Category: art rock

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.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Dragonflies Perform “Slower” on “Jimmy Kimmel Live”

Dragonfiles is a new musical project between Nigel Godrich and Dhani Harrison. Godrich and Harrison had already know each other for years — running in the same circles, hanging out in nature and admiring each other’s work from afar. During the pandemic, Harrison reached out to Godrich for advice and insight on what would become his 2023 solo effort Innerstanding. Historically,. Harrison helmed all of his own projects and was generally averse to working with outside producers. At the same time, Godrich had reached the point where he was less interested in producing for strangers, and was much more eager to only work with friends.

Eventually a conversation around Innerstanding led to a different conversation: “Why don’t we try to work on something?”

Godrich’s first impulse was to invite Harrison to his Brixton-based studio, to draw the producer, multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter out of his comfort zone. There, Godrich brought Harrison into his current working method, which involves creating tape loops as the basis for songs. Though, they had known each other for years, the pair were entering completely unknown territory. But they had a shared musical language and multi-faceted decades-long careers between them, with each uniquely adept at production and an array of instruments. And at Godrich’s studio, they embarked on a series of writing and recording sessions in which songs quickly bursting out of them. “It’s like one person throwing something in the air and the other person catching it,” Godrich describes.

During their writing and recording sessions, Harrison was impressed by Godrich’s ability to edit on the fly. “He’s a machine,” Harrison says, then adds with a laugh: “He has strong opinions about what he wants to hear, and for me it’s very humbling — that’s why it’s such a new experience for me.” And yet for Harrison. a student of the alternative and electronic albums of late 90s Brain, working with his friend was a dream come true, and an experience in which each was able to shift roles. Harrison, who was long used to being control behind the computer, went to different places by operating primarily as a vocalist and guitarist. For his part, Godrich credits Harrison’s openness and compassion with allowing the writing process to be one of happy accidents, and began coming in with lyrics and melodies. 

It was a unique way of working, both electronic and organic that involved laying down an idea, then chiseling the song into shape above mechanical sections of 24-track tape loops. Harrison conjured influences like Beth Gibbons, David Sylvain and Ryuchi Sakamoto in his vocals, while the duo refined their original recordings into layered grooves that channeled trip hop and electronic music — yet performed by hand. Then Godrich enlisted his Ultraísta and Atoms For Peace bandmate Joey Waronker (drums) to add more percussion. He also traveled to Los Angeles to work with composer and arranger David Campbell, with whom he worked on Beck‘s iconic Sea Change. Campbell draped the sputtering drums, rippling piano and frayed synths of several album tracks in gorgeous string arrangements. The result is a sort of earthbound space rock; music that’s transportive and far-reaching without ever sounding stereotypically psychedelic.

The destination was appropriately cosmic for a project that felt like liberation for both Godrich and Harrison. “Dragonflies are a symbol of spiritual enlightenment,” Harrison explains. “When Nigel suggested the name I was like, yeah, sold, done. Whenever I see a dragonfly it’s magical.” 

Interestingly, Dragonflies embed from a period of both great chance and stillness. After two decades being primarily based in Los Angeles leading bands like thenewno2 and scoring for television and films, Harrison returned to his native England, shocked at the quiet remove back home. At the same time, Godrich had pulled back from touring and recording, and considered himself in semi-retirement. But it was from the newfound silence in both of their lives that Dragonflies became a vehicle in which they could chase unforeseen sound sand horizons.

Dragonflies emerged from a period of both great change and stillness. After two decades primarily based in Los Angeles — leading bands like thenewno2 and scoring television and films — Harrison returned to his native England, shocked at the quiet remove back home. Compared to running himself ragged in LA, he felt free, and the next phase of his musical life blossomed. At the same time, Godrich had pulled back from touring and recording, and considered himself in semi-retirement. It was from the newfound silence in both of their lives that Dragonflies became a vehicle in which they could chase unforeseen sounds and horizons. 

Through the creation of the self-titled album, the duo discovered a new, brotherly depth to their friendship, and the fact that their bond allowed them to explore emotions and aesthetics neither could have done in another project — or by themselves. Built on trust, their experiments led to someplace unexpected for each, and opened the door for the future; They have a second album’s worth of material taht they’re putting the finishing touches on, and they plan on forming a touring band to take this new music on the road.

