Category: Video Review

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?

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: L’Eclair return with Trippy House Banger “VERTIGO”

With recorded output that includes 2018’s full-length debut, Polymood, 2019’s Sauropoda, 2020’s Noshtta EP and 2021’s Confusions, the acclaimed Swiss-based group L’Eclair, founded and led by Bulgarian-born siblings Stef and Yavov Lilov established a sound centered around mind-bending, cosmic grooves.

Along with two live sessions for KEXP, which amassed over 900,000 views combined, the Swiss-based group have built up an international following, while landing on the playlists of adventurous listeners and DJs seeking deep grooves.

L’Eclair’s fourth album Cloud Drifter is slated for a June 20, 2025 release through Innovative Leisure. Meticulously crafted over the last four years, Cloud Drifter is a decided departure from the group’s signature instrumental music, with the album’s material featuring vocal contributions from a wide array of frequent collaborators they’ve worked with over the past few years, including Pink Slifu, Girl Named GOLDEN, Gelli Haha, A Ghost Column, and more.

Having toured with The Cinematic Orchestra and W.I.T.C.H. — including writing and recording W.I.T.C.H.’s 2023 effort Zango and The Cinematic Orchestra’s forthcoming album this year, as well as production work with Varnish La Piscine and Maston, the Lilov brothers have assembled a vast network of likeminded musicians. And across the entire album, they keenly curate a cohesive vision incorporating many disparate contributions. 

Earlier this month, I wrote about Cloud Drifter‘s first single “ODESSOS,” which featured Phoebe Coco‘s and A Ghost Column’s ethereal vocals paired with twinkling and oscillating synths and a dub-inspired motorik groove. While being one of the most club friendly songs the acclaimed Swiss outfit has ever released, “ODESSOS” is a bold, sonic left turn that retains the group’s long-held penchant for crafting mind-bending, expansive grooves. And perhaps more than ever, the track manages to convey the freewheeling, improvisation-driven and infectious energy of their live shows.

“VERTIGO,” Cloud Drifter‘s second and latest single is synth-driven, deep house instrumental that sounds like a synthesis of the material off 2021’s Confusions, Larry Levan-era house and krautrock, anchored around the Swiss unerring knack for hooks and mind-bending groove.

Edited by VVIDEO, the accompanying video for “VERTIGO” is a mix of kaleidoscopic and fittingly hallucinogenic imagery and footage of the band performing the song lie — sometimes simultaneously.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sunflower Bean Shares Shimmering “There’s a Part I Can’t Get Back”

Formed back in 2013, while they were still teenagers, New York-based trio Sunflower Bean — Julia Cumming (vocals, bass) Nick Kivlen (guitar, vocals) and Olive Faber (drums) — are arguably one of the New York metropolitan area’s most acclaimed and commercially successful, contemporary indie bands. Since their formation, the New York-based trio have released three critically acclaimed albums, 2016’s Human Ceremony, 2018’s Twentytwo in Blue and 2022’s Headful of Sugar, which featured several chart-topping singles. 

The band has supported those albums with sold-out tour dates as headliners and as openers for the Beck, The Strokes, Cage the Elephant, Interpol, Courtney Barnett, The Pixies, The Kills, DIIV, Wolf Alice and more. They’ve also made the rounds of the international festival circuit with stops at Glastonbury, Governor’s Ball, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Reading Festival, Leeds Festival and others. And famously, they opened for Bernie Sanders during primary campaign rallies. 

Late last year, the band returned with the Shake EP. The self-produced and self-recorded effort featured some of the band’s heaviest, most immediate and loudest material they’ve written and recorded to date. Influenced by the doom-laden, riff-driven sound of Black Sabbath and others, the EP is an embrace of rock tropes and excess, while nodding to the band’s first two albums. 

“SHAKE was inspired by our first years as a DIY band, the spirit that birthed us and gave us the chance to have this enduring journey together,” the band says of the EP. “We wrote, recorded, engineered, and produced these songs so nothing was filtered through anyone else’s idea of us. We always felt like rock and roll was a feeling, not a sound. But sometimes there is no subverting it or explaining it. We’re now offering it exactly as it occurred to us.” 

