Tag: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

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.

Video by William Ruben Helms

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.

Video by William Ruben Helms

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.

Video by William Ruben Helms

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.

Video by William Ruben Helms

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.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Lucid Express Shares Dreamy and Yearning “Promise Me”

Hong Kong-based shoegazers and JOVM mainstays Lucid Express just released their long-awaited and highly anticipated sophomore album Instant Comfort today through Kanine Records. 

Mixed by Kurt Feldman during marathon overnight, transpacific sessions on Discord, Instant Comfort reportedly captures the unsettling stillness of the nighttime hours. The album’s material sonically sees the Hong Kong-based JOVM mainstays pairing ethereal melodies with towering walls of jangling guitars and hazy, swirling feedback while being more clear-eyed, complex and layered than anything they’ve released to date. 

The album includes the previously released “Something Blue,” and “Faux Sweetness,“as well as the album’s latest single “Promise Me.” Featuring towering layers of shimmering and churning guitars, thundering hi-hat driven drumming serving as a lush and eerily uneasy bed for Kim Ho’s ethereal and yearning vocal.

Directed and filmed by fellow Hong Kong native Neo Yeung, the accompanying video is a mix of live performance-styled footage and candid footage shot over the course of a day-long shoot.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Chicago’s Snowcuffs Shares Hazy and Anthemic “Burst”

Formed back in 2022, Chicago-based dream pop outfit Snowcuffs features members of Lightfoils and Astrobrite, Their debut EP, last year’s Sink Down saw the band quickly establishing a sound that balanced shimmering textures and memorable hooks. Inspired by Alvvays, Beach House and Mazzy Star, their work frequently drifts between nostalgic haze and fuzz-driven intensity while thematically touching upon longing, reflection and fleeting beauty.

The band has shared stages with Cold Gawd, Seashine and Cigarettes for Breakfast, and played a standout set at Kalamashoegazer, the country’s longest-running shoegaze festival.

Building upon a growing profile in the national shoegaze and dream pop scenes, the Chicago-based outfit’s sophomore EP Sweet Gravity is slated for a March 5, 2026 release. Engineered by Sanford Parker at Hypercube Studios, mixed by Robert Cheek and mastered by Baseline Audio Labs’ Chris Goosman, Sweet Gravity EP reportedly sees the band showcasing refined songwriting and a much more expansive sound that pushes the boundaries of dream pop without losing its heart and soul.

Sweet Gravity EP‘s latest single “Burst” sees the band pairing shimmering and swirling guitar textures, a forcefully driving rhythm section and remarkably catchy, rousingly anthemic hooks with ethereal vocals. Sonically, “Burst” seemingly nods at 120 Minutes-era MTV shoegaze and alternative rock — but with a decidedly modern sensibility. And at its core is a song and a narrator struggling with crippling ambivalence and self-doubt.

The band explains that “‘Burst’ is about the struggle of trying to be everything at once, and what happens when inaction, ambivalence, and self-doubt slowly erode your options in life.

I wait and see
Stare at the tree
Will it die of thirst
And fall down on me?

Ambivalence isn’t neutral, it’s destructive.”

Directed by Dave Rentaukas, the accompanying video for “Burst” is split between footage of the band’s lead singer in a Chicago area park as the sun begins to set and the rest of the band performing in a studio in front brooding yet trippy projections.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Genesis Owusu Shares Breakneck “STAMPEDE”

Last year, the acclaimed multi-ARIA Award-winning Ghanian-born Canberra-based JOVM mainstay Genesis Owusu released two singles “PIRATE RADIO,” and “DEATH CULT ZOMBIE,” the first bit of new material since the release of 2023’s acclaimed STRUGGLER.

The JOVM mainstay’s first single of 2026, “STAMPEDE” is anchored around the acclaimed Ghanian-Australian artist’s punchy punk rock-meets-hip-hop delivery and a breakneck production featuring menacing, reverb-drenched synth subs, skittering and relentless military-like motorik pulse. The song conveys the desperate urgency of our moment while being a rallying cry to prioritize community and unity as a way out of our techno-feudalist/Christo-fascist hellscape.

“Left side to the right side, front side to the back,” he says in his latest offering, “we’re all in this together. And there’s a real problem. There are people who have expansive amounts of money, who are intentionally acting to separate us so they can keep getting richer at the expense of general human wellbeing. We’re all under that same thumb and we need to realise that.”

