Rockabilly metal band Calling Kings has released a new music video for their single “Demon Suit,” a galloping tune that questions the darker side of the entertainment industry. The Los Angeles trio keeps the track thumping with an upright bass and a wall of razor-like guitar licks.
“This song is about how the entertainment industry will often advantage of artists, vocalist/guitarist CJ Hockenbury. “When I was starting to get a handle on my musical career, I worked with a few ‘sinister’ people and I feel like the ‘Demon Suit’ is just the embodiment of everything I’ve seen and heard.”
Featured image by Leire Baztarrica.
LINKS:
http://callingkings.com
http://instagram.com/callingkings
https://www.facebook.com/callingkingsrock
https://twitter.com/Calling_Kings
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Japan Suicide – Circle
Based in the central Italian city of Terni, Japan Suicide is a five-piece comprised of Stefano Bellerba (vocals, guitar), Leonardo Mori (synth), Matteo Luciani (bass), Saverio Paiella (guitar), and Daniele Cruccolini (drums). Formed in 2010, they united over their love of Joy Division, The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, and Depeche Mode.
Their music is also strongly influenced by Bauhaus, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Japan, The Damned, Interpol, Suicide, CSI, CCCP, and Massimo Volume.
“We have finally produced our new album ‘Santa Sangre’, which was inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky’s movie and Roberto Bolaño’s novel ‘2666’, all the while moving from echoes of British post-punk to a sound replete with more psychedelic and shoegaze textures,” says Stefano Bellerba. “This is a delicate, but necessary step for us: we tried to match the quality of our previous album ‘We Die in Such a Place’, while also adding new sounds from our past work in order to achieve a condensed powerful opera and, at the same time, a sound that is capable of achieving different listening levels.”
This album follows up the 2017 single ‘This Be The Verse’, released on the Dark Italia compilation ‘Sparkles in the Dark Vol. 4’, alongside The Soft Moon and many other cutting-edge artists.
This is not the band’s first release through Unknown Pleasures Records. 2015 brought ‘We Die In Such a Place’, which stylistically combines the gloomy atmospheres so beloved by Japan Suicide with more aggressive sounds, followed by their 2016 release of the ‘1978’ EP via Darkitalia.
Their 2015 release led to the production of several videos, significant press attention at home, and also a sync licensing deal. While Japan Suicide has performed many gigs across Europe, in May 2018 they will venture to North America for their first Canada/ USA/ Mexico tour.
The ‘Santa Sangre’ album will be released on February 14, 2018, via Unknown Pleasures Records, with a self-released vinyl edition to follow, featuring a slightly different tracklist. Japan Suicide has launched a crowdfunding campaign via MusicRaiser towards the vinyl release, which can be found HERE.
LINKS:
http://www.facebook.com/Japan.Suicide
http://japansuicide.bandcamp.com
http://twitter.com/JapanSuicideIT
http://soundcloud.com/j-apan-s-uicide
http://www.youtube.com/user/JapanSuicide
http://www.instagram.com/japansuicide -
Rachel Mason – Roses
Rachel Mason gives performance art a new meaning with her latest video for the track titled “Roses”. A combination of avant garde and dystopian landscape with a dash of pop reverence, “Roses” becomes a catchy duo-tone-esque track with a chorus hook relevant to any genre. Bravo!
About Rachel Mason and “Roses”
Performance artist Rachel Mason presents the video for ‘Roses’, a track from her new album ‘Das Ram’ LP, co-released by Los Angeles-based Cleopatra Records and artist-run cassette label Practical Records present new album ‘Das Ram’LP. Comprised of eight tracks, this album conveys the stories of specific characters, who define and delight in their own realities and cosmologies, and individuals who create their own world views, their own religions, and fantasy lives.‘Das Ram’ is an inversion of the name of renowned healer Ram Dass, and also a play on Mason’s own initials, Rachel Ann Mason. The track “Roses”, produced and co-written by Jeff Hassay, is a powerful anthem with Mason’s crisp sonorous vocals and positively loaded drive.