The JOVM mainstays highly-anticipated fourth album Mortal Primetime is slated for a Friday release through Lucky Number. Three years have passed since the release of Headful of Sugar and in that time, the members of the band drifted from one another as they pursued new projects and confronted personal challenges, tragedies and transformations. The album reportedly finds the band with a deeply renewed sense of purpose after nearly losing everything they’ve built together. “You get to decide what your prime is, and you fight for it,” the band’s Julia Cumming says. “This is ours, and that can’t be taken away by circumstance. We can’t take it away from each other. This moment, where we are now, is what we’ve always fought for.”

Mortal Primetime‘s material was inspired by alternative rock and psychedelia and rooted in arena-sized ambition, which results in a sound that’s not just undeniably theirs, but also sees the band celebrating their history while boldly pushing into the future. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Champagne Taste” a song title that’s a nod to the band’s long-time alias when performing secret shows to test out new material. Anchored around scuzzy riffs, arena rock friendly, power chord-driven hooks and choruses paired with Cumming’s sultry, The Idiot-era Iggy Pop-styled croon, “Champagne Taste” sees the band simultaneously channeling a synthesis of 80s glam rock and 90s riot grrl alt rock and punk. But at its core, is a fierce, almost feral determination.

“This song came after a period that felt like rock bottom for the band. It is about feeling beaten down but still driving forward, to keep faith, to grow and to continue to create on our own terms, our Mortal Primetime,” the band explains.

Mortal Primetime‘s latest single “There’s a Part I Can’t Get Back” is a Laurel Canyon-like tune that nods a bit at Twentytwo in Blue while featuring chiming guitars and one of Cumming’s most beautiful and earnest vocal turns in some time. But at its core is the simmering anger of being mistreated and denied innocence; of having an inability to trust; of knowing that you’ll live with the impacts of that treatment for the rest of your days.

The song, which is about personal experiences with being groomed finds Cumming being “as intentional and direct as possible,” as she grapples with what she’s experienced — and how it has shaped her and her life.

“This song is about the lasting scars of grooming—the parts of yourself that are stolen and the anger you carry because of it,” Cumming explains. “It came to me in such a raw and direct way, there was no second-guessing or wondering how I felt. I didn’t want to write a song about being healed, I wanted to be angry about needing to heal at all. The line, ‘If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord lets me get even first,’ is important because it captures the intensity of these feelings and how they go beyond logic. I am confronting the pain and the questions that will never be answered.”

Directed by Harv Frost, the accompanying video for “There’s a Part I Can’t Get Back” visually exploring Mortal Primetime‘s central themes while seeing the trio supporting one another as they fight to regain their footing in gorgeous, almost painterly settings.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Dominque and the Diamonds Share a Patsy Cline-Styled Ballad

Led by Colombian-American frontwoman Dominque Gomez, Los Angeles-based country band Dominique and the Diamonds can trace their origins to back to last year, when the band came together on a whim after Gomez was asked to perform a country set local summertime series, The Grand Ole Echo.

Friends from cosmic country outfit Caravan 222 and rock band Triptides were asked to perform as a backing band for Gomez and over the course of the year gained buzz locally for a sound that channels Linda Ronstadt, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Townes Van Zandt and the Laurel Canyon sound — but with a contemporary feel.

The Los Angeles-based country outfit’s Glenn Brigman-produced debut EP, For a Fool is slated for a June 13, 2025 release. Recorded using a mix of analog and digital equipment in Brigman’s Crestline, CA-based studio, For a Fool EP channels the golden age of classic country with the material touching upon tried-and-true themes of romance, lonesomeness, revenge, drunken playfulness while anchored around the old school song-as-story. And the material sees the band weaving the experiences of the contemporary world, too.

“I write country music and love to sing country songs, but I’ve always associated myself with the Colombian half of my identity more than the white side. My Dad and his immediate family immigrated to the US from Colombia in 1966 and they’d endured so much struggle in the process,” Dominique and the Diamonds’ Dominque Gomez says. “Then, you have my Mom’s side who were small town farmers in Minnesota and Southern trailer park girls. When you look at me, you see a brown girl, and I fucking love that. And when I was younger, I felt like I was forced to fit into a category, but I was too white to be Latina and too Latina to be white. It’s a beautiful thing to have the wisdom now to embrace both and just be me.”

