If this were a Friends episode, it would be called “The One With A Chicken.” Stephen Clair’s upcoming single “Fixing to Fly” features strangely cute chicken-related metaphors to describe the complications of romance, supplemented by rustic visuals of a chicken coop in the accompanying video.
Clair is known for his intent singing and literary songwriting, something he channels in the lyrics to “Fixing to Fly” which have a certain poetry to them. But his songs aren’t wispy folk tunes that one often associates with lyrical storytelling, rather they are garage Americana tunes with classic, bluesy sounding guitar, crashing cymbals, and driven walking bass lines. The first few moments of “Fixing to Fly” reveal the song’s whole nature immediately, with the swinging guitar that meanders about on its own for a while before the bass comes in to ground it in the twangy Americana sound. Clair’s voice rings out clear and genuine, like a humble offering to his listeners, subtly asking them to follow along as he sings: “Cooped up in this roost with all these chicks / And the henhouse ain’t a funhouse / When you’re fixing to fly but your wings don’t get you high.”
If you’re feeling down and just can’t find the right way to express how you feel, give “Fixing to Fly” a shot. The odd metaphors that lie within a chicken’s wings may speak to your soul in ways you have never known before.
Tyrone’s Jacket has dominated the live performance scene with their dynamic shows that boast high musical/visual production value and energetic acts that have earned them spots on three national tours and multiple music festivals, including a national tour with Dirty Heads. Their satisfied audiences have hyped the band up to almost mythic proportions since so little of their recorded material has been available– until now. Their newly released single, “Streets”, is an emotional musical and visual narrative that chronicles the homeless epidemic in LA. It’s a deeply emotional and revelatory alt-pop ballad with a soulful vibe that’s driven by frontman and vocalist KnowaKing (son of the Commodores co-founder, William Wak King). While the band consists of KnowaKing (lead vocals), The Grateful Carl (vocals and guitar), and Ry Toast (DJ), the two-time Grammy-nominated producer King David is thought as an extension of the band itself through his faithful work with the band since their inception. His skilled, and gentle but prominent production knows exactly when to lift up the vocals, and when to strip things back to let the powerful lyrics stand on their own. KnowaKing’s vocals dance with the line between raspy and smooth, simultaneously pleasing the ears and allowing them to engage with the song’s message. The subject of homelessness in combination with the real-world images in the music video and the anthemic beat create a powerful environment that invites the listener to sing along, but more importantly, pay attention to what the band is trying to say. About the track, “Streets is a love song in every sense of the word,” explains vocalist KnowaKing. “Spawned from a broken heart while congregating with derelicts, the pursuit and ultimate discovery of self unknowingly was my destiny. In a city the size of a small country, we become desensitized to the downtrodden because they reflect our greatest fear. But they have a story, they have ideas, they have dignity and they deserve attention.”
“Streets” proves that Tyrone’s Jacket is just as captivating in the studio as they are on stage. The band’s debut self-titled album will be out in November, with more new music following on the heels of “Streets.”
Alex The Astronaut released her debut album, The Theory Of Absolutely Nothing, along with a music video for the single, “Caught In The Middle”. The Sydney-based singer takes to the tennis court with Australian music legend and drummer from The Go-Betweeners, Lindy Morrison. The video is directed by Tatjana Hamilton and playfully follows along with the song. All of this would not be possible if Alex Lynn, Alex The Astronaut, hadn’t moved from Sydney, Australia to New York in 2017 o a soccer scholarship to study Math and Physics at Long Island University. It was here that she turned her bold experiences in life into these heart-swelling songs.
The folk-infused pop track describes the trials and tribulations of life and how being caught in the middle puts you in an odd position. However, the video catches Alex in the middle of a tennis match. After being very serious and focused towards the beginning, both players lighten up and end up having fun. At one point, the two give up and start playing the drums with tennis balls whizzing past their heads. The back and forth of the hits by Alex and Lindy serve the purpose of moving the song’s storytelling forward. Between her abilities as an artist with her music and the power of the music video, Alex creates stories that you will find yourself falling into headfirst.
