Tag: Montreal QC

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Montreal’s Bodywash Shares a Meditation on Loss and Hope

Montreal-based shoegazers Bodywash — Chris Steward and Rosie Long Dector — can trace their origins back to when the pair met while attending McGill University. But when they met, the pair didn’t immediately share a common musical language: Steward grew up in London listening to celestial dream pop while Dector grew up in Toronto listening to folk and Canadiana. The music they began writing together saw the pair bridging their influences, and with the release of 2016’s self-titled EP and 2019’s full-length debut, Comforter Steward and Rector firmly establishing slow-burning and dreamy material centered around ethereal vocals, intricate guitar lines and pulsating synths.

When touring to support their full-length debut was cut short by the pandemic, Long Decter and Steward used the unexpected hiatus to write. And they wound up writing material that was darker, more experimental and more invigorating than the material on Comforter. Last year, they took the songs into the studio with longtime drummer Ryan White and The Besnard Lakes‘ Jace Lasek, who helped record and engineer the album, which will be released through Light Organ Records.

“Kind of Light,” the forthcoming album’s first single is an expansive track that begins with a slow-burning and elegiac intro featuring glistening organs and a skittering yet propulsive kick pattern that slowly builds up and breaks into a high energy, boom bap-like breakbeat paired with scorching guitar squealing and wobbling bass synths. Front and center is Long Decter’s ethereal and achingly plaintive vocals express profound, heart-wrenching despair, and hope. The song suggests that while loss is natural and expected, there can be hope; that there are only a handful of things that in our lives that are truly permanent — and that for the most part, it can get better.

“I wrote ‘Kind of Light’ in bed,” Long Decter says. ““It was the fall of 2018 and Chris and I were both going through experiences of learning not to trust what feels like home. He sent me a plugin for a new organ sound, suggesting it might provide inspiration. I sent him back chords, a kick pattern, and some vocals about trying to pull your legs back; trying to take your energy out of the wreckage and put it into yourself. The process of deciding what’s worth keeping, what can be reworked and what gets tossed in the fire. A process that is devastating and also weirdly invigorating, because you can see new possibilities opening up in front of you. And you can start to look for light somewhere else.”

Spotify Playlist by William Ruben Helms

M for Montreal — M pour Montreal in French — is an annual conference, which takes place over the course of four days in late November in Canada’s second largest city. Since the inaugural conference back in 2005, M for Montreal has quickly expanded to feature a selection of over 100 emerging, buzz-worthy and/or breakout acts from across Quebec, the rest of Canada and internationally playing in showcases in Montreal’s top venues. 

The annual conference also welcomes over 300 music industry professionals from Canada and internationally to Montreal for professional programming and networking tailored specifically for folks in the industry. This year, conference delegates will be able to attend a full slate of panels and workshops that address some of the most pressing issues, trends and talking points in the music industry today, including copyright in the Metaverse, the impact of international A&R, and the industry’s relationship with mental health, among others. The conference will also feature keynote sessions led by some of the music industry’s major players. including a keynote led by Sub Pop Records‘ CEO Megan Jasper. 

The 17th edition also marks the return of additional activities and events for delegates to take part in throughout the conferences run. Past favorites like Music PEI Brunch Club, Artist Lab, co-presented by TuneCore and QUB musique and M for Marathon presented by SiriusXM all return this year. Of course networking is key, and there will be a variety of professional networking opportunities, including in-person mixers for delegates while in Montreal — and through the virtual M for Mixer platform. Additionally, partner delegates from Wales and the Czech Republic will be in town to present activities specifically for Pro badge holders.

Over the past few weeks, M for Montreal’s organizers announced the full lineup for the 17th edition, which will take place November 16, 2022-November 19, 2022. You might recall that back in September, the conference announced the lineup for its 2022 Official Selection series. The Official Selection series spotlights 29 of Canada’s most exciting, buzz-worthy acts. Up from last year’s total of 20 from last year’s lineup, this year’s Official Selection fully embraces the conference’s long-held values of equity and inclusivity, while featuring artists from a diverse spectrum of identities, backgrounds and genres.

M for Montreal recently shared the full lineup for its M for Marathon portion of its program, which will feature over 100 acts playing showcases in Montreal’s best — and most renowned — venues.

Your boy was invited back to cover the 17th edition of M for Montreal as a festival delegate. It’s my first international trip since the 15th edition of M for Montreal back in 2019. I’m honored and flattered by the opportunity. And understandably, I’m excited and looking forward to traveling again to meeting new people, networking, covering new, buzz-worthy acts — and most importantly poutine and smoked meat sandwiches.

Seriously though, I have to thank M for Montreal’s hardworking team, and their fantastic US publicity partner Marauder Group for the opportunity. Y’all best believe that I will take full advantage.

Caption: Me on M for Montreal’s delegate page. Photo Credit: Catherine Horath.
Caption: M for Montreal’s

,M for Montreal’s team also just shared a playlist featuring songs from the Official Selection artists. Out of the 29 artists, I’m looking forward to catching:

With M for Marathon, I think I’m looking extremely forward to catching:

Of course, you should expect to see lengthy coverage of the festival here on this site in the upcoming weeks. There will also be quite a bit of posts across all of my social media profiles detailing the entire trip. So if you haven’t been following me before, here’s a good chance now:

Badges for the 17th edition are on sale — and are still available in three tiers:

  • Pro badges, which gives you access to all the showcases, networking events, cocktails. workshops, keynotes and so on. Currently, only the late bird badge is available — and the late bird badge doesn’t give you access to the virtual M for Mixer.
  • Melomaniac, which gives you access all of the showcases of the Official Selection series and M for Montreal, as well as all of the conferences and workshops.
  • Edu, which is specifically for students and offers access to all of M for Montreal’s panels and workshops, and 50% off the Melomaniac badge. (All students have to present a valid student ID when they pick up their badge.)