“I mean, it’s really fun,” Godrich explains simply. “Why would you not want to keep going?” 

“We could go even further,” Harrison concludes. “I’m still not sure what it is, where the band is going. But I want to go to that place more.” 

Dragonflies recently were on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to perform, album opener — and the first song the do worked on together — “Slower.” Built around a tumbling drums, glistening Rhodes and shimmering and bluesy and searching guitar beneath Harrison’s yearning delivery “Slower” is an atmospheric and vibey tune about the need to slow down and take stock that seemingly channels a blend of Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd, Kid A and Amensiac-era Radiohead and Portishead — but while evoking a yearning toward the cosmic.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 56th Birthday, Colin Greenwood!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood’s 56th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 59th Birthday, Philip Selway!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Radiohead drummer Philip Selway’s 59th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Atsuko Chiba Returns with Two New Singles Off Just Released Fourth Album

Montréal-based outfit Atsuko Chiba — Karim Lakhdar (vocals, guitar, synths), Kevin McDonald (synths, guitar), Eric Schafhauser (guitar, synths), David Palumbo (bass, bass VI, vocals) and Anthony Piazza (drums, electronic drums, percussion) — have firmly established a sound that’s a cohesive and hypnotic blend of post-rock, prog and krautock paired with offbeat songwriting through the release of 2013’s Jinn, 2019’s Trace and 2023’s Water, It Feels Like It’s Growing.

The Montréal-based quintet’s self-titled fourth album was released last Friday through Mothland. The album sees the band rethinking their sound and approach, drawing inspiration from Mark Lanegan, Beak>, Talk Talk, Can and Portishead, all while retaining elements of their long-established post-punk fueled psychedelia. 

Though the band has been introducing more vocals and lyrics with every subsequent release, their fourth album sees the band further wielding vocals and lyrics as a well to delve deeper into their intrinsic meta. The result is an album that’s one-part gritty post-rock and one-part intimate hymn to self-reflection with its moodiness amplifying a communal desire to eschew recurrent patterns for the sake of comfort, approval and longevity. 

The band decided upon a freeform creative process, which could only be achieved by pursuing a hands-on approach, and with each member sharing the roles of engineer and producer, 

“Overall, Atsuko Chiba is an exercise in patience and restraint. The mood of the album is melancholic, at times feeling optimistic, while other times feeling almost hopeless—there’s a sense of loss and disconnect, but also a glimmer of hope,” the band explains. “It is the most vulnerable and stripped down music we have ever made. It is a departure from the aggressive and distorted guitar sound we’ve relied on over the years. We also chose to make it a self-titled record which is something we battled with. We went with Atsuko Chiba because its overarching themes relate to us in a deep way. The material on this album presents itself as a mosaic of our interests and experiences as a band. We let the music guide us every step of the way, never forcing our will upon it, instead paying attention to what it was telling us and what we could do to further support it.

At first, we would come into the studio without a plan, just playing and recording the entire time, with no pressure as to a specific outcome: free jams during which we were just generating grooves, parts, and moments that felt good to us. We also put limitations, cutting out certain instruments from session to session, opening us to new options and pathways, generating new sound palettes. A lot of attention was put into creating space and holding back from always going for big epic moments. We focussed on keeping things simple and using dynamics to create exciting moments instead of relying on loud guitars to get us there. This album features a lot of auxiliary percussion, synthesizers, and keyboards, and places a strong emphasis on vocals. We explored acoustic guitars and created many custom percussive sounds by layering two or three sources together, also programming rhythms using samplers and drum machines.”

The album includes the previous released album opening track “Retention” “Torn” and its two latest single “Pretense” and “Future Ways,” which sequentially follow each other on the new album. “Pretense” is a brooding yet lush and melodic mediation on loss and grief, seemingly rooted in the lived-in experience of losing someone dear. Anchored around a motorik groove, “Future Ways” is a mind-bending, krautrock-inspired bit of psych rock that feels both uneasy and urgent simultaneously. “Future Ways” is meant to evoke invasive thoughts racing through one’s mind, as they attempt to make sense of foreseen tragedy. Impassioned vocals dance and dart around fuzzy and distortion pedaled guitars and glistening synth arpeggios, leading to the song’s coda and uplifting mantra: Go wild/Stay Forward/Going up . .

