Tag: electro pop

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Mother Soki Shares Atmospheric “Mussel”

Minneapolis-based singer/songwriter Annie Tammeru is the creative mastermind behind the rising dream pop/electro pop recording project Mother Soki. Tammeru’s Mother Soki project received attention with last year’s “Rivet Gun,” a track built around beguiling, otherworldly textures and production paired with the Minneapolis-based artist’s velvety vocals caught the attention of millions across social media platforms, amassing over 26 million streams on Spotify.

Quickly building upon the growing momentum, Tammeru closed out last year with her debut EP, Fantasy, which she supported with a fall tour opening for Towa Bird.

The Minneapolis-based artist’s sophomore EP, Act 2 is slated for a November 20, 2026 release through Mom + Pop. Working with producers Jack Pfeffer and Bradley Hale, Tammeru set out to make something “uncanny and uncomfortable, that’s also very beautiful and digestible.” She goes on to describe the EP as a list of mantras and counter-mantras tied to the same world,” with repeated thoughts that mirror a ruminating mind. Sonically, sterile, computer-recorded stems were run through a multitrack tape machine, with speed adjusted on the fly, to pick up analog artifacts — and to blur past and present. Her mood board for the EP included The Cocteau Twins, Prince and Joni Mitchell’s experimental 80s records to David Lynch and the puppetry of The Neverending Story and Labyrinth.

“I like to think of Act 2 as like a journal entry,” Tammearu says. “I think it really speaks to where I’m at right now — I’m sort of at a crossroads of becoming a person.”

The EP will include the previously released “The Rot” and “Thicken,” as well as the EP’s third and latest single “Mussel.” Sounding a bit like a Jorge Elbrecht-produced tune, “Mussel” is built around atmospheric downbeat synths, twinkling electronics and crackling and metallic beats beneath Tammeru’s delicate delivery singing the mantra “Nothing’s ever gonna change” until it stops sounding like a statement and stars sounding more like an incurable symptom.

Tammeru says of the new single “Everything is different. Everything is the same.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Allegories Return with Ethereal “Glorious Vanity”

Canadian experimental pop duo and JOVM mainstays Allegories — childhood friends Adam Bentley and Jordan Mitchell — just released their newest album, By accident, On purpose on this past Friday.

The album includes ““Honestly, that’s enough honesty” “They’ll Never Suspect Us” “Pure Comedy” and the album’s latest single “Glorious Vanity.” Arguably, one of By accident, On Purpose‘s most minimalist and ethereal songs, “Glorious Vanity” serves as one of the more extreme examples of the JOVM mainstay’s experimental creative process with only the title remaining from the initial composition. The result is song that’s a hauntingly eerie, slow-burning, half-remembered dream rooted in palpable yearning.

The song captures the duo’s willingness to abandon a predetermined designation that largely came to define the album. Rather than ruthlessly potting their original idea, the duo allowed instinct and experimentation to dictate what the song needed to become, crafting a weightless entry point into the album.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Total Fucking Darkness Shares Yearning, Pop Gem “This Is The Last Time”

Electronic music outfit and JOVM mainstays Total Fucking Darkness features: 

Over the past 18 months or so, the trio have released a handful of standalone singles, including “Desolation Boys,” “Take It Easy,” “Give Me Everything You Own” “Horizontal Rain” and “Beaten to Write.” Their latest single “This Is The Last Time” is glistening sophistipop-meets-80s New Wave-meets New Order-like tune anchored around what may arguably be the most melodic and the most earnest and achingly oversized yearning song of the trio’s growing catalog.

Sonically, “This Is The Last Time” sees the JOVM mainstays looking backward to move forward. Campbell, Ramsey and McFall have had a long-held obsession with late 1980s and early 1990s electronic music, and the new single pushes that fixation towards its biggest pop-leaning instincts. There aren’t software shortcuts hiding beneath the surface either. “No plug-ins, anywhere. This track is all analog, baby.”

When asked what inspired it, Total Fucking Darkness’ Stephen Ramsey offers a characteristically economic answer, “New Order.”