Continuing an ongoing collaboration with Isaac Brown, the accompanying video for “STAMPEDE” was filmed in the streets and surroundings of Accra and turns Owusu’s worlds to life: an army of rebels mobilize on motorcycles and horseback around him.

“This whole project is about humanity and community, not just in Australia where I live, but globally. It felt nourishing to go back to my home country (Ghana) for the first time in 11 years and showcase a bit of the culture there; the youth and the deep subcultures, far beyond the perceptions a lot of people may have of Africa,” says Owusu.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Endearments Return with Shimmering and Anthemic “Marianne”

Brooklyn-based indie outfit Endearments — Kevin Marksson (vocals, bass), Anjali Nair (guitar) and Will Haywood Smith (drums) — closed out last year by signing with Trash Casual, who will be releasing their Abe Seiferth–produced, full-length debut An Always Open Door. 

Slated for a March 6, 2026 release, the nine-song An Always Open Door will include “Real Deal,” “Summersun” and “Marianne,” the album’s third and final pre-release single. “Marianne” is a rousingly anthemic ballad that sees the band balancing introspective, heart worn on sleeve-driven lyrics and a cinematic sound. Seemingly nodding at some of the great 80s movie soundtrack tunes, like Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Think About Me” and Psychedelic Furs’ “Pretty In Pink,” An Always Open Door‘s latest single contends with long-distance longing, mixed messages and the possibility that your feelings and investment may be unfulfilled — or worse, unrequited.

“‘Marianne’ is about the uncertain and vulnerable moments at the beginning of a new relationship,” the band’s Marksson explains. “It’s a song about longing for someone who is far away, physically and emotionally, and what it takes to break down those barriers. We wanted the music video to emphasize that metaphor, with the band playing in a liminal place, bright and surreal, before the mirrors that are reflecting us literally shatter.”

The accompanying video continues their ongoing collaboration with director Paul Desilva.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: I WANT POETRY Shares Flirty “No Is A Full Sentence”

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

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

2026 looks to be a breakthrough year for the German indie electro pop duo: Their highly anticipated third album, Future Selves is slated for a May 29, 2026 release. The album is reportedly hopeful and transformative, inspired by a brief moment in time when the future still felt like a promise, channeling the spirit of past dreams of utopia and progress. And as a result, the new album offers a forward-thinking vision shaped by memory, imagination and the will to create what comes next.

Sonically, the album’s material marks an evolution from the reflective tones of Solace + Light, featuring layers of shimming synths and soaring melodies. 

Future Selves will include the previously released “Mirrors Of The Sky,” and the album’s latest single the Micheal Vanja, Ghian Wright and The EmU-co-produced “No Is a Full Sentence.” “No Is A Full Sentence” is self-assured, flirty and defiant pop tune, anchored around glistening synth stabs and the duo’s unerring and effortless knack for catchy hooks and sleek, dance floor friendly grooves.

But under the flirty, dance floor friendly vibes is a song that’s a one-part bold feminist anthem, one-part confidence booster for those who’ve had enough. The song says that it’s perfectly normal to stand up for yourself, to go out there and get what you want, no matter what anyone else.

The accompanying video features the duo, strutting and vamping it up in a modern metropolis — mostly at night. But it emphasizes the playful, confidence boosting nature of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Thundercat Shares Posthumously Released Breezy Collab with Mac Miller “She Knows Too Much”

Acclaimed JOVM mainstay Thundercat will be releasing his fifth studio album — and first album in over six years — Distracted through Brainfeeder on April 3, 2026. Distracted was created in close collaboration with super producer Greg Kurstin with additional production from Flying Lotus, Kenny Beats and The Lemon Twigs. The new album also features contributions from an all-star cast that includes A$AP Rocky, WILLOW, Tame Impala, Channel Tres, Lil Yachty and a previously unreleased collaboration with Mac Miller. 

Thematically, the album vividly captures the uneasy tension between overstimulation and introspection. Thundercat is deeply skeptical of technological “progress,” especially the way it has narrowed our collective imagination instead of expanding it. He jokes about Star Trek and childhood dreams of space travel, then pivots to the horrible anticlimax of reality: drones without lasers, phones that only feature upgraded cameras, innovation reduced to spying and access. The disappointment isn’t about just gadgets; it’s about a vision of the world we were promised versus what we got right now. Sure, some forms of deep space travel may be difficult, if not impossible, but we don’t have flying cars or smart-alecky robots. We barely have high-speed trains or anything else. 

