JOVM’s William Ruben Helms on the last day of school for NYC public school kids — and summer.
Category: singer/songwriters
New Video: Abbie Ozard Shares Soaring and Cathartic “Baby I’m Your Star”
Released to critical applause from the likes of The Times, The Independent, Dork, The Line of Best Fit, Clash Magazine, The Fader, Notion, Hunger and more, 2024’s full-length debut, everything still worries me saw British artist Abbie Ozard explode into the national scene.
Ozard built upon a growing profile with a number of headlining UK shows, a European Union tour opening slot for Briston Maroey and a run of the regional festival circuit that included her debut at Glastonbury.
everything still worries me‘s highly-anticipated follow-up, Baby I’m Your Star EP is slated for an August 21. 2026 release. The EP will include the perviously released “Backbone,” which continues a run of material that has received airplay on Jack Saunders‘ and Huw Stephens’ BBC 1 Radio shows, as well as BBC Introducing Track of the Week, and Abbie McCarthy‘s and Chris Hawkins’ BBC Radio 6 shows.
“Baby I’m Your Star,” the EP’s title track and latest single is a rousingly anthemic tune that sees Ozard pairing open-armed, earnest lyricism and her soaring vocal with swirling and chiming guitar textures and her unerring knack for bombastic, festival friendly hooks and choruses. But underneath the rousingly bombastic catharsis is song that touches upon the sensation of faking-it-’til-you-make-it and wanting to be heard and understood. I guarantee most of us have been there at some point or another — including right now.
“‘Baby I’m Your Star’ is about trying to convince yourself you’re as confident as you want everyone else to think you are,” Ozard explains. “On the surface it’s cocky and playful, but underneath it comes from wanting to be heard and believed in. The song plays with the tension between ego and self-doubt, and the idea that sometimes confidence is something you have to perform before you fully believe it. It feels like a defiant moment for me, but there’s still plenty of vulnerability hiding underneath.”
Directed by Jack Hartley, the accompanying, mischievous video for “Baby I’m Your Star” features an aging guy out in the countryside, trying to stargaze — during the day, eventually coming upon Ozard, strolling through the countryside.
New Audio: Jaco Jaco Shares Meditative “Over When It’s Over”
Tulsa-born, Philadelphia-based musician and visual artist Jacob Theriot is a lifelong singer/songwriter and musician, who first picked up bass when he was 12. His musical career began in earnest when he began writing and recording music in grade school with his brother and childhood friend. Those early efforts led to the acclaimed indie project Sports.
After three albums and several international tours with Sports, Theirot relocated to Philadelphia, where began to explore and refine a sound that blends elements of funk, psych pop and 70s AM rock over a period of a handful of years. Those explorations led to Theirot’s solo recording project Jaco Jaco.
The Tulsa-born, Philadelphia-based artist has released two Jaco Jaco albums, 2024’s debut Splat and last year’s Gremlin, which included three singles I wrote about, the Thundercat and 70s jazz fusion/jazz funk-like “Favorite Kind of People,” the Quiet Storm R&B-meets-Steely Dan-like “Woman” and the Tame Impala meets Bobby Oroza-like “I Won’t Bother.”
Building upon a growing profile, the Philadelphia-based JOVM mainstay’s highly anticipated third album, On the Levee is slated for a July 10, 2026 release. The album will include the previously released “Wager,” and its final single, “Over When It’s Over,” “Over Is When It’s Over” is a melancholy, slow-burning tune that — to my ears, at least — sounds like a blend of Tame Impala, 70s AM rock. But at its core, the song is meditation on accepting constant change, with a bit of a sigh.
“The song is about watching the world fly on by, but finding yourself strangely at peace with it,” Theriot says.
New Video: Monde Ray Shares Glistening and Yearning “What If”
Manon Guiol is the French-born and-based creative mastermind behind the solo recording project Monde Ray. Guiol can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood: she began with classical piano and basic music theory before gradually moving toward electronic composition and production. Largely self-taught, the French artist developed an initiative and personal approach to music earl on, shaped outside of any academic framework.
Guiol’s first recording project Manone saw her exploring darker electronic territory. She then joined dream pop./synth pop Tender Tones as a songwriter, keyboardist and vocalist. And as a member of Tender Tones, she played in several Parisian venues including Batofar, L’International, La Pointe Lafayette and Olympic Café.
