Week in Pop: Amy Reid, Jake Bellissimo, XL Middleton

Post Author: Sjimon Gompers

Week in Pop

Get to know Texas by way of NYC’s Sterling Rhyne who presented the wildly imaginative new single “Remedy” that provides a panacea for the ennui that consumes our daily existence. From a host of free-flying keys & electro-samba progressions at play; Rhyne illustrates the anecdote for all the unbearable stresses & weights that we ever so often carry. From an inventive & refreshing new rhythm sequence approach; Sterling Rhyne is one of the Big Apples’s most interesting artists to keep a keen ear out for.

Co-founder of the Doperoots imprint, star of WETV’s “Growing Up HipHop” & known for DJ work with A$AP Ferg presents TJ Mizell’s debut single “Seasons” ft. A$AP Ferg, JNTHN STEIN & Sebastian Mikael. The New York artist delivers something to celebrate the shifts of life & the world’s solstice changes that observes the arrivals & departures of loved ones as part of life’s cycles of yins & yangs that often alter our own sentimental states of being,

Ukrainian electro-pop artist Ivan Dorn launched the indepent imprint Masterskaya at home & offers the whole wide world a listen to the bountiful beat bouquet of “Groovy Shit” to get your weekend facilitated in full kinetic fashion & form. Having dropped releases like the debut Co’n’Dorn to Randorn; Ivan caters to a progressive art of expanding the inherent possibilities of electro-pop based ideas & innovative instincts.

Denmark’s Virgin Suicide are making some vintage throwback/bombast throwback UK/EU pop that blends your favorite lost 80s/90s icons into an electric blender. With word of the upcoming second album, the quintet offered a listen to the fist clenched outpour of passions on “Forever Trouble” that frontman Martin Grønne introduced with the the following words:

The song tracks the almost impossible acceptance of the fact that nothing is really gonna get better…your mind always finds a way to trouble up your life and that’s how it’s always gonna be.


The Zephyr Bones presents a listen to the innovative title track “Secret Place” featured off the album of the same name available November 10 on La Castanya. The descent into clandestine corners & hidden locales is expressed through innovative & unusual chord progressions that plays out in a variety of energetic tones & mind racing flights of audio fancy.

Kllo presented the Freya Esders video for “Downfall” featured off the upcoming album Backwater available October 20 via Ghostly International. Intimate aspects of introspection expressed in song & electronic beats & rhythm pulses are taken to pensive environments from home, to lake & sunset fields of fire.

From their upcoming album Better Lives available November 3 through Egghunt Records, Feral Conservatives bring their westward leaning/rustic rolling Americana pop of “Angels”. Featuring co-production/mixing courtesy of Jon Auer, the Ferals continue to expound upon a sound that attempts to make sense of our world, ourselves & penning pop anthems to help us survive the great unknown events of what tomorrow may hold.

Melkbelly presented the Marty Schousboe video for “Kid Kreative” featured off the upcoming album Nothing Valley available October 13 via Carpark/Wax Nine (Sadie Dupuis’s own imprint). The scuzzy & poppy track about an ungrateful snob is given more exotic platters than the antihero knows what to do with (up to having their own head on a platter).

The She’s announced their new album titled after something you’d read in a all female rock and roll quartet available November 17 through Empty Cellar Records & shared the electrified single “Heartache”. Golden era radio pop meets contemporary times on as the Bay Area band brings the blues that everyone can connect to in one way or another (complete with plenty of cool castanets & harmonies).

Off his recently released album GARREN; the Bay Area’s own Garren Sean offered a look & listen at the Calmatic video for “There She Goes” that features the artist doing double duty from rocking the keys to shredding away some spirit & sentiment on an electric guitar until the artist is all tuckered out.

Portland’s own WIBG brought us all a little glimmer of “Sunshine” featured off their upcoming album Winnie the Nihilist available November 10 through Belgium’s own Exag’ Records. Bringing some blistering & welcome chaotic & quixotic sounds from the PNW; WIBG drops something to awaken all available senses to even those sectors of sensory that you never you knew you possessed.

