Category: non-binary artists who kick ass

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Black Polish Shares Bruising “Lush”

Black Polish mastermind Jayden “Jay” Binnix is a young, rising artist who spent their formative years split between Florida and Maryland, before later relocating to Los Angeles. Binnix, who says that they “popped out of the womb singing,” took piano lessons at five, and later picked up ukulele and guitar. After receiving encouragement from a vocal teacher, Binnix wrote their first song “Sophie,” inspired by their childhood girlfriend.

Released back in 2020, “Sophie” saw the young artist quickly establishing their own style of earnest, emotionally piercing lyricism and a dynamic sound blending alternative, electronic and pop music influences like Halsey, Twenty One Pilots and girl in red.

Binnix’s emotive and lived-in songwriting was sharpened through their 2021 Out of Place EP and last year’s full-length debut, Forest, which examined how their upbringing made it difficult for them to fully explore and express their identity — but eventually finding clarity through the other side. Their songs have landed on Spotify’s New Music Friday and All-New Indie playlists, and building upon a growing profile, they contributed “Armageddon,” to the acclaimed Hulu series, Love, Victor.

“I just want to make people feel less alone, to remind people that they don’t have to hate themselves, to inspire others to pursue creativeness and passion without embarrassment,” Binnix says. “I love hearing a listener respond to my music and say, ‘This is my comfort song.’ It makes me feel so sure about myself.

Binnix’s highly-anticipated Black Polish sophomore album YUNA is slated for an October 29, 2025 release through BMG. The album is a work of fiction and fantasy that centers around Black Polish’s alter-ego “Yuna,” a man-eating succubus, who allows Binnix to explore their most depraved instincts and hyperfeminine abilities to beguile and seduce.

Throughout the album, Binnix dives deep into the Yuna character’s psyche while presenting playful, dark-sided lyrics and ever-shifting sonics to relay the album’s intricate narrative. Ultimately, the album’s story suggests that some aspects of ourselves can never be fully banished or hidden, but must be understood and accepting. And at the core of the material, is the question: Can you learn to forgive and accept the darkest, most fucked up parts of yourself?

YUNA will feature the previously released singles “BONDAGE” AND “BE WITH YOU,” which received praise from Alternative Press, Paste Magazine, Out Magazine, Queerty and more, and the album’s third and latest single “LUSH.” Sonically channeling 90s grunge, Paramore and others, “LUSH” reveals an artist with an uncanny knack for pairing forceful rock bombast and arena rock friendly hooks with earnest, seemingly lived-in lyricism. The song also evokes the weird — and sometimes thrilling — push and pull of a dysfunctional relationship.

 “I don’t talk to anyone, knowing I won’t hear what’s good for me,” Binnix says of the new single. “If dysfunction is all you know, naturally, you’ll gravitate towards the familiar. Ignoring the fact that this will ultimately fail creates the illusion of freedom so you can experience a relationship without feeling trapped.”

The accompanying video features the rising Los Angeles-based artist as both Black Polish and their alter-ego Yuna at the beach at night, alternating between seductiveness and unhinged fury.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Hand Habits Shares Optimistic “Wheel of Change”

Meg Duffy is a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who over the past decade has spent the bulk of the past decade on the road with acclaimed artist Perfume Genius and as a solo artist, […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Aussies Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers Share Raucous and Rowdy “BALCONY”

Currently split between Ngunnawal/Canberra and Naarm/Melbourne, the rising Aussie indie outfit Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers — Anna Ryan they/she, vocals, guitar), Scarlett McKahey (she/her, guitar, vocals), Jaida Stephenson (she/her, bass) and Neve van Boxsel (she/her, drums) — broke out into the national and international scene with 2022’s Pretty Good For A Girl Band EP, which received praise from The Guardian and Teen Vogue, as well as airplay from triple j.

Pretty Good For a Girl Band EP‘s lead single “Girl Sports” landed at #55 on the triple j Hottest 100 list. Their full-length debut, 2023’s I Love You debuted at #6 on the ARIA Albums Chart and included “I Used To Be Fun,” which landed at #52 on the Hottest 100. That same year they opened for Foo Fighters — and they were named one of Spotify’s New Noise Artists to Watch for 2024.

