JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and Erykah Badu’s 55th birthday.
Category: women who kick ass
New Audio: The Womack Sisters Share Defiant “You Went Away Too Long”
Rising Los Angeles-based soul trio The Womack Sisters — Kucha, Zeimani and BG — can trace the origins of their careers to their childhood: The trio were singing before they could even walk. They grew up on stages and in studios across the globe, singing behind their parents, as well as their legendary uncle, Bobby Womack. Adding to The Womack Sisters’ remarkable pedigree, their grandfather was the iconic Sam Cooke.
No matter where they called home at the time — London, Thailand, Amsterdam, Kenya, West Virginia, The Bahamas — music and family were always a constant at the center of their lives. Of course, fas the sisters grew up, each with their own respective journeys, experiences and heartaches, they managed to find their own voices and their own path.
Each member of the trio has their own individual vocal, but they playfully trade leads and effortlessly (and perfectly) blend their harmonies in a way that only siblings can.
Back in 2016, a mutual friend introduced The Womack Sisters to Daptone Records co-owner and producer Gabriel Roth, a.k.a. Bosco Mann, who heard them sing and feel quickly and deeply in love with their voices. Shortly after, they went met at Daptone’s Riverside, CA-based Penrose Studios to record their label debut, “If You Want Me“/”I Just Don’t Want You (To Say Goodbye).”
The trio’s latest single “You Went Away Too Long” opens with a broodingly cinematic introductory section featuring shimmering and quivering Rhodes, regal horns and orchestral chimes before quickly shifting to a tender, classic soul-inspired first verse showcasing an achingly melancholic longing of women, who just haven’t been able to forget or get over a lover, who did them wrong. But by the defiant chorus, it’s obvious that the women have the confidence to refuse to wait too long for their due. Life is short and you can’t delay on living the best life you can possibly live.
“This song holds a deep meaning that’s different for each of us,” the trio explains. “Imagine precious time stolen from your life, slipping away like sand through an hourglass, as your loved ones slowly forget the sound of your laughter. ‘You Went Away Too Long’ is a song about love and life interrupted.”
New Audio: Marie Dahlstrøm Shares Chilly and Longing “Frostbite”
Over the past handful of years, Roskilde-born, London-based singer/songwriter, producer and JOVM mainstay Marie Dahlstrøm has built a catalog of contemporary R&B rooted in neo-soul, jazz and understated groove that includes 2020’s Like Sand and 2023’s A Good Life, albums that have received applause from Billboard, NPR, Complex, COLORS, NYLON, The Line of Best Fit, Wonderland and a list of others. Dahlstrom has also received co-signs from BBC 1Xtra, The Joe Budden Podcast and others. Adding to a growing national and internationally recognized profile, she has collaborated with Odeal, Jay Prince, Kofi Stone and Braxton Cook.
Building upon a growing profile, the Danish-born JOVM mainstay will be releasing a highly-anticipated effort later this year. The new effort will mark a new chapter for the acclaimed and rising artist, and it will include her latest single, the Dan Diggas-produced “Frostbite.”
“Frostbite” is a lush mix of Quiet Storm-inspired neo-soul, hip-hop soul and broodingly chilly atmospherics featured twinkling keys paired with the JOVM mainstay’s effortlessly soulful and expressive delivery. While pushing her sound into an increasingly atmospheric direction, the song is rooted in the acclaimed artist’s knack for penning lyrics that are lived-in personal yet universal experience.
“‘Frostbite’ is a song about longing and about how the feeling lingers in the body. It’s drawn from many experiences in my life, all wrapped into this piece,” Dahlstrøm explains. “It was recorded on my old piano at my parents’ house in Roskilde, in my childhood bedroom. We tracked it with one small mic held close to the piano — nothing pro about it at all — but the instrument has this warm, muted tone that really captured the feeling. To me, this is what music is about.”
New Audio: ADULT. Returns with Incendiary “R U 4 $ALE”
Throughout the course of their 25-year history, Detroit-based industrial, synth punks ADULT. — Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller — have embodied steadfast frustration, distrust and apprehension. Typically for acts that have been together that long, the edges began to soften with time, but the duo isn’t interested or even remotely concerned about the comfort of legacy.
