JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 97th anniversary of the birth of June Carter Cash.
Category: women who kick ass
Throwback: Happy 73rd Birthday, Cyndi Lauper!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Cyndi Lauper’s 73rd birthday.
Live Footage: Kim Gordon Performs “PLAY ME” on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”
The legendary Kim Gordon released her third solo album, the Justin Raisen-produced PLAY ME on earlier this year through Matador Records. PLAY ME is reportedly distilled and immediate, and sees Gordon expanding on her sonic palette to include more melodic beats and the motorik drive of krautock.
“We wanted the songs to be short,” Gordon says of her continued collaboration with acclaimed, Los Angeles-based producer Justin Raisen. “We wanted to do it really fast. It’s more focused, and maybe more confident. I always kind of work off of rhythms, and I knew I wanted it to be even more beat-oriented than the last one. Justin really gets my voice and my lyrics and he understands how I work—that came forth even more on this record.”
PLAY ME is the follow-up to 2024’s critically applauded sophomore album The Collective, which featured the two-time Grammy-nominated single “BYE BYE.” PLAY ME sees Gordon processing in her imitable way, the collateral damage of the billionaire class: the demolition of democracy, technocratic end-times-like fascism, the A.I.-fueled chill vibes flattering of culture — where dark humor voices the absurdity of our moment. But despite its frequent outward gave, the album is essentially an interior effort, one in which heightened emotionality pulses through physical jams, while rejecting definitive statements in favor of an inquisitiveness and curiosity that keeps Gordon searching — and ever in process.
Amid PLAY ME’s rabbit-hole reality bricolage, pitch-shifted vocals and shadowy layers of dissonance, the album’s material are clear-eyed about the attention they pay to a world that would rather you be distracted and rage-baited into oblivion. “I have to say, the thing that influenced me most was the news. We are in some kind of ‘post empire’ now, where people just disappear,” Gordon says, echoing the title of one of PLAY ME’s tracks.
PLAY ME will feature the previously released “NOT TODAY,” and “DIRTY TECH,” as well as the album’s third single, album title track “PLAY ME.” “PLAY ME” may arguably be the most hip-hop influenced track of the entire album with the song anchored around a swaggering DJ Premier-like production tweeter and woofer rattling beats paired with a meditative, modal jazz trumpet line. Gordon’s imitable croon takes on a subtle staccato, hip-hop like flow to match.
Yesterday, Gordon and her backing band performed “PLAY ME” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She finhishes her NYC vist with a surprise, sold-out show tonight at Night Club 101. And because of overwhelming demand, she added a second show at Warsaw on September 16, 2026. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.
New Audio: DONALADA Returns with Euphoric “C BEN D’VALEUR”
Montréal-based electronic dance music duo DONALDA — Florence Lafontaine and Olivier Martin-Fréchette — derive their project’s name from the name given to the first women admitted to college in Québec in the late 19th century, and is a nod to the fictional character introduced in Claude-Henri Grignon’s 1933 novel Un homme et son péché, who, for several generations, embodied the consequences of patriarchy.
Lafontaine and Martin-Fréchette both have an academic background in digital, contemporary mixed-media and instrumental composition, as well as in jazz interpretation. Inspired by UK garage, dubstep, left field bass and other British electronic music sub-genres as well as the queer nightlife scene, the duo take a pedagogical approach to music in order to deconstruct the boundaries of musical genres. While getting people onto the dance floor is their ultimate goal, they also seek to spark musical curiosity among their audience, something that is at the core of their inclusive, unifying philosophy.
Through composition, sound design and creative coding, the Montréal-based duo tap into their wide-ranging experiences to bring every stage of DONALDA’s creative process to life. And fittingly, their versatility imbued their sound with a coherent and deeply personal artistic identity rooted in a celebration of diversity and inclusion, freedom and the French language.
The duo recently signed to Bonsound, who released their debut single “C FOU” last month. The French Canadian duo’s latest signle “C BEN D’VALEUR” derives its title from a common Québécois idiom that’s used to exress the sensation — or the feeling — of lost oppotunity, but it’s a wooozily euphoric bit of house music built around Larry Levan-like, arpeggiated and twinkling keys, skittering beats paried with the duo’s soulful harmonies. Theamtically, the song explores the concept of value (valeur in French) and the balance between significance and rarity.