There’s something about a folk/indie vibe that feels so incredibly creepy in the context of horror. (“Tiptoe Through The Tulips”, anyone?) Singer-songwriter Anna Wolf and songwriter/producer Pop Morrison certainly bring this spine-chilling energy to their title track and music video for the horror film “The Unfamiliar.” Wolf is a singer-songwriter and holder of many awards for her sharp and highly idiosyncratic music. Morrison is known as Jamie when he drums for the rock band The Stereophonics, but he transforms into the eccentric and explosive Pop Morrison when he takes on music production.
The music video intersperses scenes from the movie with close up, blurry shots of the duo. With Wolf and Morrison lingering outside the narrative, the video feels like a micro-horror work in its own right. It plays with the dynamics of dark and light, and though it’s simple on the surface, there are layers of intricacy that reveal the deep amount of thought that was put into it. As Wolf sings “the dark and the light” the shot moves from the darkness surrounding her to the light shining on Morrison’s guitar. A fleeting scream cuts through the song as the visual flashes to and from a shot of a child from the movie. These subtle touches add a lot of depth to the video, creating a haunting and memorable performance that finds its own beauty amidst the occult psychodrama of the film.
The music itself is atmospheric, but sparse, leaving you feeling exposed and vulnerable. Voices sweep across the background like the wails of a ghost. Drums beat gently but ominously beneath Wolf’s searing vocals. Her voice takes on the supernatural quality of Kate Bush and Joanna Newsom, helping her to embody the eerie, possessed nature of a ghoul. Even Pop’s guitar has the transient, mystic feel of a phantom, thanks to his precise production. While the rest of the track feeds into the sinister feel of the film, the acoustic guitar adds an interesting fairytale quality that projects elegant indie-folk imagery for the audience. There’s a lot in “The Unfamiliar” that reveals things about the film. Morrison says, “The song sets a tone before you’ve even seen the film, the same way the movie leaves a mark after you’ve seen it.” The duo did an excellent job of executing the vision of the filmmakers, with the film’s director and co-writer Henk Pretorius saying, “Anna Wolf and Pop Morrison’s music dreamily conveys the dark lure of The Unfamiliar. I got emotional when I heard what they created.”
About The Unfamiliar The Unfamiliar is an independent horror film, set in the UK and Hawaii, showcasing a melting pot of rising British, European and South African crew and cast members. Directed by Henk Pretorius and produced by Llewelynn Greeff and Barend Kruger, the Anglo-French Jemima West (Indian Summer, The Mortal Instruments) stars as British Army doctor Elizabeth ‘Izzy’ Cormack, returned from war to rekindle her relationship with her estranged family. Alarmed by the numerous inexplicable activities around the house, Izzy seeks ineffectual professional help before confiding in her husband. He believes that she is going through PTSD and advises her to rest and recuperate in Hawaii. It’s there that she gets sucked into the underworld of Hawaiian mythology, as she attempts to piece together the elaborate and elegant puzzle to reveal an ancient and terrifying spiritual presence haunting her family. You can watch the trailer here.
Lisel (Eliza Bagg) released “Die Trying”, the other half of her double-single “Night & Day”. The project is a collaboration with Jarvis Taveniere (Woods and Purple Mountains), who produces and plays bass on the track. The multi-talented artist is ready to “Die Trying” to convince herself of something that is not true, despite her want for it to be. In a post on Instagram, Lisel said:
The song is actually one of the first I ever started writing as lisel, years ago, but I wasn’t able to finish it until recently. over the past few years, I’ve tried to internalize the idea that my mind is dumb and my body is smart. I might be so willing to convince myself that something could be true that I’ll literally die trying to bend reality to my will. I think sometimes we’re not just eager, but desperate, to warp and bend our vision of the truth in order to match something we only wish could be true.
Her voice flies high above the strong combination of sounds from the bass, violins, drums and mellotron. The single is bringing a new sound to the forefront, playing into her avant-pop style. “Say that we will but we won’t / this time might be true / say that we will but we won’t / all the way through”, she sings. Reminiscent of situations many have been through, Lisel’s lyrics are truly relatable and perfectly crafted to her style. The mellotron and vocoder, played by Bagg herself, create a sound that is unmissable. It drags you in, making the listener curious to what other tricks are up her sleeves. “Die Trying” is a slam dunk for Lisel following her solo debut, which is only the beginning of what is to come for her.
