Tag: dream pop

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: James Tonic Returns with Atmospheric and Yearning “Who’s Going Down”

James Tonic is a Montréal-born, New York-based dream pop artist, who over the course of seven albums firmly established a sound built on analog synths, live drums and unflinching lyrics. 2024’s Stuck in LA, an album inspired by the West Coast wound up being a breakthrough album for the Canadian-born artist: the album helped hi establish a fanbase, the old-fashioned way while selling out during the tour. 

Last year’s Safety, the first part of a planned dream pop trilogy was a nine-song effort that thematically touched on emotional survival. The second part of the trilogy, Safety II was released earlier this year, and featured a darker, more cinematic take on dream pop paired with sharper, edgier lyricism. Thematically, Safety II covers being wide open, fighting back quietly and spotting clear bits when everything seems hopelessly jumbled. 

Safety II includes “At The Time In New York,” and its latest single “Who’s Going Down.” “Who’s Going Down” is meditative, bit of dream pop that features Tonic’s yearning, achingly tender delivery against an atmospheric and shimmering soundscape that channels Cigarettes After Sex and Thank Your Lucky Stars and Depression Cherry-era Beach House. To me, the song evokes the last hour of party that you don’t want to have end or the waning hours of an amazing trip, full of the bittersweet recognition that you’ll have to return to normal life.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 60th Birthday, Hope Sandoval!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Hope Sandoval’s 60th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Penelope Isles Shares Shimmering “Thinking Seat”

Today, Isle-of-Man-born, Brighton-based JOVM mainstays Penelope Isles — siblings Jack and Lily Wolter — announced that they’ll be releasing their long-awaited and highly-anticipated third album, the aptly titled 3 on September 25, 2026 through Bella Union. Three years have passed since their last live show. Somewhere in between, life happened: Lily Wolters spent six months in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, stepping back from music for the first time years and spending the bulk of her time surfing. Jack Wolters hit the road as a guitarist in rising country star CMAT‘s touring band. And over the past year, Jack and Lily have released acclaimed solo album as Cuboza and My Precious Bunny respectively.

Written on a monthlong surf trip to Lagos, Portugal, 3‘s songs have sandy feet, beach hair and sunburn shoulders with shimmering hooks and aching harmonies. A year later, the band went to the Isle of Lewis off Scotland’s northwest coast to record the album live at Black Bay Studio.

Interestingly, 3 marks a couple of firsts for the JOVM mainstays: The album is the first as a true trio with their close friend Joe Taylor (drums) joining the band, and the first album that they’ve ever recorded live. Jack and Lily Wolter trade shimmering guitars and sunlit harmonies and aching falsetto ethereally floating above while Taylor’s drumming anchoring everything. While the album’s material is carefully constructed, the songs read a bit like the pages of someone’s diary ripped out and slipped under someone’s door while evoking a perfectly built sandcastle on summer vacation that’s flattened in an instant by a loved one’s passing cruelty.

Thematically, the album’s material sees the band still hopelessly obsessed with love, with heartbreak and what lingers afters, but the band carve out something entirely new: Sonically, the album is reportedly much like a shifting coastline of sound — hazy, luminous and always on the verge of collapse. Essentially, the album is the sound of the songwriting duo finding each other again. “Penny Isles is such a big part of our personalities,” Jack Wolters says. “So it was about time we got back to it.”

3‘s first single “Thinking Seat” is a sun-dappled tune that features Lily Wolter achingly tender delivery ethereally floating over shimmering, shoegazer-like textures and twinkling synths anchored by Taylor’s steady and propulsive time-keeping. Written upon reflection of the countless hours spent behind the wheel of the Wolter siblings splitter tour van, the song is s spiraling sequence of worry, heartache, planning, remembering, forgetting and then remembering again, desperately trying to hold it all together, trying to stay on track and on time, and trying to find a parking space large enough for the van. Sure, there’s a specificity that only tiring musicians and those who know touring musicians would know; but the song is rooted in a deeply universal uncertainty about your life, your place in it and what’s next that will be familiar to just about anyone.

