Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Truck Violence Shares Urgent and Bruising “New Jesus”

Acclaimed and rising Montréal-based experimental act Truck Violence — founding duo Karysn Henderson (vocals) and Paul Lecours (guitar, banjo, production), along with Chris Clegg (bass, banjo) and Thomas Hart (drums and slide guitar) — can trace their origins back to its founding duo’s childhood: Henderson and Lecours grew up in a small, French Canadian town of 600 people, graduating in a class of nine. By the time they both turned 15, they were running a local studio and radio station. There was no industry support, no infrastructure, no template for what they were trying to do, only the work itself — and the conviction that it was worth doing.

When the pair turned 17, they relocated to Montréal, where they met Chris Clegg and Thomas Hart, who hail from different corners of the country and began building their band from the ground up.

The Canadian quartet’s highly anticipated sophomore album, The weathervane is my body is slated for a June 26, 2026 release through San Francisco-based label The Flenser and Montréal-based Mothland. Their sophomore album is reportedly a product of the process of building the band from the ground up. The album’s creative and writing process, the recording, the mixing and visuals were all produced employing a fiercely DIY process. This isn’t done as an aesthetic choice or a marketing angel, it’s because for the band, it’s the only honest option album.

The album’s cover art was shot on film by the band on Montréal’s Avenue du Parc. A figure perches atop a small Québécois-style house, hand built from reclaimed materials, spine curved, legs pulled in, bare-backed against a skyline that dwarfs everything beneath it. A rural thing dropped into the grit of a big city, small and out of place yet refusing to disappear. The body is naked and defenseless, open to the environment and every stimuli the world can deliver upon it.

Thematically, the album is a continuation and expansion of the angry statement of purpose of their debut, 2024’s Violence. Rooted in noise rock and post-hardcore traditions, the album is uncompromising in its refusal to be anything other than what is: immediate, self-determined and built entirely by the hands that imagined it.

The weathervane is my body‘s latest single “New Jesus” is a bruising and furious howl of desperation and disgust that’s urgent and is meant to shake the listener out of the doldrums of apathy and indifference.

“New Jesus” is a rant about the blatant fascistic slide occurring both to the south of our border and on screen. It is loosely about the ABC—Trump settlement and the post-January 6th election fraud cases,” Truck Violence’s Karsyn Henderson explains. “The lack of any broader moral compulsions beyond centralizing power on the political right has led to a culture of post-truth, where there is no reward in accuracy unless it leads to an augmenting of one’s political capital, which it rarely does. This is as destructive in politics as it is in art. There is surprising apathy among young people in regards to this slide, who believe the acquisition of power and the subsequent lording over that occurs, is merely nature, essentially; what will happen, will happen. With these lines of thinking, you find more people sympathetic to this mode, if it is both natural and inevitable, why not acclimate and reap the rewards. Why not join the fascist grift, degenerate art through tiktok, etc…”

Directed by Kirill Sommer, the accompanying video for “New Jesus” is a surrealistic fever dream that’s seemingly one-part Samuel Beckett play, one-part psilocybin trip, one-part Ingmar Bergman film.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: CAVS Shares Gorgeous and Groove-Driven “First Light”

Best known for drumming with acclaimed JOVM mainstay King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Michael Cavanagh is the creative mastermind behind the solo instrumental project CAVS. Cavanagh’s sophomore CAVS album Sojourn is slated for an April 24, 2026 release through p(doom) records.

Unlike the fantasy and sci-fi driven storytelling found in much of his work with King Gizz, Sojourn‘s 10 compositions builds its world entirely through music, shaped by Cavanagh’s long-standing interest in spiritual jazz, prog rock and krautock while simultaneously moving beyond traditional genre boundaries. The album’s material follows an imagined journey, using shifting moods, textures and rhythmic structures to suggest exploration, confrontation and transformation.

The King Gizz drummer began developing Sojourn during the recording sessions of his solo debut, 2021’s CAVS, a percussion-only album. Determined to expand his musical palette, he took on the roles of composer, arranger and musical director for his sophomore album — despite not playing pitched instruments. Early demos were constructed from sampled bass, drums and synthesizers, which were expanded and further fleshed out through collaboration.

Cavangh’s key collaborators for Sojourn included Mildlife‘s Jim Rindfleish, who co-arranged the material, alongside a group of Melbourne musicians that included Adam Halliwell (flute, guitar), Siwei Wong (harp), Archibald Pommelhorse (sax), Selene Messinis (keys), Robbin Poppins (percussion) and his King Gizz bandmate Joey Walker (bass). Recording sessions combined structured takes with free-flowing improvisation, which were later edited and arranged to retain a cohesive, live-sounding feel.

Drawing from artists like Herbie Hancock, Alice Coltrane, Tony Williams, Billy Cobham and Harvey Mason, Sojourn‘s material emphasizes atmosphere and groove over technical prowess.