New Video: Sweeping Promises Share Forcefully Urgent “Cocoon”
Lawrence, KS-based duo Sweeping Promises — Lira Mondal (vocals, bass, production) and Caufield Schnug (guitar, drums, production) — can trace their origins to a chance meeting in Arkansas, which led to a decade of playing together in an eclectic assortment of projects. Meticiuluosly controlling every aspect of their craft, from the frist note they write together, through production and engineering, using space as a key element of their sound, to mastering, each song is a testament to their long-held dynamic chemistry as musicians and artists.
Their full-length debut, 2020’s Hunger for a Way Out was released through Feel It Records. Written before the pandemic, the album’s material managed to pair the anxious urgency of a commanding live performance with a gauzy production, creating a distorted sense of time. That resonated with tons of folks during quarantine, who turned the album into a life-saving flotation device — and fittingly the album received rapturous praise from Stereogum, Pitchfork, and NPR. Around then, Feel It Records and Sub Pop agreed to join forces to distribute the duo’s work across North America and globally, starting with 2021’s “Pain Without a Touch.”
2023’s sophmore self-produced album Good Living Is Coming For You was released across North America through Feel It Records and globally through Sub Pop. Produced and recorded in the duo’s Lawrence-based home studio, Good Livng Is Coming For You was a decided cahnge in direction and appraoch: They eschewed the brutalist ambienace of their former Boston subterranean, concrete laboratory and the single mic recording technique of its immediate predecessor. Recorded in a nude painting studio bathed in light with high-ceilings, their Kansas studio is a reverb-rich space, that helps influence the album’s overall sound. Thematically, the album’s material touched upon power struggles, accepting aging, breaking restraints and more, delivered with a fervent urgency.
The band’s third album, You Say I Romanticize is slated for an August 14, 2026 release globally through Sub Pop. Recorded over an 18-month period, You Say I Romanticize is a tribute to the chaos of creation and collaboration under shifting circmstances. Mondal and Schung found and tested themselves in their combination tour house and recording studio annually working on dozens of albums by other bands, hosting tour stops, planning shows and the like. After an immerseive process of traking adn whittling down YSIR demos and carving out an idiosyncratic chamber recording member for the album’s deliberate and international wall-of-sound appraoch, the duo brought in touring drummer Spenser Gralla to play the album’s matreial as the band would on stage.
The album’s frenzied and passionate sound shines most in Modal’s vocal perforamnce. Where you might have heard a growl here and there on certain previously releserd Sweeping Promises trcks, the band’s frontwoman shouts, roars, hits tricky notes all over teh place and shreds her thraot throhgout the album’s run time.
You Say I Romanticize takes the art-by-any-means-necessary ethos that Mondal and Schung have firmly established throhgout their careers and turns the prompt upside down, landing on a perosnality epidemic that manifests across the album’s ten songs.
The album’s second single “Coccon” is a forcefully urgent and angular post-punk ripper, anchored around some of the most impassioned and musuclar recorded performances I’ve yet to personally heard from the band — especially from Mondal, who showcases a punchy attack for the song’s verses and a forceful growl for the song’s choruses and hooks.
“We wrote ‘Cocoon’ years ago to extend our live set back when we only knew the ten songs from our first album,” the band says. “
It has become a staple of our live set over the years and has undergone several metamorphoses in our home studio, as we wanted to develop this track in a disarming and dead-simple way for the ‘live sound’ mentality of YSIR. The music video intercuts homegrown live footage of the band playing shows in the Kansas community with the sculptural and psychogeographic idea of the cocoon, which entices and finally envelops our singer, Lira Mondal.”