Quantities are limited. But check out the following link for information and to purchase here: https://mpourmontreal.com/en/billetterie/

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Magi Merlin and Fernie Team Up on Sultry and Laid Back “DOLLA BILL”

With the release of her first two EP’s 2019’s On My Way to the Listening Party and last year’s Drug Music EP, along a handful of standalone singles, the rising Montreal-based artist Magi Merlin (pronounced MADGE-eye) exploded onto the Canadian national scene: Her work has received praise from from CRACK Magazine. She has opened for Lido Pimienta and played at Osheaga Festival alongside ODIE, Jessie Reyez and others. 

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the course of the past year, you might recall that the rising Montreal-based artist released the Funkywhat-produced “Free Grillz,” a track that featured Merlin’s mix of fiery, self-assured bars and sultry crooned hooks gliding over icy, trap hi-hats, skittering snares, glistening synth arpeggios and a tweeter and woofer rattling bass line. “Free Grillz” found Merlin hoping to aspire to at least some of the tropes of hip-hop fame while simultaneously reflecting on a series of bitterly harsh and seemingly inescapable daily realities — including having obvious and clueless people carelessly mispronouncing your name, casual misogyny, and kicking clingy, stupid men out of your life with a mix of humor and world-dominating swagger.

You also also recall that Merlin’s third EP Gone Girl was released through Bonsound/AWAL earlier this year. The EP’s material may arguably be Merlins most personal and audacious effort to date: Merlin grew up in Saint Lazare, a suburb of Montreal, created by Canadian Nixon types in 70s. A place for white folks by white folks. Much like here in the States, the suburbs are viewed as the epitome of all that’s good “right and “normal.” Of course, unless you’re a young Black, Queer women — and suddenly that perceived, long-held normalcy is challenged. Thematically, the EP’s material draws from this personal experience, and sees the rising Montreal artist talking about casual racism, fake friends, generational angst and more.

Sonically, the EP continues her ongoing collaboration with Funkywhat and is informed by 90s house, drum ‘n’ bass, Motown and acid flecked hip-hop to create a sound that evokes smoky, after hours clubs — but with rumbling bass lines and thunderous 808s. EP single “Pissed Black Girl” was a perfect example of the EPs themes and overall sound with the single being a sleek and hyper modern bop featuring Merlin’s assured delivery gliding over icy synth arpeggios, skittering trap beats and a sinuous bass line. The song is rooted in the familiar pent up frustration with fake white progressives and phony liberals — but while playing with the cliched, racist trope of the angry Black woman; the song is a dance floor friendly banger that sees its narrator telling those fake, closet racists to sit down and shut the fuck up, while the rest of us take our rightful place on the dance floor.

“I wrote this song summer 2020,” Merlin says. “I was made to really look at my identity as a Black woman and what that identity means to the people I surround myself with. I didn’t realize a lot of the people I had around me at the time that identified as progressive, leftist and ‘allies’ were not as supportive as they made themselves out to be. Talking with them just resulted in arguments instead of compassion and understanding. This made me very angry and the only thing I was able to do to vent my frustrations and arrive at some form of catharsis was by singing about it.

“The title of the track references a story an ex-friend recounted to me as well as what I and many other black women who speak their minds are reduced to: an ‘angry black woman.’ This ex-friend told me about a time they went to a predominantly white party in the suburbs and one of the party-goers, while staring out onto the front lawn of the house, said: “wow, there’s a N***er on the lawn” – one of many atrocious acts that go unchecked in white suburbia and various other white spaces. If there is anything I’ve learned from my experiences with ignorant and bigoted people, it is how unapologetic I need to be about my existence. I’m a girl; I am pissed and I’m Black. What about it?”

Merlin’s latest single sees her collaborating with longtime collaborator Funkywhat and rising Montreal-based Brazilian-Canadian, queer artist of color, Fernie. Last fall, Fernie released their critically applauded, full-length debut, Aurora, an album that featured a blend of emancipatory soul, melodic R&B and vulnerable lyricism paired with subtle nuances of 90s melancholia. Fernie worked on the album over the course of a three-year period, in which they also sought to be perceived as a whole person. The music they were working on created a safe space for them to reveal, share and affirm themselves.

Over the past few months, Merlin and Fernie have run into each other quite a bit: They’ve played some of the same festival lineups, and have attended the same shows and parties. Interestingly, they’ve often talked about collaborating on working on a song together. So when Funkywhat sent his longtime collaborator an unfinished version of “DOLLA BILL,” which he recorded with Fernie — and she immediately jumped on board. The end result is a soulful and strutting bop centered around skittering trap-inspired beats, atmospheric synths, a supple and propulsive bass line serving as a silky, grown and sexy, two-step inducing frame for two rising artists to push each other to new territories.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Chloe Florence is an emerging, Montreal-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who can trace much of the origins of her music career to growing up in a family of musicians: Her innate ability to visualize a song both instrumentally and lyrically is something that her great-grandmother excelled at.

The emerging Montreal-based artist cites Stevie Nicks, Patti Smith, Lana Del Rey, Dua Lipa and Doja Cat as influences on her work. And much like those artists, Florence’s work is centered around authentic songwriting rooted in lived-in personal experience. But she pairs that with a a sound that effortlessly bridges pop and R&B in a way that’s completely her own.

