JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea’s 64th birthday.
Category: music video
New Video: Montréal’s DONALDA Share a Glitchy, Politically-Charged Banger
Montréal-based electronic dance music duo DONALDA — Florence Lafontaine and Olivier Martin-Fréchette — derive their project’s name from the name given to the first women admitted to college in Québec in the late 19th century, and is a nod to the fictional character introduced in Claude-Henri Grignon’s 1933 novel Un homme et son péché, who, for several generations, embodied the consequences of patriarchy.
Lafontaine and Martin-Fréchette both have an academic background in digital, contemporary mixed-media and instrumental composition, as well as in jazz interpretation. Inspired by UK garage, dubstep, left field bass and other British electronic music sub-genres as well as the queer nightlife scene, the duo take a pedagogical approach to music in order to deconstruct the boundaries of musical genres. While getting people onto the dance floor is their ultimate goal, they also seek to spark musical curiosity among their audience, something that is at the core of their inclusive, unifying philosophy.
Through composition, sound design and creative coding, the Montréal-based duo tap into their wide-ranging experiences to bring every stage of DONALDA’s creative process to life. And fittingly, their versatility imbued their sound with a coherent and deeply personal artistic identity rooted in a celebration of diversity and inclusion, freedom and the French language.
Earlier this year, the duo signed to Bonsound. And since then, French Canadian outfit have released “C FOU,” “C BEN D’VALEUR” and their latest single “C CHER.” Translated into English as “It’s expensive,” “C CHER” is one-part footwork, one-part Larry Levan/Chicago-styled house and one-part glitchcore with wobbling bass that references Daniel Lanois’ 1989 song “O Marie,” which focused on the grueling, back-breaking labor of French Canadians who used to work in Ontario’s tobacco fields while also being a critique of the frantic pace of capitalism and its physical and psychological effects. The result is a song that turns collective physical and mental exhaustion into a visceral, deeply universal anthem — and is both a cry of frustration and a call to question a broken system that hinders individual and collective fulfillment.
Directed by Cori & Zacksta, the accompanying visualizer features the French Canadian duo making beats, brushing their teeth, stopping a bloody nose, making beats and hanging out with VHS video glitch and in heat mapped-style footage. It’s as trippy and high energy as the song it accompanies.
New Video: Total Fucking Darkness Shares Yearning, Pop Gem “This Is The Last Time”
Electronic music outfit and JOVM mainstays Total Fucking Darkness features:
- Stars‘ Torquil Campbell
- Young Galaxy‘s Stephen Ramsey
- English studio genius and synth player Tom McFall, whose engineering credits include R.E.M., Bloc Party, Twin Shadow and Regina Spektor
Over the past 18 months or so, the trio have released a handful of standalone singles, including “Desolation Boys,” “Take It Easy,” “Give Me Everything You Own” “Horizontal Rain” and “Beaten to Write.” Their latest single “This Is The Last Time” is glistening sophistipop-meets-80s New Wave-meets New Order-like tune anchored around what may arguably be the most melodic and the most earnest and achingly oversized yearning song of the trio’s growing catalog.
Sonically, “This Is The Last Time” sees the JOVM mainstays looking backward to move forward. Campbell, Ramsey and McFall have had a long-held obsession with late 1980s and early 1990s electronic music, and the new single pushes that fixation towards its biggest pop-leaning instincts. There aren’t software shortcuts hiding beneath the surface either. “No plug-ins, anywhere. This track is all analog, baby.”
When asked what inspired it, Total Fucking Darkness’ Stephen Ramsey offers a characteristically economic answer, “New Order.”
“This Is The Last Time” arrived with similarly little ceremony. Ramsay had barely made it through the instrumental once before Torquil Campbell had the lyrics ready. “It may as well be called ‘Real Time’ because Torq wrote this in real time,” Ramsay explains. “By the time I played him the instrumental once, he had written the lyrics.”
“‘This Is The Last Time” is about the point where letting go becomes forward motion, following whatever dream remains, committing to it completely, and accepting that the only sensible response to uncertainty is to set your heart on fire — and see what survives.
“Every band says their latest music is the best thing they’ve ever done,”the band’s Stephen Ramsay says. “It’s obviously cliché at this point and therefore categorically untrue in almost all cases, but I’m telling you, this is the best song we’ve written.”
The accompanying video features edited footage from some movie that follows two dogs, who are in love. It’s adorable.
New Video: Normal Bias Share Surreal Visual for Thumping, Club Banger “Soft Power”
Currently split between New York and Atlanta, electro pop duo Normal Bias — Matt W.(vocals) and Chris C. (synths) — are a self-described “pump and dump scheme, mining the most bloodthirsty parts of decades of electronic music and striping it for parts” while describing their sound and approach as “equal parts techno synth pop and ruthless venture capital.” The duo have supported their recorded output — 2022’s self-titled EP and 2024’s Kingdom Come — with shows and touring with Nitzer Ebb, Boy Harsher, Nuovo Testamento, High Functioning Flesh and Phase Fatale. Adding to a growing reputation in the electronic music scene, the band is currently on tour with Spike Hellis, who has performed and collaborated with Nitzer Ebb, Boy Harsher, Pixel Grip, Buzz Kull, Nuovo Testamento, and more.
