Tag: NPR

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Lillian Frances is a Sacramento-based singer/songwriter, producer and self-professed “sonic collager.” Inspired by the creative and imaginative nature of children, Frances’ work generally isn’t bound to genre or style conventions. Her work frequently meshes and blurs genre and style lines, often within the same song with lyrics sung in English and Spanish.

Frances’ 2018 EP Timeism featured a sound that some have compared to Lorde, Sylvan Esso, and Billie Eilish — and received praise from NPR’s Heavy Rotation, Indie Shuffle, and Cap Radio.  She supported the EP with appearances across the state and regional festival circuit with sets at  Sacramento PorchFest, the Davis Music Festival and the Davis Cherry Blossom Festival among others. Adding to a growing profile, Frances has opened for Sylvan Esso — and she has played alongside Shakey Graves, Sage the Gemini, and Lexi Panterra.

The Sacramento-based artist released her full-length debut Moonrise Queendom back in 2020 and the album featured “Raincheck Summer,” a breezy and forward-thinking, summery pop confection centered around a coquettish and mischievous push and pull — and a deep, timely sense of irony: A summertime bop for the summer in which you never actually saw anyone. Interestingly, underlying the song’s bold playfulness and irony, the song as Frances explains “explores the idea of authentic connection.”

This February, Frances did something she had been dreaming of for years: She finally moved out of her parents’ home and into her own apartment. The pandemic had been in full swing for about a year, and she was — understandably — champing at the bit to get out of the way-too-close quarters with her mother, father and sister.

When she moved, the Sacramento-based artist was overwhelmed by what she describes as a beautiful wave of freedom. She felt as though she could go anywhere, do anything, be anyone (within reason) — and so she did.

Week after week, Frances would jump into her Chevy Volt and head to some new outdoorsy location, usually revolving around rock climbing, like Joshua Tree, CA; Smith Rock, OR; Red Rocks, NV; and so on. Through her road trips, the Sacramento-based artist experienced a level of freedom, adventure and romance that reminded her of what it’s like to be truly alive and present.

Those road trips wound up informing and influencing her latest single “Direct Sunlight.” Around the time, she started writing the song, she was figuring out how to be a good plant mom — i.e., figuring out where in the house is the sunniest? shadiest? how much water? etc. — she was figuring out how much sunlight and care, she really needed.

Written, recorded and produced by Frances, “Direct Sunlight” is a breezy pop confection centered around skittering trap-like beats, atmospheric synths and glistening bursts of mandolin paired with Frances’ coquettish, come hither delivery. The song captures the feeling of being on the road — perhaps for the first time in some time — and the sense of adventure and possibility that every single trip brings with it. Add it to your road trip playlist.




Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Delvon Lamarr Trio Releases a Strutting and Soulful Bit of Funk

Acclaimed Seattle-based soul jazz outfit Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio formed back in 2015 and currently features:

  • Delvon Lamarr, a self-taught virtuosic musician, with perfect pitch, who taught himself jazz — and can play several different instruments, besides organ
  • Jimmy James, a guitarist, whose style meshes acid rock freak outs with slinky jazz
  • Dan Weiss, the Reno, NV-born drummer, the band’s new full-time drummer, who’s best known for his work with the soul and funk collective The Sextones

Since their formation, the Seattle-based trio has released two albums of what the band dubs “feel good music” that includes 2018’s full-length debut, Close But No Cigar and last year’s critically and commercially successful sophomore effort I Told You So, which debuted on the top of multiple Billboard Charts: #1 on the Contemporary Jazz Album Chart, #3 on the Jazz Album Chart, #4 on the Tastemaker Album Chart, and #12 on the Heatseaker Album Chart.

I Told You So also received praise by Under the Radar, AllMusic, American Songwriter, Popmatters, KEXP, Live For Live Music, Jazziz, Jambase, Glide Magazine and NPR, who named it one of their favorite albums of the first half of last year.

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio’s third album Cold As Weiss is slated for a February 11, 2022 release through Colemine Records. Cold As Weiss is the first recorded output with Weiss, the band’s newest member. And while finding the band at its tightest, the album reportedly finds the band continuing to push funky instrumental music to a new generation of fans.

