Category: singer/songwriters

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Moon Construction Kit Shares Cinematic “Down the West Coast”

Olivier Cornu is a a Lausanne-based singer/songwriter, musician, producer and creative mastermind behind Moon Construction Kit, And with Moon Construction Kit, Cormu specializes in a sound that draws from and meshes elements of indie pop, psych pop, synth pop, late 1960s pop and film scores.

The Swiss-based artist’s latest single, the Steve Stout co-produced “Down the West Coast” is a sun-dappled, tune featuring twinkling synths, a supple and propulsive bass line and dreamy woodwinds serving as a lush bed for Cormu’s dreamy delivery. Seemingly channeling Pavo Pavo’s retro-futuristic, 60s psych pop vibe, “Down the West Coast” is a remarkably cinematic, sun dappled tune that’s perfect for that summertime road trip with the track conveying bittersweet nostalgia, the hope of new beginnings and new experiences, the barely contained excitement for new experiences.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: J. Bernardt Shares Shimmering and Euphoric “Four In The Morning”

Jinte Deprez is an acclaimed singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, programmer and producer, best known as being one-half of the songwriting duo behind the acclaimed Belgian JOVM mainstays Balthazar. Over the course of their two-plus decade run together, the acclaimed Belgian outfit has played across the global festival circuit with sets at All Points East, British Summer Time, and others — while selling over 600,000 albums globally. And during that same period of time, Deprez has firmly cemented a reputation for being a wildly talented generalist: Along with his songwriting partner and bandmate Maarten Devoldere, Deprez has co-produced three of Balthazar’s five albums to date.

Deprez is also the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed solo recording project J. Bernardt, With J. Bernardt, Deprez has released two albums, 2016’s self-produced Running Days and 2024’s Tobie Speleman and Deprez co-produced Contigo. Recorded in Los Angeles-based 64 Sound Studio, the Paul Butler-produced “Four In The Morning” is a hazily euphoric and mischievously playful tune featuring sprawling and shimmering synths, driving and pulsing drums serving as a lush bed for the JOVM mainstay’s sultry delivery. But the euphoria and playfulness is a bit deceptive, and at its core, the song’s narrator has started to finding a moment of clarity about themselves and their lives. Whether they were drunk or sober isn’t said — and probably isn’t necessary.

To me it’s a summery song that evokes late nights, coming home and singing and dancing to your favorite song by yourself — often with no one watching. And if anyone was, you didn’t care.

The song reflects the evolution of J. Bernardt into a fully-fledged artistic universe with its own trajectory and ambitions. Deprez worked far away from familiar and long-held routines. Butler’s free-flowing approach in the studio encouraged spontaneity and led to Deprez’s most liberated and carefree vocal performance to date.

“The song caught my attention very quickly because it’s not the kind of song I would normally write,” Deprez explains, “It has this manic urge that made me think: ‘Is something calling out your name, man?’ So I went for it, probably because of the sense of rebirth it gave me. Why not? I wanted to feel reborn. And that’s how it happened: a dancer in his finest suit wandering through LA at four in the morning. I hope it ends well for him.” 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Jonathan Personne Shares Mesmerizing “Superstar”

New Audio: Jonathan Personne Shares Mesmerizing “Superstar”
@bonsound @bonsoundpromo @corridormtl

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Magi Merlin Shares Shimmering and Defiant “pixxie”

Rising Montréal-based JOVM mainstay Magi (pronounced Mahd-j-eye) Merlin makes music for fellow obsessives. There’s no soft lunch. She sings directly to the listener, face pressed up against the other side of the screen’s glass. With a propulsive, avant-garde inspired take on pop and what she dubs as “broken R&B,” the Canadian artist’s work sees her exploring life’s deep existential truths.

Now, if y’all have been frequenting this site over the past handful of years, Merlin has collaborated with co-writer and producer Funkywhat, building a shared musical language through the release of 2022’s Gone Girl EP, which led to touring with Noga Erez and an electric set opening for Omar Apollo in Mexico City — and last year’s A Weird Little Dog, which helped her establish “broken R&B,” an honest account of how she works, her artistic direction and visual world. The JOVM mainstay supported that effort opening for Nubya Garcia across the US and with festival appearances at Osheaga and Festival d’été de Québec, where she opened for Ty Dolla $ign, And recently, she opened for Yaya Bey during their European tour.