The EP’s first single, EP title track “For a Fool,” is a Patsy Cline-styled ballad of heartbreak, despair and uneasy acceptance anchored around some gorgeous pedal steel and Gomez’s Linda Ronstadt-like vocal. Inspired by the modern “situationship” phenomenon and Gomez’s experiences dating in Los Angeles, the song describes a bitterly common scenario: dealing with a love interest you really dig, who’s an unserious time waster that’s playing with your heart and emotions. And while the song’s narrator is heartbroken, she clearly recognizes her time and her worth, offering a bit of wisdom for anyone who encounters this sort of lover — leave that fool alone before you get played for a fool.

“I was 28, single, and could finally see through these types of guys so clearly,” Gomez says. “I actually started to feel bad for them at a certain point. You’ve got to be real sad deep down to just use a person to satisfy your own loneliness and boredom.”

Directed by the band’s Hamilton Boyce (bass), the accompanying video for “For a Fool” was shot at Bar Flores, a Latina-owned tequila/mezcal bar in Los Angeles’ Echo Park section, known for having predominantly female bartenders of color behind the bar, including them and’s Gomez. And throughout we see Gomez in a series of flashbacks, presumably falling in love — and then in the present, proudly telling off an off-screen love interest.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Doechii Shares Surreal and Anxious Visual for “Anxiety”

Last year was a breakthrough year for Doechii: Alligator Bites Never Heal was released to critical praise from NPR, Paste, Consequence, Stereogum and UPROXX while coming in at #1 on Rolling Stone‘s “The 20 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2024” and in the top 10 of their overall “Best Albums of 2024” list. And unless you were living in a cave or just awoken from a coma, you’d recall that earlier this year, the acclaimed artist won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.

Adding other a boatload of accolades, Doechii was recently named Woman of the Year at the Billboard Women in Music event and Outstanding Music Artist at the GLAAD Media Awards.

Her latest single “Anxiety,” follows “DENIAL IS A RIVER,” which debuted at # 1 on both the Official Physical Singles and Official Vinyl Singles charts, and was released last month through Top Dawg Entertainment/Capitol Records, and has already amassed over 272 million combined global streams, include 85 million domestic streams and more than 23 billion views across her social media. And if you somehow hadn’t heard the song on the radio or on your DSP of choice, you’d be familiar with the song because it’s gone viral and has become a firmly buried earworm. The song is remarkably catchy but it also continues to showcase one of our moment’s most unique and wildly talented artists — and some of the most inventive production you’ll hear in pop and hip-hop.

Directed by James Mackel, the accompanying video follows the acclaimed artist as she makes her way through an elegant mansion with an overly attentive staff. However, the luxurious setting is fraught with disturbing, deeply surreal, anxiety-inducing and/or terrifying situations, including a raging kitchen fire, an enormous and menacing Doberman, a falling chandelier, a team of black-clad, ninja-like intruders, who break through the windows, two creepy twins, before ending with a collection of “Thriller”-like dancers that turns into a Broadway-styled dance scene. It’s playful yet deeply unsettling.

“Anxiety” is Doechii’s first single to enter Billboard‘s Hot 100’s Top 10. Currently, the track is in the Top 20 of the Top 40 and Urban Radio Charts. And it currently ranks in on the To 10 on the Rhythm radio charts. The track is currently #12 on the Spotify Global Charts and Top 5 on the UK’s Official Singles Charts.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Yumi Zouma Shares Breakneck and Melodic “Bashville on the Sugar”

Formed back in 2013 in Christchurch, New Zealand, the multinational and multi-continental JOVM mainstays Yumi Zouma — Melbourne-based Christie Simpson (vocals, keys), New York-based Josh Burgess (guitar, bass, vocals, keys), London-based Charlie Ryder (guitar, bass, keys) and Wellington, New Zealand-based Olivia Campion (drums) — have had an acclaimed run that began with their shoegaze and dream pop-driven debut EP, the aptly-titled EP I and included their critically applauded albums, 2014’s Yoncalla, which saw the band dabbling with synth pop; 2017’s Willowbank, 2020’s Truth or Consequences and 2022’s Present Tense.

The JOVM mainstays have received praise from Pitchfork, Stereogum, Consequence, The FADER, SPIN, The Guardian while receiving airplay from SiriusXM and Australia’s Triple J. The multinational and multi-continental outfit have also developed a reputation as a mainstay on the global touring scene — first through opening slots for Air France, Jamie xx and Lower Dens, and then as a headlining act.

