Category: World Music

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Real Mack The Knife Returns with Sensual “Paris Séduit”

The Real Mack The Knife is the creative project of a rather mysterious and prolific American-based electronic music producer. His latest single “Paris Séduit” is a lush and sensual dance pop tune featuring layers of arpeggiated synths, skittering beats and remarkably catchy hooks paired with a sultrily delivered vocals in French and English.

Resembling a sleek synthesis of Ibiza house and French touch, “Paris Séduit” was inspired by a trip to Paris during the 2024 Olympic Games and captures the seductive spirit of one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sagrados Anônimos Shares Woozy and Dreamily Meditative “Martelo”

São Paulo-based singer/songwriter, guitarist Guilherme França is a key stalwart of the city’s growing indie rock scene: França was also a member of the now-shuttered Brazilian label Pessoa Qua Voa. He’s currently a member of Quasar. He’s the creator of fdaies and part of the teams at Boogarins and Casa do Mancha events.

Additionally, he’s the manager of his first band while helping the local indie ecosystem in any way that’s needed. From what I understand, if you’re a Brazilian band in São Paulo and you need a booker, roadie, producer, merch table person or something else, he’s the guy you need to call. Suffice to say, França is a busy guy. But in between the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and all of these various activities and jobs, he started Sagrados Anônimos, a solo recording project that specializes in a blend of slowcore, dream pop and shoegaze, anchored by introspective lyricism.

França’s Sagrados Anôminos’ debut single “Martelo” is a slow-burning track featuring dusty, tape saturated boom bap-like rhythms, looping, reverb-drenched, shimmering guitar lines. The psilocybin trip-like soundscape serves as a woozy and dreamily meditative bed for the Brazilian artist’s tenderly plaintive delivery. While sonically recalling acclaimed Brazilian JOVM mainstays Boogarins to mind, “Martelo” is rooted in a deeply philosophical and personal question: “What can happen when you allow yourself to add one more layer?”

The accompanying video features the Brazilian musician playing in front of projected imagery of urban scenery — inner city traffic, birds landing on wires and the like — that’s manipulated to the speed of the song.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: VICTIME Shares Woozy and Glitchy “Résonne encore”

Initially formed in Québec City back in 2016 and now currently featuring members split between the Québecois cities of Montréal, Québec City and Gatineau, VICTIME — Ponctuation’s and Pure Carrière‘s Laurence Gauthier-Brown, Album’s Simone Provencher and Corridor‘s and Kee Avii‘s Samuel Gougoux — quickly made waves across the province with 2017’s Mon VR de rêve EP, 2018’s full-length debut La femme taupe and Mi-tronic, mi-jambe EP.

With their first three releases under their collective belts, the trio began to make the rounds of the Canadian festival circuit, playing sets at Sled Island, Up Here, Francos de Montréal, FME and Taverne Tour. Adding to a growing profile across the country, the band opened for the likes of Lydia Lunch, Guerilla Toss, Frigs, Ponctuation and Jesuslesfilles, as well as a series of tour dates in France.

The band’s forthcoming effort, En conversation avec is slated for an October 25, 2024 release through Mothland. En conversation avec is the result of a new creative process for the band, informed and inspired by the band being split across different cities in the province. Written over the course of the past five years, the trio frequently relied on the spontaneity of sporadic get-togethers and remote work in which they shared files among each other.

Reportedly the effort sees the band simultaneously showing a newfound patience while being among their most layered. While still holding on to their post-punk and noise rock roots, the trio explore a wide-spanning spectrum where tensions and openings coexist, colmating breaks and ruptures, cracks and fissures with elements of trip hop, avant rock and IDM. Thematically, the material touches upon feminism, vengeance, violence, being a female, speaking out, obliterating patriarchy and more.

“It was a long process, the sum of three minds in three different cities. We felt the urge to create in a new way, to break out of our guitar-bass-drums mold, to be less of a rock band,” the band explains. “So, we started from sounds and sonic explorations, finally recentering everything around a more simple songwriting process. And though it is packed with weird sounds and whatnot, we feel this is the best music we have ever written. It is informed by the many projects, contracts, experiences, etcetera each of us took on over the past few years, a logical follow-up to our individual paths.

