Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: THIEF Shares Bruising, Expansive “Moon and Kill”

Starting his career as a member of San Francisco-based experimental black metal outfit BOTANIST, contributing hammered dulcimer and bass for their acclaimed 2017’s Collective: The Shape of He to Come, the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Dylan Neal initially split his time with BOTANIST and his solo recording project THIEF, with which he has released 2016’s Thieves Hymn in D Minor, 2019’s Map of Lost Keys, 2021’s The 16 Deaths of My Master and the Cicatrix/Diamond Brush split album with BOTANIST and 2024’s Bleed Memory.

Neal’s fifth THIEF album, Sermons from the Pit is slated for a November 27. 2026 release through Prophecy Productions. Reportedly, Neal’s most ambitious and uncompromising effort to date, Sermons from the Pit socially pairs the project’s manipulated liturgical choirs with his self-described and self-developed “Cathedral Clipping” production technique, in which reverberant sounds are reportedly overdriven through successive gain stages to produce dense, harmonic distortion, feedback and cavernous textures. Sonically, Sermons from the Pit is THEIF as its most visceral and forceful: ethereal choirs are paired with pummeling rhythms and towering walls of sound. The result is something both intimate and unsettling. Neal describes the album as “transmissions from an unspeakable place”—a descent beneath the surface of consciousness into the murkiness of the subconscious and where belief takes shape.

Sermons from the Pit’s first single “Moon and Kill” is a bruising and anthemic blend of industrial, goth, trap and New Wave featuring skittering tweeter and roofer rattling beats, scorching synths and guitars paired with rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses. The song moves through furious mosh pit-inducing rage, melancholy and meditative introspection and acceptance throughout its expansive structure.

“Sermons from the Pit moves through stages of frenetic energy which are tempered by sullen, meditative moments of respite. “’Moon and Kill’ is a microcosm of that, encapsulating the album’s broader thematic movement from rage to despair and acceptance,” THEIF creative mastermind Dylan Neal says. “The ending is one of my favorite moments on the album, where the vocals are just kind of cooing over a time-stretched organ and choral sample. The track’s voice oscillates between executioner and victim. At the risk of stealing the listener’s meaning away, I’ll speak of the track by saying that when love and trust collapse, the same anger and disbelief experienced by murderers and saints alike are experienced. Which implement do you choose? Weapon or forgiveness?”

The accompanying video was shot, edited and features visual effects by Dylan Neal and is fittingly haunted, while depicting what appears to be an execution before its eerie coda.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 80th Birthday, Barry Gibb!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Bee Gee’s co-founder Barry Gibb’s 80th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 68th Birthday, Gloria Estefan!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Gloria Estefan’s 68th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Total Wife Teams Up with Full Body 2 on a Muscular and Noisy Interpretation of “make it last”

Over the past decade, the experimental Nashville-based duo Total Wife — Luna Kupper and Ash Richter — have firmly cemented as fixtures of both the Nashville and East Coast DIY scenes. Last year’s ten-song come back down, an immersive blend of breakbeats, techno influence, recycled homemade samples and cascading riffs, that pushed the boundaries of shoegaze wide open — while receiving praise from Stereogum, Nashville Scene, Paste Magazine, Vice, Consequence and a lengthy list of others.

The duo’s newest effort, come.back.down.x.recovery EP is slated for an October 9, 2026 release through Julia’s War Recordings. The EP sees the duo passing along lost album file demos to their peers to rework, reinterpret, and make something beautiful — and interesting — out of a mistakenly broken hard drive.

