Tag: post punk

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s APACALDA Shares Cinematic and Woozy “She’s Not Coming”

Cassandra Angheluta is a Romanian-born, Montréal-based singer/songwriter and the creative mastermind behind the solo recording project APACALDA. Deriving its name from the Romanian word for “warm water,” Angheluta’s solo project is both a reflection of her movement through her art and life, and a reminder to reconnect with the warmth that can calm and ground her, despite the chaos and unpredictability of outside circumstances.

Much like countless other artists, the Romanian-Canadian artist has found that through creating music, she can process and alchemize emotional traumas from throughout the course of her life, while giving her a sense of peace. Her work typically touches upon themes of devastation and transcendence.

With 2022’s self-titled, debut EP, which featured collaborations with Robert Robert; FHANG‘s Luca Fogale‘s and Half Moon Run‘s Sam Woywitka; FHANG’s, Patrick Watson‘s and TEKE :: TEKE’s Mishka Stein; Half Moon Run’s Isaac Symonds and the Esca Quartet, Angheluta quickly established a fresh take on indie rock, electro pop and New Wave/post-punk, crating a sound that has been described as melancholic, dreamy, enigmatic and hauntingly beautiful.

The Romanian-Canadian artist’s Miskha Stein and Sam Woywitka co-produced full-length debut, There’s a Shadow In My Room and It Isn’t Mine is slated for release next year. Thematically, the album delves into mental illness, obsession, jealousy and deceit.

The album’s first single “She’s Not There” features distorted and churning guitar tones, skittering and propulsive beats, atmospheric synths serving as a woozy and uneasy bed for Anghuleta’s achingly plaintive yet defiant delivery, evoking the turmoil and restlessness of its narrator. According to the Montréal-based artist, “She’s Not Coming” tells the story of a woman, who chooses to end her life, despite her outward devotion to God. While capturing the hidden struggles behind its narrator’s stoic exterior, the track sheds light on the pervasive nature of suicide. “I write these songs as an extension of healing—I want to be a medium. I often feel others’ pain and I want to express it in honour of them,” Angheluta says.

Directed by Mallis, a Montréal-based filmmaker, art director and production designer, known for visually rich storytelling, the accompanying video for “She’s Not Coming” was funded by The MVP Project and shot in Georgia, not too far from Angheluta’s homeland. While anchored in the themes of its accompanying song, the video follows the final journey of Louisa, an elderly woman, who ends her life, and is based on the true story of a friend, whose mother’s death was suspected to be a suicide. The friend’s mother was a deeply religious woman, who ultimately chose to leave the church. This lead to her exclusion from her religious community.

The friend’s mom was known to walk along the shores of a beach near her home. One morning, local news outlets reported that a woman’s body washed ashore. The friend knew it was his mother, realizing that he’d never speak or see her again. “Through her story, we really wanted to emphasize the impact of community on someone’s mental and emotional well-being,” the director and artist explain.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Choses Sauvages Share Post Punk-LIke “Incendie au paradis”

With the release of their Emmanuel Ethier-produced 2018 self-titled, full-length debut, Montréal-based dance punks Choses Sauvages — Totalement Sublime‘s Marc-Antoine Barbier (guitar), Theirry Malépart (keys), Tony Bélisle (keys), Philippe Gauthier-Boudreau (drums) and La Sécurité‘s Félix Bélisle (vocals) with Foreign Diplomats‘ and Frais Dispo‘s Charles Primeau (bass) as a touring member — exploded into the local and provincial scenes. The album was a critical and commercial success with the album topping Independent Radio Charts across Québec while receiving widespread critical applause. In 2019, the Montréal-based outfit landed Association Québécoise de l’industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video (ADISQ) Félix Award nominations for Alternative Album of the Year and Indie Rock Album of the year, with a Félix Award win for Indie Rock Album of the Year. 

Over the course of 2019, the French Canadian outfit supported their full-length debut with a relentless touring schedule across the province. And through this tour, the band quickly developed a reputation for a must-see live show that they’ve since brought across the global festival circuit, including stops at Reeperbahn, MaMA, FIMPRO, SXSW, Le Printemps de Bourges and Wide Days. 

2021’s Choses Sauvages II saw the French Canadian outfit boldly pushing their sound more towards electronic dance music and nu-disco influences like L’Imperatrice and Lindstrøm while still drawing from their love of funk, Bowie and Bee Gees. They also managed to further establish their approach with pairs rigorous and meticulous songwriting with a rebellious spirit.

