Live footage of Tunde Adebimpe + Thee Black Boltz performing “Somebody New” on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
New Audio: Berlin’s Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys Share Brooding “Reaching”
Over the course of six studio albums, Berlin-based art rock outfit Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys — South African-born Lucy Kruger (vocals, guitar), Liú Mottes (guitar), Jean-Louise Parker (viola, vocals), Sally Whitton (bass) and Gidon Carmel (drums) — has firmly established a sound that blends elements of art pop, ambient noise and dark folk, while drawing comparisons to Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey and Aldous Harding.
Recipients of the Europavox Spotlight Prize back in June 2023, the band has built up a profile across the European Union and elsewhere with sets across the global festival circuit, including Orange Blossom Special, InMusic, Roadburn, Grauzone, Reeperbahn, MENT, Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Fusion Festival, Left of The Dial, Synästhesie, The New Colossus Festival and SXSW.
Outside of her work with Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys, Kruger has contributed vocals to songs by Swans and Underground Youth. And she was selected for the Keychange Initiative, which seeks to promote gender equality in the global music scene.
The Berlin-based outfit’s latest single “Reaching” is the first bit of new material from the band since the band’s critically applauded six album, last year’s A Human Home. “Reaching” is a brooding and tense tune that alternates between slinky and atmospheric verses built around a woozy waltz-like tempo and a bruising and noisy chorus and hook featuring slashing and churning power chords.
The song thematically explores the tension between communication and disconnection, presence and absence, silence and noise. And its core, the song is raw, evocative and probing, while rooted in deeply empathetic observation of human character and nature. “I think the song tries to capture how cacophonic the quiet can feel.” Kruger says.
New Video: Diary Shares Jangling and Yearning “Stevie”
Rising Brooklyn-based indie outfit Diary — Kevin Bendis (vocals, keys), Chris Croarkin (guitar, vocals), High Waisted‘s Jessica Louise Dye (guitar, vocals), Two Man Giant Squid‘s Yan Kogan (bass) and Adam Sachs (drums) — can trace their origins to a shared love of jangle-pop, shoegaze, dream pop and psychedelia.
Last year, the Brooklyn-based outfit released the Speedboat EP, an effort loosely inspired by Renata Adler’s novel of the same name that as the band explained is “about living in New York City and the neuroses that come with it.” They continue, “We’ve always been an NYC band but never fully explored what that meant to us. Living here and playing music here there’s a ceaseless oscillation between anxiety and anticipation. Even as you sleep and dream about the buildings and the hum of the street.”
Sonically, the EP’s material was inspired by Sister-era Sonic Youth, early Dinosaur Jr, Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Methadrone, Swirlies and Drop Nineteens. “But at the end of the day, we just love big pop songs that run super loud and fuzzy.”
“Stevie” is the first bit of new material since last year’s Speedboat EP. The new single is a nostalgia-inducing bit of jangle pop that recalls The Smiths and the like, while anchored around deeply introspective and seemingly lived-in lyrics, Bendis’ yearning delivery and the band’s penchant for razor sharp hooks.
“Lyrically, the song drifts through the strange intimacy that can grow through the algorithms—how a face, a stack of books, or a record sleeve glimpsed online can spiral into a fantasy,” the band explains. “It’s about longing for someone you don’t know and the sweet ache of wanting to believe in a constructed connection.”
Directed by Jane Burns, the accompanying video, which is shot on film, features the band in at a large estate/mansion goofing off and performing the song in the woods and gardens.
New Audio: Cozy Shares A Catchy and Summery Bop
Cozy is an emerging American-born, world pop artist, whose desire is to make the listener listen to him and view him as a spaceman/explorer type, who goes deep into the unknown and returns with deep truths.
His latest single “Glory” is the second single off his debut EP, Little Star. “Glory” is a summery, lounge and club friendly, Afrobeats-tinged bop featuring bursts of glistening synth arpeggios, skittering trap-inspired triplets paired with remarkably catchy hooks serving as a lush bed for Cozy’s yearning patois.