The song features the lyric “U.G.A.K.I.,” an acronym for “You Guys Are Killing It,” a catchphrase that they coined and have used when touring felt especially difficult, dirty, absurd and flat out stupid, as a way of injecting humor and positivity in the constant uphill struggle of being a touring band in the contemporary music industry.

Directed and shot by the duo, the video pulls back the curtain for working bands, as it features the duo desperately trying to create a groundbreaking visual on a shoestring budget. While detailing the absurd difficulties of their lives as touring musicians, they do so with a sense of humor.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: she’s green Returns with Gauzy “close your eyes”

Minneapolis-based outfit she’s green — Zofia Smith (vocals), Liam Armstrong (guitar), Raimes Lucas (guitar), Teddy Nordvold (guitar) and Kevin Seeback (drums) — specialize in crafting dreamy soundscapes that transport the listener to scenes of soft summer rain and fields of swaying wheat, infused with raw emotional intensity. 

Their debut EP, 2023’s Wisteria saw the band establishing an honest and exploratory songwriting process, as well as reputation for being a force in the world of sonic surrealism. They supported the EP with tours across the Midwest and East Coast with Hotline TNT, Friko, JOVM mainstays Glixen and a list of others. 

Last year, the Minneapolis-based quartet signed to New York-based Photo Finish Records, who released their Henry Stoehr-produced sophomore EP Chrysalis. The EP included  the Souvlaki-era Slowdive-like “Graze,” and the Sundays-meets-A Storm In Heaven-like “Willow.” 

Building upon a growing national profile, the Minneapolis-based outfit will be releasing their newest effort, swallowtail EP on July 10, 2026 through Photo Finish Records. The EP will feature the previously released “mettle,” a decidedly  120 Minutes-era MTV-like bit of shoegaze and dream pop, the gauzy “paper thin” and the EP’s latest single “close your eyes.”

Much like “paper thin,” “close your eyes” is a gauzy and slow-burning tune that seemingly channels Souvlaki while evoking a slow descent into deep sleep. Smith’s ethereal and yearning voice dissolves into the shimmering and swirling guitar textures, which adds to the overall vivid dream-like feel of the song.

“‘close your eyes’ is about a mysterious person who kept recurring in my dreams,” she’s green’s Zofia Smith explains. “In those dreams, we shared a life together by the ocean. Waking up and realizing they weren’t real left a lasting impression on me, leaving me wondering about our connection to our dreams, how my mind could have created this person, or if I knew them in a past life.”

Directed by Jaxon Whittington, the accompanying video for “close your eyes” is shot in a sepia-toned blue ad recreates elements of the dream that inspired the song — with a life at the sea while Smith sings directly at the viewer, and an unseen figure of her dream person.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tokyo Tea Room Shares Mesmerizing and Shimmering “Eyes Off You”

Last year’s full-length debut, No Rush saw the rising Margate, UK-based outfit Tokyo Tea Room quickly establishing a sound and approach that takes listeners on a journey within a tender, comfortable bubble. Their music is inspired by lived-in, human emotions while thematically exploring longing and the ephemeral nature of existence. The album eventually led to millions of monthly listeners across the DSPs and a sold-out North American tour, helping the band amass a rapidly growing global audience.

The Margate-based act have new music coming that will reportedly see them entering a new chapter that sees an evolution of their sound that remains rooted in the emotional depth that the band has begun to be known for. The rising British act will return to North America for a fall tour, supporting their new material. The tour includes two NYC area dates — October 13, 2026 at Music Hall of Williamsburg and October 14, 2026 at Bowery Ballroom. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

In the meantime, the rising outfit’s latest single, the Daniel James Elliott-penned “Eyes Off You” is an atmospheric, mesmerizing and hook-driven, sophitispop-inspired bop that features Beth Dunn’s yearning vocal ethereally floating over shimmering synths, Nile Rodgers-like guitar and a supple yet propulsive bass line. “Eyes Off You” captures the desperation and delusion of an all-consuming obsession, describing the inability to let go, even when it hurts.

