Category: Indie Synth Pop

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Black Marble Returns with Bouncy, New Order-like “It Always Comes To Me”

Singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Black Marble creative mastermind Chris Stewart will be releasing his fifth Black Marble album, Life in Small Spaces through Sacred Bones Records on Friday. The album, which is Stewart’s first full-length album since 2021’s Fast Idol, is an album of clear-eyed commentary and analysis of the music industry as a whole, a discussion of authenticity and a heartfelt letter to all the independent creatives out in the world.

“I always knew a lot of people in music struggled to make ends meet, but it surprised me to learn that the people you thought would be doing well often weren’t. For me, seeing the business from the inside like that changed how I looked at things,” Stewart says. “When I looked up to see a new artist on a billboard, I started to wonder, ‘will I one day have to pretend to be something I’m not, in order to succeed?’ The life of an artist goes on after your moment ends, you know? So who do you want to be in the end and how do you want to be seen by the people that know you? I made Life In Small Spaces while thinking about that, and for me, it serves as my own ideal for living an artistic life. I’m doing it as a vocation, not some last-ditch effort to escape to some other world. I made this record not only as a way of saying that, but as a way of saying it’s ok to feel that way. It’s ok for people to sacrifice some degree of creature comfort in order to live a life you believe in. And it doesn’t have to be an endless search for something just out of reach, it can be a permanent way of being and something that sustains you.”

Drawing from early American left-of-the-dial “college radio” staccato guitar lines and live drum samples, the album’s material sees Stewart eschewing his usual wall of synths-driven sound for a more live sound. 

The album will include the previously released “Jim Carol New Year,” and “Anything,” and its last pre-album release single “It Always Comes To Me,” “It Always Comes To Me” continues a run of decidedly upbeat, hook-driven tunes while arguably being the most New Order-like songs I’ve heard so far. The song’s narrator is a roguish sort. who seemingly can get away with things others can’t through a mix of charm and deceit. But whether or not, the narrator is having fun with it all or is complaining about how easy it all is or has even acknowledged that at some point everyone’s luck runs out is ultimately up to the listener. And on some level, the song asks the listener, “if you can get away with it, would you?”

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Black Marble Returns with Propulsive “Anything”

Singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Black Marble creative mastermind Chris Stewart will be releasing his fifth Black Marble album, Life in Small Spaces through Sacred Bones Records on August 21, 2026. The album, which is Stewart’s first full-length album since 2021’s Fast Idol, is an album of clear-eyed commentary and analysis of the music industry as a whole, a discussion of authenticity and a heartfelt letter to all the independent creatives out in the world.

“I always knew a lot of people in music struggled to make ends meet, but it surprised me to learn that the people you thought would be doing well often weren’t. For me, seeing the business from the inside like that changed how I looked at things,” Stewart says. “When I looked up to see a new artist on a billboard, I started to wonder, ‘will I one day have to pretend to be something I’m not, in order to succeed?’ The life of an artist goes on after your moment ends, you know? So who do you want to be in the end and how do you want to be seen by the people that know you? I made Life In Small Spaces while thinking about that, and for me, it serves as my own ideal for living an artistic life. I’m doing it as a vocation, not some last-ditch effort to escape to some other world. I made this record not only as a way of saying that, but as a way of saying it’s ok to feel that way. It’s ok for people to sacrifice some degree of creature comfort in order to live a life you believe in. And it doesn’t have to be an endless search for something just out of reach, it can be a permanent way of being and something that sustains you.”

Drawing from early American left-of-the-dial “college radio” staccato guitar lines and live drum samples, the album’s material sees Stewart eschewing his usual wall of synths-driven sound for a more live sound. 

The album will include the previously released “Jim Carol New Year,” a decidedly upbeat, 1980s New Wave-inspired track and its latest single, “Anything.” Anchored around an angular and propulsive rhythmic pulse and shimmering and squiggling bursts of guitar, “Anything” manages to channel early New Order and Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO! and Freedom of Choice-era DEVO but instead of frustrated carnal desires, the song has a decidedly domestic bent. It’s not exactly content, but it has a sense of humor about daily annoyances and irritations of friends and loved ones, the frustrations of constant stimulation and instant gratification when it seems you can’t find either. And at its core, the song points out it’s difficult to connect with people, when most folks are lookin to bail on people for the smallest possible thing.

