JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month — and the 52nd anniversary of the birth of D’Angelo.
Tag: singer/songwriter \
New Video: Joshua Idehen Shares Euphoric “This Is The Place”
After nearly two decades in London‘s poetry scene, Joshua Idehen found widespread recognition with the viral success of “Mum Does The Washing,” a poignant, witty pice set to music by his creative partner Ludvig Parment, a.k.a. Saturday, Monday. The success of “Mum Does The Washing” led to sold-out shows, major festival appearances — including Glastonbury — and a new chapter in Idehen’s artistic life.
Initially drawn to film, Idehen’s poetic journey began after being captivated by Dizzee Rascal‘s Vexed on Channel U. Inspired by Scroobius Pip, he began poetry with music, collaborating with the likes of LV, Benin City and Sons of Kemet. His career as a singer/songwriter/performer alongside a series of personal channels, including a divorce and mental health struggles. Relocating to Stockholm during the COVID-19 pandemic gave him space to reflect and begin anew.
That period of rebirth led to Idehen’s highly-anticipated debut album, I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got To Try. Slated for a March 6, 2026 release through Heavenly Recordings. Made with his longtime collaborator Parment, the album is a sonic embrace for the weary, mixing house-tinged beats, choral flourishes and lyrical meditations on hope, self-worth and collective resilience. The album will feature the previous released “It Always Was” and “Don’t Let It Get You Down.”
I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got To Try‘s third and latest latest single “This Is The Place” is a euphoric bit of Larry Levan-inspired house featuring glistening and woozy synth arpeggios and skittering beats serving as a lush bed for Idehen’s poetic meditations on the club being much like a church with music and dancing as a form of connection with yourself and others and as a form of freedom from your daily struggles, from the harshness of our world, from your own self-doubt and the like. It’s a much-needed joy bomb in a desperate, uneasy time — and a reminder that joy is a form of resistance.
“The way I squealed when Ludvig sent this beat over! When I heard it, I was taken back to bouncing in-between rooms early morning in Fabric, on one of those weekend nights that felt so non-special at the time ‘just another average night out’ but were a quiet healing, a ordinary burst of joy, and I wanted to capture that feeling,” Idehen explains. “‘This is the place where I pick all my pieces up; was the first line, and everything else flowed after that.”
Directed by PREHUMAN, the accompanying video is an elegant yet joyfully minimalist visual that begins with a person on the street style interview that quickly becomes a joyous dance session.
PREHUMAN adds: “Joshua is an unusually compelling performer — put him in front of a camera and much of the work is already done. The video itself is deliberately stripped back, with no distractions. I wanted the feeling of a shared space, like a club: bodies moving together, connection through rhythm.
The treatment is clean and minimal, but the movement is intentionally angular and imperfect. I love the line ‘everyone’s a bit broken here.’ Those ’90s white cyc music videos with fisheye lenses were a strong reference point throughout. Ludvig on the old MPC3000 was the icing on the cake.”
Throwback: Happy 80th Birthday, Neil Young!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Neil Young’s 80th birthday.
New Audio: Vendredi Sur Mer Shares Atmospheric, Hook-Driven “Si t’étais là”
With the release of her first two albums, 2019’s Premiers émois and 2022’s Metámorphose, rising Swiss singer/songwriter and photographer and Vendredi Sur Mer creative mastermind Charline Mignot quickly established a cinematic sound that features elements of synth pop, French chanson and 80s pop with retro-styled beats paired with her ethereal yet sultry delivery. Thematically her work frequently touches upon romance, sensuality and introspection.
Balancing nostalgia with a modern sensibility, the Swiss artist has won over fans globally through the release of songs like “Écoute Chérie,” “La femme à peau bleue” and “Les filles désirs.” Adding to a rapidly growing profile, she often accompanies her music with mesmerizing visuals.
Mignot’s third Vendredi Sur Mer album, Malabar Princess was released earlier this year to critical acclaim. The album, which features “Arrêter le temps,” feat. Sofiane Pamart; album title track “Malabar Princess;” “Hard,” feat. Hanni El Khatib and “Tout rèsonne” can trace its origins to a writing residency in Montréal and marks a return to the softness and nostalgia of her earlier work. Thematically, the album is nostalgic return to the mountain landscapes of her youth — and a deeper search for self.
Sam Tiba and new collaborators Adrien Gallo and Owlle helped to guide and inform the material’s more organic, intimate sound. The end result is an achingly sincere effort that sees the rising Swiss artist revealing herself fully to the world.
Mignot will be embarking on an 11-date North American tour this upcoming March. The tour includes a March 6, 2026 stop at Elsewhere. You can check out all of her tour dates for the rest of the 2025 and early 2026 below.