While the drawbacks of constant distraction are evident in today’s attention deficit economy, a true idiosyncratic like Thundercat can identity the ways in which it used to one’s advantage. You can’t spell “daydreams,” without dreams. “Sometimes you need to be distracted to focus in a different way,” Thundercat says. What the JOVM mainstay wants listeners to take from the album is remarkably, disarmingly simple: “Just enjoy it and have fun and just know that the struggle is real and changes shape, but just to keep pushing forward.” 

Rather than instant and constant commentary, the JOVM mainstay offers something quieter, more radical, and maybe something more empathetic: The permission to be confused, tired and distracted — and yet still make something beautiful and necessary out of the noise. 

Distracted will include the previously released “I Did This To Myself,” feat. Lil Yachty and the album’s latest single “She Knows Too Much,” feat. Mac Miller. Although posthumously released, “She Knows Too Much” captures the two long-time friends and frequent collaborators easy-going, carefree chemistry within their most natural element: Miller spits bars about desperately trying to win over someone, who he knows is out of his league and may be only into him for his fame and money, over a strutting neo-soul arrangement bolstered by Thundercat’s muscular “Superstition“-like bass line and his ethereal falsetto.

While working on Distracted, Thundercat felt it could be a great fit for the album and received permission from the Mac Miller Estate to complete work on the song, which he did with producer Greg Kurstin, adding final touches to the production so fans may now hear the ultimate vision of it. “I’m grateful to have spent my time on this planet with Mac,” Thundercat shares. “What an artist, what a spirit, what a joy to have experienced.”

Directed by Léa Esmaili, the accompanying video employs both claymation and traditional animation to convey the playfulness and the deep bond of their friendship, followed by the reality of loss.

“First of all, making this music video is a huge honor, as I grew up with these two artists and have admired their universe since I was a teenager,” Esmaili says. “I wanted to create, within a single video, a fun animated moment by mixing styles either it’s 2D animation or 3D. Beyond that, I wanted to build a burlesque narrative around two friends who spend a completely crazy day together, tied to their friendship and to anime of this kind.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Sécurité Share Punchy “Bingo!”

Acclaimed Montréal-based JOVM mainstay collective La Sécurité — Éliane Viens (vocals, synths, percussion and drums), Félix Bélisle (bass, synths, percussion, piano and production), Kenny Smith (drum, guitar), Laurence Anne Charest-Gagné (guitar, percussion, vocals) and Melissa Di Menna (guitar, synths, vocals, percussion and artwork) — specialize in a brand of art punk that’s equal parts jumpy beats, off-kilter arrangements and minimalistic melodic hooks run through an insomniac filter that’s the result of excessive exposure to the city’s neon-lit late night scene.

The Canadian art punk collective’s music is about living dangerously and is prefect for being blasted at deafening levels on dance floors. But lyrically, the material is deeply inspired by and shares the ethos of the Riot Grrl movement, celebrating and defiantly advocating for the autonomization of women, friendship and benevolence.

Since the release of 2023’s full-length debut, Stay Safe!, which landed on the Polaris Music Prize long-list, the Montréal-based art punks have released 2024’s Stay Safe! REMIXED and last year’s “Detour” and “Ketchup.” Along with receiving critical praise both nationally and internationally, the outfit has made the run of the intentional festival circuit, playing sets at M for Montréal, New Colossus Festival, SXSW, End of the Road, The Great Escape, Reeperbahn and Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. They’ve toured as an opener for The Go! Team and The Rapture. And they’ve shared stages with Mauskovic Dance Band and JOVM mainstays Automatic and Death Valley Girls. During that whirlwind period, they also signed with Simon Raymonde‘s label Bella Union.

The JOVM mainstay act’s highly-anticipated, Emmanuel Éthier and Félix Bélisle co-produced sophomore album Bingo! is slated for a June 12, 2026 release through Mothland in Canada and the States, and Bella Union for the rest of the world. The new album reportedly sees the band continuing to meander in and around the fringes of punk, new wave krautrock and dance punk, while mischievously flouting stylistic form every change they get. While continuing to implement polyrhythm, counterintuitive chord changes and subtle melodic and harmonic dissonance, the album reportedly sees them introducing more no wave, no wave, noise rock and shoegaze elements to the sound that has won them intentional acclaim.