The duo’s sophomore album Ways of Keeping Clean will be released next year through DKA Records. Ways of Keeping Clean‘s first single “Soft Power” is an EBM and goth-styled banger built with thumping, wall-rattling beats, walls of glistening synths, razor sharp hooks paired with Matt W’s sultry Dave Gahan/Michael Hutchence-like vocals. Sonically seeming to channel early Depechde Mode, the song as the do explains “confronts the numbing effects of propagandized multimedia addiction that looms over the modern world and enables the worst instincts of our leaders and institutions, and leads us further into nowhere and nothing.”
Directed by Logan Devlin, the accompanying video for “Soft Power” is a sleek blend of live performance, stop-motion amination and Dali-esque landscapes with bursts of VHS glitch. While watching it, I thought of So and Us-era Peter Gabriel and Pet Shop Boys — but with a mix of mischief and menace.
Throwback: Happy 68th Birthday, Thomas Dolby!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Thomas Dolby’s 68th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 79th Birthday, Sammy Hagar!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Sammy Hagar’s 79th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 71st Birthday, Pat DiNizio!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 71st anniversary of The Smithereens’ frontman Pat DiNizio’s birth.
Throwback: Happy Belated 56th Birthday, MC Lyte!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates MC Lyte’s 56th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 80th Birthday, Daryl Hall!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Daryl Hall’s 80th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 86th Birthday, John Lennon!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 86th anniversary of the birth of John Lennon.
Throwback: Happy 82nd Birthday, John Entwistle!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 82nd anniversary of the birth of The Who bassist John Entwistle.
Throwback: Happy 57th Birthday, PJ Harvey!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates PJ Harvey’s 57th birthday.
New Audio: Rhythm Scholar Remixes Gorillaz’s “Clint Eastwood”
Over the course of this site’s 16+ year history, I’ve managed to spill a lot of virtual ink covering the ridiculously prolific New York-based producer, DJ, remixer and JOVM mainstay Rhythm Scholar. During that period, the long-time JOVM mainstay has carefully built a nationally and internationally recognized profile for slickly produced, crowd-pleasing mashups and remixes of some of the most beloved songs ever written and recorded.
So do y’all want to feel extremely old? Gorillaz’s landmark self-titled album was released 25 years ago. And to celebrate the occasion, the JOVM mainstay has given the Damon Albarn-led project’s breakthrough single “Clint Eastwood,” his unique remix treatment. The Rhythm Scholar Beatslinger remix places Albarn and Del The Funky Homosapien‘s vocals within a dizzying and mind-bending array of samples including Ice Cube and Da Lench Mob.
Visually, the accompanying video features footage from Clint Eastwood-era Spaghetti Westerns, Yo Gabba Gabba, The Kinks, footage of a young Jane Goodall in the field, Donkey Kong, the original video for “Clint Eastwood,” Dirty Harry, old-timey cartoons and a lot more.
Throwback: Happy 76th Birthday Robert “Kool” Bell!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Kool and the Gang founder Robert “Kool” Bell’s 76th birthday.
New Video: JOVM Mainstays L’Eclair Share Dubby “Excelsior”
Bulgarian-born, Geneva-based brothers Stef (guitar, keys) and Yavor Lilov (drums) were shaped in a myriad of unseen ways by the centuries-old folk music that filtered through their daily lives. It helped mold their creative spirit and inspired them to make music together at a young age — and that unique and intuitive alchemy has been a foundation of their acclaimed, JOVM mainstay act L’Eclair, which they formed a decade ago.
Their newest EP, Echo is slated for a November 6, 2026 release through Innovative Leisure. Self-produced by Stef and Yavor Lilov, Echo EP reportedly finds the acclaimed Swiss outfit once again pushing their endlessly elastic approach to rhythm, texture and groove while continuing to occupy their own peculiar corner of the dance floor. where hypnotic repetition gives way to unexpected detours, locked-in rhythms collide with warped electronics, and vintage textures meet a modern sense of space. The result is another playful, exploratory chapter from a band that has spent the better part of a decade proving that groove can be both a destination and a way of getting wonderfully, deliriously lost.
The EP also introduces some new additions to the studio lineup — James Iwa (bass), Panji Bharata (synth) and Eduardo Silva Fuentes (percussion).
Echo EP‘s first single “Excelsior” has been played during live sets over the past year, and has quickly proven itself to be a party anthem. And that’s not surprising because “Excelsior” is a sleek blend of drum ‘n’ bass, footwork, dub, funk and jazz fusion with chopped up synths, anchored by their unerring knack for hypnotically mind-bending grooves. Sonically, the new single continues on a somewhat similar thread as 2021’s Confusions and last year’s CLOUD DRIFTER but while seeing the JOVM mainstays actively pushing their sound and approach in new directions to find new ways to make the music hit harder and the groove deeper.
L’Eclair explain, “‘Excelsior’ was one of the first tracks we wrote after the release of Cloud Drifter. Post album release, we were motivated to push toward a new sound—something sharper and more direct, finally bringing the raw, wild energy of our live shows together with our modern approach to production. That’s how ‘Excelsior’ was born. It’s the fastest L’Eclair song to date and pays homage to a main influence of ours: dub music. We took the classic stepper rhythm and made it our own, layering in 303s, fuzzed-out guitars, and a cinematic bridge that keeps building and shifting until the very end. For us, the track feels like a manifesto: L’Eclair is back, with a new sound built to hit harder, travel further, and fill bigger rooms.”
Directed by Hessed Porras, the accompanying video for “Excelsior” flashing bolts of light, computerized numbers, dancing silhouettes and psychedelic imagery reflecting the song’s propulsive, constantly shifting nature.