“This Is The Last Time” arrived with similarly little ceremony. Ramsay had barely made it through the instrumental once before Torquil Campbell had the lyrics ready. “It may as well be called ‘Real Time’ because Torq wrote this in real time,” Ramsay explains. “By the time I played him the instrumental once, he had written the lyrics.”

“‘This Is The Last Time” is about the point where letting go becomes forward motion, following whatever dream remains, committing to it completely, and accepting that the only sensible response to uncertainty is to set your heart on fire — and see what survives.

“Every band says their latest music is the best thing they’ve ever done,”the band’s Stephen Ramsay says. “It’s obviously cliché at this point and therefore categorically untrue in almost all cases, but I’m telling you, this is the best song we’ve written.”

The accompanying video features edited footage from some movie that follows two dogs, who are in love. It’s adorable.

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rhythm Scholar Remixes Gorillaz’s “Clint Eastwood”

Over the course of this site’s 16+ year history, I’ve managed to spill a lot of virtual ink covering the ridiculously prolific New York-based producer, DJ, remixer and JOVM mainstay Rhythm Scholar. During that period, the long-time JOVM mainstay has carefully built a nationally and internationally recognized profile for slickly produced, crowd-pleasing mashups and remixes of some of the most beloved songs ever written and recorded.

So do y’all want to feel extremely old? Gorillaz’s landmark self-titled album was released 25 years ago. And to celebrate the occasion, the JOVM mainstay has given the Damon Albarn-led project’s breakthrough single “Clint Eastwood,” his unique remix treatment. The Rhythm Scholar Beatslinger remix places Albarn and Del The Funky Homosapien‘s vocals within a dizzying and mind-bending array of samples including Ice Cube and Da Lench Mob.

Visually, the accompanying video features footage from Clint Eastwood-era Spaghetti Westerns, Yo Gabba Gabba, The Kinks, footage of a young Jane Goodall in the field, Donkey Kong, the original video for “Clint Eastwood,” Dirty Harry, old-timey cartoons and a lot more.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 71st Birthday, Philip Oakey!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates The Human League vocalist and keyboardist Philip Oakey’s 71st birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: 50/50 Shares Punchy and Anthemic “Memories Linger”

Archival label Light in the Attic will be presenting the work of 50/50, a wildly prolific and talented British pop duo finally poised to get their due — nearly half a century after their inception. Formed back in the late 70s, 50/50 was the studio project of Richard Haines and David Cowlees, whose unique blend of irresistible synth-forward pop and classic 60s British songwriting with thoughtful, imaginative lyricism should have propelled to the top of the charts — and to be household names. Instead, due to a variety of circumstances beyond their control, they never received the promotion or attention they deserved.

Drawn from a trove of more than 150 recordings made between 1979 and 1985, Memories Linger will be the British duo’s first-ever studio album, introducing the act through 12 songs — of which were previously unreleased. Slated for a December 4, 2026 vinyl and digital release, Memories Linger was newly mastered by multi-Grammy-nominated engineer John Baldwin and will include a wealth of archival imagery and photos from Cowles’ and Haines’ personal collections, along with new liner notes by London-based broadcaster and writer Charles Donovan. Designed by Darryl Norsen, the LP edition will feature a 12-page booklet.

The story of 50/50 is, at its core, about a deep and abiding friendship — one forged in the late 70s between multi-instrumentalist Richard Haines and vocalist David Cowles during informal jam sessional a Reigate, Surrey, UK-based studio. Along with a love of 60s and 70s rock, the pair shared a keen interest in the era’s evolving electronic instrumentation and the emerging sounds of synth pop and New Wave. By the start of the 80s, they settled into a comfortable songwriting partnership. calling themselves 50/50. The name, writes Charles Donovan, “worked on multiple levels, reflecting the democratic split of the songwriting partnership but also the friendship [and] its qualities of support.” 

