Tag: indie rock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bedridden Shares Furious “Philadelphia, Get Me Through”

Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician Jack Riley can trace the origins of his music career to when he was five and making music on a thrift-store guitar emblazoned with Kurt Cobain‘s name. Riley moved to New Orleans for college, where dabbled in punk and fell in love with shoegaze before starting the first iteration of Bedridden. The Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician recruited Pasadena, CA-born jazz trained Sebastian Duzian (bass) and Claremont, CA-born Nick Pedroza (drums), who grew up on rock, metal and jazz to form a live band. 

The first lineup released their debut EP, 2023’s Amateur Heartthrob, a noise-washed blend of shoegaze, DIY and indie rock that Riley says is a “coming-of-age EP — these formative stories about not having a bed, dating, being kind of a jackass. I was making fun of myself a lot.” The EP caught the attention of Julia’s War Recordings‘ Douglas Dulgarian, who then signed the band. 

The band relocated to Brooklyn. After relocating, the band recruited Wesley Wolffe (guitar) to complete the band’s lineup as a newly minted quartet. The current incarnation of the band encompasses a patchwork of styles, influences and friends that the band’s Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based frontman has accumulated over the years. 

The next iteration in the band’s development and maturation is their full-length debut, the Aron Kobayashi Ritch-produced Moths Strapped To Each Other’s Back. Slated for an April 11, 2025 release through Julia’s War Recordings, the album’s titled is derived from a mysterious missive Riley received on the popular astrology app Co-Star. The 10-song album’s fuzzed out and sometimes gnarly songs sees the band ruminating on dating, drugs and survival. “Last year I was way too reliant on other people — my partner at the time, my friends,” Riley says. “I was strapped to them in a weird way — and flying in circles. This album is about that time.”

“Some of these songs have been around for years,” says Riley, adding that they were recorded last February at Brooklyn’s Studio G. “As opposed to Amateur Heartthrob, we attempted to blend more clean guitars into a driving sound to capture more clarity — one that also sounds live… and raw.”

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s previously released singles”

  • “Etch,” a woozy yet mournful Dinosaur Jr.-like  ripper built around fuzzy power chords, rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses and thunderous drumming that’s anchored around a seething, simmering anger that inspires a daydream about punching someone in the jaw. “‘Etch’ was a rhythmic accident that didn’t stem from any direct inspirations,” Riley explains. “The irregular triplet line came to me first and sounded somber, yet hostile. It lent itself well to phrases I had written not about heartbreak, but about the subsequent temper that it had induced. I was dreaming of fighting, I was dreaming of winning that fight, and lastly dreaming of defaming my competitor. The song is frantic and doesn’t have a tonal center. With its weaving guitar harmonies laid underneath countering vocal melodies, it sounds to me like that regretful fistfight that I was longing for.”

  • “Chainsaw” is a rousingly anthemic Dinosaur Jr./Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins-like ripper that sees Riley expressing the frustrations and pent-up annoyances with roommates and their quirks and foibles. “The song is written from my perspective about a time when I made an uncertain decision to move in with a partner and her friend and a slew of manic stories that ensued after the fact,” Bedridden’s Jack Riley explains “One of the stories was that of the roommates incessantly searching to buy a new lamp and how it bothered me. The video is me trying to break through that anger by destroying the lamps.”

Moths Strapped to Each Other’s Backs‘ latest single “Philadelphia, Get Me Through” may arguably be one of the album’s angriest and most forceful rippers. Featuring driving rhythms paired with Dinosaur Jr.-meets- The Colour and The Shape-era Foo Fighters-like riffage, big shout-along worthy hooks and choruses, “Philadelphia, Get Me Through” is a one-part tongue-in-cheek joke, one-part diss track informed by personal experience.

“This is the most charged song I wrote for Moths,” Bedridden’s Jack Riley says. “I was hyper-aware that I was losing it at the time. I was chasing a relationship that only made me feel belittled. Bedridden took a day trip out to Philly to play a show with Worlds Worst and I thought that having a good night away from Brooklyn would cure me. It didn’t. Soon after, I dug up this angular, repetitive riff in a 5/4 time signature and found the melody quickly. The song crescendos into damn near a metal track. Nick wrote an incredible drum part. I had the perfect groundwork for a diss track.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jahnah Camille Shares Anthemic “what do you do?”

Rising, 20 year-old, Birmingham, AL-born and-based singer/songwriter and musician Jahnah Camille (pronounced as “Hannah”) can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood: Overhearing her father’s guitar lessons, she first picked up a guitar when she was four, and by the time she turned 10, she was writing her own songs.