“’Pretense’ confronts loss and my perspective on an impossible situation with someone deeply close to me. It traces a profound depression, a daily struggle to remain alive, shaped by the belief that something inside was irrevocably broken, beyond diagnosis or repair,” Atsuko Chiba’s Karim Lakhdar explains. “‘Wanted out, couldn’t wait‘ echoes his constant proximity to the idea of ending it. Life felt unbearably tense, with no center to return to. He had a brilliant mind, always in motion—always an answer, always a reason—yet never at rest. In the end, I am left standing before the grave, realizing this is not something you move on from. It stays with you. I am not okay… I’m only learning new ways to carry it. That day, I lost someone irreplaceable: a friend, a brother, a mentor, a fellow cosmonaut.

“’Future Ways’ is intrinsically linked to ‘Pretense,'” Lakhdar continues. “They were initially conceived as a single piece. The title feels inevitable: this is life after death. It asks how we continue, how we carry what has already happened. ‘This light, it grows in spite of you‘ speaks to taking what I learned from him and using it as forward motion. In this sense, he never fully disappears, he continues through me. I learned how to listen, how to see, how to approach life and music from shifting vantage points, to question, to push beyond what is given. The second verse reflects how, even in moments of profound despair, he remained deeply charismatic, silver-tongued to the point that I believed everything he said. He predicted what would happen, how he would be seen, how people would respond. There was a rare coexistence of hysteria and startling clarity, and through it all I am left confused, powerless, unable to intervene. In the third verse, a mantra repeats as a way of keeping spirits up. It’s a commitment to forward motion. It becomes a reminder that life is still here, still unfolding, and that I must remain an active participant in it, careful not to disappear into the weight of what was lost.”

The accompanying visual features footage of the band in the studio goofing during the writing and recording process and during candid moments while on tour and outside of beloved local venue L’Esco.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 58th Birthday, Ed O’Brien!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien’s 58th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Atsuko Chiba Shares Hypnotic “Torn”

With the release of 2013’s Jinn, 2019’s Trace and 2023’s Water, It Feels Like It’s Growing, 2016’s Figure and Ground EP and The Memory Empire EP, as well as a handful of singles, all which were self-produced and recorded at their Room 11 Studio, Montréal-based outfit Atsuko Chiba — Karim Lakhdar (vocals, guitar, synths), Kevin McDonald (synths, guitar), Eric Schafhauser (guitar, synths), David Palumbo (bass, bass VI, vocals) and Anthony Piazza (drums, electronic drums, percussion) — have firmly established a sound that’s a cohesive and hypnotic blend of post-rock, prog and krautock paired with offbeat songwriting.

The Montréal-based quintet’s self-titled fourth album is slated for an April 24, 2026 release through Mothland. The album reportedly sees the band rethinking their sound and approach, drawing inspiration from the likes of Mark Lanegan, Beak>, Talk Talk, Can and Portishead, all while retaining elements of their long-established post-punk fueled psychedelia.

Though the band has been introducing more vocals and lyrics with every subsequent release, their fourth album sees the band further wielding vocals and lyrics as a well to delve deeper into their intrinsic meta. The result is an album that’s one-part gritty post-rock and one-part intimate hymn to self-reflection with its moodiness amplifying a communal desire to eschew recurrent patterns for the sake of comfort, approval and longevity. 

The band decided upon a freeform creative process, which could only be achieved by pursuing a hands-on approach, and with each member sharing the roles of engineer and producer, 

“Overall, Atsuko Chiba is an exercise in patience and restraint. The mood of the album is melancholic, at times feeling optimistic, while other times feeling almost hopeless—there’s a sense of loss and disconnect, but also a glimmer of hope,” the band explains. “It is the most vulnerable and stripped down music we have ever made. It is a departure from the aggressive and distorted guitar sound we’ve relied on over the years. We also chose to make it a self-titled record which is something we battled with. We went with Atsuko Chiba because its overarching themes relate to us in a deep way. The material on this album presents itself as a mosaic of our interests and experiences as a band. We let the music guide us every step of the way, never forcing our will upon it, instead paying attention to what it was telling us and what we could do to further support it.