“Don’t Worry ‘Bout What I Do,” Cold As Weiss‘ second and latest single derives its title from a quote by the band’s Jimmy James. “No matter what you say to this cat, ‘Yo bro, your butt crack is showing,’ he always says the same thing: ‘Man . . . don’t worry ’bout what i do,” the band’s Delvon Lamarr explains. “Don’t Worry ‘Bout What I Do” is an old-school pimp strut, centered around an expansive arrangement featuring Weiss’ quickly building up a tight, rhythmic swing, Lamarr’s sultry organ lines and James’ psych rock-like guitar lines. The end result is a composition that seems indebted to the likes of The Meters and Booker T and the MGs.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Deriving their name from a slang phrase popularly used by Mardi Gras indian tribes that means “we’re comin’ for ya” or “here we come,” the Grammy Award-nominated New Orleans-based funk act Cha Wa — currently founding member and bandleader Joe Gelini, along with Spyboy J’Wan Boudreaux, Second Chief Joseph Boudreaux, Ari “Gato” Teitel, Joseph “Jose” Maize, Clifton “Spug” Smith, Aurelien Barnes, Eric “Bogey” Gordon, Edward “Juicey” Jackson and Haruka Kikuchi — can trace their origins back to 2014 when Gellni was first introduced to the Mardi Gras Indian tradition while attending Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where he met New Orleans-born, jazz drummer Idris Muhammad, who gave Gellini lessons in New Orleans-styled drumming.

As the story goes, those lessons inspired Gellini to relocate to New Orleans after graduation. Gellini quickly became involved in the city’s beloved Mardi Gras Indian community, eventually attending rehearsals for Mardi Gras marches. Gellini met  Monk Boudreaux, Big Chief of the Golden Eagles and one of the city’s most widely known and popular Mardi Gras Indian vocalists at those rehearsals. Coincidentally, Boudreaux is the grandfather of Cha Wa’s frontman J’Wan Boudreaux.

Unsurprisingly those rehearsals eventually turned into Gellini performing alongside the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian legend. Gellini met J’Wan Boudreaux while the younger Boudreaux was still attending high school, but shortly after, J’Wan joined the band as their frontman. Since then, Cha Wa have established a sound and aesthetic that simultaneously draws from New Orleans’ Mardi Gras Indian tradition and the city’s beloved rhythm and blues and funk sounds through the release of three albums — 2016’s debut Funk ‘N’ Feathers, 2018’s Grammy Award-nominated Spyboy and their most recent album, My People, which was released last week.

“Mardi Gras Indian tradition and culture goes back over 250 years in the city of New Orleans. And it’s a culture that derives from men of color wanting to celebrate the Mardi Gras holiday but weren’t able to at the time,” Boudreaux explained in an interview with NPR. “So what they did was they created these elaborate suits…it represented the Native Americans that helped the Blacks escape slavery, and they actually helped them throughout the swamps and the bywater to get where they needed to go. So to pay homage to those natives, these men created what we call today Indian suits.” On the album Cha Wa founder Joe Gellni adds that the group “”tapped into that collective unconscious of what it is to live in New Orleans and to see all the nuances and ways that different people of color in the band actually experience racism — what sort of plight we’re facing in New Orleans socially and culturally, and class-wise and environmentally.”

My People‘s latest single, album title track “My People” is a strutting bit of funk that’s one-part classic second line march, one part The Meters, one part Nite Tripper-era Dr. John centered around a shuffling rhythm, shimmering Rhodes, a big horn section and call and response vocals singing lyrics that remind people of the universal facts of life: the rich get rich, while the sick get sicker; that while we have our differences, we have much more in common than we expect — we’ll all experience heartbreak, despair, frustration, loss, death. And if we can see that the universe in others, it may mean we get closer to understanding someone else’s life and their pain.

Although they haven’t been able to tour, as a result of the pandemic, but they have made a recent appearance on Good Morning America and on NPR, and that has allowed them to spread the album’s music and message to a much wider audience — and not just to those who will agree with them, but as Boudreaux explained to NPR “also to the people who may not be so open…just try to open up your eyes and see the world through the lens of the next person – the person that’s next to you, being held down by these different things like systematic oppression…if we don’t say anything about it, then no one will actually understand and know that we’re with them.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Adeline Performs “Whisper My Name” for A COLORS SESSION

Initially making a name for herself as the frontwoman of acclaimed New York neo-disco/dance music act Escort, the Parisian-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, bassist, producer and jOVM mainstay Adeline has developed a reputation as a critically applauded solo artist, receiving praise from Vogue, NPR, Refinery 29, Rolling Stone, The Fader and many others — and as one of the most hardworking and prolific artists in New York’s music scene:

The JOVM has opened for the Anderson .Paak, Lee Fields, Chromeo, Big Freedia and Natalie Prass among a lengthening list of artists — and has played an increasing number of headlining shows across the New York Metropolitan area
She has played a number of stops on the national festival circuit, including Afropunk, Funk on the Rocks and Winter Jazzfest.
Additionally, she also has a stint as a member of CeeLo Green’s touring band.

