JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrants Talking Heads guitarist Jerry Harrison’s 77th birthday.
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.
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Throwback: Happy 66th Birthday, Steve Wynn!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Steve Wynn’s 66th birthday.
Throwback: Happy Black History Month!/Happy Belated 83rd Birthday, Maceo Parker!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and belatedly, Maceo Parker’s 83rd birthday.
Throwback: Happy 59th Birthday, Kurt Cobain!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 59th anniversary of the birth of Kurt Cobain.
Throwback: Happy 76th Birthday, Walter Becker!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 76th anniversary of the birth of Steely Dan’s Walter Becker.
New Video: Lucid Express Shares Dreamy and Yearning “Promise Me”
Hong Kong-based shoegazers and JOVM mainstays Lucid Express just released their long-awaited and highly anticipated sophomore album Instant Comfort today through Kanine Records.
Mixed by Kurt Feldman during marathon overnight, transpacific sessions on Discord, Instant Comfort reportedly captures the unsettling stillness of the nighttime hours. The album’s material sonically sees the Hong Kong-based JOVM mainstays pairing ethereal melodies with towering walls of jangling guitars and hazy, swirling feedback while being more clear-eyed, complex and layered than anything they’ve released to date.
The album includes the previously released “Something Blue,” and “Faux Sweetness,“as well as the album’s latest single “Promise Me.” Featuring towering layers of shimmering and churning guitars, thundering hi-hat driven drumming serving as a lush and eerily uneasy bed for Kim Ho’s ethereal and yearning vocal.
Directed and filmed by fellow Hong Kong native Neo Yeung, the accompanying video is a mix of live performance-styled footage and candid footage shot over the course of a day-long shoot.
New Video: Chicago’s Snowcuffs Shares Hazy and Anthemic “Burst”
Formed back in 2022, Chicago-based dream pop outfit Snowcuffs features members of Lightfoils and Astrobrite, Their debut EP, last year’s Sink Down saw the band quickly establishing a sound that balanced shimmering textures and memorable hooks. Inspired by Alvvays, Beach House and Mazzy Star, their work frequently drifts between nostalgic haze and fuzz-driven intensity while thematically touching upon longing, reflection and fleeting beauty.
The band has shared stages with Cold Gawd, Seashine and Cigarettes for Breakfast, and played a standout set at Kalamashoegazer, the country’s longest-running shoegaze festival.
Building upon a growing profile in the national shoegaze and dream pop scenes, the Chicago-based outfit’s sophomore EP Sweet Gravity is slated for a March 5, 2026 release. Engineered by Sanford Parker at Hypercube Studios, mixed by Robert Cheek and mastered by Baseline Audio Labs’ Chris Goosman, Sweet Gravity EP reportedly sees the band showcasing refined songwriting and a much more expansive sound that pushes the boundaries of dream pop without losing its heart and soul.
Sweet Gravity EP‘s latest single “Burst” sees the band pairing shimmering and swirling guitar textures, a forcefully driving rhythm section and remarkably catchy, rousingly anthemic hooks with ethereal vocals. Sonically, “Burst” seemingly nods at 120 Minutes-era MTV shoegaze and alternative rock — but with a decidedly modern sensibility. And at its core is a song and a narrator struggling with crippling ambivalence and self-doubt.
The band explains that “‘Burst’ is about the struggle of trying to be everything at once, and what happens when inaction, ambivalence, and self-doubt slowly erode your options in life.
I wait and see
Stare at the tree
Will it die of thirst
And fall down on me?
Ambivalence isn’t neutral, it’s destructive.”
Directed by Dave Rentaukas, the accompanying video for “Burst” is split between footage of the band’s lead singer in a Chicago area park as the sun begins to set and the rest of the band performing in a studio in front brooding yet trippy projections.
New Audio: MADISON music Shares Euphoric and Summery “Feel It In My Soul”
MADISON music is an American DJ and producer, who creates high-energy electronic music from the heart and for the soup through blending peak-time club and festival bangers with melodic, emotional elements and uplifting hooks.
Each of his releases are designed to move bodies, elevate mind and connect people on the dance floor. His latest single “Feel It In My Soul” is a euphoric and summery bit of melodic house that sounds like it could rock festival stages and clubs in Miami, New York and Ibiza.
