JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates The B-52s co-founder Cindy Wilson’s 69th birthday.
Tag: music
New Video: she’s green Shares Stormy and Anthemic “mettle”
Minneapolis-based outfit she’s green — Zofia Smith (vocals), Liam Armstrong (guitar), Raimes Lucas (guitar), Teddy Nordvold (guitar) and Kevin Seeback (drums) — specialize in crafting dreamy soundscapes that transport the listener to scenes of soft summer rain and fields of swaying wheat, infused with raw emotional intensity.
With their earliest singles “river” and “smile again,” the Minneapolis-based quintet quickly became a staple within the Midwestern alternative scene, while earning praise from Complex, Star Tribune and The Current. Their debut EP, 2023’s Wisteria saw the band establishing an honest and exploratory songwriting process and a reputation for being a force in the world of sonic surrealism. Adding to a growing profile, the rising Minnesotans have supported their material with tours throughout the Midwest and East Coast with the likes of Hotline TNT, Friko, JOVM mainstays Glixen and a list of others.
Last year, the Minneapolis-based quartet signed to New York-based Photo Finish Records, who released their Henry Stoehr-produced sophomore EP Chrysalis. The EP included the Souvlaki-era Slowdive-like “Graze,” and the Sundays-meets-A Storm In Heaven-like “Willow.”
Building upon a growing national profile, the band shares their latest single “mettle.” Continuing a remarkable run of 120 Minutes-era MTV-like shoegaze and dream pop, “mettle” features Zofia Smith’s powerhouse yet tender vocal ethereally floating over a stormy soundscape of hazy reverb-drenched guitars, sculpted and abrasive riffs and thunderous, driving drums. The song manages to be simultaneously oceanic yet intimate, rooted in personal experiences that are all too familiar and universal.
“‘mettle’ channels the frustration and discomfort that stem from what often feels like constant bad news, while also being an anthem of resilience and the courage to take action and bring about positive change,” the band’s Zofia Smith explains.
Directed by Jaxon Whittington, the accompanying 120 Minutes-era MTV-like video begins with the band’s Smith walking through an eerie forest scene similar to horror movies and is split between horror movie-like vibes and the band playing in the same forest.
The band will have a very busy 2026: Earlier this month, they announced that they’d be opening for Chapterhouse on select dates on that band’s first North American tour in 16 years. During the spring they’ll also open for Bad Suns and Slow Crush with some headlining sets and appearances at Nothing.’s touring Slide Away Festival. The festival will have a stop at the Brooklyn Paramount.
New Video: London’s Mouth Ulcers Share Brooding “Prevail”
London-based outfit Mouth Ulcers — Zak Watson (vocals, guitar), Josephine Rose (guitar, vocals), Jamie Lee Culver (bass) and David Zbirka (drums) — are part of a new generation of dark post-punk that’s actively reshaping the genre into something urgent, youthful and intoxicating.
With the release of their two singles, last year’s “Western Horror Story” and “A Perfect End” the British quartet have quickly developed a sound that they’ve playfully dubbed as “music for vampires to dance to” — i.e. brooding, groove-driven and irresistibly cool.
The band recently made their live debut with sold-out shows in both the UK and The Netherlands. Building upon that momentum, the band recently signed to LAB Records, who will release their highly-anticipated debut EP — and they’re planning to announce some extensive summer tour dates.
But in the meantime, the band’s latest single “Prevail” is a brooding bit of post-punk featuring shimmering, reverb-soaked guitars, atmospheric synths and a motrik-like groove serving as a lush bed for Watson’s yearning baritone. Seemingly channeling Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure and others, “Prevail” showcases a remarkably self-assured new band and their ability to craft hook-driven anthems for vampires and goths.
“The meaning behind Prevail was inspired by the film Stalker by Tarkovsky,” the band explains. “The mental and physical struggle of surviving ‘The Zone’, a hostile and reality warping environment which threatens to erase one’s sanity.”
Directed and edited by the band, the accompanying video for “Prevail” playing the song in a cave-like basement and on an abandoned, seemingly haunted English farm. For me, it brings back memories of watching 120 Minutes.
Throwback: Black History Month: Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and pays tribute to Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.
Throwback: Happy 94th Birthday, Johnny Cash!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 94th anniversary of the birth of Johnny Cash.
Throwback: Happy Black History Month!/Happy 55th Birthday, Erykah Badu!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and Erykah Badu’s 55th birthday.
