Tag: lyric video

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: BESVÄRJELSEN Shares an Anthemic Power Ballad

Acclaimed Swedish metal outfit BESVÄRJELSEN — currently co-founders Andreas Bajer (guitar) and Staffan Vinrot (guitar), along with Lea Annling Alazam (vocals), and Erik Bäckwell (drums) and Marcus Lindqvist (bass) — can trace their origins back to 2014 when its founding duo started the band based on concept of channeling the spirit and tradition of the Dalarna forests into a contemporary urban context. Dalarna is at the ancient crossroads of Norse and Finnish cultures, where the echoes of runes and gods, shamans and spirits still linger. While drawing heavy inspiration from local lore, mysticism and the dark, old musical traditions of their homeland, the band derives their name from the old Swedish word for “conjuring.”

Though the band’s story has its roots in Norway’s past the present came boldly knocking. Lea Anling Alazam can trace her passion for punk and stoner rock to being a 13 year-old, hanging out at the local skate park. When Bahjer and Vernon met Alazam, they were so impressed by her vocals that they were happy tor relegate their shared vocal duties to a backing role. Alazam, who had grown up with her feet in multiple worlds added a fresh approach by embracing the melodies of the grunge and emo sounds that defined her youth, as well as African and Middle Eastern music and bluesy undertones. They released their first two self-financed and self-released EP’s 2015’s Vullfarsler and 2016’s Exit, which saw the band expand into a quartet with the addition of DOZER‘s and Greenleaf‘s Erik Bäckwell as a full-time member. Both efforts received critical praise and airplay on Swedish national radio — with minimal promotion.

They went on to release their full-length debut 2018’s Vallmo. But their sophomore album, 2022’s Atlas put them on the international metal map: The album received critical praise from the global praise while earning a Swedish Manifestgalan Award for “Metal Album of the Year.””

The Swedish metal outfit’s third album Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem is slated for an August 28, 2026 release through Magnetic Eye Records. The album derives its title for the Swedish and Latin for “Into Oblivion” and it reportedly sees BESVÄRJELSEN maintaining a long-held punk-infused attitude, but they’ve broadened their sound with the addition of elements of blues, ska, metal, jazz and everything else around and in between, as long as it fit the mood of the song.

Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem‘s latest single “Drifters on a Quiet Stream” is slow-burning ballad that sees the band balancing bruising, power chord-driven riffs with piano-driven introspective verses and rousingly anthemic, arena rock friendly hooks and choruses. Fittingly, Alazam’s expressive, power house vocal serves as a lifeline in stormy waters. At its core is a much-needed message of resilience — and a reminder that difficult and anxious times are usually temporary setbacks. Tomorrow you can start over.

“‘Drifters on a Quiet Stream’ had the working title ‘Elton’ as Elton John was one of the musical inspirations for this song”, the band’s Erik Båckwell reveals. “The intro and main riff was originally intended to be a part of another song. When I got our former bass player Johan to listen to the riff, he rather advised me to create a completely new song from this part. I am really glad now that I did that.”

Lea Amling Alazam adds, “This track explores the ever-present companion of the self – the voice that follows you through life, both to comfort and to critique”, the vocalist explains. “It is the quiet presence on your shoulder. When writing those lyrics, I revisited an old notebook and found a phrase I had once scribbled down: ‘…my ghost and I’. I’m not sure where I first came across this idea, but it stayed with me. It felt like a beautiful and honest way to describe living alongside your own anxiety, and I knew from the start that I wanted to build something around it.”

The lyric video visualizer employs forest imagery, further emphasizing what they’ve dubbed “forest rock” their tongue-in-cheek answer to desert rock — but this forest features some dark, unsettling flowers and plants.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Indy Fontaine Returns with Flirty “Como Pa’ Mi”

Indy Fontaine is a Cuban-born, Miami-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, who can trace the origins of her career to her early childhood: Singing alongside her uncle and his old guitar, she fell in love with music when she was three. By the time she turned six, she was enrolled full-time at a music school in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, where she trained to be professional vocalist and musician. 

Fontaine went on to graduate at the top of her class from Havana‘s prestigious National School of Art. When she graduated, she already had over a decade of experience playing gigs all across her native Cuba, including music festivals, live radio and TV sessions, and more. 