New Video: Body Type Returns with Vulnerable and Introspective “Sick Bag”
Over the course of their decade long history together, Aussie punk outfit Body Type — Sophie McComish (vocals, guitar), Annabel Blackman (vocals, guitar), Cecil Coleman (drums) and Georgia Wilkinson-Derums (vocals, bass) have received coverage from internationally recognized media outlets like Billboard, Rolling Stone, NME, The FADER, Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, and more, as well as airplay from Apple Music’s Matt Wilkinson and BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders, and a list of others. Adding to a growing profile, the Aussie quartet have extensively toured across the globe, sharing stages with Foo Fighters, Sleater-Kinney, Warpaint, Pixies, Fontaines D.C., Big Thief, Cate Le Bon, POND, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Frankie Cosmos, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Wolf Alice, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, DZ Deathrays, and many moire.
Body Type’s highly-anticipated third album, Tally is slated for a July 24, 2026 release through King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s p(doom) records. Recorded at Los Angeles-based Velveteen Laboratory Studios with producer Stella Mozgawa, Tally reportedly marks a deliberate evolution for the quartet. While 2023’s Expired Candy arrived on a wave of post-pandemic momentum, their third album takes long to breathe — the material’s ambitions are quieter, its craft more considered. ‘
The album cones as the band celebrates their tenth anniversary together. Featuring a blend of big, jagged riffs, moody post-punk and 60s pop, Tally may arguably be their most self-assured and expansive batch of material to date, capturing band maturing and taking stock but while wit and playfulness still are supreme. Thematically, the album chronicles mundanity’s mystical implications, the deformations of romance and love’s confounding elasticity and more.
The album will include the previously released “Mulberry,“ and the album’s latest single “Sick Bag.” Continuing a run of material that seemingly channels a mix of Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea-era PJ Harvey, The Breeders and a bit of Marquee Moon-era Television,”‘Sick Bag” may arguably be the most vulnerable, broken heart worn on sleeve song on the album. Thematically, the song examines the very fine line between generosity and self-erasure.
“Our first ever song to feature a mellotron — a true Stella moment,” the band’s Sophie McComish says, “”This one just poured out of me like ink in a broken biro.” Written during a relationship that felt increasingly one-sided, “Sick Bang” emerged after a conversation McComish had with bandmate Annabel Blackman, who pointed out the unusual patience McComish was showing someone, who just couldn’t meet her halfway.
Directed by Madeline Purdy, the accompanying video for “Sick Bag” is a surreal, fantastical and darkly comedic visual that seems inspired by Igmar Berman while pointing out the mundanity, boredom and exhaustion of being a worker bee.
Throwback: Happy 84th Birthday, Lamont Dozier!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 84th anniversary of the birth of Holland-Dozier-Holland’s Lamont Dozier.
New Video: Julia Jacklin Shares Jangling “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You)”
Acclaimed Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and musician Julia Jacklin will be releasing her highly-anticipated fourth album, the Robert Muiños and Jacklin co-produced, 10-song album The Gem through 4AD Records digitally and on CD, cassette and vinyl on September 25, 2026. Exclusive color vinyl editions with retailers will include turquoise, green opal, ruby and rose quartz. Pre-order information can be found here.
When Jacklin first moved to Melbourne from Sydney back in 2017, she discovered a little bar on a back street in Collingwood, a suburb just outside of downtown, where bands pushed dining tables to the side and set up in a corner on the floor. She didn’t know anyone in town, but knew she wanted to make the city home, so she started hanging out there, facing herself out of her comfort zone. That pub was named The Gem.
Eight years later, Jacklin had released three acclaimed albums, 2016’s Don’t Let The Kids Win, 2019’s Crushing and 2022’s PRE PLEASURE — and was looking to write and record her fourth. Her contract with her previous label had ended. She was searching for a manager. And with time on her hands, she decided that she would make her fourth album in Melbourne, something she’d never done before.
She called up an old drinking buddy Robert Muiños, owner of Rat Shack Studios, which is just above The Gem and brought in her friends Jacob Diamond (guitar), Mimi Gilbert (bass) and Jess Elwood (drums). Recording happened in close quarter, in converted hotel room accommodation upstairs at the pub. Because The Gem was in a residential neighborhood, they couldn’t record late into the night for fear of bothering neighbors and sound bleed for a glorious constant: foot traffic to the hairdressers and lotto parlor next door and loud music from the bands and the kitchen staff downstairs. But if anyone needed a break during the sessions, they would head downstairs and watch a local band play. Jacklin and her friends even played two unannounced shows there to try out the album’s material before recording them.
