Single Review by William Ruben HelmsOct 22, 202600:00

New Audio: Puma Blue Shares Hypnotic Lullaby “Whispering”

London-based producer, singer/songwriter and Puma Blue creative mastermind Jacob Allen released his sixth Puma Blue album, Croak Dreams earlier this year through Play It Again Sam. “A Croak Dream is a prophetic dream where you see a vision of how you die. Half the songs on this record allude to how you might decide to live, act, if you somehow knew your awaiting fate. Being daring, romantic… saying what you really mean.” Allen explains.

Recorded straight to tape at Peter Gabriel‘s Real World Studios, Croak Dream sees Allen and co-producer and mixer Sam Petts-Davies expanding the project’s sonic world a well as to channel the project’s sultry, emotional and conceptual complexity with an instinct-led take on experimenting with Allen’s art to its most evocative form.

Additionally, longtime collaborator Harvey Grant contributed to the textual quality and identity of the album. “Later at Real World Studios, the band and I recorded tape loops over a small fragment of the demo, none of them heard the finished song, and when Sam and I came back to London we cut those improvisations into this Frankenstein’s monster type collage,” Allen says. “We were really leaning into a mutual love for CAN, Aphex Twin and Queens of the Stone Age.”

The album featured the broodingly cinematic and uneasy album title track “Croak Dream.”

Yesterday, Allen announced that the deluxe edition of Croak Dream, Croak Deluxe is slated for a November 13, 2026 release through Play It Again Sam. Croak Deluxe will include five previously unreleased tracks along with four live recordings. The result is an effort that expands upon the trip hop, dub and nocturnal crooning of the acclaimed, previously released Croak Dream.

Along with the album announcement, Allen shared the previously unreleased “Whispering” is a slow-burning, hypnotic trip-hop-tinged lullaby with twinkling keys and dusty, boom bap beats paired with Allen’s soulful, breathy croon.

“Anything left on the cutting room floor usually stays that way in my creative process,” Allen says. ““If a song doesn’t fit on an album, I either feel like I have unfinished business with it on the next one, or maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. ‘Whispering’ is a curious song to me because sonically, thematically – it’s a sibling of the other songs on the record. It just wasn’t ready in time. It’s been a rare pleasure to see it through.”

Single Review by William Ruben HelmsOct 21, 202621:00

New Audio: Warhaus Shares Thumping, Club Friendly “One Day”

Belgian singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Maarten Delvodere is the co-lead vocalist and one-half of the songwriting team behind the acclaimed JOVM mainstay outfit Balthazar — and he’s the creative mastermind behind the equally acclaimed JOVM mainstay project Warhaus.

Devoldere’s fifth Warhaus album The Donkey is slated for a January 15, 2027 release through Play It Again Sam. The Donkey is reportedly Belvedere’s most raw and instinctive Warhuas effort of his career to date. As the backstory to the album goes: Delvodere was at home with his girlfriend and his dog, happy, calm and super zen. Nothing but peace and quiet in his life. But an overdose of peace of mind can be dangerous too; that’s how much energy came pouring out when he started writing the material which would eventually comprise The Donkey.

The filter was gone, the anesthetic had worn off and suddenly he wanted something else — something rawer, something perhaps more real? For years, he had churned out a collection of dandyish pop with each song better than the last with an almost insulting ease. So he wondered: what if he threw those beautiful, golden melodies out the window and wrought the primal urges lurking inside his chest?

The Donkey will include the previously released “The Baby” and “Simple Pleasures,” as well as the album’s third and latests single “One Day.” “One Day” is a swaggering, industrial-leaning banger, built around tweeter and woofer rattling beats, twinkling keys, and arpeggiated synth breaks beneath Devoldere’s punchy yet melodic delivery. It may arguably be the most invigorated and primal tune of Devoldere’s growing catalog. At it score, the song sees the JOVM mainstay playing with contrasting moods. pairing the familiar tropes and language of a love song with an uneasy, tense soundscape.

Devoldere explains that “I wanted the band to sound like a DJ. I wanted the love song to sound like a threat.”