“Within the weeks leading up to come back down’s release, my hard drive got fried. The whole album was lost, along with half the one we’re currently working on and many other projects/bands I was recording,” Total Wife’s Luna Kupper explains. “We brought it to a data recovery service only to get back a flash drive with 25,000 unnamed WAV files. Almost every file was a rotted screaming mass of different sounds and tracks digi-melted together as if the hard drive did a harsh noise remix of itself. Any sort of remix would’ve been impossible until I discovered a dusty old drive containing half-finished versions of some come back down songs. 4 of them were recoverable and brought so beautifully back to life by some of our favorite artists of all time, something I couldn’t have imagined back when recording these songs. I am beyond grateful and now know I should be better at backing up my files.”

come.back.down.x.recovery EP’s first single “make.it,last.x.full.body.2.recovery” is a collaboration with Philadelphia’s Full Body 2 that retains the woozy guitar churn of the original album single but with an explosive coda that’s one-part industrial music, one part eardrum shattering noise. before closing out with a quick fadeout.

News/Announcements by William Ruben Helms

Announcements: Shoutouts to Patreon Patrons, Creatives Rebuild New York and Asian Arts Initiative

I’ll be honest — and perhaps more vulnerable than usual: The past 18 months or so have been extremely difficult for me. I’ve been desperately trying to keep this thing going on limited funds. My life has been a vicious and sickening cycle of money: I’m able to keep the lights and heat on for a few weeks and then I’m broke for a few weeks — or in some cases, a few months. Last year, I announced that JOVM had to go on a forced, indefinite hiatus.

The adage is true: It takes money to make money. But what do you do when you don’t have any money? I don’t think anyone has a good answer for that, because I know that I don’t.

Luckily through a mix of luck and the kind and generous support of a friend, who will continue to remain anonymous upon request, JOVM was able to return after a 20-day or so hiatus.

Along with my anonymous friend, who i’ll thank here; there are a list of folks that I must thank for their support:

The Patreon Patrons, who have supported me through over the course of the past few years:

  • Sash
  • Alice Northover
  • Bella Fox
  • Jenny MacRostie
  • Janene Otten 

Also I have to thank the following for their donations: 

  • Melanie Rodriguez 
  • Kitty
  • Megan Marshall
  • Velatine
  • Modern Ideas
  • LutchamaK

I must thank my pal and colleague Adam Bernard for chatting with me about JOVM and the site’s hiatus. You can check out the interview, in which I talk about how important it is to support independent journalists here: https://adambernard.blogspot.com/2025/09/saving-one-mans-movement-convo-with.html

I have to thank the helpful, hardworking and dedicated folks at Creatives Rebuild New York. I’m proud, gratified and humbled to have been included in their 18-month Guaranteed Income for Artists program. Understandably, being included was also deeply vindicating. Someone out there thought my work — this very work! — was worth supporting financially. Obviously, the funds from it have managed to keep this labor of love going during one of the most uncertain periods in recent human history, while lessening some of the normal financial pressures of being an American artist, creator and journalist. 

I also found out about Asian Arts Initiative’s Sound Type Workshop through Creatives Rebuild New York. So, I just can’t thank those folks enough. And I’ll forever be in their debt. 

I must thank the folks at the Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia for selecting me for the Sound Type Music Writer Workshop. Being a part of the inaugural cohort was an honor. 

I also have to thank my man John Morrison, Philly’s preeminent music journalist for the support and encouragement. 

The Joy of Violent Movement is a completely independent and completely D.I.Y. media outlet. Over the course of this site’s 16+ year history, I’ve used my fiercely independent stance to cover music with an eclectic and global perspective that a lot of other publications just don’t have — and will likely never have. 

To that end, I could use your support to continue to keep bringing you my unique global perspective on music. There are a number of ways that you can support this work. 

I’ve been told that some people would prefer to make a one-time donation because it’s easy and less of an obligation. So, if you’re able to make a one-time donation, there’s a donation form below. 

If you’re willing and able to support more regularly, please feel free to check out my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement. 

Anything you can give is very much appreciated. It can and does make a real difference, y’all. $20 could mean a carfare to a couple of protests or the ability to pay a much-needed subscription fee.

I know that a lot of folks are struggling to make ends meet in an uncertain and tumultuous economic climate. Believe me, I get it y’all. And to that end, there are other non-financial and low cost ways to support JOVM and my work.