Kissing Luck Goodbye, the duo’s 10th album is slated for a March 27, 2026 release through Dais Records. Reportedly, the album features music that may arguably be the most visceral, urgent, angry and uncompromising effort of their career to date. Built with upgraded gear and a whole new library of sounds, Kissing Luck Goodbye‘s material is crushingly dynamic, louder and much clearer with Kuperus’ commanding delivery being given much greater delivery in the mix, outlining an arsenal of vivid, caustic calls, chants and music. Laughter, whether in the lyrics or as possessed presence, serves as a leitmotif through the material that speaks to the menacing absurdity of our moment.
The album will include the previously released single “No One Is Coming,” a rousingly anthemic and urgent scorcher, and the album’s latest single “R U 4 $ALE.” Much like its immediate predecessor, “R U 4 $ALE” is a hypnotic, urgent and forceful banger that features one of Kuperus’ most dynamic and unhinged vocal performances to date, anchored around an incendiary mantra of our age “The chaos is what they want!”
The song doubles as a declaration of intent: to meet a burning and rotting world of greed, disarray and abuse with defiant, masterfully assembled chaos. “You have two choices in this hellscape we’re living in right now, which is either fight or be depressed,” ADULT.’s Adam Lee Miller says. “Either one is okay. But, you know, our choice to fight back was simple.”
New Video: Bibi Club Returns with incendiary “George Sand”
Deriving their name from their living room discotheque, where their “bibis” — or loved ones — come to dance, the Montréal-based duo Bibi Club — Adèle Trottier-Rivard (vocals, keys) and Nicolas Basque (guitar) — earned acclaim across both Québec and Europe with their debut album, 2022’s Le soleil et la mer, an album that won a Most Promising Award at that year’s GAMIQ Awards, a Discovery of the Year at that year’s ADISQ Awards and landed on the Polaris Music Prize long list.
Le soleil et la mer received praise by a number of French outfits including Les Inrocks, Magic Magazine, Libération and France Inter and landed on Le Devoir, Les Inrocks‘ and Tsugi’s Best Albums of 2022 lists. And adding to a rapidly growing international profile, the album received airplay from BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq.
Their sophomore album, 2024’s Feu de garde saw the band expanding upon their sound with darker textures and luminous synths. The album earned several nominations at that year’s ADISQ Awards and landed on the Polaris Music Prize short ling. The album was FNAC‘s album of the month for May and received praise from MOJO, Télérama, Record Collector, Uncut and many more.
Building upon a growing profile, the Montréal-based duo have begun making a run of the international festival circuit with sets at SXSW, The Great Escape, FOCUS Wales, MaMA Festival, Osheaga, The New Colossus Festival, as well as clubs in Brazil, Germany and Canada. They’ve also opened for Blonde Redhead, Circuit des Yuex and a list of others.
Bibi Club’s highly-anticipated third album Amaro is slated for a Friday release through Secret City Records. The album sees the acclaimed French Canadian duo inviting the listener to brave the dark beasts that shadow us beneath the surface, and to devote ourselves to the healing power of a fierce will to live. It explores the liminal spectrum between the here and beyond, pointing to love, nature and community as the deeply unifying purpose. The album’s material reportedly draw a detailed map of a world completely of its own, following the trajectory traced by the pair in recent years.
Now, out of the living room, we dance in a mental space overloaded with grief and fear in their most rawest forms. Following the death of two dear, loved ones in the last year, the mantra “I want to love, I want to live,” resonates intensely in each song’s melody, underlined by the belief that if the heart is a place that never dies, we must reach it as quickly as possible.
Inspired by their tours with Blonde Redhead and Circuit des Yeux and a collaboration with Calvin Johnson, the duo’s sound now incorporates elements of avant pop, electronic body music, dark wave and neo-folk while simultaneously borrowing from baroque sounds with harpsichord, trumpet and ritual chants. The album also features contributions from saxophonist Dimitri Milbrun and singer/songwriter Helena Deland, who help contribute to its overall sound.
Amaro will include “Washing Machine,” which I wrote about last month, and the album’s latest and last pre-release single “George Sand.” Much like its immediate predecessor, “George Sand” is a breakneck, motorik-like chug featuring Dimitri Milbrun’s incendiary saxophone playing paired with Trottier-Rivard’s dreamy cooing. One-part dream pop, one-part no wave, one-part post punk and one-part art school punk, “George Sand” The band explains that the song was inspired by the radical 19th century feminist writer’s forest manifesto — an ode to life and nature.