While both men maintained successful careers — Cowles is in real estate and Haines in AV — and were busy with their young families, they dedicated several nights a week to writing and making music. “The sheer joy of Dave and I coming up with music in my studio was fantastic,” recalls Haines. Working with an array of synthesizers including the Korg Micro-Preset and Korg Polysix, the duo settled on their sound. “You can hear the different threads of the pair’s diverse influences—from prog to rock, singer/songwriter to synth-pop—coming together to form a singular and distinctive fabric,” Donovan notes. “David’s crisp, imaginative lyrics…[and] Richard’s intricate music—sometimes bright and uptempo, but just as often haunting and coolly mysterious—evokes an array of moods. It’s the perfect partnership.”

With the encouragement of Genesis manager Tony Smith, the duo continued their songwriting and in 1982 signed a publishing deal with Bocu Music, the then-home of ABBA, Colin Bluestone and Johnny Logan. There, the duo released a handful of singles including 1982’s “Memories Linger”/”Just Can’t Win,” and 1983’s “Talk Too Much”/”I Saw The Future.” But they repeatedly ran into creative differences with producers and often found themselves unsatisfied with the final masters. Despite positive feedback from industry heavyweights and the press, as well as several high-profile writing opportunities, the duo struggled mightily to gain a foothold. By 1985, after a string of frustrating setbacks, their musical ambitions were somewhat thwarted, but their friendship continued.

More than 150 recordings sat unheard for decades. In the subsequent years that followed, encouraged by their grown children, Haines and Cowles sought to regain control of their work. A 2024 Record Collector article featuring the duo caught the attention of US-based writer Mike Sacks, who then reached out to Light In The Attic founder and co-owner Matt Sullivan, who was immediately taken with 50/50’s music, eventually leading to the December release of their first-ever album — a thoughtfully sequenced collection of 12 songs written over the course of their musical career, and produced exactly as they intended.

Currently Haines runs a successful, East Sussex-based photo restoration business while the Isle of Wight-based Cowles is a retired hotelier. But thanks to the renewed attention on the 50/50, the longtime friends have returned to the studio together for the first time in decades. And yet, the memories of their heyday remain among their most cherished.

“Dave and I had something incredibly special going on,” says Haines. “Yes we worked hard up in my studio but above all we had the most fun, the biggest laughs and the best friendship which led to magic happening. Dave and I have always believed so strongly in the songs we created and are hugely proud of our body of work.”

Cowles adds, “Before I met Richard I was in a very dark place and I hate to think where I would be now if our paths hadn’t crossed. Much of our music was created during those difficult times. I believe that due to his kindness, friendship and, most of all, amazing musical ability, we have produced this stunning body of work. We are still sifting through ideas we recorded some 45 years ago with as much enthusiasm now as we had then. The only difference now is I can honestly say I’ve found a lifelong friend and soulmate.”

Along with the album announcement, the duo and Light in the Attic have shared Memories Linger‘s first single, album title track “Memories Linger.” Sounding a bit like a seamless blend of Split Enz, The Buggles and The Kinks, “Memories Linger” is a punchy anthem that showcases thee duo’s ability to pair incredibly catchy hooks with thoughtful, lived-in lyricism and seemingly effortless craftsmanship.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rose Gray Shares Anthemic “Blink Twice”

Rising Walthamstow, UK-born dance pop artist Rose Gray has lived her life through club music — from cloakroom shifts to dance floor epiphanies. And that spirit infuses her work with hedonism, honesty and a lot of heart.

Her long-awaited full-length debut, last year’s Louder, Please, which featured “Party People,” “Free,” “Angel of Satisfaction,” “Switch” and “Wet and Wild” was released through Play It Again Sam. Praised for its breadth of collaborators, including Justin Tranter, Zhone, Sega Bodega, Ulfie and Alex Metric, Louder, Please saw the British artist channeling the chaos, catharsis and clarity of the dance floor into a kaleidoscopic vision that meshes classic pop with rave while quickly establishing her as one of the UK’s most exciting new dance artists. Along with the album, the rising British artist collaborated with Ben Hemsley on “Tidal,” Megra on “Elixir” and TSHA on “Girls.“

Adding to a breakthrough 2025, Gray opened for Charli xcx at London’s LIDO Festival. She played Glastonbury with Shygirl. She recorded a BBC Maida Vale live session. She also played her first ever UK headlining tour. She launched her own club night, Gray Selects. And she won a MTV Push Artist of 2025 Award. That summer, she played US dates with Kesha and Scissor Sisters. And she closed out the year with last October’s A Little Louder, Please, the deluxe edition of Louder, Please, which featured two previously unreleased tracks, “April” and “Lotus” and an additional disc of remixes with features from JADE, Melanie C, Shygirl and Casey MQ, as well as string versions of and club edits from Logic1000, Peach, Clementaum and Alex Chapman.