Her latest single, the Lucas Liberatore-produced “Synergy” is a woozy and swooning bop built around wobbling and glistening synth arpeggios, rubbery bass lines and skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling thump paired with well-placed, razor sharp hooks. The production serves as a silky and sumptuous bed for the Montreal-based artist’s sultry, self-assured delivery and a guest spot from Myles Lloyd. The song focuses on a familiar scenario with a lived-in specificity — a situationship that’s seemingly stuck between hook-ups and disguised/hidden feelings.

“Sonically, ‘Synergy’ embodies the tipping point, right before one confesses their feelings for the other. They’re addicted to playing with fire as they haven’t been burned (yet),” Chloe Florence explains. “There are feelings hidden under covers and subliminal messages found between the lines of their late-night conversations – in bed and during late night drives. The lyrics depict the situationship as lustful, mysterious, dangerous, and intense.” 

“I knew I wanted to write about this recurring experience, this place I kept getting stuck in while dating,” Florence adds. “It’s a topic I knew a lot of my friends would relate to.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Atsuko Chiba Shares Sprawling and Cinematic “Seeds”

Through the release of two albums and a couple of EPs, Montreal-based psych outfit Atusko Chiba — Karim Lakhdar (guitar, vocals, synthesizer), Kevin McDonald (guitar, synthesizer), David Palumbo (bass guitar, vocals), Anthony Piazza (drums) and Erik Schafhauser (guitar, synthesizer) — have developed and honed a reputation for crafting a genre-defying sound with a cohesive and hypnotic blend of post-rock, prog rock and krautrock paired with offbeat, subversive songwriting.

Live, the Montreal psych outfit pairs their unique brand of experimental rock with video and light installations trigged in real time by the band, creating an immersive multimedia, multi-sensorial environment. Over the past handful of years, the band has toured across Canada, the States and Europe, sharing states with the likes of . . . And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Big Business, Duchess Says, King Buffalo, and others.

Atusko Chiba’s highly-anticipated third album Water, It Feels Like It’s Growing is slated for a January 20, 2023 release through Montreal-based purveyors of psychedelia, Mothland. The album reportedly finds the Canadian quintet crafting a collection of drone-driven yet bombastic material that may draw comparisons to the likes of The Mars Volta, Beak> and Spirit of the Beehive among others.

“As opposed to our last album, which was about introspection, spacetime and the personal journey, the themes explored on this new album are related to our environment and our reaction to it,” the members of Atsuko Chiba explain. “Though not meant to be strictly political, our references stem from highly politicized movements and ideas. Division and group ideology are heavily explored. A prime example is the weaponization of vocabulary used to distract, displace and alienate us, forcing us to pick sides on every front. Our lyrics also strongly denote our innate love for all living things, encompassing a hopeful, if somewhat violent, plea for change.”

Clocking in at 7:45, Water, It Feels Like It’s Growing‘s first single “Seeds” is a slow-burning and brooding bit of A Storm in Heaven-meets-Dark Side of the Moon-like psychedelia centered around lush, glistening synths, swirling guitar riffs, tweeter and woofer rattling boom bap-like drumming paired heavily distorted vocal harmonies. The single also features a gorgeous contribution from Montreal-based string quartet Quatuor Esca, who perform an arrangement by Gabriel Desjardins. While possessing a sprawling, widescreen atmosphere, “Seeds” evokes a creeping sense of impending uncertainty and doom but with the tacit understanding that perhaps not all is lost — at least not yet.

Directed by longtime friend and collaborator Rodrigo Sergio, the accompanying video for “Seeds” shows performing artist and dancer Jade Maya embodying the song’s themes through physical movements that are subtle or violent in a variety of environments — both natural and man-made.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Choses Sauvages Share Mind-Bending Visual for Trance-Inducing and Funky Bop “Conseil solaire”

With the release of their Emmanuel Ethier-produced 2018 self-titled, full-length debut, the Montreal dance punk outfit Choses Sauvages — Totalement Sublime‘s Marc-Antoine Barbier (guitar), Theirry Malépart (keys), Tony Bélisle (keys), Philippe Gauthier-Boudreau (drums) and Félix Bélisle (vocals, bass) — exploded into the local and provincial scenes: The album was released to widespread critical applause across the province while landing a a Félix Award nomination for Alternative Album of the Year at the 2019 Association Québécoise de l’industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video (ADISQ) and winning a Felix Félix Award for the Indie Rock Album of the Year. The album also topped the Independent Radio Charts across the province. 

The following year, the quintet along with friend and touring member, Foreign Diplomats‘ Charles Primeau (bass), supported their self-titled album with a relentless your schedule that saw them literally playing every joint and festival stage across the province. But by doing so, they developed a reputation for an explosive live show. And adding to a growing profile across the province, the Montreal-based dance punk outfit toured with acclaimed act Half Moon Run. 

Choses Sauvages sophomore album, Choses Sauvages II was released last year, and the album saw the rising French Canadian outfit boldly pushing their sound towards electronic and nu-disco influences, like L’Imperatice and Lindstrøm while still drawing from their love of funk, Bowie and Bee Gees. The album’s material also sees the band balancing a rigorous and meticulous songwriting approach with their long-held rebellious spirit.

Last year, I wrote about album single “Chambre d’écho” is a slinky Duran Duran meets Talking Heads banger centered around squiggling Nile Rodgers-like guitar, handclaps, a sinuous bass line, glistening synths, propulsive four-on-the-floor and an enormous, arena rock friendly hook. It’s the sort of song that will make you long for strobe-lit dance floors and sweaty clubs dancing the night — and your concerns — away. 