At first, we would come into the studio without a plan, just playing and recording the entire time, with no pressure as to a specific outcome: free jams during which we were just generating grooves, parts, and moments that felt good to us. We also put limitations, cutting out certain instruments from session to session, opening us to new options and pathways, generating new sound palettes. A lot of attention was put into creating space and holding back from always going for big epic moments. We focussed on keeping things simple and using dynamics to create exciting moments instead of relying on loud guitars to get us there. This album features a lot of auxiliary percussion, synthesizers, and keyboards, and places a strong emphasis on vocals. We explored acoustic guitars and created many custom percussive sounds by layering two or three sources together, also programming rhythms using samplers and drum machines.”

Atsuko Chiba will include the previously released, album opening track “Retention” and the album’s second and latest single “Torn.” “Torn” is a hypnotic, brooding tune anchored around a looping synth and guitar melody paired with reverb-drenched vocals. The song manages to be expansive yet introspective, while conveying a sense of unease and distrust.

“‘Torn’ explores the struggle with anxiety through the lens of overconfidence, transforming imposter syndrome from a state of paralysis into propulsion. By constructing a false reality, the protagonist earns the trust of those around him through promises he can not keep,” the band explains. “He embarks on a quest to control the world around him, while gradually losing himself in the deception of others—and his own. Eventually, he stares into the mirror and no longer recognizes the person looking back. Over time, he becomes a composite of the characters and narratives he has invented, dissolving into his own fiction. The game becomes indistinguishable from reality, breeding a deep and growing unease. Panic attacks and episodes of depersonalization follow, each one pushing him further, eroding sleep, stretching time, tightening the tension in his chest. At the edge of a cliff—unsure how long he has been awake—he searches for release as the pressure becomes unbearable. This release is marked by the shift at the end of the song. What happens next remains unresolved: does he jump, or does an old photograph—himself beside his father—surface from his wallet, pulling him back toward the memory of who he once was? We don’t know. . . “

The visualizer for “Torn” features footage of the band shot by the band and edited by the band’s Anthony Piazza that captures the band in the studio, working on the new album and traveling snow-covered roads.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Orielles Share Angular “Wasp”

Acclaimed, Manchester, UK-based JOVM mainstays The Orielles — Esmé Dee Hand-Halford (bass, vocals), Sidonie Dee Hand-Halford (drums, vocals) and Henry Carlyle Wade (guitar, vocals) — will be releasing their highly anticipated fourth album, the Joel Anthony Patchett-produced Only You Left through Heavenly Recordings on Friday.

Recorded last summer in two locations — the Greek Island of Hydra and Hamburg — the 11-song Only You Left reportedly sees the band consolidating the bold experimentation of 2022’s Tableau with the more stripped-back, song-driven approach of their earlier releases, channeling a return to the familiar. “There’s nothing more trad than a three-piece,” quips Henry, in reference to the band’s decision to return to their roots as a trio. 

The JOVM mainstays, who originally started out in Halifax first gained attention both nationally and internationally with the release of their full-length debut, 2018’s Silver Dollar Moment, which recently celebrated its eighth birthday. “These things come in like seven year cycles. So we’ve come in like a full circle back to a familiar place, just as different people,” the band says. 

As for the foundations of the forthcoming album, the band’s Henry Carlyle Wade says “You’ve got to die and be reborn between albums.” “It comes naturally, the band’s Esmé Hand-Halford adds, “it’s not something we consciously do.” Interestingly through this process of creative renewal, the JOVM mainstays have managed to weather a pandemic, the fickleness of a trend-driven music industry and somehow emerge with something that’s familiar yet completely different. 

According to Wade, the first ideas for the new album can be traced back to May 2023: Esmé Hand-Halford had purchased a freeze pedal, which allowed her to play around with sustained notes on her guitar. These heavy drones would later form the background of album tracks “Wasp” and “Three Halves.” 

In breaks between tours, the band began to meet up and record their practice room sessions, later analyzing the voice notes with a granular attention to detail. “We recorded everything on our phones, every snippet,” explains Henry Carlyle Wade. “We went so deep into what each song needed or what we wanted to hear from it.”

While the Tableau sessions were semi-improvisational and partially written in the recording studio, Only You Left was fleshed out through a series of intense writing sessions between May 2023 and last summer. Each of the album’s 11 songs were meticulously refined and became its own distinctive work. “It almost felt really novel for us to be writing as a three-piece and really, really crafting these songs,” the band’s Esmé Hand-Halford recalls. “But Tableau gave us that confidence to know we could go into a studio and pull things together in that setting under the time pressure.”

