JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Interpol guitarist Daniel Kessler’s 52nd birthday.
Throwback: Happy 46th Birthday, T.I.!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates T.I.’s 46th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 55th Birthday, Peter Salisbury!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates The Verve drummer Peter Salisbury’s 55th birthday.
New Audio: Yoo Doo Right Shares Cinematic “Sofort Si Fort”
Since their formation back in 2016, Montréal-based experiential rock outfit Yoo Doo Right — currently Justin Cober (guitar, bass, VI, synthesizer, piano, tape recordings and vocals) and John Talbot (drums, percussion) — have over the course of three full-length albums, three EPs, a handful of collaborations and singles and extensive touring across Europe, the UK and North America have firmly established a unique sound where “towering monoliths of roaring riffs crash against swarms of restless rhythms,” PopMatters once wrote.
The Canadian duo’s fourth album, the Ky Brooks co-produced Build and Rest by the Shepherd’s Light is slated for a November 6, 2026 release through Mothland. The album’s material ranges from eardrum shatteringly loud forays into post-rock and krautock, highly-tempered, effects-landed pieces seemingly drawing from ambient, noise and drone, and more. Eschewing genre strictures and boundaries, the album sees the duo opting for a symbolic approach to creation, with each of its different pieces free to unfold in a myriad of ways upon each listen.
From its creators’ point of view, Build and Rest by the Shepherd’s Light chronicles the hardships of artistic resolve, acknowledging the daily grind required to keep the momentum while embracing the shared joy of the creative process. Throughout the album’s runtime, there’s an underlying tribute to the communities that foster art: “Industriestraße 9” pays homage to a defunct Luzerne squat where they used to play. Symbolism seeps through song titles like Tortue”, “Sofort, Si fort,” and “To Be a Lambskin (Or to Be the Whole Flock)”, which offer enigmatic glimpses into creative vision. Co-producer Ky Brooks contributes a spoken word poem to album track “Neighbours Report Their Neighboours.” Timothy Aaron Brynan, who recently joined the duo on tour was invited to play bass on “Doldrums, Doldrums, Eviler Than the Devil,” a song that has quickly become a live set staple. Additionally Jessica Moss (violin) and Francis Leduc-Bélanger (trumpet, flugelhorn) make vital contributions to the album.
The Ky Brooks co-produced album was recorded at Montréal’s Hotel2Tango and Studio Error 403. Seth Manchester mixed the album at Providence’s Machine with Magnets. Amal Lal mixed the album at Oakland’s Macro Sound. The album’s cover art is a photo taken in Ovronanz, Switzerland by Julia Bender.
“There is a lot of joy and laughter in this album. For the first time in a while, we were feeling enriched and energized by what we were creating, the instruments we were using, and what was coming out,” the band says in a lengthy statement. “The record is us looking at our place in the world and deciding we were still committed to making music together. Boldly doing so with as much joy as we can drag out of the dried roots of modern day life. Rather than the anxiety-inducing white knuckle ‘when is it going to break’ energy we have worked with in the past, this record is optimistic but pensive. It holds onto the idea of transcendental musical themes and is deeply rooted in repetition and a clear momentum. A momentum we hope moves people, whether it is in thought or the physical.
“The title—Build and Rest by the Shepherd’s Light—highlights the main themes and motifs of the record as it stands. Rest and build, and rest and build, and rest and build… What else is there in our stories? Everyday is caring for ourselves and then doing everything in your power to care for those around us. A heroic journey is nothing but helping set camp up every night and making sure everyone is fed. A person’s ‘shepherd’ is defined by themselves, whether it’s music, their friends and families, their companion animals, or the very equipment they use to create! In each of our lives, we have the potential to draw strength and find rest in what is around us, build and rest by the shepherd’s light.
