Category: music video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Allegories Shares Bleak and Yearning “The Next Life”

Since the release of 2022’s Endless, the Canadian experimental pop duo and JOVM mainstays  Allegories — childhood friends Adam Bentley and Jordan Mitchell — have released a growing collection of standalone singles. 

Over the course of last year, the duo shared DREAMCRUSHER” “Stay Out Of The Basement,” “Baker’s Lung,” and “Mid Century Nothing,” the first four of a series of singles that originally started out as bare-bones ukulele sketches, which gradually transformed into idiosyncratic electronic music sound sculptures.

The Canadian JOVM mainstays begin 2026 with “The Next Life,” a shoegazer textured tune that may arguably be the most unflinchingly bleak, song that the duo have ever written or recorded. Inching towards being an anthem but stubbornly refusing cathartic release, the song sees the duo staring into existential despair, exploring nihilism and deferred hope, while asking “What if there’s nothing besides this? What then?”

“There’s no way around it,” Allegories’ Adam Bentley explains. “This is the most pessimistic reflection on life and existence I’ve ever put forward.”

Like its four immediate predecessors, “The Next Life” was originally written on ukulele and underwent multiple transformations before the final version. Beginning as a skeletal folk sketch was first recontextualized through electronic instrumentation, then reshaped again using the organic, analog tools and instruments typically associated with a rock band. “Just as it feels ready to lift its skinny fists to the heavens and brush against hope, I instead dig deeper into a nihilistic, defeated worldview,” Bentley says. In the next life, we’re told, our prayers will be answered. Our dreams are achieved. The world is at last in harmony.”

The accompanying video features the duo performing the song in the studio, filmed on warped, fucked up VHS tape. For those of you who remember, y’all know.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: ADULT. Shares Urgent, Anthemic “No One is Coming”

Throughout the course of their 25-year history, Detroit-based industrial, synth punks ADULT. — Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller — have embodied steadfast frustration, distrust and apprehension. Typically for acts that have been together that long, the edges began to soften with time, but the duo isn’t interested or even remotely concerned about the comfort of legacy.

Kissing Luck Goodbye, the duo’s 10th album is slated for a March 27, 2026 release through Dais Records. Reportedly, the album features music that may arguably be the most visceral, urgent, angry and uncompromising effort of their career to date. Built with upgraded gear and a whole new library of sounds, Kissing Luck Goodbye‘s material is crushingly dynamic, louder and much clearer with Kuperus’ commanding delivery being given much greater delivery in the mix, outlining an arsenal of vivid, caustic calls, chants and music. Laughter, whether in the lyrics or as possessed presence, serves as a leitmotif through the material that speaks to the menacing absurdity of our moment.

The album’s lead single “No One is Coming” is a rousingly anthemic and urgent industrial scorcher anchored around a forceful baseline and noisy feedback that’s one-part dire warning, one-part call to arms that directly attacks inaction in the face of fascism. And at its core, it reminds the listener that there will be no calvary, no saviors, no deus ex machina to save us. We’re all we got. We’re going to have to save ourselves — or perish.

“‘No one is coming to your rescue . . . ‘ A lyric that was written in early 2025 and is even more relevant on its release date a year later. A song speaking to moral collapse and political corruption ‘to a T.'” ADULT.’s Nicola Kuperus says. “These subhumans attempting to run the show are more concerned with cashing in and political cosplay than the well being of mankind. While working on this album, I read an article from an esteemed environmental scientist about “what’s coming in the future”. What stuck with me was their point that we are entering a new phase in existence where the most important thing we can do is know our neighbors and know the strengths of each other and what resources everyone has. Who needs extra care? Who is on their own? This song was written as a call to arms. Be alert. Be aware. Be prepared. Stand up for yourself and look out for your community. We are better when we are united. Social media is wearing us down. Deluding us. The political landscape is horrifying, distracting, deranged and unhinged. We are seeing this go down in real time right now in Minneapolis… NO ONE IS COMING TO YOUR RESCUE… except ALL OF US! Keep speaking up! Keep using your right to protest and most importantly keep showing kindness to one another.”

The accompanying video features the duo playing in front of a backdrop of edited stock footage of crowds clapping, dancing and consuming mindlessly as the surrounding world burns down.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sunglaciers Share Punchy and Breakneck “Eye to Eye”

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

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

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

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

Spiritual Content‘s first single “Eye to Eye” is a Freedom of Choice-era Devo-inspired motorik ripper featuring woozy synths, skittering and booming drums, squiggling guitars paired with Resnik’s punchy, almost California punk rock-like delivery before shifting into a towering cacophonous storm of feedback and a gentle, seemingly exhausted fade out.

