JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the iconic Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry’s 81st birthday.
Category: women who kick ass
Throwback: Happy 66th Birthday, Evelyn “Champagne” King!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Evelyn “Champagne” King’s 66th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 55th Birthday, Missy Elliott!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrations Missy Elliott’s 55th birthday.
New Video: Lisa LeBlanc Shares Rollicking “Whole Lotta Talkin'”
Lisa LeBlanc is an acclaimed Rosaireville, NB-born, Montréal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist (banjo and guitar) and established Acadian icon, thanks to her sound, a unique blend of roots, rock, disco, funk and country. After achieving commercial success with 2012’s self-titled full-length debut, she switched from French to English for 2012’s Highways Heartaches and Time Well Wasted and 2017’s Why You Wanna Leave Runaway Queen, which landed on the Polaris Music Prize shortlist that year.
The Rosaireville-born, Montréal-based artist and her backing band toured relentlessly over a handful of years. But by 2019, she took a break from touring to write and travel, and also began to explore studio work, which led her to produce Édith Butler‘s 25th album, 2021’s Le tour du Grand Bois. This new creative path enabled LeBlanc to broaden her musical horizons while using her talents, creativity and passion in the service of others.
The new production skills she learned led to 2022’s Chiac Disco, a critically applauded effort that simultaneously drew from and paid tribute to Lee Hazlewood, disco and funk — simultaneously. LeBlanc supported the album with over 140 shows across North America, Europe and Japan. The album landed on the Polaris Music Prize shortlist — her second time earning the honor. And the album led to a Juno Award nomination. Since then her catalogue has amassed over 35 million streams across all DSPs.
2024’s Live avec l’Orchestre symphonique de Québec saw LeBlanc collaborating with 63 classical musicians to perform her material.
“Whole Lotta Talkin'” is the acclaimed Canadian artist’s first bit of new material since Chiac Disco — and it marks a return to English lyrics. Sonically, “Whole Lotta Talkin'” is a rollickingly fun, hooky tune featuring a classic, surf rock riff and shimmering 60s-styled organ that sounds a bit like a seamless blend of Dick Dale, Link Wray, The Castaways‘ “Liar Liar” and The B-52‘s while showcasing LeBlanc’s mischievous wit and humor. The song recalls a situation all of us have been in at some point: being cornered by someone who just won’t shut up, and doesn’t get the hint that you’re desperately trying to get away from them.
Directed by Alexandre Pelletier, the accompanying video follows the touring adventures of a dysfunctional rock band featuring LeBlanc and her puppet bandmates — two of which are irremediably thoughtless, lazy, womanizing partiers, who besides playing music aren’t holding their weight on anything else. “I wanted to tell this funny, absurd story with the utmost seriousness, as if we were watching an ultra-dramatic musical biopic,” Pelletier explains. But what starts off on a playful note ends with a double puppet murder and a shared bloody secret.
New Video: Earth Tongue Shares Blistering Ripper “Grave Pressure”
Currently-based in Berlin, the Kiwi-based psych duo Earth Tongue — Gussie Larkin (vocals, guitar) and Ezra Simons (drums, vocals) — released their third album Dungeon Vision through In The Red Records earlier this year. Dungeon Vision was written after a busy and extensive bit of touring across both Europe and the UK, and was recorded in Los Angeles with Ty Segall, a collaboration that be traced back to when the duo opened for him during his New Zealand and European tours. Dungeon Vision has already received critical acclaim and has lead to some non-stop international touring to support.
The rising psych duo will be supporting their latest album with a Stateside tour throughout August and September that includes sets at King Gizz’s Field of Vision Festival and Levitation, as well as a headlining and opening dates. The tour includes a September 3, 2026 stop at Elsewhere. You can check out the rest of the tour dates below.
In the meantime, Dungeon Vision single “Grave Pressure” is a blistering, mosh pit friendly ripper that channels Black Sabbath OSees, King Gizz and a lengthy list of others with the song anchored around fuzzy distorted pedaled power chords, thunderous drumming and punchy harmonized lyrics about death and the grave. Goths, metal heads and psych rockers unite!
Directed and produced by Caity Moloney and Tom Mannion, the video plays on 1990s alt rock motifs and features the Kiwi duo being prepared for their own funeral, performing in the funeral best and bursting from their own graves in a kitschy fashion reminiscent of Roger Corman‘s extensive collaboration with Vincent Price.
New Video: M. Woodroe Shares Tense, Bruising “Sweetness, Sweetness”
Brighton-based outfit M. Woodroe — Marcie Garwell (vocals, guitar), Ben Elwin (guitar), Jeorgie Pinder-Whiley (bass), Sam Sezarin (drums) — exploded out of their local DIY scene, quickly establishing themselves as one of the city’s most exciting, emerging acts. Their work pairs intricate, provocative and politically-charged lyrics that touch upon boundary-pushing explorations gender, sexuality and desire with angular, fuzzy and noisy post punk-inspired guitar work.
The emerging and rising Brighton-based have played shows alongside Mcluksy, Prostitute, and others, developing a reputation for an intense live show, while receiving airplay from BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music and BBC Introducing. And building upon a growing profile, the post-punk quartet recently signed to Venn Records, who will be releasing their highly-anticipated debut EP, The Treatment of Fractures on September 18, 2026.