Recently, Yumi Zouma signed to Nettwerk Music Group, who will be releasing the band’s latest single “Bashville on the Sugar,” their first bit of new material in over 16 months or so. Beginning with a Foo Fighters-like “I’ll Stick Around“-like drum fill, the acclaimed outfit’s latest single may be the most downright breakneck tune they’ve released to date while continuing to showcase Simpson’s ethereal yet expressive delivery paired with cascading and chiming guitar work from Burgess and Ryder and MTA field recordings. Written in bursts across Mexico City, New York and New Zealand, “Bashville on the Sugar” captures the energetic pulse of commuting on public transportation in a large city, as well as the excitement and sense of infinite possibilities that could happen — right before that subway door closes.

“The first song on our forthcoming project that we really dug into, it’s an ode to the subway and public transport, New York’s in particular. The band has a deep affinity for it; its reliability and the access it provides are unlike anything we experienced in New Zealand,” the members of Yumi Zouma explain. “At the same time, its unpredictability—what you’ll see, who you’ll bump into—keeps each trip rooted in the present.”

Directed by the band, the accompanying video for “Bashville on the Sugar” features a blend of photo studio footage, Mini DV footage shots in New York and clips, and manages to capture the band’s sweet and goofy nature while evoking the endless motion at the heart of the song.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 58th Birthday, Liz Phair!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Liz Phair’s 58th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tan Cologne Shares Hazy, “A Storm in Heaven”-like “Cloud of Mirrors”

Enigmatic Taos, NM-based duo Tan Cologne — Lauren Green and Marissa Macias — have released work rooted in terrestrial and earthen landscapes: Their debut, 2020’s Cave Vaults on the Moon in New Mexico explored the topography of cultures and subcultures on the surface of New Mexico. Their sophomore album, 2022’s Earth Visions of Water Spaces was inspired by past, present and future water and waterways, embodying the power of water and how it has shaped our planet. 2023’s Pescetrullo (soundscapes) captured a series of on-site instrumental and field recordings made in the remote architectural Pescetrullo in Puglia, Italy, immortalizing the contrasts of ancient buildings, new bold structures, insects, and lapping water of the surrounding environment.

The New Mexico-based duo’s forthcoming third album Unknown Beyond is slated for a June 20, 2025 release through Labrador Records. Unlike their previously released material, Unknown Beyond sees Green and Macias reaching for the heavens and an intangible greater existence; the infinite and unexplainable while embracing the beauty of timeless uncertainty.

Written, performed and recorded entirely by the duo at their Taos, New Mexico-based home, the album found the pair seeking solitude and retreat as they attempted to come to terms with the personal loss of family, friends and childhood homes — within a relatively short period of time. The album’s creative process quickly became a therapeutic outlet for grieving, dealing, changing and understanding new life transitions and ways of being, with each track being a part of the story of the entire album.

The album reportedly sees Green and Macias seeking a more spiritual process. “We looked for signs and signals during the recording process” they say. “If we saw a shooting star, imagined a fire burning on a hill, or remembered an old satellite dish in someone’s yard, we explored that lyrically. Those visual guides became our pathways to the album. They were the signs to move forward.”

Interviewing and layering hypnotic beats, hazy shoegeazer textures, abstract live drum patterns and sounds of searching for signals — of comfort and communication — from the invisible web, Unknown Beyond may arguably be their most immersive and emotive work to date.

Unknown Beyond‘s latest single, the woozy yet meditative “Cloud of Mirrors” features swirling and painterly, shoegazer-like guitar textures and Green’s and Macias’ soaring harmonies ethereally floating over a bed of pulsating, metronomic-like drum machine click. Sonically, “Cloud of Mirrors” marks a sonic and thematic shift for the New Mexico-based outfit as they embrace a richer blend of electronic elements to their sound, all while recalling A Storm in Heaven and Souvlaki-era shoegaze.

“’Cloud of Mirrors’ is about life happening to you and having to deal with whatever is handed to you – a chemtrail above, being ‘over it,’ knowing we are all interconnected and a part of the disaster and the beauty,” the duo explain. “The idea that we are a mirrored image of the sky – manmade or natural, or even simulated. A reflection of everything around you being internally present.”

Fittingly, the accompanying video is a hazy in-studio performance featuring seemingly endless reflections and refractions, as though looking at the duo performing through a mirror.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Orphan Prodigy Shares Madchester-Inspired Anthem “Get Away”

Ian Keller, is Queens-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and creative mastermind behind the emerging solo recording project Orphan Prodigy. After spending nearly two decades as the frontman of an alternative rock band, Keller decided to branch off and start studying music production and engineering.

