WRITTEN BY SARAH ONTIVEROS

As Editor in Chief of a budding magazine, the time to sit down and truly write from the heart is few and far between. I get caught up in the sweep of work and business logistics of it all. When at my core - writing, art, music, film, and everything in between - simmers with a heat that warms me from my bones to my fingertips. All of it has always been a balm for my soul and sometimes, when life gets busy and the weather turns cold, literally and figuratively, that warmth goes from molten to stone (pun intended?).

But sometimes, sometimes you hear a song or songs that render you viscous once more. You’re taken back to a time when a simple strum of a wooden guitar cracked you wide open and then sweetly stitched you back together. Stone’s EP - ahead of their summer album release - does just that. Three whispered songs into the wind and into the space between my ribs that once knew a fire so warm. The first note on the piano immediately summons a familiar, and long-loved, Daniel Ceasar tune. But at once the similarity fades into a raw indie progression akin to Nick Cave’s “Into my Arms,” but with a far more melodic voice, both frayed and fluid, with falsetto-like moments that glide over you in an embrace. 

It's a triptych of an EP that unfolds into one resounding portrait of solitude and grief, love and hope; the multitude of emotions that cork themselves inside of us and feel like they can only be decanted through artistic expression. They’re raw and unfiltered and it’s no surprise that the music is paired with gritty and minimal video editing. Teo Cortez, the director behind the thirteen-minute-long music video, combines all three songs into a live found-footage-like montage, shot entirely on VHS. “A couple of his songs contain sounds from old home videos which led me to start visualizing his music with the VHS look” says Cortez, “I wanted to create an aesthetic for his EP that was simple enough for us to achieve and paired well with the acoustics.” 

At once you’re sitting next to the artist on his piano stool, aching alongside the lyrics, “I’d let you tear me to shreds and come back, cause remember that one time that we had.” The next, we’re audience members, bums on the gravel amidst the rubble of grudges held. Then we’re on the road, to what I can’t help but feel is the visual representation of the molten core at the center of us all, the darkest parts of our heart, illuminated only by embers of hope - stoked to life with each strum of the guitar and press of a weighted ivory key. 

“When working with a VHS camera, you’re at the mercy of whatever the image gives you. But there’s just something about shooting on VHS that feels comforting. You connect it with friends, family, and moments from your youth… So I kept the lighting as minimal as possible. And with the acoustics of each single it honed in on the core elements, the songwriting, the single instrument, single angle, with a single source. This way, in the edit, we can focus on what’s most important: the music.” Cortez finishes.

There is in fact something comforting about Stone’s EP trilogy - made visceral by the VHS footage of the performances captured by Teo Cortez. As a teenager, I was obsessed with folk-rock and cameras, and hearing these songs brought me back to the rough-cut “music videos” I’d string together for some of my favorite bands. None of them very pretty, but each of them a simple look at a complicated life. Unrefined and unfiltered. The person or place in our mind that doesn’t need to put on airs, but just exists. Just burns. 

FOLLOW ALONG WITH STONE

on Instagram @_stoneband_

You can find their music on: Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Music.

FOLLOW ALONG WITH DIRECTOR TEO CORTEZ

on Instagram @dir.teo

We sat down with actress Brittney Rodriguez to discuss the balance of filmmaking with a home-life, their role in the Oscar-winning film Anora (2024) and Red Rocket (2021), and her recent plans to side-step into directing.

You can find Brittney on Facebook at: Brittney Rodriguez

and on Instagram at: @1000bloccbritt

Follow along with their upcoming short film: @threedollarbet

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Interview Moderated by: Sarah Ontiveros

Directed by: Sarah Ontiveros & Asha Caraballo

Production Manager: Asha Caraballo

Camera Operators: Kerwin Escobar, Matthew Ramos

Gaffer & Sound Mix: Matthew Ramos

A rhythmic rock&roll single, newly released by Hello Telephone. Set against South Texas landmark cities, Houston and Galveston. Nostalgia flowing through every hollow-body strum and sweeping across the historic cityscapes.

Director Bryce Saucier spoke with us about the process, finding inspiration in the music, and battling the sun.

“I met Brad back in 2017 when he was playing with the band Mind Shrine, and instantly resonated with their music. He has a magnetic voice as a musician that I had mostly heard through his guitar parts, and when he released Bowl as the first song for his solo project, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I listened to it on repeat for the first few days that it was out and naturally started to see scenes in my head of downtown Houston and old Galveston. I knew I’d be in Houston for the holidays so I brought up the idea of collaborating and he was really open to the initial ideas I saw for it.

It was important to me to showcase his process because I was inspired by some of his short form videos that he’d made in his small recording studio, playing all the instruments and tracking them himself, so the idea was to show that process in an almost documentary style and then combine it with some more scenic performances at landmarks in Houston and Galveston that both Brad and I appreciated. As a director and cinematographer, I’m used to relying heavily on my collaborators but seeing Brad make this music himself inspired me to see what I could accomplish doing the entire process myself from conceptualizing to shooting, editing and coloring.

We had to be very minimal with equipment since Brad had his guitar on him and we didn’t have any production assistants or extra hands, so we really just drove around to each location and timed the sunlight to be where we wanted when we pulled up, but ended up having to scramble to get everywhere before the sun went down. On top of the chaos of chasing the sun, Brad was performing the song at 2x speed with no practice so that we could shoot in slow motion for the performance scenes to have the environment slow down around him. I knew he knew every aspect of that song by memory so the fact that he could do his guitar solo at double speed doesn’t surprise me.”

Follow along with Hello Telephone: @hello.telephone on Instagram

Follow along with Bryce: brycesaucier.com