Video: Helvetia “Nettles”
Over the weekend, some friends of mine traveled down to Louisville for an evening with indie rock legends Built to Spill. A few days later, I found myself in their living room rehashing the highlights. Among the notable moments was the performance of opening act Helvetia, pronounced “hell-vee-shuh.”
The Portland, OR project is headed up by Jason Albertini. The band released their latest LP Nothing In Rambling on Joyful Noise Recordings earlier this month. The album is Helvetia’s seventh release in six years – a prolific pace. Their experimental brand of guitar-driven indie rock is a veritable melting pot of sounds that draws from psychedelic, shoegaze, alternative rock and more. In the past, this experimentation has led to a sonic space that occasionally felt crowded and over-saturated. Not so on Nothing In Rambling – a more restrained, focused release. Watch the video for “Nettles” below. Don’t sleep on an opportunity to catch Helvetia alongside Built to Spill on their handful of remaining tour dates.
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Written by Rob Peoni
Video: Tamaryn “Heavenly Bodies”
A little over a year after her debut LP The Waves, Tamaryn has resurfaced ready to release her sophomore effort entitled Tender New Signs via Mexican Summer. “Heavenly Bodies” follows “I’m Gone” as the second release to surface from the record and it features everything that makes her music so worth listening to: guitars droning off into the distance with Tamaryn’s vocals leading the listener on a one way shoegazed trip. The video itself is as subtle as the song, full of dulled colors with slow camera changes between shots of the band in and out of a raindrop-soaked window and shots of trees blowing in the wind. Essentially, it’s like taking the experience of looking at a lava lamp sitting on your bedroom window sill stoned for an hour or so and compacting that experience into four minutes and thirty seconds. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.
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Written by Greg Dahman
Live Video: Night Beds “Even If We Try”
There is an old saying amongst LSD enthusiasts that goes something like “life is all set and setting.” In other words, one’s mindset and environment are the two determining factors in a person’s relative reaction to a given experience. While I can’t speak to Timothy Leary’s theories on maximizing a psychedelic high, I would argue that set and setting are integral to the way that we experience live music.
Nashville’s Night Beds opened up for The Head and the Heart at Broad Ripple’s Opti Park in Indianapolis earlier this summer. Having arrived shortly after the gates opened, I was relegated to the rear of the crowd. A small army of young parents and stumbling toddlers stood littered between my vantage point and the stage. As is often the case with opening acts, the sound was too low. This problem was compounded by the outdoor setting and the delicate, diminutive nature of Night Beds’ performance. However, I could tell by the reaction of those near the stage that those of us in the back were missing the point.
Night Beds, and more directly lead singer Winston Yellen, construct the type of songs that are best heard indoors. This becomes readily apparent in the live clip of the band’s new single “Even If We Try,” released today as a 7″ on Dead Oceans. Filmed in an empty church, Yellen’s vocals bounce and multiply, growing with each echo. Only after watching the video below, do the belly roars from the first few rows at Opti Park appear justified. Night Beds has a 12-date tour spread across the Midwest and East Coast that kicks off on September 24 in Louisville.
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Written by Rob Peoni
Thought on Tracks 