“The song is about how we all have more in common with each other than we think, and how the small differences between us have been magnified to stoke division through social media and media in general,” Sunglaciers’ Evan Resnik explains. “I used a lot of old footage/movies/propaganda to showcase both our creative and destructive capabilities. There’s a lot of sped up footage, reversed sequences, and pretty flower timelapses. Sometimes it feels like we’re racing to our inevitable demise; we have to slow down and take a step back. There’s still time to recover and progress together, but it’s getting a bit late in the game, you know?”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 82nd Birthday, Nick Mason!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Pink Floyd co-founder and drummer Nick Mason’s 82nd birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 58th Birthday, Mike Patton!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 58th birthday of Mr. Bungle and Faith No More frontman Mike Patton.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: R.I.P. Sly Dunbar

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the life and music of reggae legend Sly Dunbar.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 71st Birthday, Eddie Van Halen!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 71st anniversary of the birth of Eddie Van Halen.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 63rd Birthday, Andrew Ridgeley!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Andrew Ridgeley’s 63rd birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Atabasca Shares Ethereal and Dreamy “Kundela Mawedi”

Italian trio Atabasca — Luca Mongia (guitar, lap steel, keys, vocals), Paolo Mazzioti (bass, keys, vocals) and Valerio Pompei (drums, percussion, vocals) — features three highly accomplished musicians, who over the course of the past 20 yers have made names for themselves individually on the national and international scene.

Formed back in 2023, the trio got together to create a project that merges experience, experimentation and creative freedom. The trio’s sound moves through jazz-funk, world music and film scores while weaving together elements of Afrobeat, desert and psychedelic influences into a personal and timeless musical language. Each composition manages to set a scene with each sound, each chord is a fragment of a world. Ultimately, their work is a dream-like journey between reality and imagination seamlessly blend.

Atabaca’s self-titled debut is slated for a March 27, 2026 release through Rome-based Killer Groove Records. “Kundela Mawedi,” the album’s second and latest single is an ethereal and slinky tune anchored around shimmering pedal steel, jazz-like four-on-the-floor and twinkling keys that evokes the sensation a psilocybin trip in a tropical paradise.

The accompanying video for “Kundela Mawedi” follows the trio as each individual member skateboards, rollerblades and/or bikes their way through the Italian countryside while they goof off. The video captures the trio’s easy-going, playful chemistry.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Joshua Idehen Shares Euphoric “This Is The Place”

After nearly two decades in London‘s poetry scene, Joshua Idehen found widespread recognition with the viral success of “Mum Does The Washing,” a poignant, witty pice set to music by his creative partner Ludvig Parment, a.k.a. Saturday, Monday. The success of “Mum Does The Washing” led to sold-out shows, major festival appearances — including Glastonbury — and a new chapter in Idehen’s artistic life.

Initially drawn to film, Idehen’s poetic journey began after being captivated by Dizzee Rascal‘s Vexed on Channel U. Inspired by Scroobius Pip, he began poetry with music, collaborating with the likes of LV, Benin City and Sons of Kemet. His career as a singer/songwriter/performer alongside a series of personal channels, including a divorce and mental health struggles. Relocating to Stockholm during the COVID-19 pandemic gave him space to reflect and begin anew.

That period of rebirth led to Idehen’s highly-anticipated debut album, I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got To Try. Slated for a March 6, 2026 release through Heavenly Recordings. Made with his longtime collaborator Parment, the album is a sonic embrace for the weary, mixing house-tinged beats, choral flourishes and lyrical meditations on hope, self-worth and collective resilience. The album will feature the previous released “It Always Was” and “Don’t Let It Get You Down.”

I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got To Try‘s third and latest latest single “This Is The Place” is a euphoric bit of Larry Levan-inspired house featuring glistening and woozy synth arpeggios and skittering beats serving as a lush bed for Idehen’s poetic meditations on the club being much like a church with music and dancing as a form of connection with yourself and others and as a form of freedom from your daily struggles, from the harshness of our world, from your own self-doubt and the like. It’s a much-needed joy bomb in a desperate, uneasy time — and a reminder that joy is a form of resistance.

“The way I squealed when Ludvig sent this beat over! When I heard it, I was taken back to bouncing in-between rooms early morning in Fabric, on one of those weekend nights that felt so non-special at the time ‘just another average night out’ but were a quiet healing, a ordinary burst of joy, and I wanted to capture that feeling,” Idehen explains. “‘This is the place where I pick all my pieces up; was the first line, and everything else flowed after that.”