Fontaine then joined Sol y Sun, an act that has made runs of the international festival circuit between the States and Cuba, as well as some of the most popular venues in Havana. The band also frequently performed on national TV and radio shows.

She then relocated to Miami, where she stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist, Her solo debut, 2024’s Moments of My Life ranged across a number of genres and styles, including Adult Contemporary, Easy Listening, Soft Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock and R&B — with songs written and sung in both English and Spanish. 

The album featured “El Amor No Alcanza,” Fontaine’s subtly modern take on bolero, a Cuban genre that frequently focuses on affairs of the heart. Since then, Fontaine spent the past year releasing a collection of successful singles, “Esta Navidad,” “Vacaciones,” “Mariposas En La Lluvia,” “Mejor Sin Ti,” “Que Te Vaya Bien,” “Después De La Caída”  and the Andrés Castro and Guianko Gómez co-written and co-produced “Tú Tienes Algo,” feat. Charlie Cruz.

Fontaine’s latest single, the Fontaine and Guianko Gómez cowritten and Gómez-produced “Como Pa’ Mi” is a thumping, club friendly and flirty bachata tune that captures the feverish desperation of obsessive infatuation, when that person takes absolute hold of every thought and feeling. The song radiates joy –the sort of joy and hope from newfound love. And that joy was the feeling that Fontaine brought into the studio. “I walked into the studio with a happy vibe, a special feeling, and I wanted to share that with everyone — that beautiful emotion that comes up when two people genuinely connect,” Fontaine says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Shye Shares Brooding and Ethereal “I Always Knew”

Rising Singapore-based dream pop artist Shye is a self-taught singer/songwriter, musician, producer and engineer, whose music career began as DIY bedroom project that exploded into the international scene when she won the 2018 Vans Musicians Wanted competition when she was just 16. Since then, the Singaporean artist has released a handful of genre-defying singles while amassing a batch of awards and titles, including NME‘s Best New Act from Asia, Asia’s Forbes 30 Under 30 and sharing stages with acts like The Jesus and Mary Chain, Wisp, Clairo and Men I Trust.

Her sophomore album The Doves Came Home officially dropped today. The album features a collection of hazy, introspective songs that seamlessly transition from ethereal vocals and shimmering guitars to heavy walls of sound that draws from 90s dream pop and shoegaze. The result is material that sounds simultaneously expansive and deeply personal while exploring the push and pull between softness and tension.

The album includes the previously released “Smoke,” “Someone, Always“ and the album’s latest single “I Always Knew.” Much like its immediate predecessors, “I Always Knew,” features the rising Singaporean artist’s yearning vocal ethereally floating over a 90s inspired arrangement built around alternating shimmering, jangle pop and dream pop-like guitars for the song’s quieter verses and towering and swirling shoegazer textures for the song’s rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses. But underneath the song’s anthemic and stormy exterior is a tale of a meet cute that quietly cracks apart in the sort of betrayal and heartbreak that feels inevitable.

The lyric video follows a brooding and introspective Shye wandering the countryside and riding trains with her earbuds, singing the song’s lyrics — to presumably an unseen subject.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: EYRE LLEW Returns with Cinematic “Bloom”

Initially conceived as a studio project back in 2014, Nottingham, UK-based trio EYRE LLEW — Sam Heaton (vocals, guitar), Jack Clark (drums, piano) and Jack Bennett (guitar, piano) — have developed and honed a sound that meshes elements of shoegaze, post rock and dream pop and channels influences like Sigur Rós, Frightened Rabbit, Bon Iver and The National into cinematic, emotionally overwhelming soundscapes. 

2017’s debut album, Atelo was released to widespread critical acclaim with the album landing at #25 on Drowned in Sound‘s Top 100 Albums List of 2017. 

