Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Atlanta’s Go Public Shares Punchy, Post Punk Cover of Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over”

Formed back inn 2022, Atlanta-based quartet Go Public — Masters of the Hemisphere‘s and Still Flyin”s Sean Rawls, Masters of the Hemispehre’s and Elf Power‘s Adrian Finch, Sam Gunn and Jay Domingo — features some grizzled veterans of their hometown’s music scene. Since their formation, the band has become a live staple of the southern post punk scene.

Go Public’s full-length debut You Are Traffic is slated for a September 18, 2026 digital and physical release through HHBTM. The Atlanta-based outfit’s long-awaited debut, reportedly sees the band firmly establishing a sound that they’ve dubbed mutant disco, “bleaky vibrant jam for end-times dance parties” featuring skronky contortions, nope wave deconstructions, prickly wisdom and post-punk pith.

You Are Traffic‘s third and latest single “Dream Over” sees the Atlanta-based band tackling Crowded House’s 1986 global smash hit “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and turning the bittersweet and melancholy yet hopeful tune into a punchy and wiry post-punk ripper, while retaining the heartbreak and defiant resilience at the core of the original.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 65th Birthday, The Edge!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates U2 guitarist The Edge’s 65th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Crá Croí Return with Brooding and Atmospheric “Lord of the Wild”

Over the past roughly 18 months, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering County Cork-based duo Crá Croí. The duo — RG (songwriting, production, mixing and mastering) and CD (vocals and visuals) — who derive their name from the Gaelic phrase for “heartache” or vexation of spirit” have employed a fiercely DIY ethos firmly establishing a sound that blends elements of 1980s New Wave, post-punk and goth, featuring melancholic synths, dark melodies, angular guitars, and sharp, hook-driven vocals.

The JOVM mainstays’ work explores themes of nihilism, love and destruction, dystopian collapse and nuclear annihilation, often wrapped in irony and paired with post-apocalyptic metaphors.

Now, as you might recall, the Irish duo’s self-produced, 12-song, full-length debut, Tá brón orm is slated for an October 30, 2026. The album will feature 12 completely new tracks, but they’ve managed to build buzz for themselves and the album with a handful of standalone singles, including “Radiation Romance,” “Fires At Dawn,” “Feeding The Fear,” and “Lost In The Electric Blood,” and “Flesh Machines.”

Their latest single “Lord of the Wild” simultaneously builds upon a sound heavily influenced by Joy Division and Interpol — but while seeing the band add a subtly atmospheric quality. The song manages to be rooted in both the modern and the ancient, with the song making references to mythology and natural phenomena.

“The mythology of Cernunnos ‘the hunter’ or ‘the horned one’ plays a central role in the songs lyrics,” the duo explain. “Elemental forces that guard sacred groves and ancient places are all around us. The “wandering king” being called home represents the soul’s reunion with nature, humanity reconnecting with something primal we’ve forgotten. A hymn to our sacred wilderness.”

The accompanying visual was created by the band and fittingly features forest imagery, ancient headstones, ritual sites and more.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Velatine Returns with Dead Radio Remix of “Playing With The Orbits”

Producer, songwriter and musician Loki Lockwood is the creative mastermind behind the Melbourne-based darkwave/goth recording project Velatine. For the bulk of the project’s history, Lockwood collaborated with different vocalists while creating a unique and fresh […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Ayanna Witter-Johnson Shares Gorgeous, Meditative “Blue”

Born and raised in North London to Jamaican parents, acclaimed and rising, Music of Black Origin (MOBO) Award-nominated composer, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ayanna Wittter-Johnson grew up surrounded by the sounds of reggae, gospel and classical music. After earning a first-class Bachelor’s degree at Trinity Laban Conservatory and a Masters at the Manhattan School of Music, supported by a Higher Education Scholarship, Witter-Johnson has built a career founded in authenticity and cross-genre collaboration.

From composing to performing, the London-born artist’s work is a sonic bridge between worlds, seamlessly blending jazz, reggae and soul while celebrating her Jamaican heritage, culture and identity. Witter-Johnson’s recorded output — 2014’s Black Panther EP, 2018’s Truthfully Still and Ella, Reuben & Aly EP, 2019s full-length debut, Road Runner, 2021’s Rise Up EP and 2023’s sophomore album Painted Light — has seen her collaborating with producers Marc Mac and James Yarde, as well as pianist Robert Mitchell, vocalist Cleveland Watkiss and rapper Akala while earning critical acclaim and widespread acclaim across BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 1Xtra, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Music 6, Jazz FM and Magic Classical. 2023’s Ocean Floor, a collaborative album with the London Symphony Orchestra Percussion Ensemble dove into her Jamaican heritage, weaving classical textures with island rhythms and ancestral storytelling.