New Video: Starling Shares “120 Minutes”-era MTV-LIke “I Can Be Convinced”
Founded and led by Kasha Souter Willet (vocals, guitar), rising Los Angeles-based indie outfit Starling was started without a vision of what it would eventually become. Last year, the project became a full-fledged band with the addition of Erik Sathrum Johnson, Grace Rolek and Gitai Vinshtok.
With their debut EP, last year’s 2324, the quartet quickly established a sound and approach with a soft heaviness that effortlessly weaved from classic grunge to singer/songwriter and shoegaze. They combine bedroom warped production with angular leads and rich vocal melodies. Although the band’s sound is genre agnostic, the feel is a general yearning for contentment, a person, a place. The result is a vulnerable yet enthralling style of rock.
The Los Angeles-based quartet’s highly-anticipated sophomore EP, Forgive Me is slated for a June 27, 2025 release through San Antonio-based label, Sunday Drive Records. Confusion, frustration, love and loss are all expressed through the new EP’s material. Written over the course of roughly a year, the band recorded themselves in various sheds, apartments and garages. Adding to the DIY ethos, the EP was mixed by the band’s Erik Sathrum Johnson and the EP’s artwork was shot by the band and their friends. The material was mastered by Greg Obis, who has mastered work by MJ Lenderman, Wishy and Duster.
Forgive Me is a fully DIY and deeply personal effort in which the band has shaped every sonic detail themselves. So, every chord, melody, rhythm and feeling is internationally placed and wholly theirs.
The EP’s lead single “I Can Be Convinced” would fit in perfectly on a 90s grunge/120 Minutes-era MTV themed playlist as the song features angular and jangling guitars and soaring synths for the song’s verses and fuzzy and scorching power chord-driven choruses and hooks serving as woozy, barely controlled bed for thunderous drumming and Willet’s dreamily coquettish cooing. While reportedly one of the EP’s more upbeat tunes, the song is ironically deceptive with the song examining all-consuming, contradictory and confusing love that’s simultaneously exciting and confining.
“Smothered. Wrapped up in a warm blanket so tightly you cannot move. A song written about needing stillness, to be told no, to be confined all in a confused love,” the band says. “Kasha did not intend the song to take such an upbeat direction when she brought it to the band. Although it is a sad and yearning song, the beat and arrangement made this song our lead single.”
Directed by David Milan Kelly, the accompanying video for “I Can Be Convinced” was shot in and around Los Angeles and features a collection of ballerinas dancing on the streets and in the studio as the band performs the song.
“The ‘I Can Be Convinced’ music video came together with a lot of hard work from our friends who believed in the project, scraping all resources to make it happen,” the band told the folks at Flood Magazine. “David Milan Kelly is a close friend of ours who directed the video and worked with us to create a visually interesting music video that honored the feeling and matched the pacing of the song. David and Kasha both separately had the thought to add ballet dancers to the mix, so when it was brought up by Kasha, they knew it had to come to fruition. From the big white skirt Kasha found at a thrift store not knowing what it would be used for at the time of purchase, to the dancers who came ready to improvise and learn poses on the spot; as much planning as we did a lot of this came together by trusting the process and allowing things to fall into place.”
New Video: Tanika Charles Shares Sultry “Talk To Me Nice”
With the release of her first three albums, 2016’s Soul Run, 2019’s The Gumption and 2022’s Papillion de Nuit, two-time Juno Award R&B/Soul Recording of the Year-nominee and three-time Polaris Music Prize long-listed, Toronto-born and-based singer/songwriter and soul artist has made a name for herself in the Canadian and global soul scenes for crafting work that revels in unflinching honesty and a high energy, endearing live show that has won over audiences across the globe with extensive touring across North America and Europe.
