by Jane Lambert

VIDEO VOYAGEUR: 3 Q’s WITH KRISTY CHMURA

In a powerful tribute to Earth Day, singer, harpist and songwriter Kristy Chmura releases a re-imagined version of her song “Wake Up”. This is a heartfelt environmental anthem that brings together music, activism and visual storytelling.

Originally released on her 2018 debut solo album “Stained…Glass Heart”, the song now returns with a fresh cinematic arrangement and a compelling music video that shines a spotlight on the urgency of protecting our planet.

Deeply rooted in her love for nature and her decade-long commitment as a volunteer with her town’s Shade Tree Commission, Kristy’s passion for trees, forests and wildlife pulses through every frame of this video.

Collaborating with world-class musicians Christian Eigner and Niko Stoessl, along with longtime creative partner Damien Musto, Kristy brings new life to “Wake Up” through haunting melodies, stunning visuals and a message that resonates deeply in today’s climate.

In this interview, Kristy shares the story behind the song, the inspiration for the video and the creative process that brought this urgent and moving project to life:

1.Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically in this way?

The seed for my song “Wake Up” was planted a while ago. I released my original version of “Wake Up” with my longtime creative partner, Damien Musto back in 2018 on my debut solo album, “Stained…Glass Heart”.

I’ve always felt a deep connection to nature, a sense of belonging that resonates in my soul especially whenever I’m surrounded by trees, and I was becoming increasingly worried and distressed by what I would see in the media: the destruction and attacks on our environment, and how greed and thoughtlessness towards the planet hurts us all.

All these things overwhelmed me – the images of deforestation, the oil spills, the sheer disregard for our planet, even seeing things in my own community like clear cutting properties for new construction – I reached a point where the the inner activist in me became ignited. It wasn’t just about the planet; it was a personal ache, a sense of loss. I had to do something, I couldn’t stand by any longer, so I used what I have: my voice.”

“Wake Up” is a call to action to myself and to anyone, reminding us we need to look within ourselves and become more conscious of how our actions affect one another. We’re all part of a giant ecosystem. If we each do something, no matter how big or small, that contributes to solutions and creating health and balance for our environment – that’s a step in the right direction, and we need to keep going in that direction one step at a time. Sometimes that first step is just becoming more self-aware.

This newly reimagined version of “Wake Up” came to be because one summer, the smoke from the Canadian forest fires drifted south, casting a pall over New Jersey. The air hung heavy, and the poor air quality made it challenging to breathe. The sun was a hazy orange disk in the sky, and you could smell the wood burning from hundreds of miles away. Experiencing that broke my heart, thinking of the acres of trees and the extreme impact on the entire ecosystem.

This reignited the pull inside me to want to do something to help, so I turned to my music once again. I reached out to my team of music collaborators—Christian Eigner, Niko Stoessl, and Damien Musto—and told them I had this idea to rearrange my original version of “Wake Up” into something new and bigger, because I felt the song had an important message that needed to be heard. They were all on board, and there was an electric energy between us as we created this more pop/alternative style of “Wake Up”.

I decided to visualize this song in this specific way because I wanted to make the video more about delivering the message and bringing this important global issue about the health of our planet to the spotlight.

2. What was the inspiration behind this new video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?

The inspiration behind this new video came from many things – I like watching documentaries about the environment on Pattrn TV, and I’ve always been incredibly moved by Michael Jackson’s video for “Earth Song.” However, I had to narrow it down and keep my budget in mind, so I chose a source of inspiration from a past experience – a concert I had attended, which was the Live Earth concert organized by Al Gore when he released his documentary, “The Inconvenient Truth.”

That concert was so inspiring, with such an important message raising awareness about climate change, that it has always stuck with me. Melissa Etheridge did a music video for her song that she created for the film, “I Need to Wake Up,” and so I gathered inspiration to create my own version of what they created back then. I decided to try to focus on one climate issue that I feel passionate about, which is our forests, and try to highlight how they are such an important ecosystem that we need for maintaining the health of our planet.

