Hummingbird — Felix Lavallard · Vincent Verye · Geoffrey Margain · Timothée Borne — is an emerging yet somewhat mysterious, French indie outfit. Their latest single “Home” is an anthemic and breezy bop featuring strummed acoustic guitar, live drumming, a sinuous bass line, fluttering synths and a rousingly euphoric hook.
While “Home” sonically recalls a slick synthesis of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix-era Phoenix and 80s pop, the song is an optimistic yet kind of bittersweet one that suggests that life is ultimately one big, very long, very wild journey.
Cloud Cukkoo is an emerging Dutch-born, Berlin-based singer/songwriter and producer. According to the Dutch-born, Berlin-based artist, she “writes, produces and performs songs for blue-tinted nights. Nights of rained upon ashtrays and repressed melancholia; nights that are blinding, deafening and paralyzing; nights that are as comforting as they are disconcerting. It’s the cutting winter cold that feels like an embrace after spending hours in an overloaded club. . .”
The emerging Dutch-born, Berlin-based artist’s latest single, the slow-burning and moody “The Game” pairs Cloud Cukkoo’s soulful vocals, oscillating and atmospheric synths, fluttering electronics, strummed guitar and twinkling keys. While revealing a songwriter who can evoke a brooding, late night melancholy, “The Game” is an earnest, pop confection rooted in what feels like lived-in personal experience: The song’s narrator struggles with being tempted by lust and loneliness, knowing that she will probably get burned — badly.
Naomi is a Montréal-based multi-disciplinary artist, who first after studying theater made a name for herself when she started landing roles on both the small and big screen when she was 14. Because she has long seen art as a continuous means of expression, she went on to study dance at the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal.
As a dancer, the Montreal-based multi-disciplinary artist has appeared in and/or choreographed music videos for Rihanna, Marie-Mai, Coeur de Pirate and others, as well as for local dance performances.
While she was establishing herself as an actor and dancer, the Montreal-based artist quietly developed a passion for singing — without fully giving herself permission to explore it fully. Interestingly, Coeur de Pirate’s Beátrice Martin saw star potential in the Montreal based multi-disciplinary artist and took her under her wing.
Encouraged by Couer de Pirate’s mentorship and encouragement, naomi began to realize that she was never far off from making her own music. All that she needed was a little push.
Signed to Bravo Music, the Montreal-based artist began to write her own material and has taken a bold leap into a career as a pop singer. Naomi’s first two singles “Tout à nous” and “Zéro stress” have received airplay on WKND, Rouge FM, Arsenal, POP, CVKM and several other regional radio stations across Quebec.
Naomi’s third and latest single is the club friendly, Rowan Mercille and Naomi co-written “Semblant.” Centered around glistening synth arpeggios, skittering trap-meets-Caribbean beats paired with the Montreal-based artist’s sultry delivery and an infectious hook, “Semblant” is a self-assured summertime banger that reveals a bonafide superstar in the making.
The song’s narrator details a sensual encounter in which both parties have developed an inescapable and primal magnetism that draws them into a vicious yet irresistible cycle of sexual need and desire.
Directed by Élise Lussier, the accompanying visual for “Semblant” features a solitary Naomi sultrily dancing by herself — both for herself and for a possibly unseen viewer — while seemingly attempting to resist the irresistible.
Rising Montreal-based singer/songwriter and JOVM mainstay Thaïs specializes in an atmospheric and delicate take on pop centered around the French Canadian artist’s ethereal vocals. Thematically her work focuses on melancholy, loneliness and dysfunctional, confusing, heartbreaking love.
Last year’s Paradis Artificiels EP featured two tracks I wrote about:
“Boreal,” a track inspired by a trip she took to Iceland that evoked the awe-inspiring sense of being in a gorgeous, natural beauty and taking it all in deeply
2022 has been a big year for the Montreal-based JOVM mainstay: Earlier this year, Thaïs signed to Bravo Musique, who will be releasing her newest EP Tout est parfait: acte un on May 6, 2022.