Charles has made the rounds of the European festival circuit with sets at France’s Trans Musicales Festival, Germany’s Fusion Festival, and the UK’s Mostly Funk, Soul Jazz Festival, Switzerland’s Holy Groove Festival and Spain’s Canarias Jazz Festival. She has also shared stages with the likes of Estelle, Mayer Hawthorne, Hiatus Kaiyote, Lauryn Hill, Bedouin Soundclash and Macy Gray. And adding to a growing profile, the JOVM mainstay has received airplay and/or coverage from KCRW, KEXP, BBC 6 Music, Exclaim!, CBC Music, Uncut Mag, PopMatters and Albumism among others.
The acclaimed Toronto-born and-based artist’s fourth album Reasons To Stay is slated for a May 16, 2025 release through Italian purveyors of soul Record Kicks. Thematically, the album is a collection of intimate letters to members of the Canadian artist’s family, to herself and to the listener.
Reasons To Stay’s third and latest single, the Scott McCanell-produced, Kelly Finnigan-mixed “Talk To Me Nice” to my ears is warm, vibey bit of a Soul II Soul-like take on neo-soul featuring a stuttering drum pattern, a strutting bass line and a soulful flute solo serving as a lush and supple bed for the Toronto-based JOVM mainstay’s velvety, come-hither delivery.
“’Talk To Me Nice’ is an intimate, solely verbal, conversation. Working with director Taha Muharuma on the concept, we immediately gravitated to the long (landline!) phone calls of our younger years,” Tanika Charles says. “Playing around with ideas of how to depict that in an interesting way on screen, we decided a light homage to Theresa Randle’s character Judy in Spike Lee’s Girl 6 would be a fun concept that allowed a lot of freedom in looks and movement.”
New Video: Native Sun Shares Swaggering and Groovy “I Need Nothing”
Rising New York-based indie outfit Native Sun — Colombian-born Danny Gomez (vocals, guitar). Justin Barry (bass, vocals), Jack Hiltabidle (guitar) and Argentine-born Nicolas Espinosa (drums) — have been celebrated for a visceral, untamed live show and for Gomez’s sociopolitically-charged lyrics that confront reality head on, channeling disillusionment into action while lovingly documenting the lives of society’s misfits and marginalized.
Over the past couple of years, the band has received coverage from both sides of the pond, including BrooklynVegan, DIY Magazine, Dork Magazine, Flood Magazine, NYLON, Paste Magazine and Rolling Stone. Adding to a growing profile, the rising quartet has played alongside the likes of A Place To Bury Strangers, Geese, Indigo de Souza and Nation of Language, among a growing list of acclaimed acts.
The New York-based quartet recently signed to NYC-based TODO, who will be releasing their highly-anticipated, full-length debut, which is slated for release later this year. in the meantime, their debut album’s first official single, the Jonathan Schenke-produced “I Need Nothing” is a swaggering, hook-driven, Stone Roses and Happy Mondays-like tune, anchored around a hypnotic, stoner-like groove, distortion and feedback-drenched guitars and passed out drum patterns that serves as a lush bed for Gomez’s insouciant and defiant delivery.
Lyrically, the song expresses a yearning desire for liberation and detachment from the chaos and bullshit of the surrounding modern world while reclaiming your time and peace. If things have been weighing you down lately, this song’s for you.
“‘I Need Nothing’ is our response to the chaos of a world in crisis – where every day we’re inundated with noise, distraction, and a kind of manufactured anxiety designed to keep us disengaged,” the band explains. “It taps into a collective exhaustion – being bombarded by political dysfunction, performative media, and the hyperreality of late-stage capitalism. But the song isn’t about apathy; it’s about stepping back to reclaim space, to think clearly, and to act with intent. It’s a defiant refusal to be consumed by a broken system—survival and self-liberation through clarity and detachment.”
Directed and filmed by Tim Nagle and Conor Cunningham, the accompanying video for “I Need Nothing” is shot on 8mm film and features the band performing the song in a studio, complete with fittingly hallucinogenic effects that sort of mimic a psilocybin trip.
