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

Since their formation in early 2014, the Leeds, UK-based indie rock/psych rock trio The Boxing, comprised of Harrison Warke (vocals, guitar), Henry Chatham (bass) and Charlie Webb (drums), have quickly asserted themselves as part of their hometown’s burgeoning, contemporary indie rock and psych rock scenes, and they’ve already drawn some comparisons to the likes of W.H. Lung, Eagulls and JOVM mainstays The Vryll Society.

The Leeds-based psych rock trio’s latest single “One by One” is a brooding track featuring swirling and shimmering guitar chords, a propulsive motorik groove, led by a sinuous bass line and steady drumming paired with a soaring hook and a whispered croon reminiscent of The Horrors‘ Faris Badwan — and while possessing a modern production sheen, the song as the band’s Harrison Warke explains is an elaboration of their first couple of singles, as it’s the first single that they’ve recorded in a proper studio. Naturally, the studio recording process  gave the members of the band the freedom and ability to experiment and flesh out the overall arrangement in a way that they were unable to do before. And interestingly enough, while the song possesses a contemporary studio sheen, it manages to also nod at the sound of classic shoegaze and 4AD Records‘ early days — while thematically speaking, focusing on “depression and the culture of silence around it,” as Warke explained in press notes; in fact, the song manages to accurately capture the song’s narrator’s free-fall into a deeply overwhelming and crippling depression.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

 

Born in Zambia, raised in Botswana and currently based in Sydney, Australia, the 23 year old poet, visual artist, emcee, singer/songwriter and pop artist Sampa the Great, who publicly has cited Mos Def, Nina Simone, Lauryn Hill, Nneka, and others, as influences. And since the release of The Great Mixtape and collaborations with fellow Australians, pop artist Wallace on the skittering and jazzy single “Beauty” and internationally acclaimed Australian emcee Remi on the neo-soul and conscious hip-hop influenced “For Good,” the Sydney, Australia-based artist has quickly built up a growing internationally recognized profile as she’s opened for the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Thundercat, Hiatus Kaiyote, Ibeyi, Little Simz and Fat Freddy’s Drop, as well as played sets at Golden Plains, Sugar Mountain, Laneway, WOMAD and Vivid LIVE. However, 2017 may arguably be the Sampa the Great’s breakout year as her Rakhi-produced HERoes Act 2 was released yesterday through Red Bull Sound Select, and features the Sydney, Australia-based artist collaborating with Estelle. And while further cementing her reputation for a ridiculously dexterous flow that draws from spoken word performances, old school, hip-hop lyricism, with complex inner rhyme and multisyllabic rhyme schemes, old school soul and the blues and jazz, her latest single “The Plug” features Estelle and Sampa doing their thing with a swaggering, self-assuredness over a Timbaland-like production featuring futuristic bleeps and bloops, industrial clang and clatter, glitchy and shuffling beats and swirling electronics.

HERoes Act 2 is the second part of a two part narrative series of songs and genre-defying collaborative projects with Act being a spoken-world video, 2 track exploration into self-discovery and inner strength within a world that’s gone mad with uncertainty, racism and fear. “The Plug,” like the two other songs on the EP continue in a similar vein while continuing her reputation for crafting material based around her own personal experiences as an outsider, her desire and need to create, and the recognition that as individuals and as a society, that we need to value the strength and abilities of the individual; but in terms of this particular song, the song leans towards recognizing and championing the god-given talents of the individual, while brushing away haters and nay-sayers, with your desire to make a name for yourself at what you can do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