Last year may have been the busiest year of the JOVM mainstay’s career:

She released 21 songs, including 2 EPs.
She collaborated with Kamauu on “Mango.” The video is a viral hit, garnering almost five million views.
She had guest appearances on material by an eclectic array of artists including Pastel, Kraak & Smack, Blue Lab Beats, Jonathan Singletary and rising French emcee Likso.

Adeline continues an incredibly run — and starts off the year with a new single, the sultry and slow-burning “Whisper My Name.” Centered around a strutting and sumptuous bass line, shimmering guitars and Adeline’s smooth vocals, “Whisper My Name” sounds indebted to 80s Quiet Storm soul — but subtly imbued with the hope of a bright new future ahead. And much like her previous released work, the new single is a reminder of that this sister is a certified star — and that she’s a mesmerizing presence both on record and on stage.

She recently performed the song as part of a recorded session for A COLORS SHOW. The full live set is coming soon — and I can’t wait.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Corridor Release a Trippy, Technicolor Visual for “Domino”

Over the past 18 months or so, I’ve spilled copious amounts of virtual ink covering the Montreal-based JOVM mainstay act Corridor. The Montreal-based JOVM mainstays — Dominic Berthiaume (vocals/bass) and Jonathan Robert (vocals/guitar/synths) along with Julian Perreault (guitar), Julien Bakvis (drums) and the band’s newest member Samuel Gougoux — received growing praise from NPR and from Vice, who wrote that 2017’s sophomore album Supermercado was “the best French record of 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, 2020 2021 and even 2022 . . . ” Building upon a rapidly growing profile, Corridor spent the following year touring across Europe with stops at London Calling Festival and La Villete Sonique Festival, before making their Stateside debut with stops at SXSW and Northside Festival. They capped off a busy year or so, with a sold-out Stateside tour with Crumb.

The French Canadian JOVM mainstays caught the attention of Sub Pop Records, who signed the band, making them the first Francophone act on the label. The band’s third album, last year’s Junior continues their ongoing and successful collaboration with their friend, producer (and occasional roommate) Emmanuel Ethier while finding the Montreal-based quintet jettisoning the languorous creative process of its predecessors — out of an inspired necessity.

Although Corridor had just signed to their new label home, they had developed firm commitment to release a new album every two years — and they intended on fulfilling their commitment. When Sub Pop was informed of the band’s intentions, they gently informed the band that if they wanted to release new material that fall, they had to send the label a completed album in early May. With the ink barely dried on the finalized contract, the members of the band rushed into the studio and record Junior in an inspired and breakneck blitz, finishing the album by mid-April of that year.

Six of he album’s 10 songs were conceived in a single weekend, with the album closer “Bang” written the night before they were going to start recording. Because of the quick nature of the Junior sessions, the album features fewer expansive jams and less reliance on overdubs. “Part of the beauty of the thing is that we didn’t have time to think about it,” the band’s Berthiaume says of the Junior recording sessions.

Album single “Domino” is trippy motork groove-driven guitar anthem that finds the Montreal-based JOVM mainstays drawing from New Zealand jangle pop, early 80s New Wave and krautrock. The song finds the band carefully balancing a deliberate attention to craft with an explosive yet free-flowing jam between friends.

Directed, produced and edited by the band’s Jonathan Robert, and featuring footage from Phillippe Beauséjour, the recently released video for “Domino” is a technicolor fever dream with a retro-futuristic bent that reminds me of DEVO, Kraftwerk, and 3,2,1 Contact for some odd reason. “‘Domino’ illustrates a link between one’s work & mental health as well as its negative impact, in turn, on the people surrounding us,” Jonathan Robert says of the song and the accompanying video. “It, therefore, made sense to film ourselves breaking stuff for this video. I then spent some time with the footage to experiment with the treatment and the editing.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Los Angeles’ Sleep Still Releases an Enchanting Visual for Slow-burning “The Panoramic”

Los Angeles based dream pop act Sleep Still, led by Mariam McCarthy (vocals, keys) and Scotty Whelan (vocals, guitar) and featuring Kelly Ehrenberg (bass), Chris Kellogg (guitar) and Jeff Darcy (drums, production) can trace their origins to the two separate paths its leaders began before they met:

McCarthy led Detroit-based Silent Violet, an act that shared bills with Yo La Tengo and Bittersweet, contributed three songs to the Rosie O’Donnell-produced film America. received praise from NPR and landed a spot on the West LA Digital Mixtape.
Whelan was a member of alternative rock act Haste The Day, an act that toured nationally along some of the genre’s top artists while working a day job as a music therapist.