Producer and engineer Joel Anthony Patchett, whom Esmé Hand-Halford dubs the honorary fourth member of the band, has had a massive influence on the album’s sound and approach. “Joel brings an extra level of interpretation and deep listening,” Henry Carlyle Wade says, “and it’s always exciting to explore that.” Sidonie Hand-Halford adds, “He’s constantly talking us through every step of what he’s doing and getting really, really involved with that process as well. And we’re just kind of learning together and making these mistakes and discovering things together.” 

Only You Left will include the previously released “Three Halves,” the double single “You Are Eating Part of Yourself”/”To Undo the World Itself,”Tears Are,” and the album’s latest single “Wasp.”

Anchored around a looping, buzzing and droning guitar line, an angular and propulsive bass line and skittering, off-kilter drumming and percussion, “Wasp” subtly channels In Rainbows while simultaneously evoking a wasp flying in figure 8s and circles higher and higher.

“Taking on another shift in perspective, the lyrics follow a [sic] miniscule wasp as it reaches the height of a mountain, one of nature’s grandest settings,” the band explains. “Inspired by the film Black Narcissus I wanted to capture this feeling of questioning faith, purpose and the self when confronted by such vastness, using a wasp to exaggerate this magnitude even further. In seeing through its perspective maybe we can relate to the plight of the wasp, but the real sting in the tale (hah!) is that ultimately it is nature itself that conditions the wasp to hurt us.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 84th Birthday, Lou Reed!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 84th anniversary of Lou Reed’s birth.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sunglaciers Return with Shimmering “Only Love”

With the release of 2019’s Foreign Bodies, 2022’s Subterranea and 2024’s Regular Nature, Calgary-based JOVM mainstays Sunglaciers — founding duo Evan Resnik (vocals, guitar, synths, piano, sampling) and Mathieu Blanchard (drums, percussion, production) along with Nyssa Brown (vocals, guitar) and Kyle Crough (bass) — have firmly cemented a sound that blurs the boundaries between polished melodicism and opaque experimentation, auspicious romanticism and unbridled descent. Though anchored in the strange realties of our time, their sons are laced with a certain optimism through well-placed and well-calculated psych elements and vibrant rhythms. 

The Calgary-based outfit’s highly-anticipated fourth album, Spiritual Content is slated for a March 27, 2026 release through Mothland. The album reportedly sees the band further exploring the chiaroscuro depths of post-punk while simultaneously setting out to redefine their sound. Thematically, the album explores modern day life through allegorical songwriting, elevated by genuinely catchy melodies, resolute arrangements and stylish production.

Over the course of its breakneck 35-minute run, the album’s indie rock-meets-post-punk-tinged, nine songs reportedly captured fleeting yet endearing moments in time, their narrative bent, twisted and distorted into expansive and highly evocative soundscapes. The album is meant to layout like a psychedelic sequence where grooves dance and wiggle in and out, awaking feelings of wonder and awe, while also trigging emotions like bewilderment, fear and alienation. 

The album sees Resnik and Blanchard turning to their bandmates Brown and Brougham along with acclaimed producer and multi-instrumentalist Chad VanGaalen (synths, vibraphone, electric piano and additional production) to flesh out the album’s material. The band also continued their collaborations with mixing/mastering engineer Mark Lawson and former Besnard Lakes‘ Richard White, who took on vinyl mastering duties. 

Spiritual Content will include the Freedom of Choice-era Devo-inspired “Eye to Eye” and the album’s latest single “Only Love.” Seemingly channeling a synthesis of Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen, early The Cure and Gang of Four, “Only Love” sees Resnik, Blanchard and company musing on the transformative and redemptive power of love — but it’s underpinned with the subtly bitter reality that nothing is forever, not even love.

Directed by Ethan Clark, the accompanying video features the band’s members at a packed house party but love — whether of someone else or self-love made the video’s protagonist change his life, perhaps for the better. We see this through a series of woozy flash backs and flash forwards, sometimes within the same scene.

“Only love can upend your lifestyle, change your patterns. You’re young, you’re out at parties all the time,” the Calgary-based JOVM mainstays explain. “Then something happens. Years pass in an instant. Maybe you found love, or self-love, or something else. Got healthy. Got busy. Where you used to go out, now you stay in. The party’s not over; it rages on in your memories. This video is kind of an illustration of those memories.