Tag: dream pop

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Swimming Pool Shares Hazy “Wednesday Kinda Weekend”

Split between The Hague and Zürich, Swimming Pool — Klyl Shifroni and Seraina Fässler — can trace their origins back to when the duo met while studying at the Institute of Sonology, where they bonded over a shared passion for songwriting, digital synthesis and code-based composition. The project’s name is derived from a photography series featuring hurricane-damaged backyard pools, which they saw a s a metaphor for the overlooked, the fractured, and the quiet beauty of ruin.

Their collaboration was born from late-night DJ sets in abandoned garages. Those sets saw their sound expanding from instinctive improvisation intoned a layered process sharped by bowed bass textures, processed vocals and subtle sampling techniques. Through a bend of ambient minimalism, lo-fi and punk, the pair blend experimental electronics and emotionally direct songwriting to not only evoke a world that is both carefully constructed and deeply vulnerable, but also allows them to balance intimacy with abstraction and warmth with fracture.

The duo’s recently released EP Line Cuts is a slow-burning exploration of the tension between clarity and distortion, closeness and distance. Rather than delivering catharsis, the EP’s material lingers in the uneasy spaces between feelings. focusing on longing, memory, repetition and collapse.

Line Cuts EP‘s latest single “Wednesday Kinda Weekend” is a slow-burning and hazy track that features glistening, reverb-soaked shoegazer-like textures, thumping beats, a supple bass line, thunderous drum cracks serving as a lush and vibey bed for reverb and distortion-drenched vocals. While seemingly channeling Beach House, the song evokes disorientation — a sense of ethereally floating without recognition or acknowledgement of space or time.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Windsor, ON’s Talking Violet Shares “120 Minutes”-era MTV like “In Your Mind”

Windsor, ON-based quartet Talking Violet — Jillian Goyeau (vocals, guitar), Jayden Turnbull (guitar, vocals), Jeremie Brosseau (drums) and Dylan Iannicello (bass) — have quickly developed and established a sound that sees the Canadian outfit seamlessly blending elements of shoegaze, grunge and dream pop into what they’ve dubbed “dreamo.” Thematically, their work touches upon how we wrestle with the grief of personal change — especially in personal experiences.

Talking Violet’s latest single, the Justin Meli-produced, Will Yip-mastered “In Your Mind” is a breezy, 120 Minutes-era MTV-like anthem anchored around swirling shoegazer-like guitars, thunderous drumming and enormous hooks and choruses serving as a lush bed for Goyeau’s yearning delivery. Seemingly channeling The Sundays and Tallies, “In Your Mind” manages to capture a very specific sense of helplessness of loving someone through pain and uncertainty and not knowing what to do — or if you can do anything.

“I’ve had to learn over time that no matter how much you want to help people, so often it’s really out of your hands,” Talking Violet’s Goyeau says. “They have to be the ones to figure things out, but you can do what you can from a supporting line.” Interestingly, the new single continues upon the emotional thread of their recently released sophomore album Everything At Once, continuing to draw from the grief and complications of interpersonal change ,. “These tracks draw on a lot of grief of change, most specifically, the grief of relationship changes in our lives,” Goyeau explains. “I was going through changes that I now see as necessary but were incredibly painful at the time. It made me realize how much I had depended on my relationships with others for my identity. I had to slowly relearn who I was—and spent the next few years healing my people-pleasing baseline. It’s still something I work on every day.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Winter Teams Up With Tanukichan on Woozy “Hide-A-Lullaby”

Currently, based here in New York, Samira Winter, best known as the mononymic Winter, is a Curitiba, Brazil-born, singer/songwriter, guitarist and bandleader, who cut her teeth playing in her first bands in Boston. Winter relocated to Los Angeles in 2013 and fell in love with the city. She quickly found a sense of belonging in its DIY rock community – the basement of her longtime Echo Park home was host to countless shows and even her first practices — and she grew attached to the city’s cosmic, inspiring aura. But at a certain point, the Brazilian-born artist craved a change of scenery to facilitate self-growth, a painful but necessary realization that inspired — and brought about — a move to NYC.

2022’s What Kind of Blue Are You? was in her words “a total reset” — a dark, healing and intensely personal effort. which firmly cemented the Brazilian-born artist’s unique musical language. As she was beginning to confront the end of her decade-plus long stint in Los Angeles, she was overcome by waves of memories and nostalgia, which helped to stir feelings of deep, pure-hearted reverence for her 20s — catching shows at The Echo, driving through Southern California, the seemingly never ending sun. . .