DGTL CTL is a mysterious electro pop production and artist duo, whose production and songs draw from several different and very diverse styles, while possessing a flair for the avant-garde to craft an imitable sound that interestingly enough also manages to be incredibly radio friendly. The duo’s debut EP is now slated for  release sometime this summer. Now, you may recall that I earlier this year, I wrote about the EP’s first single “Elephant,” a track that that simultaneously nodded at slow-burning Quiet Storm-era R&B, a chilly but efficient minimalism paired with breezy atmospherics and a stark industrial electronica as it featured a production consisting of distorted and shuffling beats, gently swirling and undulating synths and achingly tender vocals with an infectious hook. Lyrically, the song’s narrator talked abotu falling for someone so deeply that they can’t quite figure out a way to actually express themselves. Every time, he thinks about trying to put HIS thoughts and feelings down on paper, it just doesn’t ever add up to the what he feels and thinks in his head. And worse yet, whenever he’s in the presence of his object of desire, they ‘re forced to acknowledge the proverbial elephant in the room — their unexpressed longing and desire for that person — and yet so many things are hopelessly left unsaid. By far, it was arguably one of the most sensual yet desperate songs I’ve heard this year.

The duo’s latest single “3 Strikes” continues on somewhat similar vein as its predecessor —  in the sense that the song manages to draw from Quiet Storm R&B; however, it also nods at the indie dance pop of Cut Copy and Midnight Juggernauts as brief blasts of electric guitar are paired with stomping, boom-bap beats, wobbling yet propulsive synths paired with achingly tender falsetto vocals detailing a relationship that consists of a dysfunctional push and pull between both parties, in which they both use and abuse each other, fight and fuss, and endlessly repeat. And as a result, the song bristles with a barely contained bitterness over a confusing situation that they can’t quite get out of and can’t seem to comprehend; after all, in terms of most human relationships, we’re drawn to people and situations that we can’t quite understand or recognize — and in this song, the song reflects that with an uncanny psychological accuracy while also continuing to be radio friendly.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Formed in 1964 by five American GIs station in Gelnhausen, Germany — Gary Burger, Larry Clark, Eddie Shaw, Dave Day and Roger Johnston — as The Torquays, before a name change to The Monks, the garage rock/avant garde rock quintet had quickly become bored of the already cemented, traditional rock format, and as a result, they were inspired to create what was considered a highly experimental sound and aesthetic comprised of hypnotic and driving rhythms, which minimalized the role of melody, innovative sound manipulation, copious feedback, shrill vocals and guitarist David Day’s frequent use of the six string banjo. They were also well known for their shocking appearance as they would frequently dress up like Catholic monks, complete with black habits, cinctures tied around their waists and their hair worn in partial tonsures.  And although they horrified and baffled audiences of their day, in the 50 years since their last known release, the members of the American-born, German-based quintet are now largely considered pioneers both of the avant garde movement and of punk rock, as their socially charged material — material, which had the band voicing objections to the Vietnam War and criticizing what they viewed as the increasing dehumanization of modern society and modern life.

As The Monks, the American-born, German-based quintet released a handful of singles during 1966-1967 — most notably “Complication,” which coincided with the release of their only full-length album Black Monk Time. Though the material released during that period achieved limited commercial success or attention, over the past few years, the band has become a cult-favorite act, thanks to a newfound interest in Black Monk Time by collectors and music obsessives looking for art rock and psych rock of the 60s and 70s, and appearances on several compilation albums, including Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968 — and along with that bands like The Dead Kennedys and The Beastie Boys have publicly cited The Monks as an influence on them.

With the release of 1999’s Five Upstarts Americans, a collection of rarities, B-sides and demo’d tracks from the Black Monk Time sessions, the members of the band reunited for a reunion show and a series of sporadic tours throughout the 2000s. For the better part of five decades, it was assumed that The Monks quietly split up after a handful of releases; however in a strange bit of a serendipity, the folks at Third Man Records were sent a treasure trove of unreleased and barely released, original photos of the band, newspaper clippings, business cards, letterhead, contracts, postcards and analog tapes, which contained unreleased material recorded sometime in early 1967, sometime around the time of the recording sessions of their final single “Love Can Tame the Wild”/”He Went Down to the Sea,” and after hours in the Top Ten Club, just before the band’s breakup.