This year has seen the rising British artist build upon that momentum: Earlier this year, she played her second, sold-out North American tour, which included dates opening for Kesha and Scissor Sisters.. She recently made a run of the European festival circuit, playing sets at Primavera Sound, Boomtown and Leeds, which also included an opening slot for Lorde at All Points East. And she collaborated with Demi Lovato on “Joshua Tree.”

This past July, she released the two-track EP “Club To Your Arms“/”Just Be Bodies,” which offers a taste of what’s to come for the rising artist. And during all of this, she signed to Polydor Records.

Gray’s latest single “Blink Twice” is a rousingly anthemic, euphoric banger that’s a seamless blend of 80s and 90s dance pop, 90s Big Beat, house music and hyper pop that showcases the rising artist’s unerring knack for incredibly catchy hooks paired with earnest, lived-in lyrics, informed and influenced by her own experiences. And as a result, the song expresses a mix of awe, wonder, gratitude and luck that comes about from a whirlwind period in which hard work, dedication and moxie have finally seemed to pay off. But there’s also an awareness that even whirlwind, massive success can be fleeting.

“God, I love this song. It’s all chaos, love and emotion. I’ve been feeling so alive lately, more than ever,” Gray says. “This last year has moved so fast, and I’ve met so many incredible people along the way. Sometimes it hits me that I’m actually doing everything I ever dreamed of..touring the world, making music, playing the clubs I used to wait in line for. With all of that comes a little bit of fear too. I want it so bad, and I also don’t wanna lose it. Blink… and you might just miss it. I wanted to write a song about it.”

Paying homage to some of the classics of Gray’s upbringing, the track is also a full circle moment as it appears on the soundtrack for EA Sports 26/27. “This song reminds me of some of my favourite music I grew up on,” Gray adds. “Primal Scream, Basement Jaxx, maybe even a little bit of Britpop in its energy. I don’t really know what exact genre it is; it kinda bends between a few.”

The accompanying, stylishly shot visual for “Blink Twice” features the rising British artist in a suburban home vamping and dancing like a pop star before moving out — presumably for good.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Allegories Return with Atmospheric and Uneasy “Pure Comedy”

Canadian experimental pop duo and JOVM mainstays Allegories — childhood friends Adam Bentley and Jordan Mitchell — will be releasing their newest album, By accident, On purpose on October 16, 2026. 

The new album will include “Honestly, that’s enough honesty” “They’ll Never Suspect Us” and the album’s latest single “Pure Comedy.” “Pure Comedy” shifts through dream pop, indie rock, ambient electronic music and electro pop with settling into any easily identifiable genre or style while restlessly vacillating between optimism and pessimism, intimacy and aggression, hope and resignation. And it’s all done in a way that feels grounded in the psychological realism of a world that’s gone as mad as ours.

By accident, On purpose‘s latest single evolved alongside the album, with the JOVM mainstay outfit working on the song throughout the years-long writing and recording process. Rather than discarding each previous incarnation as the track gradually changed shape, fragments survived, leaving different eras of the song’s creation embedded within the finished track.

“This is the song that I think best represents our new album,” Allegories’ Adam Bentley explains. ” “There are elements from many different iterations of the song still in there, and sonically, it feels like it touches on the kaleidoscope of sounds and genres that the record eventually became.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul Share a Shimmering, Uneasy and Confrontational Ode to Motherhood

Acclaimed Belgian duo Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul‘s latest single, the Pupul and Soulwax co-produced “GOOGOO GAGA” is the duo’s first release since 2022’s widely acclaimed full-length debut, Topical Dancer. Built around a restless, uneasy production that seemingly blends Timbaland’s classic and beloved 90s era, footwork, hyper pop and deep house featuring tweeter and woofer rattling thump and shimmering synths beneath Adigéry’s unique delivery which manages to be ironic and earnest within a turn of a phrase.