“‘Anything’ is basically a bedroom pop version of ‘Satisfaction’ but it trades the carnal undertones for more of a domestic pastiche. With lyrics about leaving the bedroom window open, casual druggy friends popping by at all hours and other relationship annoyances, the center of the struggle is less about finding temporary satisfaction but that today’s glut of options and opportunities gives every relationship an expiration date, every encounter an easy off ramp and every minor annoyance a reason to move on,” Black Marble’s Chris Stewart says. “The sentiment is the same from those old days, lack of fulfillment, but it’s due to modern circumstances. It feels like we have every option at our fingertips but we’re somehow losing the ability to connect.”

Directed by Scott Kiernan, the accompanying video was shot at New York’s Various/Artists and captures the song’s themes of overstimulation by featuring a rapid-fire barrage of vibrant images with a meditative and occasionally bemused Stewart flickers throughout the visual noise and chaos.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Josh da Costa Shares Shimmering, Goth-like Dirge “96 Year Old Girl”

Los Angeles-based artist Josh da Costa was a fixture in the early 2010s Brooklyn scene. Covering music back then, it seemed as though anyone could start a band or a project — and just about everyone did. And they all played at hundreds of now, long-shuttered venues like Cameo Art Gallery, Glasslands, 285 Kent, The Palisades, The Grand Victory, Trash Bar and countless others. da Costa’s first band Regal Degal toured with Real Estate and DIIV and opened for The Pop Group.

When Regal Degal split up, da Costa relocated to Los Angeles. The old Craftsman house he shared with Geneva Jacuzzi, Shags Chamberlain, James Ferraro and Daryl Johns was a paradise for “freaks and friends,” as well as artists and musicians, who constantly wandered in for a jam session or for a hang. At the time, he played drums with Drugdealer and MGMT and he formed CMON, who released an album through Mexican Summer.

The party came to an abrupt end when the Craftsman burned down “in a blaze of glory,” set alight by a serial arsonist and the pandemic forced CMON, much like countless other acts, to cancel a big tour. da Costa’s serious relationship also ended. But for him, it wasn’t all disaster: his friends supported him after the fire, he met someone new and the pandemic meant that he finally had the time to revisit music from his adolescence and “get deep into some of the great I’d had lying around for years but overlooked.”

da Costa’s full-length debut, New Wave Graveyard is slated for a July 24, 2026 release through Stones Throw Records. He imagined the album as a “greatest hits from a parallel universe, classic songs from an alternate reality.” “Instead of trying to hone in on one specific vibe or sound, I went through my own taste and record collection and tried out different approaches — as if I were more than just one artist,” he explains. While drawing from different styles and genres, the album’s material is anchored in how he crystallizes these very different approaches into something singular distinct, crafting a stylish record that defies easy categorization.

If you’ve been lucky to catch da Costa DJ around Los Angeles or have caught his Confusing Mix radio show on NTS, the album’s album overall aesthetic won’t come as a surprise. As a DJ and radio host, he has an uncanny knack for finding curious records from all over the place — music from Brussels-based micro-labels, Flying Nun Records favorites and left field post punk — and blending them in a way that somehow makes perfect sense.

Written over the course of several years, New Wave Graveyard was written during a transition period, a time when da Costa was “getting close to people and getting torn between the types of pleasure and discomfort all of that brings. Breaking people’s hearts, but mostly your own. And remaining excited about not just falling in love, but staying in love.”

Much like countless others, da Costa was drawn to LA’s “movie magic, bizarre music, sleazy sexy glammy druggy outsiders, and this blown-out bad vibe flipside to the California dream” – which interestingly enough, also describers New Wave Graveyard in a nutshell. The titular new wave graveyard is both a literal place (da Costa sometimes drives by his old burned-down house, which is still vacant) and a vibe, an elegy to forgotten fantasies and faded memories.