News/Announcements: Shoutouts to Patreon Patrons, Creatives Rebuild NY and Asian Arts Initiative
JOVM will turn 15 this year. 15 y’all! When I started this thing, I felt as though I had no real choice but to go out on my own. I didn’t feel — or believe — that I’d get a fair shot to do what I’ve wanted to do with this site with another outlet.
As I’ve mentioned throughout this site’s history: I’ve long felt a desire to create something inspired and informed by the wildly eclectic, dynamic, global sort of environment I grew up immersed in as a Black boy from Corona, Queens. I didn’t regularly see the environment and music I heard around me represented in the music magazines and sites that I followed and loved to read. I always felt that was odd and a significant weakness because — well, there’s quite a bit of amazing music out there that’s just not getting the love and attention it should be receiving whether nationally or internationally.
With this site, I’ve managed to carve out a unique path for myself — and in the blogosphere. Because music media — and generally the media world — is an incredibly homogeneous space, the coverage that you see as a consumer and fan tends to come from a startling similar perspective. Look at the editorial staff at your favorite music magazine, blog or website. Tell me what you see. And when you do see some degree of diversity, it was after many years of fighting, complaining and cajoling — and worse yet, it’s usually in a very limited fashion. It explains why you’ll see the same coverage of the same batches of artists, genres and styles with little difference and less variety.
I’m going to be frank here: With this current administration, things are going to be extremely difficult for marginalized communities, for artists and the arts, for small, independent media outlets, small businesses and for countless others. We’re already seeing large corporations and media outlets bending the knee to fascists out of greed and fear. So it’ll be imperative upon all of you who are financially able and willing to support the work and efforts of artists, creators, writers and thinkers in marginalized groups: Yes, folks of color — especially women. LGBTQ+ folks. Indigenous folks. Latinos and latinas. Asians. Immigrants. And on and on. This is in addition to those folks who are suffering through the incalculable tragedies of climate change-driven disaster and other calamities.
If you dig their work or you dig a specific cause, and you’re able to support financially, please give to their Patreon, their GoFundMe, OnlyFans or whatever they’re using for donations and tips. Trust me, every single dollar counts, is useful and appreciated. You’ll feel good supporting the blood, sweat and tears of decent, hardworking folks who could really use it, while teaching greedy, craven and spineless assholes some key lessons. A win in my books.
I understand that things are tough for folks. A lot of people are struggling to survive with their dignity intact. If you’re unable to give money, the other way you can support is to amplify these voices. Tell your friends about these artists, influencers, thinkers and causes, and get them to follow them, too. Extra eyeballs to the work really matters — sometimes, it’s someone else who could support through cash. Other times, it’s someone who will faithfully read or follow that person’s work. Or they’ll happily proselytize your causes and your work to others.
To that end, with your support, I can keep this going. Now, as you know, I’ve said this many times: All work — including creative work — is impossible without money. After all, time is money. Effort is money. Then add all the expenses it takes to actually work. So, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past handful of years, there are a handful of folks I want to thank once again for their support:
Sash
Alice Northover
Bella Fox
Jenny MacRostie
Janene Otten
All of those folks have been generous Patreon patrons. Every and any amount really helps keeps this sort of journalism and criticism alive and ongoing. So if you’re able and willing, please feel free to check out the Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement.
Additionally, I have to thank the helpful, hardworking and dedicated folks at Creatives Rebuild New York. I’m proud, gratified and humbled to have been included in their 18-month Guaranteed Income for Artists program. Understandably, being included was also deeply vindicating. Someone out there thought my work — this very work! — was worth supporting financially. Obviously, the funds from it have managed to keep this labor of love going during one of the most uncertain periods in recent human history, while lessening some of the normal financial pressures of being an American artist, creator and journalist.
I also found out about Asian Arts Initiative’s Sound Type Workshop through Creatives Rebuild New York. So, I just can’t thank those folks enough. And I’ll forever be in their debt.