Adding to a growing list of accolades, the band received a J Award-nominations for Australian Album of the Year and Song of the Year for “I Used To Be Fun,” an APRA Award-nomination for Emerging Songwriter of the Year and Rolling Stone Australia Award-nominations for Best New Artist and Best New Single. They also won an AIR Award for Best Independent Rock Album or EP, a MusicACT Award for Artist of the Year and the Michael Gudinski Breakthrough Artist ARIA Award.

Last year’s deluxe album, I Love You Too featured standout collaborations with Softcult on “Dull” and the rapidly rising The Linda Lindas on “Please Me.”

While developing a reputation as one of the Australia’s most urgent and exciting contemporary acts, the band has also received attention for their political concerns, including advocating for Green Music’s No Music on a Dead Planet, contributing to an Aussie Parliamentary inquiry into live music and being outspoken supporters of AAM’s Michael’s Rule. The rising Aussie outfit has found ways to channel their passion for music and social change into everything that they do.

The Aussie quartet’s latest single, the raucous Catherine Marks-produced “Balcony,” finds the band channeling the likes of Wet Leg, Amyl and the Sniffers and Dream Wife with the band pairing rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses with a relentless motorik groove, angular and fuzzy power chords, McKahey’s punchily coquettish delivery and a glitchy trip hop-like bridge. At its core, the song describes a desire to get out there, drink, party, flirt with some pretty young thing and just cause some fucking chaos. It’s a Friday, and you just got out of work song y’all.

“BALCONY IS FOR WHEN YOU’RE FEELING CHEEKY AND WANT TO KISS SOMEONE ON THE FACE AND GET KICKED OUT OF A BAR!!! CHAOS!!!!!” The band says.

“Balcony” marks a bold new chapter for the band, with the band expanding their signature sound with a widescreen flair. It’s the first bit of new material that came out of a five-week recording session at New South Wales-based The Grove Studios with Catherine Marks, who the band calls “a frickin’ dream.” They add “We have learnt heaps from her and have been such huge fans for so long! She’s stupidly hardworking and makes us all feel very motivated and inspired, which is hard to do when you’re locked in an isolated studio for 5 straight weeks. Hallelujah and god bless Miss Marks.” 

Directed by Nick Sullivan, the accompanying video for “Balcony” features the members of the band at a rowdy house party, including the titular balcony. Of course, there’s booze, lines for the bathroom, folks making out and hooking up — and drunk POV shots. Maybe you shouldn’t be doing that — but you know, YOLO, right?

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Los Angeles’ Faetooth Shares a Slow-Burning and Grungy Ripper

Led by Jenna Garcia (vocals, bass), Los Angeles-based outfit Faetooth specializes in a sound that they’ve dubbed “fairy-doom:” a unique and eclectic amalgamation of doom metal paired with vocals that alternate between spellbinding melodies to guttural shrieks and howls.

The Los Angeles-based outfit’s latest single “Death of Day” is a slow-burning and forceful dirge anchored around a classic grunge structure – quiet verses featuring swirling shoegazer guitar textures and thunderous drumming and loud choruses and hooks featuring enormous power chords and banshee-like wailing serving as a brooding bed for Garcia’s sonorous croon. While channeling the likes of Tool, JOVM mainstays Slumbering Sun and others, “Death of Day” the song as the band’s Jenna Garcia explains “came to be after reading into the deity, Lilith. I was initially transfixed to the myth of her spawning from the ‘dregs,’ or lowest realm of evil. I perceived that as her coming from the dirt, the earth, and having to confront a life where her very existence is viewed as malevolence, as ugliness. She is cast out into isolation from the moment she came into being. I began to view that as a strong parallel to the existence of queer and trans people in a world that is constantly trying to exterminate and diminish them.”

Faetooth’s frontperson adds that the song’s lyrics “are written as a bit of ode to the Lilith archetype, and simultaneously celebrating and lamenting her forced seclusion from society. The first verse is about her coming into being, how she can only come out at night, and then the second verse is like, yeah, you all hate me, I’m gonna bring all my friends that you also deem as a scourge on society, f*** you.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Brighton’s Split Dogs Share Bruising “Lafayette”

Deriving their name from the classic zombie film Return of the Living Dead, Brighton, UK-based punks Split Dogs — founding members Harry Atkins (vocals) (they/them) and Mil Martinez (guitar) (he/him), along with Chris Hugall (drums) (he/him) and Suez Boyle (bass) (she/her) — can trace their origins back to around 2015 when its founding members had the idea to start a band and is fueled by its founders frustration over music seen as a soulless and commodified product made to sell more useless shit.