The album’s material features songs that tackles knotty themes like mental health, the autonomization of women, dysfunctional relationships with their custom moxie. Other songs playfully muse about food or address everyday mundanity with sarcasm and irony. There’s a song that celebrates unsung heroes, like the elderly. Much like its predecessor, many of the album’s tracks saw the group improvising lyrics in the studio, effectively catching lightning in a bottle.

The album was recorded with the band playing life off-the-floor, using rare ribbon microphones and vintage compressors. Adding to the overall free-flowing feel and vibe to the album’s material, many of the song’s hooks were improvised through jazz-tinged musical flights during recording sessions. The album was mixed by Bélisle and Étheir before being mastered by Robin Schmidt.

The result is an album that harnesses the Montréal-based art punks’ natural sound, a sound that fuses calculated musical chaos and musicality with high decibels.

Bingo! will feature the previously released “Detour” and “Ketchup,” and the album’s title track “Bingo.” “Bingo” is a sleek blend of DFA Records dance punk, Devo-inspired New Wave-like synths, fuzzy and angular guitar attack and a muscular, Gang of Four-like bass line paired with Viens’ mischievously punchy delivery.

The song is about embracing inspiration as it comes with lyrics informed by a filename of an early voice-demoed version of the song. “‘Bingo’ was a working title Melissa used to save the demo when we were working on the song,” the band explains. “The lyrics came later following a suggestion from Félix to describe a game of Bingo, to put into words the social life from an old folks home—elderly people that are young at heart, hence the references to Orange Crush, little hats, etcetera. The bass line and its tone are a tribute to Death From Above 1979.”

Directed by Philip Beauséjour, the accompanying video is a high-energy collage full of explosive, bright colors that accurately captures the song’s propulsive energy. Beauséjour says the the track’s energy “inspired in me the anxiety of the players leaving the hall with a big sum. It’s like a light social activity evening that can turn into a frenetic obsession with combinations of letters and numbers, stimulated by repetitive movements, sugary drinks, and cigarettes. The numbered cards become calculated abstractions, and every word from the hosts, a prayer.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tinariwen Teams Up with Jose Gonzalez on Brooding and Meditative “Imidiwan Takyadam”

Pioneering Grammy Award-winning, Tuareg musical pioneers and JOVM mainstays Tinariwen recently announced that their tenth studio album Hoggar is slated for a March 13, 2026 release through their own label, Wedge. The album derives itself from the Hoggar mountains, a defiant marker of presence visible for miles and a symbol of a homeland for their displaced people. 

Long known for being fierce advocates for their people’s nomadic culture that exists in the desert borderlands between Mail and Algeria, the acclaimed JOVM mainstays bluesy, guitar-driven music has found global acclaim for its blend of dexterous, Western rock-styled guitar work, Tamasheq language-driven political bent, syncopated rhythms and soaring melodies. 

More than 45 years into their lengthy and storied career, Hoggar reportedly sees the acclaimed masters of the desert blues returning to the foundations of their sound with the band returning to their early years of songwriting with acoustic guitars and communal singing around the desert campfire. The album also sees the band staking their claim as elders of the Tuareg musical tradition while also proudly passing the torch onto a younger generation of featured musicians, who can continue to keep their culture’s flame of rebellion and defiance alive. 

Known for recording amid the windswept expanse of the Central Saharan desert, the acclaimed JOVM mainstays have long drawn inspiration from the rhythms of nature. With political unrest in Mali prompting the band to seek new spaces, the founding members, who are now based in Algeria recorded the album in studio set up by young Tuareg band and mentees Imarhan in Tamanrasset, which continues their legacy of innovation and collaboration. 

While previously released albums like 2023’s Amatssou saw Tinariwen collaborating with acclaimed producer Daniel Lanois, on Hoggar the band looked closer to home. Gathering with the local Tuareg musical community for a month, founding members Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni and Touhami Ag Alhassane began writing songs fueled by political unrest alongside young artists like Imarhan’s Iyad Moussa Ben Abderrahmane, Hicham Bouhasse  and Haiballah Akhamouk. The band also collaborated with Terekaft‘s Sanou Ag Hamed and Tinariwen co-founder Liya ag Abill, a.k.a. Diarra for the first time in 25 years. 