During that same period, the Nottingham-based trio also established themselves as a compelling live act, playing over 300 independently booked shows across 23 countries, including sold-out shows across their native UK, the European Union, Latvia, Lithuania and Asia. Adding to a growing profile, the trio made the rounds of the national festival circuit playing sets at Glastonbury‘s John Peel Stage, The Great Escape, Dot to Dot, FOCUS Wales, Y Not Festival, Ritual Union, Rockaway Beach, Alternative Escape, Handmade, Glastonbury’s Shagrai La, Icebreaker, Perth Music Expo, 110 Above, Beat The Streets, Splendour, Riverside, On The Waterfront, Farm Fest, A Carefully Planned, Hockley Hustle, and others. Internationally, they’ve played sets at Singapore’s Music Matters, Taiwan’s Beastie Rock, South Korea’s Zandari Festa, Germany’s Umsonst Und Dresden, France’s FIMU, Belgium’s Fifty Lab, Sweden’s Future Echoes, Lithuania’s Zagare Fringe Festival and What’s Next In Music, Hungary’s HOTS Outbreakers Lab, Latvia’s Riga Music Week, Estonia’s POFF Shorts, Poland’s Seazone Music Festival and Conference and SpaceFest. 

EYRE LLEW’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Bloom is slated for a September 18, 2026 release through Penance Music Group. The new album is deeply informed and influenced by pandemic-enforced quarantines and lockdowns.

For the bulk of their time as a band, they defined themselves by seemingly constant motion: Cities blurred into one another. Border crossings were routine. Their lives revolved around airports, late night drives, ferry ports, backstage rooms, festival fields, hotel corridors and long-distance journeys. As a touring band, success, such as it exists, was often measured in miles traveled, crowd size and momentum developed and sustained.

They kept moving because that’s how it always was. As countless touring bands would view it, slowing down would mean — on some level, at least — slowed momentum. And stopping would mean accepting failure, when “making it” seemed to be just within their grasp.

Much like countless other touring acts across the globe, the pandemic managed to dismantle their trajectory. That relentless forward motion that had shaped their identity for the better part of a decade just suddenly stopped. Tours vanished. Plans dissolved. The result was an uneasy silence. Understandably, for the trio, it was devastating.

But in the stillness, something else emerged for the band — space: The space to rest, reflect, recover, feel and importantly, to make different choices. The band made a quieter, more human recalibration, shifting away from survival to towards sustainability. Rather than constantly feeling that they had to prove something, they moved towards building something — and choosing meaning over the endless chase of momentum. 

The result was Bloom. Written during lockdown and the subsequent years, the album is about several things simultaneously: presence, the love that feels like home, stillness as strength, devotion without spectacle, grief without melodrama, healing without performative optimism, growth that happens slowly, privately and honestly. 

Whereas their previously released material was frequently defined by scale and endurance, Bloom‘s material is defined by intimacy and grounding. Its songs are built from small moments rather than big, grand statements. It’s about choosing to stay. Not just in relationships but in places, in moments, in emotions and in identity. 

The shift in the band’s approach, fittingly led to a shift in their sound. While the album’s material continues to carry the vastness they’re known for, it lives alongside of a sense fragility and restraint. Instead of actively attempting to overwhelm the listener, the band is trying to meet the listener where they are right now. 

The album will include the previously released “Miningsby” and the album’s second single, album title track “Bloom.” While being incredibly cinematic, “Bloom” captures the contented sigh of a hard-won, well-deserved intimacy, describing the couple at the core of the song as flowers blooming, which is remarkably fitting for the season.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Fightmaster Shares Woozy “All Or Nothing”

Queer actor, singer/songwriter and producer E.R. Fightmaster (they/them) first came into the public eye for their roles in Grey’s Anatomy and Shrill. They built a home studio that replicated a particularly fertile creative space from a previous apartment: a cozy closet. They also learned to use Logic and sharpened their engineering techniques. “It felt like leveling up in a creative way,” Fightmaster explains. “I never have wanted to do the technical part of things, but when you’re trying to be creative, you have to set up a space that does beyond what a loop station can do.”

They emerged as a solo artist with their recording project, the aptly named FIGHTMASTER with their debut EP, 2023’s Violence and 2024’s sophomore EP Bloodshed Baby. Building upon a growing profile, Fightmaster will be releasing their full-length debut, Tolerance on June 5, 2026.

Tolerance is dominated by raw, unvarnished lyrics that reflect the complexities and messiness of emotional growth, and attempts to find equilibrium. When Fightmaster started writing the album’s material, they drew from their own life experience, analyzing them through the lens of hindsight and perspective. “Every song that I write is in some way a personal experience, but here I was mining a broader understanding of patterns throughout a lifetime: patterns of loving different people, patterns of watching my friends love each other,” they explain. “All of us do a relatively graceless job, but all the patterns are the same, which is endearing to me.”