3. What was the process of making the video?

Creating the video was a long process. This video is the culmination of many ideas. It was challenging to create something with such an important message, as there are many different environmental issues warranting attention, so I needed to narrow it down to just one. I didn’t want to be the focus of this video; instead, I wanted the message of the song to be in the spotlight. So I worked with my video team at Sunbeam Productions LLC, and we brainstormed many ideas.

I had a strong vision about gathering many different environmental images and text with different facts to create a story in the form of a mini-documentary, but I still wanted to have shots of me singing interwoven within those images. I researched the text that appears in the video from many different sources, like the Arbor Day Foundation and the Audubon Society, etc. I then put together the text story within the visual story of the images I gathered.

I came up with the idea of projecting all these images onto a large backdrop. We then scouted a location with a cyclorama wall and shot the singing scenes there, and it all worked out perfectly. I have Julia Schnarr and her team at Sunbeam Productions LLC to thank for putting all the pieces of my vision together into this video.

Keep up to date with Kristy Chmura on her Website

04.17.25

by Jane Lambert

Stephen Jaymes Gets Existential (and a Little Ironic) on “Waiting for the Drugs to Kick In”

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Stephen Jaymes, the folk punk poet, returns with a sly and soul searching song for the frayed nerves of 2025.

There is a special kind of exhaustion that hits when outrage becomes the national pastime. On new release “Waiting for the Drugs to Kick In”, Stephen Jaymes captures that feeling with an almost uncomfortable accuracy and is able to make it sound catchy too!

This latest single from Jaymes’s upcoming album “King Jaymes” finds him in rare form: drowsy-eyed, world weary but lucid as ever. Over a shuffling rhythm that evokes a late night stumble through emotional wreckage, Jaymes meditates on trauma, conflict and the desperate search for relief.

Whether it’s heartbreak, politics or the growing absurdity of modern life, the title isn’t really about narcotics at all. It is about the long aching pause before healing can begin. “Whatever it takes,” the song seems to shrug: “Whatever gets you through.”

The track walks a tightrope between bar room blues and surreal lounge punk. Bottles clink in the background like percussion. The chords are loose but deliberate also, with an unhurried groove. Jaymes’s voice, part crooner part confessor, floats just behind the beat as if he is narrating from the bottom of a half remembered dream. It is theatrical, but not posturing. You can believe every word he says.

The lyrics for “Waiting for the Drugs to Kick In” deliver a kind of poetic clarity that is becoming of Jaymes’s signature sound. He doesn’t give you slogans, he give symbols. Voodoo dolls, needle pricks. Arguments that circle the drain. In one breath, he is talking about a romantic burnout; in the next, he is hinting at a bigger cultural fatigue.

This is the kind of song that can make you laugh, and then maybe tear you up a little because you have felt it too.

If Baby Can’t Be Helped was Jaymes diagnosing our collective Baby Brain Syndrome, this new single is him whispering from the recovery room.

For fans of Leonard Cohen’s sardonic honesty, Beck’s melancholy, or even Zappa’s smirking surrealism, “Waiting for the Drugs to Kick In” is a necessary stop. It doesn’t promise easy answers, but it does something which is more powerful. It sits with you in the chaos, cracks a half smile and asks “Should we put on another record while we wait?”

Listen to “Waiting for the Drugs to Kick In” on Spotify.

Keep up with everything Stephen Jaymes on his Website.

04.11.25

by Jane Lambert

George Collins Pushes Forward with Electrified Grit on “New Way”

George Collins doesn’t just wear his influences on his sleeve. He very much channels them like a man with something urgent to get off his chest.

His new single “New Way” is a blistering, hook-heavy declaration of discontent and renewal. It opens with a fuzz-drenched guitar riff that’s instantly memorable.

Collins, who is a Washington D.C. born, Prague-based singer-songwriter with an unconventional path to music, knows how to get to the point. And in “New Way” the point is clear. Essentially, the world is a mess both culturally, politically, spiritually, and the time to shake things up has arrived.

It’s time for a new way – ’cause I know that something’s wrong

It’s time for a new way – it’s been going on too long

Tired of waiting. No more hesitating. Future’s unwritten – not set in stone.

