Phantoms release “Only You” featuring beloved, long-time collaborator JemCooke, which marks the final single before release of their sophomore album ‘This Can’t Be Everything’ on 12th August on ForeignFamilyCollective.
Speaking on their collaboration, Phantoms say, “Only You” was written on a trip to London where we got to work with the amazing Jem Cooke. This was the first song we ever wrote together, It’s about feeling safe with someone amongst chaos and uncertainty.”
JemCooke adds, “This song was written [about] wanting to fling your arms around the person you love the most. It was about expressing being with that one person who can make you feel amazing and keep you safe inside the chaos when it’s all raging around you.”
Phantoms have come into their own and taken a new approach to their music following monumental personal and professional life changes and through those experiences have created some of their most dynamic and transcendent music to date. The two were officially signed to Foreign Family Collective earlier this year, (founded by electronic giant ODESZA in 2015) and since have had the freedom to explore new and exciting creative avenues with their music.
With previous support from NPR, Billboard, Stereogum, BBCRadio 1, Kiss FM + more and over 125 million streams across platforms, the duo has solidified themselves as one of the most promising acts entering 2022, with lots more on the horizon.
ODESZA’s forthcoming album‘The Last Goodbye’ will be outon the July 22nd (on Foreign Family Collective/Ninja Tune), and as the GRAMMY-nominated duo of HarrisonMills and ClaytonKnight inch towards its much-anticipated, full unveiling, they have released the latest track“Light Of Day (feat. Ólafur Arnalds)”, giving fans one final taste of what’s to come before the LP finally drops.
The track is a cinematic escape that transforms from a futuristic piano-driven ballad into a complex electronic reveal with an enchanting vocal refrain courtesy of Stephen Ambrose. The song is a collaboration with longtime friend and Icelandic instrumentalist, Ólafur Arnalds – building the orchestral foundation together that gives this song this dichotomy of fragility and resilience, throughout. The vocal pulls from a folk song Ambrose released in 1972 titled ‘Mary’. Ambrose, too, is a pioneer in the audio world, responsible for paving the way for touring musicians in his invention and development of the first wireless in-ear monitors, which are now found on stage around the world.
On the collaboration, ODESZA notes:
“Light of Day was one of the first songs off the record we finished. It served as a bookend for the record – and really, a guiding light for the project as a whole. This song started with Ólafur, an incredible artist and longtime friend, sending an initial idea our way. The vocal sample is from a 1970s folk song titled “Mary” that we discovered digging through old records – featuring Stephen Ambrose. We see that vocal as a slow building mantra of sorts, something we that hoped would evoke this feeling of being at peace.”
Last week, ODESZA further teased the upcoming LP by debuting the first phase of “The Maze”, an interactive & strategic web game which explores the themes of the album via “quests” assigned to each track. Very much like a virtual scavenger hunt, “The Maze” requires fans to scour ODESZA’s web and social channels in addition to real life activations and communal teamwork to uncover clues and unlock rewards and prizes. A nod to the bond they’ve forged with their fanbase, the maze has sparked a collective frenzy that’s engaged them in full force, as they work together to solve the puzzle.
A true testament to the connection they’ve developed with their community, ODESZA sold over 350k tickets during the initial 48-hour ticket on-sale period of their upcoming “The Last Goodbye Tour”, reaffirming the Seattle duo as one of modern music live performance juggernauts. Three nights at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, two nights at LA’s The Forum, and two nights at New York’s Forest Hills Stadium are just a few of the notable and massive sell-out shows. In a recent cover feature, in reference to the tour, Pollstar plainly stated “ODESZA makes history”. Full dates HERE.
Additionally, ODESZA is partnering with environmental nonprofit and music industry veterans REVERB to make their tour more environmentally sustainable and to engage fans to take action for people and the planet. Not only will the tour be carbon negative, eliminating substantially more greenhouse gas pollution than the tour creates, there will also be engagements at each show to encourage fans to get involved to take action against climate change.
With over 5 billion total streams, ODESZA have masterfully reemerged to remind the world what has made the duo of HarrisonMills and ClaytonKnight cornerstones of the modern electronic landscape. Their last album ‘A Moment Apart’ was not only a commercial success (going gold and debuting at no. 3 on the Billboard 200), but it also earned critical acclaim including two GRAMMY nominations and praise from the likes of NPR, RollingStone, Billboard, Complex, Consequence and more.
The duo has cultivated a diehard fan base of massive proportions: known for their groundbreaking, awe-inspiring and immersive live performance, which reached 2.85m+ fans over the course of their ‘A Moment Apart’ tour. They also have had headline performances at the likes of Coachella, Lollapalooza & more, as well as performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Conan, and launched their own music festival SUNDARA in Riviera Maya, Mexico in 2019.
