"Video Age is the project of Ross Farbe and Ray Micarelli, longtime friends from their early years coming up in New Orleans’ DIY scene. Together, they use a host of vintage synthesizers to craft music that taps into a vein of early ’80s synth-pop. Previously, they released a more guitar-driven debut in 2016 called Living Alone. Now they’re about to return with their sophomore outing, with the fitting title of Pop Therapy.

They’ve already previewed the album with lead single “Hold On (I Was Wrong).” It was a slick, funky track, and it clues you in to the nature of Pop Therapy: Video Age’s new music is all rubbery grooves with a dusty sheen, and it makes them one of those bands looking back to the early ’80s who are also sort of hard to trace to any actual antecedent there. As it turns out, their inspiration for Pop Therapy did come from some less-than-customary sources, McCartney II and Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly among them.

Today, they’re back with another new song from Pop Therapy. It’s called “Lover Surreal,” and the band described it as a “dance ballad about an imaginary love affair. Someone is reaching out into the void, patiently waiting for love to respond.” It is indeed a slightly dreamier composition than “Hold On (I Was Wrong),” a gauzy piece of yearning that does line right up with the way we perceive the era Video Age are drawing from." -Stereogum

On their debut single, True Blossom demonstrate a love for nearly every era of dance pop. From the clean Italo-disco synth lines to the ‘70s funk basslines, it’s almost impossible to reduce the song to any era of influence. Despite bleeding pop orthodoxy, “Baby” shows a range of emotion that belies the traditional subject matter of the track. Still, the underlying complexity and diversity are wrapped up in a bold, crystalline sound that clarifies the layers of the group’s lush aesthetic and keeps the track from wandering into the realm of esoteric pop.

It will be interesting to see how the band’s complex influences shake out on their upcoming LP Heater, which drops Jan. 14 on Citrus City Records, but if “Baby” is a main ingredient in their secret formula, expect a streamlined album worthy of a branch on pop’s evolutionary tree.

"Jackson MacIntosh might be in love—he just can’t quite tell. The Montreal musician, best known as the bassist for the indie rockers TOPS, is now launching himself as a solo singer-songwriter, and his latest track, “Can It Be Love,” is all about the uncertainty of a budding romance. MacIntosh’s downtempo pop is a far cry from MacIntosh’s work with TOPS: His soft croon is so languid he sounds half-asleep; percussion comes courtesy of a tinny drum machine, the melody a few light splashes of keyboard; and even when the spartan song adds a flourish of guitar in its last 30 seconds, it’s in the form of a very leisurely solo.

MacIntosh’s yearning and confusion will be familiar to anyone who’s spent time on the road. “Can It Be Love” was the last song he wrote for his forthcoming album, My Dark Side, and it was inspired, he recently explained, by that “classic musician’s dilemma” of having to be absent when what you want is waiting at home. The song captures that melancholic longing quite beautifully: “When you’re in Barcelona/I’ll be in Calgary” he sings, plaintively. “I won’t be alone but/If your phone’s on I’ll call you and check in and see/If it could be love.” Though it may be unfortunate for his romantic prospects, MacIntosh’s solo career is off to a very promising start." -Pitchfork

The spontaneity and community intrinsic to the word karaoke is reflected in the band’s hypnotic debut EP How to Make You Boil. Over 6 tracks, the ensemble are consumed by whirling emotions but refract the chaos into glowing empathic pop. The title was drawn from a poem by vocalist and songwriter Grace Wayne, and is framed as a recipe for how to infect someone with obsession. This deviousness borne of desire channels the human struggle for acceptance and intimacy. It’s a journey which so easily strays down tangled paths of confusion, but Karaoke explore these sobering realizations with humor and poignancy.

The collaborative sound of Karaoke is drawn from each member’s wealth of experience. Wayne honed her icy vocals in Del Venicci alongside drummer Adrian Benedykt Switon, who also plays in Shepherds. Guitarist Tymb Gratz was a founding member of Mood Rings, and bassist Chris Yonker who currently plays in Omni also fronted Hello Ocho. Wayne channels Feist’s clear-eyed observations and Nico’s gothic flair with a surprising intimacy. This combination is perfectly suited for Karaoke’s spacious sound, which spans the fraught ground between comfort and discomfort, yet what truly sets the band apart is their ability to veer into unexpected melodies and tempo shifts, guided by Gratz’ sprawling guitar work and Yonker’s animated basslines.

Echoes of This Mortal Coil float through the most cavernous segments of the album, but Wayne’s earnest voice transmits a deep reflection all her own - that dreams are better than reality. How to Make You Boil is an ethereal lens which channels our grasping at the fleeting passions of life. It is an outlet for the smallest voices within each of us and an open-ended question disguised within fully-realized pop.

How to Make You Boil is due out Aug. 25th on limited cassette & digital via Irrelevant Music.