They thought they’d be able to finish the album in two weeks, like she’d always done previously, but this time that wasn’t the case. In fact, it took nearly a year of tinkering to arrive at something Jacklin could get behind, “The Gem felt like a metaphor for the whole process, because a lot of it did feel like digging. I felt like I was doing it almost in the dark, just trusting I was going to find something,” Jacklin says. While conjuring images of excavation, of reinvention, of trusting your instincts and surrounding yourself with the people and things that make life worthwhile, the album documents the songwriter’s journey back to herself.
“I want to love and be loved, but I also want to be free. The tension between those two things has been the central question of my life,” says Jacklin. That theme underpins the album’s material.
The Gem‘s first single, “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You)” is mischievously charming and hooky bit of 80s inspired jangle pop that captures the neurotic yet yearning push and pull of a narrator, who can’t quite figure out yet how to be free and be loved simultaneously. And while informed by the songwriter’s own-lived in experience, the song is rooted in something that’s both universal and youthful.
The video created by Jacklin reimagines the album’s cover art with images of Jacklin singing and strumming her guitar, and gems on other instruments.
New Audio: Yeisy Rojas Teams Up with Manolito Simonet and Ricardo Amaray on Defiantly Celebratory “LATINO”
Yeisy Rojas is a Cuban-born, Oslo-based, classically trained, jazz violinist, singer/songwriter and composer. In her native Cuba, Rojas received a classical education and performed as a violinist with the National Opera Orchestra in Havana. Her passion for jazz led her to relocate to Norway, where she pursued her Masters studies in jazz violin at Kristiansand-based University of Agder‘s Conservatory. The cross-cultural experience allowed Rojas to deepen her understanding of the African influences in Cuban music.
‘Rojas’ latest single “LATINO,” feat. Manolito Simonet and Ricardo Amaray is an upbeat tune built around twinkling keys, big brassy horns and driving, Afro-Latino polyrhythm inspired by 1990’s Cuban timba energy that manages to be simultaneously thoughtful and dance floor friendly. As a native New Yorker, “LATINO” reminds me of listening to Mega 97.9 in the 90s and teenaged house parties in and around Corona — but at its core, is a defiantly upbeat message of unity and belonging.
“LATINO” was written as a response to the increasingly divisive rhetoric that has dehumanized and villainized migrants and Latino communities across the US and elsewhere. Informed by her own experience, the song reminds listeners of a profound yet simple truth: every person on Earth deserves respect, dignity and respect while being an anthem for Antone who has felt judged because of their origins, their heritage, their accent, their food or anything else. And in turn, the song serves as a celebration of the things that are both universal and unique about all of us. In our incredibly divisive times, it’s a deeply humanistic reminder of all the things we should be celebrating and cherishing.
New Audio: I WANT POETRY Shares Shimmering and Upbeat “Future Selves”
German indie electro pop duo I WANT POETRY — Tine von Bergen (vocals) and Till Moritz Moll (keys) — released their highly-anticipated third album Future Selves last month. The hopeful and transformative album is inspired by a brief moment in time when the future still felt like a bright promise, channeling the spirit of past dreams of utopia and progress. And as a result, Future Selves offers a forward-thinking vision shaped by memory, imagination and the will to create what comes next.
Sonically, the German duo’s third album is an evolution from the more reflective tones of 2023’s Solace + Light, featuring layers of shimming synths and soaring melodies.
The album includes “Mirrors Of The Sky,” the Michael Micheal Vanja, Ghian Wright and The EmU-co-produced “No Is a Full Sentence,” “Backyard Astronauts,” and the album’s latest single, album title track “Future Selves,” Built around glistening synths, rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses paired with von Bergen’s expressive, pop star-like delivery, “Future Selves” sounds a bit like it could have been part of a mid 80s movie soundtrack while pointing out to the listener that the future isn’t written yet; that it’s up to us to create that future. It’s a much-needed burst of upbeat optimism in very dark times.