McCarthy and Whelan met in 2017, bonding over a mutual love of Explosions in the Sky, Slowdive, The Cure, The War on Drugs and other acts. The duo started writing and recording material under Sleep Still. “With the fast-paced nature of modern culture, we rarely have a moment to breathe, reflect or recharge,'” Sleep Still’s Mariam McCarthy explains. “With Scotty being a music therapist, I was fascinated by this concept. So rest became a central theme for us.”

McCarthy recruited the Detroit’s Kelly Ehrenberg to join while Whelan recruited Chris Kellogg and Jeff Darcy to complete the band’s lineup. Playing around Los Angeles, the members of Sleep Still quickly developed a natural chemistry.

The Los Angeles-based dream pop quintet’s latest single “The Panoramic” originally played over the end credits off Amazon Prime’s The Protestants, a film for which McCarthy was interviewed on-screen. “The Panoramic” is a slow-burning and cinematic track centered around a lush arrangement of shimmering synths, reverb washed guitars, dramatic drumming that sounds as though it were inspired by Slowdive, paired with McCarthy’s vocals, which are imbued with an aching vulnerability and strength. But at its core, the song is a contented sigh of a narrator, who has achieved a brief but necessary moment of stillness and connectedness.

“I took a short trip to Palm Springs [CA] and stayed at a hotel where the view was so panoramic, I felt swallowed by it,” McCarthy recalls. “I was holding my baby daughter on my hip, and I felt so at rest. All of my muscles relaxed. I wrote the song and brought it to Scotty. It’s about feeling honest and at ease. It’s also about understanding what we can handle and what we can’t handle, being okay with it, and knowing you need someone beside you in those moments.” McCarthy adds, “It’s ok to take time to drop everything. It’s ok to not need validation on social media. It’s ok to not feel like you have to accomplish some ambitious goal. You can take a minute to rest and be okay with whatever’s happening in the present.”

Directed by JWH, the recently released visual, features dancer and choreographer Xin Ying, who came up with enchanting and expressionistic moves to accompany the song. And much like the song, Ying’s movements are fluid, delicate, graceful and haunting.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard Perform “Evil Death Roll” — from “Live in San Francisco ’16”

Formed back in 2010, the acclaimed, genre-defying Aussie psych rock and JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard have maintained a long-held reputation for being a restlessly prolific act has released boundary pushing material that frequently draws from psych rock, heavy metal, thrash metal, thrash punk, Turkish pop, prog rock, and more.

2016’s Nonagon Infinity began an enviable and insanely prolific run of material that found the Aussie act doubling their overall output in only a handful of years. Released to major critical praise internationally from the likes of NPR, who hailed it as “masterfully bizarro” and Pitchfork who wrote that the album yielded “some of the most outrageous, exhilarating rock ‘n’ roll in recent memory.” The album was also a commercial success in their native Australia, wining an ARIA Award for Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal album. Interestingly, as a result of the album’s critical and commercial success, Nonagon Infinity has proven to be a major career turning point for the band with the band’s live show quickly moving from more intimate settings — 500 or so capacity joints to 2,500-5,000 capacity clubs and amphitheaters.

Written and recorded over a two year period, Nonagon Infinity is a drastic departure from its immediate predecessor, 2015’s Paper Maché Dream Machine with the band taking a bold creative leap in its structure and arrangements. “I wanted to have an album where all these riffs and grooves just kept coming in and out the whole time, so a song wasn’t just a song, it was part of a loop, part of this whole experience where it feels like it doesn’t end and doesn’t need to end,” King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard’s Stu Mackenzie explained in 2016. The album is the world’s first infinity looping album, which each track flowing seamlessly into the next with the album’s closing track linking back to the album’s opener. The band tears through the album’s set of material with a furious intensity — and without ever breaking. For the band and the listener, its meant to induce a joyful and feverish delirium.