Throughout her life, supportive coincidences have pushed Camille’s creative tenacity. Her mother encouraged an elementary school-aged Jahnah to perform for their apartment’s maintenance man, who then gifted her a red Gibson SG and an amplifier. At a hippie kids camp, she met a mentor, who helped to champion her early crowdfunded recordings.

“My mom was always having me sing and play guitar for people,” says Jahnah. “I’ve always had people who believed in me, and I feel like I’ve internalized that. That’s been really beautiful.”

Later opportunities to open for acclaimed artists like Clairo and Soccer Mommy led to her burgeoning status as a keenly self-examining indie rock singer/songwriter in a Birmingham scene saturated with punk and hardcore bands — many of which she played with in her earliest DIY shows.

“The first year after I graduated high school was kind of horrifying,” says Jahnah. “I had just basically broken up with most of my band. I wasn’t going to college. I was seeing how everyone else that I had known growing up, their lives were changing. I knew that whatever happened in my life, it wasn’t going to be that, and there wasn’t really any proof that things were going in a positive direction.”

The rising Birmingham-based artist’s sophomore EP, the Alex Farrar-produced My sunny oath! is slated for a June 13, 2025 release through Winspear. The EP comes on the heels of a run of tour dates with Blondshell and previous shows opening for TOPS, Soccer Mommy and Clairo — and after the success of her debut EP, last year’s i tried to freeze light, but only remember a girl.

My sunny oath! is set in the pressure cooker of new adulthood and is reportedly features a defiant collection of alt-rock, lo-fi grit and sardonic grunge that channels Jahnah Camille’s influences, including The Sundays, Liz Phair, Minnie Ripperton and Japanese Breakfast among others.

“what do you do?,” My sunny oath EP‘s latest single is a 90s/120 Minutes MTV-era indie rock inspired anthem, anchored around a classic grunge rock structure paired with the young artist’s remarkably self-assured vocal turn and uncanny knack for an enormous, well-placed hook.

“I wrote this while trying to understand the feeling of losing control,” the rising Birmingham-based artist says, “I was paralyzed by a need to control how other people saw me and needed to write about it.” 

Directed by Harrison Shook with assistance from Polycarpe Ancelet and Ava Cavasos, the accompanying video for “what do you do?” follows a series of actors auditioning for various roles in a Broadway-styled show.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay MAGON Shares Freewheeling “Good Song”

Wildly prolific Israeli-born, Costa Rican-based singer/songwriter, musician and JOVM mainstay MAGON recently released his 11th album Tales of a Mountain Child.

In the lead-up to the album’s release, I wrote about two of the album’s previously released singles:

  • Album title track “Tales of a Mountain Child,” a track that possesses the same sort of freewheeling, restless nature reminiscent of early Bob Dylan, Harvest-era Neil Young and Inner Journey Out-era Psychic Ills. And while continuing upon the JOVM’s mainstay reputation for his uncanny knack for catchy hooks, the song captures a familiar feeling for me — the seemingly irresistible push and pull of a life on the road. 

  • “Outer Darkness,” a track that continues a run of material seemingly indebted to 60s psych rock and 70s album rock, with a dreamy yet introspective air. The result is a song that evokes nostalgia while anchored around a modern sensibility. 

Tales of a Mountain Child‘s latest single “Good Song” continues upon the album’s freewheeling nature – and his penchant for catchy grooves and hooks. And much like its predecessors, the song’s lyrics are surrealistic yet paint a vivid picture of late-night musings, fleeting thoughts and playfully odd imagery.

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Live Concert Photography: Speedy Wunderground, New Colossus Festival and Baby’s All Right Presents NYC Vol 1. at Baby’s All Right 2/25/25 feat. Meet the Fcokers, Slow Fiction and Prewn

Live concert photography of Speedy Wunderground, The New Colossus Festival and Baby’s All Right’s NYC Vol. 1. Showcase last month.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays The Lovelines Shares New Order-Inspired “Shades of Blue”

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink on The Lovelines. The duo, which is currently split between Berlin and  Orlando, released material from their forthcoming full-length debut single-by-single.

The JOVM mainstays’ latest single “Shades of Blue” is a nostalgia-inducing and hook-driven bit of post punk, that reminds me a bit of fellow JOVM mainstays Club 8 — while clearly being indebted to early 80s New Order.

