Tag: electronic music

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: San Francisco’s Blord Shares Sultry and Euphoric “Frequency”

Brett Ferrera is a San Francisco-based electronic music producer, electronic music artist and DJ, best known as Blord. Citing influences that run the gamut from Tinlicker, Zhu and Kavinsky, Ferrera’s career journey has been at times tumultuous and painstaking, but that has also managed to inform his most recent work.

He believes that music serves as a bridge between the world we see and the one we feel — a powerful, celestial language. Sonically, his mission is to blend the heavy and melodic depths of melodic techno with the collective energy of dance pop to create a space for unity and healing.

Ferrera has quickly built a reputation for crafting mesmerizing house music: Last year, he landed two tracks on Beatpot’s top 10 Melodic Techno and Progressive House genre charts — “Hustlin‘” and “Till The End.” And building upon a growing profile, he has played Madarae, Paname, and Bergerac alongside Denis Horvat.

His latest single “Frequency” is a sultry and euphoric bit of melodic techno featuring thumping, tweeter and woofer rattling 808s, glistening synth arpeggios and euphoria-inducing hooks and choruses beneath a yearning vocal melody. Perfectly suited to get bodies moving, and to perhaps have you dance and sweat away your stresses and troubles, “Frequency” is about finding someone that matches your wavelength.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: AN_NA Shares a Seething, Industrial Club Banger

French-born, Montréal-based married couple and electronic music duo AN_NA formed over three decades ago. And over the course of their lengthy careers, they’ve used their experiences within electronic music, industrial and experimental music scenes to create a […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 57th Birthday, Keith Flint!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 57th anniversary of the birth of The Prodigy’s Keith Flint.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: LutchamaK Shares a Thumping, Glitchy Banger

Restlessly prolific French electronic music producer and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK recently released his latest EP, Digital Display, which features five songs that bounce between techno and breakbeat — with a bit of urban swagger.

Digital Display EP’s latest single “Naughty” is a swaggering techno banger, anchored around glitchy synth arpeggios and tweeter and woofer rattling, skittering thump that gradually morphs to subtly reveal different textures and variations throughout the song’s run time. It’s the sort of tune you’d expect to rock a club at 3:00am and 4:00am while rooted in the melodicism the JOVM mainstay has long been known for.

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.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: These Girls Are Electric Share Broodingly Atmospheric “Ghost In The Bottle”

Indie electronic music duo These Girls Are Electric — Harris (vocals, organ, piano, synths, guitar, bass and sound design) and Zeno (vocals. guitars. bass, synths and sound design) — can trace the origins of their project back several decades: The longtime friends from Stuttgart began recording music in their bedrooms as teenagers in the 1980s. The duo cut their teeth in the local underground scene, playing in several bands in their youth including My Nature, First Approach, The B’Captains and Die Frohe Bootsfahrt among others. T

Their early sound can be described as a melancholic blend of New Wave, synth pop, and underground music that was strange but frequently catchy. And over the years. they worked closely with several local musical heroes.

For the better part of the past two decades, the pair would meet at Musikladen Studio — a place packed with vintage synths, dusty guitars and humming computers, where time seemed to fold in on itself. During improvised sessions that they’ve dubbed “magnetic sessions,” the German duo would create raw, intuitive song sketches. Then they would start production: Selected material is reassembled without losing the original feel. Recordings from their “magnetic sessions” are re-edited, sorted and integrated into thee songs to preserve as much of the studio session feeling as possible.

As These Girls Are Electric, the German duo’s sound is a blend of electronica, lo-fi pop, post-punk and experimental soundscapes. Lyrically, the duo’s work revolve around love, hate, space, philosophy and the search for a lost universe — or a paradise that may have never existed. In their world, artificial intelligences meet broken hearts, cyborgs conjure childhood memories and stardust cigarette light tells stories of humanity in transition. Each song within their catalog is part of a multi-voiced narrative about life in a posthuman world and the search for meaning, connection and renewal.

Their latest single “Ghost In The Bottle” is a broodingly atmospheric tune that sounds a bit like if The National had released a remarkably cinematic and post-apocalyptic synthwave album. At its core. is a bittersweet longing for something just out of reach — or for something that may have only existed in the narrator’s head.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Virginie B. Shares Euphoric “Chamaille”

JOVM mainstay Virginie B is a rising, Montréal-based self-taught singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and self-described “extravagant mess” has long been influenced by a wide range of music, including experimental electronic music, classical, old-timey jazz, 90s R&B, art pop, art rock and more. 

Her full-length debut, 2022’s INSULA was released to praise from ICI Première, Le Devoir, La Presse, Montreal Rocks!, and PAN M 360. The album also earned a GAMIQ. Pop Album of the Year nomination. And adding to a growing profile, the French Canadian artist has made a run of the provincial festival circuit, playing sets at Francofoiles de Montréal, Coup de Cœur Francophone, Le Phoque OFF, Santa Teresa Festival, Taverne Tour, 2022’s M for Montréal. She also played at SXSW back in 2023.