From what the folks at Third Man Records could determine, the Hamburg Recordings 1967 EP, the EP’s first single “I’m Watching You” would have most likely been recorded on February 28, 1967 during the same sessions in which they recorded their final single — and while sounding completely of it era, nodding at the blue-eyed soul of The Righteous Brothers, the mod rock of The Who and The Kinks, as well as The Beach Boys and The Doors, the song possesses a swooning urgency that feels wild and unhinged, evoking the thoughts of someone who’s madly, desperate in love; but just under the surface, there’s an obsessive menace, as though the narrator may stalking his object of affection.

 

 

 

 

 

World Music by William Ruben Helms

Preview: Secret Solstice Festival 2017

With its inaugural run back in 2014, Reykjavik, Iceland’s Secret Solstice Festival has quickly become one of Iceland’s largest music festivals, featuring a diverse and eclectic array of established and internationally recognized artists, locally renowned acts and up-and-coming artists from all over the globe, performing in one of the most unique backdrops in the entire world – the roughly 72 hour period of near constant daylight Iceland experiences during the Summer Solstice, because of its proximity to the Arctic Circle. (After all, Reykjavik is the northernmost capital and administrative region of the northernmost country in the entire world.) Building upon its growing reputation as one of the world’s most unique music festivals, the fourth edition of the festival may arguably be one of the biggest and most diverse lineups to date as it includes Foo Fighters, Rick Ross, the UK electronic act The Prodigy, The Verve’s former frontman Richard Ashcroft, Pharoahe Monch, Chaka Khan, Foreign Beggars, Dubfire, Novelist, Rhye, Dusky and Chicago house music artist Kerri Chandler. Along with those artists, some of Iceland’s renowned acts, including Högni, Úlfur Úlfur, Amabadama, Emmsjé Gauti, GKR, Tiny, Aron Can, KSF, and Alvia Islandia will be performing. And adding to the 72 hour party vibe, the festival’s organizers have planned a series of electronic dance music takeovers and showcases featuring some of the world’s best party crews – including Ibiza’s Circoloco, Above & Beyond Records’ deep house imprint Ajunadeep Records’ dance floor collective Crew Love, ATG and Dubfire’s SCI+TEC among others.
Interestingly, for the second consecutive year, Secret Solstice is currently the only major music festival in the world to be certified CarbonNeutral®, as the festival sources almost all of their power needs from the use 100% renewable geothermal energy, hybrid vehicles provided by Toyota Iceland – and from offsetting any residual emissions through the purchase of high quality, verified carbon credits. Unlike any other festival I’ve attended or heard of, festivalgoers and artists alike can know that they’re being environmentally responsible while partying and catching some of the world’s most interesting artists. Of course, during a multi-day festival like Secret Solstice, it’s difficult and damn near impossible to catch everyone and everything, so consider me as a helpful guide – with some information on artists I’d love to catch while in Reykjavik.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past four years or so, you’ve come across a number of posts featuring the Seattle, WA-based JOVM mainstays Shabazz Palaces. Comprised of Digable Planets‘ Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler and multi-instrumentalist Tendai “Baba” Maraire, the son of Dumisani Maraire, the project continues Butler’s long-held reputation for being uncompromisingly different and for crafting material with pro-Black messages.

Butler and Maraire quietly released two albums in 2009 — their self-titled debut and Of Light, which caught the attention of renowned indie label Sub Pop Records, who signed the band and released 2011’s Black Up, an effort released to critically applause across the blogosphere and major media outlets for its kaleidoscopic sound paired with Butler’s witty and incredibly dexterous flow. While continuing to cement Butler’s and Mariare’s reputation for crafting incredibly weird, psychedelic-tinged hip hop paired with Butler’s ridiculously dexterous flow,  2014’s Lese Majesty was a decided change in sonic direction with much of the material possessing an eerie cosmic glow with even heavier low end — intergalactic trap, perhaps? Along with the decided change of direction, was a bold challenge to contemporary hip-hop artists. As Butler told the folks at NPR during an interview about Lese Majesty, “This endeavor that I pursue, that we all pursue in Shabazz Palaces, make no mistake, this is an attack. We’re trying to show off and really stunt on all other rappers and let them know that this is our style, this is what we do and we’re ready to put it up against anybody else’s stuff.”