New Audio: The Womack Sisters Share Defiant “You Went Away Too Long”
Rising Los Angeles-based soul trio The Womack Sisters — Kucha, Zeimani and BG — can trace the origins of their careers to their childhood: The trio were singing before they could even walk. They grew up on stages and in studios across the globe, singing behind their parents, as well as their legendary uncle, Bobby Womack. Adding to The Womack Sisters’ remarkable pedigree, their grandfather was the iconic Sam Cooke.
No matter where they called home at the time — London, Thailand, Amsterdam, Kenya, West Virginia, The Bahamas — music and family were always a constant at the center of their lives. Of course, fas the sisters grew up, each with their own respective journeys, experiences and heartaches, they managed to find their own voices and their own path.
Each member of the trio has their own individual vocal, but they playfully trade leads and effortlessly (and perfectly) blend their harmonies in a way that only siblings can.
Back in 2016, a mutual friend introduced The Womack Sisters to Daptone Records co-owner and producer Gabriel Roth, a.k.a. Bosco Mann, who heard them sing and feel quickly and deeply in love with their voices. Shortly after, they went met at Daptone’s Riverside, CA-based Penrose Studios to record their label debut, “If You Want Me“/”I Just Don’t Want You (To Say Goodbye).”
The trio’s latest single “You Went Away Too Long” opens with a broodingly cinematic introductory section featuring shimmering and quivering Rhodes, regal horns and orchestral chimes before quickly shifting to a tender, classic soul-inspired first verse showcasing an achingly melancholic longing of women, who just haven’t been able to forget or get over a lover, who did them wrong. But by the defiant chorus, it’s obvious that the women have the confidence to refuse to wait too long for their due. Life is short and you can’t delay on living the best life you can possibly live.
“This song holds a deep meaning that’s different for each of us,” the trio explains. “Imagine precious time stolen from your life, slipping away like sand through an hourglass, as your loved ones slowly forget the sound of your laughter. ‘You Went Away Too Long’ is a song about love and life interrupted.”
Throwback: Happy 83rd Birthday, George Harrison!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 82nd anniversary of the birth of George Harrison.
New Video: Sunglaciers Return with Shimmering “Only Love”
With the release of 2019’s Foreign Bodies, 2022’s Subterranea and 2024’s Regular Nature, Calgary-based JOVM mainstays Sunglaciers — founding duo Evan Resnik (vocals, guitar, synths, piano, sampling) and Mathieu Blanchard (drums, percussion, production) along with Nyssa Brown (vocals, guitar) and Kyle Crough (bass) — have firmly cemented a sound that blurs the boundaries between polished melodicism and opaque experimentation, auspicious romanticism and unbridled descent. Though anchored in the strange realties of our time, their sons are laced with a certain optimism through well-placed and well-calculated psych elements and vibrant rhythms.
The Calgary-based outfit’s highly-anticipated fourth album, Spiritual Content is slated for a March 27, 2026 release through Mothland. The album reportedly sees the band further exploring the chiaroscuro depths of post-punk while simultaneously setting out to redefine their sound. Thematically, the album explores modern day life through allegorical songwriting, elevated by genuinely catchy melodies, resolute arrangements and stylish production.
Over the course of its breakneck 35-minute run, the album’s indie rock-meets-post-punk-tinged, nine songs reportedly captured fleeting yet endearing moments in time, their narrative bent, twisted and distorted into expansive and highly evocative soundscapes. The album is meant to layout like a psychedelic sequence where grooves dance and wiggle in and out, awaking feelings of wonder and awe, while also trigging emotions like bewilderment, fear and alienation.
The album sees Resnik and Blanchard turning to their bandmates Brown and Brougham along with acclaimed producer and multi-instrumentalist Chad VanGaalen (synths, vibraphone, electric piano and additional production) to flesh out the album’s material. The band also continued their collaborations with mixing/mastering engineer Mark Lawson and former Besnard Lakes‘ Richard White, who took on vinyl mastering duties.
Spiritual Content will include the Freedom of Choice-era Devo-inspired “Eye to Eye” and the album’s latest single “Only Love.” Seemingly channeling a synthesis of Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen, early The Cure and Gang of Four, “Only Love” sees Resnik, Blanchard and company musing on the transformative and redemptive power of love — but it’s underpinned with the subtly bitter reality that nothing is forever, not even love.
Directed by Ethan Clark, the accompanying video features the band’s members at a packed house party but love — whether of someone else or self-love made the video’s protagonist change his life, perhaps for the better. We see this through a series of woozy flash backs and flash forwards, sometimes within the same scene.