Winter’s highly-anticipated, Joo Joo Ashworth-produced Adult Romantix is slated for an August 22, 2025 release through her new label home Winspear. Instead of exorcising personal demons, the Brazilian-born artist visited the ghosts of heartfelt memories, which had spilled into her present reality. Chronically an emotional cross-country move, the album was written across a two year period in which she found herself in a transitory, almost nomadic state: frequently in between tours, in different cities and in various sublets. In many ways, the album is reportedly a farewell love letter to her time in Los Angeles — and perhaps to her 20s. Winter describes the album as a “tunneler of summers and memories” inspired by romantic-period books like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and 90s rom-coms, with the material indulging in heady melodrama and romantic and platonic longing — while embracing a lighthearted, youthful innocence.

Adult Romantix‘s final, pre-release single “Hide-A-Lullaby” feat. Tanukichan is a smoldering and woozy bit of dream pop that channels 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock, while seemingly evoking the dizzying giddiness of a summer love affair that you hope will last forever — even if you know, deep down, that nothing lasts forever.

“The song explores themes of the inner self-sabotager, the secrets hidden in the corners of the mind, and the dark forest as a symbol for the subconscious,” Winter explains. “It was amazing to have Hannah van Loon (Tanukichan) sing this one with me—her velvety, whispery voice perfectly complements the song’s haunted, mysterious romantic imagery.”

The accompanying video directed by David Milan Kelly features the band performing in the L.A. river, interspersed with narrative sections inspired by the album’s fictional story of an indie rock romance set during a lost L.A. summer. The second half of the video features documentary-styled interviews with Winter and local visual artists discussing their creative processes and inspirations.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Dream Bodies Shares Brooding and Road Trip Friendly “Run”

Steven Fleet is a Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, poet, writer and artist, who has been in several music projects that have allowed him to play shows across the US, the UK, Germany and the Czech Republic. He is also the creative mastermind behind the solo recording project Dream Bodies. With Dream Bodies, Fleet crafts “witchy, dreamy, gothy, post punk, dream pop, cold wave with poetic, philosophical lyrics.” 

The Los Angeles-based artist’s recently Dream Bodies debut EP, Circle of Light features the previously released “Dream Hangover,” and the EP’s latest single, EP title track “Circle of Light,” which I wrote about earlier this year.

Fleet’s latest single, “Run” is presumably a standalone track that sees him further cementing the project’s sound and approach — Cocteau Twins-like reverb, relentless motorik pulse paired serving as a brooding bed for the Los Angeles-based artist’s sonorous baritone croon. But thematically, “Run” may arguably be the most road trip friendly track of Fleet’s steadily growing catalog.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Dutch Mustard Shares Breakneck and Escapist “Life”

Dutch-born, London-based artist Sarah-Jayne “SJ” Riedel is the creative mastermind behind the rising indie recording project Dutch Mustard. With Dutch Mustard, Riedel blends ethereal dream pop, 90s alt-rock with shoegaze touches to create a soundscape that features painterly and swirling guitar textures while the Dutch-born artist’s vocals drift between a near whisper and yearning, heavenly arching shouts. 

Riedel and Dutch Mustard exploded into the British scene with the release of 2022’s debut EP An Interpretation of Depersonalisation, an effort that was featured by the BBC while receiving airplay on BBC Radio 1’s Future Artists with Jack Saunders and a co-sign from the legendary Iggy Pop.

2023’s sophomore EP,  Beauty received airplay from BBC Radio 6’s Lauren Laverne and co-signs from Don Letts and Amy Lamé. Adding to a growing profile, The Independent, The Line of Best Fit, Clash, Dork and Notion have all covered her — and The Grammy Awards selected her a one of 6 Female Fronted Acts Reviving Rock, along with Wet Leg. 

Since then, the Dutch-born, London-based artist has been busy: She has released a couple of singles — two of which I’ve written about here: “Loser” and “Dreaming,” which was released earlier this year. She followed that up with her Stateside debut at The New Colossus Festival earlier this year. Building upon a growing international profile, Riedel’s latest single, the Dean James Barrett, Craigie Dodds and Riedel co-written “Life” is a breakneck, Brit Pop meets industrial punk-like track anchored around taut, skittering beats and buzzing power chord-driven riffs that continues a run of material that showcases her unerring knack for crafting catchy, rousingly anthemic hooks. While being one of the punchiest songs of her growing catalog, “Life,” as she says “is the soundtrack to that heartbreak you should’ve seen coming, when everything gets so chaotic and absurd, all you want to do is tap out for a minute.”