“Half the record came fully-formed, the other half was born of improvisational jamming. Originally made as pieces of music to help his partner sleep, Justin created ‘Industriestraße 9’ and ‘Neighbours Report Their Neighbours’ while isolated in a cabin over the Winter. ‘Doldrums, Doldrums, Eviler Than the Devil,’ ‘Tortue,’ and ‘Build and Rest by the Shepherd’s Light’ were us just having lots of fun in the studio, being excited by new ideas and sounds, challenging ourselves to dive deeply into new grooves and styles. The rest were either old ideas born anew or fully conceptualized pieces brought to life. While quite exploratory in its sonic landscape, we see the record as one cohesive story. A cinematic exercise that we hope people listen to in full.
We recorded with co-producer Ky Brooks. They are one of our favourite artists and a dear friend so the choice to have them hop on was an easy and exciting one. We booked studio time with no intention of finishing a record. The goal was to lay down some new ideas and get in the mindset of recording. Hotel2Tango is an incredibly warm and creatively conductive place for us. For four days straight, we put in 12-14 hour days and routinely got lost in the haze of creative fervor. Timothy joined us to record “Doldrums […]”. Jessica, Ezra, and Francis’ instruments, as well as Ky’s vocals, were recorded at Error 403. Having finished recording, we of course turned to Seth (mixing) at Machines with Magnets and Amar (mastering) at Macro Sound to elevate the album.”
Build and Rest by the Shepherd’s Light will include the album’s first single “Doldrums, Doldrums Eviler Than the Devil,” and its second and latest single “Sofort Si Fort.” Sonically, “Sofort Si Fort” is a meditative, cinematic composition that hints at a mystical tale of a mysterious hero’s journey as told by a balladeer or a Spaghetti Western soundtrack, thanks to reverb-laden melodic guitars, supple bass VI lines and a driving, mid-tempo bass groove.
New Video: STACEY Shares Lush, Kaleidoscopic “Upside Down Merry Go Round”
STACEY is a Toronto-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and musician, whose retro-tinged psych pop draws from the sounds and pop culture of the 1960s and 1970s has received critical praise from SPIN, LadyGunn, American Songwriter, Clash Magazine, Wonderland, Refinery29 and a lengthy list of others while receiving airplay from Apple Music’s Matt Wilkinson, KCRW’s and School Night’s Chris Douridas, CBC’s Errol Nazareth, BBC 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne and more.
The Canadian-born artist’s 2021 full-length debut, Saturn Return is part of a catalog that has amassed over eight million streams on Spotify, along with this year’s “These Days,” 2023’s “Christmas in California,” as well as 2013’s STACEY EP, 2015’s STACEY (Reconstruction) EP and 2017’s First Move EP.
Her compositions have been part of the soundtracks for more than 15 TV series and films including Netflix’s Spinning Out, Disney+’s Hollywood Stargirl, Lucifer, Pretty Little Liars Original Sin, Orphan Black and Degrassi. She has also shared stages with Charlotte Day Wilson, Tamino, Vinyl Williams and Tame Impala’s Cameron Avery. And adding to a growing profile, she has appeared on CTV‘s Your Morning and Global News’ The Morning Show and the Royal Ontario Museum‘s 75th Anniversary of Christian Dior Exhibit.
The STACEY and Dillon Casey co-produced, STACEY and Suzanne May a.k.a. Fonteyn co-written “Upside Down Merry Go Round” is STACEY’s first original release in five years and features Loren Humphrey (drums) and Tim McNalley (bass). Built around shimmering Wurlitzer, “Upside Down Merry Go Round” is lush, dreamy and subtly uneasy tune that sounds a bit like a seamless blend of Carole King‘s Tapestry, Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd paired with a modern songwriting and lyrical approach. Thematically, the song captures the anxieties and emotional whiplash of existing in a modern, dystopian timeline: You’re trying to pay bills, join Zoom calls, chase dreams and carry on with your life, while the world unravels around you.
“I wanted to encapsulate the disorienting juxtaposition of day-to-day existence against the backdrop of worldly chaos, not only through the lyrics but also through the songwriting and production,” explains STACEY. “The drop to half-time in the choruses mirrors the relentless highs and lows of doom-scrolling. The song also has this feel-good quality that sits in contrast with the lyrics — ‘like a rainbow-coloured panic attack.’”