The band’s Todd Goings explains “‘Shades of Blue’ is an ode to New Wave; it was me pretending I was writing a song for New Order.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Bedridden Shares Roaring “Chainsaw”

Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician Jack Riley can trace the origins of his music career to when he was five and making music on a thrift-store emblazoned with Kurt Cobain‘s name. Riley moved to New Orleans for college, […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Anika Shares Unflinchingly Honest “Walk Away”

Acclaimed British-born, Berlin-based singer/songwriter and musician Annika Henderson, best known as Anika will be releasing her fourth album Abyss through Sacred Bones on April 4, 2025. 

Abyss was born out of the frustration, anger and confusion Henderson feels from existing in our contemporary world. Reportedly much heavier than 2021’s Change, the 10-song album is raw, urgent and fueled by strong emotions, the album’s material takes the acclaimed British-born, Berlin-based artist on a new sonic journey. 

The forthcoming album was recorded live to tape at Berlin’s legendary Hansa Studios. Recording live and with minimal overdubs was an important decision, Henderson stresses, in order to capture the raw immediacy of the album. Much like previously released material, she wrote the songs herself before fleshing them out with Exploded View‘s Martin Thulin, and then assembled a live band to join the pair in the studio that included Andrea Belfi (drums), Mueran Humanos‘ Tomas Nochteff (bass) and The Pleasure Majenta‘s Lawrence Goodwin (guitar). Studio engineering was done by Nanni Johansson and Frida Claeson Johansson. “I always work with people I respect and admire,” Henderson says. “It’s very genuine in that way.” 

The acclaimed British-born, Berlin-based artist consciously sought to make an album that was inherently physical — one that would take the listener out of their heads and back into their body. The physicality of the album and its material is further emphasized by its album cover, which features androgynous bodies from a drawing by a teenage friend of Anika’s. Fittingly, teenage angst plays a part in the album. “These days it feels like you have to have very catered opinions – like language has gone out the window,” Henderson says. “It makes you feel very much like a restricted child again.” 

With Abyss, the acclaimed British-born, Berlin-based artist was determined to break free from holding back genuine emotions — even if they might seem uncomfortable or too much. “It’s like I’m doing all the things that I never allowed myself to do,” she says. Anika hopes this pure emotion will position the listener to fully immerse themselves in the album. “There needs to be room for people to put themselves in this album, and put their own narratives on it,” she says. “This is a space for you.”

“There’s so much going on in the world, and you have to sit there and watch it through a screen that you’ve allowed into your home, like a vampire who had been preying at your door, then immediately digest it, have an opinion, and publicly comment on it,” Henderson continues. “The state of the world just feels like an abyss right now.” With this new album, she wants to create a place where people can feel safe to be themselves, and to unite in their diversity. “Abyss is like a call to action,” she says. “To come and figure it out together.”

Last month, I wrote about Abyss‘ lead single and album opening track “Hearsay,” a gritty Joy Division– meets-PJ Harvey-like tune, anchored around an angular and driving bass line, stuttering four-on-the-floor and slashing guitars paired with Henderson’s melodic, Nico-like croon. The song hones in on the extreme divisions between the left and right in contemporary society with Anika explaining that “this song is about media moguls – about the power of the media, whether social, tv or beyond – we are as much under its spell as we ever were and some nasties are exploiting it for their own gains. Parasites feeding off the blood of the public — PJ Harvey inspired for sure.” 

Abyss‘ second and latest single “Walk Away” is a surprisingly upbeat 90s alt rock-influenced track that sounds a bit like a synthesis of Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea-era PJ Harvey and the likes of Hole/Courtney Love paired with the most blatant and unflinchingly honest lyrics of the British-born, German-based artist’s career. The song reveals an artist, who is no longer concerned with how others may think or feel about what she feels she has to say. It’s zero-fucks mode, informed by a world that’s gone to completely to hell anyway.

“This song is saying all the things I want to say but am too scared to say or that society doesn’t accept me to say. It is dealing with mental health – the state of poor mental health in these fucked up, divided, isolated, social media, war, pest, rise of the right times,” Anika explains. “It is the deconstruction of the feminine – of topics considered to be private realm.”

Henderson cites “the reckless nature of 90s/2000s Hole/Courtney Love records — of not giving a shit — telling it how it is, not scared to offend, not scared to be cancelled. We have also lost the space for healthy debate, for difference of opinion, shutting down those we don’t agree with, removing them from our social networks.”

