Directed by Julian Flores, Pavel Brenner and Sherif R.Alabede of Los Angeles based film collective Room 113, the new music video for mysterious musical artist Lorn's track Acid Rain, features a squad of cheerleaders who emerge from the wreckage of a vintage convertible and dance their way through the naugahyde booths and kitchen of an old 50s diner.
photograph by Guy Eppel
Most people know Albert Hammond Jr. as the nicer dressed guitarist of The Strokes – with his signature curly-cue mop and cigarette cocked askew. After a little more than a decade of being in the band that defined a generation and kicked off a garage-rock revival, Hammond started exploring his own artistic journey, which has resulted in two solo albums – his third, Momentary Masters, is set to drop at the end of this month. This latest album is much more personal for Hammond – who is an artist realizing his place in the universe outside of himself. After emerging from the cocaine-dust-choked atmosphere of his youth, Hammond is learning about home, family and security. He has survived the shipwreck of his own self and is now clinging to newfound shoreline. Read the full story and interview here.
Emmett Kelly exists in many shapes and musical forms. His immense talent and abilities have brought him into the studio to add licks to some of the last decade’s most interesting indie albums. One of his main collaborators is Will Oldham, otherwise known as Bonnie “Prince” Billy – the great Americana balladeer with a Satyr’s cheeks and an Irish lumberjack’s facial hair. Some highlights from their collaboration, which has resulted in multiple full-length albums and singles, include a track created for a homage soundtrack album for the 1971 surf film Morning of the Earth and Billy’s 2006 album, The Letting Go, which was recorded in Reykjavik, Iceland by Bjork producer Valgeir Sigurðsson. Autre got a chance to speak with Kelly and our conversation ranged from talking about his stint living in Chicago and experiencing the experimental music scene there, his collaborations will Bonnie “Prince” Billy, his current album and where he hopes to take his music next. Click here to read the interview.
Although she is only 16 years old, Lily-Rose Depp is following in her father's footsteps by starring in the new music video for Dublin rapper Rejjie Snow's single "All Around the World." The Irish rapper says this about the song: "This song is just about love and death, like it's weird 'cause lately it's like I can see everything but only at a distance. This reflects that mood."
French trio Yelle (pronounced "yell") really hit the scene in 2007 with their track "A cause des garçons" - specifically the version that was remixed by the band's third member Tepr and was featured in the official music music for the track. It starts off with kids pumping up their Reeboks and breaking into the popular dance form known as tecktonik that was so popular in urban culture during that time. This time around, Yelle takes it to a much more surreal level with the video for Ba$$in off their current album Complètement Fou. Directed by Diane Martel, the music video is an assemblage of glitchy, gif-like imagery, which features the singer, Julie Budet, as a disembodied blowup doll and the rest of the band as cartoonish backdrop in a hellish post-Internet landscape. Yelle will be hitting the road for a North American tour - first starting in Canada for in Festival d'Eté de Quebec on July 9 and finishing things off at the Full Moon Fest in New York on August 1. Click here to stay up to date with all of Yelle's tour stops.
French duo Papooz release their first music video for the track "Anne Wants To Dance" off their newly released single. The video was shot and directed by Soko in Greece - where she was filming a movie – and stars her girlfriend, Sasha Melnychuk. You can catch Papooz live at Point Ephémère in Paris on July 8, and the Calvi On The Rocks festival on July 6.
To some, she was France’s answer to Patti Smith, or perhaps a 20th century reincarnation of Arthur Rimbaud – or maybe both. To others, she is virtually unknown. But listen to her track “Fire” off her seminal album Press Color, which is seeing a rerelease this summer, and you’ll wonder why you’ve never heard of her. Instead of being France’s answer to Patti Smith, though, Lizzy Mercier Descloux was more of a soul sister; she was also more punk than no wave – punk in the sense of her rebelliousness. You can find Descloux donning a suit next to Smith, who is barefoot and wearing a tattered dress, in a poetry art book that the duo released together – with contributions from Richard Hell. Born Martine-Elisabeth Mercier Descloux in Paris, Lizzy was a bit of a creative anomaly – she introduced world music into her music before there was such a thing. If it wasn’t for her explorations with world music, there is a chance Paul Simon may not have made Graceland. Whatever the case is, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, who died in the early naughts, is still a force to be reckoned with. Click here to read more about this incendiary and prodigious artist.
You either have to be extremely bold, or be on the same record label, to call the legendary Italian record producer Giorgio Moroder, known to the younger generation for his recent collaboration with Daft Punk, and known to the older generation for his soundtracks to films such as “American Gigolo” and “Scar Face.” For Elizabeth Harper, otherwise known as Class Actress, she is both bold and on the same label – Casablanca Records – that Moroder has been making disco hits for, such as Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, since the 70s. Back in 2012, we interviewed Elizabeth Harper where she presciently mentions her wish to take her work into a more cinematic realm, which is fitting: her new album (which is out now) is called “Movies” and is more cinematic than ever, especially with Moroder on board. Click here to read the full interview.