Tout est parfait: acte un will feature “Arrête de danser,” a slickly produced bop centered around glistening and atmospheric synth arpeggios and trap beats that saw the rising French Canadian artist alternating between a syncopated trap-like flow for the song’s verses and ethereal cooing for the song’s hook and choruses. And while arguably being one of her most club friendly songs, “Arrête de danser” is a bitter tell-off to an unhealthy, dysfunctional lover that the song’s narrator knows deep down is wrong for her — and yet can’t quite quit.
The EP’s second and latest single, the Coeur de Pirate co-written, Renaud Bastien-produced “Vieux Port,” continues a run of danceable and seemingly upbeat bops featuring wobbling bass synth, glistening and arpeggiated synth melodies, twinkling keys, some brief bursts of industrial clang and clatter and soaring strings paired with Thaïs ethereal cooing. But just underneath the surface is a song that details a relationship that’s seemingly on the ropes while contemplating the passing of time and the desire to turn the clock back — with the knowledge you have now.
Directed by Jeanne Joly, the accompanying video for “Vieux Port” is a stylistically shot visual that features the Montreal-based JOVM in an art covered room creating her own art and dancing expressively.
With the release of her first two EP’s 2019’s On My Way to the Listening Party and last year’s Drug Music EP and a handful of standalone singles, the fairly mysterious yet rising Canadian artist Magi Merlin (pronounced MADGE-eye) has exploded onto the national scene: She has received praise from CRACK Magazine. Along with that she has opened for Lido Pimienta and played at Osheaga Festival alongside ODIE, Jessie Reyez and others.
Earlier this year, the rising Canadian artist released the Funkywhat-produced “Free Grillz,” a track that featured Merlin’s mix of fiery, self-assured bars and sultry crooned hook gliding over icy, trap hi-hats, skittering snares, glistening synth arpeggios and a tweeter and woofer rattling bass line. “Free Grillz” found the Canadian artist hoping to aspire to at least some of the tropes of hip-hop fame while reflecting on a series of bitterly harsh and inescapable, daily realities, like having oblivious people carelessly mispronounce your name, misogyny, kicking clingy and stupid men out of your life and so on with a mix of humor and world dominating swagger.
Merlin’s third EP Gone Girl is slated for a May 27, 2022 release through Bonsound/AWAL. The EP’s material may arguably be the Canadian artist’s most personal and audacious effort to date: Merlin grew up in Saint Lazare, a suburb of Montreal, created by Nixon types in 70s. A Place of white folks by white folks. Much like in the States, the suburbs are viewed as the epitome of all that’s good and “normal.” Unless of course, you’re Black and Queer — and that perceived normalcy is challenged.
The EP, which continues Merlin’s ongoing collaboration with Funkywhat draws from 90s house, drum ‘n’ bass, Motown and acid flecked hip-hop to create a sound that evokes smoky, after hours clubs — but with rumbling bass lines and thunderous 808s. Thematically, the EP sees the rising Canadian artist touching upon generational angst, fake friends, casual racism and more.
The rising Canadian artist’s latest single “Pissed Black Girl” is a sleek and hyper modern pop song that features Merlin’s assured vocal delivery gliding over icy synth arpeggios, skittering trap beats and a sinuous bass line. Interestingly, “Pissed Black Girl” is rooted in a familiar pent up frustration with fake white progressives and phony liberals but instead of the cliched trope of angry Black woman, it’s a dance floor friendly banger that tells those fakes to go fuck themselves and sit down, while the rest of us get down.
“I wrote this song summer 2020,” Merlin says. “I was made to really look at my identity as a Black woman and what that identity means to the people I surround myself with. I didn’t realize a lot of the people I had around me at the time that identified as progressive, leftist and ‘allies’ were not as supportive as they made themselves out to be. Talking with them just resulted in arguments instead of compassion and understanding. This made me very angry and the only thing I was able to do to vent my frustrations and arrive at some form of catharsis was by singing about it.
“The title of the track references a story an ex-friend recounted to me as well as what I and many other black women who speak their minds are reduced to: an ‘angry black woman.’ This ex-friend told me about a time they went to a predominantly white party in the suburbs and one of the party-goers, while staring out onto the front lawn of the house, said: “wow, there’s a N***er on the lawn” – one of many atrocious acts that go unchecked in white suburbia and various other white spaces. If there is anything I’ve learned from my experiences with ignorant and bigoted people, it is how unapologetic I need to be about my existence. I’m a girl; I am pissed and I’m Black. What about it?”
