Weekly Music Roundup: Tunes Brighten a Twilit World

Our roundup of music news, videos, and songs just might help you get through the rest of the week. This week, the rise of super-short-form videos; plus a soulful look at the world’s problems, a sci-fi glimpse of the world’s future problems, and a song to make it all better. 

Tumblr and Instagram Change The Rules For Music Videos

21-year old Bibi Bourelly (daughter of the terrific Haitian-American guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly) has just released her new single, “Sally,” with an interactive video that, to quote from her press release, “allows users to load any tumblr site and have gifs or images react in real time to the song, essentially creating a music video instantly from their favorite internet memes.” The song itself is a thumping, minimalist take on R&B, colored by both rap and the blues, and like Bibi’s first single, “Ego,” contains some salty language so maybe don’t go cranking it at work. But it leaves lots of room for video magic – see some at http://smarturl.it/SallyInteractive; the inevitable cat-based video is already there and seems a strange fit, to me at least, with the song. Anyway, the “pseudo-video,” which is not interactive but gives you a chance to see one possible approach, is here. 

Meanwhile, over on Instagram, there’s an even shorter-form approach to music videos coming. Today Instagram announced that David Bowie’s last album, Blackstar, would be the subject of the new InstaMiniSeries called Unbound. Before he released the album, Bowie offered the producers of the series early access so they could create a 16-part series that will consist of short images inspired by the mood and lyrics of the album. Bowie’s website issued a press release that says, in part, “Bowie saw in InstaMiniSeries an exciting new platform to explore interpretation of and storytelling within his music.” If earlier series are any indication, each episode will run around 15 seconds. Expect the series to be long on evocative imagery and perhaps a little less so on literal narrative. The first episode is this Thursday, February 25 at 8pm Eastern Time.

Soulman Charles Bradley Wants To Change The World

Tears For Fears sang that “everybody wants to rule the world.” Don’t tell that to Charles Bradley, the so-called Screaming Eagle of Soul. His response is likely to be, “Have you seen the world lately?” His new video “Change For The World” offers the visual equivalent to Bradley’s old-style soul music: 60s-style effects, with a silhouetted dancer eclipsing a series of eye-blurring clips of the world’s problems, both old and new (there’s a brief shot of Donald Trump, so I’m guessing Bradley is not a fan). Like his label-mate Sharon Jones, Bradley is a great story – someone whose shot at a music career seemed long gone, but whose adherence to old-school funk and soul led to a belated “discovery” well into middle age; he’s packing venues like the Beacon Theater (April 23). This song will be on his third album, Changes, out on April 1.

From Berlin’s Rave Scene, A Stunning Vision Of A Dystopian Future

Moderat’s third record is due on April 1 and will be called III. Okay, so it’s not the most imaginative title, but you’d rather they spent their imagination capital on their music and videos, right? Moderat is a composite name, reflecting the band’s origins: Sascha Ring, who records under the name Apparat, joined forces with the trend-busting electronic music duo Modeselektor back in 2002 for an EP, but it took the rest of that decade for them to figure out what their collective project should sound like. What it sounds like now is similar to Radiohead’s more jittery electronic experiments, especially in this song, “Reminder.” The video, by fellow Berliners SEHSUCHT, uses the latest virtual reality and immersive gaming technology to create a striking, sci-fi nightmare. 

Message To The Strumbellas: We Surrender

Toronto band The Strumbellas are the latest group to mine the folk-inflected, sing-the-chorus-with-us style that’s been popularized by Mumford & Sons and so many others. Their album Hope doesn’t come out until April 22, but a number of singles have already been issued and all of them have that ear-worm quality where they burrow into your head and demand your unconditional surrender. So we’ve capitulated: you’ll have a chance to hear the band playing live in our studio on March 10. Meanwhile, though, you can check out the video for leadoff track “Spirits” and see a willfully weird collection of costumes and masks (is that woman tryingto look like Johnny Depp? Is that a lost member of Insane Clown Posse? Are you really supposed to have that much fun with a coffin?), plus a band that seems to be even bigger than fellow Canadians Arcade Fire. To hear their live set in our studio on March 10, go to www.soundcheck.org at 2pm.

Irish American Supergroup Returns

The Gloaming delivers on the promise of its name – with another collection of twilit, melancholy, at times heartbreakingly beautiful music drawn from the deep well of Irish sean nos (literally, “old style”) singing. Their untitled debut was one of the best albums of 2014 – yes that’s my opinion, but one I shared with lots of others, including the audience that packed our Greene Space for their live performance that year. That album was released on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label, and the followup, simply called 2, is coming this Friday. The group features Irish singer Iarla O Lionaird, the Irish fiddler Martin Hayes and his longtime Irish-American guitarist Dennis Cahill, the Irish fiddler Caoimhin O Raghallaigh and his 10-string, Norwegian/Baroque hybrid instrument, and the American pianist/producer Thomas Bartlett. All of them have notable careers on their own, but together they’ve put together something quite special. This “Pilgrim’s Song,” for example, began with a harmonic sequence that Bartlett (who records as Doveman and has worked with Sufjan Stevens, The National, and has just finished Martha Wainwright’s next album) came up with on the piano; he heard Hayes playing a fiddle tune that he thought might fit on top, and then O Lionaird took an old Irish poem and composed a melody for it. I don’t understand a word of it yet it is totally moving. Hear more when Thomas Bartlett joins me on “New Sounds” this Friday night at 11 to discuss the making of the record. 

Norwegian Songstress Aurora’s Dark Pop

19-year old Aurora (full name Aurora Aksnes) is about to release her debut album, All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend, and as the title might suggest, her songs blend a certain darkness with a natural gift for hook-filled pop.  In that respect she’s working along similar lines to her Norwegian countrywoman, Farao.  Aurora has released a few singles in advance of the album, and one of them, “Conqueror,” sports a new video that takes advantage of her elfin looks and the song’s punchy chorus.