In 2023, after spending several years in Paris, Guiol relocated south, driven by a desire for light space and renewal. This major life chance led to Monde Ray, a more intimate, introspective and cinematic project that sees Guiol blending elements of synth pop, dark wave, EBM, Brazilian music, exotica, 1970s Italian film scores and post punk, and shaped by 80s inspired textures, dreamlike atmospheres paired with her ethereal vocal. But above all, she is driven by a fascination with contrast and dissonance — with what unsettles, surprises and with what feels instantly and radically self evident.
Seemingly suspended in the murkiness between day and night, Monde Ray sees Guiol exploring the tension between softness and darkness, clarity and reverie with lyrics written and sung in French and EnglishThe overall result is material that feels hypnotic yet fragile.
The French artist’s recently released Monde Ray debut Attraction sees Guiol firmly establishing her unique sound and approach while drawing from Essaie Pas, Boy Harsher, Scratch Massive, Marie Davidson and Chromatics, while embracing a cinematic quality informed by the work of David Lynch and others. Anchored around glistening and shimmering Giorgio Moroder-like arpeggiated synths and a relentless motorik groove, Attraction‘s first single is a dance floor friendly bit of Italo disco that seemingly channels Lenses-era Soft Metals.
The French artist explains that “What If” captures the suspended moment of a decisive encounter — that vertiginous sense of “what if?/why not” before a leap of faith into the unknown. She goes on to say that the song specifically speaks to the vulnerability, unease and hope of new love.
Directed by Luís Brito, the accompanying video for “What If” features a woman in a burgundy suit expressively dancing in an empty Parisian bar, before she strips down to her underwear continues to dance and then leaves the bar — with backpack in tow.
New Audio: Forest Shares Anthemic “Anchor”
Rising Los Angeles-based artist Forest will be releasing her highly-anticipated full-length debut, Swan Dive through AWAL on September 25, 2026. Swan Dive is reportedly the Los Angeles-based artist’s most fully realized work to date, expanding upon the alt-rock foundation of her earliest releases into something much larger sonically and more fluid. The ten-song album features walls of distorted guitars paired with electronic textures, industrial undercurrents and moments of startling pop clarity. The result is an effort that’s intimate yet overwhelming and sees the rising artist showcasing her capability to shift from whispered confession to emotional free-fall — within the turn of a phrase.
The rising artist’s full-length debut will include the previously released “Prosthetic Stars,” “Whore and Savior,” “Lay With Me” and the album’s latest single, “Anchor.” Featuring fuzzy and chugging power chords paired with thunderous drumming and Forest’s emo and pop-influenced vocal within a classic grunge structure, “Anchor” showcases an artist who can pair earnest, lived-in lyricism with rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses with a seemingly effortless bombast.
“‘Anchor’ delves into the idea of becoming wrapped up in something you can’t get out of,” Forest explains. “It was written in my childhood bedroom on a trip to Chicago, at a time when I had felt the past wrap its arms around me. The thought of being stuck and tied to the past was the driving thought throughout this track.”
Forest has developed a reputation for unforgettable performances, sharing stages with Starcrawler, Chokecherry, Empty Shell Casing and a long list of others. She kicked off the year, playing the sold-out emo revival festival Burndown in Santa Ana, CA. During the spring, she went on an extensive North American tour with Clarion. The rising artist will be embarking on a West Coast tour opening for ivri. Check out the tour dates below.
Throwback: Happy 71st Birthday, Mick Jones!
JOIVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Mick Jones’ 71st birthday.
New Video: Love Spells Shares Atmospheric and Yearning “Maybe I Still Love You”
Sir Teagan Harris is the Houston-born creative mastermind behind the rising, solo recording project Love Spells. At 18, Harris poured his passion for love into music, manifesting a career out of ambition and drive, while battling homelessness for years. Eventually, he wound up in California, where h lived with a friend he met online, traveling to different music studios everyday to perfect his sound. After six months, he returned to Houston and received a call from Kevin Abstract, who invited I’m to work on his most recent album, last year’s Bluish.