The accompanying video features the rising Canadian artist being unapologetically herself — but at one point dancing in a circle of flames that reads “Pissed Black Girl.”
Since the release of 2013’s Diamonds in the Dark, Morgan has been extremely busy: he has a remarkably six-year run of sold-out shows at Rockwood Music Hall that often feature guest spots from a number of Grammy and Tony Award-winning artists, who join him for unique, on-stage collaborations; 150,000 miles of touring and sold-out shows on both sides of the Atlantic; and production work on over 20 albums by some serious A-list artists.
Late last year, the New York-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and music biz exec released “Down Below Or Up Above” to praise from the likes of The Aquarian,Post-Punk.com, Culture Catch and my dear friends at Glamglare. “Down Below Or Up Above” will appear on Morgan’s long-awaited fifth album Violent Delights, which is slated for a May 20, 2022 release through ECR Music Group.
Last month, I wrote about the rousingly anthemic “My Love Is Waiting” a defiant and brazenly hopeful love song that views love as the most important and necessary force of the world, meant to get people up from their seats to dance and and shout along with it. But underneath its anthemic hooks, the song, which at points nodded at The Police‘s “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” Joe Jackson and JOVM mainstays Palace Winter revealed a penchant for old-timey pop craftsmanship paired with an uncanny knack for a well-placed, razor sharp hook.
Violent Delights‘ third and latest single “Baby I Would Want You” is swooning and euphoric guitar pop song that to my ears that sounds indebted to Elvis Costello,XTC‘s “Mayor of Simpleton.” While continuing a remarkable run of brazen and defiantly earnest love songs, “Baby I Would Want You” manages to be unintentionally fitting for our apocalyptic moment that simply says “welp, the ship is sinking and the end is nigh, but I got you and you got me.” r
It’s a rare sort of love, but the sort of love we all need in our desperate and uncertain time.
Continuing his ongoing collaboration with genre-defying filmmaker Alice Teeple, the accompanying video for “Baby I Would Want You” is shot in a cinematic black and white at Williamsburg’s Pete’s Candy Store and features Morgan and his backing band performing and hanging out at the venue. And much like the preceding visuals, it captures a very New York scene that’s near and dear to my heart.
Mackenzie Leighton is a rising San Diego-born, Paris-based indie folk singer/songwriter musician and JOVM mainstay. When she was a child, Leighton’s family moved to a small, seaside town in Maine, where she grew up and spent her most other formative years. The JOVM mainstay can trace the origins of her music career to her youth: her father took her to classical piano lessons as a girl.
When Leighton turned 18, she attended my alma mater, New York University — and while in New York, she played in several jazz and folk inspired bands. Upon graduation, Leighton relocated to Paris. Leighton landed a day job as a florist and then launched a solo career with the release of 2017’s self-titled EP, a singer/songwriter folk effort that was released to praise and comparisons to Phoebe Bridgers and Julia Jacklin.
Leighton’s sophomore EP, 2020’s Tourist(e) was a decided change in sonic direction that found the rising American-born, French-based artist working with French musicians and producers while pairing folk-inspired songwriting with lush yet contemporary instrumentation and production. Leighton has supported both of her recorded efforts with shows in and around Paris, as well as with tours in Italy, Belgium and here in the States.
Last year’s Fleuriste EP thematically saw Leighton focusing on the reality of life as an expatriate in Europe: being constantly torn between two different cultures and hemispheres. Sonically, the EP continues in a similar vein as its immediate predecessor: Leighton pairing folk-leaning songwriting with lush and modern production.
I had previously written about three of the EP’s singles last year:
In the buildup to the EP’s release, I managed to write about two of the EP’s singles:
“Un jour la vie,” a playful and infectious invitation to dream of an escape to Italy, to drink endless Aperol Spritzes and to dance the night away without a care in the world, centered around Leighton’s coquettish vocals, a sinuous yet propulsive bass line and shimmering guitars.
“Flueriste,” a hook-driven pop confection that focuses on the plight of musicians unable to work because of the pandemic — but full of hopes of a bright future of live shows and all of the things we missed so much.