“The writer George Sand was not only a strong, feminist and radical person, she was also a renowned botanist. This song is inspired by her manifesto for the survival of the Fontainebleau forest, an ode to life and nature, to the plants and trees that guide us,” the Montréal-based duo explain. “A song full of thirst for life, about the force of nature and the therapeutic benefits it provides. Nico quickly programmed the bass and the 606 drum machine, then everything fell into place, like the song. It was evident that the song needed our friend, radical artist Dimitri Milbrun to add some incendiary saxophone. At the end of the song, the guitar and saxophone blend together to form a force that destroys everything in its path.”
Directed and edited by Anna Arrobas, the accompanying video features the acclaimed duo performing the song in front of fire-based projections and brooding lighting by Flavie Lemée.
Throwback: Happy Black History Month: Salt ‘N’ Pepa
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and pays tribute to Salt ‘N’ Pepa.
New Audio: JOVM Mainstays Glixen Return with Woozy “unwind”
Phoenix-based shoegazers and JOVM mainstays Glixen — founder Aislinn Ritchie (vocals), along with Esteban Santana (guitar), Keire Johnson (drums) and Sonia Garcia (bass) — released their Sonny DiPerri-produced sophomore EP quiet pleasures last year.
quiet pleasures EP included the previously released “sick silent” and four singles I wrote about on this site, “foreversoon,” “lust” “lick the star,” and “all tied up.”
The JOVM mainstays supported their sophomore EP with stops across the global festival circuit, playing sets at Coachella, Reading and Leeds. They played a headlining Stateside tour with several sold-out shows. They hit the road with Turnover, Panchiko and Scowl — including their first UK and EU tour, supporting Turnover. They closed out 2025 with a co-headlining tour across the Southwest and West Coast with Glare.
2026 will see the band embarking on their first headlining tour in Japan and returning to the global festival circuit with a stop at Manchester, UK’s Outbreak. Throughout April and May, the JOVM mainstays will embark on a North American tour that includes an April 21, 2026 stop at Elsewhere Hall. As always, check out the tour dates below.
But in the meantime, the band remains busy. Earlier this year, they released “Medicine Bow.” The JOVM mainstays follow “Medicine Bow” with their latest single “unwind,” a hazy and woozy track that unfolds as a slow-burning churn, anchored around swelling textures that ebb, flow and dissolve. The result is a song that evokes a queasy push and pull somewhere between weightlessness and being yanked into an undercurrent. If you’ve ever had a complicated
“‘Unwind’ is about that feeling of relief when someone comes back to you after they’ve left,” Glixen’s Aislinn Ritchie explains. “It’s human nature to crave that push and pull—a drug weaned off. Blindingly hard to say no, we succumb to willful ignorance. We recorded this song in Los Angeles with Sonny Diperri producing, and it’s the first song we incorporated different instrumental elements, and it’s a glimpse into our evolution.”
Throwback: Happy Black History Month: Billie Holiday
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and pays tribute to Billie Holiday.
New Video: Bella Litsa Shares Cinematic “Tied Together By a Silver Thread”
Isabella Komodromos is a classically trained pianist, who as a child split her time between Massachusetts and her father’s native Cyprus. Komodromos started piano lessons when she was six and quickly found herself gravitating towards minor keys and rewriting the lyrics in songbooks to be more macabre.
By the time she turned 13, she started vocal training, eventually attending Berklee College of Music, where she majored in songwriting and film scoring. Komodromos relocated to New York in 2020. Inspired by the city’s abrasiveness, she plunged into a musical and personal intensity to find her voice. The result is her solo art pop project Bella Litsa.
The bulk of her recently released full-length, studio album Drasticism was written between December of 2022 and February 2024 with much of her songwriting process occurring during periods of frenzied inspiration. “The choices I was making weren’t always good choices. I just was searching out all this extremity, like extreme love and extreme loss and to feel this crazy spectrum of things,” the Bella Litsa creative mastermind says. “The album is mostly asking: Why would I do that? But how could I not do that?”
