PREMIERE: Deap Vally Give You a Taste of “Royal Jelly” on “Nic Harcourt’s TRANSMISSIONS”

The band’s full set airs next Tuesday on WorldArts.
PREMIERE: Deap Vally Give You a Taste of “Royal Jelly” on “Nic Harcourt’s TRANSMISSIONS”

The band’s full set airs next Tuesday on WorldArts.

Words: Sarabeth Oppliger

photo by Rozette Rago

July 27, 2016

2016. FLOODfest SXSW, Deap Vally portrait. photo by Rozette Rago.

On his latest endeavor, Nic Harcourt’s TRANSMISSIONS, the titular tastemaker gets up close and personal performances from some of our favorite musicians. His latest selection is the rocking LA duo Deap Vally, who used the WorldArts Stage to showcase the lead single from their upcoming LP, Femejism. The tasty “Royal Jelly” is melodically edgy yet lyrically poignant and makes for one of the heaviest offerings on the webseries to date.

As you might have gathered from the album’s title, Femejism is an ode to female empowerment, and “Royal Jelly” is no outlier in that sense. The slow-simmering track finds Lindsey Troy singing, “If you wanna be Queen Bee / Then you better make honey” over heavily laden guitar riffs and Julie Edwards’s pulsing percussion. “Royal Jelly,” produced by Yeah Yeah YeahsNick Zinner, has a hypnotic, woozying effect that is no less contagious when performed live. Check it out below.

Nic Harcourt’s TRANSMISSIONS airs August 2 on WorldArts.