As it turns out, it wasn’t very long after he was introduced to digital workstations that the Queens-based artist found his way back to writing songs — and subsequently began working on material that would eventually become his Orphan Prodigy debut album.

With roots in early 90s and 2000s alternative rock and metal, Keller’s Orphan Prodigy sees him writing music digitally and alone, which has allowed him to explore musical horizons organically and outside the confines of a conventional band. Orphan Prodigy sees Keller dabbling with influences in electronic dance music, house and trance.

Keller’s recently Orphan Prodigy debut, Medication For A Modern World sees the Queens-based artist pushing the boundaries of contemporary rock and filling every sonic space possible. Thematically, the album’s material harnesses the anxiety and concerns of our moment — and turns them into a soundtrack for the contemporary era. The album encourages listeners to tackle their mental health head-on, urging listeners to confront their struggles, rather than numb them as modern, late-stage capitalism would want you to do.

Medication For A Modern World‘s lead single “Get Away” manages to recall Electronic and the Madchester sound with the song featuring glistening and arpeggiated bursts of Larry Levan-like keys, skittering, club rocking boom-bap, a supple bass line paired with Keller’s emphatic delivery. “Get Away” showcases an artist who can craft a slickly produced, rousingly anthemic song with some remarkably catchy hooks.

At its core, the song expresses a familiar desire to escape a crazy, overstimulated world, one that’s sliding into fascism in a feverish pace. If you’re not at that point yet, then you’re ignoring reality.

The accompanying video features Keller playing all the song’s instruments in a clean, white studio. And fittingly, it reminds me of several videos from the 80s.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe Shares Dance Floor-Friendly “Somebody New”

Tunde Adebimpe, the frontman of the critically acclaimed Brooklyn-based band TV On The Radio will be releasing his long-awaited, highly-anticipated solo debut Thee Black Boltz Friday (!) through Sub Pop Records.

The Adebimpe and Wilder Zoby co-produced album features additional production and contributions from TV On The Radio’s Jaleel Bunton and Japhet Landis and more. The album’s material will not only showcase Adebimpe imitable voice and visionary soundscapes, but is a nod to his propensity to write and sing about the human condition — in all its form, under all its stressor, both big and small. 

Thee Black Boltz isn’t a TV On The Radio album. But for Adebimpe, in a lot of ways, the excitement of doing something on his own for the first time ignited a similar creative spark as during the early TVOTR days. The songwriting process is the same, he says, but with his bandmates, Adebimpe always knew that have didn’t have to complete his musical ideas. “I’ve been doing this thing with this group of people for so long, that I can just have a vague sketch of a concept and I know Jaleel or Kyp will have five brilliant ideas on where it can go,” he says. “But for Thee Black Boltz, I didn’t have that scaffolding to hang on. That was both terrifying and exhilarating.”

The album’s title is Adebimpe’s response to the macro unease of a post-pandemic world careening towards violent authoritarianism and the immense grief that has come from deeply personal losses, specifically the sudden passing of his younger sister while making it. In many ways, Thee Black Boltz is the TVOTR frontman’s desperate grasping of small moments of joy amidst the dissonance, chaos and sadness in any way he could. And understandably, the album was a way of processing everything in his life. “It was my way of building a rock or a platform for myself in the middle of this fucking ocean,” he says. 

As he writes in his notebook, “The sparks of inspiration/motivation / hope that flash up in the midst of (and sometimes as a result of) deep grief, depression or despair. Sort of like electrons building up in storm clouds clashing until they fire off lightning and illuminate a way out, if only for a second.”

“Also,” he adds. “it’s a good name for a cool metal band, and I think that most people would describe me as akin to a very cool metal band.” 

Earlier this year, I wrote about the Jahpet Landis-produced “Drop,” a meditative and deeply introspective song featuring looped beatboxing, shimmering and strummed bursts of guitar, whistling and skittering beats serving as a dreamy and subtly uneasy bed for Adebimpe’s plaintive delivery questioning the purpose of it all, when things seem so brutally nonsensical.

Thee Black Boltz‘s fourth and latest single “Somebody New” is a dance floor friendly synth-driven bop that recalls 80s synth pop — i.e., Nu Shooz “I Can’t Wait,” Depeche Mode‘s “I Can’t Get Enough,” Yaz‘s “Situation” and the like — but while rooted in modern thematic concerns.