If you’re not following me, you can follow me on here:

 X/Twitter: @yankee32879 and @joyofviolent 

Instagram: @william_ruben_helms

Threads: @william_ruben_helms

Bluesky: @williamrubenhelms.bsky.social

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement

Please share posts you dig through RTs and shares on these various platforms. And share them with your friends and family, too. Every pair of eyeballs — both new and longtime readers — adds up in terms of ad revenue, of more people knowing about this site and my work, and of course potential for collaborations and work.

Lastly, I have an important ask of you dear friends, readers and colleagues. I’ve been actively looking for work for a while. If you’ve been out there looking for a job, you know that the job search has somehow gotten even more dehumanizing, dispiriting and depressing than ever.

So just to refresh your memories:

I’ve spent just under 15 years in book publishing in the editorial departments of three different New York publishing houses — across both trade and academic publishing — as an Editorial Assistant and Acquisitions Editor.

Over the course of the past two-plus decades, my writing and photography has been published in a lengthy list of publications including Downbeat, Sound Collector Audio Review, Playbill(photography), The Advocate (photography), Out Magazine(photography), Premier Guitar (photography), Consequence, Earmilk (photography), The Inventory, Glide Magazine.com (writing and photography), Publisher’s Weekly, Sheckys.com, Shecky’s Bar and Nightlife Guide, New York Press, Ins&Outs Magazine (photography and writing), Dish Du Jour Magazine, Queens Ledger (writing and photography) Aussie music publication Musicology.xyz (photography) and countless others.

So if anyone has any leads on editorial, communications, writing and or photography jobs — including freelance, contract, project, part-time and full-time, please feel free to contact me.

Music industry folks, if you need someone to write bios for your artists and/or bands — or to take press photos, BTS photos, live concert photos or you’d like to have a tour photographer, please feel free to contact me.

As always, thank you all for your support. Long live JOVM!

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Glasgow’s The Marches Shares Brooding “The Habit”

Since their formation in 2024, Glasgow-based indie rock outfit The Marches — Katie Palmer (vocals, rhythm guitar), Nicola Singleton (bass), Jane Jenkins (lead guitar) and Kate Morrow (drums) — have quickly established a sound that blends emotional intensity, ambitious melodicism and razor-sharp storytelling.

And in that same time, they’ve also quickly built up a regional and internationally recognized profile: Their breakout single last year’s double A-side single “November“/”Don’t Fool Me Twice” received both international and national press attention/. Their previously released material received airplay from BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Introducing Scotland, Amazing Radio UK and Amazing Radio US.

Adding to a growing profile, the Scottish quartet have started to amass a reputation for an electrifying live show, which has led to a hometown headlining set at Glasgow’s The Garage Attic in November.

2026 has seen The Marches release a handful of singles, including the previously released “She” and “Struck To The Heart,” and their latest single “The Habit.” “The Habit” further cement the band’s growing reputation for unerring melodicism and crating catchy hooks paired featuring brooding arrangement of atmospheric guitars, forceful and pulsing drumming beneath Palmer’s delivery which throughout the song’s run moves from intimate confession to defiant and steely resolve.

Underneath the remarkably self-assured performances, is a song about dysfunction, touching upon feeling the pull of repetitive patterns you know too well, even when deep down you know better. Certainly, for anyone who has escaped dysfunctional and destructive patterns, the song captures something disturbingly familiar.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Trentemøller and Mew’s Jonas Bjerre Team Up on Shimmering and Anthemic “Terrified”

Anders Trentemøller’s self-titled eighth Trentemøller album is slated for a November 13, 2026 release through his In My Room Records. The self-titled album’s latest single “Terrified” feat. Mew‘s Jonas Bjerre is a collaboration that finds the Danish artists crafting an anthemic bit of uplift that’s seamlessly blend of shoegaze and twinkling, hook-driven dream pop paired with stream-of-consciousness lyrics.