Just before the rising French Canadian outfit is about to jet off to Paris for this year’s MaMA Festival, the band shared a video for “Conseil Solaire,” a sleek, trance-inducing bop centered around glistening synth arpeggios, wah wah pedaled guitar, bursts of gorgeous flute, and a motorik groove paired with dreamy and ethereal vocals and the band’s unerring knack for infectious hook. To my ears “Conseil Solaire” seems like a slick and breezy synthesis of Kraftwerk, DBFC, and Duran Duran — but perhaps even more dance floor friendly.

Directed by the band’s Marc-Antoine Barbier, the accompanying video mixes reality and fantasy in a seamless fashion: “Inspired by the natural monoliths of the St. Lawrence archipelagos, the clip takes place in a river environment where we follow the sectarian dance of a group celebrating the sun,” Barbier explains. The small group of followers perform a jerky dance routine while the members of Choses Sauvages look on passively, until the explosive climax of the ceremony.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Preoccupations Share Brooding and Lysergic Chad VanGaalen-Directed Visual for “Slowly”

Canadian post punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Preoccupations —  Matt Flegel (bass, vocals), Mike Wallace (drums), Scott Munro (guitar) and Daniel Christiansen (guitar) — just released their fourth album Arrangements today.  Longtime label home Flemish Eye will handle the release throughout Canada while the band will self-release the album outside of Canada. 

Initial work on Arrangements began in the fall of 2019, when Flegel and Christiansen met up with Munro at his Montreal-based Studio St. Zo. The trio wrote the album’s material and recorded all of the bed tracks together. Wallace then joined in and recorded his parts. With all of the instrumental parts laid down, the band planned to reconvene in a few months and decided what else the songs needed.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the JOVM mainstays’ plans to reconvene in person were understandably halted. At the time Munro was in Calgary on tour with his partner when the shutdowns began, so he wound up staying with his parents for the next 16 months. He whipped up a make-shift studio in his parents house, and the rest of the record was finished remotely with Munro and Flegel sending tracks back and forth to each other: Munro’s vocal and keyboard parts were completed in that set up while Flegel’s vocal parts were laid down in New York. Holy Fuck‘s Graham Walsh mixed the record and Total Control‘s Mikey Young mastered it. 

Pandemic isolation helped to encourage the band to reconnect with elements of their earlier releases: Munro, holed up in Calgary with endless weed gummies, obsessively doubled keyboards on guitars and vice versa, sampled the recordings using an old Ensoniq keyboard sampler and made new parts out of the samples. While on 2016’s self-titled and 2018’s New Material, Munro was committed to making keyboards the centerpiece, Arrangements sees guitar returning to the spotlight — an instrument that he describes as much more fun and visceral to play. Throughout most of the album, Christiansen employs a unique tuning that sees him blurring and smearing his parts while Munro’s standard-tuned riffs provide melody and clarity. The end result is an album that sonically will see the band weaving their guitar-heavy origins with their more synth-based recent work to create what may arguably be their most intense and playful album to date. 

Much like its predecessor New Material, Arrangements‘ title is simultaneously literal and cheeky — a sharp contrast to their overall aesthetic. Thematically, the album is dark and direct: “The lyrics are pretty conspicuous and self explanatory on this one, but it’s basically about the world blowing up and no one giving a shit,” says Flegel. 

“I’m certain that I’ve been writing about the same bleak things over and over again throughout the lifespan of Preoccupations,” Flegel adds. “This time around the themes of isolation, anxiety, trepidation, imminent self-annihilation, fear of totalitarianism, and general malaise unintentionally all feel a little more relevant than they have in the past. I guess that’s not a great sign, but I think we’ve taken this culmination of dark things, and turned it into something that can happily be listened to loudly, and that is maybe even…fun?”

In the lead-up to the album’s release, I’ve written about two album singles:

  • “Ricochet,” a murky and dark churner featuring layers of glistening and distorted guitar slashes, rolling and lashing snares,atmospheric synth arpeggios and a propulsive bass line paired with Flegel’s mournful, embittered delivery and their penchant for rousingly anthemic hooks. And while being a slick and seamless synthesis of their earliest work and their most recent work, “Ricochet” manages to evoke the creeping, existential dread we have all felt lately — and perhaps continue to feel — during one of the most heightened and uncertain periods in recent memory. 

  • “Death of Melody,” a brooding and tumbling track centered around textured, reverb-drenched shoegazer-like haze, martial, machine-like rhythms paired with Flegel’s plaintive delivery fed through even more distortion. Sonically “Death of Melody” is a one-half funhouse in hell, one-half vacillating thoughts tumbling about in the mind of an anxious, uncertain person. 

Arrangements‘ third and latest single “Slowly” begins with a murky prog rock-inspired bass and drum driven introduction before quickly ditching it for brooding atmospherics that fit the song’s malaise, self-flagellation and uneasy acceptable of annihilation.

Directed by Chad VanGaalen, the lysergic animated visual for “Slowly” fully embraces the song’s dark thematic concerns: The video begins with Picasso meets Dali-like animations that transform from humanoid to other object and back. We see a man turn into a skeleton lying at the bottom of a grave; faces turn into natural flora and fauna and so on.