Directed by Jacek Zmarz and starring Anders Hayward, the accompanying video for “Eyes Off You” is a cinematically shot fever dream that follows Hayward as he expressively dances in series of surreal yet gorgeous locales.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Video Interview: Hush’s Paige Barlow and Miles Dupire-Gagnon

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms chats with Hush’s Paige Barlow and Miles Dupire-Gangon about their recently released “For Dolly” and more.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: sundayclub Shares Anthemic “Blue Wave”

Winnipeg-based indie duo sundayclub — Courtney and Nikki — have quickly cemented a sound and approach that blends hazy indie pop and dreamy textures with unfiltered storytelling. The result is material that’s much like blurry photograph, grainy yet glowing, fleeting yet full of feeling and life. 

The duo’s nine-song, self-titled, full-length debut is slated for a July 10, 2026 release through Paper Bag Records. Their debut is deeply informed by the stillness of rural Manitoba, where the duo started the band as a way of processing the very strange limbo of early adulthood — that feeling of being caught between who you once were and who you’re slowly becoming. Fittingly, the album is rooted in place: in a romanticized, re-examined Winnipeg with its hard edges softened in the way that memory often soften things. Thematically, the album touches upon growing up, growing apart and growing into your own skin. 

The album includes the previously released “Camera Shy,” and the album’s latest single “Blue Wave.” Built around a motorik pulse, fuzzy guitars and a euphoric, sing-along worthy hook and chorus, “Blue Wave” is an uptempo rousingly anthemic layered with three drum kits — and the product of over 170 vocal takes. Much like its predecessor, there’s a hauntingly bittersweet undertone to the song with the single leaning into the feeling of “pre-nostalgia,” which happens when you experience nostalgia in real time and began to feel as though you might miss the current moment before it’s passed. The song also references Courtney’s first car, a 2009 blue Pontiac Wave, lovingly named Trudy after its previous owner, and the memories Courtney and Nikki associated with the car — and with a specific period of their lives. So, in some way, the car was a bit of a time machine, and a way to explore the fuzzy and hazy spacers between the past and present.

“This song reminisces on the early days of a relationship in the midst of inner turmoil and uncertainty over what the future might hold,” Carmichael explains. “It’s about wanting to be a different, better, and more evolved version of yourself despite not being there yet, and seeking escapism in the past as a way to find solace. I felt impossibly restless at the time of writing the song and was just generally tired: tired of feeling like I wasn’t progressing, tired of being patient with the record we were making, tired of feeling vulnerable and overlooked. By looking back into the past, I could escape into a feeling of wistfulness to distract myself from how frustrated I was in the present.”

Directed by Qran Zhu, the accompanying video for “Blue Wave” was shot in Toronto and follows a young couple in love, who decided to steal two old bikes and go for a joyride. But what originally was young and mischievous whimsy turns into something much more dangerous and eventually tragic.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy Belated 45th Birthday, Victoria Legrand!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates Beach House frontwoman Victoria Legrand’s 45th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: CASTLEBEAT Shares Shimmering, Hook-Driven “Stay With Me”

Growing up biracial in Southern California — his father Korean, his mother Spanish — CASTLEBEAT creative mastermind and Spirit Goth Records founder Josh Hwang absorbed a wide range of musical traditions early on, filtered through the quintessentially Californian experience of listening to the radio on long drives. Drawing comparisons to Craft Spells, Beach Fossils and Day Wave, Hwang’s CASTLEBEAT sound can be described as jangly guitar-driven dream pop with melancholic overtones and sharp pop hooks, anchored around a sense of melody and motion.

Hwang’s newest CASTLEBEAT effort, CASTLEBEAT II is slated for a June 26, 2026 release through Spirit Goth Records, the label he runs with his wife Sonia. Much like his previously released work, Hwang wrote, recorded and produced everything himself, continuing the lo-fi DIY ethos that’s been at the core of the project. The album is conceived as a ten year anniversary reflection on Hwang’s 2016 self-titled debut. And he approached the album as both a time capsule and a creative reset, deliberately returning to the sounds, instincts and unfinished ideas of his early CASTLEBEAT era — but with a decade worth of refined craftsmanship.