New Video: Dublin’s THEATRE Shares Shimmering “Gaudete”
Originally formed in Limerick and currently based in Dublin, the rising Irish quintet THEATRE — Maeve O’Shea (vocals), Oscar Halpin (guitar), Dara Gooney (guitar), Gerry Sheil (bass) and Sean Storan (drums) — have received rapturous praise internationally from Stereogum, NME, The Line of Best Fit, Dork, Clash Magazine and Wonderland, as well as airplay;ay from BBC 1 Radio‘s Sian Eleri and Alyx Holcombe, BBC Radio 2‘s Jo Whiley, BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq, Huw Stephens, Deb Grant and Nathan Shepherd, Apple Music‘s Matt Wilkinson, Radio X‘s John Kennedy, as well as others.
The rising Irish outfit’s debut EP Incarnate was released yesterday through BMG/Echo. And as the band’s Maeve O’Shea explains, “Incarnate as a body of work feels like the physical embodiment of what our band has been for us over the past few years. These are some of the first songs that we wrote together, but they have gone through an evolution of their own after touring them for so long. They follow a theme of a changing-like person, someone who has two sides to them, but as a whole this EP is a presentation of our work finally in the flesh, real and ready. We’ve waited a long time to bring them out to the world in their truest form.” Much of the EP’s material is an ode to Limerick and its people, and how it shaped the band through often very dark, uneasy times.
The EP’s latest single “Gaudete” is a shimmering bit of 80s inspired post punk that subtly references Irish folk and brings early U2, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the like to mind while showcasing O’Shea’s breathtakingly gorgeous, yearning vocal and the band’s knack for rousingly anthemic and cathartic hooks and choruses.
“‘Gaudete’ was written in the early days of the band,” O’Shea says. “At the time I was listening to a lot of English and Irish folk music, and Steeleye Span was one of the most prominent inspirations. In their album Below the Salt they recorded a rendition of ‘Gaudete,’ a 16th century Christmas hymn – I heard the melody entangled in a guitar melody that Dara brought to a rehearsal and was determined that the two could be married together. The result was an original song that references the choral aspects of the ancient ‘Gaudete’ and plays with a dark lyrical theme to contrast the Latin meaning behind the word, rejoice or be joyful.”
Directed by Flo Webb, the accompanying video for “Gaudete” is a decidedly early 80s MTV-inspired yet cinematically shot visual that also showcases the breathtaking beauty of Ireland.
New Audio/Live Footage: Two from Expanded Edition of Still Blank’s Self-Titled Debut
Rising, transcontinental duo Still Blank — Kaua’i, HI-born, Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jordy and Manchester, UK-based guitarist Ben — have quickly established a difficult to pigeonhole, often minimalist yet emotionally rich sound that draws from shoegaze, grunge and folk.
The duo’s unique sound comes from other unlikely roots: Jordy grew up immersed in the natural rhythms of island life in Hawaii, gigging at weddings and fundraisers by the time she was in her early teens. Her early musical efforts drew inspiration from Hawaiian traditions and Kaua’i’s solitude. Ben, who ,was raised steeped in Manchester’s rich and deep musical legacy, played some of his earliest gigs in pubs with his dad’s band. He developed a love of ambient textures, citing The Durutti Column and Vini Reilly as formative influences.
The duo’s unlikely meeting in the UK sparked a lightning-in-a-bottle creative partnership that started as casual jam sessions in a Liverpool basement and quickly evolved to sessions ranging from stripped-back recordings on a broken, classical guitar to long studio sessions fueled by long walks through rural Wales and a shared commitment to imperfect perfection.
As a band, the transcontinental duo’s work seemingly echoes the mood and vibe of acts like Yo La Tengo, Big Thief and Cat Power paired with lyrics informed by people-watching, dreams, nature, introspection and existential observation.