Throughout the song’s runtime, Bjerre sings lyrics that focus tackling the specter of fear head-on. “When the instrumental was done, I sent it to Jonas Bjerre with a few melody ideas, which he took further while adding new melodies of his own,” Trentemøller says. He then reshaped the track, explaining “‘Terrified’ is probably the poppiest song on the album. In its original form it sounded a bit more shoegazey, but I wanted it to be crisper and clearer, less washed out. So I went for synths that almost sound like human voices, with a magical, otherworldly quality to them.”

“I think sometimes when you dream about things that make you fearful and uneasy, it’s your mind trying to prepare you for any scenario, like you’re processing catastrophes that have not and may not ever happen,” Mew’s Jonas Bjerre says of the song’s themes.

Directed by Jonas Bjerre, the accompanying video for “Terrified” is a mind-bending blend of animation, live action footage and photography that turns the collaborators’ hometown of Copenhagen into a lysergic, brightly colored dream.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Zacchae’us Paul Teams Up with DJ OOOCHILD, happy qavah, donSMITH, Keenyn Omari and Derzon Douglas on a Bold, Swaggering Rendition of a Gospel Tune

Atlanta-born and based producer, singe/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Zacchae’us Paul will be releasing his highly-anticipated sophomore album JAZZ MONEY VOL. 2: SWINGIN’ R&B on October 16, 2026 through Candid Records. Sonically, the album sees the rising Atlanta-based artist crating an effortless blend of jazz, R&B, neo-soul and hip-hop that features razor sharp beats complementing nimble, acoustic jazz drumming, emcees effortlessly spitting bars alternating with jazz solos.There’s R&B-styled crooning and sangin.’ There are producer tags, interludes and spoken word sections. And it’s all anchored in jazz improvisation and cinematic storytelling influenced by hip-hop’s golden age.

JAZZ MONEY VOL. 2: SWINGIN’ R&B will include the previously released “LOOK TO THE SKY” and “SHE F*CK WITH THE RACKS,” as well as its third and latest single, the Zacchae’us Paul and DJ OOOCHILD co-produced “BETTER MUST COME” feat. happy qavah, donSMITH, Keenyn Omari and Derzon Douglas. “BETTER MUST COME” is a bold, swaggering and decidedly contemporary reinterpretation of a gospel tune that retains the uplift and positivity of the original while pushing a familiar song forward into a completely new, radio and lounge friendly territory.

“I knew I wanted a song on this album that centered on God’s love, and I wanted to reinterpret a hymn in a way that felt authentic to my musical language,” Zacchae’us Paul says. “Rather than simply covering the hymn, I wanted to reimagine it through the lens of Swingin’ R&B. I’m especially proud of how this track came together. It captures exactly what I hoped this album would represent: honoring tradition while pushing it forward in my own voice.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 106th Birthday, Charlie Parker!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 106th anniversary of the birth of Charlie Parker.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 57th Birthday, Meshell Ndegeocello!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Meshell Ndegeocello’s 57th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Zurich’s Toffee Nut Orion Shares Introspective Yet Euphoric “Moment”

Florian Meyer is a Zurich-based electronic music producer, musician and creative mastermind behind Toffee Nut Orion. And with Toffee Not Orion, Meyer explores the space between emotion, imagination and the infinite. Pairing shimmering synths, distant worlds and human stories, the Swiss-based artist treats outer space more like a mirror than a destination, a place where where longing, wonder, loneliness, connection and hope all become larger than life.