The Adebimpe-directed video for “Somebody New” is a feverishly trippy and surreal bit of time travel back to the days of Soul Train and American Bandstand as we see the TVOR frontman performing the song in a crowded room of beautiful young people dancing — and a glammed out Gritty-styled puppet.

“I’m positive I fell asleep on a couch with the TV on sometime in 1982 and fever dreamt this exact thing,” Adebimpe says of the new video.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Medha Krishna Shares Flirty “Ishaare”

Medha Krishna is an emerging Indian-British singers/songwriter, who according to her Instagram “writes love songs.” Her latest single “Ishaare” is a fun, flirtatious and summery disco-meets- Bollywood tune that subtly brights Daft Punk‘s “Get Lucky” and Chic‘s 70s hits to mind — but with an 80s styled guitar solo.

As Krishna explains the song tells a story about a meet cute in which a woman meets a guy and immediately feels a spark, but there’s some mind games and mixed signals. Throughout the song, the narrator playfully chides the man on how his mixed signals — with the narrator essentially saying “Come on man, I dig you. What’s up with you, boy?”

Directed by Lutch Media, the accompanying video follows Krishna and her girlfriends on night out on the town — or more specifically to the club, where she leads a Bollywood-like dance routine, while having a flirtatious meet cute. Oh, if every time I went out, it would be like that, right?

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Boston’s Paper Lady Shares Unhinged “Joe Modern”

Formed back in 2019, the Boston-based indie outfit Paper Lady — Alli Raina (vocals, rhythm guitar), Rowan Martin (lead guitar), Alex Castile (drums) and Taylor Morris (bass) — can trace their origins to their involvement in their Northeast DIY scene. Citing an eclectic array of influences that include Mazzy Star, Broadcast and Jefferson Airplane among others, the Boston-based quartet has crafted a sound that typically blends dreamy textures with grounded storytelling.

Last year, the band wrote and recorded their full-length debut, Idle Fate, during a retreat in a cabin in Upstate New York and at their shared home in Boston. Self-recorded and self-mixed, the album, which is slated for a May 9, 2025 release, explores themes of grief, love and fantastical existentialism while seeing the band push their sound into more experimental territory.

Idle Fate‘s third single “Joe Modern” is an angular and tightly wound up post punk anthem with dreamy shoegazer passages, anchored around angular and whirring blasts of guitar, a throbbing rhythm section paired with remarkably catchy hooks and enormous, bombastic choruses that simultaneously barely holds it together, while showcasing Raina’s feral and unhinged vocal performance.

A thematic outlier on the album, “Joe Modern” draws from real life absurdity: a scamming and scheming realtor. “We kept joking that we should write a song about this guy — and then Rowan brought this wild guitar riff to rehearsal, and the rest just fell into place,” the band’s Alli Raina explains. “The lyrics came to me instantly. It’s the most fun song to play live, and I think it helped us evolve our sound in a huge way.”

Directed by the band’s Rowan Martin, the accompanying video for “Joe Modern” is a blend of surreal, mundane and sinister, as it follows a sad-sad and haunted businessman type through the hallucinatory and dreamlike torments by his boss and a sleep paralysis demon.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Niseff Shares Sultry Banger “Ice”

With the release of her debut EP, 2023’s Mami Spicy, the emerging and rapidly rising Puerto Rican artist Niseff quickly established a sound that that blends elements of reggaeton and contemporary pop and pairs it with her sultry delivery and empowering lyrics. 

Since the release of Mami Spicy, Niseff has released some standalone singles including “La Nota,” and her latest single “Ice.” Clocking in at a smidge under two minutes, “Ice” is a slickly produced, hook-driven track featuring skittering reggaeton beats, bursts of glistening and atmospheric synths serving as a lush, club friendly bed for Niseff’s sultry Spanglish flow.

The accompanying visual features the rising Puerto Rican artist and some girlfriends dancing in an igloo-styled club. The stylish visual recalls the glitzy, slickly produced visuals of Hype Williams and others.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays LohArano Share Energetic Visual for “Bae Nosy”

Throughout the course of this site’s 15 year history, I’ve spilled a ton of virtual ink on the Antananarivo, Madagascar-based JOVM mainstays LohArano. Since their formation, the Malagasy metal outfit  — Mahalia Ravoajanahary (vocals, guitar), Michael Raveloson (bass, vocals) and Natiana Randrianasoloson (drums, vocals) — have received attention both nationally and internationally for a unique, boundary pushing sound that features elements of popular and beloved Malagasy musical styles like Tsapiky  and Salegy with heavy metal. 