“Mona by the Seaside,” another breezy, hook-driven pop confection that tells the story of the narrator’s friend Mona inviting her for a weekend at the beach. While detailing easy-going summer days and nights with friends — both old and new — the song is centered around the bittersweet and tacit acknowledgement that nothing is forever, and that the good times need to be cherished.
The EP’s latest single, EP closing track, the slow-burning and contemplative “Je ne suis poéte” was one of the first songs that Leighton wrote in French. Throughout the song, Leighton openly discusses how difficult it is to write in another language and how paradoxically, it forces a guileless and unvarnished sort of honesty: She winds up getting straight to the point and saying things frankly in a way that she couldn’t in her native English. But at its core, it’s a sweet and playful love song about the desire to write a song in French that a Francophone lover will love.
Directed by Coraline Benetti, the accompanying visual follows Leighton to a quirky book store — the sort that you’d only see in Europe or pre-Guilliani/pre-Bloomberg New York. And while in the bookstore, she winds up going on a series of endearingly awkward dates with a handful of famous French poets — François de Malherbe, Paul Verlaine and Jacques Prévert — but nothing seems to work.
Copenhagen-based duo and JOVM mainstays Palace Winter — Australian-born, Copenhagen-based singer/songwriter Carl Coleman and Danish-born, Copenhagen-based producer and classically trained pianist Caspar Hesselager —have released three critically applauded albums, 2016’s Waiting For The World To Turn, 2018’s Nowadays and 2020’s . . . Keep Dreaming Buddy, which have seen the Danish pop duo establish and hone a unique, genre-defying with a cinematic leaning.
During the pandemic, Palace Winter’s Carl Coleman kept busy by watching horror films. Naturally, it wasn’t long before the themes of the movies he was watching, started serving as inspiration for new material: The paranoia, existential fear and dread of those movies seemed to reflect our time with an eerily uncanny accuracy.
“Slasher” was the first bit of new material inspired and informed by the horror movies Coleman watched during lockdowns. Thematically, the song is about a serial killer roaming the streets and killing unsuspecting victims. And for the JOVM mainstays, “Slasher” was the first bit of songwriting together in person since the release of Nowadays.
Unfortunately, the duo’s creative process was interrupted when Coleman discovered that he had contracted COVID, a literal killer, rapidly roaming across the globe. “While we were making the song, I got COVID and had to isolate for a week in a small Corona-hotel room,” Coleman recalls in press notes. “The bizarre situation made me reflect on the fact that there’s this ‘killer on the streets’, and for many of us there’s a slim chance of avoiding it. Suddenly I had 3 meals a day left at my door, no contact with any other people and could only get fresh air in this super bleak shopping mall carpark. It was so dystopian, like a zombie flick.”
Centered around nods to Ennio Morricone Spaghetti Western soundtracks, 80s New Wave and synth pop, and 90s drum ‘n’ bass and house music, “Slasher” further cements the Copenhagen-based JOVM mainstay act’s wide-screen and genre-defying take on pop paired with their unerring knack for crafting razor sharp hooks. But unlike their preceding material, “Slasher” finds the duo thematically at their darkest — and simultaneously at their campiest with the song featuring the final line “But my soul keeps dancing.”
The JOVM’s first single of 2022, “The Big Blue” is an expansive track that clocks in at a little over six-and-half minutes and finds the Danish pop duo making a heavy nod to the krautrock inspired style of some of their earlier work while pushing their sound in adventurous new directions. Bursting out of the gate with a brooding and uneasy introduction featuring shimmering acoustic guitar and trippy melodies, the song features three distinct sections that reveal gradually shifting tones and moods centered around glistening synth arpeggios, relentless four-on-the-floor and an extensive Trans Europe Express-like synth solo section.
Rising Danish-born sibling duo PRISMA — Frida and Sirid Møl Kristensen — contribute dreamy harmonies throughout the song. The duo, who cite The Raveonettes, Vivian Girls, Trentemøller, The Cure, and Susanne Sundfør as influences on their work have received attention across Scandinavia and elsewhere for an uptempo, direct yet cinematic sound that reminded Coleman and Hesselager of some of their earliest work — in particular, their debut EP, 2015’s Medication and their full-length debut. “One of their strengths is the way their voices harmonize together. Especially in the outro it almost puts you in a trance,” Hesselager explains.
