JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the life and music of Peabo Bryson.
Category: music video
Throwback: Happy 84th Birthday, Curtis Mayfield!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 84th anniversary of the birth of Curtis Mayfield.
New Video: FIGHTMASTER Returns with Intimate and Introspective “Minotaur”
Non-binary actor, singer/songwriter and producer E.R. Fightmaster (they/them) first came into the public eye for their roles in Grey’s Anatomy and Shrill. They built a home studio that replicated a particularly fertile creative space from a previous apartment: a cozy closet. They also learned to use Logic and sharpened their engineering techniques. “It felt like leveling up in a creative way,” Fightmaster explains. “I never have wanted to do the technical part of things, but when you’re trying to be creative, you have to set up a space that does beyond what a loop station can do.”
They emerged as a solo artist with their recording project, the aptly named FIGHTMASTER with their debut EP, 2023’s Violence and 2024’s sophomore EP Bloodshed Baby. Building upon a growing profile, Fightmaster will be releasing their full-length debut, Tolerance on Friday, June 5, 2026.
Tolerance is dominated by raw, unvarnished lyrics that reflect the complexities and messiness of emotional growth, and attempts to find equilibrium. When Fightmaster started writing the album’s material, they drew from their own life experience, analyzing them through the lens of hindsight and perspective. “Every song that I write is in some way a personal experience, but here I was mining a broader understanding of patterns throughout a lifetime: patterns of loving different people, patterns of watching my friends love each other,” they explain. “All of us do a relatively graceless job, but all the patterns are the same, which is endearing to me.”
“Tolerance is the most deliberate thing I’ve ever done,” they add. “I wanted to break through more personally on this album. I really waned to give people a part of myself . . . I would decided that a song felt good if it hurt a little bit. There had to be this real truth to it. And that requires a lack of wall between self and the audience.”
Fightmaster also wanted to work with more producers than they did in the past. On the album, they worked with Riley Geare, who produced both the Violence and Bloodshed Baby EP‘s; Casey Kalmensen, the creative mastermind of Little Monarch, who also plays keys for Gracie Abrams; and Gabe Goodman, who produced Del Water Gap‘s “Ode to A Conversation Stuck In Your Throat.“
The result is an album that exhibits artistic clarity and is a reflection of Fightmaster’s own self-awareness about their place in the world, musical and otherwise. “I have to have such a clear understanding of self all the time because I’m a public figure in a very queer way, and I’ve always taken that responsibility seriously,” Fightmaster says. “I don’t feel comfortable being reckless anymore . . . Nonbinary people and trans people have so few elders — I’m not an elder yet; I haven’t earned it — but I have taken on an understanding that’s the path that I’m on.”
Of course, none of this means that Fightmaster has completely figured it all out. No one really has it figured out. But in fact, Tolerance‘s songs brim with empathy — both for the narrators and others. “I want people to know that there’s still cracks in the pavement; I want them to feel safe with me,” they say. “I’ve always thought of myself as so tough, but in the last couple of years I had to realize that I get my feelings hurt every day… When I realized how much kid-heartbreak is still in there, even though I’ve been to all the therapy and I’m on the perfect amount of medication, I was able to write these songs with more kindness for myself than I ever had.”
The album will include the previously released “All Or Nothing” and the album’s third and latest single, “Minotaur.” “Minotaur” is a gorgeous, intimate and crafted waltz of a song inspired by the Greek myth of Theseus and the labyrinth. Much like the source material, “Minotaur” is a story about love, devotion and heartbreak written in a way to allow the audience to perpetually shift sympathies. “The longer I sat with this myth, the more my heartache shifted from Theseus and his father to the Minotaur himself,” Fightmaster says.
The accompanying video follows Fightmaster on some intimately shot behind the scenes tour footage that emphasizes the introspective nature of the song.
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.”
New Video: Three from Vince Staples’ Soon-to-be Released “Cry Baby”
Acclaimed Long Beach, CA-based emcee Vince Staples will be releasing his highly anticipated sixth album Cry Baby on Friday, June 5, 2026. The album is a bold musical and sonic shift for the acclaimed Long Beach-based artist, who built each track around live instrumentation, which gives the album’s material a visceral sense of immediacy and urgency.
The result is dynamic, confrontational effort that reportedly captures the tension, absurdity and emotional weight of America. The album doesn’t just document our weird, mad, urgent and brutal moment and its precedents, but actively wrestles with them. With the album dropping in a few days, I’m going to do a rare, unprecedented thing here — cover the album’s three released singles in a single post.