The duo released their highly-anticipated, full-length debut last fall through National Anthem/Capitol Records. The album included their debut single, “What About Jane,” “Ain’t Quite Right,”and “Same Sun.” The duo recently released an expanded edition of their full-length debut that features two new singles “Fever Dream” and “love/guilt.” But instead of tacking the new tracks at the end, as a sort of after thought, the acclaimed duo changed the tracklisting to properly accommodate the new songs.
Placed after “Desert,” the duo’s latest “Fever Dream” serves as a bit of cool down. Built around shimmering guitars, shuffling rhythms and burst of reverb soaked, dubby keys, the song’s arrangement serves as a swirling and lush bed for Jordy’s seductive siren-like vocal selling a Faustian bargain to the listener: you get stardom for a very specific price — complete submission.
“love/guilt” opens the expanded edition of their self-titled debut and is a chugging, Alice in Chains-like anthemic rocker that showcases Jordy’s powerhouse delivery and a big, arena rock take on their sound. The new single is accompanied by a live session, which was filmed in Jordy’s gorgeous Kaua’i, HI.
New Audio: La Sécurité Returns with Breakneck and Defiant “Nah Nah”
Acclaimed Montréal-based JOVM mainstay collective La Sécurité — Éliane Viens (vocals, synths, percussion and drums), Félix Bélisle (bass, synths, percussion, piano and production), Kenny Smith (drum, guitar), Laurence Anne Charest-Gagné (guitar, percussion, vocals) and Melissa Di Menna (guitar, synths, vocals, percussion and artwork) — just released their highly-anticipated Emmanuel Éthier and Félix Bélisle co-produced sophomore album Bingo! today through Mothland in Canada and the States, and Bella Union for the rest of the world.
Bingo! sees the band continuing to meander in and around the fringes of punk, New Wave, krautock and dance punk while mischievously floating stylistic form every chance they get. Interestingly. while anchored around their usage of polyrhythm, counterintuitive chord changes and subtle melodic and harmonic dissonance, the album’s material sees the band incorporating more New Wave, no wave, noise rock and even shoegaze elements of the sound that has quickly won them international acclaim.
Recorded with the band playing live off-the-floor, using rare ribbon microphones and vintage compresses, the album’s recording sessions added to the material’s free-flowing feel and vibe. Many of the album’s hooks were improvised through jazz-tinged musical flights during recording sessions. And much like its critically applauded predecessor, many of the Bingo’s! songs saw the group improvising lyrics in the studio, effectively catching lightning in a bottle.
The album’s songs tackle knotty themes like mental health, the the autonomization of women, and dysfunctional relationships with their custom moxie. Other songs playfully muse about food or address everyday mundanity with sarcasm and irony. There’s a song that celebrates unsung heroes, like the elderly.
Bingo! features the previously released “Detour,” “Ketchup,” album title track “Bingo,” “Snack City,” “‘Deny,” and it’s latest single “Nah Nah.” “Nah Nah” is a breakneck and defiant DEVO-like punk ripper with French lyrics spelling out boundary etiquette for the less perceptive folk out there with a “don’t-fuck-with-me” attitude. Their sophomore effort’s latest single continues to showcase the band’s unerring knack for crafting catchy, unforgettable hooks, the song sees the band playfully implementing a switcherroo with Charest-Gagné taking on lead vocal duties while Viens bashes the living shit out of the drums and Smith contributes slashing guitar attack.
The band explains, “On ‘Nah Nah,’ Éliane played the drums and Kenny the guitar. The lyrics are by Félix and Laurence Anne, dealing with the feeling of wanting to be left alone while communicating a certain madness. Meanwhile, Éliane—with a joint in her mouth—and Melissa were writing ‘Snack City,’ as the band was finalizing the demos for the album.”
New Video: The Bobby Lees Share Bruising and Mischievous “Red Hot”
Woodstock, NY-based punks The Bobby Lees‘ fourth album, New Self was released today through Epitaph Records. Recorded in Los Angeles, the Dave Sardy and Alex Pasco co-produed album marks a new chapter for the acclaimed trio — Sam Quartin (vocals, guitar), Macky Bowman (drums) and Kendall Wind (bass) — with the album’s material setting their signature bravado loose across a wide and reverberating soundscape that showcases their infectious, chaotic punk sound.