We were inspired by many things, namely: the Sisters with Transistors documentary film, Kim Gordon and everything she represents, the sadness of roadkills; electronic prototypes, breadboards and sonic experimentations; musique concrète [or concrete music], mechanisms, eye (but also other parts of the body) surgeries, Giacometti, The Da Vinci Code, the total solar eclipse, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.”

“We produced the album ourselves. We recorded everything way too hot, so it’s distorted. Also, we didn’t use a grid when tracking, so we struggled with the sessions quite a bit. Amongst the files we sent to Simon Labelle, who mixed the album, there are easily 47 tracks with takes we had no business keeping and well over a dozen tracks named “Noise 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8…”, so he probably hates us now. I guess we kept our reckless-kids-playing-in-the-back-alley mentality, all the way to the financial means. Simone [Provencher] builts effects pedals with Fairfield Circuitry, which meant we could use breadboard prototypes on a few tracks, so that’s pretty legit, right?”

En conversation avec‘s latest single “Résonne encore,” is the band’s first ever love song. Anchored around a propulsive and forceful, tribal drum pattern, “Résonne encore” features reverb-soaked vocals, angular guitar stabs and bursts of synth oscillations for the song’s first two-and-a-half minutes, before abruptly stuttering into a glitchy trip hop-like bridge seemingly inspired by Portishead’s “Machine Gun.” The song’s coda features bursts of guitar dissonance, the introductory section’s propulsive and forceful tribal drum pattern paired with an ethereal and dreamily sung vocal incantation. The result is a song that feels feverish, woozy and a bit heartsick, much like an uneasy yet new love.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering rising rising Montréal-based multi-disciplinary artist, singer/songwriter, pop artist and JOVM mainstay Naomi, who has made a name for herself across Québec for a sound that effortlessly blends pop, R&B, house music and Caribbean music.

The Montréal-based JOVM mainstay’s highly anticipated sophomore album Un coin sombre pour danser is slated for an October 11, 2024 release through Bravo Musique. Reportedly, the new album is an invitation to the listener to dive into the night, to forget your worries, to rediscover yourself and dance to songs that talk about love, challenges and self-reflection. “For me, this album is a story of femininity and an alter-ego: the woman who exists in the eyes of others and the one who exists towards oneself,” Naomi explains. “It is an exploration of dissociation in the face of the trials I have experienced, of the discovery of the community, of pleasure and tears, sometimes simultaneously. It was born from a deep introspection in my late twenties that gave me a new perspective on myself, my queer identity, and how this identity and these experiences have shaped me.”

During the production and recording process for the album, the rising JOVM mainstay managed the creative aspects of the album, from writing and composition to choreography and styling, ensuring that the album faithfully reflects her artistic vision. She collaborated with a number of renowned producers including Willy Wonder and Guillaume Doubet, who helped develop the material’s ambient-leaning, refined sound and aesthetic.

The album will feature the previously released released “Phénomène,” a slickly produced bit of dance floor friendly pop anchored around a hook-driven, house music-meets-Rihanna-like production that features glistening synth arpeggios paired with a propulsive and infectious groove serving as a lush, silky bed for Naomi’s sultry delivery singing lyrics in both French and English.

Thematically, the song has a powerfully feminist message — that it’s time to take responsibility for your life and your life’s path, to be proud of yourself and accomplishments and perhaps more important, to just be your damn self.

The album’s fourth and latest single “Good Trip” continues a run of slickly produced, hook-driven R&B-inspired synth pop that sounds like a sleek synthesis of 2000s pop and trap. Featuring lyrics sung in both French and English, “Good Trip” sees the JOVM mainstay at arguably their most introspective, with the song focusing on end of the night come down and regret. ” “It’s a really personal song for me, an exploration of the end of the night, when the sun comes out and you find yourself regretting the decisions you made in the euphoria of the moment,” Naomi explains.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Choses Sauvages Share Post Punk-LIke “Incendie au paradis”