Single Review by William Ruben HelmsOct 21, 202618:00

New Audio: These Girls Are Electric Return with Cinematic “Our Day”

Indie electronic music duo These Girls Are Electric — Harris (vocals, organ, piano, synths, guitar, bass and sound design) and Zeno (vocals. guitars. bass, synths and sound design) — can trace the origins of their project back several decades: The longtime friends from Stuttgart began recording music in their bedrooms as teenagers in the 1980s. The duo cut their teeth in the local underground scene, playing in several bands in their youth including My Nature, First Approach, The B’Captains and Die Frohe Bootsfahrt among others.

Their early sound can be described as a melancholic blend of New Wave, synth pop, and underground music that was strange but frequently catchy. And over the years. they worked closely with several local musical heroes.

For the better part of the past two decades, the pair would meet at Musikladen Studio — a place packed with vintage synths, dusty guitars and humming computers, where time seemed to fold in on itself. During improvised sessions that they’ve dubbed “magnetic sessions,” the German duo would create raw, intuitive song sketches. Then they would start production: Selected material is reassembled without losing the original feel. Recordings from their “magnetic sessions” are re-edited, sorted and integrated into thee songs to preserve as much of the studio session feeling as possible.

As These Girls Are Electric, the German duo’s sound is a blend of electronica, lo-fi pop, post-punk and experimental soundscapes. Lyrically, the duo’s work revolves around love, hate, space, philosophy and the search for a lost universe — or a paradise that may have never existed. In their world, artificial intelligences meet broken hearts, cyborgs conjure childhood memories and stardust cigarette light tells stories of humanity in transition. Each song within their catalog is part of a multi-voiced narrative about life in a post-human world and the search for meaning, connection and renewal.

Last month I wrote about the broodingly atmospheric “Ghost In The Bottle.” The duo’s latest single “One Day” strikes me as being a bit of a blend of Public Service Broadcasting and Joy Division/Interpol-like post punk that showcases the German duo’s ability to craft cinematic and broodingly atmospheric material with catchy hooks and anthemic choruses that give the song a reflective yet urgent feel.

The duo explain that “‘One Day’ explores inner struggle, fading ideals and the search for meaning through cryptic, surreal imagery. The refrain ‘This is our day‘ captures a quiet sense of resilience, balancing melancholy with hope.”

Video by William Ruben HelmsOct 21, 202613:00

Throwback: Happy 102nd Birthday, Celia Cruz!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 102nd anniversary of the birth of Celia Cruz.

Video by William Ruben HelmsOct 21, 202609:00

Throwback: Happy 109th Birthday, Dizzy Gillespie!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 109th anniversary of the birth of Dizzy Gillespie.

Video by William Ruben HelmsOct 20, 202618:30

Lyric Video: Philadelphia’s Soul Glo Teams Up with Tunde Adebimpe on Bruising Yet Vulnerable “Ppl Worried”

Since forming in Philadelphia back in 2014, rising punk outfit Soul Glo — currently Pierce Jordan (vocals, bass), GG Guerra (guitar, bass, vocals, programming) and TJ Stevenson (drums) — was dubbed the “future of hardcore” by Pitchfork after the release of 2022’s breakout effort, Diaspora Problems, a culmination of nearly a decade of playing basements, small clubs and DIY spaces and creative development.

Diaspora Problems has amassed over 14 million streams and critical praise from the likes of BrooklynVegan, who called it “. . . one of the best punk albums released in recent memory” and Pitchfork lauding its mix of ” . . . radical, actionable rhetoric, absurdist humor, and breathtaking vulnerability.” And building upon a rapidly growing profile, the band has been touring extensively, including opening for My Chemical Romance, paying Coachella’s Sonora Stage in 2023 — and they played the first hardcore set at NPR Tiny Desk.