What gives the track its bite though is not so much the urgency of its message, but the way it blends grit with melody. Anchored with tight drums and layered vocals that recall the energy of an early Costello, the tension of “The Rising” era Springsteen, and the swing for the rafters bravado of classic Stones. But it is all filtered through Collins’ own lens – that of a man who has spent decades in high finance before returning to music with a fresh dynamic and perspective and zero interest in any pretense.

Collins says:

The tune was indirectly inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s classic dystopian film, “A Clockwork Orange.”

Early in the movie, Georgie (no relation!) attempts to wrest control of the ultra-violent gang of Droogs led by Alex (played by Malcolm MacDowell), telling him repeatedly that “It’s part of the new way.”

This line has always stuck with me, and ever since my student days, whenever I decided it was time to turn over a new leaf and start afresh, I would tell myself (in my best Droogie accent), “It’s part of the new way!”

With this phrase in mind, I set out to write the song last year, based on my views of the current scene and a killer guitar riff that had been kicking around in my head for years.

The song starts out dark and uncertain but finishes on an optimistic and hopeful note with a positive message I hope will resonate far and wide.

Lyrically, “New Way” doesn’t overreach with metaphors — instead, it speaks plainly and directly, like a letter from someone who’s been watching the chaos unfold for years and is finally ready to shout over the noise. There’s frustration, yes, but also a glimmer of optimism and a belief that change is still possible if we’re willing to meet it halfway.

One of the more intriguing inspirations behind the song comes from Stanley Kubrick’s 1970’s film “A Clockwork Orange“. Musically and thematically, “New Way” does indeed set the tone for Collins’s upcoming album entitled “New Ways of Getting Old”, a collection which he has described as his very own attempt at a sprawling, genre spanning work à la Revolver or The White Album.

And “New Way” also proves that you do not need to be young to raise your voice – you just need to have something to say. Lucky for us, George Collins has that in very good measure.

Keep up with George Collins Band on his Website

04.11.25

by Jane Lambert

Brooks John Martin Steps into the Light on His Most Personal Album Yet

There’s a quiet kind of confidence in Brooks John Martin’s self-titled album. This is a gentle culmination of stories, years and identities and it is all laid out in this richly textured and deeply personal collection.

Listen in here:

After years of recording under names like Toast and Frank Hansen, Martin drops the masks. He is not hiding behind a character anymore. What we get instead is a record that’s stripped down emotionally, even as the music swells with orchestral grandeur and noir-folk atmosphere.

The opening track “Tide Will Carry Me Away” is the perfect opener, with rich textures and a chorus that feels dreamy and distant.

“Clear Blue Waters” captures the tension further. It’s soaked in longing, built on stacked harmonies that drift somewhere between the Beach Boys and a heatwave hallucination. Inspired by a cold winter night and a dream of Malibu, this song is escapist in spirit but haunted by real-world context – the fires that have since scarred the coast where its video was filmed.

Throughout the album, Martin brings a sound palette that is both nostalgic and cinematic. You can hear echoes of The National’s emotional weight, Radiohead’s spacious intensity and the stylized drama of Bowie’s later work – but it never feels derivative. This is a record with its own internal weather system, slow-moving and thunderous.

The haunting “Straight Over Me” plunges into brooding, noir-lit depths with its hypnotic chord progression and mournful strings echoing the album’s overarching themes of introspection and reckoning.

“Millions” hits especially hard – equal parts weary and anthemic, it is like someone trying to remember what hope feels like. And the orchestration across the board? Lush, deliberate and gorgeously produced, thanks to the production at Martin’s own Catamount Recording studio.

What makes this albums stick though is the feeling that this may be Martin’s final musical statement. There is a gravity to that, and also a freedom. These are not songs written to chase trends but they are here because they had to be. Because Brooks John Martin needed to say them, finally, in his own name.

Whether this is truly the end or just the end of a chapter, Brooks John Martin is definitely a record that lingers. It is not trying to impress, but just trying to be understood. And it is!

About Brooks John Martin

Brooks John Martin is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in Cedar Falls, Iowa, whose work blends cinematic folk, abstract lyricism with lush orchestration. With a deep baritone voice and a stream-of-consciousness writing style, Martin writes emotionally resonant songs that feel both timeless and otherworldly.