The Montréal-based outfit’s highly-anticipated third album, Choses Sauvages III is slated for a Spring 2025 release through Audiogram. The album’s first official single “Incendie au paradis” is a decidedly New Wave/post punk song anchored around a propulsive bass line, a guitar-driven melody paired with squiggling synth arpeggios and a subtly vocodored vocal harmony. Seemingly drawing from Heroes and Low-era Bowie and Pleasure Principle-era Gary Numan, “Incendie au paradis” depicts artificial intelligence as angels that can transform and improve our daily lives. But while addressing the technology advance’s promises and benefits, it raises concerns with an uneasy trepidation.

“I wanted to highlight the need to think about the ethical and moral implications and the still unknown limits of these new technologies, and the influence they have on our lives,” Choses Sauvages’ Félix Bélisle explains.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Riga’s Bēdu Brāļi Shares Forceful and Uneasy “Pieskaries”

Riga, Latvia-based alt rock outfit Bēdu Brāļi — Oskars Tu (vocals, guitar), Jānis Liepiņš (bass) and Pēteris Ozols (drums) — spent the formative years among the vibrant mid 00’s hardcore punk and rock scene in their homeland. The scene’s fiercely independent ethos and the use of Latvian language lyrics rubbed off on them; but sonically, they’ve managed to stand apart from their peers.

Their full-length debut 2022’s Duende saw the Riga-based outfit crafting a sound that featured elements of shoegaze, psych rock, post-punk and more. The Latvian trio’s sophomore album Lauskas will be released through I Love You Records. 

Deriving its title from the Latvian word for shards, the album reportedly sees the trio further cementing their boundary pushing sound. Earlier this year, I wrote about album single “Ikdienas-dzive,” a track anchored around glistening guitars, a chugging motorik groove and a woozy, shoegazer textured guitar solo paired with Tu’s punchily delivered vocal. While recalling Montréal‘s Atusko Chiba, “Ikdienas-dzive,” captures a nagging sense of vacillating self-doubt, bored and uneasy dread and frustration that should feel familiar to anyone who’s slaved away at a soul-sucking day job. 

“The main lyric is that my everyday life – this routine – is turning me evil. It’s me going mad because every day is the same,” Bēdu Brāļi’s Oskars Tu explains. “I can’t forget the previous day and start afresh. I just have this bitterness as work-related stuff lingers. I remember all the bullshit happening a day ago, a week ago, a month ago. I think I’m not alone in that happening.”

Duende‘s latest single “Pieskaries,” is a brooding, decidedly post punk affair featuring an angular and propulsive bass line, rolling drum pattern and bursts of slashing guitars serving as an uneasy bed for Oskars Tu’s desperate wails. While continuing a run of material that reminds me a bit of Atsuko Chiba, “Pieskaries” captures a modern sense of isolation and unease while being with others.

“It’s about loneliness,” Tu explains. “It’s one thing to have people around you who are true to their words and actions and you in turn can become a better person. But it’s another to be with people who lie and you end up lying to yourself. This ultimately leads to this feeling of isolation, even though technically you’re around people.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy Belated 26th Birthday, Genesis Owusu!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates Genesis Owusu’s 26th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 67th Birthday, Daniel Ash!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Bauhaus’ and Love and Rockets’ Daniel Ash’s 67th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Automatic Channels Lou Reed as They Cover “New Sensations”

Los Angeles-based post punk outfit Automatic — Izzy Glaudini (synths, vocals), Lola Dompé (drums, vocals) and Halle Saxon (bass, vocals) — can trace their origins to their hometown’s DIY scene: When the trio met, they each individually […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: THE THE Shares Brooding and Feverish “Linoleum Smooth To The Stockinged Foot”

Acclaimed British post-punk outfit THE THE was founded by singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Johnson back in 1979 and through various iterations and configurations, Johnson and his collaborators have developed a sound and approach that seems to inhabit its own difficult to define genre: music of long shadows, high hopes, channeled anger, feverish passions and sweetly disturbing poignancy that meshes elements of pop, rock, blues, folk and soul among others while spanning alienated electronics to twisted cinematic soundtracks, guitar tumbling swing to crimson ballads, rants and prayers to diaries and hymns. 

Over the course of their 45 year history, Johnson and company have released only five full-length albums of original material, 1983’s Soul Mining, 1986’s Infected, 1989’s Mind Bomb, 1993’s Dusk and 2000’s NakedSelf. Having a long-held reputation for being unpredictable, the band has also tackled covers, such as 1995’s Hanky Panky; film soundtracks, including 2009’s Tony, 2010’s Moonbug, 2014’s Hyena and 2019’s Muscle; art installations, a the Radio Cinéola podcast series; 2017’s moving, 84 minute documentary/multimedia project The Inertia Variations and various book publications including 2018’s Matt Johnson biography Long Shadows, High Hopes: The Life and Times of Matt Johnson & THE THE. 