“Tolerance is the most deliberate thing I’ve ever done,” they add. “I wanted to break through more personally on this album. I really waned to give people a part of myself . . . I would decided that a song felt good if it hurt a little bit. There had to be this real truth to it. And that requires a lack of wall between self and the audience.”

Fightmaster also wanted to work with more producers than they did in the past. On the album, they worked with Riley Geare, who produced both the Violence and Bloodshed Baby EP‘s; Casey Kalmensen, the creative mastermind of Little Monarch, who also plays keys for Gracie Abrams; and Gabe Goodman, who produced Del Water Gap‘s “Ode to A Conversation Stuck In Your Throat.“

The result is an album that exhibits artistic clarity and is a reflection of Fightmaster’s own self-awareness about their place in the world, musical and otherwise. “I have to have such a clear understanding of self all the time because I’m a public figure in a very queer way, and I’ve always taken that responsibility seriously,” Fightmaster says. “I don’t feel comfortable being reckless anymore . . . Nonbinary people and trans people have so few elders — I’m not an elder yet; I haven’t earned it — but I have taken on an understanding that’s the path that I’m on.”

Of course, none of this means that Fightmaster has completely figured it all out. No one really has it figured out. But in fact, Tolerance‘s songs brim with empathy — both for the narrators and others. “I want people to know that there’s still cracks in the pavement; I want them to feel safe with me,” they say. “I’ve always thought of myself as so tough, but in the last couple of years I had to realize that I get my feelings hurt every day… When I realized how much kid-heartbreak is still in there, even though I’ve been to all the therapy and I’m on the perfect amount of medication, I was able to write these songs with more kindness for myself than I ever had.”

Tolerance’s first single “All Or Nothing” is a shimmering and propulsive tune anchored around a taught groove and skittering, off-kilter percussion that evokes the wooziness and self-delusion of a newfound love/fling/situationship. Throughout the song, the narrator is full of bluster, challenging their romantic partner to dare to imagine the future they’d have together. But it’s mischievously ambiguous: The listener has no idea what the other person feels or thinks about the relationship or if the narrator just expressing wishful thinking. While informed by personal experience, the song tackles something that’s deeply universal: Many of us have been both the delusional, lovelorn narrator — and the unseen subject of the song.

“It’s such a dramatic bluff,” Fightmaster says. “When I wrote it, I wanted this bravado attack. Like, here’s the fucking synth, here’s the beat. I love this one because we really went hard.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: deary Shares Shimmering and Urgent “Smile”

Lyric Video: deary Shares Shimmering and Urgent “Smile”
@bellaunion @charmschoolm

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Denver’s Dead Pioneers Share Furious Ripper “No Kings”

Denver-based punk outfit Dead Pioneers — Josh Rivera (guitar), Abe Brennan (guitar), Shane Zweygardt (drums), Algiers’ Lee Tesche (bass) and acclaimed indigenous visual and performance artist and activist Gregg Deal (vocals) — can trace their origins back to when Deal and his family relocated to Colorado after a 17 year period in the Washington, DC area.

Deal, who is a member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, is a visual and performance artist and activist, whose work frequently includes exhaustive and detailed critiques of American colonialism, society, politics, popular culture and history. Through paintings, murals and performance art, Deal critically examines issues within Indian Country such as decolonization, stereotypes and appropriation among others. His work has been exhibited at cultural centers nationally and internationally including at the Smithsonian Institution and the Venice Biennale. 

During his time as Native Arts Artist-in-Residence at the Denver Art Museum, Deal created the 2020 performance piece, The Punk Pan-Indian Romantic Comedy, a deeply personal one-man show that explored themes of music, personal experiences and meaningful connections. A grant allowed Deal to expand upon the project, incorporating original music written specifically for the performance. That performance piece led to the creation of Dead Pioneers.

The Denver-based punk outfit have long paired a proud DIY ethos with a mission to champion the rights of marginalized communities, including Black, Brown, Asian, LGBQT+ folks and workers. Their work frequently sees them boldly and unapologetically confronting the social, political and cultural issues that are central to modern life in the United States — a focus that’s central to their identity.

