Having first picked up a guitar at 9 years old, Brooklyn based Kevin Olken Henthorn AKA Cape Francis has never put it down since. Studying music across a broad range of genres including classical, blues and metal, he committed himself to creating his own music at the tender age of 15. Cape Francis was born as a way to return to this simplistic childlike nature and escaping life during difficult times.

Aligned with the themes of the upcoming album, which will cover “neurosis, anxiety, and the erosion of mental health that played throughout his 20’s”, “Just Because” is essentially an imagined reality of what could have been. It shows the scope of Cape Francis’s road to improving his own mental health and documents his experience of overcoming the personal damage that occurred in his twenties.

“Throughout most of my twenties, I was in denial of the fact that I could seriously use therapy,” Cape Francis asserted. “My relationships with people and my partner became strained over time because I wasn’t actually taking care of my own mental health. Last year that came to a head and I finally took the steps needed to get some help. This song was written as a reminder to keep working on it, to not resort back to the mess I was for most of my 20’s. It envisions a world in which I don’t take that advice and plays out a version of myself that I really don’t want to become.”

Musically, “Just Because” is centred around a simple yet beautiful electric guitar that’s tenderly plucked. The song builds in energy as it progresses, gaining momentum with each quiet yet powerfully delivered verse.

Cape Francis’s lyrics emphasise the power of the track. They’re both poignant and frank, with an inherent vulnerability. This is evidenced in lines such as “I’m sick of blaming everything else on everyone/ so I can pretend it ain’t my bad”. It’s self-aware and highlights the frustrations that come from wanting to make yourself “better” but feeling unsure about how to do so.

“Just Because” is a heartfelt mantra, a look back at personal struggles and a gentle reminder to keep pushing through and appreciate the steps that you have made. Whilst it may seem dark, the track’s core takeaway is to focus on what’s to come and to try not to be discouraged by the hurdles that may lie ahead.

Following up on “Sweet Memory,” Maui-born, LA-based singer-songwriter Katie Iannitello, better known as Beauty Queen, shares “Two Of Us,” another track written and produced with the band Tennis in their Denver, Colorado home studio. Brimming with nostalgia and a certain determination, the radiant song is nothing else than a declaration of love, just on time to celebrate the return of spring. It also comes with a Budd Diaz-directed video in complete harmony with Katie‘s tongue-in-cheek humour.

“This music video was an absolute blast to make. If all my future videos could be Sasquatch based, I would be pleased,” Beauty Queen stated. “It’s two Sasquatches on their ‘day out’ where they shave and go out in the world. Huge thank you to Budd Diaz and his team and the actors involved for making this happen!”

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Well, it’s been a rough week, friends, with widespread anxieties running rampant concerning the coronavirus, politics, and wherever it is we all work (yep, it was a rough week there, too). Which is why the superb, dance-cry synth-pop of Sulene‘s “Kiss Harder” couldn’t have arrived a moment too soon — it is exactly the song we could all use today.

You’ve definitely heard Sulene van der Walt before — she has composed music for drama series, films, and major-brand commercials — but most likely didn’t know it was her. Here, however, we get the latest taste of her pop-artist persona, and it’s a delectable confection that deserves to be celebrated.

“Kiss Harder” is a deceptively sad song, though you’d never know it by the blissful rush of the arrangement, vocal melodies, and many of the lyrics. But pay closer attention to the situation she’s describing and it’s just devastating. Everything kicks off with an uptempo ’80s drum beat as Sulene sings about/to the object of her affection over a simple synth pad. Wasting no time at all getting to the hooks, by just over twenty seconds in we’re already at the pre-chorus, which is so deliriously catchy it might as well be the chorus itself. It’s a euphoric moment, strategically placed early in the track to give the impression of rapture — the syncopated, giddy high of “Everything about you gives me that feeling!” immediately followed by the coy daydream of “This could be something.” This sentiment — matched by the crescendoing pads, sparkling synths, and riffy guitars in the musical arrangement — holds true through the chorus: “We touch like we’re in love / We talk like it’s sent from above.”

It’s pretty much the ultimate crush song… until the next two lines of the chorus: “If we kiss harder could it be enough? Cause something isn’t fitting and I just can’t figure it out.”