Earlier this summer, Donna Missal released her beautifully raw and utterly powerful album Lighter. Its soulful vocals, touching lyrics, and country-meets-90’s rock sound garnered an impressive amount of praise from publications like Billboard and The New Nine. But releasing an album in the midst of a global pandemic is different. It’s missing that live performance component that usually goes hand-in-hand with the release. To remedy this, Donna offers her evocative “Bedroom Sessions”: four reimaginations of songs off of Lighter in the form of intimate live performance videos shot in her L.A. bedroom and childhood backyard in New Jersey. Each video was directed by Missal, and features projections of footage from the process of creating Lighter superimposed on top of her. The immersive projections, the personal setting, and the newly envisioned instrumentals aim to recapture the connection of a live performance environment in an intimate space. Missal explains, “From the shifting paradigm for the way artists connect to listeners, along with the inability to tour an album live, we’re all trying to fill the void – connect, and create. ‘Bedroom Sessions’ is a take on the challenge of staying close to others through music, even from far away.” What results are fresh snapshots of the acclaimed album that elevate Donna’s exceptional vocals, sending out shockwaves that crumble walls even in her gentlest moments.
Delving into the wounds of a relationship, the original studio version of “Carefully” overflows with emotion. Backed by solid drum, string, and piano parts and embellishing harmonies, Missal’s words ring out like a reflex, unable to keep the depth of her feelings inside. In the bedroom session, her voice is much softer and accompanied only by her brother Stevel Missal on guitar. The emotional effect of the original is powerful, but here, in her bedroom, this intimate space, watching her untouched motions and expressions… her voice is absolutely earth-shattering.
In a similar way, the familiarity of Missal’s room in the bedroom session of “Bloom” augments the sincerity of the message, which in the original version depended only on the humble guitar and voice combination. As she sings “I don’t want to be the reason you don’t shine, realize I’m standing in your light…I don’t want to be the reason you don’t bloom,” she makes eye contact with the camera, supported by multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Liv Slingerland’s rustic guitar playing. Watching her face, her eyes are the colour of integrity, and you can’t help but to hang on every word she says.
“Who Loves You” is the most avant-garde endeavour of the quartet. While the original has this nostalgic, well-rounded sound with slight blues-rock vibes, the bedroom session uses an omnichord and lushly layered vocals to create an otherworldly atmosphere. The musical texture is much more sparse, allowing it to feel untethered from the earth itself. Missal used two microphones to record the layers of vocals, an impressive feat to accomplish from home. By the end, each of the voices soars and crash into one another, drawn to and pulled away from each other in an immersive and surreal soundscape.
Set against the others, “Slow Motion” endeavours to offer a new take on the original meaning of the song. As it was in the original, the bedroom session is an ode to letting go, but rather than being recorded in Donna’s bedroom in L.A., it was recorded in the backyard of her childhood home in New Jersey, drawing up memories of the past and showing how far she has come. The studio version is a moving piano ballad with understated but powerful energy that peeks through in the belted chorus. In her backyard, Missal is less firm and more gentle, singing on top of a thinly dispersed assortment of shimmering strings. Her voice is not nearly as supported as it is in the original with its resonant piano accompaniment, but Donna doesn’t need a musical foundation at all. The strings are just sparkling ornaments on her already magical voice. As she sits on the grass in a sequined gown and belts out the chorus in an effortless vocal performance, the effect is staggering.
Missal’s bedroom sessions are a brilliant way to stretch the novelty of her recently released album, but also to connect both to her fans and to new listeners through the universal experience that the pandemic has brought to all of us. They are simple, but thoughtful and extremely affective, and in a way, exactly what we need in the world right now.
Beabadoobee, one of music’s most talked-about artists, dropped her new single, “Care”. The track is from her highly-anticipated debut full-length album Fake It Flowers, which is set to release later this year. “Care” is all about rejecting sympathy from people who aren’t interested in really getting to know and understand her. A cathartic, to-the-point chorus is a new and explicitly vulnerable direction for her music.
Bea Kristi, beabadoobee, gives fans another bedroom pop song to jam out to. You can feel the real emotions and the anger behind the lyrics, without overdoing it. Some of the first lyrics in the song that stand out are, “I need some help to forget about it / I don’t want your sympathy, stop sayin’ you give a shit / ‘cause you don’t really / care”. Everyone can relate to this feeling at some point in your life and can connect with the frustration felt in this type of situation.