As a composer, Witter-Johson has won the Nordoff and Robbins 02 Silver Clef Classical Award and an RPS and AIM Awards Best Life Performer nominations — and she has been commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, Chineke! Orchestra, Guerzenich Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra, as well as numerous chamber ensembles.

The acclaimed London-born artist has been both prolific and very busy: She’s currently working on a major new commission for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to celebrate their 90th anniversary and co-scoring her first TV drama for Sky Arts, which is slated for release this year.

Witter-Johnson’s highly anticipated album New Roots is slated for a September 18, 2026 release through her own Hill and Gully Records. Written across a series of retreats, hotel rooms, quarantine lockdown and quiet pockets of life on the road, New Roots documents moments where stillness becomes a portal, a place to her ancestral voices, confront personal truth and re-anchor yourself in what matters. Further cementing the London-born artist as a world-builder and musical polymath, the album sees Witter-Johnson delving into her heritage and spiritual practice, reflecting on British-Caribbean identity, the inheritance of Windrush Generation wisdom, grief and remembrance and the the strength required to keep choosing oneself. (By the way, the Windrush Generation was the Caribbean Island folk, who moved from the island nations from 1948-1971)“It’s an album about finding centre — personally, culturally, and cosmically — and about learning that new roots can be grown even in unfamiliar or fractured ground,” the acclaimed artist says,

Sonically, the album reportedly sees her expanding on her signature fusion of R&B, soul, classical and jazz, while tracing her Jamaican heritage through lush orchestration and raw, personal storytelling. The result is an effort that’s both deeply rooted and yet forward-looking.

New Roots‘ latest single “Blue” is built around a sparse yet gorgeous arrangement of Witter-Johnon’s percussive cello playing and subtle bursts of strings beneath her expressive, searching delivery. The result is a song that’s intimate, lived-in and yet cinematic. Sonically seemingly to nod at Joni Mitchell, Meshell Ndegeocello and contemporary R&B, “Blue” was originally written pre-pandemic during a “write-an-album-in-a-week” retreat, and was a way of processing the emotional fallout of a toxic relationship. But with distance and reflection, the song took on a new life.

“With distance and reflection, ‘Blue’ has grown into something broader: a meditation on patterns of pain and the ways in which victimhood can quietly shape multiple areas of life,” Witter-Johnson explains,. “The song now stands as a metaphor for a range of difficult relationships and situations — moments where suffering becomes familiar, and where growth comes from recognising and gently releasing that identity.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Drums Teams Up with Mareux on Chilly and Brooding “It Didn’t Matter”

New York-based songwriter and producer Jonny Pierce is the creative mastermind of the acclaimed and beloved recording project The Drums. Since the project’s formation back in 2010, Pierce has released six albums, cultivating a fiercely loyal fanbase through sharp songwriting and a timeless blend of indie pop, surf rock and post-punk.

The Drums have consistently sold-out headlining tours across North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia, while making multiple runs of the global festival circuit, playing sets at Coachella, Primavera Sound, Outside Lands, Corona Capital and Lollapalooza. Pierce’s work has appeared in film, television and global campaigns for brands, including Volkswagen. Their breakthrough single “Money” has taken on a remarkable second life, fueled by viral TikTok trends that have introduced the song to millions of new listeners. Recently certified platinum, “Money” has amassed hundreds of millions of streams while simultaneously resonating with fans both old and new.

Iranian American artist Aryan Ashtiani is the creative mastermind behind the goth-inspired project Marueax. His career has been a stratospheric rise: Ashtiani played his first sold-out Mareaux show in June, after his viral cover of The Cure’s ‘The Perfect Girl” lit up the internet, eventually being certified platinum in the States and gold in France. Less than a year later, Ashtiani played Coachella, embarked on two US tours and a European tour, while landing sets across the international festival circuit.

Having helped spark a resurgence of internet in post-punk and dark wave among a constantly online new generation, Maruex finds himself at the forefront of the latest innovative strain of goth. “I want to become a gateway to older subcultural genres for people who are just discovering alternative music today,” the rising Iranian American artist says.