News/Announcements by William Ruben Helms

M for Montreal — M pour Montreal in French — is an annual conference, which takes place over the course of four days in late November in Canada’s second largest city. Since the inaugural conference back in 2005, M for Montreal has quickly expanded to feature a selection of over 100 emerging, buzz-worthy and/or breakout acts from across Quebec, the rest of Canada and internationally playing in showcases in some of Montreal’s top venues.

The annual conference also welcomes over 300 music industry professionals to Montreal for professional programming and networking tailored specifically for folks in the industry. This year, conference delegates will be able to attend a full slate of panels and workshops that address some of the most pressing issues, trends and talking points in the music industry today, including copyright in the Metaverse, the impact of international A&R, and the industry’s relationship with mental health, among others. The conference will also host several keynote sessions led by some of the industry’s major players, including Sub Pop Records‘ CEO Megan Jasper.

This year also marks the return of additional activities and events for delegates to partake in throughout the conference’s four days. Past favorites like the Music PEI Brunch Club, Artist Lab, co-presented by TuneCore and QUB musique and M for Marathon presented by SiriusXM all return this year. Additionally, there will be a variety of professional networking opportunities, including in-person mixers for delegates — or through the virtual M for Mixer platform. Partner delegations from Wales and the Czech Republic will also be in town to present activities for Pro badge holders. Of course, hopefully the delegates will have some free time to eat a couple of smoked meat sandwiches, some poutine and maybe even some bagels while in town. (I attended in 2019 and stopped at La Banquise for some late night poutine — and I’m still dreaming of it. Seriously, it was that good!)

M for Montreal’s organizers announced the first wave of showcasing artists earlier this year. But as they’re gearing up for the conference, they recently announce the full lineup of artists in its 2022 Official Selection series. Now spotlighting 29 of Canada’s most exciting, buzz-worthy acts (up from 20 last year), this year’s Official Selection embraces the conference’s values of equity and inclusivity, featuring artists from a diverse spectrum of identities, backgrounds and genres.

Some of the Official Selection acts include Quebecois experimental indie rock outfit Bibi Club, acclaimed Belgian-Canadian singer/songwriter Cedric Noel, Vancouver heavy shoegazers Kamikaze Nurse, and Ontario Anishinabe indie duo Ombiigizi. (The full lineup is right below.)

The 17th edition of M for Montreal will feature two portions — a virtual conference that will take place from November 9, 2022 – November 10, 2022 and an in-person conference that will take place from November 16, 2022 – November 19, 2022.

Passes for this year are on sale right now and are available in two tiers: All-access Pro badges and Melomaniac badges available to the general public — but quantities are limited. Check out the following link for information and to purchase: https://mpourmontreal.com/en/billetterie/

News/Announcements by William Ruben Helms

12 years ago, I started what has been for me — my life’s work.

And honestly, when I started this site, I couldn’t have imagined three-quarters of the things I’ve done and experienced over JOVM’s history to ever happen. 

  • I’ve covered roughly 1,100-1,200 shows in NYC, with a handful of shows in Chicago, Baltimore and Philadelphia.
  • I’ve covered about a dozen or more festivals, including traveling to Montreal for M for Montreal back in 2019. 
  • I’ve been a panelist at Mondo.NYC Festival and at New Colossus Festival, speaking about PR, promotion and press for indie artists, giving my perspective as a indie blogger. 
  • A few years ago, I made a cameo in a JOVM mainstay’s music video. It’s a very noticeable spot towards the end of the video. It was a fun experience, but so far no one has called me about acting gigs. Maybe I need to stick to the writing and photography? 
  • I couldn’t have imagined photographing George Clinton, Patti LaBelle, Snoop Dogg, Blondie, Nile Rodgers, Roky Erickson, Philip Bailey, Blind Boys of Alabama and so many others, as well as this site’s countless mainstays.
  • I wouldn’t have met the countless colleagues and musicians, who have become supporters and friends. And by far, music friends have proven to be the very best of friends. 

JOVM turned 10 in June 2020. And during the middle of the very worst of the pandemic, things seemed — understandably — bleak. And although we’re slowly managed to claw our way back to a degree of normalcy, in which gathering together can happen, things across the music industry still seem rather bleak: Touring has always been a big financial risk for musicians but COVID-19 has made it even more complicated, because musicians are out there risking their health and lives — because they need to make money to live. 

We’re all trying to figure out how to maneuver in a new, confusing and uncertain landscape that may well be with us for an indefinite period of time. But with these past 12 years under my belt, I have no intentions of going anywhere. 

I strongly believe that I’ve managed to carve out a unique spot in the blogosphere, a place that I feel is desperately necessary because both the music and media worlds are often so incredibly homogenous. Someone out there has to do something different. And representation in every aspect matters. So in many ways, this has to continue. 

As I do every month, I want to thank the following folks and organizations. Without them this past few years — and especially this year — wouldn’t have been remotely possible: 

Sash

Alice Northover

Bella Fox

Jenny MacRostie

Janene Otten 

All of those folks have been generous Patreon patrons. Of course, feel free to check out the Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement. And if you’re able to support, your support will be greatly appreciated and continuously shouted out. Any amount really helps. Seriously. 

I must thank the folks at Creatives Rebuild New York. I’m relieved, proud and humbled to be included in their Guaranteed Income for Artists program. The money I’ll receive over the next 18 months will be put to good use — keeping this little dream of mine going. I don’t think there’s enough words to thank them — or to show how grateful I am. (I’ll keep trying, of course!) 

There are other ways you can support. 