2017’s The Inertia Variations took inspiration from British poet John Tottenham’s 2005 book of the same name — particularly the idea of “brooding, abstraction and evasion” getting in the way of the creative process. The Inertia Variations eventually resulted in not just the documentary, but also the Radio Cinéola Trilogy triple album box set. 

At the end of The Inertia Variations documentary, Johnson was filmed performing a new song live in his studio, “We Can’t Stop What’s Coming,” an elegy to his older brother Andrew Johnson, an artist professionally known as Andy Dog, who died in 2016. “It was not an easy song to write,” he says. “That was the first time I’d sung in many years. I enjoyed it but found it very emotional.”

The experience prompted Johnson to revive THE THE as a live band — and it lead to the sold-out 2018 The Comeback Special world tour. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the release of the accompanying live film and album until 2021. Unsurprisingly, the pandemic also delayed the intended start of the writing and recording of the acclaimed British outfit’s first album in almost 25 years, Ensoulment. Instead, Johnson and company continued releasing a series of 7 inch singles that began with 2017’s “We Can’t Stop What’s Coming,” and continued with 2020’s “I WANT 2 B U,” and last year’s “$1 ONE VOTE!”

Slated for a September 6, 2024 release through Cinéola/earMUSIC, the 12-song Ensoulment reportedly contains echoes of the acclaimed outfit’s multifaceted and lengthy musical past while being richly representative of the mercurial band’s here and now.

Ensoulment also continues upon Johnson’s long-held reputation for being unafraid to tackle the inherent emotional complexity of the human condition — in particular, intimacy in an age of alienation; democracy in a post-truth age; empire and vassalage; the seemingly inexorable rise of AI and more. And yet, despite all of this, the album is rooted in a deep-seated hope.

“It’s vital to be hopeful,” Johnson states. “And I hope people get out of the album what we put into it. It was created under very happy circumstances, with a great vibe amongst the band and all the people that worked on it. There was a lot of thought, a lot of work, a lot of love, a lot of laughter!”

The album’s material were further refined in rehearsals, just before a six-day recording session at Bath, UK-based Real World Studios, where Johnson was joined by long-standing band members James Ellen (bass), DC Collard (keys), Earl Harvin (drums) and Barrie Cadogan (lead guitar). The album also marks the return of co-producer and engineer Warne Livesey, who worked with the band on Infected and Mind Bomb. The album also features contributions from Gillian Glover (backing vocals), Terry Edwards (horns), Sonya Cullingford (fiddle) and Danny Cummings (percussion).

Earlier this year, I wrote about the album’s first single, the Johnson and Cadogan co-written “Cognitive Dissident,” a brooding and slinky number that’s anchored around a strutting bass line and features bursts of squiggling, reverb-soaked guitar, Johnson’s breathy speak-sing delivery, sultry cooing from Gillian Glover, atmospheric electronics and skittering percussion paired with as slinky and remarkably catchy hook. Thematically, the song captures the madly topsy-turvy Orwellian nature of modern life — and honestly our current moment — with an uncanny and unsettling attention to detail.

Ensoulment’s second and latest single “Linoleum Smooth To The Stocking Foot” is a brooding and atmospheric track anchored around a discordant interplay between screeching fiddle bursts and mournful horn blasts paired with skittering and fluttering beats, hand-claps, and ethereally cooed backing vocals. The song’s arrangement evokes a narcotic-fueled, flop sweat-induced, fever dream while Johnson’s lyrics touch upon the paranoia of the nascent bio-security state, the unending class war and the re-emergence of fascism and more. Much like its immediate predecessor, “Linoleum Smooth To The Stocking Foot” captures the absurdity, the madness, the anxiety-fueled dread, the hate and fear of our slow-burning, lockstep march to dystopian hellscape.

The song’s lyrics were written from Johnson’s hospital bed, under the influence of morphine while recovering from a life-saving operation. As fate would have it, Johnson’s weeks spent in the hospital had occurred at precisely the moment that COVID-19 had become a crisis, making for an even more surreal ordeal for him — and for everyone else. The discordant interplay between horns and fiddle is redolent of Johnson’s hallucinogenic, feverishly surreal experience, which he tried to emulate by asking the musicians to improvise over the track without hearing the other’s contributions, as he manipulated the sounds in real time.