The ‘Roses’ video was produced and directed by Los Angeles-based artist team BeckandCol. They also contribute costumes and choreography, while Mason created the masks, one of the hallmark features of her live shows. In their work, BeckandCol use humor and chaos to investigate the crisis of human exceptionalism. “Their work explores alternate universes populated with monsters, who obsess over humanity and emulate its dominant attributes,” says Rachel Mason. “Their monsters resist any classification built on hierarchy or a merely binary opposition and instead exposes hierarchical behaviors as absurdities, forcing a rethinking of social and cultural norms.”
Mason met BeckandCol after one of her L.A. concerts, impressed with her performance, elaborate costumes and dancers. They became mutual admireres and began working together on live performances. They are currently involved in Mason’s new project, which is being pursued as part of her residency at Los Angeles’ world-renowned Hammer Museum.
The new video follows those for ‘Heart Explodes’, which was initially shown at a festival for new video works by women artists at Red Bull Studios NYC and ‘Tigers in the Dark’, which first screened at the LTD Los Angeles gallery.
Touted as “one of the most creative forces in the world” by Impose Magazine, Mason is best known in music circles for delivering fantastical narratives which interweave musical, theatrical and narrative elements into unexpected operatic journeys. Through her wide-ranging portfolio of mixed media work, she instigates fantasy and harsh realities through scripts, sculpture, rock operas, live performances and compositions that span over a decade.
She has recorded 13 albums and created many music videos. Her feature film The Lives of Hamilton Fish toured the world in 2015 and recently released on VOD. Mason has exhibited her visual art and performance work at museums, film and performance festivals internationally and at many of the country’s leading art galleries. Her work has received praise in VICE, Interview Magazine, The New York Times, Artforum, LA Weekly, The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, Art in America, and Flash Art.
The ‘Das Ram’ LP is out now via Cleopatra Records, whose roster includes acts ranging from Ministry, Wolfgang Flür, Christian Death and Iggy Pop to folk legend Judy Collins, and also available on limited edition cassette via Practical Records.
“More than a touch of Siouxie Sioux or Karen O ’s drama in her expressive vocals, supported by electronic pop sonics”
The Big Takeover Magazine“A Spellbinding Singer”
New York Music Daily“One of the most creative forces in the world”
Impose Magazine“A voice part Emmylou Harris and part Yoko Ono”
New York Times“Equally indebted to the Who’s Quadrophenia and the Steve Reich opera The Cave, with video and music interacting in fluid, complex ways”
VICE“Soothsayer, harlequin, medicine woman”
Deli Magazine“Tempting to draw comparisons to both Kate Bush and Paul Giovanni’s earthy soundtrack for The Wicker Man, but this is all Mason, her persona leaving an indelible impression on the listener”
PopMattersLINKS:
http://www.rachelannmason.com/
http://www.facebook.com/RachelMasonArt
http://rachelmason.bandcamp.com/
http://soundcloud.com/rachelannmason
http://twitter.com/RachelMasonArt
http://www.youtube.com/c/rachelmasonrocks
http://www.instagram.com/futureclown/ -
KnightressM1 – Butterfly
KnightressM1 has released her video for the track titled ‘Butterfly’. That continuance for an original sound from an artist who knows what she wants to achieve creatively is evident throughout ‘Butterfly’. Emily Palen has that captivating resonance sonically and musically both as a musician and songwriter that most people try to emulate much less maintain as a part of the self.
‘Butterfly’ is the perfect introduction to this artist as it shows both of those qualities plus brings forth a massive hook and enhances her instrument of choice, the violin, into a realm that most are not used to hearing. This is brilliant.
The ‘Dreams and Devastation’ LP is available now across digital outlets such as Apple Music and streaming platforms such as Spotify.