As a youngster in South London, Mil Martinez would hear Status Quo, Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Dire Straits on the car radio while his father drove him to school. At home, he would invade his older brother’s record collection, which leaned towards punk and heavy metal. In the UK’s Black Country, Harry Atkins’ mother instilled a love of Northern Soul, Slade and rock ‘n roll, with stories of nights out at Club Lafayette and family singalongs at home. According to Martinez, “Our sound is a culmination of all those early influences and, to be honest, it really shows.”

Split Dogs officially appeared on the scene in 2022. Suez Boyle, a prominent figure in the queer punk scene, best known for her work with The Walking Abortions joined the band in 2023. Up until that point, Chris Hugall, an old friend of Martinez and a former member of ska punks Mouthwash, an act that was once signed on Rancid‘s Hellcat Records, helped design the band’s artwork. Hugall joined the band full-time last year, cementing the band’s current lineup.

The quartet quickly won over Bristol’s accepting and tolerant punk scene, a scene that has always welcomed LGBQT+ folks and marginalized people, with raucous live shows featuring infectious lyrics. As word spread, the gigs increased and in short order, the Brighton-based punk outfit was playing sold-out rooms across the European Union, which caught the attention of British label Venn Records.

Split Dogs’ highly-anticipated full-length debut, the Peter Miles-produced Here to Destroy is slated for a February 28, 2025 release through Venn Records. Recorded over a three-day burst at Middle Farm Studios, the album was laid straight to a 16-track reel-to-reel tape machine without autotune, effects pedals, and computers. Adding to the authenticity of the proceedings, the album’s material was recorded live with Atkins singing along in a vocal booth. So no cutting and pasting; but everyone had to nail their takes. “It was a blast!” Split Dogs’ Martinez says. “We fully immersed ourselves, sleeping in a small apartment below the studio, cooking meals and listening to Pete’s extensive record collection.”

While the album title makes clear that the Brighton-based punks are here to destroy, they firmly believe that they’re also here to rebuild and remind the listener of music’s vital essence. “We’re not beholden to the digital age, we don’t want to get famous on social media, we just want to show the world that rock’n’roll is alive and well,” the band says.

Here to Destroy‘s latest single “Lafayette” is a bruising, gritty and anthemic bit of pub rock that brings back memories of Highway to Hell-era AC/DC and JOVM mainstays Amyl and the Sniffers with the song being featuring enormous power chords, a thunderous backbeat paired with Atkins’ feral, booze and cigarette-soaked delivery.

The band’s Mil Martinez explains that the song is “a love letter to our families and the influence they’ve had on our love for music. At a glance it tells the story of (singer) Harry’s mother growing up in Wolverhampton during the height of the 1970s/80s northern soul scene and the characters she encountered. It also tips a hat to my older brother that passed away in 2023, he played a major role in my song writing growing up.”

Shot by the band’s Chris Hugall, the video follows Harry Atkins through Wolverhampton’s cobbled streets, pubs and clubs while lovingly introducing the viewer to the town’s characters, desperate for a night out after a long week slaving away for the man. Hugall admits that on the actual day of filming, they had no plan as all of their other ideas had fallen through, but they worked on the fly and the end result compliments the song perfectly.

“It takes you on a journey through the cobbled streets and back bars of the Black Country, Harry’s hometown Wolverhampton,” the band’s Martinez explains. “From Chewing gum-stained carpets and pints of mild to stone faced locals and tar-stained fingertips. If you fancy a dance? Come out to the club and feel alive!”
 

 

 

 
Heads down, see you at the end. 
 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Velveteers Share Defiant and Roaring “On And On”

Rising Colorado-based rock trio, The Velveteers — Demi Demitro (vocals, guitar), Baby Pottersmith (drums) and Jonny Fig (drums) — will be releasing their highly-anticipated sophomore album A Million Knives through Easy Eye Sound on February 14, 2025. Produced by acclaimed, Grammy Award-winning producer, musician and Easy Eye Sound founder Dan Auerbach, the 13-song A Million Knives reportedly spotlights the band’s “buzzing pile-driver” live sound, as Spin described it. A Million Knives is the follow-up to their full-length debut, 2021’s Nightmare Daydream, which they supported with opening slots with Smashing Pumpkins and Guns ‘N’ Roses — and their first headlining shows this past fall.