Up until recently, some time had passed since I had written about Shabazz Palaces. After all both Maraire and Butler had been busy with separate creative pursuits — in 2015, Maraire had written and released material with his side project, Chimurenga Renaissance and Butler spent last year on a reunion tour with the members of Digable Planets, a tour that has continued with some dates this year — including later this month at Brooklyn’s House of Vans. But interestingly enough, the duo of Butler and Maraire had also managed to be wildly prolific during that period writing and recording material for two albums  — Quazarz: Born On A Gangster Star and Quarzarz vs. The Jealous Machines, which will see a simultaneous release on July 14, 2017 through Sub Pop Records. Now, as you may recall I wrote about “Shine A Light,” the first single off Quazarz: Born On A Gangster Star, and while continuing the duo’s long-running collaboration with soul outfit Thadillac, who contribute a lush, dusty, old-school soul-leaning arrangement featuring shimmering strings, a strutting bass line, warm psychedelic guitar blasts, shuffling drum beats, and a retro-futuristic-like hook consisting of distorted, vocoder-filtered vocals, the single thematically is part of a surreal yet politically-charged concept album that introduces the listener to and then tells the tale of Quazarz, a sentient being from far away, who’s sent to be an observer and musical emissary with a mission to explore and chronicle the things he sees and experiences,subtly echoing the  cult-classic film The Brother From Another Planet and Alexis De Tocqueville‘s Democracy in America; however, what our otherworldly emissary finds is a bizarre, cutthroat landscape of brutality, conformity, alternative facts, hypocrisy, greed, suffering, selfishness and death masquerading as patriotism and connectivity. And as result, Quazarz finds himself feeling increasingly horrified and out of place and within a world that is unfathomably hellish and unfair.

Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines is for all intents and purposes, a spiritual and thematic twin of sorts. Produced by Butler and Sunny Levine and recorded at Seattle’s Protect and Exalt Labs: A Black Space and Dror Lord Studios in Marina Del Rey, CA and featuring guest spots from Chimuregna Renaissance’s Fly Guy Dai, Amir Yaghamai, John Carroll Kirby, Thaddillac, Morgan Henderson, The Shogun Shot, Laz, and Purple Tape Nate, the album continues with the tell of our otherworldly musical emissary Quarzarz and in his further explorations of modern life, he discovers a world in which humankind’s relationship with technology has become both co-dependent and strangely sensual, as it seduces people to be sedentary, thoughtless, uninspired to do anything to change their individual plight, let alone change the world, and having their creativity and life stolen from them. Along with a bunch of misfit cohorts, the protagonist lead a rising collective “hell no,” to the device and the guilds that proliferate them. The album’s first single “30 Clip Extension” is arguably the strangest song that Butler and Maraire have released as the song features a minimalist production featuring wobbling and tumbling low end, stuttering drum programming, enormous beats and shimmering synths paired with Butler flow alternating between surrealistic poetry and rhyming, describing an arrogant, vain, ostentatious, highly bored, drug-addled rapper, who’s controlled by an unseen conspiracy of exterior and interior forces — and while viciously poking fun at a contemporary hip-hop movement, the duo also manages to poke fun at our own greed and foolishness, reminding the listener that there are people actually fucking suffering, and that it’s time to put the devices down.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Existential Howl of Stockholm Sweden’s Black Dough