About KnightressM1
San Francisco Bay Area outfit KnightressM1 presents their new single ‘Butterfly’, the first track on their debut album ‘Dreams and Devastation’, an ambitious concept album that explores both the emotional depths of personal transformation and the journey of cosmic awakening. Co-produced by Palen and esteemed producer John “Lou” Lousteau (Foo Fighters, Iggy Pop, Joan Jett), it was recorded at Foo Fighters’ acclaimed Studio 606 near LA.
The accompanying video sees frontwoman Emily Palen as executive producer/ artistic director, and Van Spronsen Productions / Shena van Spronsen as executive editor/ director of photography with videography by Nick Bellarosa and Evan Lanam.
“Butterfly is about coming to grips with our own personal power, owning that and not letting anyone take it away from us. With grace and compassion, we can walk through the world harnessing our ultimate potential which as creative beings is our greatest service to the world. Our society, in its dysfunctionality, survives in its exploitation by manipulating and leeching off of people who are in servitude to its demands. Once we own the birthrights of our power, creative potential, and joy they no longer control us. This is how we break the system,” says Emily Palen.
KnightressM1 also presents a new mini-documentary on the band (below), produced by Evan Lanam, where Palen is accompanied by Larry Boothroyd on bass and Chad Tasky on drums.
Formed in 2011 by violinist, vocalist, pianist, and composer Emily Palen with support from drummer Rob Ahlers (50FOOTWAVE, Kristin Hersh), KnightressM1 was joined by bassist Uriah Duffy (Whitesnake) for this studio album. Fueled by a deep-seated necessity to defy limitation, their heavy driving bass and rhythm are rounded out with lots of harmonic layering and beauty.
Earlier, the band presented singles ‘Lock & Key’ and ‘Polarity Integrate’. KnightressM1 is the sonic manifestation of Palen’s heart. Their music is fascinating in the integration of specific musical frequencies – the further Palen ventures in this sonic journey, the heavier and heavier the sound gets. The crushing intricate rhythm section blends harmoniously with her driving, searing electrified violin tone as the lead.
“This is also a tale of my own healing, songs that helped me to get through impossible places. Music that saved my life. Everything that I have ever been through, every person I loved, lost, gained; every abandoned heartbreak, every dagger’s edge now makes sense in the context of this album. It was all so I could write these songs and experience the power of being within my own authenticity,” says Emily Palen.
“Music has always lifted me into an untouchable space, even when everything around me is breaking, when I am in unbearable soul pain, beyond what I myself can repair, the music takes that pain and morphs it into beauty and power. When I’m completely honest with the music, it alchemizes the deepest sadness and betrayal into an unbreakable strength and love. We become greater because of the life we have lived, not in spite of it.”
The embodiment of musical manifestations, KnightressM1 is based on the thematic concept of a female galactic warrior, who comes to Earth to bring justice, hunt corruption, and restore the truth. Within universal language, M1 is code for unity. This is her identifier. Her frequency. KnightressM1 (KM1) is the vessel through which Palen creates and shares her unique contributions to what is more commonly known here on earth as the music industry.
Palen is a classically-trained virtuoso who has spent her life mastering violin, piano, singing, and composition. As a young adult, she began exploring the concept of transmitting consciousness through improvisation. Emily explored this power through sacred solfeggio in the steadfast belief that these specific audio tones have transformative power.
Since releasing her first solo violin improv album ‘Glass ~ Live at Grace Cathedral’ in 2012 and ‘Creation’ a year later, she’s become a sponsored artist with Engl Amps, a crucial part of KM1’s tone, and has played or recorded with Foo Fighters, Eric McFadden and Gretchen Menn, among others, both as a live performer and a compositional recording artist, Earlier, she became a finalist in the ‘My Grammy Moment’ competition and played live with an orchestra at the Grammys, conducted by John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin).
LINKS:
https://www.knightressm1.com
https://www.facebook.com/knightressm1
https://www.instagram.com/knightressm1_band
https://youtube.com/emilypalen
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1rTKwDlXBNJnuOvmUhEQVy
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/knightressm1/id941125533