Tag: psych pop

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s Hush Shares Lush and Prismatic “The Mirrors Were Right”

Montréal-based trio Hush — Paige Barlow (vocals) and multi-instrumentalists Miles Dupire-Gagnon and Gabriel Lambert — are part of a new wave of Montréal-based acts actively reshaping psych pop.

Citing an eclectic array of influences that includes Broadcast, The Velvet Underground, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Steve Lacy, Cocteau Twins and Ariel Pink, the Montréal-based psych pop trio create a sound that’s simultaneously nostalgic and forward-looking. Their music lives in the blurred light of perception — half memory, half hallucination — and is an invitation to lose yourself inside of their hall of mirrors-like dream world.

The trio’s debut single “The Mirrors Were Right” also serves as the first single from their full-length debut, slated for a 2026 release through Simone Records. Sonically, “The Mirrors Were Right” is a prismatic tune featuring shimmering guitars, dusty and warped analog drum patterns and bursts glistening, kosmiche music-like synths as a lush and dreamy bed for Barlow’s ethereal vocal. The song is one-part half-remembered fever dream and one-part existential reflection while seeming to subtly channel Bibi Club and others.

The song’s lyrics came to Barlow as she reflected on long past, but long-lasting periods of dissociation and on flashes of clarity that cut through them now. “The mirrors are right” when reflections feel distorted; “luckily alive” with head above water, somewhere between the surface and the clouds.

“For the clip, we wanted to portray a fractured sense of self. The distorted inner witness. Evolving identities over time. Imagined through a cubist and surrealist lens: worlds sensed, not witnessed,” the band says of the accompanying video. “Images drift and reform, mirroring the song’s unfolding. A meditation on multiplicity. The self made plural.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Sound Check: Tame Impala at Cherry Lane Theatre

Live footage of acclaimed JOVM mainstay Tame Impala performing a Sound Check session at Cherry Lane Theatre.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tame Impala Shares Woozy, Self-Aware “My Old Ways”

Acclaimed Aussie JOVM mainstay Tame Impala‘s highly-anticipated fifth album, Deadbeat saw its official release today through Columbia Records. 

Deeply inspired by bush doof culture and the Western Australia rave scene,Deadbeat sees Tame Impala mastermind Kevin Parker recasting himself as a sort of future primitive rave act. Conceived in various locations over the last handful of years, the album was largely galvanized between Parker’s hometown of Fremantle and his Inijidup, Western Australia-based studio Wave House during the first half of this year. 

Renowned for being a perfectionist, Parker’s fifth Tame Impala album showcases an artist with a leveled-up mastery of songwriting but crafted with a newfound embrace of spontaneity. The result is a collection of remarkably catchy, hook-driven, club-friendly psych pop while being some of Parker’s most direct songwriting of his career to date. Sonically, there are timbres and textures that add new dimension to the material’s overall sound paired with a much richer, more playful vocal range. 

Lyrically, the album finds Parker channeling an endless bummer with a self-deprecating fuck-up of a narrator stuck in a hopelessly negative feedback loop, when he should have long had his shit together. We all know this kind of dude — and in some cases, he is us. Thematically, the album suggests raving as self-inquiry, self-medication in lieu of self-care and the kick-on as domestic bliss. Dance and sweat your troubles, stresses and concerns away on the dance floor, y’all. Reality can wait another day or two — hell, fuck it, another three. 

Deadbeat features the previously released “End of Summer,” “Loser,” “Dracula,” and its latest single, album opener “My Old Ways.” Anchored around a looping, twinkling piano figure, “My Old Ways” begins with Parker accompanying himself just on piano for about a minute or so, before the song quickly morphs into a mind-bending, trance-inducing bit of Larry Levan-like house with fluttering and oscillating synths and thumping beats. And at its core is a deeply self-aware, self-referential narrator, who is acutely cognizant that they’ve slid into a long-held negative pattern while simultaneously forgiving themselves and being self-flagellating for that backslide.

While being a serious banger, “My Old Ways” offers what may be one of the more empathetic portrayals of a fuck up that I’ve heard in some time. I’d argue that most of us could see some of ourselves in the song.

Directed by Kristofski, the accompanying video for “My Old Ways” features cinéma vérité footage the director took, following Parker throughout the process of recording the album in studios across the world, including his native Australia.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Jenny James Shares Dreamy “Abandoning Alice”

Jenny James is an Oxnard, CA-based singer/songwriter, musician painter and college professor at Oxnard College. As a singer/songwriter, James has penned songs that have been recorded by Tanya Tucker, Carlene Carter, The Judds and KT […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: King Black Acid and Birdie Swann Sisters Team Up on Darkly Seductive “Rats In The City”

Daniel Riddle is Portland, OR-based is a singer/songwriter and musician, who has written and recorded music under the moniker King Black Acid since the late 1980s, while spending time as a member of industrial outfit Hitting Birth. Since the early 90s, Riddle has led a number of different collectives and projects that have toured and shared stages with Elliott Smith, Nirvana, Low, Moby, Sonic Youth, The Dandy Warhols, Faith No More, Dead Moon, Menomena, The Fugees, Arctic Monkeys, Spacemen 3, Danzig, Nine Inch Nails and more.