Directed by STACEY, the accompanying video for “Upside Down Merry Go Round” was filmed on 16mm film by Gus Bendinelli and is set a meticulously handmade surrealist dreamscape straight out of 1975 or so with psychedelic imagery and a miniature merry go round. To create the edible horses, which appear in the video. the Canadian born artist 3D-scanned the merry-go-round — a Facebook Marketplace find — and 3D-printed a miniature replicate of one of its horses. Longtime collaborator and makeup artist Christina Spina then created a mold, which the Los Angeles-based artist used to pour and then hand-painted the colored chocolate horses. “Aesthetically, I was loosely going for a 1970s Jodorowsky meets The Love Witch vibe with a sprinkle of Cher, but always myself — mostly letting my Facebook Marketplace prop finds and fashion choices guide the way,” STACEY says.
New Video: Julia Jacklin Shares Introspective “If I Had The Hand of God”
Acclaimed Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and musician Julia Jacklin will be releasing her highly-anticipated fourth album, the Robert Muiños and Jacklin co-produced, 10-song album The Gem through 4AD Records digitally and on CD, cassette and vinyl on September 25, 2026. Exclusive color vinyl editions with retailers will include turquoise, green opal, ruby and rose quartz. Pre-order information can be found here.
The album will include the previously released “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You),” the album’s closing track ” “I Wish” feat, Aussie folk sibling duo The Maes, “The Hardest Thing,” and the album’s latest single “If I Had The Hand of God,” a jangling that’s one-part song-as-story bit of country and one-part indie rock anthem. Written about a surreal trip to Nashville, “If I Had The Hand of God” is a lived-in, introspective meditation on the life of a touring musician and the importance — or unimportance — of legacy that’s both earnest and drenched in a bit of irony.
Directed by Nick Mcck, the accompanying video for “If I Had The Hand of God” begins with Jacklin making a call in a hotel room, before allowing the acclaimed Aussie wandering around Las Vegas with equal parts awe, exhaustion, bemusement and confusion. Oh and there’s a feathered showgirl hat at some point that looks incredibly heavy.
New Video: Allegories Return with Atmospheric and Uneasy “Pure Comedy”
Canadian experimental pop duo and JOVM mainstays Allegories — childhood friends Adam Bentley and Jordan Mitchell — will be releasing their newest album, By accident, On purpose on October 16, 2026.
The new album will include “Honestly, that’s enough honesty” “They’ll Never Suspect Us” and the album’s latest single “Pure Comedy.” “Pure Comedy” shifts through dream pop, indie rock, ambient electronic music and electro pop with settling into any easily identifiable genre or style while restlessly vacillating between optimism and pessimism, intimacy and aggression, hope and resignation. And it’s all done in a way that feels grounded in the psychological realism of a world that’s gone as mad as ours.
By accident, On purpose‘s latest single evolved alongside the album, with the JOVM mainstay outfit working on the song throughout the years-long writing and recording process. Rather than discarding each previous incarnation as the track gradually changed shape, fragments survived, leaving different eras of the song’s creation embedded within the finished track.
“This is the song that I think best represents our new album,” Allegories’ Adam Bentley explains. ” “There are elements from many different iterations of the song still in there, and sonically, it feels like it touches on the kaleidoscope of sounds and genres that the record eventually became.”
New Audio: Niia Shares Two Previously Unreleased Tracks off “V (Goth Jazz Edition)”
Born Niia Bertino, Niia is a Needham, MA-born, Los Angeles-based classically trained composer, pianist and vocalist. Deeply rooted in jazz, her work blends elegance, edge and a timeless voice with razor-sharp, seemingly lived-in songwriting. Her fifth album, last year’s Spencer Zahn co-produced V was the culmination of years spent experimenting at the intersection of tradition and reinvention.
Existing in the tension between control and collapse, V saw the acclaimed Los Angeles-based artist seamlessly blending the electronic textures of contemporary, experimental pop with the interplay of live, jazz-rooted instrumentation and musicianship. The album’s arrangements stretch — sometimes restrained, sometimes theatrical– but always with intention. As a classically trained musician, who grew up watching Italian cinema, Bertino explains, “I pulled from the harmonic language of jazz pianists like Bill Evans and from the psychological atmosphere of film scores.”