Outside of music, she made her acting debut this year in Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks alongside Barbie Ferreira, Devon Bostick and Juliette Gariépy. The film screened at this year’s SXSW and Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

The Montréal-based JOVM mainstay’s highly anticipated full-length debut POWER HOUSE is slated for a July 10, 2026 release through Bonsound. The 12-song album is reportedly a slickly produced, infectious and high-energy effort that conceptually is an exploration of the internal architecture we all inhabit, housing the conflicting rooms of anger, fear, vanity, and ultimately, a reclaimed sense of power. The album is very much an ode to the realization that inner work is the only true outer work.

The album also serves as a realist’s manifesto, written from Merlin’s perspective as a bisexual/ENM woman. Throughout the album, the Montréal-based artist’s narrators explores the uneasy contradictions of seeking validation in both platonic and romantic relationships. She deconstructs the plastic confidence used as modern armor, the performative standards of the beauty industry, and the systemic pressures that force women to navigate their lives with hyper-caution.

POWER HOUSE includes the previously released “POPSTAR,” SpiceKick,” and “So Smart,” which have receive attention across a number of international media outlets including Clash Magazine, Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, Wonderland Magazine, Libération, Exclaim! and RANGE, as well as airplay from BBC 6 Music, France Inter, FIP, CBC and Radio Canada. The album’s latest single “pixxie” continues a run of slickly produced synth pop, anchored around the rising Canadian artist’s self-assured and soulful, pop star delivery and her unerring knack for catchy hooks.

Thematically, the track focuses on the liberation of women from the male gaze but written and sung ironically from the perspective of the manic pixie dream girl, breaking out from a reductive caricature — at all costs.

“Female characters in film are often reduced to this trope, simply a device used to further the plot of the male protagonist,” Magi explains. “This is a role and, at its worst, an expectation many men in real life will cast onto their female counterparts. The only function of women in their eyes is being a sexual object or a tool to aid them in their growth.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 116th Birthday, Howlin’ Wolf!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 116th anniversary of the birth of Howlin’ Wolf.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Alex Amor Shares Shimmering “Avalanche”

Over the past handful of years, rising Scottish singer/songwriter and musician Alex Amor haas released three EP’s 2021’s debut, Love Language, 2022’s The Art of Letting Go and 2023’s Super Sonic, all of which have received praise from The Line of Best Fit, DIY Magazine, Clash Magazine, Dork Magazine, Wonderland, Notion, 1883 Magazine, The Skinny, Ones to Watch, The Sunday Mail, and The Scotsman — and she has received airplay from BBC Radio 1‘s Jack Saunders and Sian Eleri.

The rising Scottish artist has made a run of the UK festival circuit playing sets at TRNSMT, The Great Escape, Liverpool Sound City, Live at Leeds and Dot to Dot. She has also toured extensively across the UK, playing bills with Good Neighbours, Liang Lawrence, Gretta Ray, Swim Deep, VLURE and a list of others.

Amor’s highly anticipated full-length debut Heavenly Bodies is slated for an August 21, 2026 through New York-based label VERO Music. Written and recorded between London and Glasgow with Peter Brien, Baz Kaye and Karma Kid, the album’s material is heavily informed by meditation, rune reading and the work of Swedish mystic Hilma of Klint. Weaving together celestial imagery, spirituality and the vast emotional terrain of human connection, the album’s material reflects Amor’s fascination with cosmic symbolism and the belief that personal experiences mirror the rhythms of the universe. Sonically, the album is a decided evolution from the raw indie charge of the rising Scottish artist’s earlier work as the album features diaristic, intimate and confessional songwriting is paired with shimmering guitars, ethereal synths and slow-burning arrangements.

“Avalanche” Heavenly Bodies‘ latest single is a breathtakingly gorgeous tune features Amor’s plaintive vocal singing intimate, lived-in lyrics detailing a relationship on the brink with an unusual clarity — through the perspective of someone who recognizes the relationship is ending, while the other partner is oblivious. Her vocal is paired with a shimmering, remarkably hook-driven, Laurel Canyon-like arrangement.

Amor wrote and produced the original “Avalanche” demo in her childhood bedroom in Glasgow before bringing it to her trio of collaborators in London — Brien, Kaye and Karma Kid — to complete the song.

“Avalanche is about the unsettling moment in a relationship where something has shifted, but only one of you is willing to see it,” Amor explains. ” While you’re starting to recognise it for what it is, the other person is still holding on, almost wilfully ignoring the cracks. The idea of an avalanche felt like the perfect metaphor. It’s not necessarily about destruction, it’s about release. It’s what happens when pressure has been building for too long and can’t be contained anymore. It’s sudden, overwhelming, and sometimes painful, but it clears everything out. And in that aftermath, there’s a kind of clarity – you can finally see things as they really are.”

