Tag Archives: new music video

WATCH: The Dip Point Us in a ‘Love Direction’

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The Dip - Love Direction

Photo credit: Jake Magraw

If you’re a fan of vintage R&B — brought to life by dynamic, modern production — you need look no further than UMC today.

Seattle-based R&B band The Dip are set to deliver their forthcoming album, Love Direction, on July 12. The title track just arrived this past Tuesday, and this right here is a soul lover’s dream.

Harkening back to 1950s and 60s-era rhythm and blues, “Love Direction” features warm guitar tones, brilliant horn arrangements, a jazz-influenced rhythm section, and a whimsical, warbling flute for good measure. All of these colorful splashes paint a vivid sonic portrait, as vocalist/guitarist Tom Eddy’s soothing vocals take us on a journey through the trickier parts of our relationships.

“As you get further along in a relationship, sometimes you lose your way. The things that came easy in the beginning get hard. The love is still there, it’s just that people and life are complicated,” Eddy said. “Sometimes, you don’t have the tools in the toolbox to figure out what you need to do to support the other person, so you have to get help and ask for directions.”

The video, directed by Jake Magraw, is a preview of a larger cinematic work to come, and serves as a visual homage to the do-it-yourself spirit of early music videos.

“We found this really cool video of Wes Montgomery playing in London with his quartet, and we noticed how beautiful that stage they created was,” said drummer Jarred Katz. “We were thinking about how, back in the day, sets were more common in videos and there were different types of production. It was more about what people could build with their hands and by using their imaginations as opposed to computers – we were really drawn to that.”

WATCH: Gloom Girl MFG Get Away with the Perfect ‘Crimes’

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Between Nashville’s established status as a country music mecca, and Music City’s ever-growing pop and hip hop ecosystem, the city’s rock scene often doesn’t get enough love here in 2024.

Gloom Girl MFG might be the band who changes that.

The high-powered punk quartet calls Nashville home, and they’re getting ready to release their EP, Polycrisis, on May 3. The lead single, “Crimes,” is out now — and it gets the whole thing off to an explosive start!

“Crimes” features relentless guitar riffs accompanied by a tight, swaggering rhythm section — calling to mind the edgy alt-punk heyday of bands like The Vines and The Hives. Meanwhile, the charismatic Paige MacKinnon establishes her undeniable presence, as she illustrates the raw complexities of our human experience.

“‘Crimes’ is about someone who’s right in the middle of an emotional explosion,” MacKinnon said. “They’re fed up trying to play the game of love as they see it. And through that we’re speaking to a truth about how intertwined our human experiences in the world are with the way we show love to one another. It can be messy and it can be beautiful too.”

WATCH: The Ghost Club’s Rare, Vintage Music Video

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Photo credit: Francis Bonn III

The Ghost Club has been catching fire lately. In addition to their recent set at SPIN’s official SXSW showcase in Austin, they just released one of the first music videos ever shot on a limited-release Kodak Super 8 camera.

The video — for their single, “If I Fell (Don’t Wait Here For Me)” — was directed by Ben Turok. Shot on 8mm film and presented in black and white, these visuals carry a vintage ambiance befitting the track’s Springsteen-esque sensibility.

While The Boss’ influence is felt heavily on “If I Fell,” the familiar sounds don’t stop there. Flares of modernity permeate the soundscape, whether through its warm, glistening keyboard arrangement, or the raw, punk-inspired emotion behind frontman Domenic Dunegan’s vocals.

“‘If I Fell’ came from a period when a lot of bad stuff was happening in my life, including breaking my hand and not being able to play music for a while,” Dunegan said. “I was also trying to come to terms with being alone after a breakup, and I realized that part of pulling yourself out of a bad spot is accepting the fact that you need to be self-reliant and do it on your own.”

There’s plenty to enjoy here. Why don’t you dive right in and experience it for yourself?

WATCH: Miles Squiers Explores Fragile Relationships on ’24 Hours’

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Having trouble getting on the same page as your partner? If so, we think this will resonate…

Miles Squiers dropped “24 Hours” back in December as a “deep exploration of strained and fragile relationships.” Blurring the lines between acoustic pop and contemporary R&B, this fresh single provides the perfect soundtrack for some late-night introspection, as Squires details the disconnect between a woman with trust issues, and a man who falls short of alleviating them.