“Blackberry Marmalade,” Cry Baby‘s first single is built around a breakneck and angular Gorillaz-meets-punk rock inspired arrangement. Arguably one of the more bounce around and mosh friendly songs of the Long Beach-based artist’s growing catalog, the song sees Staples taking aim at America’s hyper-violent past and present, the hypocrisy, stupidity and insulting nature of racism and racial stereotypes, the deep sense of fury and insult Black Americans feel every single moment of their lives with a cool, defiant swagger and profound clarity.
Directed by Vince Staples and Bradley J. Calder, the accompanying video for “Blackberry Marmalade” is disturbing, uncomfortable, fucked up, strangely funny fever dream of gratuitous violence that’s also all too American. America is Jim Crow racism, apple pie, baseball and mass shootings — and deep down we all know this.
“White Flag,” Cry Baby’s second single features a broodingly atmospheric soul-meets-trip ho arrangement. Staples expresses a mix of world weary exhaustion, defeat, despair and stubborn pride. Listening to “White Flag” reminded me of a line in Yasiin Bey‘s “Umi Says:” “Sometimes, I don’t wanna be a solider/Sometimes, I just wanna be a man . . .
Directed by Vince Staples and Bradley J. Calder, the accompanying video for “White Flag,” follows Staples as he grabs an American flag, paints it entirely white, hangs it up again — and then proceeds to shoot at it with an assault riffle. It’s a gorgeously shot visual that’s anchored in a cool, methodical calculation.
“Cotton,” the album’s third and final pre-release single is a strutting soul pop, funk, classic rock and gospel-inspired tune that much like its immediate predecessors is urgent and irresistible hooky and anchored around astute sociopolitical observation and introspection. Throughout the song Staples openly speaks of the brutality, anger, and desperation of the folks in his hometown, and of the power and necessity of music and community. The sort of community that will “pick you up when you feel like falling” as Staples says in the song. It serves as a reminder that the only way through this is community.
Directed yet again by Staples and Calder, the accompanying video features the white painted American flag with bullet holes being used as a projection screen that features imagery of the titular cotton in the Deep South, moments of pure Black joy, scenes of America’s violence, the Civil Rights era and more.
Throwback: Happy 85th Birthday, Charlie Watts!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 85th anniversary of Charlie Watts’ birth.
Throwback: Happy 56th Birthday, B Real!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates B Real’s 56th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 45th Birthday, Brandi Carlile!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Brandi Carlile’s 45th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 63rd Birthday, Mike Joyce!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates The Smiths’ drummer Mike Joyce’s 63rd birthday.
Throwback: Happy 52nd Birthday, Alanis Morisette!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Alanis Morissette’s 52nd birthday.
Throwback: Happy 59th Birthday, Greg Nice!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Greg Nice’s 59th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 62nd Birthday, Tom Morello!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Tom Morello’s 62nd birthday.
Throwback: Happy 71st Birthday, Topper Headon!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates The Clash drummer Topper Headon’s 71st birthday.
New Video: Glasgow’s Cwfen Shares Broodingly Atmospheric and Cathartic “Whispers”
Glasgow-based quartet Cwfen (pronounced coven) — Agnes Alder (vocals, rhythm guitar), Guy DeNuit (backing vocals, lead guitar), Rös Ranquinn (drums) and Mary Thomas Baker (bass) — quickly built up a reputation as one of the UK’s hottest, emerging doom bands with 2024’s “Reliks,” which won over fans and critics and landed on Kerrang‘s release of the week playlist.
Building upon a growing profile, the Scottish outfit released their Kevin Hare and band co-produced debut Sorrows last year. Recorded at Deep Storm Productions, the album’s material lives in the space around doom, where the weight of its riffs are matched by the weight in your chest, and where the lyrics and songwriting as equally as important as the music. The band specifically intends to write songs that are big on riffs but even bigger on feeling; to create songs that speak to the listener and are carried throughout their lives. Sonically, the band sees Cwfen’s Agnes Alder bearing her (proverbial) claws one minute and howling, whispering and pleading the next one, all while her and her bandmates craft arrangements that evoke a brewing storm front on the horizon, looming larger as you approach.
“We never set out to write an album. We were just four friends making music we wanted to hear. But then Sorrows emerged, and when it did, it pulled us into its orbit. We couldn’t ignore it,” Alder says. “When we stopped trying to fit into any one space, what came out was this beautiful mix of dark and light. Something visceral and cathartic.”
The album which included long-anticipated and long-desired reworkings of “Embers” and “Bodies,” two self-recorded demos and long-time fan favorites, received unexpected and widespread acclaim from the heavy metal music press, landing on several Best of Lists last year. Since the album’s release, the Glasgow-based quartet have toured extensively with Paradise Lost and Faetooth and they’ve made runs of the UK and European festival circuit, building a growing international presence through their live performances of Sorrows‘ material.