The band self-released their 2024 self-titled, full-length debut. Clocking in at 22 minutes, with only one of the album’s 12 songs exceeding three minutes, the album’s material is a breakneck and furious roar that manages to cover a huge amount of ground. The album caught the attention of Hassle Records, who signed the Denver-based punks and then re-released the album.

Their sophomore album, last year’s PO$T AMERICAN was written in February 2024 and recorded that year. The album forecasted the turmoil of the last Presidential election and reflects on the fears, unease and disillusionments of modern life. “The title PO$T AMERICAN reflects a collective disillusionment with the so-called American Dream,” Dead Pioneers’ Gregg Deal explains. “It critiques capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy while imagining a path toward unity beyond those oppressive systems.” 

The album’s material saw the band balancing minute-long punk rock rippers, impassioned explorations of modern-day America and spoken word interludes. The shifts in form and tone don’t distract from the material’s central themes while sonically, the album draws from the likes of Rage Against the Machine, Chuck D, Public Enemy, Johnny Cash, IDLES, Black Flag, Rollins Band, Dead Kennedys and others.

Although written and recorded before the results of the 2024 Presidential election, the album’s material eerily presaged the mood and state of life in the United States in the early months of 2025, evoking the fear, uncertainty, the bitter divisiveness, the racist scapegoating, the gaslighting, the gross incompetence, the greed, the oppression, the bullshit and buffoonery we’ve had to face on a daily basis for 15 months now.

Following their first, sold-out European Union and UK headlined tour earlier this month, Dead Pioneers will be releasing their third album Wagon Burner. Slated for a June 26, 2026 release through Hassle Records, the album as the band’s Gregg Deal says is “more collaborative,” while being heavier, harder and much more accessible with a focus on mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses. The album features guest spots from Cheap Perfume on “Nazi Teeth,” The Interrupters on “Never Alone” and Sleaford Mods on “The Worst Among Us.”

The album’s material acknowledges that things are bleak but the band rises up to our miserable occasion, casting an empowering light deep into the gloom.

Wagon Burner‘s second and latest single “No Kings” is a furious, galloping ripper that sees the band delivering a series of much-needed haymakers against America’s techno-fascists, Christo-fascists, White Supremacists, genocide apologists, bootlickers, racists and the Trump-Epstein class, as well as similar movements across the world.

“Last summer there were protests all over the United States called ‘No Kings’, in opposition of the current administration, the policies they’ve been implementing, and the rights they’ve been taking away from citizens,” the band’s Gregg Deal explains. “While the issues are obvious, it’s important that we all say it out loud. It’s important that we show up and make our opinions known, that we won’t allow our inherent rights to be trampled upon for the benefit of the Epstein Class.

“Not unlike ‘Nazi Teeth’, ‘No Kings’ is meant to bring the points home,” he continues. “ICE, rights being taken away, mass shootings, greed over life, demonizing immigrants, black, brown and queer people, widened economic gaps by the Epstein class, and the sincere frustration Americans feel over this. While this is happening, we realize that the right-wing politics coming out of the United States is emboldening conservative right-wing politics all over the world. We are against dictators, authoritarian regimes, Nazis, fascism or any other power structure, political, social or otherwise that seek to take away the rights, freedoms or lives of human beings trying to live their life. To that, we keep it simple: NO KINGS.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Gnaw Shares Bruising and Anthemic “Star”

Emerging Singaporean indie rock outfit Gnaw have quickly developed a sound that meshes elements of 90s alt rock, shoegaze and power pop mangled through digital processing and noise paired with lyrics that touch upon lingering memory and motion.

The Singaporean outfit’s debut single “Gnaw” is a bruising, hook-driven song that brings back memories of 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock, complete with the classic grunge song structure — alternating quiet verses and loud choruses — but with an incredibly modern sensibility.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Berlin’s Atomic Fruit Shares Brooding and Atmospheric “Medicine”

Earlier this year, Berlin-based post-punk/trip hop duo Atomic Fruit — Martin Lundfall (vocals, synths, guitar), Raphaël Giraldi (bass) and Federico Lenzi (drums) — released “Hit The Ground,” which premiered on The Spill Magazine with an evocative music video.

