Author: William Ruben Helms

William Ruben Helms is a Corona, Queens, NYC-born and-based African American music journalist, freelance writer, editor, photographer and founder of the DIY, independent music and photography site, The Joy of Violent Movement. Over the course of the past two decades, Helms’ writing and photography has been published in Downbeat, Premier Guitar Magazine (photography), Consequence, The Inventory, Glide Magazine.com (words and photography), Publisher’s Weekly, Sheckys.com, Shecky’s Bar and Nightlife Guide 2004, New York Press, Ins&Outs Magazine, Dish Du Jour Magazine, Aussie music publication Musicology.xyz (photography) and countless others, including his own site. With The Joy of Violent Movement, Helms specializes in covering music with an eclectic, globe-trotting, and genre-defying perspective that’s deeply inspired by and informed by his birthplace and home, arguably one of the most diverse places in the world. Since its founding back in 2010, The Joy of Violent Movement can proudly claim readers across the US, Canada, the UK, The Netherlands, France, Australia, and several others throughout its history. https://www.joyofviolentmovement.com https://www.joyofviolentmovement.com/shop https://www.instagram.com/william_ruben_helms Twitter: @yankee32879 @joyofviolent become a fan of the joy of violent movement: https://www.facebook.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement support the joy of violent movement on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement hire me for headshots, portraits and event photography: https://www.photobooker.com/photographer/ny/new-york/william-h?duration=1?duration=1#
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: TOMORA Shares Dazzling and Euphoric “Celebration”

TOMORA is a collaborative project featuring:

  • The Chemical Brothers‘ Tom Rowlands: As one-half of The Chemical Brothers, Rowlands has produced and recorded six widely acclaimed UK #1 albums and won six Grammy Awards.

  • Norwegian artist AURORA: AURORA has released four studio albums and has quickly become one of Norway’s most influential and globally recognized contemporary artists. Her single “Runaway” has amassed over one-billion Spotify streams to date.

TOMORA builds upon a creative relationship that can be traced to the recording sessions for The Chemical Brothers’ 2019 album No Geography. AURORA contributed vocals to three tracks, including “Eve of Destruction.” Rowlands then went on to contribute to AURORA’s 2024 effort, What Happened to the Heart?, which landed on the UK Top 10.

Released earlier this year through Capitol Records, the duo’s full-length debut, COME CLOSER was written and produced jointly by Rowlands and AURORA. The 12-song album sees the duo pairing the Norwegian artist’s distinctive vocal with the acclaimed British producer’s unparalleled studio expertise. The album sees the duo creating their own unique space, somewhere they can produce the kind of magic that comes from flicking through a perfect record collection, flowing from wigged-out 1960s psychedelia to the hyper-futurism of sounds imagined for the 2060s. 

The critically applauded album includes the previously released singles “COME CLOSER” “SOMEWHERE ELSE” and “I DRINK THE LIGHT.”

After two wildly successful tour runs that included festival sets at Coachella, Fuji Rock and others, the duo went to Rowlands’ Sussex, UK-based Rowlands Audio Research Studio to record COME CLOSER‘s highly-anticipated follow-up, the five-song CELEBRATION EP. Slated for an October 16, 2026 digital release and a November 27, 2026 physical release through Capital Records. The physical release will include a standard 12″ black vinyl, a special marbled vinyl and CD formats. You can pre-order the EP here.

The acclaimed duo say of the EP: “Celebration is a privilege. Celebration is a person. Celebration is a funeral and celebration is a ritual. It’s human nature. And it’s a human need. We should all be celebrated, as real human beings.”

The new EP will include the expanded, ten-minute version of album track, “IN A MINUTE,” and EP title track “Celebration.” “Celebration” features a dazzlingly hypnotic production anchored around motorik-like electronic pulse and club rocking, thumping beats beneath AURORA’s imitable, ethereal and yearning delivery. The result is a track that feels simultaneously immediate and expansive, introspective yet outward-looking, and yearning for ecstatic release.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Zachhae’us Paul Teams Up with donSMITH, Safa and Milena Casado on Down To Mars-Produced, Quiet Storm-like “STAY”

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 […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Leon Bridges Returns with Sultry and Soulful “Watch You Dance”

Atlanta-born, Fort Worth, TX-raised singer/songwriter and musician Leon Bridges quickly established himself as one of America’s most exciting new artists with 2015’s platinum-certified, Grammy Award-nominated debut Coming Home, which featured breakout singles “Coming Home” and “River.” Bridges followed up with 2018’s critically applauded Good Thing, which saw him expanding upon his sonic panic while earning a Grammy Award-nomination for Best R&B Album and a Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance for “Bet Ain’t Worth the Hand.”

2021’s Gold-Diggers Sound was the acclaimed Atlanta-born, Fort Worth-based artist’s most adventurous album to date, and the album received critical applause while earning another Grammy Award-nomination for Best R&B Album. His most recent album, 2024’s Lean is an introspective effort inspired by his Texan roots and his artistic evolution.