The Aussie psych rock JOVM mainstays just released a live double LP album Live in San Francisco ’16. Recorded during a tour stop at San Francisco’s The Independent, the live album captures the band’s infamously explosive live shows — and the sweaty and intense intimacy of the 500 capacity room. With nearly half of that tour’s setlist made up of Nonagon Infinity tracks, the live album unfolds with furious yet controlled sense of chaos while capturing the band at arguably their tightest ever. “2016 was peak tightness for Gizz,” Stu Mackenzie recalls in press notes. “Around this time we were really into tightly composed sets, and the show was like one long song—everything linked, everything planned. We threw that idea out the window later on, but this live record is a great document of that moment in our collective psyche.”

Along with the live album, the Aussie JOVM released a live concert film — from that same live recording. As a taste of both the album and the live concert film, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard released footage of an explosive performance of Nonagon Infinity album track “Evil Death Roll” that will further cement the band’s reputation for being one of the world’s best live acts.

You can purchase the Concert Film here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/liveinsanfrancisco16

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Slow Magic is a mysterious and masked electronic producer and electronic music artist, who has garnered both critical and commercial success with the release of his first three albums — 2012’s Triangle, 2014’s How to Run Away and 2017’s Float have managed to amass over 200 million streams globally. Adding to a growing profile nationally and internationally, the masked producer and electronic music artist has toured with ODESZA, Giraffage and XXYYXX — and has released critically applauded remixes of the work of ODESZA, Gold Panda and Delorean. 2018 saw Slow Magic play a set at Coachella, which he followed up with a North American tour with shallou and a headlining European tour.

Earlier this year, Slow Magic released the Closer 2 U EP, an effort which was released to praise fray the likes of NPR, NAKID Magazine, Dancing Astronaut, This Song is Sick, and a long of list of others. Featuring collaborations with shallou, Manila Killa, Woven in Hiatus and others, the EP found the mysterious producer and electronic music artist firmly establishing himself as a go-to collaborator, and as a rising talent and tastemaker in the electronic music world. Building upon the momentum he earned with Closer 2 U EP, the acclaimed masked producer fourth album it’s the end of the world, but it’s ok is slated for a December 9, 2020 release through Moving Castle.

Thematically, it’s the end of the world, but it’s ok explores and touches upon uncertainty, community, resilience and communication — all things that have been a part of our daily lives in some fashion or another over the past seven months or so. The album’s first single is the upbeat anthem “Carry On.” Centered around several layers of lushly shimmering and arpeggiated synths, stuttering beats, euphoria-inducing drops and an enormous hook,. the track which features guest vocals from Paperwhite has a much-needed and uplifting message (and reminder) to listeners: look inward, calm yourself and love yourself, look towards building a brighter, better future — and find solace in carrying on to the best of your ability.

“‘Carry On’ came from a session with Katie Marshall from Paperwhite and Jeremy Silver in 2019,” Slow Magic explains in press nots. “Coincidentally enough, the concept I was working on at the time for it’s the end of the world, but it’s ok, was a post-apocalyptic narrative where the focus was on getting through it and striving toward what was ahead. I had no idea the lyrics we came up with that day would ring so true in 2020. The line ‘If the stars burn out tonight we’re gonna carry on’ really echoes what I see happening all around the world right now amid such crazy times: people are carrying on with their lives and it is beautiful to see.” 

“’Carry On’ came together quickly on a summer day in LA where Slow Magic and I just happened to both be visiting,” Paperwhite recalls. “It was one of those songs that unfolded easily within our first hour of writing. I’m thrilled to see how Slow Magic explored our idea and gave it new life.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Tame Impala on NPR Tiny Desk (At Home) Concert

Over the course of this site’s 10 year history, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the Perth, Australia-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and JOVM mainstay Kevin Parker, the creative mastermind behind the critically acclaimed and commercially successful psych pop/synth pop project Tame Impala.

Parker’s third Tame Impala album, 2015’s Currents was a critical and commercial breakthrough: released to wide-ranging critical applause across the blogosphere and elsewhere the album was a RIAA Gold-Certified, Grammy-nominated effort that revealed a decided change in direction for Parker’s songwriting and sound, as it featured some of his most emotionally direct lyrics paired with a nuanced and textured sound that drew from and meshed elements of psych rock, psych pop, prog rock, synth pop and R&B.