The Philadelphia punks are currently on your with Chat Pile, Virga and Shallowater. The tour includes a November 10, 2026 stop at Brooklyn Steel, a hometown show on November 11, 2026 at Union Transfer, and more. Tour dates are below. And for more information, including tickets, check out: https://soulglophl.com/tour

The band’s newest album, NA I’M GON GRAB ALLAT is slated for a January 15, 2027 release through Epitaph Records. Simultaneously more intense and more approachable than Diaspora Problems, Recorded at Philadelphia-based Foto Club, NA I’M GON GRAB ALLAT isn’t all guitar-driven wth frenetic drum patterns and heavy hip-hop beats. The album features guest appearances from Commitment’s Tati Salazar, Mannequin Pussy’s Bear, New York-based experimental rapper MIKE, Chattanooga-based genre-defying rapper BbyMutha, Whipping Boy, OXBOW, and Buñuel frontman Eugene Robinson, and TV On The Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe. But the band retains the familiar elements of their sound: fast, frantic playing, Jordan’s mile-a-minute delivery and Stevenson’s imitable drumming. The result is more than just a collection of 14 songs, but a profound and compelling journey through the complexities of surviving modern existence — hopefully with your dignity and sanity intact.

Throughout the album’s runtime, community is front of mind on the album’s lyrics, which the band’s Jordan Pierce describes as being “largely about failures, mine and others, in my relationships with different men in my life.” Having a long-held reputation as a vulnerable, funny and soul-baring lyricist, Pierce’s lyrics explores the idea that men live “constantly at the expense of everyone” while speaking of the Black experience within the punk and hardcore scene and everything life, resentment, relationship anxieties, drug abuse, self-discovery and breaking down the “male loneliness epidemic.” Pierce dedicates the album to “everyone, who has known the joy and pain of loving a man. All different types of love: platonic, romantic, familial, self.’

NA I’M GON GRAB ALLAT‘s latest single “Ppl Worried” feat. Tunde Adebimpe is frantic, swaggering and bruising, mosh pit friendly ripper anchored around the lived-in, deeply confessional thoughts of a dysfunctional yet very human narrator, wrestling with losing oneself in grief and heartbreak, the numbing solitude of addiction and cycles of self-sabotage with a vulnerable, self-awareness that’s unvarnished and all too real.

Video by William Ruben HelmsOct 20, 202613:00

Throwback: Happy 76th Birthday, Tom Petty!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 76th anniversary of the birth of Tom Petty.

Video by William Ruben HelmsOct 20, 202609:00

Throwback: Happy 55th Birthday, Snoop Dogg!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Snoop Dogg’s 55th birthday.

Video by William Ruben HelmsOct 19, 202621:45

New Video: AN_NA Shares Glitchy Visual for Seething “Too Much”

French-born, Montréal-based married couple and electronic music duo AN_NA formed over three decades ago. And over the course of their lengthy careers, they’ve used their experiences within electronic music, industrial and experimental music scenes to create a unique sound that sees them frequently experimenting with different styles and genres. Their long-held penchant for experimentation has given them the space to evolve as artists, while keeping them open to new ideas and influences that they readily incorporate into their own songwriting approach.

If you’ve worked in the music industry long enough, you’ll recognize that surveying longer than a few seconds in a hyper-competitive and often cutthroat industry is extremely difficult. But for the Montréal-based duo, they’ve credited their longevity to being true to their art — and to making music that they’re passionate about.

“Too Much,” is the French-born, Canadian-based duo’s latest single — and the first since the release of 2024’s sophomore album More Pills. Arguably one of the more confrontational songs of the duo’s catalog to date, “Too Much” is a seething song, featuring propulsive, tweeter and woofer rattling, industrial thump and scorching synth oscillations beneath an unhinged Nicola Kuperus-like vocal performance that’s defiant, furious and paranoid within a turn of a phrase.

While being a club banger for a dystopian age that’s inching ever so much closer to the apocalypse, “Too Much” as the duo explains finds them moving a bit closer to their punk roots. “Having lost none of our rage, ‘Too Much’ explores, without embellishment, the questions surrounding violence.”

The accompanying video for “Too Much” features the duo performing the song in a darkened club with hot, analog/VHS fuzz and glitch that undulates with the song’s propulsive thump.

Single Review by William Ruben HelmsOct 19, 202617:45

New Audio: Mother Soki Shares Atmospheric “Mussel”

Minneapolis-based singer/songwriter Annie Tammeru is the creative mastermind behind the rising dream pop/electro pop recording project Mother Soki. Tammeru’s Mother Soki project received attention with last year’s “Rivet Gun,” a track built around beguiling, otherworldly textures and production paired with the Minneapolis-based artist’s velvety vocals caught the attention of millions across social media platforms, amassing over 26 million streams on Spotify.