Along with his solo work, Bridges has collaborated with the equally acclaimed act Khraungbin on two albums — 2020’s Texas Sun and 2022’s Texas Moon. In a relatively short time he has earned six Grammy Award-nomiations — three for Best R&B Album — and a Grammy Award-win, has also collaborated with an eclectic array of artists, including John Mayer, Kacey Musgraves, Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, Gunna, The Avanlanches, Gary Clark, Jr. and Shaboozey, all of which showcase a remarkably versatile artist.

Adding to a rapidly growing profile, Bridges has a long-held reputation as a captivating live performer, who has made a run of the global concert and festival circuit, playing an increasing number of the world’s major festivals while making appearances on Saturday Night Live, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert and Austin City Limits.

Bridges’ fourth album, the J Lloyd-Watson and Lydia Kitto-produced fifth album, Happiness Anytime is slated for a Friday release through Columbia Records. Happiness Anytime reportedly sees the acclaimed Atlanta-born, Fort Worth-based artist returning to the warmth of his 2015 debut but while seeing the members of Jungle and Bridges’ signature sensibilities blending to create something entirely new — an expansive, borderless sound and approach that pushes the Grammy Award-winning artist into brand new territory. The material reportedly echoes Fela Kuti, Paul Simon’s 1990 effort The Rhythm of The Saints and Jorge Ben without feeling overly referential. At its core, the album is reportedly boundary pushing while remaining unmistakably Leon Bridges, rooted in his imitable vocal, effortless charisma and melodic sensibilities.

The album was written and recorded across three fast and furious sessions with Lloyd-Watson and Kitto, a collaboration that can trace its origins to the trio repeatedly crossing paths across the global festival circuit. The trio decided to attempt a low-pressure writing session at Los Angeles-based Chaplin Recording Studios. Four days later, they had come up with six songs — half of the completed album. Pino Palladino contributed bass during the sessions. The overall end result is a timeless body of work that feels unfussy and breezy — that they all hope will make the listener feel happiness anytime they play it.

“For me, happiness is not a feeling that you chase,” Bridges says,“I want this album to be something that lingers with people and lingers in people’s bones. There’s this feeling that we have to fix the problems of the world; you feel inadequate or it can be debilitating. My role is to be light. I hope that comes across with this album.” With Happiness Anytime, Bridges actively sets out with a desire to not only find joy but to find movement again.

Early in his career, Bridges was out in front dancing — and that was something that has wanted recently. He wanted to get back to making music to dance to, music to excise the stresses and frustrations of modern life, and to feel grounded in the rhythms of the present. Interestingly, over the summer, he has been introducing audiences to the new album with sets in Paris, Cannes, Los Angeles, Montreux Jazz Festival, London, Chicago and Outside Lands. And as he has being playing the new material live, he has unveiled “Leon Bridges Presents Happiness Anytime,” a reimagined stage production featuring a vinyl DJ, a horn section, three backing vocalists and Bridges out in front dancing and singing. Partly inspired by the communal spirt of Jamaican dancehall culture, the live set mirrors the album’s emphasis on movement — and on dancing your stresses and frustrations away for a bit. You can see what the live show will look like during his most recent appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he performed medley of tunes from the soon-to-be-released album — the strutting Afrobeat-meets-1970s Motown soul-like “Light The Way” and “Illusion” and jubilant, joyous ode to working things out “Talk It Over.”

“Watch You Dance,” Happiness Anytime‘s latest single is a strutting and sultry bit of neo-soul meets classic soul that feels like a funky, dance floor friendly synthesis of Black Pumas, Cody Chesnutt, Daptone Records and Marvin Gaye‘s “Got To Give It Up” but anchored in old-school craft, earnest, seemingly lived-in lyricism and a grown ass folks sensuality. The song’s narrator knows that seduction is a game that you have to play — and he knows how to play it well.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 68th Birthday, Joan Jett!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Joan Jett’s 68th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 92nd Birthday, Leonard Cohen!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates 92nd anniversary of the brith of Lenoard Cohen.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 58th Birthday, David Jolicouer, a.k.a Trugoy The Dove, a.k.a. Plug Two!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 58th anniversary of the birth of De La Soul’s David Jolicouer, a.k.a Trugoy The Dove, a.k.a. Plug Two.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 40th Birthday, Faris Badwan!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates The Horrors frontman Faris Badwan’s 40th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Dummy Shares Double Single “April Limousine”/”Alluvial Fan”

Los Angeles-based outfit Dummy — Alex Ewell, Emma Maatman, Nathan O’Dell, Joe Trainor and Lance Umble — will be releasing their fourth studio album, do you love the color of the sky on October 16, 2026 through Polyvinyl. If 2024’s Free Energy and its subsequent remix album evoked the spirit of Manchester and the optimism of the rave, do you love the color of the sky is reportedly rooted in a lyrical skepticism inspired by the post-rock and drone of Seefeel, Windy & Carl and Disco Inferno while playfully adorned in the jubilant pop hues of early Björk, The Sundays and Ray of Light-era Madonna. The album is essentially an anti-zeitgeist effort, freezing the listener into their incorporeal moment of time, freed from the rat race and trends, embracing insularity to the point that it somehow becomes the future.