The Madagascar-based outfit’s sound and approach represents a bold generation of Malagasy youth that still honors, reveres and respects the traditions and practices of their culture and elders, while also being deeply inspired by contemporary, Western genres and styles.

Back in 2023, the JOVM mainstays released the Bae Nosy EP, a title, which roughly translates into English as “beloved island.” EP title track “Bae Nosy” is an urgent, mosh pit friendly ripper built around rumbling down-tuned bass, thunderous drumming and Tom Morello-like guitar work paired with Mahalia Ravoajanahary’s furious roar. And at its core, the song evokes a real sense of nihilism and ennui, informed by the fact that the world is on fire and that everything is fleeting. So might as well have some fun while everything burns around us, right?

Recently, “Bae Nosy” was used as the theme song for season 3, episode 6 of the hit Paramount+ show Yellowjackets. And with the growing attention around the band, they shared a music video for the song, directed by Tsiory Andrianamanana.

The accompanying video features the trio in what appears to be a paper-strewn abandoned building. Throughout we see the band doing a mix of traditional Malagasy dancing, headbanging, moshing and just melting faces while displaying their remarkable energy.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Smut Shares Bombastic Ripper “Syd Sweeney”

After spending years in the Cincinnati DIY scene, Smut — currently Tay Roebuck (vocals), Andie Min (guitar), John Steiner (bass), Sam Ruschman (guitar) and Aidan O’Connor (drums) — caught the attention of Bayonet Records, who signed the band and released their sophomore album, 2022’s critically applauded How the Light Felt. The album brought the band to Chicago, a city with more room for their growing sound.

But despite their early successes, they still faced the struggles of the modern working musician: instability, financial precarity, objectification and more. The band channeled a period of touring, personnel changes and personal upheavals into their third album, Tomorrow Comes Crashing.

Slated for a June 27, 2025 release through Bayonet Records, Tomorrow Comes Crashing marks the band’s first album with O’Connor and Steiner and reportedly sees the band re-energized and trained on the limitless potential that comes with making music with people you love.

The members of the band focused on capturing the big emotions that come with falling in love with music for the first time. The result is ten of arguably their most intense, bombastic and focused songs to date.

The Chicago-based band recorded the album’s material “as live as they could,” alongside Momma‘s Aron Kobayashi Ritch in a Red Hook, Brooklyn-based studio over a breakneck 10-day session. Roebuck. Right before they went off to New York, Roebuck and Min got married, with the rest of the band by their side.

“We have so much energy right now,” Smut’s Roebuck says. The recording sessions were a true labor of love — driving from Chicago with all their equipment, returning from 12 hour studio days to sleep on friends’ couches and floors, Roebuck completely blowing her voice by the end. Fittingly, the album is culmination of the band’s long-held DIY spirit — with the band creating a record that encompasses the intensity, moodiness and emotions of their journey so far.

Tomorrow Comes Crashing‘s latest single “Syd Sweeney,” is inspired by the actor and is anchored around big, Siamese Dream-like power chords, rolling and propulsive drumming and enormous, beer-raised-high-in-the-air, shout-along worthy hooks and choruses paired with Roebuck’s rock goddess-like delivery before ending with a thrash metal-like coda that would make Billy Corgan smile.

The song is about how profoundly strange it can be to be a woman, to be misunderstood by people, who don’t even know you — and probably will never know you. Roebuck says: “Women in entertainment are exceptionally talented, smart and beautiful, because they have to be. Sometimes they want to explore sexuality and vulnerability in their work. Then the pitchforks come out, how dare they be amazing AND sexual? You can only be one or the other! Why is talent and hard work seemingly erased once you’ve seen a woman naked?”

“It makes sense then to interpret it as a horror film, where we have the dividing tropes of final girls and sexy bimbos who die first for being too damn sexy,” Roebuck continues. “We put the sexy woman in the movie so we can see her be sexy and then kill her for it. It’s a lose-lose. Being a woman in art is to be objectified one way or the other. Success is the monster chasing you, waiting for you to be a little too sexy, knife ready.”