ and brother Ari Gold‘s feature films ‘Adventures of Power’ and ‘The Song of Sway Lake’, which features John Grant and The Staves singing Gold’s songs.
This track was produced and engineered by Dave Tweedie (So You Think You Can Dance, No Doubt, Flipsyde, Akon). Gold and Jay Ponti produced the video, with editing and effects by Adam Laiben.
Ethan Gold has just finished recording his upcoming double-album ‘Earth City’, which explores themes of longing — for human connection, for romance, for city nightlife, and ultimately for connection to the threatened natural world. Release expected later this year.