With the release of their Emmanuel Ethier-produced 2018 self-titled, full-length debut, Montréal-based dance punks Choses Sauvages — Totalement Sublime‘s Marc-Antoine Barbier (guitar), Theirry Malépart (keys), Tony Bélisle (keys), Philippe Gauthier-Boudreau (drums) and La Sécurité‘s Félix Bélisle (vocals) with Foreign Diplomats‘ and Frais Dispo‘s Charles Primeau (bass) as a touring member — exploded into the local and provincial scenes. The album was a critical and commercial success with the album topping Independent Radio Charts across Québec while receiving widespread critical applause. In 2019, the Montréal-based outfit landed Association Québécoise de l’industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video (ADISQ) Félix Award nominations for Alternative Album of the Year and Indie Rock Album of the year, with a Félix Award win for Indie Rock Album of the Year. 

Over the course of 2019, the French Canadian outfit supported their full-length debut with a relentless touring schedule across the province. And through this tour, the band quickly developed a reputation for a must-see live show that they’ve since brought across the global festival circuit, including stops at Reeperbahn, MaMA, FIMPRO, SXSW, Le Printemps de Bourges and Wide Days. 

2021’s Choses Sauvages II saw the French Canadian outfit boldly pushing their sound more towards electronic dance music and nu-disco influences like L’Imperatrice and Lindstrøm while still drawing from their love of funk, Bowie and Bee Gees. They also managed to further establish their approach with pairs rigorous and meticulous songwriting with a rebellious spirit.

The Montréal-based outfit’s highly-anticipated third album, Choses Sauvages III is slated for a Spring 2025 release through Audiogram. The album’s first official single “Incendie au paradis” is a decidedly New Wave/post punk song anchored around a propulsive bass line, a guitar-driven melody paired with squiggling synth arpeggios and a subtly vocodored vocal harmony. Seemingly drawing from Heroes and Low-era Bowie and Pleasure Principle-era Gary Numan, “Incendie au paradis” depicts artificial intelligence as angels that can transform and improve our daily lives. But while addressing the technology advance’s promises and benefits, it raises concerns with an uneasy trepidation.

“I wanted to highlight the need to think about the ethical and moral implications and the still unknown limits of these new technologies, and the influence they have on our lives,” Choses Sauvages’ Félix Bélisle explains.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Kris Cari Shares Breakneck Banger “No Pasa Na”

Carlos Luis Arroyo Cruz is a Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico-based singer/songwriter and Latin Pop artist, best known as Kris Cari. HIs work simultaneously reflects his Puerto Rican heritage and a diverse range of influences, from Miles Davis to Bad Bunny. Back in 2020, Cruz began working with the production crew at 1Face Music, which paved the way for his debut EP, 2022’s Platinum Waves, an effort that was praised for its unique sound, while helping him gain a devoted following.

“A Donde Fue,” a collaboration with Tunon received airplay from SiriusXM’s Viva Channel.

Last year was a big year for the Puerto Rican artist. “Ojos Tristes” was featured at the San Antonio Film Festival and received praise for its emotional depth. Summertime hits “Invoca” and “Un Verano Mas” managed to captivate audiences with catchy hooks and infectious energy. While “Una Carta Pa Ti” addressed driving under the influence, aiming to raise awareness within the Hispanic/Latino community about a serious issue through powerful lyrics and visuals. His sophomore EP, Arca touched upon love, heartbreak and resilience while drawing parallels with the biblical flood allegory.

The rising Puerto Rican artist’s latest single “No Pasa Na,” is a breakneck and free-wheeling merengue banger featuring a looping, twinkling keyboard figure paired with a chugging rhythm, skittering beats, a remarkably catchy hook and Kris Cari’s swaggering and punchy delivery. It’s the sort of song that would turn a small family gathering into a sweaty dance party that has your neighbors coming to join in.

