Hometown Sounds

Synthgaze duo Wall of Trophies have previously delivered some beautifully trippy visuals to accompany lush and layered songs. Their latest challenge is to craft the video live, as they perform the music. Using Resolume VJ Software, Will Copps and Brittany Jean created this video for “Left Behind”, from their 2019 album Semaphore, in the moment. Copps described, “Imagine a ton of knobs and sliders all programmed to different video clips and effects — it’s tons and tons of pre-work and practice; this video is an actual recording of a performance! We treat video just like audio and do them til we get just the right take—the right spontaneous adjustment or perfectly timed transition nailing the mood we want.” We can’t wait for more.

Listeners to our most recent podcast episode heard how excited we are by the return of Wall of Trophies. The duo of producer Will Copps and singer Brittany Jean have been quiet since 2016, raising families and writing new material. Semaphore, the sophomore release under the WoT moniker, drops on April 26th, and its first single “Something” is up now. The music video for this begins with a heavily filtered drive through DC, reminding us of their excellent earlier vid “Never/Always”. The deft, big production by Copps leaves Jean’s voice clear in the mix of the slow-groove dance floor killer, while the video evolves into deeper abstractions and filters. DC’s vocal-driven synthpop scene, including Loi Loi, SHAED, Honest Haloway and Wall of Trophies, continues to flourish as a prominent cultural export.

Wall of Trophies began as a long distance collaboration between singer Brittney Jean and producer Will Copps while he was stationed abroad in Germany. They released their excellent and atmospheric album Heliograph earlier this year, but couldn’t play any live shows to promote its release. Well now Copps has returned to our area and, to be honest, we at Hometown Sounds have been politely hounding them to play their dreamy, mysterious electronic pop music live. Their first show was a secret exclusive at Sofar Sounds DC, and their second took place a couple of weekends ago by the Washington Monument, on a dragon (why not?), for the Catharsis on the Mall post-election healing vigil. For those poor souls that missed it, here’s a live video of Will and Brittney playing “Trees” from Heliograph. And come see their next show with us, whenever it is.

The second music video from Wall of Trophies‘ debut album Heliograph is an absolute stunner. From the first moment of “Never/Always”, the peaceful street footage of Amsterdam shot by the band back in October 2014 is undercut with the song’s skittish, ominous notes from producer Will Copps. Colors quickly begin to distort and by the time Brittany Jean’s vocals come in, the hallucinations take over the scene, rendering everything beautiful and suspect and metaphysical. Wall of Trophies has crafted the best kind of psychedelic, meditative drug trip with this music video. More please.

Singer Brittany Jean and producer Will Copps release Heliograph, their debut album as Wall of Trophies, in just a few days. If you dug the album’s title track from the last episode of our podcast, then the School of Seven Bells-influenced duo’s debut music video should make you even more excited for this release. “Everything” settles into a cool dream-pop vibe that slowly builds to a dynamic climax, reflected in the cathartic storyline and message of the music video. Even though Will is currently stationed abroad, Hometown Sounds is excited and hopeful for a DC area album release live show in the future!