Meyer’s latest Toffee Nut Orion single “Moment” is a sleek, lounge and club friendly tune featuring glistening synths and skittering beats beneath a yearning and expressive vocal. Simultaneously introspective and euphoric, Meyer “wanted ‘Moment’ to sound like the instant you stop searching the universe for answers and suddenly find one inside yourself.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Erykah Badu and The Alchemist Team Up on Woozy and Mind-Bending “Witch Doctor”

In the 11 years since her last release and 16 since her last studio album, Erykah Badu has been busy, gathering not conclusions but rather, a series of existential insights through whirlwind touring, teaching, motherhood, doula work and the sort of deep reflection informed by living and raising children in a rapidly changing, increasingly dystopian world. During that same period, her cultural influence has only expanded: The five-time Grammy Award-winner with 20 nominations appeared on the cover of Vogue back in 2023. received the CDFA Fashion Icon Award in 2024 and Billboard‘s Icon Award last year. And she has done this while continuing to collaboration across generations with the like software Janelle Monáe, Tyler, the Creator, Flying Lotus, Robert Glasper, Teyana Taylor, Rapsody, and a lengthy list o others.

The Alchemist has firmly established a reputation for being one of hip-hop’s most prolific producers, releasing multiple efforts a year including, last year’s Alfredo 2 with Freddie Gibbs, the sequel to their Grammy Award 2020 album Alfredo; last year’s Life Is Beautiful with Larry June and 2 Chainz; this year’s Spiral Staircases with Larry June and Curren$y and LIQUID FORM. Continuing a remarkably prolific and productive period, The Alchemist and Erykah Badu teamed up for Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment.

Abi is Badu. Alan is The Alchemist. Released today through Control Freaq Records /YOUNG, the acclaimed duo’s collaboration finds Badu contemplating which parts of ourselves and our stories — love, innocence, dreams, memories, womanhood — are worth protecting before the world breaks apart and fragments. Meditative and fluid, the album’s material unfolds across four movements, charting the progression of the self through the prisms of of love, art and identity while inviting the listener to sit with difficult and complex feelings. Throughout the album’s runtime, passion blurs with desire, hope with grief — with each song revealing another facet of Badu’s universe. Or shall we call it the Baduverse?

The collaboration between the two acclaimed artist can trace its origins back to roughly 2023: Badu told her longtime creative partner Cold Cris that she always wanted to rap over Mobb Deep’s “The Realest,” a gritty, thumping yet soulful Alchemist production. The Alchemist — who had quietly been hoping to work with Badu for years — was introduced soon after, and their conversations grew into a full-fledged collaborative effort. The duo’s first studio session together in Los Angeles yielded the previously released “Next to You.” which laid the foundation for what would become an entirely new sonic language. Later, The Alchemist sent Baud a collection of instrumental beats, which she deconstructed and sculpted into tracks that felt uniquely hers, embellishing his warm, punchy samples with kalimba, immersive chord structures and drums. The’s album material sonically moves fluidly and effortlessly between soul, blues, funk, jazz and underground hip-hop and yet somehow belongs entirely to none of them.

Between 2024-2025, Badu and The Alchemist road-tested the album’s material live, performing in intimate, phone-free settings with Badu’s digital collective The Cannabinoids and The Alchemist on the MPC, fine tuning tracks along the way. The result is quite possibly the most forward-thinking batch of material of either artist’s career, an album that’s meant to live and evolve with you through space and time while inviting the lister to continually explore themselves, to have one more kiss, one more hit, one more dance, one more joke, all before the world blows.

“Witch Doctor,” Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment‘s latest single is a woozy and strutting blend of neo soul, soul jazz, hip-hop, voodoo and experimental pop within an expansive, endlessly mothering, kaleidoscopic production branch Badu’s imitable, jazz-like croon. Throughout the song Badu referencing witches having a deeper, more mystical connection with both their universe and their surroundings — unlike those cornball TV witches.

Directed by and starring Erykah Badu with a brief cameo by The Alchemist, with cinematography by Ayinde Anderson, the accompanying video for “Watch Doctor” is both a companion piece and a sort of continuing of the Dallas-born artists 2010 short film “Window Seat.” 16 years later, Badu returns to the same Dallas neighborhood with a new perspective, exploring what remains after the world as taken everything it can from an artist, and pointing towards the one thing it can never manufacture, characterize or possess: the very source itself.