Released earlier this year, Parker’s fourth Tame Impala effort The Slow Rush continued an impressive and enviable run of critically applauded and commercially material, but unlike its immediate predecessor, the album thematically focuses on the rapid passing of time and life’s infinite cycles of creation and destruction — with the material conjuring the feeling of a lifetime in a lightning bolt, of major milestones and events whizzing by you while you’re staring at your phone. “A lot of the songs carry this idea of time passing, of seeing your life flash before your eyes, being able to see clearly your life from this point onwards. I’m being swept by this notion of time passing. There’s something really intoxicating about it,” Parker told the New York Times.

I’ve manged to write about five of The Slow Rush’s singles — the upbeat “Patience,” which seamlessly bridged ’90s house and ’70s funk while being a meditation on the cycles and phrases of life; “Borderline,” a hook-driven, blissed out track with house music flourishes; “It Might Be Time,”a swaggering prog rock meets psych pop anthem featuring shimmering synth arpeggios, thumping beats and an enormous hook; “Lost in Yesterday,” a woozy and lysergic, disco-tinged banger that explored time’s distorting effect on perspective and memories; and “Is It True,” which continued a run of swooning yet dance floor friendly material that focused on the impermanence and confusion of love and the countless paths our lives can take with just one single decision. 

Recently, Parker was invited to do a NPR Tiny Desk (Home) Concert. By default, the presentation of Parker’s music different than what you made expect: in the studio, Parker writes, performs and records all the instrumental and programming parts of his material — and live, he has a insanely talented collection of touring musicians, who interpret the material. For his Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, Parker, got his longtime collaborator Jay Watson and Dom Simper to do an electronic jam with a shit ton of electronic gear, including samplers, sequencers and mixers and some instruments. “I’ve wanted to do something like this for a while and thought Tiny Desk would be the opportunity to do it,” Parker told NPR’s Bobby Carter. 

So for this live session Paker, Watson and Simper performed the album’s more synth-based material “Breathe Deeper,”and the aforementioned “Is It True” and “Patience.” Interestingly, the NPR Tiny Desk session is a seamless synthesis of the live and studio approaches that manages to be faithful to the album’s material while giving it a free-flowing jam-like feel. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Adeline Returns with an Intimate Visual for Slow-Burning “Just Another Day”

Since initially making a name for herself as the frontwoman of the equally acclaimed dance music/nu-disco outfit Escort, the New York-based singer/songwriter, bassist and producer and JOVM mainstay Adeline has developed a reputation as a solo artist of note, releasing her self-titled, full-length debut to critical praise from the likes of Vogue, NPR, Refinery 29, Rolling Stone, The Fader and many others.

The JOVM mainstay has opened for Anderson .Paak, Lee Fields, Chromeo, Big Freedia and Natalie Prass among a lengthening list of artists, which  which has helped to further cement her reputation for dazzling audiences with her beauty, her captivating live show and energetic presence. Adding to a growing profile as a solo artist, the Parisian-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and bassist, has made appearances across the national festival circuit, including Afropunk, Funk on the Rocks and Winter Jazz Fest. She’s also a member of CeeLo Green’s touring band, making her — arguably — one of the hardest working women in New York’s music scene. 

Officially dropping today, Intérimes EP, the highly-anticipated follow-up to her full-length debut features seven tracks that are a future-facing nod to old school soul, funk, R&B and neon that will include “Middle,” which she performed on CBS This Morning,  the sultry Quiet Storm-like “Twilight,” the disco-tinged Jonathan Singletary co-written “After Midnight,” the and the EP’s latest single, is a slow-burning, neo-soul strut “Just Another Day.” Centered around a sinuous bass line, the JOVM’s sultry vocals, her unerring knack for an infectious hook and some twinkling Rhodes, the track recalls Erykah Badu — but as the JOVM mainstay explains in press notes “‘Just Another Day’ is about questioning your place in the world, not feeling accepted, pretending to be in someone else’s shoes, so I wanted to show characters that exude confidence and self-acceptance as a message of hope for the LGBTQ people out there who feel rejected and misunderstood.”

The recently released accompanying video features the JOVM in a couple of stylish outfits and a bikini on the beach, playing her bass and three of her dearest friends — Yussuf, Gitoo and Bambi. Each of the video’s subjects reveals a bit of their personality and humanity in a way that’s endearing: one of the men has kind eyes and a mischievous smile, another is fierce as fuck, the other serves up moves — hard.  “The video features 3 beautiful friends of mine, Yussuf, Gitoo and Bambi. They are some of the people in my life who I look up to the most when it comes to confidence and style,” the JOVM mainstay explains.