Tag: indie electro pop

Albums of the Year 2025

JOVM turns 16 this year. And for first handful of years, my Best of List was an annual tradition until about 2014 or so. Between 2014 and 2020, it became sporadic and then it stopped. I haven’t done one of these in several years. There was a part of me that wondered if it really mattered much. And then life happened. 

So here we are in 2026. And with the year starting in earnest, let’s check out my best of 2025. 

  1. Big Fish Fyra liter stoft
  2. Tan Cologne Unknown Beyond
  3. Moondaddy Dove Tapes
  4. Sessa Pequena Vertigem de Amor
  5. Preservation Brass & Preservation Hall Jazz Band For Fat Man
  6. Silk Daisys S/T
  7. The Circling Sun Orbits
  8. Gabriel da Rosa Cacofonia
  9. Yoo Doo Right, Population II & Nolan Potter Yoo II avec Nolan Potter
  10. bat zoo The Upward Bird EP
  11. Public Circuit Modern Church
  12. L’Eclair Cloud Drifter
  13. Gloin All of your anger is actually shame (and I bet that makes you angry)
  14. CIVIC Chrome Dipped
  15. Population II Maintenant Jamais
  16. White Birches A New Reign
  17. Anish Kumar and Hagop Tchaparian Kino EP
  18. Friendship Commanders BEAR 
  19. The Besnard Lakes The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation
  20. SHOLTO The Sirens
  21. S.C.A.B. Somebody In New York Loves You!
  22. Pierpont & Hegeleson Of Time
  23. RORO and snapir Colors Left
  24. St. Panther Strange World 
  25. Nation of Language Dance Called Memory
  26. Quad90 S/T
  27. Slumbering Sun Starmony
  28. Tunde Adebimpe Thee Black Boltz 
  29. Quad90 S/T
  30. Die Spitz Something To Consume
  31. debdepan LOVERS & OTHERS EP

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New Audio: Anchorage’s dreamcat Shares Breezy “Heaven”

Anchorage-based indie electro pop duo dreamcat — couple Em Glaves and Colton Ciufo — can trace a portion of their origins back to when they were children: Glaves and Ciufo grew up in the same small town, and for them music has always been their escape.

The Alaskan duo specialize in homemade, heartfelt, positive indie synth pop that draws from M83, Chromeo and others. Last year, the pair gained recognition regionally by playing at two of Alaska’s biggest music festivals — Sundown Festival and Girdwood Forest Fair.

Over the past 12-18 months, the duo have built upon a growing profile across Alaska, with at the release of a handful of standalone singles and their debut EP joie de vivre earlier this year.

Glaves and Ciufro close out 2025 with “Heaven,” a breezy bit of synth pop that seemingly channels BRIJEAN, M83 and Oracular Spectacular-era MGMT while showcasing the duo’s ability to craft a remarkably catchy hook. But underneath the track’s breezy hookiness, the song, as the duo explain is about addiction.

New Audio: The Afghan Whigs Share Covers of Poliça and Still Corners

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JOVM mainstays The Afghan Whigs —  currently Greg Dulli (vocals, guitar), John Curley (bass), Patrick Keeler (drums), multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson and the band’s newest member, Blind Melon’s Christopher Thorn (guitar) — released their ninth album, 2022’s How Do You Burn? to widespread critical acclaim from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Los Angeles Times, Spin, Stereogum, Billboard and others.

The acclaimed JOVM mainstays first bit of new material since How Do You Burn sees the band tackling two songs — Poliça‘s “Fake Like” and Still Corners “Downtown” — that seem tailor-made for the Whigs treatment. “Poliça’s “Fake Lake” strikes me as being a breezy synthesis of synth pop, Laurel Canyon and blue-eyed soul, featuring twinkling keys and a broodingly cinematic string arrangement serving as a lush bed for Channy Leaneagh’s yearning delivery. The Afghan Whigs pull out the blue-eyed soul-inspired element of the original and give it a swaggering and anthemic rock ballad vibe, while retaining the cinematic string section. The result is a song that emphasizes the smoldering lust and aching need at the heart of the song.