“Only love can upend your lifestyle, change your patterns. You’re young, you’re out at parties all the time,” the Calgary-based JOVM mainstays explain. “Then something happens. Years pass in an instant. Maybe you found love, or self-love, or something else. Got healthy. Got busy. Where you used to go out, now you stay in. The party’s not over; it rages on in your memories. This video is kind of an illustration of those memories.
New Video: Bibi Club Returns with incendiary “George Sand”
Deriving their name from their living room discotheque, where their “bibis” — or loved ones — come to dance, the Montréal-based duo Bibi Club — Adèle Trottier-Rivard (vocals, keys) and Nicolas Basque (guitar) — earned acclaim across both Québec and Europe with their debut album, 2022’s Le soleil et la mer, an album that won a Most Promising Award at that year’s GAMIQ Awards, a Discovery of the Year at that year’s ADISQ Awards and landed on the Polaris Music Prize long list.
Le soleil et la mer received praise by a number of French outfits including Les Inrocks, Magic Magazine, Libération and France Inter and landed on Le Devoir, Les Inrocks‘ and Tsugi’s Best Albums of 2022 lists. And adding to a rapidly growing international profile, the album received airplay from BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq.
Their sophomore album, 2024’s Feu de garde saw the band expanding upon their sound with darker textures and luminous synths. The album earned several nominations at that year’s ADISQ Awards and landed on the Polaris Music Prize short ling. The album was FNAC‘s album of the month for May and received praise from MOJO, Télérama, Record Collector, Uncut and many more.
Building upon a growing profile, the Montréal-based duo have begun making a run of the international festival circuit with sets at SXSW, The Great Escape, FOCUS Wales, MaMA Festival, Osheaga, The New Colossus Festival, as well as clubs in Brazil, Germany and Canada. They’ve also opened for Blonde Redhead, Circuit des Yuex and a list of others.
Bibi Club’s highly-anticipated third album Amaro is slated for a Friday release through Secret City Records. The album sees the acclaimed French Canadian duo inviting the listener to brave the dark beasts that shadow us beneath the surface, and to devote ourselves to the healing power of a fierce will to live. It explores the liminal spectrum between the here and beyond, pointing to love, nature and community as the deeply unifying purpose. The album’s material reportedly draw a detailed map of a world completely of its own, following the trajectory traced by the pair in recent years.
Now, out of the living room, we dance in a mental space overloaded with grief and fear in their most rawest forms. Following the death of two dear, loved ones in the last year, the mantra “I want to love, I want to live,” resonates intensely in each song’s melody, underlined by the belief that if the heart is a place that never dies, we must reach it as quickly as possible.
Inspired by their tours with Blonde Redhead and Circuit des Yeux and a collaboration with Calvin Johnson, the duo’s sound now incorporates elements of avant pop, electronic body music, dark wave and neo-folk while simultaneously borrowing from baroque sounds with harpsichord, trumpet and ritual chants. The album also features contributions from saxophonist Dimitri Milbrun and singer/songwriter Helena Deland, who help contribute to its overall sound.
Amaro will include “Washing Machine,” which I wrote about last month, and the album’s latest and last pre-release single “George Sand.” Much like its immediate predecessor, “George Sand” is a breakneck, motorik-like chug featuring Dimitri Milbrun’s incendiary saxophone playing paired with Trottier-Rivard’s dreamy cooing. One-part dream pop, one-part no wave, one-part post punk and one-part art school punk, “George Sand” The band explains that the song was inspired by the radical 19th century feminist writer’s forest manifesto — an ode to life and nature.
“The writer George Sand was not only a strong, feminist and radical person, she was also a renowned botanist. This song is inspired by her manifesto for the survival of the Fontainebleau forest, an ode to life and nature, to the plants and trees that guide us,” the Montréal-based duo explain. “A song full of thirst for life, about the force of nature and the therapeutic benefits it provides. Nico quickly programmed the bass and the 606 drum machine, then everything fell into place, like the song. It was evident that the song needed our friend, radical artist Dimitri Milbrun to add some incendiary saxophone. At the end of the song, the guitar and saxophone blend together to form a force that destroys everything in its path.”
Directed and edited by Anna Arrobas, the accompanying video features the acclaimed duo performing the song in front of fire-based projections and brooding lighting by Flavie Lemée.
Throwback: Happy Black History Month: Salt ‘N’ Pepa
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and pays tribute to Salt ‘N’ Pepa.
Throwback: Happy 76th Birthday, George Thorogood!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates George Thorogood’s 76th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 71st Birthday, Howard Jones!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Howard Jones’ 70th birthday.