Nothing lasts forever: Bands start and break up. Friends flame out and lovers leave. Treasured spaces vanish. But the album reportedly bottles the sensation of being there, where the magic and cool shit happened — even if that place is completely imagined. It’s a celebration of strange people met once, but never forgotten, of shows and parties you attended and those you wished you had, of being young and earnest, and a little bit weird.

New Wave Graveyard’s latest single “96 Year Old Girl” is a dirgey yet shimmering electro pop ballad that to my ears is one-part brooding goth, one-part Tears for Fears, one-part Prefab Sprout and one-part Jorge Elbrecht. Thematically, the song reckons with not feeling seemed by a loved one and was written one night “after getting really high, ordering Dominos, and watching Terminator 2,” da Costa explains.

Directed by Skellyrot, the accompanying video for “96 Year Old Girl” fittingly employs 1980s VHS shot footage and resembles both public access TV shows and low budget music videos and horror movies.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Monde Ray Shares Glistening and Yearning “What If”

Manon Guiol is the French-born and-based creative mastermind behind the solo recording project Monde Ray. Guiol can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood: she began with classical piano and basic music theory before gradually moving toward electronic composition and production. Largely self-taught, the French artist developed an initiative and personal approach to music earl on, shaped outside of any academic framework.

Guiol’s first recording project Manone saw her exploring darker electronic territory. She then joined dream pop./synth pop Tender Tones as a songwriter, keyboardist and vocalist. And as a member of Tender Tones, she played in several Parisian venues including Batofar, L’International, La Pointe Lafayette and Olympic Café.

In 2023, after spending several years in Paris, Guiol relocated south, driven by a desire for light space and renewal. This major life chance led to Monde Ray, a more intimate, introspective and cinematic project that sees Guiol blending elements of synth pop, dark wave, EBM, Brazilian music, exotica, 1970s Italian film scores and post punk, and shaped by 80s inspired textures, dreamlike atmospheres paired with her ethereal vocal. But above all, she is driven by a fascination with contrast and dissonance — with what unsettles, surprises and with what feels instantly and radically self evident.

Seemingly suspended in the murkiness between day and night, Monde Ray sees Guiol exploring the tension between softness and darkness, clarity and reverie with lyrics written and sung in French and EnglishThe overall result is material that feels hypnotic yet fragile.

The French artist’s recently released Monde Ray debut Attraction sees Guiol firmly establishing her unique sound and approach while drawing from Essaie Pas, Boy Harsher, Scratch Massive, Marie Davidson and Chromatics, while embracing a cinematic quality informed by the work of David Lynch and others. Anchored around glistening and shimmering Giorgio Moroder-like arpeggiated synths and a relentless motorik groove, Attraction‘s first single is a dance floor friendly bit of Italo disco that seemingly channels Lenses-era Soft Metals.

The French artist explains that “What If” captures the suspended moment of a decisive encounter — that vertiginous sense of “what if?/why not” before a leap of faith into the unknown. She goes on to say that the song specifically speaks to the vulnerability, unease and hope of new love.

Directed by Luís Brito, the accompanying video for “What If” features a woman in a burgundy suit expressively dancing in an empty Parisian bar, before she strips down to her underwear continues to dance and then leaves the bar — with backpack in tow.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Black Marble Shares 80s New Wave-Inspired “Jim Carol New Year”

Singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Black Marble creative mastermind Chris Stewart will be releasing his fifth Black Marble album, Life in Small Spaces through Sacred Bones Records on August 21, 2026. The album, which is Stewart’s first full-length album since 2021’s Fast Idol, is an album of clear-eyed commentary and analysis of the music industry as a whole, a discussion of authenticity and a heartfelt letter to all the independent creatives out in the world.

“I always knew a lot of people in music struggled to make ends meet, but it surprised me to learn that the people you thought would be doing well often weren’t. For me, seeing the business from the inside like that changed how I looked at things,” Stewart says. “When I looked up to see a new artist on a billboard, I started to wonder, ‘will I one day have to pretend to be something I’m not, in order to succeed?’ The life of an artist goes on after your moment ends, you know? So who do you want to be in the end and how do you want to be seen by the people that know you? I made Life In Small Spaces while thinking about that, and for me, it serves as my own ideal for living an artistic life. I’m doing it as a vocation, not some last-ditch effort to escape to some other world. I made this record not only as a way of saying that, but as a way of saying it’s ok to feel that way. It’s ok for people to sacrifice some degree of creature comfort in order to live a life you believe in. And it doesn’t have to be an endless search for something just out of reach, it can be a permanent way of being and something that sustains you.”

