Category: Electro Pop

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Franck Harois Shares Breezy “Au Rhythme Du Vent”

Franck Harois is French singer/songwriter and producer, who over the course of his 30+ year career has created music with a fiercely DIY ethos. Understandably, that has allowed, the French artist the ability to create freely and without compromise.

Harois’ latest single “Au Rhythme du Vent,” is a breezy bit of electro pop anchored around twinkling melodic synths, arpeggiated bass synths, bursts of squiggling of guitar and a remarkably catchy hook serving as a lush bed for the French artist’s dreamily plaintive delivery. The song sees Harois walking a tightrope between danceable Depeche Mode-like New Wave/goth and radio friendly pop.

Directed by Harois, the accompanying video for “Au Rhythme du Vent” was shot on the sun-dappled shores and forests of Biscarrosse, Bordeaux, France. The video emphasizes the escapist nature of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Big Wild Teams Up With iDA HAWK ON Expansive and Cinematic “Universe”

Jackson Stell is a rising producer and artist, who initially started his career in his native Massachusetts as hip-hop producer, known as J Beatz. Following a life-altering trip to Big Sur, Stell switched creative lanes, adopting influences from the area’s natural beauty and open spaces. As Big Wild, the Massachusetts-based artist refines alt/indie electronic music by blending organic elements, lush soundscapes with genre-defying creativity and panache.

Stell’s breakthrough was back in 2015 when he toured with acclaimed electronic outfit Odesza and remixed “Say My Name.” That year also saw the release of “Aftergold,” feat. Tove Stryke, which stopped the Spotify Global Viral charts.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, Stell followed up with 2017’s Invincible EP and his full-length debut, 2019’s Superdream, which saw the Massachusetts-born artist taking on the roles of singer/songwriter for the first time, while blending indie, electronic and disco influences. Stell supported Superdream with extensive touring across the US, European Union and UK while helping to establish his reputation as an innovative and boundary-pushing artist.

His sophomore Big Wild album, 2022’s The Efferusphere saw Stell continuing to explore and push the boundaries of genre and emotion.

The past few months have been busy for Stell: Earlier this year, he released -the first bit of new material since The Efferusphere — “Love Any Longer” and “You Belong Here.” Stell’s third single of this year, “The Universe” feat. iDA HAWK is a sprawling dance music track that mischievously nods at James Bond-thriller-like soundtracks, cinematic psych soul and British Big Beat with an infectious optimism. The song continues Stell’s exploration of themes around connections and belonging at the center of his most recent work, the new single — and arguably, all of his latest material — sees the rising artist actively seeking to shed much of the accumulated seriousness of his career while embarking on a mission to reclaim his artistic wonder.

“The release of ‘Universe’ synchronistically aligns with 10 years of collaboration and friendship with Jackson— and I think the depth of our shared creative expression shines on this song,” iDA HAWK says. “During the writing process, it was meaningful to explore universal themes, including the idea that we are all interconnected: when you find your own soul, you find us all.“

The accompanying video is a mix of animation and live-action that sees the duo of Stell and Hawk facing off against a collection of animated baddies in a colorful cartoon universe.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: bat zoo Shares Shimmering “Diamond Lane”

bat zoo is a rising American-born, Berlin-based singer/songwriter and producer, who has developed a reputation for boundless creativity — and for genre-agnostic work. 

As a child, the rising artist and producer was immersed in a melting pot of musical influences, as a result of his father’s eclectic record collection. He grew up listening to soul, R&B, hip-hop and much more — and it opened his young years to kaleidoscope of sounds and styles, which helped informed his genre-blurring sound and approach. 

He also brings his artistic vision to life by seamlessly blending his work with dynamic visuals. Embracing authentic and innovation, the American-born, Berlin-based artist continues to push boundaries as a jack-of-all-trades creative director of his solo recording project, a culmination of many years of trial and error. He’s extremely busy: while developing his own sound as a solo artist, he’s also a part of the acclaimed Berlin-based vocal ensemble A Song For You and one-half of R&B duo GOLDA. 

bat zoo’s forthcoming EP, The Upward Bird is slated for a July 22, 2025 release through Lekker Collective. Last month, I wrote about the hauntingly minimalist, Nick Hakim-like “Frozen Milk,” which featured the rising Berlin-based accompanying himself on strummed acoustic guitar paired with swirling electronics and his achingly tender falsetto sining lyrics that thematically touched upon chaos and the brief and desperate search for balance amidst moments of self-destruction and connection.

bat zoo’s latest single, the sleek and slickly produced, The Weeknd-like “Diamond Lane” is anchored around swirling and glistening synths, skittering beats serving as a lush and dreamy soundscape for his yearning and heartbroken vocal turn. But just under the slick, dance floor friendly surface, the song is a bittersweet and melancholic reflection on a love affair that has slowly unraveled, fueled with the recognition that the narrator may be powerless to do anything to slow it down — or to stop it.

