JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 84th anniversary of the birth of Beach Boys founder and creative mastermind Brian Wilson.
Tag: singer/songwriter
Live Footage: Kim Gordon Performs “PLAY ME” on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”
The legendary Kim Gordon released her third solo album, the Justin Raisen-produced PLAY ME on earlier this year 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 previously released “NOT TODAY,” and “DIRTY TECH,” as well as the album’s third single, album title track “PLAY ME.” “PLAY ME” may arguably be the most hip-hop influenced track of the entire album with the song anchored around a swaggering DJ Premier-like production tweeter and woofer rattling beats paired with a meditative, modal jazz trumpet line. Gordon’s imitable croon takes on a subtle staccato, hip-hop like flow to match.
Yesterday, Gordon and her backing band performed “PLAY ME” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She finhishes her NYC vist with a surprise, sold-out show tonight at Night Club 101. And because of overwhelming demand, she added a second show at Warsaw on September 16, 2026. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.
Throwback: Happy 68th Birthday, Jello Biafra!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Dead Kennedy’s co-founder Jello Biafra’s 68th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 84th Birthday, Eddie Levert!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helm celebrates The O’Jays; lead singer Eddie Levert’s 84th birthday.
New Video: Julia Jacklin Shares Jangling “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You)”
Acclaimed Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and musician Julia Jacklin will be releasing her highly-anticipated fourth album, the Robert Muiños and Jacklin co-produced, 10-song album The Gem through 4AD Records digitally and on CD, cassette and vinyl on September 25, 2026. Exclusive color vinyl editions with retailers will include turquoise, green opal, ruby and rose quartz. Pre-order information can be found here.
When Jacklin first moved to Melbourne from Sydney back in 2017, she discovered a little bar on a back street in Collingwood, a suburb just outside of downtown, where bands pushed dining tables to the side and set up in a corner on the floor. She didn’t know anyone in town, but knew she wanted to make the city home, so she started hanging out there, facing herself out of her comfort zone. That pub was named The Gem.
Eight years later, Jacklin had released three acclaimed albums, 2016’s Don’t Let The Kids Win, 2019’s Crushing and 2022’s PRE PLEASURE — and was looking to write and record her fourth. Her contract with her previous label had ended. She was searching for a manager. And with time on her hands, she decided that she would make her fourth album in Melbourne, something she’d never done before.
She called up an old drinking buddy Robert Muiños, owner of Rat Shack Studios, which is just above The Gem and brought in her friends Jacob Diamond (guitar), Mimi Gilbert (bass) and Jess Elwood (drums). Recording happened in close quarter, in converted hotel room accommodation upstairs at the pub. Because The Gem was in a residential neighborhood, they couldn’t record late into the night for fear of bothering neighbors and sound bleed for a glorious constant: foot traffic to the hairdressers and lotto parlor next door and loud music from the bands and the kitchen staff downstairs. But if anyone needed a break during the sessions, they would head downstairs and watch a local band play. Jacklin and her friends even played two unannounced shows there to try out the album’s material before recording them.
They thought they’d be able to finish the album in two weeks, like she’d always done previously, but this time that wasn’t the case. In fact, it took nearly a year of tinkering to arrive at something Jacklin could get behind, “The Gem felt like a metaphor for the whole process, because a lot of it did feel like digging. I felt like I was doing it almost in the dark, just trusting I was going to find something,” Jacklin says. While conjuring images of excavation, of reinvention, of trusting your instincts and surrounding yourself with the people and things that make life worthwhile, the album documents the songwriter’s journey back to herself.
“I want to love and be loved, but I also want to be free. The tension between those two things has been the central question of my life,” says Jacklin. That theme underpins the album’s material.
The Gem‘s first single, “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You)” is mischievously charming and hooky bit of 80s inspired jangle pop that captures the neurotic yet yearning push and pull of a narrator, who can’t quite figure out yet how to be free and be loved simultaneously. And while informed by the songwriter’s own-lived in experience, the song is rooted in something that’s both universal and youthful.
The video created by Jacklin reimagines the album’s cover art with images of Jacklin singing and strumming her guitar, and gems on other instruments.