Directed by Laura Martinova, the accompanying video was shot in and around a former brothel in Berlin and “plays with the socially constructed ideas of femininity, of sexuality, of sexual restriction and confronts them,” Henderson explains. “The character is quite sufficient by herself, sexually and socially liberated – and also a bit of a mess, destroying the prim and proper idea of how a good wifey should be. She is a hedonist, she lets herself go, she shows anger, she shows being drunk, she seems to enjoy dusting the pictures of the naked ladies very much, she is independent and breaking out of all the bars imposed by the patriarchy. The guy in the video never finds her, never even gets close, doesn’t in the slightest disrupt her life, he continues to look but she seems to always be a step ahead.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Deep Sea Diver Shares Anthemic “What Do I Know”

Deep Sea Diver‘s long awaited and highly-anticipated fourth album, the 11-song, Jessica Dobson and Andy Park co-produced Billboard Heart is slated for a February 28, 2025 release through Sub Pop. The album reportedly puts the band – currently, Dobson, her spouse Peter Mansen (drums) and Elliot Jackson (guitar, synths) — in the company of acts like St. Vincent, TV on the Radio,Flock of Dimes and others, that have found ornate and magnetic ways to make indie rock by discarding notions of how it must sound or what it must say. 

The album features additional production from Adam Schatz and additional contributions from The Shins‘ Yuuki Matthews, Caroline Rose and Greg Leisz. It was mixed by Park and mastered by Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone. 

Some background is needed here: Back in July 2023 while recording in a Los Angeles-based studio, Dobson played a guitar solo but somehow felt nothing. Just a few days earlier, her band played a series of semi-secret shows for fans at a hometown bar, de facto rehearsals for cutting a new record. The sets had gone well; but almost immediately, the sessions didn’t. The songs’ essence seemed muddled, Dobson’s conviction lost somewhere in the 1,000 miles or so between Southern California and the Seattle-based home studio she shares with her spouse and frequent cowriter Peter Mansen. 

On that first night of recording sessions, Dobson broke down, wondering what she was doing there and what her band could do to fix it. For the first time in their history, the band retreated and headed home without a completed album. Did they need to scrap the entire thing and start again with new material? 

As it turned out, no. Following a brief break, Dobson found a renewed sense of self, a trust in her vision for her band and songs and her ability to capture them. After the Los Angeles hiccup a few months before, longtime collaborator and producer Andy Park asked Dobson how the new material was going over at an early fall dinner. She admitted that she needed help. And in that humbling confession, she seen found ways of working that helped her reimagine and reinvigorate the band — and directly led to their fourth album. 

For Dobson, the album is a triumph over self-doubt in which what initially felt like failure became an opportunity to find new freedom, belief, and even strength. 

As it turned out, the massive success of their third album Impossible Weight caused Dobson to doubt her impulses, and to begin thinking about what an idea’s impact or reception might be as much the strength of the idea itself. During this period of second-guessing, she and Mansen sat near the wide windows of their Seattle living room, with her on piano as he hammered a guitar nearby. Album track “See in the Dark” — a song about coveting your notions, despite the occasional sense they’re slipping away — emerged in that setting. 
 
That particular moment of domestic creation was essential for a number of reasons. Before Impossible Weight, Dobson and Mansen wrote many of Deep Sea Diver’s songs together; this was a return to that bond, which managed to carry over to more than half Billboard Heart‘s material. The pair began recording more at home, too. They borrowed microphones and a small batch of essential gear to record guitars and vocals in their basement. 

When discussions later began in earnest with Park, following the Los Angeles incident, Dobson began revisiting those earlier recordings, realizing that she had captured much of that ineffable spark at home, where the atmosphere was of her own design. Mansen and Park helped convince her that these wasn’t just good enough to use, but riveting in their realness. These early versions became templates to build upon and a frame, and a way for Dobson to believe again in the material, and most importantly, herself. 

The album will feature the album title track “Billboard Heart,” as well as two singles I wrote about on this site:

  • “Let Me Go,” a slow-burning Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea-era PJ Harvey-like anthemic ballad that sees the ballad collaboration with Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Madison Cunningham 

  • “Shovel,” a Kate Bush-meets-St. Vincent-like tune that sees the band crafting hook-driven arena rock friendly anthems informed by lived-in, personal yet somehow deeply universal experience 

“What Do I Know,” Billboard Heart‘s third and latest single continues a run of punchy post-punk-like numbers with a rousingly anthemic, arena rock friendly hook and chorus. But much its predecessors, “What Do I Know” reveals the band’s remarkably adroit yet earnest, heart worn proudly on sleeve-driven songwriting while serving as a forceful reminder of Dobson’s powerhouse vocals and dexterous guitar work.

Directed by Eric Luck and Deep Sea Diver’s Peter Manson, the vibrant jump-cut style accompanying video features the band playing the song in a small room with the family dog, various friends in costume and other surreal things go on around them. The band continues onward — playfully accepting whatever is going on around them.