Directed by Josiah Newbolt, the accompanying video is split between gritty black and white shot footage of Riedel and her backing band out in the streets, as we follow her to a studio for a carefully choreographed dance routine. The result is an urgent and vivid fever dream.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: South of France Teams Up with Little Trips and Grace DeVine on Sugary and Coquettish “Sugar Rush”

Led by Denver-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and creative mastermind Jeff Cormack, South of France is an indie pop project that sees Cormack and collaborators specializing in a groovy, beat-driven take on escapist, vacation pop. 

Cormack’s South of France work has been featured in a number of smash-hit TV shows, including Bojack Horseman and Shameless while receiving praise from American Songwriter, NPR, Rolling Stone and others. And adding to a growing profile, Cormack and his collaborators have opened for a growing list of acclaimed acts including, Portugal. The Man, Young The Giant, Flaming Lips, Michigander, Tennis, Zella Day and others.

Cormack’s forthcoming South of France album My Spirit Animal, My Baggage is reportedly one-part solo album and one-part collaborative effort with a series of vocalists, emcees and musicians. I’ve managed to write about four album singles:

Cormack’s latest South of France single, the Greg Laut co-produced “Sugar Rush” is a saccharine sweet, coquettish and breezy bop that features Grace DeVine’s ethereal cooing floating over a trippy and blissed-out, psych pop-influenced groove. “Sugar Rush” continues a remarkable run of summery and escapist pop that showcases Cormack’s unerring knack for funky grooves and catchy hooks.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms
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News/Announcements: FME Announces 2025 Venue Showcase Lineups

FME announces the venue showcase lineups for the 2025 edition.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Tan Cologne Team Up With Trentemøller on a Minimalist and Dreamy Rework of “In Resin”

Enigmatic Taos, NM-based duo Tan Cologne — Lauren Green and Marissa Macias — released their third album Unknown Beyond last month through Labrador Records. Unlike their previously released material, Unknown Beyond sees Green and Macias reaching for the heavens and an intangible greater existence; the infinite and unexplainable while embracing the beauty of timeless uncertainty. 

Written, performed and recorded entirely by the duo at their Taos, New Mexico-based home, the album found the pair seeking solitude and retreat as they attempted to come to terms with the personal loss of family, friends and childhood homes — within a relatively short period of time. The album’s creative process quickly became a therapeutic outlet for grieving, dealing, changing and understanding new life transitions and ways of being, with each track being a part of the story of the entire album. 

The album’s material is centered around a more spiritual process. “We looked for signs and signals during the recording process” the duo says in press notes. “If we saw a shooting star, imagined a fire burning on a hill, or remembered an old satellite dish in someone’s yard, we explored that lyrically. Those visual guides became our pathways to the album. They were the signs to move forward.”

Interweaving and layering hypnotic beats, hazy shoegazer textures, abstract live drum patterns and sounds of searching for signals — of comfort and communication — from the invisible web, Unknown Beyond may arguably be their most immersive and emotive work to date. 

In the lead up to the album’s I written about three of the album’s previously release singles, “Cloud of Mirrors,” “Infinity“ and “Cool Star.”

The duo recently teamed up with Trentemøller on a reworking of Unknown Beyond closing track “In Resin.” The album track is a slow-burning and hazy tune featuring swirling, almost painterly, reverb-drenched, shoegazer guitar textures. While recalling A Storm In Heaven, the arrangement serves as a lush bed for Green’s and Macias’ dreamily ethereal harmonies.

The Trentemøller reworking retains the duo’s dreamily ethereal harmonies but replaces most of the shoegazer guitar textures with a looping, twinkling and eerily beautiful piano figure, which emphasizes the mysterious vibe of the song while giving it an old-timey feel and sound.

“In Resin” encapsulates the entire project thematically, as well as the duo’s experiences over the lat few years. “It talks about being everything once and then being it all again, and living several lives at the same time,” the band says. “‘In Resin’ is a special track that we spiritually found ourselves oscillating between leaving it as a rare gem to discover on the album or presenting as a focus,” they continue. “We opted for the mystery, but Trentemøller dove into it.”
 