Capturing the trio at what may arguably be their most expansive and emboldened, the album’s material is a blazing, loud testament to their years of bitter uncertainty. While rooted in their long-held ability to say it all with their chest, the album’s material features an introspection and honesty while touching upon stretching yourself too thin, addiction and cutting through the bullshit of everyday life.
This unvarnished and unapologetic honesty was showcased on the premiere episode of Jason Momoa’s HBO docuseries On The Roam. The band peeled back the layers of their 2023 hiatus brought on by economic struggles that the band desperately tried to fight off with endless touring, writing and recording. The Bobby Lees found solace in their friendship with Momoa and his efforts to support the band’s creative endeavors, Returning to writing music was a welcome relief for the trio of musicians, who understandably began to feel ill “spiritually and physically” without a creative outlet.
New Self‘s latest single “Red Hot” is a bruising mosh pit friendly ripper that pairs Quartin’s don’t-fuck-with-me-attitude and snarled, spittle and bile-fueled delivery and a forceful and driving chug. “Red Hot” showcases a band that can bare their souls with a bold, unadulterated fearlessness as the song talks openly about addiction, painfully insatiable desires — but while displaying a campy sense of humor.
“This song is about wanting more. More love. More connection. More attention. That insatiable desire. Yet somehow, when we recorded this track – we were all hysterically laughing by the end of it,” the band explains. “So, whatever that means.”
Directed by John Swab, the accompanying video for “Red Hot” features the trio playing the song in a shitty hotel room — the sort of hotel room you’d come across off I95 or the New York State Thruway or something. The band’s Bowman and Wind are in messy clown makeup and deadpan facial expressions before breaking out in mischievous grins towards the end. The band’s Quartin has a swaggering, punk rock performance, as though daring a mosh pit to open up — in the hotel room.
New Audio: Pain Gain Shares Atmospheric “Prizefighter”
Formed back in 2023, Pain Gain — Kilo‘s Chloe Kaul, SWIM’s Hamish Lefevre, and CRUSH3d’s Samuel Cooke — began as a deliberate left turn for its members. Shedding their established electronic identities, Kaul, Lefevre and Cooke retreated to the beachside forests of southern Australia with guitars, modular synths and a tape recorder. What they believed was a temporary and fun moment of escape, quickly evolved into something far more profound for the trio: a thorough recalibration of sound, process and purpose.
Despite each member’s distinct musical paths, Pain Gain is about a shared musical language discovered. Rooted in instinct and play, the project became an immersive, almost familial experience for its members. The result is their self-titled, full-length debut.
Slated for a July 17, 2026 release through Play It Again Sam/PIAS, the forthcoming album reportedly sees the trio trading velocity for gravity while moving fluidly between indie rock melodrama and expansive pop balladry, all while rejecting genre as a fixed idea.
Thematically, the ten-song album traces personal upheaval with unflinchingly honesty. Kaul’s sometimes excoriating lyrics are paired with tactile soundscapes shared by Lefevre and Cooke in which no single voice dominates. Working with an instinctive creative process, the trio embraced single takes, analog experimentation and the beauty of imperfection, allowing songs to emerge organically from their surroundings, Each room of their retreat became a makeshift studio; melodies frequently drifted through kitchen conversations, while lyrics were created from late-night exchanges by the fire.
“We went away together with only the intention of starting something new, we never expected that we would end up not only with an album, but one that feels as cohesive and collectively personal as this,” Pain Gain explains. “It’s a record that looks for beauty in friction, and finding a new start in the wreckage of something past”
The self-titled album’s latests single “Prizefighter,” is an atmospheric bit of synth pop paired with Kaul’s achingly tender delivery. The song which emerged from reversed and replayed tape experiments, sonically recalls ACES and others. But as the song slowly builds up to its crescendo, the song channels the growing exhaustion, frustrations and resentments of staying too long in something that won’t change.
As the trio explain, “‘Prizefighter’ is a centrepiece to the record. Conceptually it’s about being coaxed into a cycle that never breaks. It’s always the same fight.“