Lyrically abstract yet deeply intimate, the song simultaneously feels like a stream of consciousness pulled from the depths of the narrator’s memory and a conversation — or more likely a monologue — bitterly directed toward that someone, who once meant everything and now is leaving.

The accompanying video is a hazy, dream-like visual that feels like a regret-tinged tinged fever dream.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 59th Birthday, Janet Jackson!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Janet Jackson’s 59th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Kilo Kish Shares Surreal Visual for Yearning, Club Banging “enough”

Kilo Kish is an acclaimed interdisciplinary artist, creator director and designer working in music, film, installation and writing. 2022’s AMERICAN GURL was released to praise from Pitchfork, NPR, Teen Vogue, NYLON and The New York Times, and helped lead to features in Vogue, Cultured and others.

AMERICAN GURL expanded into a curational project in collaboration with Womxn in Windows founder and creator Zehra Zehra, which has been displayed in galleries and museums like the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Art, Hauser & Wirth and Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles. She has collaborated with several brands including Bulgari, Levi’s, Rodarte and more.

Kish just wrapped up a residency with Womxn In Windows at MOCA, Los Angeles, which celebrated the launch of American Gurl: home-land, a presentation of six short films that negotiate themes on land, diaspora and displacement from Melvonna Ballenger, Shenny De Los Angeles, Ella Ezeike, Solange Knowles, Alima Lee and Cauleen Smith. Earlier this week Womxn In Windows announced their screening series at the Academy Museum, American Gurl: Seeking . . . guest programmer by Kish and Zehra. The films offer nuanced perspectives on how women of color navigate the complexities of systems and institutions. 

Her highly-anticipated EP Negotiations is slated for a Friday release through Independent Co. The six-song EP reportedly sees the acclaimed interdisciplinary artist further amplifying her forward-thinking and advanced creative mind with a poignant effort, that’s a deep and thought-provoking dive into the nuances of technology and the large role it has within creativity.

Thematically, the EP explores the intricate interplay between the human body, technology and nuances of emotional and cognitive processing in a rapidly evolving world. By framing the body as a machine, Kish intentionally invites a dialogue about the transactional nature of energy expenditure, suggesting that our existence is defined by a constant exchange in which every output necessitates an input, ultimately leading to both depletion and potential renewal.

At the core of the EP is the notion of error and glitch — a reflection of contemporary life marked by instability, chaos and uncertainty. And as a result, Kish delves into the scripts we write into ourselves, questioning their efficacy in an era seemingly defined by incessant, rapid-fire change. How we are programmed shapes our responses to these incessant, rapid-fire changes, illustrating that we all inevitably fall prey to our programming and thought patterns. That introspective observation should resonate deeply with our collective experience of navigating a landscape rife with digital and emotional noise, global systems failure and environmental collapse prompting a need for the sort of manual resets needed when you reprogram a malfunctioning device.

Sonically, the EP’s creative process utilized a finite set of sonic parameters and instruments that would reflect the overall thematic core. Drawing from early hip-hop and electronic music techniques like skipping, scratching, vocal processing, vocoders and modular synthesizers, the result is a sound that balances the synthetic with moments of humanity, creating a machine-like atmosphere.

Negotiations EP‘s latest single “enough” is a slickly produced, hypnotic track featuring glistening and percussive synth arpeggios, skittering beats, and chopped up vocodered and processed vocal samples serving as a lush, club friendly yet creepily uneasy bed for Kish’s yearning, validation seeking delivery.

“This song is kind of about throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, and the fantasy that we play out on the internet, how things are not always as they seem,” Kish explains. “Wanting the affection and love of complete strangers, but not really knowing why. The need for viewership and adoration that’s become a mainstay in the way we live nowadays, not just as artists but as everyday people.”