Komodromos writes to cull her intense emotions and this personal excavation is part of her larger pursuit of the beautiful and divine. She cites her interests in astrophysics, synchronicities, Jungian psychoanalysis, the Book of Job, the Greek Orthodox church she attends, Andrei Tarkovsky and film scores for inspiration. Her work is rooted in a deeply-held belief that everything is beautiful and because every beautiful thing will end, everything is inherently sad. And in turn, songwriting is a relief, a way to preserve beauty. Similar to the drastic way she lives, she gravitates towards the extreme when it comes to her writing.
Bella Litsa writes to cull her intense emotions, and this personal excavation is part of her larger pursuit of the beautiful and divine. She taps her interest in astrophysics, synchronicities, Jungian psychoanalysis, the Book of Job, the Greek Orthodox church she attends, Andrei Tarkovsky, and film scores for inspiration. Because for Bella Litsa, everything is beautiful, and because every beautiful thing will end, everything is sad. Songwriting is a relief, a way to preserve beauty. And similar to her drastic way of living, she gravitates towards the extremes in her writing practice.
One spring day back in 2023, Komodromos came home in a strange, emotional state. She dat down at her desk, and eight hours later, she created the demo for “My Blue Eyes.” The next day she tried it again. After 12 hours, she had written “Tied Together by a Silver Thread,: a tragic epic inspired by the movements of classical music with three distinct sections. “It was probably the most inspired I was ever in my life,” she says. “I listen to it now and it just feels like my heart’s about to explode.”
That all-consuming feeling is what it feels like for the rising artist to dig deep into the core of her humanity. “I tell my psychoanalyst when we talk about songwriting: It’s like there’s a rope and I’m pulling on this rope, and the more I pull, the more the song is coming to me. But the song already existed. I’m slowly uncovering what was always there.”
For Komodromos, her propensity towards the extremes is ultimately about a desire to connect, not only with herself but with others. “I get to say all these things that I keep in and then all of a sudden people are listening to you, and they’re witnessing the breaking down,” she says. “I feel like I get so tortured, especially singing live. I think being witnessed is the most powerful feeling you can have.”
Her work is intimate and emotionally potent material that echo with a dreamlike intensity. Her sound sees her blending vintage romance with experimental textures, a sort of haunted Americana-meeting-minimalist futurism, has helped her draw comparisons to Lana Del Rey, Fiona Apple and Weyes Blood — while being a vessel for connection and cantharis. “Bella Litsa is my sadness personified. It feels like the closest I can get to my shadow, consciously,” Komodromos says.
Drasticism includes the previously released, “Angelica,” “Passion Plug,” “Never Ending Movie,” the Tori Amos and Lonny-like “1117” and the album’s latest “Tied Together By a Silver Thread.” Continuing a run of dramatic, remarkably cinematic yet deeply intimate material, “Tied Together By a Silver Thread” is a hauntingly gorgeous, lushly arranged song that features a mesh of elements of old-school balladry, rock, film scores and classical music. The rising artist’s equally gorgeous and expressive vocal dances and floats over the song’s arrangement. And much like its predecessor, the song evokes a sense of almost unreconcilable inner conflict.
Directed by Dylan Gee whose work has been featured in The New York Times, The FADER, Stereogum, NYLON and more, was shot entirely on form and thermal camera in Southern California’s Frazier Park. Fittingly, the cinematic visual evokes the swooning heart at the core of the song.
The rising artist will be playing a record release show at Night Club 101 on February 27.
Throwback: Happy Black History Month: Whitney Houston
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and honors Whitney Houston.
New Audio: Pom Femme Shares Breezy and Effortlessly Cool “Sunny SIde Up”
Swedish duo Pom Femme is a collaborative project featuring two highly accomplished musicians and producers:
- As a producer, Michelle Amkoff has worked with a lengthy list of Swedish artists. She also spent several years as a studio engineer for producer Patrik Berger.
- Phillipa Magnusson is a singer/songwriter and creative mastermind behind the solo recording project Bluephox.
The origins of the duo’s newest project can be traced to their meeting through Magnusson’s work with Bluephox. This quickly developed into Pom Femme, which is rooted in their commonly shared musical influences and interests.
According to the duo, as being a bit of “vintage pop with a French touch.” They add, “It was as if together, we wanted to make music Levi’s 501s — the core that has held genres together for decades and can be styled with everything.”