2024’s Astral 2000, which featured album opener and title track “Astral 2000” saw the Montréal-based artist releasing what may arguably be the province’s first hyper pop album. Since then she’s been busy collaborating with fellow JOVM mainstay Super Plage and a list of others.

Produced by long-time collaborator Louis Jeay-Beaulieau, “Chamaille,” the acclaimed JOVM mainstay’s first bit of new material since Astral 2000 is a high-octane bop that has become a staple of her live shows since she first played it on stage over a year ago. Live, the new single is often paired with her techno cover of “Lost Woods,” the iconic Koji Kondo-composed theme, which appears on the soundtrack of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. She typically blends both tunes seamlessly into one another during he live sets, culminating into one of her set’s most exhilarating moments.

Originally written on piano with French pop artist Mylène Farmer in mind, the new single may arguably be the most dance floor friendly and euphoric tunes of her growing catalog to date. Reportedly, the new single is a transitional track that’s meant to bridge the gap between 2024’s sophomore album and the next chapter of her career. Built around production featuring glistening synths and skittering beats, “Chamaille” is a hooky, club banger that seemingly blends elements of footwork and Euordance beneath the JOVM mainstay’s yearning delivery.

“I was thinking about those long, late nights spent sitting on the sidewalk outside the bar, confiding in strangers. Sharing the intensity of life—even in half-spoken words, even when it’s late, even if we’re hurting ourselves a little in the process—and pouring ourselves into the other person to forget the immensity of the surrounding chaos. Finding comfort in the now, courage in sharing, to face the next day—is it really so bad if it makes us feel better, even just a little?” The acclaimed Montréal-based artist says of the new song.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Zurich’s Toffee Nut Orion Shares Introspective Yet Euphoric “Moment”

Florian Meyer is a Zurich-based electronic music producer, musician and creative mastermind behind Toffee Nut Orion. And with Toffee Not Orion, Meyer explores the space between emotion, imagination and the infinite. Pairing shimmering synths, distant worlds and human stories, the Swiss-based artist treats outer space more like a mirror than a destination, a place where where longing, wonder, loneliness, connection and hope all become larger than life.

Meyer’s latest Toffee Nut Orion single “Moment” is a sleek, lounge and club friendly tune featuring glistening synths and skittering beats beneath a yearning and expressive vocal. Simultaneously introspective and euphoric, Meyer “wanted ‘Moment’ to sound like the instant you stop searching the universe for answers and suddenly find one inside yourself.”

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 80th Birthday, Ralf Hütter!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Kraftwerk co-founder Ralf Hütter’s 80th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Solid Wall at 160DL Studios, London

London-based electronic music project Solid Wall — Argentine-born and London-based producers, multi-instrumentalists and songwriters Patricio Alvarez and Lucas Vedel — can trace the origins of their collaboration back to 2018: Alvarez and Vedel first met in Buenos Aires through mutual friend and mixing engineer Martin Sólimo.

What began as an impromptu studio collaboration quickly turned into an intense and virtual creative partnership with the pair writing and making music almost daily. The connected remained uninterrupted when Vedel returned to London in 2019, evolving across different cities and years of shared experimentation.

When Alvarez joined Vedel in London in 2020, the duo continued developing a deeply collaborative creating process, treating production, songwriting, engineering and performance as an intrinsic and inseparable part of that same process. After years of writing, producing and road-testing material through DJ sets and live improvised sets across London and Europe, the duo’s project Solid Wall emerged as a natural expression of heir lengthy journey together. And by 2023. the duo signed with PIAS, marking a new project while cementing a sound and approach that had been years in the making.

Built around the duo’s shared obsession with sound as both craft and language, Solid Wall sonically is rooted in alternative electronic music, but shaped by trip-hop, post punk, dub and left-field club culture. Their work together explores the space where physical movement meet emotional depth.

Last Friday, the duo released the five-song In-Phase EP through [PIAS] Électronique. Written and recorded between 2023 and 2026 between Hackney, London’s Godspeed Studio and Dalston, London’s 160DL Studios, In-Phase EP explores human connection through sound and movement, with music that blends elements of club culture and introspection. The EP’s songs were gradually released as standalone singles over the past three years. which allowed the EP to evolve over time.

To celebrate the release of the duo shared a live session directed by Argentine filmmaker Elias Heredia. The live session re-imagines EP songs through a live, immersive band setup, which features expansive renditions of the recorded tracks, showcasing a project that’s stepping further into a live band setup. The live session features three of the EP’s track “Let You Go” feat. Jelani Blackman, “Voice Notes Interlude” and “Find Me” feat. Ulfie.