Now, if you’ve been following RCRD LBL for the past year, chances are you would have heard about the Chinese-British songstress Fifi Rong and her fantastical build towards releasing her latest crowd-funded album, There Is A Funeral In My Heart, For Every Man I Loved. The singer first arrived on our radar in February 2021 with the release of ‘Another Me’ and the artistic music video that accompanied it. In the nearly full year to follow, we saw Fifi Rong investigate the world of live performance, become a forerunner in the NFT community and launch the impressively successful crowd-funding campaign that helped her give back to her followers and collaborators alike.
It seemed only fitting to round off the year with Fifi Rong as we explore her mind, creative process and plans for the future. Find it all in the exclusive interview below.
Tell us about your first memory of music and how it inspired you
I was 4 watching this TV show about pianists and I developed this aching desire toward it and begged my parents to get me a piano.
In your biog, you mentioned how you’ve struggled to reconcile the two different sides of society (Western and Eastern). Do you feel you were able to bring the two together in your latest album?
Yes absolutely. It’s effortless now, and I can dial to any side as I wish.
There Is A Funeral In My Heart, For Every Man I Loved was crowd-funded, reaching the goal before the campaign ended. Tell us how you feel about this success and what you envision the next step to be
I’m very proud and loved. We reached the goal 2 weeks before the end of the campaign and ended at 164% crossed Indiegogo and my website’s crowdfunding period. This is proof of the ‘1000 true fan’ theory of how modern artists can have true creative freedom and full support from a relatively small number of true supporters instead of millions of distant listeners/fans. Going forward, I will be taking my connection with my real supporters to web3, which is an environment where this culture I have developed in my community can really thrive.
What is your favourite aspect of your video for ‘Out Of Clock’? What makes it stand out from the rest?
I speak in Chinese and English in the monologue at the intro, and tell the story of Why There Is A Funeral In My Heart in Chinese on one of the stereo fields, whereas I kept repeating the Album title in the other stereo field. It sums up the album really, and the production style is my favourite type in all my productions too: ‘passive aggressive’. Also, the chorus really spells out the general emotional signature of the entire album. ‘My heart is running out of love, for anyone, to stay’… after every funeral I gave to every single love affair. It’s a memoir of love after all.
The world of NFTs is quickly evolving, with you as one of the forerunners in the community. Tell us why you believe this new digital world is so important?
Cryptocurrency and NFT is a new technology, a disruptive one. Technology is a one way street, and NFT as a technology will take over the whole world before everyone realises it. It creates a better, fairer world and financial system, a win-win situation for creators, fans, and collectors, and adds much more utility and ownership to the relations between them.
Metaverse is the immediate future that will integrate with most of our lives and NFT is the builder block of this meta universe we are moving into.
Where is a good starting point for an artist looking to enter the NFT game? What tips would you give to a newcomer?
Web3 is powered by people and communities and the key is self governance, so education and connection with others in the community is the first and foremost aspect of longevity in NFT. So I’d recommend finding us on twitter, we have community space to educate and connect all the time around the week/cock. My twitter is @fifirong so follow me and connect on my daily onboarding show and I’ll set them up.
Tell us about your latest album. Which track shouldn’t fans sleep on and why?
‘I’m Enough’ has been talked about a lot from the feedback so far. I didn’t expect that, as I didn’t get special ‘love’ earlier during the making of the album from my peers, so I was sleeping on it. But now the album is out, people are loving it, and felt that it should have been a single as well. But then, the traditional industry may think there’s no single in my album, whereas my true supporters think every song is a single. Guess whose view I care more about?:)
Fusing pop, country, soul and blues, Slovakian indie band Dennyiah have returned with another stunning release. ‘Sense Of Rain’ traverses EDM territory, further proving Dennyiah’s versatility as artists.
Dennyiah is vocalist Denny and guitarist Lubos. Their album is expected in 2022, and the duo is well on their way to reaching international audiences.
The stunning video for ‘Sense Of Rain’ features Massay dancer Fernando Anuang’a, who adds a visceral visual aesthetic to the track. The track showcases Denny’s vocals, which sit beautifully atop the alluring melody.
Dennyiah shares, “It’s about the elusive sensation of an invincible life force coming from within. Losing the ego and idealised and pre-constructed idea of self. That’s when nothing around changes. The only thing that changes is your perception and the fact that it doesn’t have the power to go under your skin anymore because it’s always been disconnected from the true within. Bad things good things – it’s all the same – what matters is how much you let it drag you down. This song speaks about the short moment of enlightenment, about the deep connection to everything without the heaviness of reaction.”
Adding to how the track was created, Dennyiah share, “It was created years ago with two of our former bandmates. Matej Marga ( drummer) and Miroslav Kažimír ( synth/piano). Miro created the base synth layers and Matej added drums. After that we jammed the idea in our rehearsal room all together with Lubo ( guitarist) and I came up with the melody that was actually stuck in my head for a while – the part where I sing sense of the rain. Lyrics were written long before coz’ I was going through a lot of changes in my life and was looking for a spiritual awakening which eventually happened, at least for a short while. The song came absolutely naturally and we may all agree that it’s a testimony to a better life within ourselves.”