To celebrate a breakthrough year and the anniversary of the album’s release, the rapidly rising Scottish band have released a video for “Whispers,”a broodingly atmospheric song that’s one-part A Storm in Heaven and Souvlaki-era shoegaze, one-part doom metal and showcases Alder’s remarkable vocal range, which goes from a sultry croon to a feral howl. While cathartic, the song comes from a deeply personal place, capturing a narrator in the midst of an all-consuming mix of despair and rage.
“It’s taken a while to feel comfortable releasing ‘Whispers’ as its own thing. The song itself, lyrically, came from a very personal place, in contrast to the broader themes elsewhere on the record,” Cwfen’s Alder says. “This, for me, is a song that cuts right to the bone; it might not be too obvious in the lyrics themselves, but it’s taken a year of seeing the fans respond to it, watching it become one of their favourites, to really have the courage and the confidence to give it some of the love it deserves.
“The screams weren’t planned. They weren’t on the first version, but when we went back into the studio after a few weeks, that’s what had to come out, so what you hear in this song is the depth of that feeling,” Alder adds. “It’s one of the most cathartic, tender, and ultimately visceral songs on the album, and deciding to release it now feels like the acceptance of a direction in my songwriting that I feel ready to explore on the next record.”
Filmed and edited by Amy Greenbank, the accompanying video for “Whispers” is shot in a gorgeously cinematic black and white, and juxtaposes footage of the band playing shows across Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Ireland to wrapt audiences with haunting wintry landscapes across Northern Europe, the band doing promo shoots and behind the scenes tour footage.
“We were so lucky that our Creative Scotland funding allowed us to take this tour and to bring Amy Greenbank with us,” Cwfen’s Alder says of the tour and video,. “We got to work with an incredibly talented videographer, and we made a friend for life. She’s someone who will always be part of the Cwfen family. We made incredible memories on this tour and it’s so lovely to see some of them here.’”
“Following an unexpectedly busy and wonderful 12 months since the release of Sorrows, we’re proud to share our new video for ‘Whispers,'” Cfwen’s Guy DeNuit adds. “This song has become a live favourite with the band and audiences, and we are so fortunate to have had this documented and beautifully presented by our videographer and dear friend, Amy Greenbank.”
New Video: sundayclub Shares Anthemic “Blue Wave”
Winnipeg-based indie duo sundayclub — Courtney and Nikki — have quickly cemented a sound and approach that blends hazy indie pop and dreamy textures with unfiltered storytelling. The result is material that’s much like blurry photograph, grainy yet glowing, fleeting yet full of feeling and life.
The duo’s nine-song, self-titled, full-length debut is slated for a July 10, 2026 release through Paper Bag Records. Their debut is deeply informed by the stillness of rural Manitoba, where the duo started the band as a way of processing the very strange limbo of early adulthood — that feeling of being caught between who you once were and who you’re slowly becoming. Fittingly, the album is rooted in place: in a romanticized, re-examined Winnipeg with its hard edges softened in the way that memory often soften things. Thematically, the album touches upon growing up, growing apart and growing into your own skin.
The album includes the previously released “Camera Shy,” and the album’s latest single “Blue Wave.” Built around a motorik pulse, fuzzy guitars and a euphoric, sing-along worthy hook and chorus, “Blue Wave” is an uptempo rousingly anthemic layered with three drum kits — and the product of over 170 vocal takes. Much like its predecessor, there’s a hauntingly bittersweet undertone to the song with the single leaning into the feeling of “pre-nostalgia,” which happens when you experience nostalgia in real time and began to feel as though you might miss the current moment before it’s passed. The song also references Courtney’s first car, a 2009 blue Pontiac Wave, lovingly named Trudy after its previous owner, and the memories Courtney and Nikki associated with the car — and with a specific period of their lives. So, in some way, the car was a bit of a time machine, and a way to explore the fuzzy and hazy spacers between the past and present.
“This song reminisces on the early days of a relationship in the midst of inner turmoil and uncertainty over what the future might hold,” Carmichael explains. “It’s about wanting to be a different, better, and more evolved version of yourself despite not being there yet, and seeking escapism in the past as a way to find solace. I felt impossibly restless at the time of writing the song and was just generally tired: tired of feeling like I wasn’t progressing, tired of being patient with the record we were making, tired of feeling vulnerable and overlooked. By looking back into the past, I could escape into a feeling of wistfulness to distract myself from how frustrated I was in the present.”
Directed by Qran Zhu, the accompanying video for “Blue Wave” was shot in Toronto and follows a young couple in love, who decided to steal two old bikes and go for a joyride. But what originally was young and mischievous whimsy turns into something much more dangerous and eventually tragic.