“This album is a 10-year anniversary ode to my 2016 debut,” Hwang explains. “Some of the songs started as ideas from that era that I never finished at the time. Other songs were written more recently, but I intentionally limited myself to the kinds of sounds and choices I would’ve made back then — just with a more dialed-in approach I’ve developed over the years.” Adding to the homage paying vibes, CASTLEBEAT II‘s artwork and song sequencing deliberately echoes Hwang’s 2016 CASTLEBEAT debut, down to the original font on the artwork. “This record is about taking a moment to recount a chapter before moving forward,” says Hwang.

Unlike his previously released work, there is one major departure: Hwang recruited Brian Fisher to handle mixing and mastering. According to the Southern Californian-born artist, it was a decision that took some letting go of. “The hardest part was trusting that handoff and not endlessly tweaking. But once I let that happen it actually made the album stronger,” he admits.

CASTLEBEAT II‘s third and latest single “Stay With Me” features jangling guitar lines and a slacker rock-meets-New Order-like groove paired with Hwang’s achingly wistful vocal and a remarkably catchy hook. “Stay With Me” sees Hwang walking a tightrope between being defiant upbeat and heartbreaking melancholy, evoking a familiar sensation to anyone who’s been in a relationship on the verge of a breakup: the desire to hold on, but the sense of that person slipping away before your eyes.

As Hwang says: “‘Stay With Me’ is an upbeat, home-recorded dream-pop single built around jangly Stratocaster lines and a laid-back slacker-rock feel. Lyrically it’s about wanting someone to stick around when you can feel things starting to slip. Bright guitars, relaxed groove, and a hook that lands quickly.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: James Tonic Shares Cinematic and Yearning “At The Time In New York”

James Tonic is a Montréal-born, New York-based dream pop artist, who over the course of seven albums firmly established a sound built on analog synths, live drums and unflinching lyrics. 2024’s Stuck in LA, an […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Winnipeg’s sundayclub Shares Wistful, Bittersweet “Camera Shy”

Winnipeg-based indie duo sundayclub — Courtney and Nikki — have quickly cemented a sound and approach that blends hazy indie pop and dreamy textures with unfiltered storytelling. The result is material that’s much like blurry photograph, grainy yet glowing, fleeting yet full of feeling and life.

The duo’s nine-song, self-titled, full-length debut is slated for a July 10, 2026 release through Paper Bag Records. Their debut is deeply informed by the stillness of rural Manitoba, where the duo started the band as a way of processing the very strange limbo of early adulthood — that feeling of being caught between who you once were and who you’re slowly becoming. Fittingly, the album is rooted in place: in a romanticized, re-examined Winnipeg with its hard edges softened in the way that memory often soften things. Thematically, the album touches upon growing up, growing apart and growing into your own skin.

The forthcoming album’s latest single “Camera Shy” is a superficially euphoric tune that actually expresses an underlying bittersweet ache, featuring Courtney’s wistful yet dreamy delivery ethereally floating over swirling shoegazer textures and atmospheric synths. The result is a song that’s simultaneously cinematic and deeply personal — with the song describing a hazy New Year’s Eve that starts off full of promise but somehow spirals out of control, and ends somewhere you and others never intended or even wanted. The song also orbits around a tension the band knows intimately: the compulsion to document and be documents versus the desire to simply disappear into a moment. There’s an acknowledgment that being seen, and being photographed, filmed, captured comes with the territory, even when you’re not quite feeling up to it.

The band add: “It’s about a good night gone very wrong — one of those back and forth, hazy NYE nights bound for absolute disaster. It references our obsession with the ‘moment’ and ever-present FOMO, but also introduces Court’s complicated feelings towards being photographed or ‘captured,’ as it’s referred to in the song. It can get really overwhelming and all-consuming when so much of your energy is put into your physical looks, especially when you just don’t feel like being in the spotlight.”