The album also marks some other firsts: The band’s lead vocalist Ibrahim and Abdallah sing together for the first time in over 30 years, breaking their long-held tradition of each songwriting performing only their own compositions. And there’s a guest spot from acclaimed longtime fan José González. 

Lyrically, Hoggar explores urgent and timely themes, addressing the social and political challenges facing the Tuareg people and northern Mali. The band continues their long tradition of bearing witness through their work, balancing the joy of their celebrated lie shows with reflections on community struggles, resilience and the need for cultural preservation. 

The album will include the previously released “Sagherat Assan,” a gorgeous, soulful rendition of a traditional Sudanese song, and the album’s second and latest single, “Imidiwan Takyadam” feat. acclaimed singer/songwriter and longtime fan Jose Gonzalez.

“Imidiwan Takyadam” is a meditative, almost mournful tune that’s one-part longing sigh over a past and a lifestyle that’s disappearing and may never return, one-part warning from a wizened elder, one-part call to action, anchored around the collective’s imitable pairing of gorgeous guitar work with equally gorgeous, soaring harmonies and melodies.

“Friends, look at what is unfolding before us. This is a song I wrote long ago, yet today its echo feels stronger than ever,” the band’s Ibrahim Ag Alhabib says. “It speaks of our people, the Tamasheq, scattered across distant lands, slowly losing the threads of their culture and their ancestral heritage. It is a call to memory and to conscience – a reminder not to forget our brothers and sisters who endure suffering under the tyranny of short-sighted and foolish leaders.”

Continuing their ongoing collaboration with Axel Digoix, the accompanying video for “Imidiwan Takyadam,” features some gorgeously animated snippets of everyday live for the Tamasheq people: young men trading bootlegged Tinariwen tapes, happy gatherings of women listening to music on their phones, people hitchhiking, and the occasional harassment from authorities. Throughout, the video showcases a resilient people with kind and deeply loving bonds.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Kim Gordon Returns with Trap-inspired “DIRTY TECH”

The legendary Kim Gordon will be releasing her third solo album, the Justin Raisen-produced PLAY ME on March 13, 2026 through Matador Records. PLAY ME is reportedly distilled and immediate, and sees Gordon expanding on her sonic palette to include more melodic beats and the motorik drive of krautock. 

“We wanted the songs to be short,” Gordon says of her continued collaboration with acclaimed, Los Angeles-based producer Justin Raisen. “We wanted to do it really fast. It’s more focused, and maybe more confident. I always kind of work off of rhythms, and I knew I wanted it to be even more beat-oriented than the last one. Justin really gets my voice and my lyrics and he understands how I work—that came forth even more on this record.” 

PLAY ME is the follow-up to 2024’s critically applauded sophomore album The Collective, which featured the two-time Grammy-nominated single “BYE BYE.”  PLAY ME sees Gordon processing in her imitable way, the collateral damage of the billionaire class: the demolition of democracy, technocratic end-times-like fascism, the A.I.-fueled chill vibes flattering of culture — where dark humor voices the absurdity of our moment. But despite its frequent outward gave, the album is essentially an interior effort, one in which heightened emotionality pulses through physical jams, while rejecting definitive statements in favor of an inquisitiveness and curiosity that keeps Gordon searching — and ever in process. 

Amid PLAY ME’s rabbit-hole reality bricolage, pitch-shifted vocals and shadowy layers of dissonance, the album’s material are clear-eyed about the attention they pay to a world that would rather you be distracted and rage-baited into oblivion. “I have to say, the thing that influenced me most was the news. We are in some kind of ‘post empire’ now, where people just disappear,” Gordon says, echoing the title of one of PLAY ME’s tracks.

PLAY ME will feature the woozy and glitchy album single “NOT TODAY,” and the album’s second and latest single “DIRTY TECH” “DIRTY TECH” pairs the legend’s imitable delivery with a sleek trap production featuring twinkling and growling synths. “I was kind of musing about, is my next boss going to be an AI chatbot?” Gordon says. “We’re the first ones whose lights are going to go out—not the tech billionaires. It’s so abstract that people can’t comprehend.”

Directed by Moni Haworth, the accompanying video features the stylishly dressed legend wandering around an eerily abandoned office.