MUSIC

Premiere | Posh Hammer Get Down Tonight With a Double-Dose of Glittering Visuals

The Electro-Pop Duo to Release New EP, Dancing in Place, October 19.

Sandlin Gaithe

A new duo eyes what lies just below the surface.

There's a tendency these days to forget celebrities are human beings, too. The pressure to share every mundane detail of their lives on social media must be terribly overwhelming. But even within a well-intended framework of connecting and reaching fans all over the world, they sacrifice a little bit of themselves in the process, which only further serves to diminish the humanity crying out and gasping for oxygen. Electro-pop duo Posh Hammer ⎯⎯ made up of siblings Navied and Tasnim ⎯⎯ pull open the shades of a pair of celebrities, who fall in love but are tasked with navigating the tumultuous waters of cultural status and burgeoning romance.

Posh Hammer's new EP, Dancing in Place, out Oct. 19, spoons together the classic smattering of synths of the '80s with a rose-cheeked hopefulness of today's youth. They are certainly wise beyond their years, and the level of care they exude on the record in style, delivery, and wisdom is magnetizing and sweet.

Today, Popdust is humbled beyond words to premiere the first two visuals to the EP. In a post-Beyoncé world, extending the song's life into the visual medium is a necessary task, and Tasnim and Navied rise to the occasion. The first two sequences illustrate the full extent of their talent through playful, exuberant angles, dashed with bright club hues and a liberating presence. Appropriately, the Asheville pair mine from the work of famed Italian director named Michelangelo Antonioni, most known for his landmark '60s trilogy of films (L'Avventura, La Notte and L'Eclisse), and bring a sense of foreboding and isolation into the 21st Century.

"An Introduction," delivered in delightful vocoder charm, whets the appetite right from the start. "Two people meet at a party and find they instantly have a connection," the band tells us of the first clip. "They spend one night together wondering around the city and falling for each other." Onscreen, their chemistry is instantly sparked; their gaze might melt your heart like butter on the sidewalk. And the musical ambition is constructed in a way to be as nostalgic as it is inherently modern.

Watch the sweeping and altogether adorable "An Introduction" clip:

Moments later, their love pops in untamed bursts of quirky dance moves, fits of giggles and shadowy neon color palettes. The video "picks up immediately where 'An Introduction' ends and blurs the line between reality and fantasy and explores what could have been," the duo explains. "The solo section in the song was one of the most challenging parts to get right."

Continuing, they detail the musical composition, "Originally, we had a dueling guitar and saxophone part, but it was feeling boring and low energy. When we came back to it, we decided to consult Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategy Cards. This led us to running the saxophone through several weird effects in my guitar rig and blending that with a synth lead, ebow guitars and an out of tune Mellotron patch."

Watch the pink-hued "After We Dance" extravaganza:

The EP's thread lines reach a frayed state-of-mind. With "To Kill Time," the characters struggle to understand social media and ominous grasp over their personal lives. "If you had treated me badly, it would have been harder to fall," Tasnim observes, reflective-tape of production rolling away from her ghostly vocal. And "It Once Was Summer," sketched in the murky light of dusk, akin to the era of film-noir, slips at a languid pace. Tasnim's voice, however, remains robust and unstuck by the past.

Peep the Dancing in Place EP track list below:

1. "An Introduction"

2. "After We Dance"

3. "To Kill Time"

4. "It Once Was Summer"

5. "Leave Me Here Tonight"

Sandlin Gaithe

Follow Posh Hammer on Twitter | Facebook | Instagram


Jason Scott is a freelance music journalist with bylines in B-Sides & Badlands, Billboard, PopCrush, Ladygunn, Greatist, AXS, Uproxx, Paste and many others. Follow him on Twitter.


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MUSIC

Premiere | CATL Claws Through Teenage Angst With New Song, "I'm On"

The Toronto Rock 'N Roll Duo's New Record, Bide My Time Until I Die.

CATL

Being a teenager can be tough.

When you're a teenager, you've got the world at your feet. It's both thrilling and daunting. In your attempts to find your place in an ever-changing, ever-tragic world, you throw a bunch of things at the wall hoping something, anything will stick. Jamie Fleming, the gravelly-voiced provocateur of rock 'n roll duo CATL, unlocks a door to his past with a new jangly jam called "I'm On," premiering today. Partner-in-crime Sarah Kirkpatrick takes the reigns on the down-in-the-dirt anthem about learning to navigate life as a wild-haired and courageous teenager.

"I could see the future freezing in front of my face / Everything made sense, and I knew my place," the Toronto duo wriggles in between dry guitar chords and the hollow rattling of percussion. In the spirit of such other musical daredevils as Shovels & Rope, CATL are only getting muddier with time. "I'm On," celebratory and intensely self-aware, analyzes "all the teenage conundrums of taking acid, hangin' with friends and trying to figure out what your place in life is gonna be," Fleming tells Popdust over email.

CATL

"The song has a lot of adventures in it with a highschool friend of mine, whom I don't want to name out. We're still friends and those lessons we learned back when we were kids still apply today," he adds. "Taking hallucinogens at the right age can really help you see things for what they really are." Even though Kirkpatrick injects the anthem with her own incomparable charm, it remains firmly planted from Fleming's perspective of a "young life which, like most of us, was fairly difficult."

"I'm On" is just the latest primer for the duo's new album, Bide My Time Until I Die, out September 21.

Listen below:

Here are the duo's upcoming tour dates:

September 21 - Toronto, ON - Dakota Tavern
September 22 - Toronto, ON - Dakota Tavern
September 29 - London, ON - Call the Office
October 5 - Hamilton, ON - This Ain't Hollywood
October 6 - Kitchener, ON - Boathouse
October 12 - Chicago, IL - Montrose Saloon
October 13 - Detroit, MI - Theatre Bizarre
October 16 - Nashville, TN - the 5 Spot
October 19 - Memphis, TN - Bar DKDC
October 20 - Paducah , KY - Maiden Alley Cinema Oktoberfest
October 27 - Toronto, ON - Dakota Tavern (Hallowe'en Spooktacular)

CATL, Bide My Time Until I Die album cover

Follow CATL on Twitter | Facebook | Instagram


Jason Scott is a freelance music journalist with bylines in B-Sides & Badlands, Billboard, PopCrush, Ladygunn, Greatist, AXS, Uproxx, Paste and many others. Follow him on Twitter.


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Photo Courtesy My Silent Bravery

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From America's Got Talent to His Million Streaming Single, "I Don't Want to Love You," Mathews' "Run Like Hell" is Hot as Hell

Courtesy Siri Music

A first listen for Taylor Mathews fans!

Fans of television's America's Got Talent fell in love with singer/songwriter Taylor Mathews in 2010 when he made it to the top 10 finalists vying for the top slot on the hit show. Mathews' success continued soaring when in 2013, his first EP, Head Over Feeling, landed on the top 40 iTunes albums chart.

Via Facebook

Chugging along with creativity and charisma, Mathews, signed with Siri Music / Caroline / Capitol Music Group, is set to release his EP Thales next month. The meaning behind the EP… Mathews explains, "'The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.' – A quote from the philosopher Thales. I've had to unpack a few things in myself over the last few years so, ultimately, I gave this record the name 'Thales' to memorialize this coming-of-age emotion I've discovered and I'm continuing to discover in knowing myself. This is the start of some real and broken and sizable truths." Truths we're tuned in to hear.

His 38,000+ monthly listeners on Spotify are anxious for what Mathews calls "more introspective" music this time around. And with a brand new single, "Run Like Hell" exclusively premiering with Popdust, Mathews fans will be the first to give it a whirl.

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