After years of performing under various monikers – Toast, The Blue Danes, and Frank Hansen – Martin sheds all aliases on his fifth and most personal album to date, “Brooks John Martin.”

Raised in a musically rich household and trained on piano and guitar from a young age, he combines a lifelong passion for melody with the maturity of lived experience. The result is an album steeped in Brian Wilson-like grandeur and grounded in folk tradition, with nods to Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and the atmospheric stylings of Radiohead and The National.

Now the owner of Catamount Recording, Martin brings a producer’s ear and a poet’s heart to his music, favoring analog imperfection over digital polish. His latest album is more a statement of his art, a moment of artistic unmasking and, possibly, a final chapter. Honest, unfiltered and wholly himself.

Keep up to date with Brooks John Martin on his Website.

Stream music on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music.

04.10.25

by Jane Lambert

Ben Neill Channels Sheldrake’s Radical Science into a Living, Breathing Soundscape on “Morphic Resonance”

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Ben Neill’s “Morphic Resonance” is not just a piece of music, but is a philosophical gesture rendered in sound.

Released as a dual version single and marking the final chapter of his forthcoming album “Amalgam Sphere”, the work is deeply informed by the theories of Rupert Sheldrake, the British biologist whose controversial concept of morphic resonance proposes that memory and learning are not confined to the brain but embedded in nature itself.

That Neill chooses to explore this idea not in a lecture hall, but in a dense, immersive soundscape says a great deal about his own creative philosophy. And, the growing porousness between art, science and technology.

Listen in here:

Neill, who is perhaps best known as the inventor of the Mutantrumpet, a fantastic shape-shifting hybrid electro-acoustic instrument, has built a decades-long career on this kind of boundary-blurring.

Across thirteen albums released on labels like Astralwerks, Six Degrees and Universal’s Verve imprint, Neill’s work has embraced minimalism, ambient electronica, interactive art and jazz, often in the same breath. But Morphic Resonance feels like something new. It is more of a culmination, a synthesis and a provocation.

Central to the track’s construction is Sheldrake’s voice, which Neill doesn’t just sample but transforms into a kind of metaphysical presence. It is at once narrator, texture and spirit guide. Fragments of Sheldrake’s speech drift in and out of the mix, sometimes intelligible, often distorted beyond recognition, suggesting that memory is not a fixed archive but is a vaporous, shape shifting force. The haunt the piece like neural echoes or half remembered dreams.

The sound world that Neill creates around this voice is astonishing in its detail. The original version of the track opens with a delictae interplay of processed trumpet tones and low, glowing drones. Gradually, the sound field thickens, enriched with granulr textures, harmonic overtones, and subtle rhythmic pulses. Rather than moving in a linear arc, the track seems to unfold in spirals and circles back in on itself, expanding and contracting like a breathing organism.

This is music that does not simply develop, but it evolves.

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Much of this fluidity comes from the way Neill engages with the Mutantrumpet. With its multiple bells, integrated electronics and gestural control system, it allows for real-time sampling and transformation. The instrument itself is sensitive, reactive and alive. Neill’s use of it here is not virtuosic in the traditional sense; instead, he plays with restraint, allowing the textures and resonances to accumulate organically. The trumpet doesn’t lead so much as it listens.

In a particularly elegant twist, Neill maps the letters in the title “Morphic Resonance” to musical pitches, creating the harmonic and melodic material from linguistic structure itself.

It’s a subtle but profound move, echoing Sheldrake’s ideas about the resonance of forms and habits. Language becomes sound. Sound becomes structure. Structure becomes memory. It’s a recursive loop, and Neill navigates it with remarkable sensitivity.

The “Bifurcated Mix” is the second version included in the release, fracturing this dreamlike world with glitchy percussive interventions and sharper electronic edges. If the original mix is memory as mist or sediment, the Bifurcated version is memory under pressure. The introduction of rhythm here turns it into a shifting terrain of broken patterns and flickering signals. It’s less meditative, and more hallucinatory.

This dual presentation is not just a clever production choice—it reflects the underlying philosophy of the piece. For Sheldrake, morphic resonance is about pattern transmission through time: the idea that habits of nature are inherited non-genetically, through fields of information. Neill’s music channels this idea not by describing it, but by embodying it. Patterns are set and then mutated, phrases recur in altered forms, motifs dissolve and are reborn.

