Space Captain - "Secret Garden" / "Back of My Mind"

By Phillipe Roberts

Bursting the intergalactic bubble of Space Captain’s most outwardly futuristic dispatch yet, bandleader Maralisa Simmons-Cook keeps a loving eye on the past as she boldly steers the beloved Brooklyn outfit through a pair of stunning new singles. “I’m always living for nostalgia / reliving yesterday” she sings on the upbeat second track, “Back of My Mind,” weaving her stacked vocals through hazy fields of reverb, seasick whirls of synth-bass, and–playing a greater role than ever before–meticulously programmed drums. An unwinding of memories in reassurance to a former flame, it pairs beautifully with the disarming and lush introspection of “Secret Garden,” where synthesized flutes, bright beds of organ, and finger-picked guitar jostle for attention on a honey-sweet ballad that welcomes new love into an intimate hideaway within. Their newest release since 2017’s heavenly All Flowers in Time, “Secret Garden”/“Back of My Mind” dials down the dreaminess for a more focused, grounded, and ear-catching Space Captain than ever before.

Releasing a pair of love songs–or any music, for that matter–during a pandemic is a frightening emotional prospect for any artist. But as the weeks wore on, Maralisa began to accept that the songs, reflections on “being emotional, being vulnerable, and finding vulnerability,” might have a place in the “new normal” rising up around them.

“Finding and building sanctuaries was huge for me the last couple of years,” she explains, citing the emotional burnout of the last election and the exhaustion that came after releasing their first full length album in articulating the band’s slow songwriting progress. Dearly departed Williamsburg coffee shop Caprices by Sophie, was one such oasis with its hidden backyard; a space for her to breathe, think, and songwrite that became the inspiration for “Secret Garden.” A San Francisco native who’s nevertheless put down roots so deep that she hasn’t moved from her very first Brooklyn apartment in over 8 years, Maralisa opens this quiet place, bursting with “treasures and lovers inside,” to be explored and shared with a new love.

Accompanied in a special performance by organ virtuoso Jake Sherman and featuring guitar from Gray Hall, backing vocals from Joy Morales, and *very* live drums from Donnie Spackman (Great Time), the song erupts midway into a soaring bridge that Maralisa had considered the chorus until producer/bassist Alex Pyle suggested otherwise far into the writing process; “Sometimes we care about song structure, but usually...we don’t,” she notes with a laugh.

“Secret Garden”’s companion piece, the swirling “Back of My Mind,” emerged slowly, working its way up from the bottom of Maralisa’s list as its vocal melody burrowed into her ear and spurred her nostalgic mind to action. “This is about a person I dated a long time ago who left a really positive impact on me,” she explains, “It’s about honoring that kind of relationship.” Far from a breakup song, the lyrics muse sweetly on how their love has evolved past fumbling romance into something deeper and more treasured, “a rare, rare find” that grounds her; a foundation to move forward from. The warped, spacey production is weighty and energizing. There’s a heaviness to the memories, but between the knock of the drums and Maralisa’s commanding double and triple-tracked vocals echoing wildly, you’ll be weightless by the second chorus.

With the band’s members–a tremendously accomplished group of musicians who frequently tour the world supporting artists ranging from Moses Sumney to Beyoncé–temporarily locked down due to COVID-19, new songs are on the horizon for Space Captain. Writing more than ever before, the band are due for a second, late summer release this year (also on Tru Thoughts Records), and a music video to accompany these fantastic tracks. Keep Space Captain on your radar–your attention is mandatory.

Nicomo - "Other Line"

By Charley Ruddell

There’s a sweet sadness beholden to relationships that slowly dissolve and meander apart. Like clinging to a severed piece of driftwood at sea, the last legs of the most deteriorated partnerships often arrive after having already drifted so far from happiness, the only real sense of comfort found is in the connection of not being alone. This is “Other Line,” off Nicomo’s 2019 EP Views.

When Nico Osborne sings “I saw you look away like, ‘What’s that over there?’”, the magnitude of distance behind that observation feels overwhelming. It’s a subtlety marked by a David Longsteth-ian vocal chorale that brings a taciturn action to the forefront of a greater issue. On a macro scale, “Other Line” does this with a range of despondence; an aching set of three chords and a cascading guitar line move under sedation, feet dragging, while Osborne’s weighty voice hums with a soft regret. The song’s cathartic chorus—drums anchoring the downbeat, soaring falsetto harmonies, a devastating minor chord at the turn—crashes in strong waves, like grief, or clarity. It’s a song that feels entirely born from an emotional experience, like it formed in one stoic stream of tears, ambivalent, but willing enough to embrace the coldness of singularity.

Will Roane’s accompanying video punctuates the theme with a precious vision. Loosely inspired by the stories of his grandparents’ inextricably woven lives, the concept of doubt shifting to hope (and vice versa) plays out in a narrative of two adults who, despite their aged and profound connection, are still searching for something. Through walks in the woods and the tranquility of a waterside cabin (beautifully shot by Bucky Illingworth), there’s an underlying sense of distance, portrayed both delicately and playfully by Cynthia Babak and Sid Ross. It manifests microscopically, almost telepathically, through passing glances and furrowed brows. And while ultimately the pair are united by a photograph, the lingering emotion of “Other Line” recalls Roane’s theme that hope and doubt are always vacillating. Interchangeable, in a sense—complex, but necessary for change. 