The band expands, “A few years ago, Trentemøller connected with us and our sound. Now into the present and future, he offered to rework one of our tracks from our new album and selected ‘In Resin.’ He finished the new interpretation while we were on tour together in Europe. We feel our music is a communication and we are honored to continue ‘In Resin’’s sonic conversation with Trentemøller.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sex Week Shares Brooding and Lynchian “Lone Wolf”

Brooklyn-based indie duo Sex Week — collaborative and romantic partners Richard Orofino and Pearl Amanda Dickson — can trace their origins back to 2022: Orofino, a prolific musician and producer since he was in grade school, feel in love with Dickson’s taste through a wildly eclectic playlist she made for his roommate. Orofino excelled at, “honing structural strangeness into something more recognizable,” as he put it. And Dickson’s precocious perspective and natural appetite for the stranger corners of music was an uncannily natural fit.

Their innate creative chemistry led to the whirlwind writing and recording of their self-titled, debut EP, which received praise from Rolling Stone, PAPER Magazine, Nylon Magazine, Paste Magazine, Consequence and a lengthy list of others.

The Brooklyn duo’s recently announced new EP Upper Mezzanine is slated for an August 1, 2025 release through Grand Jury Music. “The approach for Upper Mezzanine felt more inquisitive,” Sex Week’s Pearl Amanda Dickson says. Where the music of their debut felt like momentary glimpses of something scary and exciting, the EP reportedly feels far more visceral, each track a focused punch delivered directly from the gut. “I still want people to be singing along and taking the melodies away with them, but the darkness of the EP is obviously there,” Dickson says. “The world is scary right now. I’m scared in lots of ways, and I think that omnipresent feeling definitely snuck into Upper Mezzanine.” 

The duo’s DIY ethos sees them firmly dedicated to helming multiple aspects of each release, including designing the art and making music videos themselves. But the EP sees Dickson learning to use her novel songwriting approach as a sort of superpower. “It’s not second nature to me yet,” she says. “So I’m always wanting to do more and be more involved than I have the capability to. And somehow at the same time, I still have the gusto to say ‘no that’s not it’ or ‘yes, that’s it.'”

The EP also sees Orofino continuing to harness his ability to make the alien feel somehow universal. “I feel it stretched me out wide creating these songs with peal and it just made me feel excited and hopeful that things can be weird and also totally accessible if you allow yourself to just be open.”

Upper Mezzanine‘s latest single “Lone Wolf,” is a brooding and eerily atmospheric tune that simultaneously channels David Lynch soundtracks and Me Moan and Carnation-era Daughn Gibson with the song featuring swirling, spectral harmonies, reverb-soaked twangy guitar. The duo’s individual verses capture an uneasily tense relationship at the brink.

The duo explain that “‘Lone Wolf’ is about communication and testing the limits of a relationship.” The accompanying self-directed video for the new single is fittingly a Lynchian fever dream.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Club 8 Returns with Shimmering and Yearning “Born The Wrong Time”

Last year, Stockholm-based JOVM mainstays Club 8 — Karolina Komstedt (vocals) and electronic music producer, artist and Labrador Records founder and label boss Johan Angergård — released their 11th album, A Year With Club 8, which featured the Joy Division/New Order-meets-The Raveonettes-like “Something’s Wrong With My Head,” a woozily blissful and escapist song that continued a run of material dabbling in 80s New Wave nostalgia. 

The duo have been busy, releasing a single every month throughout the course of this year. including “ooo,” “None Of This Will Matter When You’re Dead” and “Staying Alive,” which I wrote about on this site.

The duo’s latest single “Born The Wrong Time” is a slow-burning and dreamy track that reminds me a bit of a lush synthesis of JOVM mainstays Still Corners, The Sundays and Souvlaki-era Slowdive paired with Konstedt’s yearning vocal, nostalgic longing for a seemingly simpler time.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 59th Birthday, Hope Sandoval!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Hope Sandoval’s 59th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: San Diego’s moondaddy Shares Gauzy “Bystander”

Fronted by producer, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Cara Poticker, the San Diego-based dream pop outfit moondaddy traces its origins to the eerily uneasy quiet of the COVID-19 pandemic. And as a result, the band embraces the age-old maxim that the only certainty in life is uncertainty.

With the release of their full-length debut, 2023’s Poet Lies, the project attempts to meet the haze of existence with a kaleidoscopic sound that provides peace — especially — when all else feels like chaos. Poet Lies saw the band quickly establishing a sound featuring glistening guitar, gauzy synths and dulcet vocals singing dreamily poetic observations while drawing from sheogaze, dream pop and trip hop.