The EP’s first single “Sweetness, Sweetness” is a bruising tune that captures an indecisive, neurotic narrator, who’s on the verge of exploding in a seething fury in every direction, fueled by self-flagellation and confusion. While sonically channeling the likes of JOVM mainstays Whispering Sons, the song as the band’s Marcie Garwell explains is “about many things — weakness, identity, acquiescence, confusion . . . the position you drink not to make a fuss. It’s a pipe bomb sent to order, hate mail addressed to compromise, yet it’s indecisive in all its threats and feelings – never sure of where it lies.
Directed by J. Taylor-Jones, the accompanying video for “Sweetness, Sweetness” is a feverish portrayal of discomfit, self-flagellation, dread and despair that feels particularly modern.
Lyric Video: Indy Fontaine Returns with Flirty “Como Pa’ Mi”
Indy Fontaine is a Cuban-born, Miami-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, who can trace the origins of her career to her early childhood: Singing alongside her uncle and his old guitar, she fell in love with music when she was three. By the time she turned six, she was enrolled full-time at a music school in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, where she trained to be professional vocalist and musician.
Fontaine went on to graduate at the top of her class from Havana‘s prestigious National School of Art. When she graduated, she already had over a decade of experience playing gigs all across her native Cuba, including music festivals, live radio and TV sessions, and more.
Fontaine then joined Sol y Sun, an act that has made runs of the international festival circuit between the States and Cuba, as well as some of the most popular venues in Havana. The band also frequently performed on national TV and radio shows.
She then relocated to Miami, where she stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist, Her solo debut, 2024’s Moments of My Life ranged across a number of genres and styles, including Adult Contemporary, Easy Listening, Soft Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock and R&B — with songs written and sung in both English and Spanish.
The album featured “El Amor No Alcanza,” Fontaine’s subtly modern take on bolero, a Cuban genre that frequently focuses on affairs of the heart. Since then, Fontaine spent the past year releasing a collection of successful singles, “Esta Navidad,” “Vacaciones,” “Mariposas En La Lluvia,” “Mejor Sin Ti,” “Que Te Vaya Bien,” “Después De La Caída” and the Andrés Castro and Guianko Gómez co-written and co-produced “Tú Tienes Algo,” feat. Charlie Cruz.
Fontaine’s latest single, the Fontaine and Guianko Gómez cowritten and Gómez-produced “Como Pa’ Mi” is a thumping, club friendly and flirty bachata tune that captures the feverish desperation of obsessive infatuation, when that person takes absolute hold of every thought and feeling. The song radiates joy –the sort of joy and hope from newfound love. And that joy was the feeling that Fontaine brought into the studio. “I walked into the studio with a happy vibe, a special feeling, and I wanted to share that with everyone — that beautiful emotion that comes up when two people genuinely connect,” Fontaine says.
New Audio: Uh Huh Her Shares Sultry “Shook”
Acclaimed and influential duo Uh Huh Her — Camilla Grey and Leisha Hailey — were once brought together by a sense of divine providence. Now, more than two decades later, the duo that would help define the indie sleaze era and inspire the likes of Metric, Dum Dum Girls and Magic Wands have returned to beckon a brand new generation of folks to the dance floor with the re-release of their beloved 2011 effort, Nocturnes.
The reissue, Nocturnes:Redux is slated for an August 7, 2026 release through Kill Rock Stars across DSPs and as a limited edition goth confetti vinyl. The reissue features never-before-heard original mixes by acclaimed super producer Tchad Blake, along with two previously unreleased songs — a cover of Sonic Youth‘s classic song “Kool Thing” and a new track “Shook.”
Just like how they came together back in the summer of 2006 through common friends and interests, the duo’s reconnection blossomed serendipitously and quickly. “It feels like it did when we first got together,” says Uh Huh Her’s Leisha Haliey, a songwriter, actor and author, who may now be best known for her starting role on Showtime’s The L Word and its follow-up Generation Q and her 2025 New York Times bestselling memoir, So Gay For You: Friendship, Found Family and the Show That Started It All. “We’re just creative again together, and it’s an interesting place to come back to. And it’s almost like no time has passed, and all of the pressure’s off.”
The original release of Nocturnes was the band’s first independent release. “It meant the world that our fans directly supported the mixing of the album through online eBay auctions of memorabilia, vinyl, art, and even a couple private dinners, because that enabled us to enlist the powers of the incredible Tchad Blake,” Uh Huh Her’s Camilla Grey says. As they contemplated rereleasing Nocturnes with Kill Rock Stars, Grey started digging around to find the album’s original mixes. “I chose Tchad’s first and second mix attempts because I wanted to preserve his first instincts before we gave him a million notes,” she says. This is truly how he heard it on one or two tries. The songs are longer, they’re more rocked out, they’re a little more raucous.” The entirety of those original mixes have never seen the light of day until now.
“Shook,” Nocturnes: Redux‘s first single, and the re-issues only new, original single is a sultry tune that feels and sounds effortlessly crafted yet earnest, deeply universal yet intimate and personal with the song subtly capturing the slow-burn dread and unease of our weird moment. Camila Grey explains that the song is “particularly relevant in a time where everything and everyone feels so unstable. We are living through a profound assault on our central nervous systems by the barrage of media we ingest on a daily basis. While ‘Shook’ is more about a personal situation, the title speaks volumes about what we feel as humans on a daily basis.”
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 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 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.