Directed by Maico Jimenez, the accompanying video for “No Pasa Na,” begins a prototypical Latin family gathering: Some of the women are playing with a baby. Grandma is serving plates of food. Others are playing dominoes. The TV is on, featuring a video within a video. Suddenly, the staid gathering becomes a sweaty party.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Elisapie Tackles Sheryl Crow’s Smash-Hit “If It Makes You Happy”

Acclaimed Montréal-based singer/songwriter, musician, actor and activist Elisapie was born and raised in Salluit, a small village in Nunavik, Québec’s northernmost region. In this extremely remote community, accessible only by plane, she was raised by an extended, yet slightly dysfunctional adoptive family. Growing up in Salluit, she lived through the loss of cousins who ended their lives, experienced young love, danced the night away at the village’s community center and witnessed first hand, the effects of colonialism — i.e., poverty, hopelessness, alcoholism, suicide, and more. 

Much like countless bright and ambitious young people across the world, the Salluit-born artist moved to the big city — in this case, Montréal to study and, ultimately, pursue a career in music. Since then, her work whether within the confines of a band or as a solo artist constantly displays her unconditional attachment to her native territory, its people, and to her language, Inuktitut. Spoken for millennia, Inuktitut embodies the harshness of its environment and the wild yet breathtaking beauty of the Inuit territory. Thematically, her work frequently pairs Inuit themes and concerns with modern rock music, mixing tradition with modernity in a deft, seamless fashion. 

She won her first Juno Award as a member of Taima, and since stepping out into the spotlight as a solo artist, her work has received rapturous critical acclaim: 2018’s The Ballad of the Runaway Girl was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, and earned her a number of Association du disque, de l’industrie du spectacle Québeécois (ADISQ) Felix Awards and a Juno Award nod. She followed up with a performance with the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal — at the invitation of Grammy Award-winning maestro Yannick Nézet Séguin — at Central Park SummerStage, a NPR Tiny Desk Session and headlining or festival sets both locally and internationally. 

In her native Canada, she is also known as an actor, starring in the TV series Motel Paradis and C.S. Roy’s experimental indie film VFC, which was released last year. She has also graced the cover of a number of magazines including Châtelaine, Elle Québec and a long list of others. And as a devoted activist, she created and produced the first nation-wide broadcast TV show to celebrate National Indigenous People’s Day. 

Her fourth solo album, last year’s Inuktitut features inventive re-imaginings of songs by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Blondie, Fleetwood Mac, Metallica and more. Each of the acts and artists covered have warmly given their blessing to receive the acclaimed Canadian artist’s unique treatment. Fittingly, each song is imbued with depth and purpose, as the album’s material is an act of cultural re-appropriation that reinvigorates the poetry of these beloved songs by placing them within Inuit traditions. 

Through the album’s 10 songs, the acclaimed Inuk tells her story and offers these songs as a loving gift to her community, making her language and culture resonate well beyond the borders of the Inuit territory. But the album is also a testament to the power and remarkable universality of pop music, a reminder of the universality of human life, and fittingly an ode to the experiences, memories, places and people, who have shaped us.

Almost a year since the release of Inuktitut, the JOVM mainstay returns with “Quviasukkuvit (If It Makes You Happy),” her take on the Sheryl Crow smash-hit that also took over the Nunavik radio airwaves when the Inuk artist was still a teen. Produced by close collaborator, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Joe Grass and translated into Inuktitut, Elisapie’s turns the twangy power ballad into a meditative and dreamily atmospheric tune anchored around some shoegazer-like textures and broodingly cinematic arrangements. The Inuk artist’s smoky and achingly tender delivery ethereally floats over the arrangement, expressing a nostalgic yearning for a time, a place and people that you can’t get back.

Much like the songs on Inuktitut, “Quviasukkuvit (If It Makes You Happy)” is inspired by one of Elisapie’s childhood memories: 

“An image that always comes to mind, no matter where I travel or live, is of the people dancing at the magical and dramatic Ikkarivvik Bar in Kuujjuaq,” the acclaimed Inuk artist says. “In my mind’s eye, it is always Friday night, and the moon is full. Most people are either a little drunk or very drunk. The bar and the dancefloor are an escape, and people dance to forget and escape. I recognize so many faces and I can see their smiles and closed eyes as they dance.

‘If It Makes You Happy’ was so popular in the North, and it reminds me so much of when I was a teenager. It played on TV and radio, and we listened to it at home. Those lines made us want to scream along with Sheryl. Her song liberates my people in the North, giving them the words to shout about being sad without feeling ashamed.”