Figuratively, “The Big Blue” is a journey out of darkness and into brighter, more hopeful days. And I know that’s something we’re all desperately clinging onto in this weird time. “It’s about coming out of a trauma and changing yourself into something more positive. It’s about discovering a better version of yourself,” Palace Winter’s Carl Coleman explains.
Agua Tinta is an emerging Mexican singer/songwriter, who can trace the origins of her career back to 2015 when she wrote her first song on a piano. Tinta then went on to attend Berklee College of Music, where she studied Songwriting and Contemporary Writing and Production.
Since attending Berklee College, Tinta’s work sees her meshing Mexican folk music with contemporary pop paired with lyrics that draw from her own experiences and those of others.
The emerging Mexican artist’s latest single “El Fuego” is a breezy and summery love song about the push and pull of new love that pairs Tinta’s coquettish delivery with a production that meshes reggaeton and electro pop beats with mariachi horns. The end result is a song that to my ears recalls Selena and Daddy Yankee — with a decided pop accessibility.
The accompanying video for “El Fuego” follows Tinta as she hangs out with her girlfriends and has an adorable and flirtatious meet cute. The video manages to capture the sweetly coquettish nature of the song.
Aussie indie pop singer/songwriter Phebe Starr first emerged onto the Australian scene with her breakthrough 2013 single “Alone With You,” a track that grabbed the attention of the national music industry and received heavy rotation on Triple J. Since then, Starr has been extremely busy: her work has appeared on Spotify editorial playlists globally including New Music Friday, Fresh Finds, Young and Free, Indie Arrivals, Indie Pop, Women of Pop and thousands of fan generated playlists, which has resulted in millions of streams. Her work has appeared in ad campaigns for Sony, Samsung Galaxy — and in HBO’s Ballers.
Starr has written songs for some of the world’s biggest and most beloved artists and bands. And adding to a growing profile, she has shared stages wqiuth Of Monsters + Men, Cub Sport, and The Paper Kites and a growing list of others.
The Aussie pop artist’s full-length debut, Heavy Metal Flower Petal was released earlier this week. The album reveals an artist, who has become more in touch with self than ever before. Arguably, some of her most liberating and honest work to date, the album’s material was written in the wake of divorcing a man she married as a 21-year-old. Featuring guest spots from Cloud Control‘s and VLOSSOM‘s Alister Wright, Xavier Dunn, and Japanese Wallpaper, the album sees Starr peeling back the layers and exploring new territory and depths within her, showing a contrast between the toughness (the “heavy metal”) and the softness (the “flower petal) that exists within her life.
“The whole album is about my process of letting myself feel things that I was afraid to,” she says. “It’s about letting myself be tender and vulnerable, learning how to incorporate the feminine into my narrative,” Starr explains.
Earlier this year, I wrote about album “Everything,” a slinky Stevie Nicks and Still Corners-like slinky bop centered around a a sinuous bass line, Starr’s sultry and plaintive vocals, finger snaps, strummed acoustic guitar and a soaring hook. While revealing an unerring knack for craftsmanship — and a great hook — the song sees the Aussie pop artist examining the ways in which the quest and desire for love can often lead us to strange and unfamiliar places.
“My Magic Moon,” Heavy Metal Flower Petal‘s continues a run of slinky and glittery, hook-driven bops — but while arguably being the most disco friendly and upbeat track on the album, thanks to a punchily propulsive bass line and relentless four-on-the-floor paired with Starr’s sultry delivery.
“I was so sick of writing heartache songs. I wanted to write a song about how I wanted to feel and how future me would feel, but I didn’t have a muse,” Starr explains in press notes. “I looked outside the window and I always felt like the moon looked like it had it figured out, so as one does looking up to the moon pining for vibes, I found my muse…My Magic Moon.”
The accompanying, trippy, black and white video sees Starr performing the song with some self-playing instruments and getting down with her beau, Lizard Man in outer space while she fantasizes about her lunar muse.