New Video: JOVM Mainstay Genesis Owusu Shares Breakneck “STAMPEDE”
Last year, the acclaimed multi-ARIA Award-winning Ghanian-born Canberra-based JOVM mainstay Genesis Owusu released two singles “PIRATE RADIO,” and “DEATH CULT ZOMBIE,” the first bit of new material since the release of 2023’s acclaimed STRUGGLER.
The JOVM mainstay’s first single of 2026, “STAMPEDE” is anchored around the acclaimed Ghanian-Australian artist’s punchy punk rock-meets-hip-hop delivery and a breakneck production featuring menacing, reverb-drenched synth subs, skittering and relentless military-like motorik pulse. The song conveys the desperate urgency of our moment while being a rallying cry to prioritize community and unity as a way out of our techno-feudalist/Christo-fascist hellscape.
“Left side to the right side, front side to the back,” he says in his latest offering, “we’re all in this together. And there’s a real problem. There are people who have expansive amounts of money, who are intentionally acting to separate us so they can keep getting richer at the expense of general human wellbeing. We’re all under that same thumb and we need to realise that.”
Continuing an ongoing collaboration with Isaac Brown, the accompanying video for “STAMPEDE” was filmed in the streets and surroundings of Accra and turns Owusu’s worlds to life: an army of rebels mobilize on motorcycles and horseback around him.
“This whole project is about humanity and community, not just in Australia where I live, but globally. It felt nourishing to go back to my home country (Ghana) for the first time in 11 years and showcase a bit of the culture there; the youth and the deep subcultures, far beyond the perceptions a lot of people may have of Africa,” says Owusu.
New Audio: Foo Fighters Share Sneering “Your Favorite Toy”
Foo Fighters — Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiftlet, Pat Smear, Rami Jaffee and Ilan Rubin — will be releasing their 12th full-length studio album, the Foo Fighters and Oliver Roman co-produced Your Favorite Toy on April 24, 2026 through Roswell Records/RCA Records.
The album was recorded at home and engineered by Roman and mixed by Mark “Spike” Stent and will include the previously released “Asking For a Friend,” and the album’s second and latest single, album title track “Your Favorite Toy.”
“Your Favorite Toy” manages to sound distinctly Foo Fighters, anchored around their unerring knack for remarkably catchy hooks and rousingly anthemic hooks but showcasing what may arguably be the grittiest, nastiest song of their extensive catalog with jagged guitar shards, menacing key stabs weave atop of a relentless, motorik-like pulse while Grohl takes up a much more sardonic vocal tone throughout.
“’Your Favorite Toy’ really was the key that unlocked the tone and energetic direction of the new album,” Dave Grohl says. “We stumbled upon it after experimenting with different sounds and dynamics for over a year, and the day it took shape I knew that we had to follow its lead. It was the fuse to the powder keg of songs we wound up recording for this record. It feels new.”
Throwback: Happy Black History Month!/Happy 86th Birthday, Smokey Robinson!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Smokey Robinson’s 86th birthday.
Throwback: Happy Black History Month!/Happy 63rd Birthday, Seal!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Seal’s 63rd birthday.
Throwback: Happy 60th Birthday, Prince Markie Dee!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 60th anniversary of the birth of Prince Markie Dee.
New Audio: LutchamaK Shares Propulsive Banger “Extra Information”
French electronic music producer and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK continues to be restlessly prolific with the recent release of the four-song Extra Information through Urban Kickz Recordings‘ Special Series.
Extra Information as the JOVM mainstay explains features material that’s slightly slow in pace, richer in tone and layered with color. The result is an EP that specifically focuses on grove, while proving that you can be hypnotic without having to make frenetic material. The EP’s latest single, title track “Extra Information” showcases the French producer’s commitment to melodic house, pairing a chopped up vocal sample with rolling, propulsive beats and warm synth textures. “It’s restrained but alive – subtle melodic fragments and atmospheric detail weave through the rhythm, giving the track depth beyond its tight framework,” LutchamaK says.
The result is a song that’s both club and lounge friendly, while nodding at Kraftwerk and “Rhythm Is A Dancer“-era Snap!