Directed by PREHUMAN, the accompanying video is an elegant yet joyfully minimalist visual that begins with a person on the street style interview that quickly becomes a joyous dance session.

PREHUMAN adds: “Joshua is an unusually compelling performer — put him in front of a camera and much of the work is already done. The video itself is deliberately stripped back, with no distractions. I wanted the feeling of a shared space, like a club: bodies moving together, connection through rhythm.

The treatment is clean and minimal, but the movement is intentionally angular and imperfect. I love the line ‘everyone’s a bit broken here.’ Those ’90s white cyc music videos with fisheye lenses were a strong reference point throughout. Ludvig on the old MPC3000 was the icing on the cake.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tinlicker Shares Euphoric “Release”

Acclaimed Utrecht-based electronic music outfit Tinlicker — founding member Micha Heyboer, Jordi van Achthoven and their newest member Hero Baldwin — can trace their origins back to 2012, when the project was founded as a solo project. As a solo project, Heyboer released Tinlicker’s debut EP, 2012’s My First Time Here and the 2012’s Remember The Future demo compilation through his own label, Zero Three Zero. 

Jordi van Achthoven was introduced to Heyboer through a mutual contact in 2014. The pair bonded over their mutual inspirations of Paul Kalkbrenner, Trentemøller and Moderat, and at that point, Tinlicker expanded to a duo, releasing three EPs through Feed Me‘s Sotto Voce, 2014’s Like No Other, 2015’s Into The Open and The Space In Between, which featured “Oudegracht,” a track that amassed significant attention online. 

2017 saw the duo releasing material through Anjunadep, Armada Music and deadmau5′s mau5trap before singing a record deal with Anjunadeep, who released their breakthrough full-length debut, 2019’s This Is Not Our Universe, which featured contributions from alt-J, Run Rivers, Thomas Oliver and Belle Doron. The album reached #1 on the dance charts in the US, Australia, India, Canada and Finland and #2 in the UK, The Netherlands and Poland. 

The duo’s sophomore album In Another Life was released in February 2022. But by November 2023, the duo announced that the third album, 2024’s Cold Enough for Snow would be released through [PIAS] Électronique. The album featured collaborations with Brian Molko, Editors‘ Tom Smith and Circa Waves. The Dutch duo supported the album with sets at Pinkpop Festival, CRSSD Festival, Crystal Palace Bowl, Coachella and Sziget Festival. 

Back in 2020, as the Dutch duo were achieving commercial and critical success, they started a successful collaboration with London-based signer/songwriter and producer Hero Baldwin that has continued through a series of singles including last year’s “I Started A Fire.” Last year, also saw Heyboer and Achthoven inviting Baldwin to be a full-time member of the group. “Jordi and Micha seem to pull something out of me that resonates with my emotional landscape every time we make a song,” the London-based singer/songwriter and producer says. “I think it’s so important to feel creatively and emotionally secure, and Jordi and Micha always afford me that privilege.”

The act’s Melkweg Amsterdam show was their official debut as a trio. She also joined the duo for their biggest live show to date, Tinlicker In The Park at Crystal Palace Bowl. 

Tinlicker’s highly-anticipated fourth album — and first as a trio — Dreams of the Machine is slated for a February 27, 2026 release through [PIAS] Électronique. Dreams of the Machine will feature the previously released singles “I Want My Freedom,” and “Reborn.”

The newly-constituted trio’s third single “Release,” is a lush, euphoria-inducing track anchored around melodic, rippling synth arpeggios, skittering, industrial-inspired breakbeats and reverb-soaked bass paired with Hero Baldwin’s sultry, commanding delivery and the trio’s unerring knack for crafting expansive, club and festival friendly tracks underpinned by a deep soulfulness.

Lyrically, the addresses the modern obsession with our cell phones — to the point that we’re not fully present with ourselves, with others or within the moments we should be enjoying and cherishing. How many times have you attended some event and 98% of the people around you are fixating on their phone — whether to text, instagram or to record every single moment? But the song also focuses on the potential conflict between human and the influence of AI-led algorithms.

“At its heart, ‘Release’ is about how easily we slip out of the moment without noticing. The habit of checking, fixing and responding instantly on our phones and how that slowly takes over our attention to each other,” the members of Tinlicker explain. “We’re not anti-technology, perhaps just quietly aware of what disappears when distraction becomes automatic. ‘Release’ is about pausing and staying in the moment with the people around you.”