Autre had a chance to speak with Virgins founder and singer Donald Cumming over the phone from his apartment in New York – I could hear him dragging on a cigarette between questions with the sound of the city in the background, like a sweet symphony of chaos. In the following interview, Cumming talks about his time in The Virgins, an ever-evolving New York City, and his new solo musical journey. Click here to read the conversation.
Finnish artist Jaakko Eino Kalevi has unveiled a music video for the track "Double Talk" off his first full length album, which was released this week. Back in April, Autre featured another music by Kalevi – for the track "Deeper Shadows" – which was equally as surreal and slightly unsettling.
The Mirror Cube is a new happenings site that features events recommended by artists that range from photographers to painters to filmmakers, all in support of promoting a community of art-centric conversation. Here, three of their artists share with Autre the acts they're looking forward to at this year's Northside Festival in Brooklyn, which kicks off today: Photographer Guy Aroch endorses Lower Dens with TEEN at The Music Hall of Williamsburg on June 11. The Baltimore-based indie pop band Lower Dens is touring in support of their new album, Escape From Evil, and they'll be joined by Brooklyn alt-rockers TEEN. Actor Brady Corbet endorses The Very Best with Heems at McCarren Park on June 12. The Afro-Western duo of London DJ/producer Radioclit and Malawi singer Esau Mwamwaya, who perform under the name The Very Best, will be joined by Queens-based rapper Himanshu Suri--aka Heems. Jewelry Designer and Actor Waris Ahluwalia endorses Blonde Redhead at Warsaw on June 13. The alt-rock trio of Kazu Makino and twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace will play a show at the pop-up music club at the Polish National Home in Greenpoint. For more happenings recommended by artists, visit The Mirror Cube.
In a continuation of Björk’s pioneering use of technology, Stonemilker, directed by Andrew Thomas Huang, explores the potential for virtual reality as a performance platform outside the scope of a traditional music video. Press play, use the toggle to spin around and immerse yourself in the title track off Björk’s current album Vulnicura and the beautiful Icelandic coastline.
Drinks is the new project of Cate Le Bon and White Fence. They have a record due out in August on White Fence's own label, Birth Records and on Heavenly Recordings in the UK. "Hermits" was directed by Tim Presley and Cate Le Bon and features Presley's parents. It was edited by Casey Raymond.
Australian twosome Panama release their very chic and literary music video for the track "Jungle," which is released this week on Future Classic. In the video, directed by Fabian Röttger & Vivien Weyrauch of A Nice Idea Everyday, you can catch pretty, dreamy girls reading J.D. Salinger and Bukowski, smoking cigarettes, lounging poolside and driving classic cars. Panama's single will be released this coming Friday, June 5 and it can be streamed here.
"Secret Friend," the opening track on Grounders' debut self-titled LP, is a nostalgic and vibrant pop song with a psychedelic glisten. So it's only fitting that its music video, animated by band member Daniel Busheikin, is equally colorful and kaleidoscopic. The visuals were digitally rotoscoped - an antiquated animation technique that involves tracing and painting over live-action footage, frame-by-frame. The music video captures familiar movements and moments through thousands of individually-made frames, presenting a hallucinatory mirror of our daily life.
Carmen Villain (born Hillestad) follows the release of her recent single, “Quietly,” with a new video directed by photographer Adina Fohlin. The video was filmed in Stockholm and features Linnea Martinsson’s interpretative dance of Tai Chi. As described by Hillestad, "I wanted the visuals for the song to feature movement, and I've been obsessed with looking at films of people doing Tai Chi. There’s something very powerful and vulnerable about it -- the idea of getting through difficult things in life slowly, one breath at a time." The Quietly/Let Go 7” is out now via Smalltown Supersound.
Having previously collaborated with incredible results not once, but twice - on Lapalux's “Without You" music video and Nick's short film Chrysalis in 2013 - Lapalux and Nick Rutter have joined forces once again to create a music video for "Puzzle (feat. Andreya Triana)" from Lapalux's second album Lustmore (recently released via Brainfeeder). Starring James Eeles (Peaky Blinders, My Big Fat Diary) and a 1989 Porsche (model 944) it's a tender and warped love story of a mechanic called Leon who is possessed by love, but no ordinary love . . . he has mechanophilia (the love or sexual attraction to machines, including cars). In an enclosed and surreal world where his dreams, hallucinations and visions feel wholly real, Leon tries to make sense of his spiralling emotions. And when the penny drops, can he make the right choice?
Click here to read our interview with Native New Yorkers and best friends Heather Boo and Emma Rose who make up the band Beaû. This week saw the release of their self-titled debut EP on the Kitsuné label. In the interview they talk about their music, their new album and how they go their big break in Paris.
Cyrus Gengras and folksinger Jessica Pratt at an intimate Vetiver show at Dilettante in Los Angeles. Read our interview with Pratt here. photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Finnish artist Jaakko Eino Kalevi has shared a new single and video (directed by Charlotte Rutherford) for “Deeper Shadows”, from his forthcoming self-titled debut album, due for release on Weird World on June 16, 2015. Jaakko (pronounced “Yah-koh”), a former tram driver in Helsinki, takes his new album to a wholly new atmosphere that conjures up a sensuous dreamworld soundtracked by synth and cool vocals. You can preorder the album here.
