Category: Indie Electro Pop

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: I WANT POETRY Shares Flirty “No Is A Full Sentence”

German indie electro pop duo I WANT POETRY — Tine von Bergen (vocals) and Till Moritz Moll (keys) — have received attention for crafting music that simultaneously feels cinematic and deeply human, blending emotional depth with luminous pop soundscapes. 

While developing a reputation for an immersive live show and striking visuals, the German duo have earned critical acclaim and a nomination at the European Songwriting Awards. The duo have played over 100 shows across their native Germany, Poland, Sweden and elsewhere, while making the run of the European showcase festival circuit. And adding to a growing national and international profile, the duo’s single “Light” landed on iTunes charts in several countries, amassing over 500,000 streams globally — and was selected for the soundtrack for the Canadian film, La mécanique des frontières. 

2026 looks to be a breakthrough year for the German indie electro pop duo: Their highly anticipated third album, Future Selves is slated for a May 29, 2026 release. The album is reportedly hopeful and transformative, inspired by a brief moment in time when the future still felt like a promise, channeling the spirit of past dreams of utopia and progress. And as a result, the new album offers a forward-thinking vision shaped by memory, imagination and the will to create what comes next.

Sonically, the album’s material marks an evolution from the reflective tones of Solace + Light, featuring layers of shimming synths and soaring melodies. 

Future Selves will include the previously released “Mirrors Of The Sky,” and the album’s latest single the Micheal Vanja, Ghian Wright and The EmU-co-produced “No Is a Full Sentence.” “No Is A Full Sentence” is self-assured, flirty and defiant pop tune, anchored around glistening synth stabs and the duo’s unerring and effortless knack for catchy hooks and sleek, dance floor friendly grooves.

But under the flirty, dance floor friendly vibes is a song that’s a one-part bold feminist anthem, one-part confidence booster for those who’ve had enough. The song says that it’s perfectly normal to stand up for yourself, to go out there and get what you want, no matter what anyone else.

The accompanying video features the duo, strutting and vamping it up in a modern metropolis — mostly at night. But it emphasizes the playful, confidence boosting nature of the song.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Moulod Shares Sparse, Hook-Driven “Socialites”

Moulod is an emerging Stockholm-born artist. And for the Swedish artist, his music typically begins with lyrics. He writes constantly, using his lyrics as a way to strip down experiencers and uncover what’s real. Only the rare songs that carry honesty are released, for him about 10% of anything he writes, with each carrying his raw vocal delivery at the center. His words are paired with productions that run the gamut from lo-fi, hip-hop, R&B, indie rock and blues — or whatever best carries the story and song forward.

The Swedish artist’s latest single “Socialites” feat. Rûn is a sparse tune that’s simultaneously menacing and sultry, warmly introspective yet chilly and evasive. And while showcasing an artist, who cab pair unflinchingly honest lyrics with sleek production and incredibly catchy hook.

At its core, “Socialites” feat. Rûn conveys the uneasy contrasts between one’s public image and private life, and the demands and sacrifices that public image requires.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Nation of Language Shares Tom Sharkett Rework of “Inept Apollo”

Last year was a big year for acclaimed Brooklyn-based synth pop trio and JOVM mainstays Nation of Language. The trio — Ian Richard Devaney (vocals, guitar), Aidan Noell (synths) and Alex MacKay (bass) — signed with Sub Pop Records, who released their Nick Milhiser produced and mixed fourth album, Dance Called Memory, continuing an ongoing collaboration that included 2023’s Strange Disciple.“What’s so great about Nick is his ability to make us feel like we don’t need to do what might be expected of us,” says Nation of Language’s Aidan Noell.  

Sonically, the album is imbued with a subtly shifted palette: On some tracks percussion is smashed through a synthesizer as a nod to early-2000s electronic music. Chopped-up drum break samples also make appearances.

But ultimately, for the trio, the hope was to weave raw vulnerability and humanity into a synth-heavy album. “There is a dichotomy between the Kraftwerk school of thought and the Brian Eno school of thought, each of which I’ve been drawn to at different points. I’ve read about how Kraftwerk wanted to remove all of the humanity from their music, but Eno often spoke about wanting to make synthesized music that felt distinctly human,” Nation of Language’s Ian Richard Devaney says. “As much as Kraftwerk is a sonically foundational influence, with this record I leaned much more towards the Eno school of thought. In this era quickly being defined by the rise of AI supplanting human creators, I’m focusing more on the human condition, and I need the underlying music to support that… Instead of hopelessness, I want to leave the listener with a feeling of us really seeing one another, that our individual struggles can actually unite us in empathy.”

The album features “Inept Apollo,” which continues a remarkable run of nostalgia-inducing 80s New Wave-inspired material that showcases the trio’s unerring knack for crafting slickly produced bops, anchored around earnest lyricism and songwriting.