And yet despite the allusions to futurism, the Los Angeles-based outfit are a band in the classic sense, grounded in work ethic and commitment to the music. As Joe Trainor says of their time since the release of Free Energy, “We toured a lot, around 150 days, and played approximately 113 shows” which included several tours of the US and two of Europe, “. . . and on larger stages than ever before.” Alex Ewell adds “Touring has had huge impact on us and our music.”

“Making music shouldn’t be fun,” the band jokingly asserts. But it also comes from earnestness and a love for the game so deep that they don’t want to cheat it. The blood, sweat and tears of “putting in the work” is at the heart of do you love the color of the sky? — a byproduct of shedding skins through live performance. Sonically, the album is a bold, creative and downright effortless leap forward for the Los Angeles-based quartet that finds them at their most creatively in-tune.

Thematically, the album may arguably be their most politically trenchant and yet simultaneously, their most inviting. Breakbeats and keyboardist Emma Maatman’s vocals belie a mischievous and purposeful sleight of hand — the listener may become entranced by the band’s hypnotic grooves, but they’ve also subconsciously accrued a vision of a new, radical politic, informed by our increasingly dystopian hellscape.

do you love the color of the sky will include the previously released “Full Spectrum Dominance” and the double single “April Limousine”/”Alluvial Fan.” “April Limousine” serves as the literal introduction to the album and inlaces references to every other song, including demos that didn’t make the cut. Featuring skittering breakbeats, glistening synths beneath Manama’s dreamy delivery, “April Limousine” reminds me a little bit of Earthling-era David Bowie — in particular “Little Wonder” — with a little bit of 90s and early 2000s big beat. “It leaves you with the thesis statement and the question, ‘do you love the color of the sky?’ … among others,” Dummy’s Emma Maatman says. “The video is supposed to show a dichotomy of the beauty of nature and the chaos of impending technological advancement, which leads us into the next song, ‘Alluvial Fan.’ In the video, Nathan is drawn by a mysterious force to the wires around him.”

“Alluvial Fan” on the other hand features glistening reverb-soaked synth stabs, boom bap-like breakbeats beneath Nathan O’Dell’s dreamily delivered lead vocal and the melodic toplines of the band’s Maatman, Alex Ewell and O’Dell. Sonically, recalling a bit of New Order, Electronic, The Horrors, and Absolutely Free, “Alluvial Fan” may arguably be the most atmospheric and downright trippy tune of the released singles off the album. “The lyrics are a hybrid of two ideas,” the band’s Nathan O’Dell says. “The first being based on imagery from a certain 2000’s anime where the goal of mass digital connection blurs the lines of our human reality and a sense of self. One can’t help but follow the humming wires further and further until they are completely lost in the ‘Wired’ web. The other idea is the phenomenon of Alluvial Fans. They’re sick… check them out. This song also features some silky smooth vocals from Allyson and Paul from New Issue.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rose Spiegel Shares Earnest, Mind-Bending “A Good Thing”

Rose Spiegel is a multi-disciplinary artist with a lifelong passion for music. Although she primarily works in pop and rock, her overall sound and approach is ever-changing and experimental. She explains that sometimes her songs tell stories of people and places that don’t exist, while at other times, they are personal reflections meant to help her better understand herself.

“As an artist in both visual and sonic fields, the work I put out is abstracted, inventive, often humorous and always straight from my heart and mind,” Spiegel says.

Spiegel’s latest single “A Good Thing” seemingly channels the likes of Soccer Mommy and Julia Jacklin but featuring a mind-bending and mischievous experimental bent with glitchy electronics and brooding bass synths towards the song’s closing section. The song rooted in astute observation and a novelistic attention to small, psychological detail while expressing frustration, exhaustion and devotion within the turn of a phrase.

“This song deals with the struggle of empathy and being a caregiver in any capacity,” Spiegel explains. “It’s about the difficult realization that caring for and loving someone does not equate to personal fulfillment. The good thing in question here is love and care. Too much of it and you’re suffocating. Notenough and you’re left completely empty. This goes for both the giver and the recipient.

“I often find myself writing about the painful side of excess empathy. There’s a joy and comfort in knowing you can help those who need it, but when it becomes obligatory it diminishes the kindness to a tool that others can use when needed.

There’s also a depressing helplessness that appears when you’ve reduced yourself to being someone’s savior. If you aren’t able to solve the issue than what good are you? This is especially complicated when dealing with a problem with no solution.”