The new single is unique in the fact that apart from Johnson, who contributes vocals, guitar and bass, it doesn’t feature any of the core band members; however, the track features guest spots from Sonya Cullingford (fiddle), Terry Edwards (horns), Gillian Glover (backing vocals) and handclaps from Danny Cummings (percussion).

The single cover art features a previously unpublished piece of Johnson’s late brother Andrew “Andy Dog” Johnson, who was responsible for the distinctive aesthetic style of THE THE’s releases.

The recently released accompanying video or “Linoleum Smooth To The Stocking Foot” was was directed by Tim Pope with editing, VFX and projections People Like Us/Vicki Bennett and Peter Knight — all of whom are longtime collaborators with Johnson and THE THE. Fittingly, the video also evokes the sensation of a fever dream with Johnson’s face being in and out of focus and in and out of shadow throughout.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 67th Birthday, Peter Murphy!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Peter Murphy’s 67th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy Belated 73rd Birthday, Fred Schneider!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates The B52’s Fred Schneider’s 73rd birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Since their formation back in 2013, the Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia-based post-punk trio and JOVM mainstays PLOHO — Victor Uzhakov (vocals, guitar), Andrei Smorgonsky (bass) and Igor Starshinov (synths) — have firmly established themselves as being at the forefront of a contemporary, new wave of Russian music. Inspired by Joy Division and late Soviet-era acts like Kino, the Siberian act’s cold and bleak sound evokes both the bitter cold of their homeland and that uncertain and uneasy period of the Soviet Union just before its inevitable collapse. 

The Russian post punk trio have released nine albums, several EPs and more than 10 standalone singles, which the band has supported with tour stops at over 40 European cities. They’ve also made stops across the major international festival circuit with stops at Боль in Russia, Kalabalik in Sweden, and Plartforma in Lithuania. And adding to a growing profile globally, the band’s music has been added to over 16,000 listener-made Spotify playlists, as well as seeing various adds on Apple Music to playlists like Inspired By and New Russian Alternative. 

PLOHO’s 10th album Почва is slated for an August 30, 2024 release through Artoffact Records. Почва will feature the previously released “Я буду жить для тебя,” and “Гештальт,” a brooding bit of post-punk anchored around eerily atmospheric synths, shimmering and reverb-soaked guitar, angular bass lines and industrial clatter serving as an icy bed for Uzakhov’s sonorous and dramatic baritone. While seemingly channeling 4AD Records heyday and Japanese Whispers-era The Cure, the new single continues a run of sociopolitically incisive material that comments on contemporary issues and concerns.


“‘Гештальт (Gestalt)’ is a song about the inevitable consequences of karma and the universe’s reaction to humanity’s actions,” the band explains. “We aimed to convey the simplicity of this phenomenon, illustrating how effortlessly things can disappear if the elements desire it. This is why the video was filmed in an anti-capitalist style, symbolizing the collapse of capitalism, the foundation of modern human society.”

Почва‘s third and latest single “‘ФАРФОРОВЫЕ ПТИЦЫ” is another brooding bit post punk anchored around a relentless motorik groove, a glistening 80s like synth melody, angular bass lines and a shimmering guitar solo. While continuing a run of material that sounds indebted to 4AD Records, The Cure and the like, the new batch of material will remind listeners that the Siberian JOVM mainstays have an unerring knack for pairing catchy hooks with incisive sociopolitical messages.

“This song is dedicated to our hometown. Siberian life, which was very different,” the band explains. “About what I saw from the window of my apartment in Novosibirsk, what surrounded me, what I felt when I lived there. ‘We’re just porcelain birds in nests and concrete slabs.'”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Love Letter! Shares Bruising and Satirical “Inferno”

New Jersey-based post punk trio Love Letter! — founding members Bruce Macchione (guitar) and Marc Norton (drums) along with Emily Terzano (vocals, bass) — can trace their origins back to 2021: The band’s founding members Macchione and Norton met through a mutual friend, who worked at a local Dairy Queen. The group played for about a year and were on hiatus when they met Terzano last winter — and as a result of that meeting, the band rebranded itself both through its name and through its sound, moving form a pop/indie rock-leaning sound to a goth-inspired take on post punk.

The New Jersey-based trio’s debut EP, the four-song Mother Superior introduces listeners to their new sound, a sound that features elements of jazz, grunge, goth, shoegaze and metal. Thematically, the EP’s material aims to bring awareness to issues like climate change, LGBQT+ rights, abuse and mental health while encapsulating the feelings of isolation, anger and fear that often come with uncertain and uneasy times.

“Mother Superior is about feeling every emotion that finds its way to the soles of your feet and back up through your spine again,” the band’s Emily Tarzano explains. “It is a work of strength, persistence, and the acceptance of change not just lyrically, but instrumentally as well.”

