Tag: electro pop

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: bat zoo Shares Shimmering “Diamond Lane”

bat zoo is a rising American-born, Berlin-based singer/songwriter and producer, who has developed a reputation for boundless creativity — and for genre-agnostic work. 

As a child, the rising artist and producer was immersed in a melting pot of musical influences, as a result of his father’s eclectic record collection. He grew up listening to soul, R&B, hip-hop and much more — and it opened his young years to kaleidoscope of sounds and styles, which helped informed his genre-blurring sound and approach. 

He also brings his artistic vision to life by seamlessly blending his work with dynamic visuals. Embracing authentic and innovation, the American-born, Berlin-based artist continues to push boundaries as a jack-of-all-trades creative director of his solo recording project, a culmination of many years of trial and error. He’s extremely busy: while developing his own sound as a solo artist, he’s also a part of the acclaimed Berlin-based vocal ensemble A Song For You and one-half of R&B duo GOLDA. 

bat zoo’s forthcoming EP, The Upward Bird is slated for a July 22, 2025 release through Lekker Collective. Last month, I wrote about the hauntingly minimalist, Nick Hakim-like “Frozen Milk,” which featured the rising Berlin-based accompanying himself on strummed acoustic guitar paired with swirling electronics and his achingly tender falsetto sining lyrics that thematically touched upon chaos and the brief and desperate search for balance amidst moments of self-destruction and connection.

bat zoo’s latest single, the sleek and slickly produced, The Weeknd-like “Diamond Lane” is anchored around swirling and glistening synths, skittering beats serving as a lush and dreamy soundscape for his yearning and heartbroken vocal turn. But just under the slick, dance floor friendly surface, the song is a bittersweet and melancholic reflection on a love affair that has slowly unraveled, fueled with the recognition that the narrator may be powerless to do anything to slow it down — or to stop it.

Lyrically abstract yet deeply intimate, the song simultaneously feels like a stream of consciousness pulled from the depths of the narrator’s memory and a conversation — or more likely a monologue — bitterly directed toward that someone, who once meant everything and now is leaving.

The accompanying video is a hazy, dream-like visual that feels like a regret-tinged tinged fever dream.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 59th Birthday, Janet Jackson!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Janet Jackson’s 59th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Kilo Kish Shares Surreal Visual for Yearning, Club Banging “enough”

Kilo Kish is an acclaimed interdisciplinary artist, creator director and designer working in music, film, installation and writing. 2022’s AMERICAN GURL was released to praise from Pitchfork, NPR, Teen Vogue, NYLON and The New York Times, and helped lead to features in Vogue, Cultured and others.

AMERICAN GURL expanded into a curational project in collaboration with Womxn in Windows founder and creator Zehra Zehra, which has been displayed in galleries and museums like the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Art, Hauser & Wirth and Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles. She has collaborated with several brands including Bulgari, Levi’s, Rodarte and more.

Kish just wrapped up a residency with Womxn In Windows at MOCA, Los Angeles, which celebrated the launch of American Gurl: home-land, a presentation of six short films that negotiate themes on land, diaspora and displacement from Melvonna Ballenger, Shenny De Los Angeles, Ella Ezeike, Solange Knowles, Alima Lee and Cauleen Smith. Earlier this week Womxn In Windows announced their screening series at the Academy Museum, American Gurl: Seeking . . . guest programmer by Kish and Zehra. The films offer nuanced perspectives on how women of color navigate the complexities of systems and institutions. 

Her highly-anticipated EP Negotiations is slated for a Friday release through Independent Co. The six-song EP reportedly sees the acclaimed interdisciplinary artist further amplifying her forward-thinking and advanced creative mind with a poignant effort, that’s a deep and thought-provoking dive into the nuances of technology and the large role it has within creativity.

Thematically, the EP explores the intricate interplay between the human body, technology and nuances of emotional and cognitive processing in a rapidly evolving world. By framing the body as a machine, Kish intentionally invites a dialogue about the transactional nature of energy expenditure, suggesting that our existence is defined by a constant exchange in which every output necessitates an input, ultimately leading to both depletion and potential renewal.

At the core of the EP is the notion of error and glitch — a reflection of contemporary life marked by instability, chaos and uncertainty. And as a result, Kish delves into the scripts we write into ourselves, questioning their efficacy in an era seemingly defined by incessant, rapid-fire change. How we are programmed shapes our responses to these incessant, rapid-fire changes, illustrating that we all inevitably fall prey to our programming and thought patterns. That introspective observation should resonate deeply with our collective experience of navigating a landscape rife with digital and emotional noise, global systems failure and environmental collapse prompting a need for the sort of manual resets needed when you reprogram a malfunctioning device.

Sonically, the EP’s creative process utilized a finite set of sonic parameters and instruments that would reflect the overall thematic core. Drawing from early hip-hop and electronic music techniques like skipping, scratching, vocal processing, vocoders and modular synthesizers, the result is a sound that balances the synthetic with moments of humanity, creating a machine-like atmosphere.