New Audio: Yeisy Rojas Teams Up with Manolito Simonet and Ricardo Amaray on Defiantly Celebratory “LATINO”
Yeisy Rojas is a Cuban-born, Oslo-based, classically trained, jazz violinist, singer/songwriter and composer. In her native Cuba, Rojas received a classical education and performed as a violinist with the National Opera Orchestra in Havana. Her passion for jazz led her to relocate to Norway, where she pursued her Masters studies in jazz violin at Kristiansand-based University of Agder‘s Conservatory. The cross-cultural experience allowed Rojas to deepen her understanding of the African influences in Cuban music.
‘Rojas’ latest single “LATINO,” feat. Manolito Simonet and Ricardo Amaray is an upbeat tune built around twinkling keys, big brassy horns and driving, Afro-Latino polyrhythm inspired by 1990’s Cuban timba energy that manages to be simultaneously thoughtful and dance floor friendly. As a native New Yorker, “LATINO” reminds me of listening to Mega 97.9 in the 90s and teenaged house parties in and around Corona — but at its core, is a defiantly upbeat message of unity and belonging.
“LATINO” was written as a response to the increasingly divisive rhetoric that has dehumanized and villainized migrants and Latino communities across the US and elsewhere. Informed by her own experience, the song reminds listeners of a profound yet simple truth: every person on Earth deserves respect, dignity and respect while being an anthem for Antone who has felt judged because of their origins, their heritage, their accent, their food or anything else. And in turn, the song serves as a celebration of the things that are both universal and unique about all of us. In our incredibly divisive times, it’s a deeply humanistic reminder of all the things we should be celebrating and cherishing.
Throwback: Happy 89th Birthday, Waylon Jennings!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 89th anniversary of the birth of Waylon Jennings.
Throwback: Happy 65th Birthday, Boy George!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Boy George’s 65th birthday.
New Audio: Moon Construction Kit Shares Cinematic “Down the West Coast”
Olivier Cornu is a a Lausanne-based singer/songwriter, musician, producer and creative mastermind behind Moon Construction Kit, And with Moon Construction Kit, Cormu specializes in a sound that draws from and meshes elements of indie pop, psych pop, synth pop, late 1960s pop and film scores.
The Swiss-based artist’s latest single, the Steve Stout co-produced “Down the West Coast” is a sun-dappled, tune featuring twinkling synths, a supple and propulsive bass line and dreamy woodwinds serving as a lush bed for Cormu’s dreamy delivery. Seemingly channeling Pavo Pavo’s retro-futuristic, 60s psych pop vibe, “Down the West Coast” is a remarkably cinematic, sun dappled tune that’s perfect for that summertime road trip with the track conveying bittersweet nostalgia, the hope of new beginnings and new experiences, the barely contained excitement for new experiences.
New Video: J. Bernardt Shares Shimmering and Euphoric “Four In The Morning”
Jinte Deprez is an acclaimed singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, programmer and producer, best known as being one-half of the songwriting duo behind the acclaimed Belgian JOVM mainstays Balthazar. Over the course of their two-plus decade run together, the acclaimed Belgian outfit has played across the global festival circuit with sets at All Points East, British Summer Time, and others — while selling over 600,000 albums globally. And during that same period of time, Deprez has firmly cemented a reputation for being a wildly talented generalist: Along with his songwriting partner and bandmate Maarten Devoldere, Deprez has co-produced three of Balthazar’s five albums to date.
Deprez is also the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed solo recording project J. Bernardt, With J. Bernardt, Deprez has released two albums, 2016’s self-produced Running Days and 2024’s Tobie Speleman and Deprez co-produced Contigo. Recorded in Los Angeles-based 64 Sound Studio, the Paul Butler-produced “Four In The Morning” is a hazily euphoric and mischievously playful tune featuring sprawling and shimmering synths, driving and pulsing drums serving as a lush bed for the JOVM mainstay’s sultry delivery. But the euphoria and playfulness is a bit deceptive, and at its core, the song’s narrator has started to finding a moment of clarity about themselves and their lives. Whether they were drunk or sober isn’t said — and probably isn’t necessary.
To me it’s a summery song that evokes late nights, coming home and singing and dancing to your favorite song by yourself — often with no one watching. And if anyone was, you didn’t care.