You can also support by checking the JOVM shop: https://www.joyofviolentmovement.com/shop 

You can also support my following me on the following platforms:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/william_ruben_helms 

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/yankee32879 and https://www.twitter.com/joyofviolent 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheJoyofViolentMovement

And you can hire me for headshots, portraits and events. Seriously, I’m available for that, too. You can click here: https://www.photobooker.com/photographer/ny/new-york/william-h?duration=1?duration=1# or you can contact me directly.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jonathan Personne Shares Gorgeous “À présent”

Montreal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, animator and visual artist Jonathan Robert may be best known for being a co-founder and co-lead vocalist of internationally acclaimed JOVM mainstay act Corridor. But Robert is also an acclaimed solo artist, writing and performing as Jonathan Personne.

Robert’s solo debut as Jonathan Personne, Histoire Naturelle, sonically drew from desert dream pop, Western Spaghetti rock and jangle pop. Thematically, the album’s material focused on the potential end of the world. Of course, with the album’s timing, it might have hit the nail a bit too hard on the head.

His sophomore Jonathan Personne album, 2020’s Guillaume Chiasson-product Disparitions was primarily written while the Montreal-based artist was touring with Corridor, and came about in a quick and fluid fashion. While the album saw Robert continuing upon the hook-driven yet intimate and sensitive songwriting that has won him acclaim as a solo artist, Disparitions was largely inspired by moment when music became a source of profound disgust. “I spent a lot of time touring away from home. Towards the end I felt like I was reluctantly going to do something that I had longed wished for,” Robert explained in press notes. 

The Montreal-based singer/songwriter began 2022 by signing with Bonsound, who will be releasing his third Jonathan Personne album, the Emmanuel Éthier-produced Jonathan Personne on Friday. Written alone on an acoustic guitar in a cottage, the album took an unexpected turn, when the Montreal-based artist went to Quebec City-based Le Pantoum with his friends and frequent collaborators Samuel Gougoux (drums), Julian Perreault (guitar), Mathieu Cloutier (bass) and the aforementioned Éthier (violin, synths, mellotron, vocals and production). The album’s material features arrangements centered around electric guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, Rhodes, timpani, mellotron, synths, violin and even samples, the eight-song album continues Robert’s reputation for crafting material inspired by 60s pop and Spaghetti Westerns but with samples from obscure TV shows and movies, blistering rock grooves and extravagant guitar licks, the album features a more polished production than previous releases. 

Packaged with a Jonathan Robert illustration in which two children discover the remains of a dead body, the album thematically is rooted in duality: While continuing his reputation for breezy guitar pop, the album’s material is simultaneously brutal and sinister, yet candid. The album’s material evokes a mysterious world where ghosts, the supernatural, fate and broken characters with broken lives all intertwine and interact.

Featuring a Jonathan Robert illustration in which two children discover the remains of a dead body as its album cover art, the album thematically is rooted in duality: Continuing his reputation for breezy guitar pop, the album is also brutal, sinister yet candid. The end result is an album that evokes a mysterious world where ghosts, the supernatural, fate and broken characters with broken lives intertwine. 

In the lead-up to the album’s release later this week, I’ve managed to write about two album singles:

  • “Un homme sans visage” a deceptively breezy song centered around an arrangement of gorgeous Mellotron-driven melody, jangling guitar, simple yet propulsive rhythms, bursts of lap steep, big hooky choruses and Robert’s plaintive falsetto. While continuing to be lovingly inspired by the sounds of the late 60s, the song is a bittersweet, modern fable of sorts that tells a story about a man, whose face is badly burned in a fire. 
  • “Rock & roll sur ton chemin,” a deceptively straightforward rocker centered around a loose and breezy surf rock-like riff and a churning groove paired with dreamily delivered falsetto harmonies and Robert’s penchant for big, catchy hooks paired with subtle amounts of bongo, Mellotron and whistles. But despite it’s breezy air, the song is bittersweet and drenched with irony with the song being a tribute to dying art forms and those, who still practice them. “Devoting oneself to a genre destined to failure, there’s something pathetic about it, but also something very beautiful,” Robert says.

Jonathan Personne‘s third and latest single, “À présent” sounds indebted to Scott Walker‘s orchestral pop and Phil Spector‘s famous Wall of Sound production but with a greatest emphasis on the jangling rhythm section, which subtly pushes the whole affair into more contemporary realm. Thematically, the song depicts a world where excess, speed and love coexist in a setting that’s kind of a synthesis of Romeo and Juliet and James Dean’s life with the song’s central couple dying in a horrific accident.

Animated by Mathieu Larone and Henry McClellan, the accompanying video for “À présent” is abstract but centered in dualities, evoking the album’s themes: the animation is both childlike and disturbing, broodingly dark and colorful. But throughout, the intention was to present the optimistic vision of a new beginning.

“Mathieu and Henry were able to translate the song into images, and it’s just beautiful! It’s like an excerpt from the movie Fantasia, only weirder, darker, and done by the NFB rather than Disney,” Jonathan Robert says.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Julia Jacklin Shares Hazy and Earnest “Be Careful With Yourself”

With the release of 2016’s full-length debut, the folky Don’t Let The Kids Win, acclaimed Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Julia Jacklin quickly carved out a reputation for being a direct lyricist, willing to excavate the parameters of intimacy and anger with songs that were simultaneously stark and raw, loose and playful. 2018’s sophomore album Crushing managed to draw the listener in even closer. 

Jacklin’s third album PRE PLEASURE is slated for a Friday release through Polyvinyl Record Co. Conceived upon returning home at the end of an extensive world tour to support Crushing, PRE PLEASURE‘s material was finished in a frantic few months of recording in Montreal with co-producer Marcus Paquin. “The songs on this record took either three years to write or three minutes,” Jacklin says. 