Negotiations EP‘s latest single “enough” is a slickly produced, hypnotic track featuring glistening and percussive synth arpeggios, skittering beats, and chopped up vocodered and processed vocal samples serving as a lush, club friendly yet creepily uneasy bed for Kish’s yearning, validation seeking delivery.

“This song is kind of about throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, and the fantasy that we play out on the internet, how things are not always as they seem,” Kish explains. “Wanting the affection and love of complete strangers, but not really knowing why. The need for viewership and adoration that’s become a mainstay in the way we live nowadays, not just as artists but as everyday people.”

Co-directed by Kish and David Laven and produced by Even/Odd, the accompanying video for “enough” is part of a suite of interconnected films accompanying the Negotiations EP shot and based within the same immersive world. Calling back to the EP’s first video “reprogram,” where Kish danced alone in a stark, gray office, the video for “enough” is set in the same setting — but this time, we see an older businessman type, whose life at that moment sees him vacillating between listening to “enough” on his laptop and hearing it as a part of his own internal dialogue.

Understandably, the businessman is confused, intrigued and then somehow, instinctually moved to sway and dance to the song in the office. As the video pans out a bit, we see a completely unfazed Kish sitting on the floor, observing and writing notes.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: New Zealand’s Phoebe Vic Shares Raunchy “It’s My Pleasure”

With the release of her debut EP, 2023’s Strange Rituals, emerging Christchurch-based singer/songwriter Phoebe Vic quickly established herself as an artist, who paints emotional sonic landscapes with sophisticated, alternative pop songs that range from dreamy and romantic to foreboding, percussive-driven tracks that draw from her own life with sincerity and a self-referential, cheeky sense of humor. The emerging Kiwi artist followed Strange Rituals EP with last year’s “Wasn’t That Deep.”

2025 has gotten off to e a bus start for Vic: Earlier this year, she released the country-tinged “Mad Woman.” Her latest single, the Emily C. Browning-produced “It’s My Pleasure” comes on the heels of playing Nostalgia Festival.

“It’s My Pleasure” is a deliriously unhinged bit of naughty, raunchy fun featuring a glitchy production featuring rubbery bass bounce, skittering trap-beats, bursts of electronic skronk and screech that serves as a lush yet funky bed for the emerging Kiwi artist’s yearning and sultry delivery singing explicit lyrics about sexual desire. It’s a fun, horny, defiantly feminist and pro-sex anthem.

“This song was born from a long dry-spell of lacking in the intimacy department,” Vic says. “So if I wasn’t getting any action, I decided I wanted to make something really hot and horny – that champions owning your sexual fantasies and desires!”

“I really like minimalist prod and it was an exercise in using less elements to create something in-your-face.” producer, Emily C. Browning adds. “We both wanted it to feel like a punchy little arcade game or something, with little reward sounds and different levels.The metal breakdown was Phoebe’s idea and I had to quickly figure out how to play guitar and bass like a metal head. Very fun day in the studio!”

Directed by Lore Films‘ Adam Hogan with support from New Zealand’s On Air New Music Single grant, the accompanying video is set at a depressing open mic, where a terrible stand up comedian is gently pushed off the stage, mid routine before Phoebe Vic steps on the stage and does a raunchy, burlesque style performance that gets everyone in the room uncontrollably horny. “We wanted to make something cheeky, visually stimulating and silly that matched the vibe of the song, while adding an additional heightened story-telling element to it!” Vic says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 74th Birthday, Chris Frantz!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Talking Heads’ and Tom Tom Club’s Chris Frantz’s 74th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Tunde Adebimpe + Thee Black Boltz Performs “Somebody New” on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”

Live footage of Tunde Adebimpe + Thee Black Boltz performing “Somebody New” on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Bucharest’s Alessiah Shares Sultry “Made You Cry”

Alessiah is a young, emerging and remarkably prolific Bucharest-based artist, who quickly established a sound that blends elements of pop, dance pop and electronica while showcasing a songwriter, who has a singular focus on writing songs that are rooted in the raw emotions and unvarnished honesty of a young woman at the beginning of her life’s journey.

Using art to overcome her own shyness, she is determine to create music full of positivity and to become a role model that girls — and young women — can be inspired by.

The Romanian-born and-based artist’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Obscentra is slated for an August 28, 2025 release. The album’s first single “Made You Cry” pairs Alessiah’s sultry vocal delivery with an uneasy and haunting production.

The song’s lyrics blur the line between devotion, humiliation and control, revealing a songwriter, who’s not only remarkably self-assured and mature beyond her relative youth, but who also is a astute observer of human nature. The song’s narrator points out that love is often a confusing and beguiling push and pull mix of longing, lust and humiliation with a seemingly lived-in fashion. “This song captures the emotions we don’t always want to admit to. It’s about love, but not in the way we usually define it,” the emerging Romanian artist explains.