Quickly building upon the growing momentum, Tammeru closed out last year with her debut EP, Fantasy, which she supported with a fall tour opening for Towa Bird.

The Minneapolis-based artist’s sophomore EP, Act 2 is slated for a November 20, 2026 release through Mom + Pop. Working with producers Jack Pfeffer and Bradley Hale, Tammeru set out to make something “uncanny and uncomfortable, that’s also very beautiful and digestible.” She goes on to describe the EP as a list of mantras and counter-mantras tied to the same world,” with repeated thoughts that mirror a ruminating mind. Sonically, sterile, computer-recorded stems were run through a multitrack tape machine, with speed adjusted on the fly, to pick up analog artifacts — and to blur past and present. Her mood board for the EP included The Cocteau Twins, Prince and Joni Mitchell’s experimental 80s records to David Lynch and the puppetry of The Neverending Story and Labyrinth.

“I like to think of Act 2 as like a journal entry,” Tammearu says. “I think it really speaks to where I’m at right now — I’m sort of at a crossroads of becoming a person.”

The EP will include the previously released “The Rot” and “Thicken,” as well as the EP’s third and latest single “Mussel.” Sounding a bit like a Jorge Elbrecht-produced tune, “Mussel” is built around atmospheric downbeat synths, twinkling electronics and crackling and metallic beats beneath Tammeru’s delicate delivery singing the mantra “Nothing’s ever gonna change” until it stops sounding like a statement and stars sounding more like an incurable symptom.

Tammeru says of the new single “Everything is different. Everything is the same.”

Video by William Ruben HelmsOct 19, 202613:30

New Video: Shudder To Think Shares Atmospheric and Intimate “Release The Ball”

Back in 2024 Shudder To Think — currently Craig Wedren (vocals), Nathan Larson (guitar), Clint Walsh (guitar), Jherek Bischoff (bass) and Adam Wade (drums) — celebrated the 30th anniversary of their groundbreaking 1994 effort, Pony Express Record, their Epic Records debut, which followed several releases on Dischord Records.

After the initial release of Pony Express Record, the band dove into the world of scoring films and creating music for soundtracks with the 1998 releases of Jesse Peretz’s First Love, Last Rites, Lisa Cholodenko’s High Art and Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine. Shudder to Think’s Wedren and Larson have gone to be prolific film and television with Wedren working on YELLOWJACKETS, Wet Hot American Summer, School of Rock, Laurel Canyon and more; and Larson working on Our Idiot Brother, The Skeleton Twins, Juliet, Naked, the High Fidelity TV series and a list of others.

Last year, the band made their first live performances in over a decade and released the “Thirst Walk”/”Playback” 7 inch, which drew on the band’s classic, beloved sound — melodic, unpredictable and unmistakably their own. The 7 inch vinyl sold out quickly and was repressed for the band’s most recent run of live dates. And if you’ve been frequenting this site, you’d recall that the band recently released the three-song Who Sent You EP, the first new effort from the band in almost 30 years. The EP includes the previously released, semi-autobiographical EP title track ““Who Sent You,” their cover of Depeche Mode’s “Something To Do” off 1984’s Some Great Reward and the EP’s third and final single “Release The Ball.”

“Release The Ball” is a stark, atmospheric tune built around a looping, metronomic-like guitar figure, bursts of caterwauling synths and a metronomic drum patterns beneath Craig Wedren’s yearning delivery.

“Craig had a little looping guitar figure inspired by Arthur Russell,” the band says. ” He threw the idea down so as not to forget it, sang a mostly-gibberish vocal, and sent it to the band as something that could be turned into something. But Adam was like ‘no, leave it! It’s cool.’ So we added some rhythm and texture to the demo, served with love.”

Directed by the band’s Craig Wedren, the accompanying black and white video reflects the song’s stark, intimate nature, featuring live footage of the band projected onto a glittering disco ball.