Mother Superior‘s latest single “Inferno” is a bruising track that sounds like a synthesis of Hole, Veruca Salt and Ganser: angular power chords are fed through copious amount of fuzz and distortion and pared with thunderous drumming and a sing-songy, and ironically detached vocals. At its core, “Inferno” is an incisive bit of satire that pokes fun at celebrities who are too materialistic to even care about climate change — or its impact on themselves and others.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Weep Wave Share a Mosh Pit Friendly Ripper

Released earlier this year through Corporat Records, Seattle-based post-punk outfit Weep Wave‘s Dylan Wall-produced sophomore album Speck sees the band — Dylan Fuentes (vocals, guitar), Mike Hubbard (drums, synth) and Mitch Midkiff (bass) — embarking on a kaleidoscopic sonic odyssey through the diverse array of genres they proudly call home. Thematically Fuentes’ lyrics oscillate between two contrasting realms: outward to explore the effects of the perils of capitalism and climate change — and inward, to scrutinize the self, in particular dissecting the ego and self-identity. 

In the lead-up the album’s release, I wrote about two previously released singles:

  • The Low Praise-meets-grunge-like “Rebirth Mantra,” a song built around a pummeling, most pit friendly riff, thunderous drumming and a supple yet propulsive bass line within a classic, alternating loud-quiet-loud song structure. The song captures Fuentes at his most introspective and neurotic, with the song’s narrator expressing his fears of falling into the same unhelpful — and perhaps just destructive — patterns that seemingly always leads to repeated failure and frustration. The song’s narrator envisions a transformed, evolved version of himself, a much more caring, courageous and empathetic self. Of course, are we able and willing to change and evolve? Or are we too stubborn, too blind to do what’s necessary to better ourselves?

  • “Phasing” a decidedly grunge-like ripper built around the sort of feedback fueled, power chord-driven riffs reminiscent of 90s alt rock greats like Nirvana, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, complete with enormous, arena rock-meets-mosh pit-like hooks and choruses. 

  • “Conscious Dust,” a Jack Endino-like grunge take on post-punk that begins with a intricate punk-meets-cheek-in-tongue Motown-like drumbeat and a fuzzy bass line. Fuentes enters the fray with a punchy chant-like delivery before the song explodes into a hypnotic and noisy mosh pit friendly ripper. As a single, “Conscious Dust” sets up the album’s overall aesthetic and thematic concerns as a sort of bold, flag-planting moment for the band and the listener. For me, the song kind of reminds me of Pearl Jam’s “Do The Evolution,” as a sort of tongue-in-cheek takedown of humanity and human consciousness.

In the past few months, the Seattle-based trio have released a single a month off the album, including its seventh and latest single, “Credits to My Life.” The new single may arguably be the most straightforward mosh pit friendly, grunge-inspired track off the album — with the song bringing Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and the like to mind, thanks to big power chords and even bigger, rousingly anthemic hooks paired with thunderous drumming.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bēdu Brāļi Shares Tense Yet Anthemic “Ikdienas Dzīve”

Riga, Latvia-based alt rock outfit Bēdu Brāļi — Oskars Tu (vocals, guitar), Jānis Liepiņš (bass) and Pēteris Ozols (drums) — spent the formative years of among the vibrant mid 00’s hardcore punk and rock scene in their homeland. The scene’s fiercely independent ethos and the use of Latvian language lyrics rubbed off on them; but sonically, they’ve managed to stand apart from their peers.

Their full-length debut 2022’s Duende saw the Riga-based outfit crafting a sound that featured elements of shoegaze, psych rock, post-punk and more. The Latvian trio’s sophomore album Lauskas will be released through I Love You Records.

Deriving its title from the Latvian word for shards, the album reportedly sees the trio further cementing their boundary pushing sound. The album’s first single “Ikdienas-dzive” is anchored around glistening guitars, a chugging motorik-like groove, a woozy, shoegazer textured-like guitar solo paired with Tu’s punchily delivered vocals. While sonically bringing Montréal‘s Atusko Chiba to mind, “Ikdienas-dzive,” captures a nagging sense of vacillating self-doubt, bored and uneasy dread and frustration that should feel familiar to anyone who’s slaved away at a soul-sucking day job.

“The main lyric is that my everyday life – this routine – is turning me evil. It’s me going mad because every day is the same,” Bēdu Brāļi’s Oskars Tu explains. “I can’t forget the previous day and start afresh. I just have this bitterness as work-related stuff lingers. I remember all the bullshit happening a day ago, a week ago, a month ago. I think I’m not alone in that happening.”