The Lazy Eyes - "Tangerine"

By Charley Ruddell

If you’ve paid any attention to Australian music recently, you know that psych bands are one of the country’s largest exports following iron ore, coal, and sweet shiraz. Between Tame Impala, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, and their respective offshoots—The Murlocs, Pond, and Pipe-Eye to pick a few—Aussie psych rapidly spread and dosed U.S. indie-heads over the last decade with the swift sweep of a panned flanger. Sydney four-piece The Lazy Eyes are the newest group with a buzz from down under, with the release of “Tangerine,” the second single from their forthcoming debut EP. 

What began as teenage camaraderie at a performing arts high school developed into a bounding collective of creative output on borrowed equipment in basement jam sessions. The zippy, acidic “Tangerine” is the first song created from these adolescent fever dreams. Paired with the driven rhythm section comes a trademarked Aussie-psych polyrhythmic melody; lurid Lennon-esque couplets delivered with hushed assurance, the edgy intimacy of DIIV’s Zachary Cole Smith or Pipe-Eye’s Cook Craig bearing influence along the path. 

The unbridled energy that bursts from the pit of “Tangerine” isn’t lost within the bouts of washy guitars in the song’s chorus, or even the clunky deceleration leading up to the song’s climactic, bluesy guitar solo, but is encouraged by the endearing placidity of the vocal delivery. Through its burning three minutes, “Tangerine” is entirely porous and playful in its spirit, with the sleepy eyelids and chugging energy of a teenager who’s been up all night on a tab of great acid.

Nnux - Calles

By Phillipe Roberts

Making a grand entrance with elemental synths blasting, Mexico City’s Ana López Reyes illustrates the surreal reality of cultural erasure with brutal clarity on her latest single “Calles,” imagining a post-apocalyptic transformation that allows the suppressed past to resurface. Rattling with constantly shifting, fever-dream percussion and organized bursts of overdriven noise, Reyes’ newest experiment as Nnux, accompanied by beautifully futuristic video directed by visual artist Martha Maya (LVSTVCRV) and 3D by Intton Godelg, implodes oppressive futures by wreaking havoc on the present.

“Calles” emerged from a visit to El Templo Mayor in Mexico City, where pre-Spanish Aztec architecture still visible among the constructs it was never meant to survive brought the song’s core concepts to life. “I wrote about a ‘city made of water’ buried underneath the current city, because the ancient city had canals instead of streets, it was all water,” Reyes explains. “I wrote this song about a city on top of another city, which for me is a symbol of domination of a culture on top of the other. I wrote lyrics talking about how the fallen gods and the wounded temples are hiding beneath everything we see in the city, as a symbol of how oppression is present at all times.”

Nnux’s life-giving synthesizer and ecstatic vocal sampling-work, paired with the elongated harmonized crooning of her voice, lift that curtain with a bold palette of sounds that never settles into a mechanized pattern. The elements swim and drift within and around each other with a stunningly organic quality. There’s a distinct sense of almost breaking through to that tantalizing future that’s never quite satisfied, highlighting the post-apocalyptic yearning that Reyes so adeptly invokes. Combined with Martha’s meticulous and psychedelic visual mutations, Mexico City’s indigenous past springs to life with revolutionary lucidity. “When Martha and I started working on the video, she told me she was imagining that the song was talking not only about the ancient city, but the current city being eaten up by water in the future,” Reyes says, ”like seeing the symbols of our current city from a future where the city doesn’t exist anymore, or at least is not how we know it now.” Indeed, as the Google Maps image of the city spins and distorts, flooding the city with shimmering 3D water and ghostly projections of temples, vegetation, and towers of glimmering psychic energy, their shared lucid dream offers a glimpse of apocalyptic justice that strikes to the core.

Nnux’s debut album, Ciudad, is out now via Mexico City’s VAA.

Vilde - Grace

By Phillipe Roberts

Layers of electronic percussion hold back waves of gently warping guitar as Thomas Savage, aka Vilde, creeps into the pulsating neon carnival of an arcade. He tests all the classics. Leaning into the turns on MotoGP, losing a prize to the loose grip of a claw machine, and staggering in place with Dance Dance Revolution, he drifts in solitude between the cabinets. Patterns of flashing lights slip in and out of phase with the echoes of a cold and dreamy lead guitar line, deepening the trance so completely that you hardly notice when Savage, prickling with energy, steps back into the night. 

Directed by Elin Ghersinich with a little bit of inspiration from Lost In Translation, Savage’s hypnagogic video for “Grace” belies the tension that wore on him in creating the track. “I discovered the chord progression one day on a guitar, and played it repeatedly for about 40 minutes,” Savage explained, “Everything fell into place in my mind, the beat, the synths. I avoided beginning production on it, working on other songs instead, for fear I’d ruin it.”

But for all the anxiety of losing that initial spark, the inspired production choices and inclusion of submerged spoken word - a first take wonder for Savage in an attempt to preserve the track’s purity - add up to a truly disarming sonic daydream. Like all the best, it feels almost uncomfortably tangible while burning just out of reach.

The first single from an upcoming Summer 2020 LP, Savage’s fourth as Vilde in as many years, “Grace” is a nostalgia trip with teeth, biting back softly.