Building upon a rapidly rising profile, he released his debut album 2023’s Lovers From The Past, and quickly establishing his brand through cult favorite videos for “Night Vision” and “Lovers From The Past.” Last year’s Nonstop Romance saw the rising Iranian American artist prioritizing feel and vibe over clarity rooted in his desire to “make every day about making someone happy and giving them the best life possible.”

Ashtiani will continue to support Nonstop Romance with a European tour and East Coast tour to close out 2026.

Last week, Pierce launched a new label, Abysmal Records. He founded the label as a home for collaboration experimentation and emerging artists he deeply believes in. The label’s first single “It Didn’t Matter” is a collaboration with Pierce’s The Drums and Ashtiani’s Maruex. “It Didn’t Matter” feat. Mareux not only kicks off Abysmal Records in grand style, it’s the first of a six-month series of collaborative singles originating from recording sessions with a handpicked group of artists over the past two years, artists whose work has inspired Pierce and whose work he wanted to amplify.

Built around a sleek and chilly, darkwave-inspired motorik paired with Ashtiani’s yearning, heartbroken delivery, “It Didn’t Matter” is a brooding tune featuring a narrator desperately seeking an explanation. Throughout the song’s runtime, Ashtiani’s narrator expresses feelings of confusion and foolishness over a heartbreak with difficult to ignore pleas. The result is a song grounded in a deep, psychological realism that gives the song a walloping emotional punch.

“Not since writing my earliest music has a song come together so effortlessly. Whenever that happens, it makes me feel certain the song was meant to exist—that it needed to be here, for all of us,” Jonny Pierce says of the collaboration. “Mareux’s synthesizer wizardry threw me back to my teenage years, when almost everything I listened to was synthesizer-based music, especially synth-pop. His sounds, textures, and perfect pop chord changes reminded me of the soundtrack to such a tender time in my life—when I was desperate for love but just couldn’t find it, and synthesizers became the soundtrack to my sadness. This one is for those of us who keep banging our heads against the wall of another heart, only to be given nothing in return.”

The Abysmal Records series will pave the way for The Drums’ 12th album, which is planned for a 2027 release.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 61st Birthday, MCA!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 61st anniversary of the birth of MCA.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Carolina Oliveros Shares Meditative “Oye Camina”

Colombina-born, New York-based singer/songwriter Carolina Oliveros is best known for being the frontperson of acclaimed act Combo Chimbita. Oliveros will be stepping out into the spotlight with her solo debut, Ya Rompimos el Silencio, which is slated for a November 6, 2026 release through Chulo Records.

Inspired by her journey of healing from childhood trauma, Ya Rompimos el Silencio is an act of reclaiming voice, body and memory. The album’s material follows the path forward towards truth, resilience, queer love, collective healing and liberation. Each song is both a personal testimony and an invitation for others to break their own silences.

Sonically, the album reflects Oliveros lifelong dialogue between worlds. Anchored in the Afro-Indigenous musical traditions of Colombia and the Caribbean, vocal harmonies serve as connective tissue marrying bullerengue, cumbia, tambora, rumba, bolero, dembo, salve and other ancestral rhythms with adventurous contemporary production. The result if a sound that’s simultaneously intimate and expansive, ritualistic and contemporary — and honors tradition while boldly pushing it forward. Throughout the album’s runtime, its songs move effortlessly between ceremony and celebration, contemplation and the dance floor, revealing that healing can be a defiant, joyful act.

While showcasing another dimension of Oliveros’ artistry, Ya Rompimos el Silencio is rooted in the belief that music carries memory across generations, that telling the truth can be liberating and transformative, and breaking silence is not an ending, it’s a decision to choose a freer way of living.

Ya Rompimos el Silencio‘s latest single “Oye Camina” feels both timeless and remarkably modern. Oliveros’ powerhouse and expressive vocal asks the listener to slow down and savor the feeling moments that define a life, because nothing lasts forever. Anchored around the refrain “Que se va la vida” (life slips away). the song’s narrator reflects on the raw, fleeting beauty of those things that just can’t be held on to and really matter — love, friendships, and the moments that leave a mark and continue to shape us long after they have passed. “‘Oye Camina’ is a reminder that life is constantly in motion and that our challenge is to live with presence, gratitude, and courage before it slips away,” says Olivero.

The accompanying video is an intimate and deeply personal visual that showcases what may arguably be Oliveros’ most explicit artistic and authentic expression of Queer love and Queer joy rooted in the accumulation of the small, seemingly mundane moments that truly make life worthwhile.