Video: Dani Shivers - "Graves"

For over a year, Tijuana’s Pan Rock have been responsible for producing a series of great clips that document some of the city's coolest gigs, mainly by local artists. They’ve expanded and now Pan Rock Films is also presenting official music videos. Under Sergio Valdez’s direction, the first one to be featured is for Dani Shivers’ chilling, cutesy-as-hell “Graves.” Shot with charming photography, this lovely clip shows our heroine through different urban locations and looking adorable while holding her cat, hugging a unicorn plush, and licking a big lollipop. Improving the demo version with the addition of exhilarating beats, a handclap effect, and further emphasis on wistful keyboard work, Shivers encounters the fitting balance between candied synth pop and tenebrously heartwarming horror film score melodies. “Follow you where you are,” she incessantly repeats on the chorus, providing the sense of an unbreakable promise; a vow, possibly to herself. We’ve been impatiently waiting for her first full-length, Jinx, for a while now. The final version of “Graves” has set the anticipation bar even higher.

MP3: Dani Shivers - "Witch" (Los Macuanos Afilan El Cuchillo Remix)

It’s a little early to be thinking about Halloween playlists but ruidoson primers Los Macuanos have provided us with the first must-have mix of the season. The Tijuana-based trio has unveiled (via Matinee as Hell) a profoundly dark, almost evil remix for Dani Shivers’ already eerie single, “Witch.” Earlier this year we pointed out this track disclosed Shivers' nostalgic affinity for sinister landscapes and aesthetics, but Los Macuanos go after that witch like a three-member sect on a bloody witch hunt. There’s a lot of good, dark-edged music out there (Dave Rata, Mueran Humanos, etc), but there’s nothing as infernal as a “cumbia rebajada.” This “Los Macuanos Afilan El Cuchillo Remix” is a creepy crawler and their best remix since that speaker-detonator Fito Olivares mix titled “El Ruidoson de la Culebra.” Los Macuanos and Dani Shivers are currently working on their debut albums, both among Club Fonograma's most anticipated records for the rest of the year.

♫♫♫ "Witch" (Los Macuanos Afilan El Cuchillo Remix)

Featured: Dani Shivers - "Up"

Featured: Dani Shivers – “Up”

Independiente, Mexico

by Enrique Coyotzi



As a somber, sour, hellish nightmare, Tijuana’s evil girl, Dani Shivers, understands how to effectively create spooky synth pop music that manages to be partially playful, yet causing an inevitable anxiety with its haunted house-like arrangements and incessant urgency in lyrical repetition which flirt with melodious ability. The artist’s macabre formula is complemented with her versatile way of singing; Shivers regularly intones certain words in a childish manner, other times she sounds gloomily remorseful, or simply menacing.



One of the standouts featured in our latest compilation, Sebastián, and included in Shivers’ Jinx Demo EP (the final version is set to be released on October 31st), “Up” is a track constructed under a bleak beat box rhythm, alongside a creepy synth line that, during the uneasy chorus, evolves into a goosebumps-inducing cascade of wicked sound and Shivers’ almost palpable, bloodcurdling vocal interpretation. Like watching a top-notch horror B movie (see: Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead), the song’s austere bedroom homemade production makes it an even scarier swallow, as every element in this demo is stripped down to the bone. “I wish I knew what to say," the singer announces diffidently, having lost track without giving a damn; she envisions latent enlightenment going “up, and up, and up," but in the end, her destiny appears to be doomed by a fatidic, grave conclusion, falling “down, down, down, down”.

♫♫♫ "Up" | Facebook

Video: Dani Shivers - "Witch"

Despite only knowing her for a few weeks, I’m pretty confident to say Tijuana newcomer Dani Shivers is my favorite mean girl out of all the bloody femme fatales coming out of Mexico. For years she’s been under the radar, flirting with formless freestyle beats and putting her witty psyche into music boxes. LALALA4e, Mexico’s most pixel-induced and experimental netlabel, is about to release Dani Shivers’ promising EP titled Jinx. Leading single “Witch” discloses the artist’s resourceful methods: a semi-cute voice colored in crimson, articulated throbs, and nostalgically sinister aesthetics.

Dani Shivers describes her music as “the death of innocence” and lists suitable references that include Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, Grimes, and Salem. When trying to parallel the song’s baleful imagery into a video, it doesn’t hurt to have Mexican horror filmmaker Aaron Soto around. This video is based on the urban mythological Snuff films that would capture actual murders on camera, with hints of "the castrating bitch" philosophy. Co-directed by Soto and Shivers, “Witch” was processed in VHS and features real blood. Seems like we’ve found the female equivalent to Mickey Mickey Rourke, and that’s quite exciting.