Jacqueline Loor is a Miami-born, Cuban-Ecuadorian singer/songwriter, currently based in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. Loor has released a handful of singles that have received placement in movies and in TV — “Burn It Down” appeared on The CW’s Batwoman and “No Me Digas” appeared in the award-winning short film Un Pequeño Corte which was part of PBS’ LATINXPERIENCE.
Loor’s latest single “Nada Mas” sees the rising Tenerife-based artist collaborating with Bogotá, Colombia-based guitarist, songwriter and producer Enrique Lloreda. Featuring a slick reggaeton-inspired pop production centered around shimmering and looping guitar, skittering tweeter and woofer rattling beats paired with Loor’s sultry vocals, “Nada Mas” is a dance floor friendly, feminist anthem featuring a fed up narrator, who’s tired of waiting time on a deadbeats, fuckbois and the like.
As Loor explains, the song is meant to inspire and empower women to not settle for any man who doesn’t treat them right.
Emma Torrison is a 18 year-old singer/songwriter, pop artist and creative mastermind behind the rising solo recording project Emmrose. Torrison can trace the origins of her professional music career to when she wrote her first song in math class about four years ago.
Since then, Torrison has gone on to release 13 singles. along with a her critically applauded debut EP Hopeless Romantics, all of which have helped her establish a sound and approach that has been described by some as a mesh between Adele and Florence and the Machine and a bit of classic, minimalist pop and progressive pop.
Currently, the young and rising pop artist is attending college here in NYC while working on material for her sophomore EP — and she’s working a small collection of t-shirts, bags and clothing with a team of young fashion design students.
Earlier this week, I wrote about “Run,” a hook-driven and accessible pop banger centered around an encouraging and anthemic message of empowerment to those, who desperately need to leave a toxic, dysfunctional and abusive relationship.
Torrison’s latest single is the cinematic and politically charged “Brave New World.” Centered around a gorgeous arrangement featuring strummed acoustic guitar, twinkling keys, dramatic drum patterns, atmospheric synths and the self-assured young artist’s pop belter vocals, “Brave New World” is an earnest, enormous yet deliberately crafted song that to my ears, brings Dido and Sting‘s “Russians” to mind. `
Written and recorded last year as a response to the current state of the our embattled world of disinformation, conspiracy theories and war, “Brave New World” loosely draws from some of the themes of Torrison’s favorite novels, George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and the famous line from Shakespeare’s The Tempest “O brave new world, that has such people in it!” And perhaps unsurprisingly, the song is heavily influenced by Torrison’s own experience: when she wrote the song, Biden was elected president — during a massive disinformation war. She couldn’t avoid hearing conspiracy theories influenced by politically-motivated groups from her friends, across social media and even on the news.
Sometimes, friendship breakups can be even harder than relationship breakups. “The Feelings Mutual” tells about a toxic relationship from which Emmrose was able to pull out. In a pop ballad style, the New York City based artist shows how mature she’s become. The track resonates with her generation while helping her proudly finding closure for a very painful time in her life. The young artist is not done showing us what she is capable of!
Eldorado is an up-and-coming French singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and bedroom producer, who can trace the origins of her music career to when she turned 6 and started playing drums. Inspired by an eclectic array of artists, who have also abided by the DIY ethos including Mac DeMarco, Men I Trust, Yellow Days, Clairo and a list of others, the French singer/songwriter and bedroom producer’s work is inspired by real life, personal experiences, which helps evoke strong emotions.
Sonically, the up-and-coming French artist and producer has crafted music across a versa array of styles while maintaining a consistent brand and sound.
Eldorado’s debut single, the neon and heartache-tinged “3 in the morning” is centered around glistening, reverb-drenched guitars, the French artist and producer’s achingly plaintive vocals, skittering beats, atmospheric synths and a soaring hook. Sounding as though it were inspired by JOVM mainstays St. Lucia, Washed Out, and 80s synth pop, “3 in the morning” draws from a heartbreaking, fairly universal experience: wanting to be with someone, who has no interest in you whatsoever. It’s the sort of song, I can imagine heartbroken souls singing to themselves at 3am — or at the club, along with their equally heartbroken cohorts.