In other words, it’s that common conundrum that plagues most relationships at some point or another: if we’re just more passionate, will that fix the problem? But rarely is this idea treated as directly and honestly as it is here. Sulene knows the answer to that question is “no” — there are always other underlying issues at play — but it’s not human nature to think that way, and by the end of the track she is repeatedly pleading for her partner to “kiss her harder harder harder harder.” She doesn’t want this relationship to end, even though she knows it will, and is grasping at straws to make it work.

At first blush, this is early Madonna territory (we actually already wrote that about her banger “Diamond“) . But a more apt comparison is a more bedroom-produced version of Carly Rae Jepsen‘s output from the past several years. There’s even a direct CRJ reference in the form of a reverby “Hey!” emoted in the background at 1:09, as well as other pop tropes like the unexpected key change at about 2:30, and the one-off harmonized background vocal a few seconds later, “I think it could be enough!”

“Kiss Harder” is an absolute jam, and one that continues to reveal its candy-coated layers upon repeat plays. Check it out, along with the full “Fire Escaping” EP below — it’ll win you over, and help you get through the next week.

Maui-born, LA-based singer-songwriter Katie Iannitello, better known as Beauty Queen, was one of our favourite artists to debut last year, with the hazy and dreamy soundscapes of her Out Of Touch EP. Am I the only one to still listen to “The Only One“? I don’t think so.

After her collaboration with Henry Nowhere of Daywave, she has now returned with a track produced by husband-and-wife tandem Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley (of the band Tennis).

“I wrote the first line of ‘Sweet Memory’ during one of my 2.2-mile walking commutes from the ramen restaurant I worked at, to the eight bedroom house I lived in during my time in San Francisco,” she explained. “I couldn’t take the bus because I get motion sickness…so needless to say I got a lot of exercise when I lived there. Walking at night was so peaceful, yet, I did find there to be moments when someone would be striding towards me and I’d wonder…who is this person? Why are they walking? To where? From where? I liked living in a walking city because I got to see a lot of people in their day to day.”

This rumination on longing also comes with a Taylor Thompson-directed video that definitely encapsulates the bedroom and vintage aesthetic of the track.

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Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and label manager (Sleep Well Records) Alyse Vellturo, better known as pronoun, recently shared a video for “run”. The track is one of the highlights of her debut album, which deals with heartbreak with an underlying sense of triumph and optimism. On the Ryan Watanabe-directed visuals, the artist is skating the streets of Los Angeles; a city where she apparently went through a lot, as she explained:

[su_quote]What’s scarier than putting out this record? Putting out music videos. A huge goal of this project is to challenge myself and make myself so uncomfortable I want to implode. I’m really proud I bit the bullet and flew out to LA to get this video done. I was linked up with the amazing Ryan Watanabe (director) who had a huge part in this treatment and execution. A big part of Pronoun was born from events in Los Angeles, I hadn’t been back since. Everything about it is like, wait what the hell is she doing…there? And that’s kind of how I feel about the entire past three years.[/su_quote]

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Catch pronoun on tour:

8/30 – Cleveland, OH – Mahall’s #

8/31 – Wanaque, NJ – Forget Me Not Fest #

9/1 – Buffalo, NY – Rec Room #

9/3 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Bazaar #

9/4 – Asbury Park, NJ – House of Independents #

9/5 – Amityville, NY – Amityville Music Hall #

9/6 – Philadelphia, PA – The Foundry #

9/9 – Lansing, MI – The Loft #

9/19 – Norfolk, VA – Waterside District *

9/20 – Baltimore, MD – Power Plant Live! *

9/21 – St. Louis, MO – Ballpark Village *

* w/ Taking Back Sunday

# w/ Real Friends and Keep Flying

When she’s not launching new artists on her own label Sleep Well Records, Brooklyn’s Alyse Vellturo composes songs under the moniker pronoun. Good news: she has written so many of them that a debut album is on the way. Following up on her latest singles “temporary tantrum” and “stay“, Vellturo unveils today a brand new song off of the 12-track project, that she started to record after a painful breakup. Drenched in dreamy and fuzzy guitar layers, “sadie” also features her incredible, seismic vocal signature. About “sadie”, pronoun stated:

[su_quote]I wrote this song skateboarding around SXSW 2016. I had just started the project and was meeting so many new people and musicians and everything was starting to fall into place. I was so thankful and excited to start a new life and career on my own and leave everything I knew behind.[/su_quote]

Maui-born, LA-based singer-songwriter Katie Iannitello has totally bewitched us with her music outlet Beauty Queen and you probably have noticed it. But let’s be honest, it was nearly impossible to resist her left-field pop banger “Goner“, the super-catchy hooks of “The Only One” and the hazy daydream that was her last single “Sold You Out“. Today, Beauty Queen finally unveils her Henry Nowhere-produced EP, Out Of Touch, alongside a video for its title track.

For her first visuals ever, Iannitello seems to promote a leisure resort. Beach, relaxing bath, roller and tennis… We all have tons of memories about our summer holidays and the video definitely fits the nostalgic aura of her dream pop new track. And between all these activities that she executes with nonchalance, Beauty Queen has even some spare time to hit us with her femme fatale gaze. Watch below.

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You might have noticed that we here at HighClouds have been a bit enamored with Beauty Queen this year. As of this article, 2019 has seen us average about one Beauty Queen post per month — first premiering her debut single “Goner” in January, then Thunderclapping second single “The Only One,” and now interviewing her about her upcoming project. Today we’re treated to the latest taste of her forthcoming Out of Touch EP, out April 19 on Sleep Well Records. The new track is called “Sold You Out,” and it’s another lovely, hazy daydream of a tune that will have you swaying your head and humming the melody into the evening.

We recently had the chance to chat with Maui-born, LA-based Katie Iannitello – the delightful, genuine, humble, and multi-talented songwriter behind the Beauty Queen moniker – about everything from wedding singing to hotel pastries. Check her brand new single and read some of our interview below.

HighClouds: Let’s start by talking about the name of your project. It’s an awesome band name and we’d love to hear more about how you came up with it.

Katie: I was playing Cha Cha in Grease the musical, and I was very into the 50s glam kind of thing, and there’s also the “Beauty School Dropout” dance. With Beauty Queen, the music first started out being kind of surf-rocky and more in that 50s world. Now it’s gotten more contemporary, but the name still sticks. And women are beautiful!

Agreed. Women are beautiful and should definitely be running the world. Since we’re talking about your older style, did the first couple songs on your Bandcamp page come from the influence of being in Grease and you’ve since gotten interested in other things? Or is that how you foresee your project — being something where you can change the style up as you want to?

My goal is to release a bunch of different things that have different vibes, so I’m working on how to do that but still have it all tie into the music. I don’t want every release to be insanely different cause then it’s hard for people to figure out who I am. At the time I was really influenced by the Shangri-Las and other girl groups. “Blue Bayou” was the first song I ever wrote, so to start off with that piano-plinky, doo-wop thing was an easier way to navigate the songwriting world. Also, I started my project with a boy that was from a different band, and his style of recording had more of a grungey vibe, and I realized I wanted to take the project on a more pop route. So I moved to LA and started working with Henry [Henry Nowhere of Day Wave] who produced the new EP.

How did you get hooked up with Henry Nowhere?

When I was living in Oakland, I was playing a lot of jazz and singing at a bunch of little jazz clubs. I met a really good friend of mine — he’s a guitar player — and I was telling him that I had a pop group, and he said, “My friend Henry used to play jazz, but now he’s in LA doing pop.” So he gave me Henry‘s phone number, and I said, “I have these songs, do you want to listen to them?” Then he asked if he could produce them, and he did, and he’s so incredible at everything music.

So it was when you moved to the Bay Area that you started writing songs?

Yeah, I moved to San Francisco with no direction and worked for some theaters [doing set design work]. I grew up playing classical piano, but there aren’t a lot of shows on Maui. My first concert was when I was 18, and it was Journey! But in San Francisco, the local music scene is so easy to attend. So I just reached out to this band and was like, “Hello! I just moved here! I tried to write a song! Do you wanna get together?” Little did I know then what an insane, weird Facebook message that would be to receive. [Laughs.] I was just kinda going for it! And that’s how I started the band.

