Exploring Shadows with Ruby- "Muted Greens" Music Video

Recent Vermont transplant, Katy Hellman, hit the ground running when she arrived in our beautiful city.  Her latest project, Ruby, released their very first music video for the cutting and thoughtfully beautiful single, Muted Greens, today and let me tell you we are HERE FOR IT.  

The video is straightforward and truly invokes the feeling of the song itself. This sentiment from Katy perfectly sums up that feeling: “Each time I play [Muted Greens] I get to the bottom of my experience of rage to find my raw beating heart at the center of it all. It helps me find the strength I need to show up for myself.” Katy tells me that it was never their intention to shoot a music video for this song.  She changed her mind immediately after her bandmate, Steven Lebel, showed her music videos by Kate Bush that led her to decide, “I’m a dancer!” I personally love this approach to decision-making. While Katy says that this was a “classic Leo season” moment, I whole-heartedly identify with this a bit of a compulsive Aries. 

“Each time I play [Muted Greens] I get to the bottom of my experience of rage to find my raw beating heart at the center of it all. It helps me find the strength I need to show up for myself.”

ANYWAY. Using borrowed light and smoke machines from their friends, Katy and Steve set off to create this impromptu music video for a song about the “chaotic and disorienting moment of encountering our shadows.” This music video perfectly encapsulates that feeling. Katy’s natural movements feed the introspective nature of the song itself. Without adding any extra bells and whistles, you really get the feeling that she is grappling with an internal conflict. Katy tells us that the song is also “an ode to the courage it takes to find the capacity to love ourselves fully in the face of deep shame and fear.” This idea is really enhanced by the blue tones, shadowy effects and the singular focus on Katy throughout the video.

Ruby is planning to release a full length album this summer. Stay tuned! You can catch them at World Cafe Live on February 19th (tickets here) and follow them on alllll: INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK / SPOTIFY / BANDCAMP

Finding Balance in Church Girls' New Album, "The Haunt"

by Sean Fennell

If you’ve attended a good number of shows, specifically punk or punk-adjacent shows, you know you often have a decision to make. On the one hand, you can let go, give in to the thudding drums and pulsing guitars and dive headfirst into that spinning mess of bodies that is the mosh. Or, you can hang back, feel the music but not let it overtake you, nod your head, let the lyrics wash over you. There is no right way, most of us have been both people, depending on the night. Both are emotional experiences, equally rewarding, intertwined in the fabric of what makes music such a unique experience. It is within this internal push and pull that Church Girls’ new record The Haunt finds itself, working to balance the often contrary feeling that exists inside all of us, offering a frenetic mosh and introspective moment in equal measure. 

This pendulum starts to swing right away with album opener “Nothing.” What begins as an assault of exacting, energetic drums from Julien Varnier is quickly met by Mariel Beaumont’s cutting vocals, hungry for a connection. This trend continues through much of the record, the drums and vocals soaring above, propelling the songs forward while the impressive guitar work slithers it's way through the grass below. It’s a dynamic that gives The Haunt a momentum, a pulse tracking the back and forth of four skilled musicians willing to give in to what serves the music best. 

"What begins as an assault of exacting, energetic drums from Julien Varnier is quickly met by Mariel Beaumont’s cutting vocals, hungry for a connection."

This vacillation stays at the front of songwriting duo Beaumont and fellow guitarist Joseph Wright’s minds as well. Winding its way through the record is the idea of transience, of leaving and arriving, of finding hope in nihilism. Take “Florida,” which finds Beaumont stuck, triggered and wishing for better things. If only they can get out, miles from the titular “tourist town” and burn everything down, surely things will be better. It’s angry but practical and underlined wonderfully by a slicing guitar riff whose rising heart rate repetition eventually leads to the best breakdown on the record: a minute long wall of disjointed guitars providing all the release of leaving a toxic situation. 

"Winding its way through the record is the idea of transience, of leaving and arriving, of finding hope in nihilism."

On the other end of the spectrum there’s “Could’ve Been,” a song of staying, even when you shouldn’t. Alongside rolling drums and needling guitar lines we have a story of a chance given and missed. “In this crumbling house where the walls are misshapen // you search and scour the place // find something for breaking,” sings Beaumont during the single’s refrain, describing a time, or a hundred times, when what “Could’ve Been” was sabotaged. It is cathartic to finally let how you really feel break through, even if it falls on deaf ears.

Whether it’s the promise of leaving, or the despair in having never left, we can all identify with Church Girls’ desire to loudly declare their presence. The Haunt invites you to connect with the crowd, whether it’s via a light shove against a friendly stranger, a head nod of recognition by the bar, or a sweaty mosh pit. We’re all looking for our equilibrium.

Church Girls is playing tonight at Johnny Brenda's with Trash Boy and Grocer. Check out the album here!!

Screamcloud Releases New EP, The Slums of Your Mind

Screamcloud is bringing Cherry-Veen Zine back to our Riot Grrrl roots with the release of their latest EP, The Slums of Your Mind, and we’re loving every second of it. Drawing inspiration from bands such as Screaming Females, Sonic You and Sleater- Kinney, Screamcloud’s lo-fi, grungy tunes are filling a void in my little punk heart.

Screamcloud, consisting of Danielle Lovier on bass and vocals, Joushua Curry on guitar, Charlie McQuiggan on drums and Emily Daly on baritone guitar and vocals, takes us through an eclectic musical journey on this 3 song EP. It starts with the “doomiest, sludgiest” song, In Your Eyes, and then revs up the pace with 275, named after the price of a subways swipe in New York. “A version of Screamcloud existed for a minute in New York, but I definitely consider us a Philly band,” Emily says. The band moved to Philly in 2017 for all the right reasons, citing the sense of community in the music scene as one of the main draws. “ The music scene here is much more welcoming and community based, and that's definitely affected our music even if just because it’s easier for a band to grow and thrive here. There’s that stereotype of the struggling, starving artist, but in reality it’s much easier to be creative when you live in a place that doesn’t require you to spend all your time working just to scrape by.”

"There’s that stereotype of the struggling, starving artist, but in reality it’s much easier to be creative when you live in a place that doesn’t require you to spend all your time working just to scrape by.”

The band has designated themselves with my new favorite genre descriptor, “anxiety rock.” They play songs that address a whole multitude of anxious and uncomfortable feelings. Emily tells me that anxiety plays a huge role not only in the songs she writes, but in being a performing artist in general. I love that Emily is exploring anxiety in the context of performing on stage. This is something that I’ve always wondered about, but no one has ever discussed with me. “Anxiety is definitely a huge them in our music, and for a long time it kept me from being able to play and sing in front of people. Acknowledging it has definitely helped.” The final song on the EP, Let it In, portrays anxiety as a literal monster that follows you around, and how to deal with that in a positive way. “I used to focus on how it held me back in the past, but I’ve come to realize that it can be inspiring because it proves how much I care about music. Even though part of me is incredibly shy and hates the attention that comes with being a frontperson, it turns out the part of me that wants to play music is stronger, and that’s pretty cool.”Check out The Slums of Your Mind here and be sure to come see them play at our CVZ Ortlieb’s takeover on Wednesday, February 26th FOR FREE!!