“GOOGOO GAGA” finds Adigéry giving voice to the relentless rhythms of caring for a young child: feeding and carrying, crying and sleeping, mess and repetition, guilt and uncertainty. Thematically, the song explores the largely invisible work of parenthood and of motherhood, the endless small acts of care alongside the much larger questions that accompanying them: How do you protect a child without allowing fear to dictate their life? How do you learn to be a parent while you are already parenting? And what happens to the idea that raising a child “takes a village” when so much of that responsibility is still experienced alone?

”It takes a village, and yet you’re doing it alone. This record was made as we both became parents: ‘Googoo Gaga’ is about feeling drained, the self-sacrifice, the overwhelm, yet embracing all of it,” the Belgian duo explain.

Directed by Lennert Madou, the accompanying video extends the song’s central questions of motherhood into a wider meditation of race, gender and their relationship to power — by referencing the Flemish folkloric figure De Mammelokker, a legend embedded into the folklore of the duo’s hometown of Ghent, and itself derived from the ancient story of Roman Charity. In the De Mammelokker tale, a prisoner condemned to starvation is kept alive when his daughter secretly breastfeeds him during her visits.

The video remains the tale with a Black woman (Adigéry) feeding an elderly white man, which transforms an image of nature into something uncomfortable and confrontational. In Madou and the Belgian duo’s interpretation, care is not synonymous with submission. And as a result, the video asks who is expected to nourish whom. whose labor sustains existing power structures and what happens when person who’s traditionally underestimated within that structure becomes a source of survival.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Locust Shares Yearning “Love Stays”

Mark Van Hoen is a London-born and based electronic music artist, who has written, recorded and released music with his best-known project Locust, with Autocreation and under his own name. Originally influenced by Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream and others, Van Horn’s music career started in earnest back in 1993 hen he signed with  Belgian-based label R&S. His initial releases as Locust saw him using vintage analog synthesizers and tape recorders. But as his sound moved towards an increasingly vocal orientated approach in the late 1990s, he also began releasing material under his own name. 

Van Hoen also collaborated with Slowdive’s Neil Halstead in Black Hearted Brother, a project that released their debut Stars Are Our Home in 2013. 

The London-born and-based electronic music artist’s latest Locust album. the 10-song, Spectral + was released last week through TODO Records. The album follows significant anticipation from fans of the project since Van Hoen assembled a new live band featuring musician and KCRW/NTS Radio DJ Olive Kimoto (vocals, keys), Derek Mabra (guitar) and Jaelyn Valero (drums). The Locust live band played their first shows last year, the project’s first live shows since opening for Massive Attack back in the 1990s. And since then, the project has fleshed out and road-tested the material, which would eventually comprise Spectral + – with some portions of the material developed further onstage. “We’re establishing this identity as a live band — we’ve really bonded, all really good friends, all rooting for it,” Locust creative mastermind Mark Van Hoen says. “People can see we’re a tight band, they’re not hired hands.”

The albums’s material moves between oceanic drone and pop songcraft, threading orchestral stings and understated guitars through Van Hoen’s signature synth work. The seems him working with the sound that helped create IDM in the 90s while finding new shapes to move in.  “This record contains a broad spectrum of songs that are an assimilation of my influences and my own earlier music,” Van Hoen says. ” It’s contemplative, sometimes melancholy, sometimes abrasive and pastoral.” The album’s tile reflects the sheer variation, the range of color across the album’s songs.

“Olive Kimoto (vocals, keyboards) instigated all this.,” Van Hoen says of his collaborations with Kimoto. “I was playing a solo show in September 2024, and she came to that – she had been running a club called Heaven or Los Angeles, a Cocteau Twins reference which I immediately liked. We met, and she said how much she liked my music. She did a two-hour radio special with me on my music, and we decided to collaborate.”