Now, as you may recall, the London-based duo Still Corners are among one of this site’s oldest mainstay acts. “Downtown,” which appears on 2016’s Dead Blue is an brooding and icy track, featuring shimmering, motiorik pulse and a gorgeous Greg Hughes Country/Western-meets-Johnny Marr styled guitar solo serving as a lush soundscape for Tessa Murray’s yearning vocal. The Afghan Whigs take turns the song into a brooding, piano-driven tune that’s a steady in tension and delayed release that would have fit perfectly on 2017’s In Spades.

“Both of these songs were born out of soundcheck jams. Each song holds a particular resonance for me and I really felt the lyrics, so they both flowed freely and felt good to sing,” the band’s Greg Dulli explains.

Both songs are available on all major DSP. And a limited 45 RPM single has been created and will be sold by Cincinnati’s Shake It Records.

New Audio: Ruthven Shares Dance floor Friendly “Kiss Goodnight”

Throughout his nearly decade-long career, South London-based producer, singer/songwriter and musician Sean Nelson, best known as Ruthven, emerged in 2017 as a co-founding member of The Paul Institute with A.K.Paul and Jai Paul, while Nelson was simultaneously as a firefighter with the London Fire Brigade.

Between emergency calls and equipment checks, the South London-based artist meticulously shaped the songs that would eventually comprise last year’s Rough & Ready, which was released to widespread praise across the UK and elsewhere. The response to the album lead to collaborations and opening slots with Sampha, Berwyn and Overmono, helping to further cement Nelson’s growing reputation as one of the UK’s most compelling, emerging voices.

Ruthven closes out 2025 with the recently released Precognition EP, an exploratory three-track EP that marks the beginning of a bold new chapter for the South London-based artist. Where Rough & Ready introduced an artist with a meticulous production style and a fiercely individual voice, Precognition EP captures Nelson writing much more instinctively, leaning deeply into the warmth and dynamism of live instrumentation, inspired by his recent live shows. “This small body of work feels like a good segue into the next era for me” Ruthven says. “I’m using a lot more live instrumentation and programming a little bit less.  Playing more guitar, more acoustic drums – all of which have formed a new sound for me. The fundamental DNA of my music is there, but there’s a new evolution. This is the first of it.” 

The EP sees Nelson moving freely between funk, disco and classic songwriting. And as you’ll hear on the hook-driven, disco funk-tinged “Kiss Goodnight,” Nelson has an unerring knack for crafting a catchy, dance floor friendly groove anchored around glistening synth arpeggios and a supple bass line paired with Nelson’s effortless yet heartfelt croon. If you’re a fellow old, this one will likely bring memories of Prince, Morris Day and The Time, Cherrelle and several others.

New Audio: SanikVibe shares Cinematic and Dance Floor Friendly “Speak Without Sound”

Created by an anonymous and enigmatic creative mastermind, SanikVibe is a narrative-driven recording project that sees its mysterious mastermind treating sound as storytelling.

Her work blends cinematic textures, electronic minimalism and introspective emotional pacing. And rather than sticking to one particular genre, each release is much like a book chapter — with a psychological or emotional moment translated into atmosphere, vibe, pulse and tone.

Released last month, Unseen Currents EP is a four-part story about what moves us — quietly and subconsciously. SanikVibe’s mysterious creative mastermind considers the EP not quite as Jung would consider ‘a journey through the unconscious” but more as a way to learn to “stop fighting your own tide.”

Unseen Currents EP‘s latest single “Speak Without Sound” is simultaneously a cinematic and dance floor friendly track that seemingly channels Tinlicker‘s most recent material, with the new single being a sleek and lush blend of electro pop, trip-hop and house anchored by stirringly emotional, pop star delivery.

“The song explores the moment when instinct speaks before language — the quiet shift in the body that happens a split second before thought,” SanikVibe explains. “Through pauses, breath and tension, it reflects how the pulse can reveal truth long before words do.”