When I perform this song, it has Sheryl Crow’s enthusiasm, but my Inuit sensibility slows it down, echoing the rhythm of the land.”

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Los Bitchos Share Glistening “Talkie Talkie, Charlie Charlie”

Acclaimed London-based instrumental outfit and JOVM mainstays Los Bitchos — Australian-born, Serra Petale (guitar); Uruguayan-born Agustina Ruiz (keytar); Swedish-born, Josefine Jonsson (bass) and London-born Nic Crawshaw (drums) — released their highly-anticipated sophomore album, the Oli Barton-Wood-produced Talkie Talkie through City Slang last week.

Deriving its name from a fictional club of the same name, Talkie Talkie is a late-night paradise, brimming with freedom and possibility; a place where partygoers can escape reality by getting caught in the groove and dancing it all away or daydream along to the invigorating soundscape. 

Recorded over a short but intense month-long series of sessions at London’s RAK Studios and Lightship 95, sonically, the album will transport the listener into a world where funk, disco, Latin and Turkish rhythms collide in a euphoric fusion fueled by adventurous experimentation and their endearingly puckish spirit. If 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin was the rowdy build up to the big night out with your homies, Talkie Talkie is the equivalent of rocking out to the groove on the dance floor. 

The album’s material is anchored in a vivid cinematic universe that takes inspiration from the band’s favorite aesthetic era — the ’80s. Think less self-serious men, gated reverb and more campy, hi-fi pop songwriting that glistens with moxie and verve. The quartet especially wanted to tap into the sonic innovation of the period, where analog and digital techniques collided to create polished texture and depth. 

The album features: 

  • “La Bomba,” a hook-driven 80s Turkish psych pop-inspired bop anchored around a shuffling dance floor rhythm, a twangy and looping guitar line, a disco-influenced bass line, some video game-like beats paired with glistening synths and ecstatic shouts. 

  • “Don’t Change,” a breezy and blissful jam anchored around a languid and reverb-drenched Spanish-tinged, psych rock-inspired guitar line, stomping percussion, glistening and atmospheric synths and an arpeggiated, funky synth bass line. It’s the perfect soundtrack for frolicking at the beach, of dreaming of heading to the beach with your best pals — or for riding a ferry and dreaming that you were on a super expensive yacht drinking mimosas. 

  • “Kiki, You Complete Me” and “1K!.” Both tracks see the band reveling in the shimmering guitar tones and shuffling guacharaca rhythms of cumbia — but in mischievously different directions: “Kiki, You Complete Me” has a clean, 80s studio polish-like sound and a cinematic quality that evokes the opening sequence of Nintendo video games like  Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda or Blades of Steel — or of an incredibly cheesy but wildly entertaining action movie starring Carl Weathers, Bill Duke or someone like that, complete with a blazing guitar solo. 

Talkie Talkie‘s latest single “Talkie Talkie, Charlie Charlie” much like its immediate predecessor features a clean, 80s studio polished sound and features bursts of twinkling synth, wobbling and percussive bass, glistening Slowhand-era Clapton-like guitar lines paired with a steady and forceful backbeat. Mantra-like vocals are shouted out around the hook. Sonically, “Talkie Talkie, Charlie Charlie” sounds as though it could have been part of the score of an episode of Miami Vice.

“‘Talkie Talkie, Charlie Charlie’ feels like driving around Miami in the ‘80s, Grand Theft Auto style, or chatting to friends on old landlines or walkie talkies,” the JOVM mainstays explain. “It was the first song we recorded for the album and the first time working with our producer Oli Barton-Wood. We had such an incredible time in the studio and ran wild with some electronic drum sounds and some impromptu vocals. We love the blend of sparkly synths and smooth guitars along with bold, fat drums and bass lines. This song ended up inspiring the album title, Talkie Talkie, which has a cheeky ring to it. We could imagine it in neon lights outside our imaginary club. We had a great time with some retro phones and ‘90s bedroom setups, and dancing our lives away!”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Ezra Collective Shares Swaggering “Streets is Calling” feat. M.anifest and Moonchild Sanelly

Acclaimed London-based jazz/hip-hop outfit Ezra Collective — Femi Koleoso (drums), TJ Koleoso (bass), Joe Armon-Jones (keys), Ife Ogunjobi (trumpet) and James Mollison (tenor saxophone) — can trace their origins back to when they met at Gary Crosby’s Tomorrow’s Warriors, a jazz music education and artist development program committed to championing diversity, inclusion and equality across the arts through jazz with a special focus on Black musicians, female musicians and those whose financial or other circumstances might lock them out of opportunities to pursue a career in the music industry.