You’ve got experience in a lot of different music styles: jazz, musical theater, classical, pop from many eras. Do you still do much with those other genres? I read somewhere that you taught piano and sang at weddings — do you still do much of that?

I gave up the wedding singing. Maybe one day I’ll do it again, but I was kind of catapulted into a world that I didn’t really want to commit to. Jazz, sometimes I’ll go to sessions down here and sit in and will sing. I’d like to pursue jazz for regular gigs. And my friend and I started a country band, but the older, more jazzy country songs like Hank Williams, Anita Carter, and Patsy Cline kind of stuff. We’re just covering them and hopefully will start doing some gigs cause I love that kind of music as well.

It’s funny you should mention the country band cause I’ve definitely noticed kind of a country influence, especially in your vocal style. So I’m curious — what are some of your absolute music obsessions? Artists or bands where you’re in it for the long haul with them.

Well, a lot of the bands that are my favorites are older, so I don’t know if you want to hear about them. [Laughs.] But, Bobby Caldwell is really great. He’s real cool. Michael Rault, he’s newer. He’s great cause he has an old school influence, but his music is a cool mix between the really groovy stuff with the more monotone singing that the hip people do nowadays, you know? And then my all-time favorite man, who’s no longer with us unfortunately, is Gene Pitney and I love him. Let’s see… have you heard of Hatchie? She’s so cool! I love how some of it is so 2000s!

Can you describe your songwriting and recording process?

It’s a very disorganized process. [Laughs.] I usually just hum things in my head and then record them on voice memos. There’ll be millions of these 10-second clips that I totally forget how they go together and what I was thinking when I thought of them. Once I do enough of those and I get frustrated, then I go into Logic and usually put on a terrible drum machine loop just so there’s something moving it forward. And then I’ll play on my keyboard, electric piano, just very basic. And then I’ll mostly feature the vocals on the track. Sometimes I improvise over the weird little backing tracks that I made — that’s how I think of a lot of lyrics. I’ll just mumble stuff and I’ll be like, “That sounds like that word! Oh, that would be a cool concept!”

So you don’t start with a story or concept or even a feeling – you’ll let the improvisation of the vocals dictate certain words, which then dictates the ultimate story or song?

Yeah! And what’s weird about that is, I’ll listen to it later on and think, “Whoa, that totally describes this one situation I was in that I felt strongly about.” My subconscious, you know?

What would you say was the biggest challenge for you in making the EP?

Finding a production style and someone to work with in that realm that I thought would do justice to the songs. And then I guess even harder than that would be after the fact, where you have this thing that you think is pretty cool and you’re like, “Now what?” You’re just sitting in this room by yourself with this thing and it’s like, “Okay. That’s all. I guess I just have it now, and no one will ever hear it.” [Laughs.]

And what surprised you the most? Did you find that you learned anything about yourself through the journey of making this music?

I think I don’t give myself enough credit for musicianship, and being in the loop with the people that are producing it. At first my confidence was really low, but then I realized that I could be a helpful part of the conversation and work together to arrange the songs. So I learned that I’m slightly more of a competent musician than I had previously thought. But I’m still working on that. [Laughs.] It’s very hard.

I’ll be working on that forever. Correct me if I’m wrong, but we do hear a dog barking in “The Only One,” right?

That’s Henry‘s dog, Penny. We recorded the EP in Henry and his girlfriend’s bedroom. It was all recorded in a bedroom. It sounds pretty good for a bedroom. [Laughs.] Except for the dog bark, but we kept that in cause it’s pretty cute.

Any tour plans?

I’m trying to do something in July where we go all the way to Vancouver. So that would be fun. I’m working on that right now. And then I’m trying to tour with some other bands, hopping on a couple as an opening act.

One last question. You have an amazing Instagram page, and I just have to know what the story is behind the La Quinta cake.

La Quinta cake! My dad was staying at La Quinta, and we went downstairs and I ate some of their cake. [Laughs.]

They just had a cake that they made with their logo on it?!

Isn’t that slightly upsetting? [Laughs.] But it’s pretty funny. I like it. I feel like all my pictures are very telling that I’m basically an old woman. [Laughs.]