“Medicine,” the third single from the trio’s forthcoming third album is an atmospheric and brooding bit of Bristol-inspired trip hop anchored around shimmering and squiggling, reverb-drenched guitars and a relentless rhythmic pulse paired with Lundfall’s yearning croon, which evoke a tense and feverish mix of desperate, irresistible craving, confusion, bitter regret and self-flagellation.

The new single dives into themes of need and addition, and that invisible tension between what we desire and can’t let go of. The band explains that “Medicine” started out as a song about writer’s block but gradually turned into a song about the awareness of how difficult it is to feel that first spark again.

Along with the new single, the trio will close out 2025 with three Italian dates and a live session in collaboration with video platform Plate:X featuring unreleased tracks from the new album.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: SOMBRA Shares Club and Arena Friendly “NINGEN”

SOMBRA is Canadian-born, Tokyo-based producer and songwriter, who blends elements of 90s alt rock, industrial, house, techno and trip hop to create a body of work that effortlessly moves between heavy and atmospheric. Frequently described as “music to turn the lights off to,” the Canadian-born, Japanese-based producer’s live band sets pair his sound with immersive visuals and projection — and feature collaborations with Japanese artists across multiple genres.

His latest single “NINGEN” showcases the Canadian-born, Japanese-based producer’s expansive, forward-thinking and dynamic sound. Sonically bringing Atusko Chiba, Odonis Odonis, and Tweekend-era The Crystal Method to mind, “NINGEN” is both club and arena friendly while featuring some immensely catchy hooks.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 54th Birthday, Jonny Greenwood!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Radiohead’s and The Smile’s Jonny Greenwood’s 54th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s Hush Shares Lush and Prismatic “The Mirrors Were Right”

Montréal-based trio Hush — Paige Barlow (vocals) and multi-instrumentalists Miles Dupire-Gagnon and Gabriel Lambert — are part of a new wave of Montréal-based acts actively reshaping psych pop.

Citing an eclectic array of influences that includes Broadcast, The Velvet Underground, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Steve Lacy, Cocteau Twins and Ariel Pink, the Montréal-based psych pop trio create a sound that’s simultaneously nostalgic and forward-looking. Their music lives in the blurred light of perception — half memory, half hallucination — and is an invitation to lose yourself inside of their hall of mirrors-like dream world.

The trio’s debut single “The Mirrors Were Right” also serves as the first single from their full-length debut, slated for a 2026 release through Simone Records. Sonically, “The Mirrors Were Right” is a prismatic tune featuring shimmering guitars, dusty and warped analog drum patterns and bursts glistening, kosmiche music-like synths as a lush and dreamy bed for Barlow’s ethereal vocal. The song is one-part half-remembered fever dream and one-part existential reflection while seeming to subtly channel Bibi Club and others.

The song’s lyrics came to Barlow as she reflected on long past, but long-lasting periods of dissociation and on flashes of clarity that cut through them now. “The mirrors are right” when reflections feel distorted; “luckily alive” with head above water, somewhere between the surface and the clouds.

“For the clip, we wanted to portray a fractured sense of self. The distorted inner witness. Evolving identities over time. Imagined through a cubist and surrealist lens: worlds sensed, not witnessed,” the band says of the accompanying video. “Images drift and reform, mirroring the song’s unfolding. A meditation on multiplicity. The self made plural.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: JOVM Mainstay GUM Shares Meditative “Expanding Blue”

Aussie singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jay Watson has a firmly established reputation for being both incredibly prolific and a highly-sought after collaborator:

  • Watson is the creative mastermind behind the JOVM mainstay recording project GUM, with which he has written, recorded and released six albums, including 2020’s Out In The World and 2023’s Saturnia.

  • Watson is also the co-founder and co-frontman of fellow JOVM mainstay act Pond, which has released 10 studio albums, including 2022’s 9 and last year’s Stung!

  • Lastly, the wildly busy Aussie singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is a touring member of acclaimed, JOVM mainstay Tame Impala‘s live, touring band.

With that massive, continually growing recorded output over the past decade-plus or so, Watson has treated listeners and fans to arguably some of the most sonically diverse and eclectic explorations of anyone in the contemporary music scene.