But in the meantime, y’all, the rising Swiss artist shares her latest single, the standalone track “Si t’étais là.” Anchored around shimmering, atmospheric synths, propulsive four-on-the-floor, a supple bass line and subtle bursts of twangy guitar, the cinematic and hook-driven production is simultaneously nostalgic yet contemporary, while being a dreamy bed for Mignot’s breathy, mesmerizing cooing.
New Video: Vanille Shares Slow-Burning and Swooning “Un chant d’amour”
Rachel Leblanc is a Montréal-based singer/songwriter and creative mastermind behind the critically applauded recording project Vanille, which has seen the French-Canadian artist craft a sound that meshes elements of 60s folk and chanson in a way that brings the listener into a dreamlike world of dense, verdant forests and swooning heartbreak.
Her recently released, Christophe Charest-Latif-produced third album Un chant d’amour sees the acclaimed French-Canadian artist marking the beginning of new creative chapter, that sees Leblanc’s and a talented cast of musicians, including Jules Encore and Corail‘s Julien Comptour; Velours Velours‘ and Corail’s Philippe Noël; Carla Chanelle‘s and Roselle’s Christophe Rosset-Balcer; Allô Fantôme‘s Samuel Gendron; Arielle Soucy; and Velours Velours’ Raphaël Pépin-Tanguay crafting a sound that draws from retro soul and the mid 1960s-early 1970s sunshine pop movement. Leblanc’s melodies and lyrics are rooted in sentimental overtones. And as a result, the album’s material is meant to unfold like a scented letter received from a mysterious valentine.
Un chant d’amour‘s latest single, album title track “Un chant d’amour” is a slow-burning ballad anchored around Leblanc’s achingly melancholy delivery, atmospheric Rhodes and a syrupy slow-dance inspired backbeat. And while seemingly channelling 70s AM radio rock, “Un chant d’amour” is the sort of song you’d play when you want to slow-dance at the midnight ball with your long-held crush or your loved one.
Directed by Irina Tempea and Elizabeth Landry the accompanying video for “Un chant d’amour” is an swooningly sentimental visual featuring a mixture of dusty found footage and the rising French-Canadian artist in a wedding gown to create a wedding that never really took place.
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.
Throwback: Happy 83rd Birthday, Issac Hayes!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 83rd anniversary of the birth of Isaac Hayes.
Throwback: Happy 77th Birthday, Robert Plant!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Robert Plant’s 77th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 96th Birthday, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 96th anniversary of the birth of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.
News/Announcements: FME Announces 2025 Venue Showcase Lineups
FME announces the venue showcase lineups for the 2025 edition.
New Video: L’Eclair Teams Up WIth girl named GOLDEN on Languorous and Glittering “THE GLITCH”
With recorded output that includes 2018’s full-length debut, Polymood, 2019’s Sauropoda, 2020’s Noshtta EP and 2021’s Confusions, the acclaimed Swiss-based group L’Eclair, founded and led by Bulgarian-born siblings Stef and Yavov Lilov firmly established themselves as masters of mind-bending, cosmic-leaning groove.
Along with two live sessions for KEXP, which amassed over 900,000 views combined, the Swiss-based group have built up an international following, while landing on the playlists of adventurous listeners and DJs seeking deep grooves.
Meticulously crafted over the past four years, the acclaimed JOVM mainstays, highly-anticipated and recently released fourth album Cloud Drifter is a decided and radical departure from the Belgian group’s long-held instrumental approach with the album’s material featuring vocals from a wide and eclectic array of frequent collaborations that they’ve worked with over the past few years, including including Pink Slifu, Girl Named GOLDEN, Gelli Haha, A Ghost Column, and more.
Having toured with The Cinematic Orchestra and W.I.T.C.H. — including writing and recording W.I.T.C.H.’s 2023 effort Zango and The Cinematic Orchestra’s forthcoming album this year, as well as production work with Varnish La Piscine and Maston, the Lilov brothers have assembled a vast network of likeminded musicians. And across the entire album, they keenly curate a cohesive vision incorporating many disparate contributions.
In the lead-up to Cloud Drifter‘s release, I’ve written about three of the album’s singles:
- “ODESSOS,” featuring Phoebe Coco and A Ghost Column
- “VERTIGO“
- “REPLICA M001,” featuring Pink Slifu
CLOUD DRIFTER’S latest single “The GLITCH” feat. girl named GOLDEN is anchored around a slow-burning, languorous disco groove that serves as a lush bed for girl named GOLDEN’s dreamily yearning cooing.
The accompanying video for “THE GLITCH” features kaleidoscopically edited super 8 filmed footage of girl named GOLDEN performing at The Sultan Room, life on tour and in the studio with the acclaimed Belgians.