Throughout his career, Riddle’s music has been featured on CSI: Miami, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, The Mothman Prophecies, Witchblade, Dream With Fishes, Do Me a Favor and CNN Sports, as well as ad campaigns for Nike, Reebok, Tiger Woods Golf, CNN, Coca-Cola, Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap and The Olympics.

Birdie Swann Sisters is a collaborative project featuring:

  • Birdie Moon, a French producer, engineer and musician, who has played with M83, AIR, Beck, The Knife and a lengthy list of others.

  • Daisy Rae Swann, an Icelandic producer and singer/songwriter, who has written and recorded material with acts like Coldplay, Florence and the Machine, Gorillaz and countless others.

The Birdie Swann Sisters met King Black Acid’s Daniel Riddle while working on film soundtracks for television/streaming services. Working remotely and trading sound files, the trio bonded over their mutual love of vintage analog instruments, lo-fi guitars and an emphasis on rare synthesizers and drum machines.

Their initial film and TV score collaborations lead to Dream School Dropout, the trio’s 10-song collaborative album. Sonically, the album sees the trio mixing elements of cinematic 80s dream pop, 70s soul and R&B, yacht rock and psych rock into a lush, dreamy tapestry.

Dream School Dropout‘s latest single “Rats In The City” is a slickly produced, hook-driven, club friendly bop featuring glistening and oscillating synths and skittering boom bap that brings Evil Heat-era Primal Scream, Tame Impala, POND and even Midnight Juggernauts to mind paired with darkly seductive, somewhat menacing lyrics.

The accompanying video is a slickly edited mashup of B movie footage, stock footage and psychedelic imagery pulsing and undulating to the song’s propulsive beat.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tame Impala Returns with Yearning, Club Friendly “Dracula”

Acclaimed Aussie JOVM mainstay Tame Impala‘s highly-anticipated fifth album, Deadbeat is slated for an October 17, 2025 release through Columbia Records.

Deeply inspired by bush door culture and the Western Australia rave scene, Deadbeat sees Tame Impala mastermind Kevin Parker recasting himself as a sort of future primitive rave act. Conceived in various locations over the last handful of years, the album was largely galvanized between Parker’s hometown of Fremantle and his Inijidup, Western Australia-based studio Wave House during the first half of this year.

Renowned for being a perfectionist, Parker’s fifth Tame Impala album reportedly showcases an artist with a leveled-up mastery of songwriting but crafted with a newfound embrace of spontaneity. The result is a collection of remarkably catchy, hook-driven, club-friendly psych pop while being some of Parker’s most direct songwriting of his career to date. Sonically, there are timbres and textures that add new dimension to the material’s overall sound paired with a much richer, more playful vocal range.

Lyrically, the album finds Parker channeling an endless bummer with a self-deprecating fuck-up of a narrator stuck in a hopelessly negative feedback loop, when he should have long had his shit together. We all know this kind of dude — and in some cases, he is us. Thematically, the album suggests raving as self-inquiry, self-medication in lieu of self-care and the kick-on as domestic bliss. Dance and sweat your troubles, stresses and concerns away on the dance floor, y’all. Reality can wait another day or two — hell, fuck it, another three.

Deadbeat will feature the previously released “End of Summer,” the recently released “Loser,” and the album’s third and latest single “Dracula.” “Dracula” continues a run of club friendly bops, anchored around euphoric hooks — but while arguably being the funkiest song off the album to date. Lyrically, the new single is arguably one of the playfully self-deprecating and self-referential tunes of Parker’s growing catalog, while simultaneously expressing the swooning yearning that he’s long been known for.

Directed by multi-disciplinary artist Julian Klincewicz, the accompanying video for “Deadbeat” follows Parker and a big rig carrying a house, as the acclaimed Aussie artist struts his way to and through a rave in the rural Australia.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New VIdeo: Tame Impala Shares Euphoric and Trippy “End Of Summer”

Tame Impala’s latest single “End Of Summer” is the first bit of new material from the acclaimed Aussie multi-instrumentalist, producer, and singer/songwriter Kevin Parker since 2020’s The Slow Rush — and is the first release on his new label home Columbia Records.

“End Of Summer” sees the Tame Impala mastermind pushing his acclaimed project into a completely new direction as the euphoric track channels acid house, deep house while still remaining trippy and mind-bending.

“End Of Summer” is accompanied by a narrative visual directed and edited by multi-disciplinary artist Julian Klincewicz that follows Parker in the creation of the song, while on an abandoned train car and wandering through the streets of a city in a fashion that kind of reminds me of Purple Rain.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: South of France Teams Up with Little Trips and Grace DeVine on Sugary and Coquettish “Sugar Rush”

Led by Denver-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and creative mastermind Jeff Cormack, South of France is an indie pop project that sees Cormack and collaborators specializing in a groovy, beat-driven take on escapist, vacation pop. 