The accompanying video by Carl Frazer-Lunn begins in a bustling London with businesspeople, commuters, students and others busily fixating on their phones, completely unaware of their surroundings. The video then quickly turns to live footage of the trio performing at Crystal Palace in front of an enraptured crowd. It’s proof that there are only a few truly transcendent moments in our morally bankrupt world: that moment when our favorite act plays our favorite song live — or that moment when that act gets into an irresistible groove. Put that phone down and dance already.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 78th Birthday, Anita Pointer!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 78th anniversary of the birth of Anita Pointer.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Bibi Club Shares Dreamy “Washing Machine”

Deriving their name from their living room discotheque, where their “bibis” — or loved ones — come to dance, the Montréal-based duo Bibi Club — Adèle Trottier-Rivard (vocals, keys) and Nicolas Basque (guitar) — earned acclaim across both Québec and Europe with their debut album, 2022’s Le soleil et la mer, an album that won a Most Promising Award at that year’s GAMIQ Awards, a Discovery of the Year at that year’s ADISQ Awards and landed on the Polaris Music Prize long list.

Le soleil et la mer received praise by a number of French outfits including Les Inrocks, Magic Magazine, Libération and France Inter and landed on Le Devoir, Les Inrocks‘ and Tsugi’s Best Albums of 2022 lists. And adding to a rapidly growing international profile, the album received airplay from BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq.

Their sophomore album, 2024’s Feu de garde saw the band expanding upon their sound with darker textures and luminous synths. The album earned several nominations at that year’s ADISQ Awards and landed on the Polaris Music Prize short ling. The album was FNAC‘s album of the month for May and received praise from MOJO, Télérama, Record Collector, Uncut and many more.

Building upon a growing profile, the Montréal-based duo have begun making a run of the international festival circuit with sets at SXSW, The Great Escape, FOCUS Wales, MaMA Festival, Osheaga, The New Colossus Festival, as well as clubs in Brazil, Germany and Canada. They’ve also opened for Blonde Redhead, Circuit des Yuex and a list of others.

Bibi Club’s highly-anticipated third album Amaro is slated for a February 27, 2026 release through Secret City Records. The album sees the acclaimed French Canadian duo inviting the listener to brave the dark beasts that shadow us beneath the surface, and to devote ourselves to the healing power of a fierce will to live. It explores the liminal spectrum between the here and beyond, pointing to love, nature and community as the deeply unifying purpose. The album’s material reportedly draw a detailed map of a world completely of its own, following the trajectory traced by the pair in recent years.

Now, out of the living room, we dance in a mental space overloaded with grief and fear in their most rawest forms. Following the death of two dear, loved ones in the last year, the mantra “I want to love, I want to live,” resonates intensely in each song’s melody, underlined by the belief that if the heart is a place that never dies, we must reach it as quickly as possible.

Inspired by their tours with Blonde Redhead and Circuit des Yeux and a collaboration with Calvin Johnson, the duo’s sound now incorporates elements of avant pop, electronic body music, dark wave and neo-folk while simultaneously borrowing from baroque sounds with harpsichord, trumpet and ritual chants. The album also features contributions from saxophonist Dimitri Milbrun and singer/songwriter Helena Deland, who help contribute to its overall sound.

“Washing Machine,” Amaro‘s second and latest single, as well as the album’s first English language single is a breakneck churn of a song that’s one-part shoegaze, one-part dream pop, one-part post punk that evokes a complicated yet lived-in mix of joy and sorrow that often coexists throughout our lives — if we pay attention.

The duo say of the album’s new single: “The anomaly. This song is a homage to Tobie, who loved washing machines, the way they rush in and spin in every direction. It’s also a reflection on our experience as parents and the visceral bonds that connect us to our children. The song is full of light and life despite its underlying grief, the guitars dance together, the keyboard pulses with life, it’s energetic, even danceable. It evokes the short passage on Earth of a child who left a vivid, powerful mark on everyone who loved him.” 

Directed by Anna Arrobas and featuring sculptures by Anna Arrobas and Marin McMillan, the accompanying video for “Washing Machine” features various sculpted pieces meant to look like ancient symbols. “For ‘Washing Machine,’ I wanted to explore symbols of life, death and reincarnation,” Arrobas explains. “Marin and I sculpted them to look like ancient relics and I filmed them in flickering light in front of a black backdrop to make them look suspended and floating.”