The Swedish duo released their debut EP Telenovela last year. Building upon growing momentum surrounding the pair, the follow up to their debut EP “Sunny Side Up” is a self assured and breezy tune that seemingly draws from yé-yé, 60s British Invasion rock and late 1960s psychedelia while showcasing some remarkably effortless and catchy hooks. The result is a song that’s insouciantly decadent and timelessly cool.
The duo explain that the song is about choosing simplicity over complication, something they can believe can be extremely difficult in the never-ending stream of choices we’re presented with every day. “Would you like milk, A2 milk, hemp milk or half-and-half in your coffee,” the duo say. “A short-haired economist or a long-haired culture worker in the dating app? ‘Sunny Side Up’ is a tribute to the opposite: can’t we just have a bit of fun without unnecessary hassle and live life in its simplest, most banal form?”
The duo’s full-length debut is slated for a September 2026 release.
Throwback: Happy Black History Month!/Happy 93rd Birthday, Nina Simone!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 93rd anniversary of the birth of Nina Simone — and Black History Month.
New Video: Lucid Express Shares Dreamy and Yearning “Promise Me”
Hong Kong-based shoegazers and JOVM mainstays Lucid Express just released their long-awaited and highly anticipated sophomore album Instant Comfort today through Kanine Records.
Mixed by Kurt Feldman during marathon overnight, transpacific sessions on Discord, Instant Comfort reportedly captures the unsettling stillness of the nighttime hours. The album’s material sonically sees the Hong Kong-based JOVM mainstays pairing ethereal melodies with towering walls of jangling guitars and hazy, swirling feedback while being more clear-eyed, complex and layered than anything they’ve released to date.
The album includes the previously released “Something Blue,” and “Faux Sweetness,“as well as the album’s latest single “Promise Me.” Featuring towering layers of shimmering and churning guitars, thundering hi-hat driven drumming serving as a lush and eerily uneasy bed for Kim Ho’s ethereal and yearning vocal.
Directed and filmed by fellow Hong Kong native Neo Yeung, the accompanying video is a mix of live performance-styled footage and candid footage shot over the course of a day-long shoot.
New Video: Chicago’s Snowcuffs Shares Hazy and Anthemic “Burst”
Formed back in 2022, Chicago-based dream pop outfit Snowcuffs features members of Lightfoils and Astrobrite, Their debut EP, last year’s Sink Down saw the band quickly establishing a sound that balanced shimmering textures and memorable hooks. Inspired by Alvvays, Beach House and Mazzy Star, their work frequently drifts between nostalgic haze and fuzz-driven intensity while thematically touching upon longing, reflection and fleeting beauty.
The band has shared stages with Cold Gawd, Seashine and Cigarettes for Breakfast, and played a standout set at Kalamashoegazer, the country’s longest-running shoegaze festival.
Building upon a growing profile in the national shoegaze and dream pop scenes, the Chicago-based outfit’s sophomore EP Sweet Gravity is slated for a March 5, 2026 release. Engineered by Sanford Parker at Hypercube Studios, mixed by Robert Cheek and mastered by Baseline Audio Labs’ Chris Goosman, Sweet Gravity EP reportedly sees the band showcasing refined songwriting and a much more expansive sound that pushes the boundaries of dream pop without losing its heart and soul.
Sweet Gravity EP‘s latest single “Burst” sees the band pairing shimmering and swirling guitar textures, a forcefully driving rhythm section and remarkably catchy, rousingly anthemic hooks with ethereal vocals. Sonically, “Burst” seemingly nods at 120 Minutes-era MTV shoegaze and alternative rock — but with a decidedly modern sensibility. And at its core is a song and a narrator struggling with crippling ambivalence and self-doubt.
The band explains that “‘Burst’ is about the struggle of trying to be everything at once, and what happens when inaction, ambivalence, and self-doubt slowly erode your options in life.
I wait and see
Stare at the tree
Will it die of thirst
And fall down on me?
Ambivalence isn’t neutral, it’s destructive.”
Directed by Dave Rentaukas, the accompanying video for “Burst” is split between footage of the band’s lead singer in a Chicago area park as the sun begins to set and the rest of the band performing in a studio in front brooding yet trippy projections.