Jacklin teamed up with her Canadian touring band, which features The Weather Station’s Ben Whiteley (bass) and Will Kidman (guitar), Folly and the Hunter’s Laurie Torres (drums) and Adam Kinner (drums), as well as string arrangements by Owen Pallett recorded by a full orchestra in Prague. 

“Making a record to me has always just been about the experience, a new experience in a new place with a new person at the desk, taking the plunge and just seeing what happens” Jacklin says of traveling to Canada to work with a new producer for the third time in as many albums. “For the first time I stepped away from the guitar, and wrote a lot of the album on the Roland keyboard in my apartment in Montreal with its inbuilt band tracks. I blu-tacked reams of butcher paper to the walls, covered in lyrics and ideas, praying to the music gods that my brain would arrange everything in time.” 

The album reportedly sees Jacklin expanding upon her signature sound while thematically conjuring the ripples and fault lines caused by unreliable communication. 

In the lead-up to PRE PLEASURE‘s release, I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

  • “I Was Neon,” a relentless motorik groove-driven track featuring buzzing guitars, Jacklin’s plaintive delivery and an enormous, arena rock friendly hook. And while being an anthemic bit of rock-leaning pop — or perhaps pop-leaning rock? — the song is rooted in earnest, lived-in lyricism that simultaneously expresses crippling self-doubt with a deeply, intelligent, almost winking self-awareness of how ridiculous it all is. 
  •  “Love, Try Not To Let Go” is a shimmering and swooning Fleetwood Mac-like track featuring Jacklin’s achingly tender delivery floating over twinkling keys, reverb-drenched guitars before exploding into thundering guitar chords during the song’s bridge. It’s a fittingly gorgeous yet brooding arrangement for a song that describes the confusing mix of hesitation and desire one feels towards love, heartbreak and moving forward. 

“Be Careful With Yourself,” PRE PLEASURE‘s is a hazy and dreamy slow-burner, centered around layers of jangling guitars, driving rhythms and ethereal harmonies paired with Jacklin’s effortless vocals and her unerring knack for anthemic hooks. At itNs core though, “Be Careful With Yourself” is an honest and vulnerable love song full of hope — hope for the longevity of the partner and the relationship in a way that captures the hopes of a fledging relationship.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Rising Paris-born, Montreal-based singer/songwriter and JOVM mainstay Thaïs specializes in an atmospheric and delicate take on pop centered around the French Canadian artist’s ethereal vocals. Thematically her work focuses on melancholy, loneliness and dysfunctional, confusing, heartbreaking love. 

Last year’s Paradis Artificiels EP featured two tracks I wrote about: 

  • “Boreal,” a track inspired by a trip she took to Iceland that evoked the awe-inspiring sense of being in a gorgeous, natural beauty and taking it all in deeply
  • “Sushi Solitude,” an atmospheric and delicate bit of synth pop that brought Washed Out to mind. 

2022 has been a big year for the Montreal-based JOVM mainstay: Earlier this year, Thaïs signed to Bravo Musique, who released Tout est parfait: acte un back in May. The EP features features two tracks I wrote about on this site:

  • “Arrête de danser,” a slickly produced bop centered around glistening and atmospheric synth arpeggios and trap beats that saw the rising French Canadian artist alternating between a syncopated trap-like flow for the song’s verses and ethereal cooing for the song’s hook and choruses. And while arguably being one of her most club friendly songs, “Arrête de danser” is a bitter tell-off to an unhealthy, dysfunctional lover that the song’s narrator knows deep down is wrong for her — and yet can’t quite quit. 
  • The Coeur de Pirate co-written, Renaud Bastien-produced “Vieux Port,” a danceable and deceptively upbeat bop featuring wobbling bass synth, glistening and arpeggiated synth melodies, twinkling keys, some brief bursts of industrial clang and clatter and soaring strings paired with Thaïs ethereal cooing. But just underneath the surface is a song that details a relationship that’s seemingly on the ropes while contemplating the passing of time and the desire to turn the clock back — with the knowledge you have now. 

The JOVM mainstays second EP of the year, Tout est parfait: act deux is slated for a September 2, 2022 release. The EP’s first single “Le vent” is a breezy pop song featuring twinkling and atmospheric synths arpeggios and skittering trap-inspired beats paired with Thaïs’ ethereal cooing.

The song’s title, which translates into English as “The Wind” is structured to evoke a gust of wind for the verses and a brewing storm for the song’s choruses. And at its core, the song continues a remarkable run of material imbued with an achingly bittersweet nostalgia over a long lost love that deep down she knows she can’t get back.


Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Dawn to Dawn Share Breezy and Nostalgic “Stereo”

When Montreal-based electro pop artists Tess Roby, Adam Ohr and Patrick Lee hung out together for the first time back in late 2018, they had no intention of starting a band together. The trio initially gathered at Lee’s Mile End studio with no expectations — but with a mutual admiration of each other’s work.

Interestingly enough, as the story goes, they stated playing and almost immediately felt a deep, musical kinship. Over the next few months, the trio became close friends, while finding themselves inspired again in a way that they’d all been long seeking.

Songs came flowing out of those informal sessions, with the trio writing and producing material communally, and in circadian rhythm. They released their first singles as Dawn to Dawn, “Meridian,” “A Colour Named By You” and “Care” between 2020 and 2021. Each of those singles found the trio quickly establishing a sound that has been described as sitting halfway between spectral dream pop and abstract dance-oriented soundscapes.