Sojourn’s second and latest single “First Light” evokes the woozy yet awe-inspiring moment of capturing a brilliant burst of dappled light across rippling water while sonically nodding at Midllife and 70s jazz fusion with the composition being anchored around a deep, funky groove.

“The first rays of a gentle sunrise touching a river’s glassy surface, painting the water in soft hues of gold and emerald,” Cavanagh says of the new single. “Slowly, your eyes flutter open — not to the velvet darkness of the night before, but to an unfamiliar brilliance that seems almost too vivid to believe.” 

“Two persons and a yowie got a room at a halfway house motel for the night with three beds but only one was ripped apart, the others left in tack [sic]. This is real footage, Cavs is now a Cavsquatch and this proof that sasquatches are real,” the video’s director Jackson Devereaux says of the accompanying video. “Sojourn is an odyssey of an album, and so we wanted to add another chapter to the story, building off the first music clip. In the video for ‘First Light,’ we follow Cavs transition to his new tree form, and his first stages of coping with this new reality. We found a literal halfway house and booked a room for him to tweak out.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy Belated 68th Birthday, Will Sergeant!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates Echo & The Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant’s 68th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: ssiv Shares Gorgeous, Painterly “all the time”

ssiv is an emerging Danish indie out that features three, individually accomplished musicians:

  • Stephen (bass, vocals), an American-born musician, who recorded and toured for over seven years as a member of Los Angeles-based psych rock band Triptides, an act that has made the run of the global festival circuit with sets at Desert Daze and LEVITATION France. He’s a founding member of experimental pop band Cosmo Gold. And he has a solo recording project Little Rituals.

  • Sasha (guitar, vocals) is a Copenhagen-based multi-instrumentalist, who originally began her career in earnest as a jazz singer, before gradually moving towards writing her own original material, which saw her experimenting across genres and styles. Since then, the Danish-born and-based artist has become a local underground scene stalwart working in a number of different projects singing, playing bass, guitar and piano.

  • Sara (drums, vocals) is a Copenhagen-based drummer rooted in pop and indie music. She is drawn to what she describes as “the living improvisation between musicians — the presence and spontaneity that allow a song to expand beyond itself.” She has played in a number of Danish-based acts including Noras Have, Radiant Arcadia, Højkvist, Kara Moon, Gurli Octavia and Josa Barck. Currently she plays with Ameli Dot and Johanne.

ssiv can trace the origin back to when Sara and Stephen shared a rehearsal room and decided to jam. After some jam sessions, Sara invited her long-time collaborator and friend Sasha to join in. Their first session as a trio, which they recorded, became “a beautiful, 2-hour fluid improvisation,” as they described.

Listening back, they realized that they had many ideas already taking root. They counted meeting, developing fragments from those early recordings and occasionally writing lyrics together on-the-fly. Eventually, the trio decided to call it a band, although they didn’t originally intend to start one. As they explain, “we didn’t want to ruin the magic.”

The band’s name manages to reflect that carefree attitude. “It’s an ‘s’ for each of other names, it means nothing really — a ‘non-name’ for our ‘non-band.'”

Sonically, the trio work in a trust-based space between dream pop, psych pop and indie folk, rooted in collective improvisation and strict limitations with arrangements anchored around guitar, bass, drums and vocals, and drawing from the likes of Galaxie 500, Low, Yo La Tengo and Big Thief. They view their work as quietly human in a cultural moment increasingly defined by generative AI systems and perfectionism.

The Copenhagen-based trio’s debut EP, 2024’s ssiv 1 drew from their first jam session, while their sophomore effort, between 1 and 2, which was released earlier this year was “made from spontaneous improvisations from another gathering.”

Their latest single “all the time” is a gorgeous, painterly tune that seemingly channels Slowdive and Forever So-era Husky that feels both improvised and deliberately crafted while showcasing their equally gorgeous harmonies.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 86th Birthday, Herbie Hancock!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Herbie Hancock’s 86th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Danny Waters Shares Lush and Euphoric “Memories (Radio Mix)”

Danny Waters is a Portuguese DJ, producer and founder and label head of Sonic Frequency Records. As a DJ and producer, Waters has crafted material across a wide range of electronic music genres and subgenres including house, deep house, deep tech, tech house, progressive house and techno — with a deep interest in protest and probing social questions. 

Waters’ latest single “Memories” is a lush bit of melodic, pop-leaning house anchored around euphoria-inducing hooks and choruses and pulsating beats that sounds perfect for the club, the lounge and the rooftop party. But at its core, the song is meant to invite the listener to simultaneously relive old memories and to create new ones that they’ll relive later — hopefully on the dance floor.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: I WANT POETRY Share Lush, Nostalgia-Inducing “Backyard Astronauts”

German indie electro pop duo I WANT POETRY — Tine von Bergen (vocals) and Till Moritz Moll (keys) — have received attention for crafting music that simultaneously feels cinematic and deeply human, blending emotional depth with luminous pop soundscapes. 