Spectral + includes the previously released “Long Distance Lover,” a collaboration with Slowdive‘s Neil Halstead and Natasha Morrow and the album’s latest single “Love Stays.” “Love Stays” features a seemingly Surrender-era The Chemical Brothers-like production of twinkling keys and skittering and chugging boom bap beneath guest vocalist Omotola’s soulful and yearning delivery singing lyrics about love and working things out.

The video by Locust’s Mark Van Hoen features Omotola as a spectral and technicolor siren, singing the song’s lyrics directly to the viewer.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Trentemøller and Mew’s Jonas Bjerre Team Up on Shimmering and Anthemic “Terrified”

Anders Trentemøller’s self-titled eighth Trentemøller album is slated for a November 13, 2026 release through his In My Room Records. The self-titled album’s latest single “Terrified” feat. Mew‘s Jonas Bjerre is a collaboration that finds the Danish artists crafting an anthemic bit of uplift that’s seamlessly blend of shoegaze and twinkling, hook-driven dream pop paired with stream-of-consciousness lyrics.

Throughout the song’s runtime, Bjerre sings lyrics that focus tackling the specter of fear head-on. “When the instrumental was done, I sent it to Jonas Bjerre with a few melody ideas, which he took further while adding new melodies of his own,” Trentemøller says. He then reshaped the track, explaining “‘Terrified’ is probably the poppiest song on the album. In its original form it sounded a bit more shoegazey, but I wanted it to be crisper and clearer, less washed out. So I went for synths that almost sound like human voices, with a magical, otherworldly quality to them.”

“I think sometimes when you dream about things that make you fearful and uneasy, it’s your mind trying to prepare you for any scenario, like you’re processing catastrophes that have not and may not ever happen,” Mew’s Jonas Bjerre says of the song’s themes.

Directed by Jonas Bjerre, the accompanying video for “Terrified” is a mind-bending blend of animation, live action footage and photography that turns the collaborators’ hometown of Copenhagen into a lysergic, brightly colored dream.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Black Marble Returns with Bouncy, New Order-like “It Always Comes To Me”

Singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Black Marble creative mastermind Chris Stewart will be releasing his fifth Black Marble album, Life in Small Spaces through Sacred Bones Records on Friday. The album, which is Stewart’s first full-length album since 2021’s Fast Idol, is an album of clear-eyed commentary and analysis of the music industry as a whole, a discussion of authenticity and a heartfelt letter to all the independent creatives out in the world.

“I always knew a lot of people in music struggled to make ends meet, but it surprised me to learn that the people you thought would be doing well often weren’t. For me, seeing the business from the inside like that changed how I looked at things,” Stewart says. “When I looked up to see a new artist on a billboard, I started to wonder, ‘will I one day have to pretend to be something I’m not, in order to succeed?’ The life of an artist goes on after your moment ends, you know? So who do you want to be in the end and how do you want to be seen by the people that know you? I made Life In Small Spaces while thinking about that, and for me, it serves as my own ideal for living an artistic life. I’m doing it as a vocation, not some last-ditch effort to escape to some other world. I made this record not only as a way of saying that, but as a way of saying it’s ok to feel that way. It’s ok for people to sacrifice some degree of creature comfort in order to live a life you believe in. And it doesn’t have to be an endless search for something just out of reach, it can be a permanent way of being and something that sustains you.”

Drawing from early American left-of-the-dial “college radio” staccato guitar lines and live drum samples, the album’s material sees Stewart eschewing his usual wall of synths-driven sound for a more live sound. 

The album will include the previously released “Jim Carol New Year,” and “Anything,” and its last pre-album release single “It Always Comes To Me,” “It Always Comes To Me” continues a run of decidedly upbeat, hook-driven tunes while arguably being the most New Order-like songs I’ve heard so far. The song’s narrator is a roguish sort. who seemingly can get away with things others can’t through a mix of charm and deceit. But whether or not, the narrator is having fun with it all or is complaining about how easy it all is or has even acknowledged that at some point everyone’s luck runs out is ultimately up to the listener. And on some level, the song asks the listener, “if you can get away with it, would you?”