The band’s full-length debut, the nine-song, Postcards From The Sun To The Moon is slated for an October 6, 2022 release through Roby’s label SSURROUNDSS. The album reportedly features all-enveloping music that could only be made by musicians, who have complete trust in one another: Roby would write off-the-cuff lyrics in the room during their jam sessions. Then Ohr and Lee would take these versions and edit them, experimenting with processing, before bringing tracks back to listen together — and then distill into their final forms. Mixed by fellow Montreal artists Patrick Holland and Pierre Guerineau and featuring impressionistic album art by Hugo Bernier, the album is meant to enjoyed with — or without — a fixed destination in mind.

Postcards From The Sun To The Moon‘s first single, “Stereo” is an infectious and coquettish bop centered around glistening and atmospheric synths and thumping 909s paired with Roby’s ethereal and plaintive vocals. While being a summery and breezy bit of dance friendly pop, the song is rooted in nostalgia for carefree, sweltering summer nights.

“This song captures the sound of summer: sweltering nights, afterparties and playful romance. It was written deep in the 2020 winter lockdown, as we imagined the parties of summer’s past,” the Montreal-based trio explain. “A breaky, forward moving 909 beat carries airy synths that glide beneath Tess’ airy vocals. Weightless and captivating, Stereo is an anthem for years to come.”

Directed by Tess Roby and shot by Hugo Bernier and the members of Dawn to Dawn, the accompanying video for “Stereo” begins with following the trio as they walk through what appears to be Mont Royal Park to view the sunset over downtown Montreal, then to a local arcade, hangouts at bars with pals, stops at bodegas (well, the Montreal version of a bodega) to get booze, water and what not before heading to a late night after party. Throughout the entire video, there’s a playful and carefree air that’s only possible during the summer.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Preoccupations Share Atmospheric and Brooding “Death of Melody”

Canadian post punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Preoccupations —  Matt Flegel (bass, vocals), Mike Wallace (drums), Scott Munro (guitar) and Daniel Christiansen (guitar) — will be releasing their fourth, full-length album Arrangements on September 9, 2022. Longtime label home Flemish Eye will handle the release throughout Canada while the band will self-release the album outside of Canada. 

Initial work on Arrangements began in the fall of 2019, when Flegel and Christiansen met up with Munro at his Montreal-based Studio St. Zo. The trio wrote the album’s material and recorded all of the bed tracks together. Wallace then joined in and recorded his parts. With all of the instrumental parts laid down, the band planned to reconvene in a few months and decided what else the songs needed.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the JOVM mainstays’ plans to reconvene in person were halted. At the time Munro was in Calgary on tour with his partner when the shutdowns began, so he wound up staying with his parents for the next 16 months. He whipped up a make-shift studio in his parents house, and the rest of the record was finished remotely with Munro and Flegel sending tracks back and forth to each other: Munro’s vocal and keyboard parts were completed in that set up while Flegel’s vocal parts were laid down in New York. Holy Fuck‘s Graham Walsh mixed the record and Total Control‘s Mikey Young mastered it. 

Interestingly, pandemic isolation helped to encourage the band to reconnect with elements of their earlier releases: Munro, holed up in Calgary with endless weed gummies, obsessively doubled keyboards on guitars and vice versa, sampled the recordings using an old Ensoniq keyboard sampler and made new parts out of the samples. While on 2016’s self-titled and 2018’s New Material, Munro was committed to making keyboards the centerpiece, Arrangements sees guitar returning to the spotlight — an instrument that he describes as much more fun and visceral to play. Throughout most of the album, Christiansen employs a unique tuning that sees him blurring and smearing his parts while Munro’s standard-tuned riffs provide melody and clarity. The end result is an album that sonically will see the band weaving their guitar-heavy origins with their more synth-based recent work to create what may arguably be their most intense and playful album to date. 

Much like its predecessor New Material, Arrangements‘ title is simultaneously literal and cheeky — a sharp contrast to their overall aesthetic. Thematically, the album is dark and direct: “The lyrics are pretty conspicuous and self explanatory on this one, but it’s basically about the world blowing up and no one giving a shit,” says Flegel. 

Last month, I wrote about Arrangements‘ first single, ““Ricochet,” a murky and dark churner featuring layers of glistening and distorted guitar slashes, rolling and lashing snares,atmospheric synth arpeggios and a propulsive bass line paired with Flegel’s mournful, embittered delivery and their penchant for rousingly anthemic hooks. And while being a slick and seamless synthesis of their earliest work and their most recent work, “Ricochet” manages to evoke the creeping, existential dread we have all felt lately — and perhaps continue to feel — during one of the most heightened and uncertain periods in recent memory.

“Death of Melody,” Arrangements‘ second and latest single is a brooding and tumbling track centered around textured, reverb-drenched shoegazer-like haze, martial, machine-like rhythms paired with Flegel’s plaintive delivery fed through even more distortion. Sonically “Death of Melody” is a one-half funhouse in hell, one-half vacillating thoughts tumbling about in the mind of an anxious, uncertain person.

“It’s about having a song stuck in your head, and having no idea what it is, and driving yourself to the brink of dementia trying to figure out what it is” Preoccupations’ Flegel explains. “It’s about knowing and forgetting, existing in the middle ground between the permanent and temporary.”

Directed by Yoonha Park, the accompanying visual for “Death of Melody” features a black and white photo of the band that looks as though it were given a kaleidoscopic, funhouse mirror treatment in which makes the band look monstrous.