It serves as the final chapter of the BodyTalk Trilogy, a conceptual arc shaped around somatic markers and the psychological space where instinct overtakes reason,” she continues.

New Video: Puma Blue Shares Surrealistic, Dream-like Visual for “Croak Dream”

London-based producer, singer/songwriter and Puma Blue creative mastermind Jacob Allen will be releasing his sixth studio album, Croak Dreams through Play It Again Sam on February 6, 2026.

Recorded straight to tape at Peter Gabriel‘s Real World Studios, Croak Dream reportedly sees Allen and co-producer and mixer Sam Petts-Davies expanding the project’s sonic world, channeling the project’s sultry, emotional and conceptual complexity with an instinct-led take on experimenting with Allen’s art to find its most evocative form.

Additionally, longtime collaborator Harvey Grant contributed to the textual quality and identity of the album. “Later at Real World Studios, the band and I recorded tape loops over a small fragment of the demo, none of them heard the finished song, and when Sam and I came back to London we cut those improvisations into this Frankenstein’s monster type collage,” Allen says. “We were really leaning into a mutual love for CAN, Aphex Twin and Queens of the Stone Age.”

Croak Dream‘s latest single, album title track “Croak Dream” is a broodingly cinematic and uneasy track that features Allen’s remarkably Thom Yorke-like falsetto croon singing over a hypnotic arrangement of angular, whirring instrumentation paired with industrial-meets-dub-like beats. Seemingly drawing from Bristol-era trip hop — i.e., Portishead, Massive Attack, etc. — and dub with an alt-pop sensibility, “Croak Dream” thematically focuses on an age-old philosophical question: “If you knew how and when you were going to die, how would it change how you decided to live?”

“A Croak Dream is a prophetic dream where you see a vision of how you die. Half the songs on this record allude to how you might decide to live, act, if you somehow knew your awaiting fate. Being daring, romantic… saying what you really mean.” Allen explains. 

“‘Croak Dream’ is about someone I have dreamt of for years. Nightmares really, I just have not been able to shake them yet,” he continues. “I thought maybe what I needed was a sort of exorcism, so I wrote this song unpacking this strange bond that has haunted me, and then put it to bed, or death, at the end. It is a laying of a ghost to rest, I hope.” 

Directed and edited by Allen and featuring animation by Quill, the accompanying video for “Croak Dream” further emphasizes the song’s surrealistic, dream-like logic, featuring Allen and his live bandmates in a PlayStation-inspired video game universe, traversing their individual subconscious in eerie, dream-meets-video game-like adventures.

“I wanted the video to evoke boyhood and be in conversation with the lyrics. The basic idea was to create a PlayStation style game paying homage to RHCP’s ‘Californication’ video, but in a way that carried deep meaning for the band,” Allen says of the video. “I searched high and low for the right person who could capture the nostalgia of games like Silent Hill, Tomb Raider and Pro Skater until I found Quill (@grabmypepsi). I wrote him a script, and he animated it all from scratch. Then it got run through VHS right at the end so that it felt truly like it would if you were playing it in the late 90’s. It felt like a way to honor these friends and, in a strange way, the children we were back then.”

New Video: Marie Céleste Shares Surreal and Dream-like Visual for Ethereal and Yearning “2 goélands”

Rising Montréal-based quintet Marie Céleste — Simon Duchesne (vocals, guitar), Philippe Plourde (keys), Olivier Tremblay (bass, vocals), Zachary Tremblay (guitar) and Guillaume Sliger (drums) — can trace their origins back to when the band’s members where high schoolers in Alma, QC during the 2010s. The French Canadian quintet’s sound draws from the diverse influences of its members blending elements of folk, indie pop, art rock, electronic music and world music.

For years, the quintet was content with playing just one show a year. Their songs — shaped by progressive rock roots — often stretched to ten minutes or more. But when they relocated to Montréal back in 2023, the band decided it was time to level up. Initially, the goal was simple: earn enough to cover their rehearsal space. Montréal proved to be much more than a backdrop — it became a catalyst for the quintet.