New Video: Bella Litsa Shares Cinematic “Tied Together By a Silver Thread”
Isabella Komodromos is a classically trained pianist, who as a child split her time between Massachusetts and her father’s native Cyprus. Komodromos started piano lessons when she was six and quickly found herself gravitating towards minor keys and rewriting the lyrics in songbooks to be more macabre.
By the time she turned 13, she started vocal training, eventually attending Berklee College of Music, where she majored in songwriting and film scoring. Komodromos relocated to New York in 2020. Inspired by the city’s abrasiveness, she plunged into a musical and personal intensity to find her voice. The result is her solo art pop project Bella Litsa.
The bulk of her recently released full-length, studio album Drasticism was written between December of 2022 and February 2024 with much of her songwriting process occurring during periods of frenzied inspiration. “The choices I was making weren’t always good choices. I just was searching out all this extremity, like extreme love and extreme loss and to feel this crazy spectrum of things,” the Bella Litsa creative mastermind says. “The album is mostly asking: Why would I do that? But how could I not do that?”
Komodromos writes to cull her intense emotions and this personal excavation is part of her larger pursuit of the beautiful and divine. She cites her interests in astrophysics, synchronicities, Jungian psychoanalysis, the Book of Job, the Greek Orthodox church she attends, Andrei Tarkovsky and film scores for inspiration. Her work is rooted in a deeply-held belief that everything is beautiful and because every beautiful thing will end, everything is inherently sad. And in turn, songwriting is a relief, a way to preserve beauty. Similar to the drastic way she lives, she gravitates towards the extreme when it comes to her writing.
Bella Litsa writes to cull her intense emotions, and this personal excavation is part of her larger pursuit of the beautiful and divine. She taps her interest in astrophysics, synchronicities, Jungian psychoanalysis, the Book of Job, the Greek Orthodox church she attends, Andrei Tarkovsky, and film scores for inspiration. Because for Bella Litsa, everything is beautiful, and because every beautiful thing will end, everything is sad. Songwriting is a relief, a way to preserve beauty. And similar to her drastic way of living, she gravitates towards the extremes in her writing practice.
One spring day back in 2023, Komodromos came home in a strange, emotional state. She dat down at her desk, and eight hours later, she created the demo for “My Blue Eyes.” The next day she tried it again. After 12 hours, she had written “Tied Together by a Silver Thread,: a tragic epic inspired by the movements of classical music with three distinct sections. “It was probably the most inspired I was ever in my life,” she says. “I listen to it now and it just feels like my heart’s about to explode.”
That all-consuming feeling is what it feels like for the rising artist to dig deep into the core of her humanity. “I tell my psychoanalyst when we talk about songwriting: It’s like there’s a rope and I’m pulling on this rope, and the more I pull, the more the song is coming to me. But the song already existed. I’m slowly uncovering what was always there.”
For Komodromos, her propensity towards the extremes is ultimately about a desire to connect, not only with herself but with others. “I get to say all these things that I keep in and then all of a sudden people are listening to you, and they’re witnessing the breaking down,” she says. “I feel like I get so tortured, especially singing live. I think being witnessed is the most powerful feeling you can have.”
Her work is intimate and emotionally potent material that echo with a dreamlike intensity. Her sound sees her blending vintage romance with experimental textures, a sort of haunted Americana-meeting-minimalist futurism, has helped her draw comparisons to Lana Del Rey, Fiona Apple and Weyes Blood — while being a vessel for connection and cantharis. “Bella Litsa is my sadness personified. It feels like the closest I can get to my shadow, consciously,” Komodromos says.
Drasticism includes the previously released, “Angelica,” “Passion Plug,” “Never Ending Movie,” the Tori Amos and Lonny-like “1117” and the album’s latest “Tied Together By a Silver Thread.” Continuing a run of dramatic, remarkably cinematic yet deeply intimate material, “Tied Together By a Silver Thread” is a hauntingly gorgeous, lushly arranged song that features a mesh of elements of old-school balladry, rock, film scores and classical music. The rising artist’s equally gorgeous and expressive vocal dances and floats over the song’s arrangement. And much like its predecessor, the song evokes a sense of almost unreconcilable inner conflict.
Directed by Dylan Gee whose work has been featured in The New York Times, The FADER, Stereogum, NYLON and more, was shot entirely on form and thermal camera in Southern California’s Frazier Park. Fittingly, the cinematic visual evokes the swooning heart at the core of the song.
The rising artist will be playing a record release show at Night Club 101 on February 27.
Throwback: Happy Black History Month: Whitney Houston
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and honors Whitney Houston.