Recently the JOVM mainstays shared Tom Sharkett‘s bold rework of “Inept Apollo.” Sharkett’s rework retains Devaney’s yearning vocal and some of the original’s New Wave/synth pop-inspired feel but noticeably increases the BPM and adds a strutting disco-like bass line. The result is a something that’s earnest, achingly yearning and yet even more dance floor friendly. It’s one-part Madchester-scene, one-part NYC dance club.

“We’re big fans of WH Lung, as well as Tom’s excellent recent LCD Soundsystem rework, so we were super excited when he reached out saying he wanted to take a crack at a new mix of ‘Inept Apollo,'” Devaney says. ” Our initial enthusiasm only grew when we received the end product a couple months later and were able to test it out in a club environment a few times. Can confidently report it sounds fantastic in a loud and crowded room. Here’s hoping it sees its way to a few dance floors in 2026.”
 
“I had an affinity with Nation of Language as soon as I heard their music,” Tom Sharkett says. “It felt like it came from the same place as the music I was making myself and with W. H. Lung, and the more of their music I heard, the more I felt it. It was hard initially to find a way in with remixing ‘Inept Apollo,’ as I loved the original so much. I knew I wanted to nod to the connection between NYC and Manchester started by the artists and DJs I feel we both love, without even having to name check them. It had to be wonky, and it had to be loose and lively. Hope you enjoy!”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: KITTY@ Shares Propulsive, Club Banging “When I Think Of You”

KITTY@ is a São Paulo-born, Italian based singer/songwriter and electronic music producer who has always been connected to the arts and creative endeavors. She began working marketing product design and media with a focus on fashion, textiles, color and visual culture, which has helped shaped her perspective and the way she builds ideas.

After taking a pause for health concerns, she rediscovered her passion for creativity through music. As a singer/songwriter and producer, her work largely draws from her experiences, her memory and from her sensitivity.

KITTY@’s latest effort, Disco Vibes is a 12-song effort that features material that sees her effortlessly blending disco, soul, R&B, pop, electro pop and techno. Disco Vibes‘ latest single “When I Think Of You,” is a catchy, club banger anchored a hypnotic and downright euphoric, Ibiza-like bass line and glistening synths that serves as a lush, hook-driven bed for her Taylor Dayne-like delivery. It’s the sort of song specifically meant for dancing — with your eyes closed, longing for that special one.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Total Fucking Darkness Returns with Club Banging “Horizontal Rain”

Electronic music outfit and JOVM mainstays Total Fucking Darkness features: 

Last year, the trio released have released a handful of standalone singles, including three I wrote about on this site, “Desolation Boys,” “Take It Easy” and “Give Me Everything You Own.”

The trio begin 2026 with “Horizontal Rain,” an off-kilter, propulsive, hook-driven banger that recalls the days of sweaty, illegal basement raves. (Those who know, know, you know?) But underneath the good times, is the feverish unease, the sickening sense of sliding into a totalitarian and fascistic hellscape and the desire to connect to others. This is the party music of a dying world.

The accompanying video is a mind-bending blend of a middle aged guy dancing in various locations with video glitch, edited stock footage and more.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Albums of the Year 2025

JOVM turns 16 this year. And for first handful of years, my Best of List was an annual tradition until about 2014 or so. Between 2014 and 2020, it became sporadic and then it stopped. I haven’t done one of these in several years. There was a part of me that wondered if it really mattered much. And then life happened. 

So here we are in 2026. And with the year starting in earnest, let’s check out my best of 2025. 

  1. Big Fish Fyra liter stoft
  2. Tan Cologne Unknown Beyond
  3. Moondaddy Dove Tapes
  4. Sessa Pequena Vertigem de Amor
  5. Preservation Brass & Preservation Hall Jazz Band For Fat Man
  6. Silk Daisys S/T
  7. The Circling Sun Orbits
  8. Gabriel da Rosa Cacofonia
  9. Yoo Doo Right, Population II & Nolan Potter Yoo II avec Nolan Potter
  10. bat zoo The Upward Bird EP
  11. Public Circuit Modern Church
  12. L’Eclair Cloud Drifter
  13. Gloin All of your anger is actually shame (and I bet that makes you angry)
  14. CIVIC Chrome Dipped
  15. Population II Maintenant Jamais
  16. White Birches A New Reign
  17. Anish Kumar and Hagop Tchaparian Kino EP
  18. Friendship Commanders BEAR 
  19. The Besnard Lakes The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation
  20. SHOLTO The Sirens
  21. S.C.A.B. Somebody In New York Loves You!
  22. Pierpont & Hegeleson Of Time
  23. RORO and snapir Colors Left
  24. St. Panther Strange World 
  25. Nation of Language Dance Called Memory
  26. Quad90 S/T
  27. Slumbering Sun Starmony
  28. Tunde Adebimpe Thee Black Boltz 
  29. Quad90 S/T
  30. Die Spitz Something To Consume
  31. debdepan LOVERS & OTHERS EP

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The Joy of Violent Movement is a completely independent and completely D.I.Y. media outlet. Over the course of this site’s 15+ year history, I’ve used my fiercely independent stance to cover music with an eclectic and global perspective that a lot of other publications just don’t have — and will likely never have. 