Canada’s second largest city has one of world’s more eclectic and vibrant music scenes. Immersed in their adopted hometown’s scene, they met a collection of musicians and set their sights on playing Les Francouvertes, a pivotal showcase festival that would end up changing everything for the band: Local tastemaker label Bravo Musique discovered their radiant, joy-tinged tape on prog pop, which at this point was much more refined and focused.

Last year was a breakthrough year for the French Canadian quintet: Bravo Musique released their debut, Feux de joie, which amassed over 800,000 Spotify streams, was supposed with a EP release show at La Sala Rossa and a few months later, a sold-out show at Fairmount Theatre.

Feux de joie‘s highly-anticipated follow up, the Amaury Pluvinage-produced Tout ce qui brille is slated for a March 13, 2026 release through Bravo Musique. The French Canadian quintet’s forthcoming sophomore effort will reportedly feature material that sees the band pushing their sound in new directions while anchored around a seamless fusion of acoustic and electronic textures. Thematically, Tout ce qui brille will celebrate human connection, the relationships that shape and sustain us, and the joy and vulnerability that come from being seen and held by others. The result is an album that radiates with warmth, friendship, community — and much more importantly, healing.

Tout ce qui brille‘s second and latest single, “2 goélands” is a broodingly meditative track featuring gentle layers of twinkling keys and atmospheric synths, stuttering drum patterns serving as a lush and dreamy bed for Simon Duchesne’s yearning delivery. Evoking the sight of soaring seagulls by the shore, “2 goélands” seemingly channels Cloud Castle Lake‘s gorgeous and cinematic 2018 effort Malingerer and Amnesiac-era Radiohead.

Lyrically, the song explores a relationship that has been damaged somehow but not irrevocably so; it’s a relationship that can be repaired, if both sides truly want that relationship to work and can see past their disagreement — or their current impasse.

Directed by Félix Simard-Tanguay, and set in suburban Quebec, the accompanying video for “2 goélands” features the members of Marie Céleste in surreal, dream-like scenarios that evoke and emphasize the song’s thematic concern of relationships on the brink — but eventually the disputes are settled with a handshake.

New Audio: I WANT POETRY Shares Ethereal “Mirrors Of The Sky”

German indie electro pop duo I WANT POETRY — Tine von Bergen (vocals) and Till Moritz Moll (keys) — have received attention for crafting music that simultaneously feels cinematic and deeply human, blending emotional depth with luminous pop soundscapes.

Developing a reputation for an immersive live show and striking visuals, the German duo have earned critical acclaim and a nomination at the European Songwriting Awards. The duo have played over 100 shows across their native Germany, Poland, Sweden and elsewhere, while making the run of the European showcase festival circuit. And adding to a growing national and international profile, the duo’s single “Light” landed on iTunes charts in several countries, amassing over 500,000 streams globally — and was selected for the soundtrack for the Canadian film, La mécanique des frontières.

2026 looks to be a breakthrough year for the German indie electro pop duo: Their highly anticipated third album, Future Selves is slated for an early 2026 release. The album is reportedly hopeful and transformative, inspired by a brief period of time when the future still felt like a promise, channeling the spirit of past utopias and dreams of progress. And as a result, it offers a forward-looking visions shaped by memory, imagination and the will to create what comes next. Sonically, the album’s material marks an evolution from the reflective tones of Solace + Light, featuring layers of shimming synths and soaring melodies.

The German duo will be touring to support the tour will include an appearance at The New Colossus Festival‘s seventh edition next March. But in the meantime, Future Selves‘ first single “Mirrors Of The Sky” is a slow-burning and broodingly autumnal track, featuring skittering beats and swirling, atmospheric synths. The song’s ethereal production serves as a lush, dream-like bed for von Bergen’s expressive, Kate Bush-like vocal. The result is a song that feels cinematic in scope, yet as intimate as a lover whispering in your ear.

New Audio: RXRXBBIT Shares Sultry “Sunk Cost”

RXRXBBIT is a mysterious and emerging singer/songwriter, producer and pop artist, who has been rather prolific over the past 18 month or so, releasing a handful of attention grabbing singles.