The band’s full-length debut, 2019’s You Can’t Stay My Joy, featured guest spots from Jorja Smith and Loyle Carner. Instrumental album track “Quest for Coin” was premiered as the “Hottest Record in The World” on BBC Radio 1’s Annie Mac Show. 2022’s sophomore album Where I’m Meant To Be, which featured a mix of instrumental tracks and lyrical contributions was released to widespread critical applause across the UK.

Last year was a breakthrough year for the British jazz outfit. Their critically applauded sophomore album led to the band being named the first jazz act to ever win the Mercury Prize. The entire UK, European Union and US tour to support the album was sold-out, including 10,000 capacity Eventim Apollo and Royal Albert Hall headlining shows. They played Glastonbury Festival and Quincy Jones‘ star-studded birthday party and the final guests of the year on The Graham Norton Show and Top of The Pops Review of 2023. Adding to a busy year, they won Best Jazz Act at last year’s MOBO Awards and were named Time Out London‘s Londoners of 2023.

Continuing upon last year’s momentum, they were tapped by Daniel Lee to perform at this Burberry x Harrods takeover. They launched the British Library’s Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music exhibition. And they were profiled in ES Magazine, British Vogue, Music Week and Mixmag.

Ezra Collective’s highly-anticipated third album Dance, No One’s Watching is slated for a September 27, 2024 release through Partisan Records. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, where the band was surprised by group of close friends and family, the Dance, No One’s Watching sessions were turned into a live, communal celebration of love, music and dancing. Written throughout the course of last year as the band toured across the world, the album not only documents the dance floors they encountered in their travels. Musically and thematically, the album guides the listener through a night out in the city, from the endless possibilities as a night out is about to start, to when you’re getting back home, with the sun rising.

The album’s third and latest single “Street Is Calling” feat. M.anifest and Moonchild Sanelly is a swaggering and strutting tune that sees the acclaimed British act effortlessly bridging the African Diaspora with a synthesis of Highlife, Amapiano, Afrobeats and hip-hop that nods at Soul II Soul — but while being a high energy call out to get your ass up on that dance floor.

“‘Streets Is Calling’ is about the feeling when people call you up and message you and say, yo, there’s this party happening tonight and that’s all you need,” the band’s Femi Koleoso explains. “The Streets have called. We’re gonna go straight to this dance floor to make it our own.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Aramis Teams Up with Jules Vert on Flirty “Baby”

Founded and led by Québec-based singer/songwriter, musician and producer Urhiel Madran-Cyr, the alt pop/electro pop project Aramis can trace its history back to when Cyr along with two classmates and friends in CEGEP, a Québécois […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Riga’s Bēdu Brāļi Shares Forceful and Uneasy “Pieskaries”

Riga, Latvia-based alt rock outfit Bēdu Brāļi — Oskars Tu (vocals, guitar), Jānis Liepiņš (bass) and Pēteris Ozols (drums) — spent the formative years among the vibrant mid 00’s hardcore punk and rock scene in their homeland. The scene’s fiercely independent ethos and the use of Latvian language lyrics rubbed off on them; but sonically, they’ve managed to stand apart from their peers.

Their full-length debut 2022’s Duende saw the Riga-based outfit crafting a sound that featured elements of shoegaze, psych rock, post-punk and more. The Latvian trio’s sophomore album Lauskas will be released through I Love You Records. 