Watson recently signed to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard‘s (p)doom records, who released the self-produced, standalone single “Expanding Blue,” the first bit of new material from the JOVM mainstay since Saturnia. The meditative, new single is one-part Nick Drake-inspired psych folk, one-part samba/jazz-fusion tune, anchored by a looping strummed acoustic figure and a sweetly romantic yearning — for a dear one, and for something much deeper, more spiritual.

“’Expanding Blue’ starts out as a jazz inspired meditation, and turns into something spiritual for me, like a lost gospel soul record or something,” the GUM creative mastermind says.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s Ambrose Kenny-Smith adds, “Welcome back to the p(doom) fam my man Gumby! He’s done it again. Another stellar release from Freo’s finest.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Velatine Teams Up with Holly Purnell on Brooding “Oh See Me — The Siren”

Loki Lockwood is a Melbourne-based songwriter and producer and creative mastermind behind the darkwave/goth recording project Velatine, which for the bulk of is history saw him crating a unique and fresh take on a familiar and beloved sound through experimenting and working with different vocalists.

Earlier this year, the Aussie producer and musician collaborated with Nocturna on the slow-burning and broodingly cinematic “Till Death Do We Art.” But with Lockwood’s latest Velatine single, “Oh See Me — The Siren,” the Melbourne-based musician and producer collaborates with Holly Purnell, who was discovered through an Instagram ad seeking a vocalist and then recruited to be the project’s full-time vocalist.

On “Oh See Me — The Siren,” Purnell’s remarkably Siouxsie Sioux-like vocal is paired with a brooding and glitchy industrial-meets-post-punk production that continues to showcase Lockwood’s unerring knack for catchy hooks.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: moondaddy Shares Lush and Hypnotic “Great Expansion”

Founded and led by producer, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Cara Potiker, San Diego-based dream pop outfit moondaddy traces its origins to the eerily uneasy quiet of the COVID-19 pandemic. And fittingly, the band embraces the age-old maxim that the only certainty in life is uncertainty.

With the release of 2023’s full-length debut, Poet Lies, moondaddy sees Poticker and her collaborators attempting to meet the haze of existence with a kaleidoscopic sound that provides peace, especially when all else feels like complete chaos. The album also saw the band quickly establishing a sound that drew from shoegaze, dream pop and trip hop that featured glistening guitars, gauzy synths and dulcet vocals singing dreamily poetic observations.

Since the release of Poet Lies, the San Diego-based dream pop outfit has gone on a sold-out tout with DeVotchKa and opened for the likes of Beabadoobee, Peel Dream Magazine and King Hannah. Building upon a growing local and regional profile, the band has headlined some of their hometown’s tastemaking venues, including The Casbah and others. 

The band’s sophomore album, the Manuel Calderon-produced Dove Tapes is slated for an October 31, 2025 release. Following upon last year’s Lightwave Lightwave EP, the San Diego-based outfit’s sophomore album may arguably be their most immersive and expressive effort to date.

Recorded at Tornillo, TX-based Sonic Ranch live to tape and mastered directly to lacquer by Paul Gold at Salt Mastering. While the core of the band is Potiker, Dove Tapes reportedly documents a maturing of the roles of her backing band — Patrick Heaney (drums), Robert Wren (bass), Gabriel Poissant (guitar) and Eric Coughanor (cello).

The album will feature the previously released, Beach House-like “Bystander,” which was released earlier this year, and the album’s second and latest single “Great Expansion.” Anchored around a propulsive rhythm section and a shimmering and looping guitar figure, “Great Expansion” continues to showcase the album’s overall gorgeous and hypnotic sound while serving as a lush bed for Potiker’s expressive, Victoria Legrand-like vocal. And much like its immediate predecessor, the new single also continues the album’s overarching thematic concern, with Potiker working to make sense of heavy forces both internal and external, including confrontations with a former friend, a brutal breakup and global events. But more specifically, the song serves as a universal love song, that sees its narrator looking back on a relationship lost to time.

“When I thought of the title, I pictured a dove carrying an olive branch,” Cara Potiker explains. ““I’m committed to creating little microcosms of love, despite what’s happening in the world. That’s what art facilitates, and what we all need to keep doing.”