Featured off the Transference compilation via Marmoset Music, check out Ural Thomas and the Pain’s “Hot Time in the Old Town” that makes throwback big-band styles sound brand new & hot all over again. A perfect single for what has become a heat-wave stricken autumn, the Portland artist offers a time warp when big musical productions were the standard by which every visionary would execute their audio visions.

Celebrating the release their second album Visions Of A Life, London’s Wolf Alice presented the Andy DeLuca video for “Heavenward” that takes performance pop footage to new heights. From creative silhouette screen tests to privy views of the band in-between gigs & the like offers an inside view into Wolf Alice’s semi-charmed kinda life on the world’s open roads.

Janelle Kroll preps the EP Pretty Lie To Me available in October & presents the electro-toned single “Blush” ft. Aalias. The act & feeling of flushed faces & heightened heights takes flight to privy places of amorous events.

Tusks presented a listen to their single “Last” featured off the debut album Dissolve available October 13 via One Little Indian that tackles notions of finality with a whole lot of expansive atmospheres & swelling sentiments. “Last” provides that feeling of something being at the end of a long line where Tusks take matters to the sonic limit on what is ultimately one wild head ringer.

Peep the personal & passionate Duncan Loudon video for Mount Kimbie’s “Four Years and One Day” featured off the recent album Love What Survives via Warp. Wild 360 views of the band performing are combined with Loudon’s own intimate visual narrative that bridges bonds between a father & son & dizzying city streets at night.

LA’s Pair Of Arrows dropped the single “Step Again” featured on their debut Walls EP available soon via Blank City Records. Ambient textures offer echoing atmospheres that maintain a reverberation of sentiments that shudder & shimmer in the evening’s nightfall.

Portland’s Liquidlight brought the big brash & bold licks on their new album Wicked Radio. From “Cookie Cutter” to “If You Care”; the quartet offers up a helping of blistering riffs that will have your head spinning & soaring heck bound to the solar core of the sun’s relentless shine.

Introducing the Parisian imprint microqlima & the phenom of L’Impératrice who presents their Séquences EP presenting a remix from Parcels where the Australia by Berlin group gives the track a new kinetic lease & rhythm chord format. Between the guitars & the percussive grooves, the action is activated by a whole new charged angle that accentuates all aspects of body moving inspirations & instinctive sequencing.

Hound, comprised of visual artist extraordinaire Perry Shall with Ted Leo percussionist Chris Wilson, presented us with a listen to “Aqualamb” that brings the big skronk & thunder shaking sounds to shatter whatever normalcy you happen to be enjoying at the moment. Featured off the upcoming Born Under 76; get ready for some of the best three & half minutes of catharsis that you might enjoy this entire week.

Bad History Month, comprised of Sean Bean who was known for work in Boston’s mythic Fat History Month offers up a listen to “The Nonexistent Distance” found off the upcoming album Dead And Loving It: An Introductory Exploration of Pessimysticism available November 3 through the prestigious & prolific imprint Exploding in Sound. Sean brings all the super weird dub undercurrent effects that make for a totally psychologically transformative listening experience.

Check out Belgium, by UK by California’s Tessa Dixson via the single “Prayer” featuring visuals directed by Bob Jeusette. Electro meditations & hymns are seen with sights & sounds of Los Angeles & the surrounding SoCal landscapes that bridge sea, desert, city vistas & electro guided adventures.

White Room presented their new single “Cable-Built Dreamland” featured off their upcoming double EP available December 1 through Deltasonic Records that careens with an adept sense of sonic & blissful wonder to dream on. The sweeping harmonies & mind awakening arrangements will open up all attentive faculties in all sorts of senses of newfound feels of discovery.

Cavalry announced that their debut EP will be available later this fall & shared the single “Heresy” that pits beliefs against the trials, errors, fails & triumphs with a hopeful sound that remains persistently running & galloping toward the reaches of something greater.

Josh Jacobson shared the expressive emotions of “I Need You” featured off the just released First Light EP from Joshua Tree Records. Inner mulling over matters of heart & spirit spill outward in song that rise up like evaporated dew toward the outstretched arms of the heavens.

In case you missed it, indulge in the autumn essences heard on the snazzy Coucheron remix take on Emily Warren’s “Something To Hold On To”. From here pop progressions are rearranged with new tempos & more inspired items that offer a bit more razzle-dazzle to the original.