The accompanying video for “Made You Cry” continues a run of visuals filmed in diverse, exotic and often far-flung locations, including Japan, Zanzibar, Nigeria, Spain, Italy, Greece, Hong Kong and even Dubai. And from the new video, we’re catching a budding, global pop star in the making.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: London’s Le Bon Jams Shares Euphoric, Club Banger “What U Need”

Le Bon Jams is a London-based dance pop/electronic dance pop quartet features an acclaimed collection of British music scene veterans, including: Last year was a breakthrough year for the collective, which blends live instrumentation and […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Us and I Share Shimmering and Melancholy “Crushed”

Formed back in 2018 in  Bangalore and currently based in Düsseldorf, the emerging synth pop duo Us and I — Bidisha Kesh (vocals) and Guarav Govilkar (production) — features members who come from very different backgrounds and who bonded over having similar musical sensibilities: When the pair started to work together, they quickly realized that they shared a unique way of crafting songs with deeply personal lyrics paired with the melancholia of the orange and yellow colors leaking from their synthesizers.

The duo then spent the next two years developing and honing a sound they felt acted as a bridge between the synth-driven work of Chromatics and the slow-burning, dream pop of Beach House — with subtle nods to darkwave and post-punk. Thematically, the duo’s material generally draws from everyday life and the relationships around them. 

The duo’s debut EP, 2021’s Loveless thematically focused on a deeply universal subject, love — in particular, a past love, and how the nostalgia and grief of that past love can hit us like a wave hitting the shore. Since the release of Loveless EP, the duo relocated to Düsseldorf — for work and for potentially better opportunities for their music.

Their latest single, the bittersweet and hook-driven “Crushed” features Kesh’s achingly expressive delivery ethereally floating over shimmering synth arpeggios and stomping beats. Interestingly, “Crushed” strikes me as a subtle refinement of their sound that still sees them channeling Beach House and Still Corners — but with a decidedly 80s tinge.

“‘Crushed’ thrusts you in a crystal capsule where the lull of a bittersweet spell and the deluge of impeccable love caresses your every bone,” the Düsseldorf-based duo say. “And yet when the virulent pain of this beautiful guise emerges again, you seek to escape this perfect dream, lest you’re crushed to death.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe Shares Dance Floor-Friendly “Somebody New”

Tunde Adebimpe, the frontman of the critically acclaimed Brooklyn-based band TV On The Radio will be releasing his long-awaited, highly-anticipated solo debut Thee Black Boltz Friday (!) through Sub Pop Records.

The Adebimpe and Wilder Zoby co-produced album features additional production and contributions from TV On The Radio’s Jaleel Bunton and Japhet Landis and more. The album’s material will not only showcase Adebimpe imitable voice and visionary soundscapes, but is a nod to his propensity to write and sing about the human condition — in all its form, under all its stressor, both big and small. 

Thee Black Boltz isn’t a TV On The Radio album. But for Adebimpe, in a lot of ways, the excitement of doing something on his own for the first time ignited a similar creative spark as during the early TVOTR days. The songwriting process is the same, he says, but with his bandmates, Adebimpe always knew that have didn’t have to complete his musical ideas. “I’ve been doing this thing with this group of people for so long, that I can just have a vague sketch of a concept and I know Jaleel or Kyp will have five brilliant ideas on where it can go,” he says. “But for Thee Black Boltz, I didn’t have that scaffolding to hang on. That was both terrifying and exhilarating.”

The album’s title is Adebimpe’s response to the macro unease of a post-pandemic world careening towards violent authoritarianism and the immense grief that has come from deeply personal losses, specifically the sudden passing of his younger sister while making it. In many ways, Thee Black Boltz is the TVOTR frontman’s desperate grasping of small moments of joy amidst the dissonance, chaos and sadness in any way he could. And understandably, the album was a way of processing everything in his life. “It was my way of building a rock or a platform for myself in the middle of this fucking ocean,” he says. 

As he writes in his notebook, “The sparks of inspiration/motivation / hope that flash up in the midst of (and sometimes as a result of) deep grief, depression or despair. Sort of like electrons building up in storm clouds clashing until they fire off lightning and illuminate a way out, if only for a second.”

“Also,” he adds. “it’s a good name for a cool metal band, and I think that most people would describe me as akin to a very cool metal band.” 

Earlier this year, I wrote about the Jahpet Landis-produced “Drop,” a meditative and deeply introspective song featuring looped beatboxing, shimmering and strummed bursts of guitar, whistling and skittering beats serving as a dreamy and subtly uneasy bed for Adebimpe’s plaintive delivery questioning the purpose of it all, when things seem so brutally nonsensical.

Thee Black Boltz‘s fourth and latest single “Somebody New” is a dance floor friendly synth-driven bop that recalls 80s synth pop — i.e., Nu Shooz “I Can’t Wait,” Depeche Mode‘s “I Can’t Get Enough,” Yaz‘s “Situation” and the like — but while rooted in modern thematic concerns.

The Adebimpe-directed video for “Somebody New” is a feverishly trippy and surreal bit of time travel back to the days of Soul Train and American Bandstand as we see the TVOR frontman performing the song in a crowded room of beautiful young people dancing — and a glammed out Gritty-styled puppet.

“I’m positive I fell asleep on a couch with the TV on sometime in 1982 and fever dreamt this exact thing,” Adebimpe says of the new video.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 52nd Birthday, Pharrell Williams!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Pharrell Williams’ 52nd birthday.