Since their formation in 2013, and the release of their debut EP first punch! the Stockholm Sweden-based quartet Black Dough — comprised of Miranda Raeder (vocals, guitar and primary songwriter/composer), William Soovik (drums), Elias Hällqvist (bass) and Erik Borman (guitar, saxophone, synth, noise) — have developed a reputation across Scandinavia and the European Union for a genre-defying sound that has been described by several critics and media outlets as voodoo rock, jazz punk and skronk jazz with a punk rock energy and aesthetic and evoking PJ Harvey tinged with Bjork, but with the Swedish quartet’s soon-to-be released full-length effort Freaky Family, the band’s frontwoman and primary songwriter has openly decided to describe their sound as experimental rock. Regardless of how exactly you describe their sound, Freaky Family’s latest single, the slow-burning and atmospheric “Here We Go” will cement the Swedish quartet’s growing reputation for being uncompromisingly difficult to pigeonhole; however, the song reveals a streamlined, almost minimalist approach in which it’s made apparent that the band is drawing from psych rock art rock, noise rock and alt rock in a way that’s reminiscent of The Church’s Priest = Aura, Forget Yourself and Untitled #23 but with an aching vulnerability underneath its dissonant sound.

The recently released video for the song features a similarly minimalist approach as it features the band’s Raeder with her face in silver paint, shot in an extreme, almost uneasy close up in a sparsely lit room, full of smoke machine singing the song. Seemingly meant to evoke an existential howl into the void, the video also forces the viewer into the same emotional space of the song.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Upstate New York-born, Los Angeles, CA-based Marissa Longstreet and Los Angeles-born and-based Matthew Lieberman, the Los Angeles-based indie pop duo Rival Cavves can trace their origins to a chance encounter back in 2012. At the time, Lieberman’s new band Magic Bronson was looking for rehearsal/studio space and stumbled upon a warehouse in the San Fernando Valley that seemed to fit what they wanted and needed. Upon their arrival, Lieberman met the warehouse owner’s sister, Marissa Longstreet, who had recently relocated from Upstate New York to the Los Angeles area and was just getting her feet wet in the area’s music scene, fronting an indie dance act.  Over the next three years, Lieberman and Longstreet found themselves playing a number of shows together with their respective bands.

As the story goes, in 2005 Lieberman moved into the same North Hollywood neighborhood as Longstreet. The duo began to hang out more frequently and spent a lot of late nights listening to Lieberman’s record collection and introducing each other to new bands. Feeling inspired by these hang out sessions, Lieberman armed with a vintage Roland June-106 synthesizer began making beats and started sending them to Longstreet, who would upload his beats into Garage Band and track vocals over them. Within a few weeks, the duo had a handful of songs and they officially started their latest project Rival Caaves.

The duo’s latest single “Creep” reveals that the duo’s sound is largely inspired by 80s New Wave, synth pop, hip hop and house music, as well as contemporary synth pop as Longstreet’s sultry vocals are paired with slick yet retro-futuristic leaning production featuring Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar, a sinuous bass line, thick shimmering cascades of arpeggio synths and boom bap-like beats. And while clearly nodding at Blondie, Tom Tom Club and Las Kellies, the song possesses a subtly paranoid cynicism rooted in the fear of being hurt and fucked over by someone who may be pretty obvious about how fucked up they are themselves; in fact, as Longstreet says in press notes “People aren’t always aware of how transparent they are online until someone else is seeing through them and then you’re the creep for looking,”

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Joakin Buddee is a Stockholm, Sweden-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumenliast and producer, and with his solo recording project foreverandever<3, Buddee has received airplay from P3 Radio and attention from major Scandinavian music blogs Ja Ja Ja Music, Nordik by Nature and Popmani for crating thoughtful, dance floor-friendly, escapist electro pop that is for “people who love electronic sounds and club music, but are a little too introvert to go to a rave. They dance at home in their heads.”

“so guuud,” a collaboration with internationally renowned Stockholm, Sweden-based dream pop artist David Alexander, best known as Summer Heart, is the first single off his  soon-to-be released debut EP, Late Walk/Space Walk and it will further cement Buddee’s reputation for thoughtful, dance floor friendly electro pop as it features a slick, hypermodern, house music-inspired production featuring layers of stuttering drum programming, thumping beats, swirling and whirling electronics, shimmering arpeggio synths, plaintive vocals and a big, crowd pleasing hook — and while nodding at both Octo Octa’s Between Two Selves and In Ghost Colours-era Cut Copy, the song evokes both the swooning passion of a summer fling and the liberating feeling of abandon on the dance floor.