Directed by Henry Croston, the accompanying video for “Avalanche” features Amor in a series of mod and 70s country-inspired monochromatic outfits singing and strumming her gorgeous sky blue Fender in some rooms with some decidedly 1970s era decor. A dancing alien in a suit listening to music on a Walkman is frequently off on the side, adding a surreal and playful sense of humor to a song but while also emphasizing the song’s central romantic couple.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 92nd Birthday, Jackie Wilson!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 92nd anniversary of the birth of Jackie Wilson.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Yerilis Shares Gorgeous “Me Levanté”

Yerils Villamediana Hernández is a Venezuelan-born and-based singer/songwriter and musician, who performs with monoym Yerilis. She can trace the origins of her career to her childhood: She started writing her first songs when she was nine. By the time she turned 16, she joined the C.U.A.M. Choir, which strengthened her technical rigor. She complemented that with advanced training and signing under the tutelage and mentorship of Raif, the host of La Magia del Mundo Infantil y Juvenil. Hernández’s multidisciplinary background allows her to approach interpretation and stage presence with a technical precision and professionalism.

The Venezuelan artist has established a reputation as a versatile singer/songwriter, capable of bouncing between traditional Venezuelan rhythms, like the pasaje and more contemporary sounds across various styles and genres.

Her latest single “Me levanté” is a gorgeous blend of Venezuelan folk with a contemporary arrangement — in this case, a shimmering, dexterously finger plucked guitar accompanying by Hernández’s proud delivery. At its core, is a much-needed message of perseverance in difficult and uneasy times, which gives the song a timeless feel.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 68th Birthday, Prince!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 68th anniversary of the birth of Prince.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 70th Birthday, Richard Butler!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Psychedelic Furs and Love Spit Love frontman Richard Butler’s 70th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Alewya Shares Cinematic Visual for Dancehall-like “Maktoub”

JOVM mainstay Alewya is an acclaimed London-based singer/songwriter, producer and visual artist. Her highly-anticipated full-length debut, ZERO is slated for a June 26, 2026 release through Because London Records. The album reportedly embodies years of artistic growth into an effort that’s both deeply personal and sonically expansive. But the album also marks a significant milestone, as it sees her boldly stepping into a new creative era, defined by fearless experimentation and cultural fluidity. 

ZERO will include the previously released “Night Drive,” feat. Dagmawit Ameha and “City of Symbols,” “Eshi,” the Busy Twist-produced “Selah” and its fifth and latest single “Maktoub.” Anchored around dancehall reggae riddims, skittering industrial trap triplets, “Maktoub” continues a remarkable run of genre-defying and sweaty global club music that’s expansive yet urgent, accessible yet forward-thinking and remarkably catchy. Over the song’s dancehall riddims, the JOVM mainstay’s reggae-influenced vocal sings lyrics that touch upon themes of resistance, destiny and self-determination that are fiercely feminist and defiantly pro-Black and pan-African. 

The song features a sample from legendary Ethiopian singer/songwriter Teddy Afro, which was chosen by Alewya for sentimental reasons, as several generations of Ethiopans and Eritreans have listened to him growing up, much like she did.

“Maktoub,” which derives its title from the Arabic word “it is written,” reflects ZERO‘s recurring themes of faith, instinct and roots woven throughout. Led by feeling, rather than prescribed formula, “Maktoub” showcases the JOVM mainstay’s intuitive creative process in which rhythm and emotion guide the music before lyrics. “Sometimes songs take time to reveal themselves but ‘Maktoub’ felt immediate and effortless from day one,” Alewya says.

Directed by Lee Trigg, the accompanying video for “Maktoub” was shot in Afar, Ethiopia and follows the JOVM mainstay and a crew of friends riding motorcycles across the plains — and running. The video captures Alewya as a magnetic, carefree presence.  For the video, Alewya and the local filming crew flew two hours from the nation’s capital Addis Ababa and then drove eight across the country to reach the region, camping and hiking through its volcanic landscape along the way.

Afar lies at the junction of three tectonic plates — the Arabian, Nubian and Somali — and is one of the hottest and lowest places on the planet, where temperatures regular exceed 122º F with the land sitting at 410 feet below sea level. Despite the extreme conditions, the nomadic people of Afar have developed an unparalleled knowledge of survival and a fiercely independent culture. Historically, the Afar people have resisted colonization by neighboring empires and European powers.

“Afar is where my worlds meet — where three tectonic plates converge; Arabian, Nubian, Somali,”  says Alewya. “It is the birthplace of humanity, and a land where a new ocean is forming beneath my feet. The Afar people are warriors who have lived on their own terms for centuries, and the women carry a grace that makes me feel close to God. For ‘Maktoub,’ with Teddy’s vocals blessing the track, it felt right to create from the closest place to the beginning.”