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Anchorage’s dreamcat Shares Breezy “Heaven”

Anchorage-based indie electro pop duo dreamcat — couple Em Glaves and Colton Ciufo — can trace a portion of their origins back to when they were children: Glaves and Ciufo grew up in the same small town, and for them music has always been their escape.

The Alaskan duo specialize in homemade, heartfelt, positive indie synth pop that draws from M83, Chromeo and others. Last year, the pair gained recognition regionally by playing at two of Alaska’s biggest music festivals — Sundown Festival and Girdwood Forest Fair.

Over the past 12-18 months, the duo have built upon a growing profile across Alaska, with at the release of a handful of standalone singles and their debut EP joie de vivre earlier this year.

Glaves and Ciufro close out 2025 with “Heaven,” a breezy bit of synth pop that seemingly channels BRIJEAN, M83 and Oracular Spectacular-era MGMT while showcasing the duo’s ability to craft a remarkably catchy hook. But underneath the track’s breezy hookiness, the song, as the duo explain is about addiction.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Afghan Whigs Share Covers of Poliça and Still Corners

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JOVM mainstays The Afghan Whigs —  currently Greg Dulli (vocals, guitar), John Curley (bass), Patrick Keeler (drums), multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson and the band’s newest member, Blind Melon’s Christopher Thorn (guitar) — released their ninth album, 2022’s How Do You Burn? to widespread critical acclaim from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Los Angeles Times, Spin, Stereogum, Billboard and others.

The acclaimed JOVM mainstays first bit of new material since How Do You Burn sees the band tackling two songs — Poliça‘s “Fake Like” and Still Corners “Downtown” — that seem tailor-made for the Whigs treatment. “Poliça’s “Fake Lake” strikes me as being a breezy synthesis of synth pop, Laurel Canyon and blue-eyed soul, featuring twinkling keys and a broodingly cinematic string arrangement serving as a lush bed for Channy Leaneagh’s yearning delivery. The Afghan Whigs pull out the blue-eyed soul-inspired element of the original and give it a swaggering and anthemic rock ballad vibe, while retaining the cinematic string section. The result is a song that emphasizes the smoldering lust and aching need at the heart of the song.

Now, as you may recall, the London-based duo Still Corners are among one of this site’s oldest mainstay acts. “Downtown,” which appears on 2016’s Dead Blue is an brooding and icy track, featuring shimmering, motiorik pulse and a gorgeous Greg Hughes Country/Western-meets-Johnny Marr styled guitar solo serving as a lush soundscape for Tessa Murray’s yearning vocal. The Afghan Whigs take turns the song into a brooding, piano-driven tune that’s a steady in tension and delayed release that would have fit perfectly on 2017’s In Spades.

“Both of these songs were born out of soundcheck jams. Each song holds a particular resonance for me and I really felt the lyrics, so they both flowed freely and felt good to sing,” the band’s Greg Dulli explains.

Both songs are available on all major DSP. And a limited 45 RPM single has been created and will be sold by Cincinnati’s Shake It Records.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Ruthven Shares Dance floor Friendly “Kiss Goodnight”

Throughout his nearly decade-long career, South London-based producer, singer/songwriter and musician Sean Nelson, best known as Ruthven, emerged in 2017 as a co-founding member of The Paul Institute with A.K.Paul and Jai Paul, while Nelson was simultaneously as a firefighter with the London Fire Brigade.

Between emergency calls and equipment checks, the South London-based artist meticulously shaped the songs that would eventually comprise last year’s Rough & Ready, which was released to widespread praise across the UK and elsewhere. The response to the album lead to collaborations and opening slots with Sampha, Berwyn and Overmono, helping to further cement Nelson’s growing reputation as one of the UK’s most compelling, emerging voices.

Ruthven closes out 2025 with the recently released Precognition EP, an exploratory three-track EP that marks the beginning of a bold new chapter for the South London-based artist. Where Rough & Ready introduced an artist with a meticulous production style and a fiercely individual voice, Precognition EP captures Nelson writing much more instinctively, leaning deeply into the warmth and dynamism of live instrumentation, inspired by his recent live shows. “This small body of work feels like a good segue into the next era for me” Ruthven says. “I’m using a lot more live instrumentation and programming a little bit less.  Playing more guitar, more acoustic drums – all of which have formed a new sound for me. The fundamental DNA of my music is there, but there’s a new evolution. This is the first of it.” 