Cormack’s South of France work has been featured in a number of smash-hit TV shows, including Bojack Horseman and Shameless while receiving praise from American Songwriter, NPR, Rolling Stone and others. And adding to a growing profile, Cormack and his collaborators have opened for a growing list of acclaimed acts including, Portugal. The Man, Young The Giant, Flaming Lips, Michigander, Tennis, Zella Day and others.

Cormack’s forthcoming South of France album My Spirit Animal, My Baggage is reportedly one-part solo album and one-part collaborative effort with a series of vocalists, emcees and musicians. I’ve managed to write about four album singles:

Cormack’s latest South of France single, the Greg Laut co-produced “Sugar Rush” is a saccharine sweet, coquettish and breezy bop that features Grace DeVine’s ethereal cooing floating over a trippy and blissed-out, psych pop-influenced groove. “Sugar Rush” continues a remarkable run of summery and escapist pop that showcases Cormack’s unerring knack for funky grooves and catchy hooks.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 83rd Birthday, Brian Wilson!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 83rd anniversary of the birth of Beach Boys creative mastermind Brian Wilson.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: R.I.P. Brian Wilson

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the life and music of the legendary Brian Wilson.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Moon Construction Kit Shares Breezy “Long John Silver”

Olivier Cornu is a Swiss-based singer/songwriter, musician, producer and creative mastermind behind Moon Construction Kit, a project that sees him drawing from indie pop, psych pop, synth pop, late 60s pop and cinematic textures.

Cornu released his self-tiled Moon Construction Kit debut EP back in 2022. His latest single “Long John Silver” is languorous, lullaby of a tune featuring twinkling keys, shimmering synths, booming drums paired with the Swiss artist’s dreamy delivery and an incredibly catchy hook. The result is a song that feels breezily effortless yet carefully crafted.

Sonically, “Long John Silver” is anchored around a nostalgia inducing, retro-futuristic production that feels simultaneously intimate and cinematic, while delving into — and evoking — the narrator’s shifting and complicated nature.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Population II Shares Krautrock-like “Mariano (Jamais je ne t’oublierai)”

Acclaimed Montréal-based psych rock outfit and JOVM mainstays Population II — Pierre-Luc Gratton (vocals, drums), Tristan Lacombe (guitar, keys) and Sébastien Provençal (bass) — can trace their origin back a long way and are inextricably linked to their teenage memories. After years of jamming to the point of developing a unique sense of telepathy, the trio began recording independently releasing material that caught the attention of Castle Face Records head and The Oh Sees‘ frontman John Dwyer, who signed the band and released their full-length debut, 2020’s À la Ô Terre, an album that saw the band displaying their mastery of improvised and sophisticated composition. 

The Montréal-based psych outfit then spent the better part of the next two years touring to support their full-length debut, which included stops at SXSW, Pop Montréal, Toronto, NYC, and Québec City. 

Population II signed with Bonsound‘s label, booking and publishing arms. The Montréal-based label released the trio’s Emmanuel Éthier-produced sophomore album, 2023’s Èlectrons libres du québec. Their sophomore album is much more straightforward while showcasing their remarkably adept musicianship and furthers their take on heavy psych rock, which feverish punk rhythms, early punk energy bursts, hints of jazz philosophy and a love of minor scales informed by heavy metal’s early roots.  

The album received praise from both press outlets on both sides of the Atlantic, including Rock & Folk, Exclaim!, La Presse, Le Devoir and long list of others. Adding to a breakthrough year, the Montréal-based outfit won a Breakthrough of the Year Award at 2023’s GAMIQ Award ceremonies. 

Last year was a very busy year for the Montréal-based JOVM mainstays: They released the Serpent Échelle EP. Released on a limited-edition cassette tape and on all digital platforms, Serpent Échelle saw the band crafting material that boldly stands out from their previously released work: Shifting between orchestrated passages and lysergic-tinged riffage, the EP’s material is wilder, much more adventurous and heavier. And while rooted in their remarkable compositional skills, the material displays a newfound commitment to songwriting. Thematically, the EP’s material touched upon the desperate urgency of life in an age of global doom while still enjoying life’s small pleasures — love, friendship, wine, good tunes and good times.

They closed out a very busy 2024 with Mulchulation II, a split EP with Canadian punks Mulch. Continuing upon a prolific period, the Montréal-based JOVM mainstays laid the groundwork for their third album, the Dominic Vanchesteing-produced Maintenant Jamais. Slated for a March 28, 2025 release through Bonsound, the 14-song album reportedly sees the band drawing from their formative influence with a deep, sense of sophistication.

Maintenant Jamais‘ second and latest single “Mariano (Jamais je ne t’oublierai)” is a krautrock/prog rock-like take on psych rock featuring pulsating drum patterns paired with glistening synths and fuzzy power chords serving as a lush and languorous bed for Gratton’s dreamy cooing. Arguably one of the most krauty songs of their growing catalog, “Mariano (Jamais je ne t’oublierai)” sees the band subtly — and perhaps playfully — expanding upon their sound while reminding listeners of their adroit musicianship and songwriting.