Co-directed by Kish and David Laven and produced by Even/Odd, the accompanying video for “enough” is part of a suite of interconnected films accompanying the Negotiations EP shot and based within the same immersive world. Calling back to the EP’s first video “reprogram,” where Kish danced alone in a stark, gray office, the video for “enough” is set in the same setting — but this time, we see an older businessman type, whose life at that moment sees him vacillating between listening to “enough” on his laptop and hearing it as a part of his own internal dialogue.

Understandably, the businessman is confused, intrigued and then somehow, instinctually moved to sway and dance to the song in the office. As the video pans out a bit, we see a completely unfazed Kish sitting on the floor, observing and writing notes.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: New Zealand’s Phoebe Vic Shares Raunchy “It’s My Pleasure”

With the release of her debut EP, 2023’s Strange Rituals, emerging Christchurch-based singer/songwriter Phoebe Vic quickly established herself as an artist, who paints emotional sonic landscapes with sophisticated, alternative pop songs that range from dreamy and romantic to foreboding, percussive-driven tracks that draw from her own life with sincerity and a self-referential, cheeky sense of humor. The emerging Kiwi artist followed Strange Rituals EP with last year’s “Wasn’t That Deep.”

2025 has gotten off to e a bus start for Vic: Earlier this year, she released the country-tinged “Mad Woman.” Her latest single, the Emily C. Browning-produced “It’s My Pleasure” comes on the heels of playing Nostalgia Festival.

“It’s My Pleasure” is a deliriously unhinged bit of naughty, raunchy fun featuring a glitchy production featuring rubbery bass bounce, skittering trap-beats, bursts of electronic skronk and screech that serves as a lush yet funky bed for the emerging Kiwi artist’s yearning and sultry delivery singing explicit lyrics about sexual desire. It’s a fun, horny, defiantly feminist and pro-sex anthem.

“This song was born from a long dry-spell of lacking in the intimacy department,” Vic says. “So if I wasn’t getting any action, I decided I wanted to make something really hot and horny – that champions owning your sexual fantasies and desires!”

“I really like minimalist prod and it was an exercise in using less elements to create something in-your-face.” producer, Emily C. Browning adds. “We both wanted it to feel like a punchy little arcade game or something, with little reward sounds and different levels.The metal breakdown was Phoebe’s idea and I had to quickly figure out how to play guitar and bass like a metal head. Very fun day in the studio!”

Directed by Lore Films‘ Adam Hogan with support from New Zealand’s On Air New Music Single grant, the accompanying video is set at a depressing open mic, where a terrible stand up comedian is gently pushed off the stage, mid routine before Phoebe Vic steps on the stage and does a raunchy, burlesque style performance that gets everyone in the room uncontrollably horny. “We wanted to make something cheeky, visually stimulating and silly that matched the vibe of the song, while adding an additional heightened story-telling element to it!” Vic says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 74th Birthday, Chris Frantz!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Talking Heads’ and Tom Tom Club’s Chris Frantz’s 74th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Tunde Adebimpe + Thee Black Boltz Performs “Somebody New” on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”

Live footage of Tunde Adebimpe + Thee Black Boltz performing “Somebody New” on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Bucharest’s Alessiah Shares Sultry “Made You Cry”

Alessiah is a young, emerging and remarkably prolific Bucharest-based artist, who quickly established a sound that blends elements of pop, dance pop and electronica while showcasing a songwriter, who has a singular focus on writing songs that are rooted in the raw emotions and unvarnished honesty of a young woman at the beginning of her life’s journey.

Using art to overcome her own shyness, she is determine to create music full of positivity and to become a role model that girls — and young women — can be inspired by.

The Romanian-born and-based artist’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Obscentra is slated for an August 28, 2025 release. The album’s first single “Made You Cry” pairs Alessiah’s sultry vocal delivery with an uneasy and haunting production.

The song’s lyrics blur the line between devotion, humiliation and control, revealing a songwriter, who’s not only remarkably self-assured and mature beyond her relative youth, but who also is a astute observer of human nature. The song’s narrator points out that love is often a confusing and beguiling push and pull mix of longing, lust and humiliation with a seemingly lived-in fashion. “This song captures the emotions we don’t always want to admit to. It’s about love, but not in the way we usually define it,” the emerging Romanian artist explains.

The accompanying video for “Made You Cry” continues a run of visuals filmed in diverse, exotic and often far-flung locations, including Japan, Zanzibar, Nigeria, Spain, Italy, Greece, Hong Kong and even Dubai. And from the new video, we’re catching a budding, global pop star in the making.