I must thank the folks at the Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia for selecting me for the Sound Type Music Writer Workshop. Being a part of the inaugural cohort was an honor.
Of course, there are other ways you can support.
You can also support by checking the JOVM shop. I sell prints in various sizes. I also have bumper stickers. Check it out: https://www.joyofviolentmovement.com/shop
You can also support my following me on the following platforms:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/william_ruben_helms
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/yankee32879 and https://www.twitter.com/joyofviolent
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement
And you can hire me for headshots, portraits and events. Seriously, I’m available for that, too. You can contact me through Photobooker: https://www.photobooker.com/photographer/ny/new-york/william-h?duration=1?duration=1# or you can contact me directly through the Contact Us link or through my social media accounts.
New Audio: ASAMAASAMA Shares Woozy and Fierce “123”
Mount Asama, Japan-based alt-rock/art rock duo ASAMASAMA features two acclaimed Japanese artists — singer/songwriter Rie Fu and producer Hikaru Ishizaki. After stints with anime theme songs and J-pop production, the pair have decided to break the mold and create a rebellious, hybrid sound that crosses musical and geographical boundaries while blending sharp wit, bold satire and a twisted love for Japanese culture.
The Japanese duo’s latest single “123” is a fiercely feminist anthem that features glitchy electronics, boom bap-like beats and bursts of slashing power chord-driven guitars serving as a woozy bed for Fiu’s unhinged delivery, which sees her alternating between spoken word/sing-songy passes and bratty, J-pop-meets-Fever to Tell-era Karen O-like crooning. Interestingly, “123” showcases the duo’s ability to craft a mischievous, forward-thinking sound and approach anchored around remarkably catchy hooks.
New Audio: Glasgow’s Akkiles82 Shares Cinematic “Streets of Neo-Yokohama”
Nick Thomson is a Glasgow-based electronic music producer and the creative mastermind of the solo recording project Akkiles82. Akkiles82 sees Thompson creating a sound that draws from cyberpunk, retrowave, and his history both playing bands and as an electronic music/dance music producer.
The Scottish-based producer’s Akkiles82 full-length debut, CybernNation will be released in two parts over the course of the next year. The album reportedly will tell a story of desperate survival, after an unknown cataclysm causes destruction in a futuristic cyberpunk-like city. The album’s track range from classic synthwave and EDM through breakbeat — with health doses of 80s cartoon and TV themes influences.
CyberNation‘s second and latest single “Streets of Neo-Yokohama,” is a slickly produced cinematic track that recalls a synthesis of Fragile-era Nine Inch Nails, John Carpenter soundtracks and 80s TV themes, anchored around dense layers of glistening, arpeggiated synths and tweeter and woofer rattling thump. A new Knight Rider, Transformers or Voltron theme perhaps?
“This track was inspired by the towering skyscrapers and street racing scenes of Tokyo and Yokohama, painting a picture of neon and rain soaked streets,” Thompson says.
Throwback: Happy 77th Birthday, Wayne Kramer!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 77th anniversary of Wayne Kramer’s birth.
New Audio: Slumbering Sun Shares Bruising Dirge “The Tower”
Formed back in 2022, Austin-based outfit Slumbering Sun — Monte Luna‘s James Clarke (vocals), Destroyer of Light‘s Keegan Kjeldsen (guitar) and Kelly “Penny” Turner, Temptress‘ Kelsey Wilson, and Monte Luna’s and Scorpion Child’s Garth Condit (bass) — is a Texas underground metal scene All-Star outfit that specializes in “music for crazy romantics,” as they’ve dubbed it, a melodic doom metal that incorporates elements of Celtic folk, grunge, prog rock and shoegaze.
The Austin-based quintet’s full-length debut, 2023’s The Ever-Living Fire debuted at #20 on the Doom Charts. The band played their first show at SXSW’s Stoner Jam, then embarked on a series of regional tours before capping off the year with a set at Ripple Fest.