Drawing from early American left-of-the-dial “college radio” staccato guitar lines and live drum samples, the album’s material sees Stewart eschewing his usual wall of synths-driven sound for a more live sound.

Life in Small Spaces‘ first single “Jim Carol New Year” is a hooky, decidedly upbeat, 1980’s New Wave-inspired track featuring layers of glistening and shimmering synths and gated reverb-soaked, angular drum machine beats. Seemingly channeling Security and Peter Gabriel 3-era Peter Gabriel and New Order, the song’s title nods to the late New York-born and-based author, poet and musician Jim Carroll and holiday season carols, while casting a critical eye on modern life. Throughout, the song sees is narrator and protagonist rejecting false promises of religion, advice from so-called experts or easy answers in favor of self-validation and independent thinking. The song’s refrain of “I forgot my money” is meant to convey all the things the song’s protagonist isn’t buying. “If you want to be free,” Stewart says, “you have to watch out for some of life’s classic pitfalls.”

Directed by Clayton Hunt, the accompanying video for “Jim Carol New Year” follows two travelers — one of them is in a hazmat suit — being inexplicably drawn to a house in the distance. The two travelers wind up meeting each other and discovering they’re doppelgängers for each other.

“Chris had an idea of a house in the distance with two travelers being drawn toward it. We wanted each traveler to represent a different version of the journey,” Clayton Hunt explains. “One traveler struggled unprotected against the landscape, the other was cautious, outfitted in an orange hazmat – type suit. I decided to shoot 16mm and capture everything against the green landscape, creating a vibrant contrast. That imagery helped guide the production and inform the story.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: James Tonic Shares Cinematic and Yearning “At The Time In New York”

James Tonic is a Montréal-born, New York-based dream pop artist, who over the course of seven albums firmly established a sound built on analog synths, live drums and unflinching lyrics. 2024’s Stuck in LA, an […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Genesis Owusu Shares Glistening, Woozy “BIG DOG”

Acclaimed multi-ARIA Award-winning Ghanian-born Canberra-based JOVM mainstay Genesis Owusu released this highly anticipated third album REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE today through OURNESS.

REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE sees one of Australia’s most celebrated and visionary contemporary artists construct an exposed state-of-the-day record that’s experimental yet cohesive, desolate yet ecstatic, unflinching yet free. Duality is at the core of an album that sees the JOVM mainstay layering musings on an unsettled world with piercing reflections of his, and our own places within the world. Rich in lyricism and earnest in its message, REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE is a resolute effort that confronts a divisive era in which humanity and its institutions seem to be ripping apart at the seams and heeds a desperate need for unity. 

Sonically drawing from and meshing elements funk, neo-soul, Brit rock and alt pop the album’s overall sound feels both sprawling and deliberate. “The world hasn’t ended yet,” Owusu. says. “We’re still moving, we’re still jumping, we’re still living, and so we shall continue. Through rain, shine, exploitation and warfare. We, the people, will always stubbornly persist, and hopefully persist hand in hand.”

The album includes the previously released “DEATH CULT ZOMBIE,” “STAMPEDE, “LIFE KEEPS GOING,” and the album’s latest single “BIG DOG.” Drawing from footwork, drum ‘n’ bass, glitchcore, and alt R&B, “BIG DOG” is anchored around a dense layers of dizzying synth arpeggios and skittering beats. The acclaimed JOVM mainstay alternates between punchily delivered bars and crooning over the woozy, uneasy production. The song sees Owusu surveying the world’s wreckage and takes aim at the higher institutional forces at play while still being danceable and oddly enough, almost feel good.