The song reflects the evolution of J. Bernardt into a fully-fledged artistic universe with its own trajectory and ambitions. Deprez worked far away from familiar and long-held routines. Butler’s free-flowing approach in the studio encouraged spontaneity and led to Deprez’s most liberated and carefree vocal performance to date.
“The song caught my attention very quickly because it’s not the kind of song I would normally write,” Deprez explains, “It has this manic urge that made me think: ‘Is something calling out your name, man?’ So I went for it, probably because of the sense of rebirth it gave me. Why not? I wanted to feel reborn. And that’s how it happened: a dancer in his finest suit wandering through LA at four in the morning. I hope it ends well for him.”
New Audio: Jonathan Personne Shares Mesmerizing “Superstar”
New Audio: Jonathan Personne Shares Mesmerizing “Superstar”
@bonsound @bonsoundpromo @corridormtl
New Audio: Magi Merlin Shares Shimmering and Defiant “pixxie”
Rising Montréal-based JOVM mainstay Magi (pronounced Mahd-j-eye) Merlin makes music for fellow obsessives. There’s no soft lunch. She sings directly to the listener, face pressed up against the other side of the screen’s glass. With a propulsive, avant-garde inspired take on pop and what she dubs as “broken R&B,” the Canadian artist’s work sees her exploring life’s deep existential truths.
Now, if y’all have been frequenting this site over the past handful of years, Merlin has collaborated with co-writer and producer Funkywhat, building a shared musical language through the release of 2022’s Gone Girl EP, which led to touring with Noga Erez and an electric set opening for Omar Apollo in Mexico City — and last year’s A Weird Little Dog, which helped her establish “broken R&B,” an honest account of how she works, her artistic direction and visual world. The JOVM mainstay supported that effort opening for Nubya Garcia across the US and with festival appearances at Osheaga and Festival d’été de Québec, where she opened for Ty Dolla $ign, And recently, she opened for Yaya Bey during their European tour.
Outside of music, she made her acting debut this year in Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks alongside Barbie Ferreira, Devon Bostick and Juliette Gariépy. The film screened at this year’s SXSW and Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
The Montréal-based JOVM mainstay’s highly anticipated full-length debut POWER HOUSE is slated for a July 10, 2026 release through Bonsound. The 12-song album is reportedly a slickly produced, infectious and high-energy effort that conceptually is an exploration of the internal architecture we all inhabit, housing the conflicting rooms of anger, fear, vanity, and ultimately, a reclaimed sense of power. The album is very much an ode to the realization that inner work is the only true outer work.
The album also serves as a realist’s manifesto, written from Merlin’s perspective as a bisexual/ENM woman. Throughout the album, the Montréal-based artist’s narrators explores the uneasy contradictions of seeking validation in both platonic and romantic relationships. She deconstructs the plastic confidence used as modern armor, the performative standards of the beauty industry, and the systemic pressures that force women to navigate their lives with hyper-caution.
POWER HOUSE includes the previously released “POPSTAR,” SpiceKick,” and “So Smart,” which have receive attention across a number of international media outlets including Clash Magazine, Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, Wonderland Magazine, Libération, Exclaim! and RANGE, as well as airplay from BBC 6 Music, France Inter, FIP, CBC and Radio Canada. The album’s latest single “pixxie” continues a run of slickly produced synth pop, anchored around the rising Canadian artist’s self-assured and soulful, pop star delivery and her unerring knack for catchy hooks.
Thematically, the track focuses on the liberation of women from the male gaze but written and sung ironically from the perspective of the manic pixie dream girl, breaking out from a reductive caricature — at all costs.
“Female characters in film are often reduced to this trope, simply a device used to further the plot of the male protagonist,” Magi explains. “This is a role and, at its worst, an expectation many men in real life will cast onto their female counterparts. The only function of women in their eyes is being a sexual object or a tool to aid them in their growth.”
Throwback: Happy 116th Birthday, Howlin’ Wolf!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 116th anniversary of the birth of Howlin’ Wolf.
Throwback: Happy 53rd Birthday, Faith Evans!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Faith Evans’ 53rd birthday.