The band spent the bulk of last year, writing and recording their highly-anticipated sophomore effort, Starmony, which is slated for a digital and limited vinyl edition release on May 9, 2025.
Earlier this month, I wrote about “Midsommar Night’s Dream,” a track that begins with a gorgeous, pensive piano and string driven introduction, before quickly morphing into swooningly heartfelt and nostalgia-fueled dirge anchored around the sort of fuzzy pose chords that would bring smiles to the faces of Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Neil Young, all while being arguably the most cinematic song they’ve released to date.
Starmony‘s latest single “The Tower” begins with a broodingly atmospheric introduction that quickly morphs into slow-burning, power chord-driven dirge with dexterous guitar solos. And much like its immediate predecessor, “The Tower” continues a run of material that’s simultaneously soulful and cinematic, while showcasing a band with a penchant for crafting material that recalls The Sword, Soundgarden and others.
Lyric Video: Jahnah Camille Shares Rousingly Anthemic and Cathartic “sit with you (pain)”
Rising, 20 year-old, Birmingham, AL-born and-based singer/songwriter and musician Jahnah Camille (pronounced as “Hannah”) can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood: Overhearing her father’s guitar lessons, she first picked up a guitar when she was four, and by the time she turned 10, she was writing her own songs.
Throughout her life, supportive coincidences have pushed Camille’s creative tenacity. Her mother encouraged an elementary school-aged Jahnah to perform for their apartment’s maintenance man, who then gifted her a red Gibson SG and an amplifier. At a hippie kids camp, she met a mentor, who helped to champion her early crowdfunded recordings.
“My mom was always having me sing and play guitar for people,” says Jahnah. “I’ve always had people who believed in me, and I feel like I’ve internalized that. That’s been really beautiful.”
Later opportunities to open for acclaimed artists like Clairo and Soccer Mommy led to her burgeoning status as a keenly self-examining indie rock singer/songwriter in a Birmingham scene saturated with punk and hardcore bands — many of which she played with in her earliest DIY shows.
“The first year after I graduated high school was kind of horrifying,” says Jahnah. “I had just basically broken up with most of my band. I wasn’t going to college. I was seeing how everyone else that I had known growing up, their lives were changing. I knew that whatever happened in my life, it wasn’t going to be that, and there wasn’t really any proof that things were going in a positive direction.”
The rising Birmingham-based artist’s sophomore EP, the Alex Farrar-produced My sunny oath! is slated for a June 13, 2025 release through Winspear. The EP comes on the heels of a run of tour dates with Blondshell and previous shows opening for TOPS,Soccer Mommy and Clairo — and after the success of her debut EP, last year’s i tried to freeze light, but only remember a girl.
My sunny oath! is set in the pressure cooker of new adulthood and is reportedly features a defiant collection of alt-rock, lo-fi grit and sardonic grunge that channels Jahnah Camille’s influences, including The Sundays, Liz Phair, Minnie Ripperton and Japanese Breakfast among others.
Last month, I wrote about EP single “what do you do,” a 90/120 Minutes MTV-era indie rock inspired anthem, anchored around a classic grunge rock structure paired with the young artist’s remarkably self-assured vocal turn and uncanny knack for an enormous, well-placed hook. “I wrote this while trying to understand the feeling of losing control,” the rising Birmingham-based artist says, “I was paralyzed by a need to control how other people saw me and needed to write about it.”
My sunny oath!‘s latest single “sit with you (pain)” begins with a lush and dreamy, singer/songwriter, acoustic guitar section with gently rumbling feedback that slowly builds up into a full-throated, bombastic, feedback and grungy power chord-driven anthem. While continuing to showcase a young songwriter, who can craft a big, rousingly anthemic hook and chorus, the song is anchored in deeply lived-in and earnest hurt.
The song “is about cutting someone out of your life who you still care for deeply,” she explains. “All of your critiques and drawbacks are still secondary for the love that you have. I wanted to make a habit of doing things that were good for me even if they hurt.”