The EP sees Nelson moving freely between funk, disco and classic songwriting. And as you’ll hear on the hook-driven, disco funk-tinged “Kiss Goodnight,” Nelson has an unerring knack for crafting a catchy, dance floor friendly groove anchored around glistening synth arpeggios and a supple bass line paired with Nelson’s effortless yet heartfelt croon. If you’re a fellow old, this one will likely bring memories of Prince, Morris Day and The Time, Cherrelle and several others.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: SanikVibe shares Cinematic and Dance Floor Friendly “Speak Without Sound”

Created by an anonymous and enigmatic creative mastermind, SanikVibe is a narrative-driven recording project that sees its mysterious mastermind treating sound as storytelling.

Her work blends cinematic textures, electronic minimalism and introspective emotional pacing. And rather than sticking to one particular genre, each release is much like a book chapter — with a psychological or emotional moment translated into atmosphere, vibe, pulse and tone.

Released last month, Unseen Currents EP is a four-part story about what moves us — quietly and subconsciously. SanikVibe’s mysterious creative mastermind considers the EP not quite as Jung would consider ‘a journey through the unconscious” but more as a way to learn to “stop fighting your own tide.”

Unseen Currents EP‘s latest single “Speak Without Sound” is simultaneously a cinematic and dance floor friendly track that seemingly channels Tinlicker‘s most recent material, with the new single being a sleek and lush blend of electro pop, trip-hop and house anchored by stirringly emotional, pop star delivery.

“The song explores the moment when instinct speaks before language — the quiet shift in the body that happens a split second before thought,” SanikVibe explains. “Through pauses, breath and tension, it reflects how the pulse can reveal truth long before words do.”

It serves as the final chapter of the BodyTalk Trilogy, a conceptual arc shaped around somatic markers and the psychological space where instinct overtakes reason,” she continues.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Puma Blue Shares Surrealistic, Dream-like Visual for “Croak Dream”

London-based producer, singer/songwriter and Puma Blue creative mastermind Jacob Allen will be releasing his sixth studio album, Croak Dreams through Play It Again Sam on February 6, 2026.

Recorded straight to tape at Peter Gabriel‘s Real World Studios, Croak Dream reportedly sees Allen and co-producer and mixer Sam Petts-Davies expanding the project’s sonic world, channeling the project’s sultry, emotional and conceptual complexity with an instinct-led take on experimenting with Allen’s art to find its most evocative form.

Additionally, longtime collaborator Harvey Grant contributed to the textual quality and identity of the album. “Later at Real World Studios, the band and I recorded tape loops over a small fragment of the demo, none of them heard the finished song, and when Sam and I came back to London we cut those improvisations into this Frankenstein’s monster type collage,” Allen says. “We were really leaning into a mutual love for CAN, Aphex Twin and Queens of the Stone Age.”

Croak Dream‘s latest single, album title track “Croak Dream” is a broodingly cinematic and uneasy track that features Allen’s remarkably Thom Yorke-like falsetto croon singing over a hypnotic arrangement of angular, whirring instrumentation paired with industrial-meets-dub-like beats. Seemingly drawing from Bristol-era trip hop — i.e., Portishead, Massive Attack, etc. — and dub with an alt-pop sensibility, “Croak Dream” thematically focuses on an age-old philosophical question: “If you knew how and when you were going to die, how would it change how you decided to live?”

“A Croak Dream is a prophetic dream where you see a vision of how you die. Half the songs on this record allude to how you might decide to live, act, if you somehow knew your awaiting fate. Being daring, romantic… saying what you really mean.” Allen explains. 

“‘Croak Dream’ is about someone I have dreamt of for years. Nightmares really, I just have not been able to shake them yet,” he continues. “I thought maybe what I needed was a sort of exorcism, so I wrote this song unpacking this strange bond that has haunted me, and then put it to bed, or death, at the end. It is a laying of a ghost to rest, I hope.” 

Directed and edited by Allen and featuring animation by Quill, the accompanying video for “Croak Dream” further emphasizes the song’s surrealistic, dream-like logic, featuring Allen and his live bandmates in a PlayStation-inspired video game universe, traversing their individual subconscious in eerie, dream-meets-video game-like adventures.

“I wanted the video to evoke boyhood and be in conversation with the lyrics. The basic idea was to create a PlayStation style game paying homage to RHCP’s ‘Californication’ video, but in a way that carried deep meaning for the band,” Allen says of the video. “I searched high and low for the right person who could capture the nostalgia of games like Silent Hill, Tomb Raider and Pro Skater until I found Quill (@grabmypepsi). I wrote him a script, and he animated it all from scratch. Then it got run through VHS right at the end so that it felt truly like it would if you were playing it in the late 90’s. It felt like a way to honor these friends and, in a strange way, the children we were back then.”