Accompanied by a music video full of outrage and different trippy graphics shot in quarantine, it makes the song more personal. It’s the type of music video that you would love to see premiere on MTV in the early days. Talking about the track and the video, Bea explained, “This song has end-of-a-90s movie vibes, like you’re driving down a highway. It is pretty much me being angry at society, or people around me who I just don’t think know me and don’t care. I don’t want you to feel fucking sorry for me. I just want you to understand what I’ve been through. I never expected to be making the first video from my album during a pandemic! I was so lucky to be locked down with the bedroom guys, it feels like it turned out as one of the most personal, real videos I’ve made.”
“Care” is another great addition to her repertoire and the fans are all for it. The song is brutally honest and exemplifies her struggles, but shows how she still is the same person she’s always been. With praises from Rolling Stone and NPR along with her feature in the worldwide chart-dominating hit “deathbed (coffee for your head)”, which includes a sample of her song “Coffee”, beabadoobee really is something special.
Kacy Hill released her new album Is It Selfish If We Talk About Me Again on July 10th, and we’ve been wrapping ourselves in its loving embrace ever since. But the official music video for “Everybody’s Mother” dropped recently, and we’re absolutely floored by the beauty.
Beauty in the color palette — look at those gorgeous oranges and greens — and in the artist’s bone structure. But aside from that, beauty in her movement, her lyrics, her vocals. There is both a helplessness and a hopefulness in her eyes that is so relatable, so emotional, so vulnerable. And this sense of loneliness has been amplified in recent months for absolutely everyone. So, for the first time in Imperfect Fifth history, I’m going to let the delicate lyrics and vibrant video speak for themselves.
I’m staring at the ceiling no sleep
Thinking what I’d do if you forget me
I know I can be a lot, but I just wanna talk
I just wanna give you all I’ve got, I need distractions
I’d do anything, do anything for a reaction
I’m everybody’s mother and nobody’s baby
been giving too much to feel lonely lately
And I think that I care more than you do, maybe
I’m everybody’s mother and nobody’s baby
Maybe I’m afraid of what’s next
Maybe I’m afraid of success
Am I even making sense?
I’m just asking for a friend
I wanna say it really doesn’t matter, but it’s deeper
The hours everyday move way too slow until I need them
I’m everybody’s mother and nobody’s baby
been giving too much to feel lonely lately
And I think that I care more than you do, maybe
I’m everybody’s mother and nobody’s baby
Toronto-based R&B dancehall artist Lexxicon will soon be releasing a single and video from his upcoming EP Tropical R&B, called “I Don’t Deserve You.” Lexxicon is known for fusing his Jamaican roots with pop and world music genres. For this single, the producer, singer, and songwriter used this fusion to create an ultramodern ambiance that combines the genres of dancehall and electro-R&B. The track hones in on the feelings of desolation and detachment that loom over us during quarantine. Lexxicon found solace in the moodiness of R&B and decided to use it to express his feelings during the lockdown when he wrote Tropical R&B. As he reminisced about better days in the past, he developed “I Don’t Deserve You” to be about finding someone who you can brave the world with. The song is bittersweet, however, because although it expresses a deep love, a feeling of unworthiness is also present. “Sometimes when you finally get the love you deserve you don’t know how to accept it and you feel unworthy,” says Lexxicon.
A somber tone engulfs the music video. It alternates between several different scenes, but Lexxicon is alone in each one. His melancholic vocals gently sound in places like a vacant street or empty home. The loneliness in these settings is augmented by the somewhat sparse texture of the music. Some scenes are under a cover of darkness, others are a room with a soft red light. Even Lexxicon’s facial expressions are solemn, his eyes staring into the camera with a look of poignant longing. There is also a subtle tension within both the music and video. Flickers of overlaid patterns, colours, and scenes put you slightly on edge, and the buoyant beat and melodic ornaments clash against another, gloomier countermelody. On top of the rich scene-setting provided by the visuals and music, Lexxicon’s lyrics are compelling and all-embracing.
To listen to “I Don’t Deserve You” is to feel understood in these trying times. Stream it and watch the video when they are released this Friday, July 17th.