Directed by Qran Zhu, the accompanying video for “Camera Shy” captures a young couple in love, celebrating New Year’s Eve — with all the bright hopes and dreams of the upcoming year and future before the night spirals out of control with a drunken confrontation during a sundayclub show that leaves one of our protagonists by themselves just before midnight.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 55th Birthday, Rachel Goswell!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Slowdive co-founder Rachel Goswell’s 55th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Lunar Twin Shares Broodingly Cinematic “Disappear into the Earth”

Lunar Twin — Bryce Boudreau and Chris Murphy — is a critically acclaimed duo and a JOVM mainstay act, who have established a sound that fuses dream pop and darkwave with atmospheric rock, electronic textures […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Widowspeak Returns with Swooning “Soft Cover”

New York-based indie outfit Widowspeak — Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas— are one of many bands to crop up in the busy local scene around the time I started this site, almost 16 years ago. They started out shuffling their gear between now, long-shuttered — and deeply beloved — venues like Glasslands, Cake Shop, 285 Kent, Death By Audio and a lengthy list of others, and their practice space at Monster Island Basement, which now is a Trader Joe’s. New York has fucking changed, y’all. Speaking of changes: the duo is now a married couple, working day jobs in their own off-season. Thomas is a carpenter, Hamilton a waitress. 

Recently, the duo announced that their highly-anticipated seventh album, Roses will be released June 5, 2026 through Captured Tracks. Deeply informed by their respective day jobs, Roses isn’t populated with dramatic overtures, but with the backdrop of the minutiae and repetition of daily acts. There’s the small observations before, during and after work: the ritual-like act of pouring water or coffee for customers, the bemusement and frustration of catching a cold on your only day off. Maybe you’re daydreaming about your life if you won the lottery — or maybe realizing that you already won. 

The 10-song Roses was recorded last January at the Old Carpet Factory on the Greek Island of Hydra, a studio located in an old house, tucked into the village’s steep hills. During the winter, without the rush of tourists, it’s quiet. Longtime touring members Willy Muse, John Andrews and Noah Bond were the session backing band. 

The album’s material was then taken home and slowly, lightly tinkered with before being mixed by Alex Farrar at Drop of Sun Studios and mastered by Greg Obis at Chicago Mastering. 

Throughout the album, intimate spaces and stages of love are captured with a nostalgic, almost sepia-toned, vaseline coated lens. As always, the beating heart of their work is the interplay between Hamilton’s languid, dreamy and textured delivery and Hamilton’s bluesy, visceral guitar work. 

Roses‘ will include the previously released “If You Change,” the lush and cinematic “No Driver,” and the album’s third and latest single, “Soft Cover.” “Soft Cover” is a shuffling driving and achingly gorgeous song anchored around featuring what may arguably the album’s most sweeping hooks and Hamilton’s swooning, heartfelt delivery. The song evokes both the sensation of daydreaming about someone, as you’re going about the mundane actions of your day — and the sensation of longing and hoping to see that special someone as soon as possible.

“Soft Cover” is about infatuation: wanting and daydreaming about someone as you’re going about your day… even if, and maybe especially if, you’ve been with them a long time,” says Hamilton. “We brought in a Rhodes for this one, so it came in a car from Athens, then took a boat, then a donkey carried it up to the studio,” Hamilton adds, describing the unique recording conditions they experienced at the Old Carpet Factory on the Greek island Hydra.

Directed by Otium, the accompanying video features the band’s Molly Hamilton as a singing telegram girl, who daydreams of a idealized Shakespearean/Renaissance Faire man (Robert Earl Thomas) courting her with old-timey poetry as she reads from her pulp novel. “The video is the last in the world of the trilogy, where the Singing Telegram Girl is dreaming about an idealized Renaissance Faire Guy while waiting around, reading a pulpy novel,” Hamilton says. “Rob was incredibly enthusiastic about this one because he loves medieval history and we got to pick out some fun costumes from Adele’s of Hollywood. He’s a star!”