Owusu says of the “It’s a jam, man. Just something to have fun and feel good to. In the context of everything I’ve been releasing, the political, the disruptive, the punk – it’s important to remember what all that fighting is for: we’re fighting to be able to live life to the fullest. Live, laugh, love and all that. Fight for your right to party, as some wise men once said.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Modern Ideas Shares Glistening “This Is How It Hurts”

Modern Ideas is a Melbourne/Naarm-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, who specializes in dark synth pop rooted in a belief that pop isn’t about perfection, but transformation. In particular, our power to change shape, to become new forms, to have new feelings and new identities.

Drawing from 80s synth pop and contemporary darkwave, Modern Ideas’ is anchored around a simple conceit: Although modern life may be artificial, within that artifice lies the possibility of something beautiful, strange and new.

The Aussie synth pop project’s latest single “This Is How It Hurts” serves as the perfect introduction to its overall sound and approach. Built around glistening analog synths, a tight, skittering four-on-the-floor paired with an understated yet aching vocal and a remarkably catchy hook, “This Is How It Hurts” seemingly channels Depeche Mode, New Order and TR/ST while anchored around a spacious and clean, modern production.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: I WANT POETRY Share Lush, Nostalgia-Inducing “Backyard Astronauts”

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,” the Michael Micheal Vanja, Ghian Wright and The EmU-co-produced “No Is a Full Sentence,” and it’s latest single “Backyard Astronauts.”

“Backyard Astronauts” continues a run of lush, hook-driven synth pop but unlike its immediate predecessors, the new single sees the German duo showcasing a balance of earnestness, childhood whimsy and wonder — the sort of wonder and joy inspired by brave astronauts and space travel. But along with that is the of dream of scientific and technological progress informing a desperately needed sense of hope and unity, much like the recent Artemis II mission.

“‘Backyard Astronauts’ captures the feeling of childhood summers when imagination could turn a backyard into a space mission,” the German duo explain,. It’s our song for everyone who still has a sense of wonder about space travel, a quiet dream of unity and progress that feels as present now as it did back then. It’s a reminder of how closely we’re connected – and how far imagination and friendship can take us.”

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Fantôme Paradis Shares CInematic “Ámes sœurs”

Fantôme Paradis is the synth wave/darkwave recording projecting of a mysterious and emerging French producer. The mysterious French producer’s latest single “Âmes sœurs” features glistening synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rattling thump as a lush bed for a yearning, female French vocal.

Sonically nodding at a synthesis of The Weeknd and John Carpenter soundtracks, “Âmes sœurs” according to the mysterious French producer explores a relationship in crisis, caught in an uneasy conflict between devotion and hatred.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 71st Birthday, Howard Jones!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Howard Jones’ 70th birthday.

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: Us and I Share Melancholy “What’s There to Dream”

Formed back in 2018 in  Bangalore and currently based in Düsseldorf, synth pop duo Us and I — Bidisha Kesh (vocals) and Guarav Govilkar (production) — features members who come from very different backgrounds and who bonded over having similar musical sensibilities. As the story goes, when teh pair started to work together, they quickly realized that they shared a unique way of crafting songs: deeply personal lyrics paired with the melancholia of the orange and yellow colors leaking from their synthesizers.

Th duo then spent the next two years developing a sound that they believed acted as a bridge between the synth-driven work of Chromatics and the slow-burning, dream pop of Beach House — with subtle nods to darkwave and post-punk. Thematically, the duo’s material generally draws from everyday life and the relationships around them. 

The duo’s debut EP, 2021’s Loveless thematically focused on a deeply universal subject, love — in particular, a past love, and how the nostalgia and grief of that past love can hit us like a wave hitting the shore. Since the release of Loveless EP, the duo relocated to Düsseldorf — for work and for potentially better opportunities for their music. 

The Düsseldorf-based duo begins 2026 with their latest single, “What’s There To Dream,” a slow-burning and melancholy song that continues a run of material that to my ears sounds like a synthesis of Still Corners and Beach House — but while evoking a mix of nostalgia, reverie and creeping doubt.

“We all have days when we question the meaning of this quiet banality of life. Moments where everything feels soft, heavy and strangely beautiful at once,” the duo explain. “This song is an invitation to sit with those thoughts. To dive into existentialism in colour. . . “

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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