Weekly Music Roundup: Ruen Brothers, Kelsey Lu and Gang Gang Dance

Week of May 14: shades of blue from the Ruen Brothers and from Kelsey Lu, and a message from Sioux sacred lands by Gang Gang Dance.

The Ruen Brothers Evoke 60s TV Variety Shows in All My Shades of Blue

Originally from the UK, Henry and Rupert Stansall are now making music in Brooklyn under the name The Ruen Brothers. They appear to have grown up with a steady diet of 60s pop and country – their songs recall Johnny Cash, Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Everley Brothers, and most of all, Roy Orbison. This is largely because of Henry’s soaring vocals, although their forthcoming album has been cleverly produced to sound like one of Phil Spector’s “wall of sound” recordings from the '60s. The producer is none other than Rick Rubin (Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash’s brilliant late albums, need I go on?), and the album will be called All My Shades Of Blue. The title track is out now, and the band has just released a fun video for it which imagines the brothers on some '60s TV variety show – the type where bands would (poorly) lip sync and play along to their hit singles. 

All My Shades Of Blue comes out on June 1. The Ruen Brothers will play a Facebook Live set on June 5 at 2pm; like us if you don’t already.

All Her Shades of Blue, from Kelsey Lu

Kelsey Lu is a classically-trained cellist who also plays guitar and sings. She was born in North Carolina but has Nigerian roots, a fact that colors some of the imagery (the hair, for one thing) in the new video she’s released for her single “Shades of Blue.” The video is actually a short movie, with the song appearing about five minutes in.  \The title isn’t the only thing that connects this song to the Ruen Brothers, above – like them, Lu harkens back to music of an earlier time. In her case, it’s the slow-burning, soulful R&B style of the late '70s/early '80s known as Quiet Storm. In a statement accompanying the release of the single, Lu referred to the song as “a glimpse of hopefulness and peace” coming from a period of depression (she was squatting in a Hoboken factory at the time). So among the various shades of blue in the song is that ur-text of American pop, the blues. 

Kelsey Lu plays at the Music Hall of Williamsburgh on Wednesday, May 23.

Nature and Politics Meet in New Song by Gang Gang Dance

The NY-based experimental rock trio Gang Gang Dance hasn’t released an album since 2011, but that’s about to change with their new album, Kazuashita. It comes out on June 22 but today the band released a new single from it called “J-Tree.” As usual, the focus is on Lizzi Bougatsos’s sometimes otherworldly vocals and the ambient electronics of Brian DeGraw and Josh Diamond; but there is another voice at the center of the song. It’s a sample of one of the leaders of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, protesting the plan to build the Dakota Access Pipeline through what the Sioux consider to be sacred land. The band states that the track was intended to evoke nature and the wide open spaces of the American West, but the sample makes this a song about a time as well as a place. 

Gang Gang Dance will be performing a record release show at Elsewhere in Brooklyn on June 22. 

Aisha Devi’s DNA Feelings: A Double Helix of Electronic/Spiritual Sound

The singer and electronic music composer Aisha Devi was born in Switzerland to a Tibetan-Nepalese family, and it shows. Her music occupies a decidedly Western soundworld, but fills it with gestures taken from Eastern spirituality. Her new album, DNA Feelings, is built around her voice, often heavily processed, swooping and gliding over slowly turning electronic tones and bursts of percussion that sound like they were borrowed from a Buddhist ritual. These various pieces sound like they could easily cohere into something danceable and familiar, but they never do. The album is willfully strange and discomfiting, but at the same time it clears a space for thought, and perhaps even contemplation. The track called “Aetherave” has passages that come close to the sound of the classic Euro-electronic music of Tangerine Dream or Jean-Michel Jarre, but even here, the comfort of familiar sounds and rhythms is broken up by what sounds like a traditional Tibetan melody, accompanied by widely-spaced gongs. 

This Is Why We Love Courtney Barnett

The Australian singer, songwriter and guitarist Courtney Barnett has become a top attraction in the rock world: touring globally to sold out theaters; garnering critical acclaim for her best-selling solo recordings and her duo album with Kurt Vile; and delivering songs that can be witty or withering (or occasionally both) in her wry, deadpan voice. But what really sets her apart is the unaffected, unpretentious way she presents her work, and herself. Witness, for example, her new single and video. It’s called “Sunday Roast,” the closing track from her forthcoming album Tell Me How You Really Feel. It’s a simple tune about the simple pleasures of sharing a dinner with friends at the end of the week. But the video is pure Courtney: it’s basically a send-up of those YouTube videos where someone teaches you how to play a song on the guitar. It’s a work of gentle, understated humor (among other things, she’s a left-handed guitarist, so trying to learn the song by watching her is a strange experience). The video looks like it was made with a couple of friends and no budget, which may well have been the case – when you finally see the guys who are holding the sheet that provides her backdrop, they are faces that will be familiar to Barnett’s fans.