The forthcoming album, which features previously released singles “Go Fly Away” and “Suck The Cherry” was written after a particularly grueling stretch of the life on the road and explores the typically unspoken tolls of an industry that can be more often than not, a relentlessly cruel vipers pit of bullshit, thievery and power plays — especially a non-binary, queer and woman-fronted band.

A Million Knives‘ third and latest single “On and On” is one-part old-school garage rock ripper, one-part defiant roar, anchored around thunderous drumming, Demitro’s powerhouse vocal and scorching guitar work paired with a shout-along worthy choruses. But underneath the songcraft, is a song informed by the sort of embittering, humiliating experience that shouldn’t happen — and its narrator is fed up by.

“I always wonder if there will be a day when I won’t feel the need to write about this subject,” the band’s Demi Demitro says. “But unfortunately misogyny is far too rampant in the music industry and I refuse to put up with it.” 

Directed by Demi Demitro and Baby Pottersmith, the accompanying video features the band playing the song in a room full of knives, while the band’s drummers drum with knives. Throughout, these young badasses play with a world dominating swagger.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: AKA Kellz Teams Up with Ria Boss on a Celebration of Black Liberation, Beauty and Self-Acceptance

AKA Kelzz is a Berlin-based, queer, non-binary Black artist, who’s committed to intersectionality and uplifting BIPOC communities. The Berlin-based artist’s career and musical journey has been a testament to perseverance. Overcoming various setbacks and limited representation, AKA Kelzz found much-needed solace in Berlin while reigniting their passion for music.

The COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for the Berlin-based artist to develop their songwriting and to hone their production skills. Collaborating with producer Rafa Mura helped to launch their career, and since then they’ve become a rising figure in Berlin’s soul music scene.

Over the past year, the Berlin-based artist has played opening slots for Pip Millet and Madison McFerrin. They’ve also played sets at Melt Festival and X-Jazz Berlin Festival. And along with that, they’ve collaborated with JOVM mainstays Nick Hakim and Annahstasia as part of Noah Slee’s vocal ensemble A Song For You. Building upon a growing profile, AKA Kelzz’s recent releases “Free Falling,” “Hidden” and TikTok viral hit “Fly,” are part of the creation of a platform that specifically uplifts the voices of dark-skinned and/or queer black folks, who are often overlooked. (Fuck yes to all of that.)

Ria Boss is an acclaimed Ghanian musician, songwriter and performer with an incredible voice. Affectionately nicknamed “Cat Mama,” Boss has created Cat Mama World, where her multiple artist personalities and endeavors come to life.

Her latest album, 2022’s Remember was ranked the #1 R&B album of that year by Native Magazine. And Boss’ live show Cat Mama World as gained popularity for its showcase of her theatrical ability and storytelling.

AKA Kelzz’s latest single “Mango” sees the Berlin-based artist collaborating with the acclaimed Ghanian artist. Anchored around a sleek Afrobeats-meets-contemporary R&B-like production featuring bursts of strummed acoustic guitar, swirling and painterly layers of glistening synths paired with skittering beats, the song’s production serves as a dreamily lush bed for AKA Kelzz’s and Boss’ to trade soulful vocals — and for their ethereal harmonies. The song captures the profound joy of finding understanding and acceptance in a world that can be all too cruel to anyone not white, cis het or heteronormative.

And while sonically reminding me of THEESatisifaction, “Mango,” as the two collaborators explain is “a celebration of liberation, beauty and self-acceptance” that was inspired by the rising Berlin-based artist’s experience visiting Ghana last summer.

During that trip, AKA Kelzz experienced a profound sense of liberation. “I saw my reflection daily,” the Berlin-based artist says. “This unlocked a new level of Black liberation for me, and I want to bring this sunshine and liberation back to folks all over the world.” 

“This song is about embracing our own beauty and power. It’s about not being afraid to be who we are and to shine our light,” Ria Boss adds. “It feels like the softness of the sun on my skin and reminds me of how sweet life can be when we accept ourselves.”

Directed by Yalla She Said, the accompanying video for “Mango” features a collection of beautiful and incredibly stylish Black folk at a picnic in a verdant park. There’s different expressions of gender and of Black people — but they’re experiencing a collective joy while championing and holding each other up.