Deriving its title from the Latvian word for shards, the album reportedly sees the trio further cementing their boundary pushing sound. Earlier this year, I wrote about album single “Ikdienas-dzive,” a track anchored around glistening guitars, a chugging motorik groove and a woozy, shoegazer textured guitar solo paired with Tu’s punchily delivered vocal. While recalling Montréal‘s Atusko Chiba, “Ikdienas-dzive,” captures a nagging sense of vacillating self-doubt, bored and uneasy dread and frustration that should feel familiar to anyone who’s slaved away at a soul-sucking day job. 

“The main lyric is that my everyday life – this routine – is turning me evil. It’s me going mad because every day is the same,” Bēdu Brāļi’s Oskars Tu explains. “I can’t forget the previous day and start afresh. I just have this bitterness as work-related stuff lingers. I remember all the bullshit happening a day ago, a week ago, a month ago. I think I’m not alone in that happening.”

Duende‘s latest single “Pieskaries,” is a brooding, decidedly post punk affair featuring an angular and propulsive bass line, rolling drum pattern and bursts of slashing guitars serving as an uneasy bed for Oskars Tu’s desperate wails. While continuing a run of material that reminds me a bit of Atsuko Chiba, “Pieskaries” captures a modern sense of isolation and unease while being with others.

“It’s about loneliness,” Tu explains. “It’s one thing to have people around you who are true to their words and actions and you in turn can become a better person. But it’s another to be with people who lie and you end up lying to yourself. This ultimately leads to this feeling of isolation, even though technically you’re around people.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: John Finbury and Bruna Black Share Swooning Ballad “Uma Noite Com Voce”

Andover, MA-based Grammy and Latin Grammy-nominated drummer, composer and JOVM mainstay John Finbury collaborated with rising São Paulo-based singer/songwriter Bruna Black on his latest album Vã Revelação, which was released earlier this year. 

Vã Revelação presents a broad array of subgenres under the large umbrella of Brazilian jazz. So there are the beloved and classic bossa nova and samba tunes. But there are also Baião, Partido, Alto, Forró and Afoxê among other styles. 

Over the past handful of months, I’ve written about four album singles:

  • “Chão De Nuvem,” a soulful year breezy tune featuring an arrangement of fluttering accordion, a supple bass line, shuffling percussion. The song gorgeously — and effortlessly — meshes elements of samba, jazz fusion and pop while being a perfect vehicle for Bruna Black’s languorous yet soulful delivery. 

  • “Será,” a song built around a gorgeous arrangement of shimmering acoustic guitar by Chico Pinheiro, a supple and sinuous bass line from John Pattiucci that’s roomy enough for Black’s expressive vocal. Fittingly released at the end of last year, the song is a meditation on the passing of time, the choices and plans we make that work out and the ones that fail — with the understanding that all of it influences who we are, and who we will become. 

  • Album title track “Vã Revelação,” a breathtakingly gorgeous yet bittersweet tune, anchored around the classic shuffle and sway of bossa nova featuring shimmering, strummed guitar, a supple bass line, twinkling and expressive bursts of piano serving as a lush bed for Black’s stunning vocal turn. Much like its predecessors, “Vã Revelação” is meditative yet breezy, a blast of summer — but full of the recognition of the passing of time, and of regrets, hopes dashed and hopes to be had again. 

  • “Para Me Entender,” a much jazzier take on Bossa nova than its predecessor, anchored around a loose, swinging arrangement that displays each musician’s chops with a self-assured swagger. But the true star of the affair is Bruna Black, who reveals herself as a stylistic chameleon, whose voice can shift in colors, registers and expression within the turn of a phrase.

Vã Revelação‘s fifth and latest single, “Uma Noite Com Voce” features a gently swaying, jazz standard-tinged, Bossa nova ballad composition written by Finbury performed by Vitor Gonçalves (guitar), John Patitucci (piano, Rhodes), Daduka Da Fonseca (bass), Rogério Boccato (percussion) paired with gorgeous lyrics written by Vitor Ramil Chico Pinheiro. And much like its predecessors, “Uma Noite Com Voce,” continues to showcase Bruna Black as a remarkably talented vocalist, who can effortlessly tackle any style with a self-assured yet earnest, lived-in take.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Yeisy Rojas Shares Lush and Reverential “A Mis Ancestros”

I’m currently in Philadelphia for the fourth installment of Asian Arts Initiative’s Sound Type Music Festival and Music Writers Workshop. Of course, the show must go on as much as humanly possible. JOVM is very much like the saying engraved on the James Farley Post Office, which now comprises Moynihan Train Hall, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

So let’s get to it.