While developing a reputation for an immersive live show and striking visuals, the German duo have earned critical acclaim and a nomination at the European Songwriting Awards. The duo have played over 100 shows across their native Germany, Poland, Sweden and elsewhere, while making the run of the European showcase festival circuit. And adding to a growing national and international profile, the duo’s single “Light” landed on iTunes charts in several countries, amassing over 500,000 streams globally — and was selected for the soundtrack for the Canadian film, La mécanique des frontières. 

2026 looks to be a breakthrough year for the German indie electro pop duo: Their highly anticipated third album, Future Selves is slated for a May 29, 2026 release. The album is reportedly hopeful and transformative, inspired by a brief moment in time when the future still felt like a promise, channeling the spirit of past dreams of utopia and progress. And as a result, the new album offers a forward-thinking vision shaped by memory, imagination and the will to create what comes next.

Sonically, the album’s material marks an evolution from the reflective tones of Solace + Light, featuring layers of shimming synths and soaring melodies. 

Future Selves will include the previously released “Mirrors Of The Sky,” the Michael Micheal Vanja, Ghian Wright and The EmU-co-produced “No Is a Full Sentence,” and it’s latest single “Backyard Astronauts.”

“Backyard Astronauts” continues a run of lush, hook-driven synth pop but unlike its immediate predecessors, the new single sees the German duo showcasing a balance of earnestness, childhood whimsy and wonder — the sort of wonder and joy inspired by brave astronauts and space travel. But along with that is the of dream of scientific and technological progress informing a desperately needed sense of hope and unity, much like the recent Artemis II mission.

“‘Backyard Astronauts’ captures the feeling of childhood summers when imagination could turn a backyard into a space mission,” the German duo explain,. It’s our song for everyone who still has a sense of wonder about space travel, a quiet dream of unity and progress that feels as present now as it did back then. It’s a reminder of how closely we’re connected – and how far imagination and friendship can take us.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Cincinnati’s Sungaze Shares soaring “I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights”

Through the release of their first three albums, 2019’s Light in All of It, 2021’s This Dream and 2024’s self-titled effort, Cincinnati-based indie sextet Sungaze — Ivory Snow (vocals), Ian Hilvert (lead guitar, vocals), Snow’s sister Angela Colvin (bass), Charlie Hausfield (rhythm guitar) and Zach Starkie (rhythm guitar) and Tyler Collier (drums) — have established a sound that draws from the atmospherics of shoegaze and the nostalgic pull of Midwest emo, blending lush, textured guitars with clear vocals and poetic lyricism.

Slated for a May 22, 2026 release through Candlepin Records and Softseed Music, the Cincinnati-based sextet’s fourth album I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights reportedly marks a turning point for the band. Thematically, the material is an excavation of personal history reframed through the present, where survival, ambition and grief coexist. Most of the album sits in — and captures — the tension between past and present, capturing the feeling of trying to move forward while carrying the weight of where you’ve been and how you’ve gotten there. Simultaneously looking within and without, the album traces the cost of staying, the fear of leaving, and the moments in our lives that force change.

I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights‘ latest single, album title track “I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights” opens with a gorgeous intro meant to evoke childhood memories of hot, hazy summers playing with your friends and/or siblings; and of times that seem deceptively simple and carefree, before morphing to a stormy and brooding section that evokes the bitterness of an unfulfilled stagnant life of drudgery and frustration punctuated by grief and heartache. Throughout, Ivory Snow’s ethereal vocal expresses a mix of heartache and resignation, followed by newfound sense of defiance and inspired action, seemingly informed by the recognition that it’s better to have tried and fallen on your face than to never attempt to live your dream.

The accompanying video draws from a real memory while simultaneously being intentionally symbolic. Set in a small Ohio town along the banks of the Little Miami River, the video contrasts warm childhood imagery with the bleakness and starkness of grown-up routine and loss, employing water, movement and live performance as parallel paths towards release. The video’s dual ending cuts between Snow in work attire, floating serenely in a childhood river bathing spot and Snow in a white lace dress, crowd surfing at a Sungaze show.

“It was important to us to film the video in the real life settings that inspired it. We filmed over the course of three days. Day one was mostly spent working with our kid actors, and filming the office-attire scenes,” Sungaze’s Ivory Snow explains. “Day two was filming the outdoor performance and narrator scenes which involved sneaking into a gravel pit yard and walking the streets of the small town where I grew up. The corner store in the video is the very same that is mentioned in the first verse. The third day was the live show, which was shot at Madison Live in Covington, KY, across the river from Cincinnati. To get the slow motion effect, we had to perform the song at 2x speed, which made for a humorous experience. I think we were all thankful that we play relatively slow music.”

To prepare the live concert audience for their scene on the third day of filming, a last minute showing of the video was arranged. Snow continues, “Before filming kicked off, we set up a projector and screened a preview of the video for the audience, ending with the river scene right before the first live show shot. The room was dead silent for a few seconds after the preview ended, before erupting into applause. A few people were wiping their eyes.
Screening the video in that way felt a bit more vulnerable than expected and it was gratifying to see it received so well.”