“The ‘Mango’ music video serves as a call to liberation, crafted to ignite inspiration and empowerment among BIPOC wom*n, urging them to champion each other on a profound life journey: to lead and shape a fresh reality where all feel truly seen and heard. Equal and embraced, amidst our myriad differences,” Yalla She Said explains.

“‘Mango’ becomes a vibrant celebration of colors and diversity, embracing the tender link between goddesses and the essence of nature, rooted in Mother Earth’s embrace. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Formed in 2016, Hamilton, Ontario-based dreamgaze outfit Basement Revolver — Nim Agalawatte (bass, keys) (they/them), Chrisy Hurn (vocals, guitar) (they/them), Jonathan Malström (guitar) (he/him) and Levi Kertesz (drums) (he/him) — can trace their origins back quite a bit earlier, to the longtime friendship between Hurn and Agalwatte.

The band hit the ground running with the release of their breakout single “Johnny Pt. 2,” which led to the band signing to British label Fear of Missing Out and later, Canadian label Sonic Unyon Records. The Canadian dreamgazers closed out 2016 with their self-titled EP. Over the next few years, the band were quite prolific releasing 2017’s Agatha EP, 2018’s full-length debut Heavy Eyes and 2019’s Wax and Digital EP. They supported that recorded output with touring across Ontario, the States, the UK and Germany.

2020 was tumultuous and uneasy year for most people across the planet — and unsurprisingly, it was also a tumultuous year for the Hamilton-based outfit: They had written and recorded a batch of material. The band then went through a lineup change in which one member left and was then replaced by another. But because of the pandemic and pandemic-related restrictions, they couldn’t rehearse or record in the fashion they had become accustomed. And of course, touring was completely off the table for the better part of about 15-16 months in most parts of the world.

Much like countless others across the globe, the enforced off-time resulted in moments of serious, individual reflection for the band’s members — including a reconsideration of who and what the band was. According to the band’s Nim Agalwatte, the band had planned on working on their sophomore album back in 2021, but they wound up waiting and working out what to do, eventually making changes to the material they had originally written. “The world was shifting around us – and there was some global trauma – with that, we decided we wanted to fully express ourselves. So far we had kind of held off sharing political views, but we were realizing that our silence was actually just violence. We realized that to be who we are fully and authentically, we needed to share our voice.” 

For the band’s members, that meant they had felt the need to share things in public that they had long held close to the vest: Both Agalawatte and Hurn came out. According to Hurn, the pair came out against what they describe as homophobic and transphobic environments, much like Redeemer University, a private Calvinist university, which has been the meeting place and birthplace of countless local acts in Hamilton.

Back in 2020, Redeemer University announced a policy that would discipline students for any sexual behavior outside heterosexual marriage. “While we were in the studio, the CBC released an article about Redeemer University, and their homophobic and transphobic policies. I realized then and there, I had to come out. . . ” Hurn explained.  

The Canadian outfit’s sophomore album, 2022’s Embody thematically saw the band wrestling with the serious questions of identity, sexuality, faith and mental illness in an unapologetically honest, self-aware and explicit fashion. Arguably, the most personal album of their growing catalog, Embody is rooted in hope — to physically be with and see your friends, to play songs in a darkened room with others and for others, to engage with the world with a hard-fought understanding of yourself and your much different place within the world and more. Sonically, the album’s material features a much deeper sound and a crisper production to adroitly express the complexities and uncertainties of the world.

“Red Light,” the Hamilton-based outfit’s first bit of new material since Embody is a a breakneck and anthemic bit of 120 Minutes-era MTV indie rock featuring A Storm in Heaven-like guitar textures, thunderous drumming paired with enormous hooks and Hurn’s dreamily yearning delivery expressing the annoyance and frustration of someone, who realizes that they just can’t seem to get a win at anything.

The new single was inspired by a discussion at a band practice in which the band’s Chrisy Hurn shared that they had received a red light ticket, and frustratingly, the ticket was more than their recent paycheck. As an indie band, the band’s members have received their fair share of parking and speeding tickets while touring, and in turn, they’re intimately familiar with the crippling financial setbacks that can seem to derail one’s life and dreams. It’s relatable for most people, and the band decided that it was worthy of a song.