Yeisy Rojas is a Cuban-born, Oslo-based, classically trained, jazz violinist, singer/songwriter and composer. Back 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‘s University of Agder‘s Conservatory.  The cross-cultural experience allowed Rojas to deepen her understanding of the African influences in Cuban music.

As a solo artist, Rojas’ work frequently sees her blending Cuban music, Latin jazz, funk and more with powerful social messages — in particular, she boldly speaks up against racism in her homeland and elsewhere. Her full-length debut, last year’s Gaston Joya-produced A Mis Ancestros featured the previously released “Mama Ines,” an adaptation of Nicolás Guillén’s 1930 poem “Ayer Me Dijeron Negro” (Yesterday They Called Me Black) that pairs the poet’s words with a breezy and soulful arrangement that meshes elements of Latin soul, funk and jazz in a way that reminds me very fondly of the sounds of parties in the South Bronx, Lower East Side, Corona, East Elmhurst and so on.

Rojas has picked up work as a freelance violinist to support her career, playing events across Norway, Sweden and Denmark while earning multiple invitations to perform on Norwegian national radio. Back in 2022, she opened the International Jazz Day Gala at Oslo’s Nasjonal Jazz Scene, playing in front of a full house. The success of that performance inspired the Cuban-born, Oslo-based artist to create her own international jazz celebration, A Vision for Unity which aims to bring together artists from diverse nationalities to promote unity and peace through music. “We all are a family, and no matter where we come from, the only thing we want to do is to live in peace,” the Cuban-born, Oslo-based artist says. “Not because someone came from a dictatorship means that person is the enemy.”

In just its second edition, Rojas’ Vision for Unity has become a highly-anticipated event on the music calendar for local audiences while garnering increased attention from artists’ organizations across the country.

Earlier this year, the Cuban-born, Norwegian artist was highlighted by Billboard as an emerging start and by Rolling Stone en Español as an artist you need to know. Building upon a growing profile within the international Latin music scene, Rojas shares A Mis Ancestros‘ latest single, album title track “A Mis Ancestros” is a gorgeous and soulful synthesis of bebop-era jazz, salsa, son cubano that not only showcases Rojas’ prodigious talent, but proudly and unabashedly displays a deep, reverential pride for her homeland and her ancestry. The song is a fairly autobiographical story that will be familiar for countless immigrants across the world. The nostalgia for the homeland — the language, the dear ones, the smells, the food — not only sparks memories and comparisons, it also sparks a much deeper appreciation for their culture.

Directed by Marcus Støren, the accompanying video for “A Mis Ancestros” follows a young woman, who has bravely made the journey from her homeland to Norway to make a new life for herself. While looking at an old photo of her mother, she manages to travel back in time to reunite with her mother, who reminds her that she’s beautiful and should be proud of herself; that her skin coloring and her curly hair come from the Motherland; that Black is always beautiful. Through his journey, she meets her ancestors, who welcome and guide her.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Fort Myers, FL’s La Vibra Norteña Shares Aching “Adios Amor”

Fort Myers, FL-based Mexican music outfit La Vibra Norteña formed back in 2019. And since their formation, the band has specialized in norteño sax — or norteño with saxophone and accordion. Their debut single, last year’s “Mil Veces,” showcased their contagious energy while establishing a distinct take on norteño.

Building upon a growing profile within the regional Mexican music scene, the Fort Myers-based outfit released “Bachata Rosa” earlier this year. “Bachata Rosa” showcased their versatility and growth as musicians while showcasing material that paired emotional lyrics with captivating melodies.

La Vibra Norteña’s latest single “Adios Amor” is a gorgeous bit of norteño that pairs with traditional oompah oompah-like groove the genre is known for with a gorgeous melody and achingly earnest vocals in a heartfelt, bittersweet ballad. If you’re leaving your lover for a period of time — and maybe you’re a bit uncertain when you might reunite, this song will express the hurt and longing you may feel right now.