Arguably, one of Bertino’s most personal albums to date, V thematically explores the full spectrum of the self — self-harm, self-delusion, self-awareness and in rare moments, self-love. “Not in a moralizing way, but in a very human one,” she adds. “The good and bad live side by side, often in the same verse. One minute I’m performing heartbreak like it’s a role I’ve rehearsed, the next I’m quietly admitting I caused the whole thing. That contradiction is the truth.”
The album featured “Pianos and Great Danes,” which I wrote about on this site.
Last week, Bertino released V (Goth Jazz Edition), a deluxe edition of her acclaimed fifth album through Candid Records. V (Goth Jazz Edition) features three bonus tracks, a cover of Chet Baker‘s “I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes) and two, previously unreleased tracks “Been A Long Night” and Show Me Love.” “There were a few directions on the album that I still wanted to explore a little deeper, and these new songs felt so connected to the world of V that they really wouldn’t have made sense anywhere else,” Niia says of the deluxe edition of V.
“Been A Long Night” features an intricate, jazz-driven arrangement of broodingly cinematic piano and a supple yet propulsive bass line with skittering drum ‘n bass-meets footwork-styled beats beneath the acclaimed Los Angeles-based artist’s yearning delivery. While being both club and lounge friendly, “Been A Long Night” is rooted in a late-night longing and desire that’s simultaneously fun and a little dangerous.
“Show Me Love” is a slow-burning, gorgeous, Quiet Storm-like tune that showcases Niia’s effortlessly soulful, pop star vocal confessing a desire to wholly accept and love while asking her lover to show some much-needed vulnerability. “Show Me Love” may arguably be the deluxe edition’s most straightforward yet earnest tune.
New Audio: Elena Pinderhughes Teams Up with Immanuel Wilkins on Ethereal and Soulful Debut Single “life goes on”
Raised in the Bay Area’s progressive cultural landscape, Elena Pinderhughes is a groundbreaking composer, flutist and vocalist, who has become known for expanding jazz’s emotional range by crafting music that’s tender and sensual, mysterious and direct and grounded in a feminine creative vision without apology. Her work channels an unguarded, deeply personal voice that few in the genre have dared to show.
Informed by shaping the music of her collaborators, Pinderhughes’ work sees her seamlessly weaving R&B and neo-soul while being rooted in the jazz tradition.
Pinderhughes debut single as a solo artist “life goes on” feat. Immanuel Wilkins follows a decade of being one of the most sought-after collaborators across genres and styles: She has toured with Herbie Hancock and Chief Xian aTunde Audah, played at Coachella with Future and Metro Boomin — and sh has appeared on tracks by Giveon, Victoria Monét, Ambrose Akinmusire, Robert Glasper, Esperanza Spalding, Common and a lengthy list of others.
While marking Pinderhughes’ bold step forward into the spotlight as a solo artist, “life goes on” features two of jazz’s most distinct young voices playing off one another as they trade and weave lyrical flute and saxophone lines over a harmonic piano and a propulsive rhythm section and bursts of Kid A and Amnesiac-like-glitchy electronics. The result is a composition that’s ethereal yet soulful, cinematic yet deeply introspective while effortlessly pushing the boundaries of contemporary jazz.
“I’ve been playing the flute for almost my entire life, and for so much of that time I was searching…learning everything I could, trying different things, and figuring out what actually sounded like me,” Pinderhughes says. “Somewhere along the way, I started to hear a voice emerge that felt like my own. That’s what feels different now. I’m not searching in the same way anymore. I feel like I have a sound I believe in and something of my own to say with this instrument. And now I want to show you what the flute can do. I want people to hear how powerful, beautiful, intimate and alive it can be. ‘life goes on’ feels like the beginning of a much bigger story I want to tell about what the flute can be.”
Throwback: Happy 100th Birthday, John Coltrane!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth.
Throwback: Happy 96th Birthday, Ray Charles!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 96th anniversary of the birth of Ray Charles.