“Let You Go” feat. Jelani Blackman is a is a swaggering mix of UK grime, post punk and house music, anchored around tweeter and woofer rattling thump, skittering trap-like beats and glistening synths that’s simultaneously club and headphone friendly that reminds me a bit of Parisian outfit DBFC. “Voice Notes Interlude” is a dreamy song featuring banal voice notes and messages beneath droning yet ethereal synths. “Find Me” feat. Ulfie may arguably be the most straightforward club banger of the live session. “Find Me” is a deep house banger built around Giorgio Moroder-like synth oscillations, tweeter and a Tour de France-era Kraftwerk-like motorik groove beneath Ulfie’s sultry and yearning delivery. Each of the live session’s songs convey a desperate need for connection with another –while showcasing the duo’s ability to craft hook-driven bangers rooted in introspection.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Avalanches Team Up with Karen O on Dreamy and Forlorn “Blue Shadows”

The Avalanches — Robbie Chater, Tony Di Blasio and Andy Szekeres — are arguably one of the most influential and original acts in the contemporary scene: Their debut album, 2000’s acclaimed Since I Left You laid the groundwork for collaborative sampology in this century.

Since then, the trio have released two more acclaimed albums, 2016’s Wildflowers and 2020’s We Will Always Love You. With over 1 million albums sold and 700 million streams across DSPs, a series of coveted collectibles and legions of fans across the globe, the acclaimed act has firmly cemented their place in popular culture.

Back in 2024, The Avalanches collaborated with Jamie xx on “All You Children,” which appeared on his 2024 effort, In Waves.

The trio recently performed at this year’s Primavera Sound Barcelona and announced a run of London headlining shows as part of Pitchfork Music Fest in November. They’ll be making a run of the international festival circuit with DJ sets at Ireland’s All Together Now, France’s Freakquenices (alongside The Dare), Italy’s Poplar and C2C and Belgium’s Les Nuits Weekender — with more dates to be announced soon. Click here for tickets and more information.

Currently based in Los Angeles, Karen O is a Seoul-born, New Jersey-raised singer/songwriter and iconic front woman of the eight-time Grammy Award-nominated Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a focus on film, she has been instrumental in redefining the possibility of rock performance over the past two decades, influencing a new generation of female artists, including Olivia Rodrigo, Japanese Breakfast, The Linda Lindas and a growing list of others.

With the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Seoul-born, Los Angeles-based artist has released five acclaimed albums, including 2022’s Grammy Award-nominated Cool It Down, the band’s first album after a nine-year recording hiatus.

Outside of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Karen O has built an adventurous multidisciplinary career spanning music, film, visual art and performance: Her solo debut, 2014’s Crush Songs was released to critical acclaim. She wrote and performed music for Spike Jonze’s 2009 film, Where the Wild Things Are and she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original song for “The Moon Song” from Jonze’s 2013 film Her. Her experimental rock opera Stop the Virgens premiered at St. Ann’s Warehouse before touring internationally.

As a solo artist, Karen O has collaborated with an eclectic array of equally acclaimed artists including David Lynch, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and fashion house KENZO. 2019’s collaborative album with Danger Mouse, Lux Prima was released to widespread critical acclaim with album single “Woman” earning a Grammy Award nomination. The album also inspired the immersive multimedia installation An Encounter with Lux Prima, which premiered at Los Angeles’ Marciano Art Foundation.

Karen O and The Avalanches recently teamed up for “Blue Shadows,” the second collaboration between the two artists since “Dial D for Devotion,” which appeared on 2020’s We Will Always Love You. “Blue Shadows” is also the third single of the year from the trio, following “Every Single Weekend” feat. Jamie xx and “Together” feat. Nikki Nair, Jessy Lanza and Prentiss. With “Blue Shadows” Karen O’s achingly forlorn vocal languidly drifts atop twinkling synths, a chugging bass line, shuffling hi-hats and a dreamy vocal sample. The result is a bittersweet, fever dream of heartache, mistakes, lost chances and what-could-have-beens from the perspective of someone who has lived a messy, complicated

“’Blue Shadows’ was an idea of Andy’s that was almost lost to time until Tony stumbled across it in an old folder and began championing it as a potential album song,” says the trio’s Robbie Chater. “It’s since become one of my favourite Avalanches tunes. Many moons later and thanks to the kindness of Claudio Casalini and the estate of Celso Valli, it looked like Tony’s dream for ‘Blue Shadows’ might come true. 

“I included it in a selection of song ideas for Karen, we wanted her to hear it although I never imagined a vocal would be possible; the demo had such a peculiar, singular mood. What she recorded still amazes me after months of listening, it’s so achingly forlorn and somehow sounds as if it always existed as a song. I don’t know how that is possible, or what she was channelling, some people just have access to a higher plane I suppose!”

Karen O adds, “When Robbie sent me ‘Blue Shadows,’ I jumped at the chance to collaborate. The Avalanches last record We Will Always Love You was a gift to humanity in 2020 and I’ll count it as one of my Top 10 forever. The Avalanches frequency is high, I’m so happy to be asked to slide into it.”