“Morphic Resonance” also acts as a sound companion to Neill’s recent book “Diffusing Music: Trajectories of Sonic Democratization”, in which he considers how emerging technologies from AI to algorithmic composition tools, are changing not just how music is participatory, fluid and radically open ended. Neill’s interest lies not in fixed compositions but in adaptive systems where the boundaries between composer, performer and listener begin to blur.

In this light “Morphic Resonance” asks: what if music isn’t just a product of human creativity, but part of a larger ecological and temporal process? What if memory isn’t stored, but acted out? And what if every performance, every iteration is a ghost of what came before, re-shaped by what is happening now?

One gets the feeling that Amalgam Sphere, when fully released, will only deepen these themes. If Morphic Resonance is the seed, the coming work may very well be the bloom – alive, unpredictable and carrying within it the memory of every note that came before.

Find out more about Ben Neill on his Website

Stream music on Spotify , Apple Music and YouTube

04.01.25

by Jane Lambert

VIDEO VOYAGEUR: 3 Q’s WITH MASSEY

With latest single “Tattoo My Heart”, MASSEY has created a fever dream of desire and danger, set against the intoxicating pulse of New Orleans.

The song, anchored by Charlie Wooton’s seismic bass and electrified by dueling guitars from Peter Oravetz and Daniel Groover, captures the city’s magic where passion and mystery intertwine in equal measure.

But the story doesn’t end with the music.

The accompanying video takes this sultry, shadow-drenched world and brings it to life through a mesmerizing fusion of AI-generated imagery and cinematic storytelling. A hypnotic journey through the vibrant streets and smoky backrooms of New Orleans, the video mirrors the song’s themes of seduction, adventure, and the lasting imprint of an unforgettable encounter.

In this exclusive interview, MASSEY and Peter Oravetz pull back the curtain on the song’s origins, the inspirations behind the video’s haunting aesthetic, and the creative process that brought Tattoo My Heart to the screen.

From the funk-infused grooves that shaped the track to the city’s spellbinding energy that influenced its visual storytelling, this is the inside story of Tattoo My Heart.

Watch the Official Music Video here:

Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically in this way?

My lead guitar player and oft-song writing partner, Peter Oravetz, actually wrote this entire song.

That said, we’ve both long had a romance with New Orleans, each attending JazzFest a half dozen times, exploring the great restaurants like K-Pauls, Patout’s, and Brennans, and visiting the river plantations and the bayous.

Peter says:

“The lyrics were inspired by the romantic dark side of New Orleans with voodoo and mojo references. Also, MASSEY and I have always been attracted to the funky side of things, whether it be the Neville Brothers, James Brown, or Dr. John. The hook for this particular track grew out of studying hybrid pickers (using pick and fingers) like David Grissom and Keith Richards. Marrying that percussive guitar line to a driving, Tower of Power-inspired bass line provided the synthesis for Tattoo My Heart.”

What was the inspiration behind this new video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?

The inspiration behind the video for Tattoo My Heart is the allure and mystery around every corner of New Orleans; The music, the food, the intoxicating atmosphere of the city at night and the sensuous free spirit of the people in the streets and the clubs. A reveler is almost uncontrollably drawn to the adventure, often tinged with a more than a bit of danger.
The city is an enchantress. A spell is cast. And she can never be separated from your soul, your heart.
Secrets are shared, or are they? A warm embrace , and then she is gone. Yet, no matter where you go, she is always with you, like a permanent mark . . .

What was the process of making the video?

Joe worked directly with the AI artist to come up with the images and the flow of the video.

The challenge was to ensure that each frame felt immersive and cohesive, maintaining a cinematic quality that matched the song’s hypnotic allure. The result is a swirling, surreal interpretation of New Orleans at night – a world of deep shadows, neon reflections, and fleeting encounters that linger like a memory you can’t shake. It perfectly capture the feeling of the song.

“Tattoo My Heart” is now available on all major streaming platforms:

Stream on Spotify

Watch the Official Music Video on YouTube

Follow MASSEY on his Website and Instagram