The emerging artist’s latest single “Sunk Cost” is a swaggering and sultry, dance floor bop anchored around a thumping, hyper pop-meets-alt pop production while featuring an unabashedly unhinged, unafraid and brutally honest narrator, who overshares yet makes it flirty and feminist.

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Alewya Teams Up with Dagmawit Ameha on Sultry and Propulsive “Night Drive”

JOVM mainstay Alewya is an acclaimed London-based singer/songwriter, producer and visual artist. Born in Saudi Arabia to an Egyptian-Sudanese father and an Ethiopian mother, the acclaimed London-based artist has spent her life surrounded by diaspora immigrant communities: She grew up in West London and after a several year stint in New York, she returned to London. Upon her return home, the Saudi-British artist developed and honed her ear for music through the sounds of the Ethiopian and Arabic music of her parents and the ambient alternative rock album of her brother.

The Saudi-born, British artist is part of a generation of artists actively redefining global music: They’re generally rooted in heritage yet unbound by it. Describing herself as a partner, who makes music, Aleway approaches sound as texture and feeling, guided more by intuition than structure. Her sound and story widen the Black-British frame, bringing the oft-under-heard North/East African perspective into a much-needed focus.

Back in 2020, the JOVM mainstay burst into the scene with an attention grabbing feature on Little Simz‘s “where’s my lighter,” which caught the attention of Because Records, who signed the rising artist and released her critically applauded debut, 2021’s Panther In Mode EP, which featured:

  •  The Busy Twist-produced debut single “Sweating,” a forward-thinking Timbaland-like mesh of trap, reggae and electro pop. 
  • Spirit_X,” which paired elements of Timbaland, trap and drum ‘n’ bass paired with the rising British artist alternating between spitting fiery bars and sultry crooning
  • The sultry and defiantly feminist anthem “Play” 
  • Channel High” a slick synthesis of grime, contemporary R&B, dancehall, electro pop and Afrobeats

The acclaimed JOVM mainstay’s latest single “Night Drive,” feat. Dagmawit Ameha is the first bit of new material in over three years. The new single sees the acclaimed Saudi-British artist boldly stepping forward into a new creative era and way of life.

“Night Drive,” is a lush, slickly produced, futuristic-leaning blend of 80s and 90s Detroit and Chicago house, minimalist beats, alt R&B, Ethiopian music, Afrobeats and komische musik with a playful and naughty nod to Grace Jones’ “Pull Up To The Bumper.”

Written and demoed by Alesha before being fleshed out and brought to live with long-time collaborators Craigie Dodds and Dean Barratt, “Night Drive” began as a minimal and intuitive feeling that evolved into an ode to Detroit house and the roots of Black electronic music.

Directed by Taichi Kimura, the accompanying video for “Night Drive” was shot during a recent, deeply influential trip to Japan, the video is a fever dream that follows the acclaimed JOVM mainstay through the heady, late night buzz of a neon-lit city, the backseat of a speeding cab and the sweaty pulse of a packed dance floor.

New Audio: Vancouver’s RX1F Shares Yearning “Afterimages”

RX1F is a Vancouver-based electronic music producer and artist, who has a reputation for openly challenging music norms while staying with an immediate, infectious and accessible pop territory. HIs work is rooted in an approach that frequently balances experimentation and playfulness.

Driven by a desire to push the boundaries of pop music, the Vancouver-based artist frequently tackles unconventional subjects. “I try to find subjects that aren’t normally covered in pop songs and try to make them into pop songs. Sometimes it works out well, sometimes… less well,” the Canadian artist says. “I’m fascinated by old-school pop songwriting and the puzzle of making melodies and chords that play nicely together. It’s a game with only one rule: make it sound good.

“I want to make music that is balanced: there’s darkness, there’s light, there’s energy, there’s emptiness,” he continues. “I get bored very quickly if I sit in the same place and eat the same flavor after a while.”