Working on Kevin Abstract’s Blush connected Harris to his now frequent collaborator Dominic Fike and Deb Never. That life changing experience pushed Harris to return to Los Angeles and work on his highly-anticipated Love Spells debut, LOVE IS THE LAW. Slated for a July 24, 2026 release through RCA Records, LOVE IS THE LAW found the Houston-born artist working with Danny Parra, Boy Deco, Brad Hale, Rodaidh McDonald, Alex Craig, and Rick Nowels to create material that recalled his nights at Numbers, a beloved Houston-based dance club and safe heaven for alternative communities. While at Numbers, Harris danced to 70s, 80s and New Wave, and he specifically wanted to inject that feeling into his work, seeking out similar spaces in Los Angeles and leaning on those eras in the studio. Movies like Dirty Dancing and Footlose were also sources of inspiration, helping the Houston-based artist and his collaborators craft a “theatrical yet authentic” feeling.
LOVE IS THE LAW will include the previously released “Crutch,” “Keep It To Yourself” and the album’s latest single “Maybe I Still Love You.” “Maybe I Still Love You” is a slow-burning and atmospheric bit of Quiet Storm-meets-Bill Withers-inspired R&B that features Harris’ achingly tender and yearning falsetto dancing alongside a sparse arrangement of twinkling piano, bursts of shimmering and soulful guitar, a simple backbeat, a supple bass line. The song’s narrator finds closure and freedom in recognizing the true depths of his emotions.
“‘Maybe I Still Love You’ is for anyone still fighting with feelings they can’t ignore, that moment of coming to terms with the fact that you still care and want to keep caring,” Harris explains. “Because above all, you have to believe in love for love to be seen.”
Directed by Colt Grice, the accompanying video for “Maybe I Still Love You” features a couple doing a simple two-step slow dance together while embracing. The couple’s story is up to interpretation but there’s palpable sense of love, the sort of love that at times is demanding and difficult yet worth fighting for.
Throwback: Happy 63rd Birthday, George Michael!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 63rd anniversary of the birth of George Michael.
Throwback: Happy 74th Birthday, Tim Finn!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Tim Finn’s 74th birthday.
New Video: King Black Acid Shares Trippy and Groovy “Dialing 911”
Daniel Riddle is Portland, OR-based is a singer/songwriter and musician, who has written and recorded music under the moniker King Black Acid since the late 1980s, while spending time as a member of industrial outfit Hitting Birth. Since the early 90s, Riddle has led a number of different collectives and projects that have toured and shared stages with Elliott Smith, Nirvana, Low, Moby, Sonic Youth, The Dandy Warhols, Faith No More, Dead Moon, Menomena, The Fugees, Arctic Monkeys, Spacemen 3, Danzig, Nine Inch Nails and more.
Throughout his career, Riddle’s music has been featured on CSI: Miami, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, The Mothman Prophecies, Witchblade, Dream With Fishes, Do Me a Favor and CNN Sports, as well as ad campaigns for Nike, Reebok, Tiger Woods Golf, CNN, Coca-Cola, Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap and The Olympics.
Riddle’s latest King Black Acid effort, Telling Secrets in a Crowded Room is slated for an August 21, 2026 release through Cavity Search Records/Mazinga Records. The album reportedly features 10 cinematic and anthemic songs that “embrace total and subversive emotional anarchy.”
Telling Secrets in a Crowded Room‘s latest single “Dialing 911” is a sleek and mind-bending synthesis of Madchester-era sound, Evil Heat-era Primal Scream and Echoes-era The Rapture dance punk that showcases the collaborators uncanny ability to craft a remarkably catchy hook.
“Fierce stoner pop that explores the fragile human psyche in the modern digital thought prison,” the band says of the new single.
KThe accompanying music video by Kat Perkins and Daniel Riddle features a mix of collage-driven animation reminiscent of The Beatles‘ Yellow Submarine and the intro to Monty Python with strobe lit, monochrome footage of Riddle and dancing and instrument playing humanoid rabbits. Trippy, indeed.
Throwback: Happy 65th Birthday, Curt Smith!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Tears for Fears co-founder Curt Smith’s 65th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 60th Birthday, Hope Sandoval!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Hope Sandoval’s 60th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 97th Birthday, June Carter Cash!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 97th anniversary of the birth of June Carter Cash.
Throwback: Happy 90th Birthday, Kris Kristofferson!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 90th anniversary of Kris Kristofferson’s birth.
Throwback: Happy 73rd Birthday, Cyndi Lauper!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Cyndi Lauper’s 73rd birthday.