“‘What Do I Know’ holds a special place on the record. It is the first song that I engineered all of the instruments myself at my home studio,” Dobson explains. “At the time, I thought I was recording a demo and most of the parts are first takes. We kept all of the imperfections, and nothing was overthought. For the music video, we wanted to lean into that same spirit and gave ourselves only a few hours to film in a very small space. The song is equally existential as it is tongue in cheek, and we wanted the video to reflect more of the raw elements of who we are as a band.” 
 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Miki Berenyi Trio Shares Dance Floor Friendly “Big I Am”

Miki Berenyi Trio features an acclaimed and accomplished group of artists:

  • Miki Berenyi (vocals/ guitar), a founding member, frontperson and rhythm guitarist of acclaimed and iconic shoegazer outfit Lush — and the founder and frontperson of acclaimed outfit Piroshka

  • Kevin “Moose” McKillop (guitar), a founding member of acclaimed shoegazers Moose, Berenyi’s spouse and Piroshka bandmate 

  • Oliver Cherer (bass)

The band is named after its lead singer — a direct way to convey the presence of former Lush frontperson Miki Berenyi, one of the most beloved figures and recognizable faces of 1990s alternative rock and shoeegaze. Their highly-anticipated full-length debut, Tripla derives it name from the Hungarian word for “triple” acknowledging that the band’s songwriting is entirely a three-way collaboration.

Slated for an April 4, 2025 release through Bella Union, the trio’s debut album, is reportedly a landmark album for the acclaimed trio that sees the trio crafting a rich and lushly layered, imaginative and uniquely slanted take on dream pop that features an often euphoric and occasionally melancholic mix of guitars and electronics paired with Berenyi’s imitable vocal and a worldview that vacillates between profound, yearning and abrasive — perhaps from lived-in experience and wisdom.

Interestingly, despite the album’s sophisticated sound, the trio have done so with a focus on the basics, not only recording at home, but driving around in a car packed with their gear, loading in and out of venues themselves — much like in the old days. “There is something very ‘grass roots’ about what we’re doing,” Miki Berenyi Trio’s Miki Berenyi says.  “There’s no point following the ‘announce the album, then tour, then record the next album’ route – we just want to wring as much enjoyment out of this as we can, and hope that it resonates somewhere!”

Tripla‘s latest single “Big I Am” sees the trio pairing dance floor New Wave-meets-electro pop beats, shoegazer textures and a slick motorik groove but the song eviscerates the pretend alpha/macho aggression of social media creeps like Andrew Tate and others, revealing that they’re insecure, frightened buffoons.

“I’ve witnessed 50+ years of the trends in masculinity and frankly, nothing much changes – as ever, there are good men and there are shit men, and there are boys who can be misguided but easily mature into the best of their sex,” Miki Berenyi says. “But this latest incarnation of ‘winning’ the sex war is a laughably infantile and willfully regressive new low.”

Directed by Sébastien Faits-Divers, the accompanying video was filmed at the Consortium Museum (Contemporary Art Center) in Dijon, France, in one of the Isabella Ducrot “Profusione” exhibition rooms, and features the band performing the song and includes some trippy fish-eye lens shots.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: MAGON Returns with Trippy Yet Introspective “Outer Darkness”

Wildly prolific Israeli-born, Costa Rican-based singer/songwriter, musician and JOVM mainstay MAGON will be releasing his 11th album Tales of a Mountain Child in March.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the album’s first single, album title track “Tales of a Mountain Child,” a track that possesses the same sort of freewheeling, restless nature reminiscent of early Bob Dylan, Harvest-era Neil Young and Inner Journey Out-era Psychic Ills. While continuing upon the JOVM’s mainstay reputation for his uncanny knack for catchy hooks, the song captures a familiar feeling for me — the seemingly irresistible push and pull of a life on the road. 

Tales of a Mountain Child‘s second and latest single “Outer Darkness” continues a run of material that’s seemingly indebted to 60s psych rock and 70s album rock, with a dreamy yet introspective air. The result is a song that evokes nostalgia while anchored around a modern sensibility.

The accompanying video features footage from Len Lye’s 1946 animated film Rainbow Dance, further emphasizing the dreamy, psilocybin-like vibe of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 65th Birthday, Steve Wynn!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Steve Wynn’s 65th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Triathalon Shares Brooding Dirge “RIP”

New York-based trio Triathlon — Adam Intrator, Chad Chilton and Hunter Jayne — will be releasing their fifth album, Funeral Music on May 16, 2025 through Lex Records. The album began taking shape when the […]