The Canadian artist’s latest single, the TR/ST-like “Afterimages,” features a dance floor friendly production featuring layers of pulsing synths, propulsive kick drum serving as a woozy yet lush bed for RX1F’s plaintive vocal telling a story of losing someone dear, being forced to accept its inevitability — and then recognizing that ghosts linger.

“This is probably as close as I’ll ever get to writing a love song,” the Vancouver-based artist explains. “It was written many years ago at a point where I could see a relationship was not going to make it, but it didn’t really crystallize until a close friend passed away last year – it’s kind of loss that you can never recover from. You’re always looking backwards.”

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay Thaïs Shares Bold, Uptempo Rework of “MTL-Paris”

Rising Paris-born, Montréal-based singer/songwriter and JOVM mainstay Thaïs has received attention across the Francophone music world and elsewhere for an atmospheric and delicate pop sound, which perfectly compliments her ethereal delivery.

2022 was a breakthrough year for the JOVM mainstay: She signed with Bravo Musique, who released her highly anticipated full-length debut, Tout est parfait. The following years have been busy for the rising French Canadian artist: She has opened for KYOMArianne MoffattDumas and Suzane while working on her Blaise Borboën and Thaïs co-produced sophomore album Personne, which was released earlier this year.

Described by the JOVM mainstay as “extroverted music for introverts,” Personne‘s material are energetic tracks that are meant to lead towards self-affirmation while allowing listeners to delve deeper into her universe. The album features “Taxi,” a slickly produced, dance floor friendly bop that to my years, sounds as though it were inspired by the likes of Robyn.

The Paris-born, Montréal-based JOVM mainstay recently reworked album single “MTL-Paris.” The album version is simultaneously atmospheric and introspective before slowly morphing into much more dance floor territory, seemingly reflecting a narrator, who’s growing in self-assuredness and confidence. “MTL-Paris V2” is a much more upbeat, dance floor friendly bop from the jump, turning the song from a tale of growing confidence, to one of boldly liberating oneself — with the realization that you’ve only got one life to live.

For the JOVM mainstay, reworking her own work is a creative exercise that allows her to reveal other possible, sometimes even latent facets to her material — all while retaining the “extroverted music for introverts” concept of the album.

New Video: Endearments Share Yearning and Cinematic “Cannon”

Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and bassist Kevin Marksson has made a career out of wearing his heart on his sleeve, pouring years of diary entries into the music and lyrics of Endearments. On the project’s most recent EP, 2023’s self-released, Abe Seiferth-produced, It Can Be Like This, Marksson and his bandmates — Anjali Nair (guitar) and Will Haywood Smith (drums) — channel their frontman’s introspections into lush, reverb-soaked pop that evoke 4AD Records‘ heyday and Roxy Music.

The trio recently signed to Trash Casual, who released their latest single “Cannon.” Continuing an ongoing collaboration with Abe Seiferh, “Cannon” showcases a cinematic sound that features glistening synth oscillations, propulsive drumming and bursts of angular guitar paired with a rousingly anthemic hook and chorus serving as a lush, brooding bed for Marksson’s achingly yearning, melancholic delivery. The result is a song that simultaneously seems to nod at Simple Minds and Tears for Fears, as well as contemporaries like Nation of Language and others while anchored around deeply introspective, lived-in lyricism.

Directed by Gabriel Stanley, the accompanying video for “Cannon” employs a simple, bare-boned concept: Marksson singing and dancing to the song in a spotlight filled studio and gradually soaked by rain.

“‘Cannon’ is a song about apathy and addiction. It’s about living in a world where we see atrocities unfolding before our eyes, yet choose to willfully ignore or self-medicate because the pain we are witnessing is so overwhelming,” Endearments’ Kevin Marksson explains. “I knew we needed to keep the music video simple and focused on lyrics and movement. Even though I’m not a trained dancer, we worked with an amazing choreographer, Camilia Araque, who really helped me step out of my comfort zone and throw myself into the experience and emotion of the song.”

The Brooklyn-based trio is currently working on their Abe Seiferth-produced full-length debut, slated for an early 2026 release.