Since then, the San Diego-based dream pop outfit has gone on a sold-out tout with DeVotchKa and opened for the likes of Beabadoobee, Peel Dream Magazine and King Hannah. Building upon a growing local and regional profile, the band has headlined some of their hometown’s tastemaking venues, including The Casbah and others.

Last year’s Lightwave Lightwave EP laid the foundation for what may arguably be the band’s most immersive and expressive effort to date, their sophomore album Dove Tapes, which is slated for release later this year. Both Lightwave Lightwave EP and Dove Tapes was produced by producer/engineer Manuel Calderon at Tornillo, TX-based Sonic Ranch and recorded live to tape. The material was mastered directly to lacquer by Paul Gold at Salt Mastering.

Dove Tapes‘ first single “Bystander” is a lush, breathtakingly gorgeous tune that seemingly recalls a synthesis of early 90s shoegaze and Beach House with swirling and glistening, reverb soaked guitar textures, gauzy and atmospheric synths and skittering and shuffling beats serving as a dreamy bed for Poticker’s remarkably Victoria Legrand-like vocal. Throughout “Bystander” expresses a woozy, desperately yearning lovesickness that’s both frustratingly unfulfilled and unrequited.

Directed by Sylvie Lake, the accompanying video for “Bystander” is fittingly a hazy and kaleidoscopic, half-remembered dream that’s just out of reach.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: PANIK FLOWER Shares Brooding and Uneasy “rearview”

Formed back in 2022 through a combination of chance introductions and long-time friendships, Brooklyn-based indie outfit PANIK FLOWER — Sage Leopold (vocals), Mila Stieglitz-Courtney (guitar, vocals), Jordan Buzzell (guitar), Max Baird (bass) and Marco Starger (drums) — have firmly cemented a sound that mixes dream pop with an understated heaviness. The result is a unique soundscape featuring soft and dreamy harmonies, hard-hitting instrumentals and cutting lyricism that evokes the hazy nostalgia of distant memories of love, loss and identity.

Through playing shows around the New York Metropolitan area, the band quickly developed a fanbase and reputation for their live show. Building upon a growing reputation, the band released their Carl Bespolka-produced debut EP, 2023’s Dark Blue.

The rising Brooklyn-based outfit’s sophomore EP, the recently released. six-song rearview is deeply rooted in intentional juxtaposition. Thematically, rearview EP sees the band looking inward to explore identity; namely the dichotomous nature of uncertainty and self-acceptance paired with a lush yet jagged soundscape.

“This EP felt like a lot of us finding ourselves as a band — our sound and how we perform,” the band’s Max Baird shared. “Sage’s spoken word has become such an important part of that and we really wanted to explore it in this project. It contributes a lot to the push-pull dynamic of our music, often adding another rhythmic element on top of an already lush, sonic landscape. Many of the bones of these tracks were brought to us by our drummer Marco, who was our missing piece up until early last year.”

The EP’s latest single, EP title track “rearview” is a stormy and uneasy take on 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock anchored around a wall of shimmering and swirling shoegazer-like guitar, explosive hi-hat driven drumming paired with Leopold’s unhinged wailing. And at its core, “rearview” explores a barely contained simmering rage over being taken advantage of, of being made a fool, and of having to maneuver in the aftermath of an embittering, humiliating experience.

Directed by Harleigh Shaw, the accompanying video for “rearview” is a brooding, horror movie-influenced visual that at one point that features the band’s Leopold as a “final girl” being chased by a relentless pursuer.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Moon Construction Kit Shares Breezy “Long John Silver”

Olivier Cornu is a Swiss-based singer/songwriter, musician, producer and creative mastermind behind Moon Construction Kit, a project that sees him drawing from indie pop, psych pop, synth pop, late 60s pop and cinematic textures.

Cornu released his self-tiled Moon Construction Kit debut EP back in 2022. His latest single “Long John Silver” is languorous, lullaby of a tune featuring twinkling keys, shimmering synths, booming drums paired with the Swiss artist’s dreamy delivery and an incredibly catchy hook. The result is a song that feels breezily effortless yet carefully crafted.

Sonically, “Long John Silver” is anchored around a nostalgia inducing, retro-futuristic production that feels simultaneously intimate and cinematic, while delving into — and evoking — the narrator’s shifting and complicated nature.