The music video — directed by James Gerrard, Squiers, and Josef Lloyd — shows Squiers as a male protagonist who will seemingly do whatever he can to escape facing the uncomfortable tension within his own home. From overworking, to staying out a little too late, his character does whatever he can to delay facing the inevitable questions that await him behind closed doors.

Watch the video below, and tell us if you’ve ever been there before in the comments!

WATCH: Harris Hills is All About ‘ACTION, MAN’

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One of the true gems of the New Year so far belongs to Nashville-based rapper and producer Harris Hills, who combines the soulful sensibilities of Nashvllle with the quick-hitting, grime music influence of his native U.K. on his latest single, “ACTION MAN.”

The well-traveled artist — who also spent his teenage years in Washington state before coming to Music City — pairs slick production with a delivery that moves as swiftly as an independent artist on the rise. A true hustle anthem, “ACTION MAN” adds a fresh voice to Nashville’s already thriving hip hop scene, diversifying Music City’s sonic palette in a way sure to resonate with fans in any location.

The single is accompanied by a video, which features the adventures of Hills and his entourage traveling through many haunts on and around Lower Broadway.

Perhaps these visuals signal what we already know to be true: they’re taking over the city, and it’s only a matter of time.

WATCH: Aaron Lee Tasjan Examines the ‘Horror Of It All’

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Photo credit: Shervin Lainez

Aaron Lee Tasjan has made a career out of pushing the sonic envelope, but his forthcoming album, Stellar Evolution, promises to be his most innovative offering to date. The record — Tasjan’s fifth studio album — is said to “(connect) the far away universes of slacker indie, hyper pop, and new wave.”

And frankly, if the rest of the record is anything like lead single, “Horror Of It All,” sign us up for more!

The single is a glorious sonic melting pot; one whose new wave sensibilities feel nostalgic and futuristic, all at once. The tension of this glorious hybrid soundscape — which reaches a brilliant apex with an electrifying guitar solo shortly after the 2:20 mark — is representative of “the joy, confusions and humiliations of the queer adolescent experience.”

“When I think of what scares me the most about ‘being myself,’ is that I’ll get rejected for it. This song examines the concepts of both rejection and self-acceptance, through metaphors of childhood playground heartbreak and the dramatic nature of the teenage experience,” Tasjan noted. “The story is being told through the eyes of a young queer person. I wanted to use experiences from childhood in the song, because I feel like those heartaches are the ones that are truly everlasting. In life, we have to deal with and learn from the heartbreaks of our youth. Those lessons stay with us because the pain of the experience can be processed, but the memory of it happening always remains.”

“Horror Of It All” is accompanied by a stellar, Teen Wolf-inspired music video, lending a nod to Tasjan’s love of 80s cinema, as well as to the confusion of — and ultimately, triumph over — our formative teenage years. Watch it below!

WATCH: The Steel Wheels Learn We Can’t Always Be the ‘Hero’

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Photo credit: Mike Lee

What a powerful realization, to understand that we can’t always rescue the ones we love.

The Steel Wheels examine the limited power mere mortals possess on “Hero,” their new single from the forthcoming album, Sideways (Feb. 9). The single was inspired by frontman Trent Wagler trying to help one of his children through a mental health crisis, and the ensuing realization that we can’t always be the hero in everyone’s story.

“‘Hero’ was written to describe the way we all cast ourselves in the leading role of our story, while also touching on some of the particular pitfalls of a white, straight, cis-gendered man trying to ‘help’ or ‘fix’ situations where I just need to be in a supporting role,” shares Wagler. “I wrote this song in the midst of trying to help my child in a serious mental health crisis, needing to be OK with it being their story, and really taking a back seat to try to listen and understand exactly what they were needing in the moment, rather than what I needed to tell them about the situation they were in.” 

“Hero” is accompanied by a music video featuring the band in a contemplative dance routine opposite Wagler’s daughter and several of her friends, all of whom are enrolled in Virginia Commonwealth University’s dance and choreography program. At first, the two “troupes” perform separately, as if to illustrate the disconnect between the “fixer” and individual in crisis. In the end, however, the two sides come together, demonstrating the shared understanding that comes from listening to the needs of another.

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