Tag: Single Review

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Nation of Language Shares Swooning “Under the Water”

Acclaimed Brooklyn-based synth pop trio and JOVM mainstays Nation of Language — Ian Richard Devaney (vocals, guitar), Aidan Noell (synths) and Alex MacKay (bass) — have amass a rapidly growing and devout national and international fanbase as a result of a dance floor friendly sound that draws from New Wave, post-punk and shoegaze. The JOVM mainstays three albums, 2020’s Introduction, Presence, 2021’s A Way Forward and 2023’s Strange Disciple have received coverage from Billboard, The New York Times, Document Journal, BrooklynVegan, MOJO, NME, Pitchfork, Stereogum and lengthy list of others, including this site. 

Adding to a rapidly rising profile, the band has performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. They’ve also become a mainstay on the international festival circuit, playing sets at Austin City Limits, Desert Daze, Pitchfork Festival, Primavera Sound, Pukklepop, Corona Capital, Outside Lands, Bonnaroo, and a growing list of others globally. And recently, “Weak In Your Light” was featured in the series finale of the Netflix hit show You.

Earlier this year, the acclaimed JOVM mainstays announced that they signed to Sub Pop Records, who will be releasing their new material globally in 2025 and beyond, including the band’s highly-anticipated fourth album, Dance Called Memory. Slated for a September 19, 2025 release, the 10-song album was recorded, produced and mixed by Holy Ghost‘s Nick Millhiser, who produced 2023’s Strange Disciple. “What’s so great about Nick is his ability to make us feel like we don’t need to do what might be expected of us,” says Nation of Language’s Aidan Noell. The album was mastered by Heba Kadry, who has worked on some of the most acclaimed records of the past decade or so. 

Sonically, the album is imbued with a subtly shifted palette: On some tracks percussion is smashed through a synthesizer to nod at early-2000’s electronic music. Chopped-up drum break samples make appearances, too. 

Ultimately, for the trio, the hope was to weave raw vulnerability and humanity into a synth-heavy album. “There is a dichotomy between the Kraftwerk school of thought and the Brian Eno school of thought, each of which I’ve been drawn to at different points. I’ve read about how Kraftwerk wanted to remove all of the humanity from their music, but Eno often spoke about wanting to make synthesized music that felt distinctly human,” Nation of Language’s Ian Richard Devaney says. “As much as Kraftwerk is a sonically foundational influence, with this record I leaned much more towards the Eno school of thought. In this era quickly being defined by the rise of AI supplanting human creators, I’m focusing more on the human condition, and I need the underlying music to support that… Instead of hopelessness, I want to leave the listener with a feeling of us really seeing one another, that our individual struggles can actually unite us in empathy.”

Dance Called Memory will feature the previously released “Inept Apollo” “I’m Not Ready for the Change,” and the album’s third and latest single, “Under the Water.” Anchored around a minimalist leaning arrangement of an oscillating synth melody paired with Devaney’s achingly yearning delivery, “Under the Water” subtly nods at Kraftwerk while being deeply human, expressing swooning longing and heart-wrenching regret — all while continuing to showcase the trio’s unerring knack for breezy, nostalgia-inducing synth pop.

“This was the last one to make the cut before we turned the record in,” the band’s Ian Richard Devaney says. “We’d always had a lot of enthusiasm for the track, but the studio schedule had gotten a bit unwieldy over the holidays and an arbitrary deadline had been set to be done with LP4 prior to leaving for a January tour in Australia supporting IDLES. As such we’d turned in the final album mixes for mastering before getting on the plane and I’d resigned myself to saving ‘Under the Water’ for some subsequent release down the line. But somewhere over the Pacific Ocean while trying to sequence the album clarity set in that despite our love for rigid adherence to the production calendar, we wanted it on there. So before soundchecks on the other side of the planet we hooked up all the synths we’d brought with us in the greenroom, remotely concocting the version you hear now. If it somehow sounds distinctly of the southern hemisphere, now you’ll all know why.”

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.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms
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News/Announcements: FME Announces 2025 Venue Showcase Lineups

FME announces the venue showcase lineups for the 2025 edition.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Charlatans UK Share Anthemic “We Are Love”

The Charlatans UK — Tim Burgess (vocals), Martin Blunt (bass), Mark Collins (guitar), Tony Rogers (keys) and The Verve co-founder Pete Salisbury (drums) — are arguably one of the best-loved and commercially British bands of the past 40 years or so. Over the course of their lengthy run, the band has released 13 albums, 3 of which earned #1 on the UK Albums Charts with 22 Top 40 UK singles, including “The Only One I Know,” “North Country Boy” and “One to Another.”

The acclaimed British outfit’s long awaited, highly anticipated 14th album, the Dev Hynes, Fred Macpherson and Stephen Street co-produced We Are Love is slated for an October 31, 2025 release through BMG. The first album from the acclaimed outfit in eight years, the longest gap in their history, was a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the individual members’ solo projects and side projects, life’s twists, turns and complexities and the fact that each of the band’s individual members live scattered across Europe. With all of that going on, it took longer than usual to figure out schedules; for the stars to align; and for the right vibe and right time.

Recoded at two places that are almost apocryphal in the band’s history — Wales-based Rockfield Studios and the band’s Middlewich, Chesire-based Big Mushroom, We Are Love reportedly sees the band launching into a bold new era, one that finds them at peace with their past while looking forward to the future. The band’s Tim Burgess cites hauntology and psychogeography as two major concepts that swirled in his head as the band worked on the album.

The band returned to Rockfield Studs for the first time since the recording sessions for the fifth album, 1997’s Tellin’ Stories. As a band, they hadn’t been there since keyboardist Rob Collins’ death, in the middle of that album’s sessions, in a car accident at the bottom of the track leading to the farm surrounding the studio. Reportedly throughout the album, you can hear the band’s awareness of the things that made them — the highs and lows the desire to honor their own legacy, while not being deeply defined by it; and a career-long drive to be innovative and progressive. “The whole idea of hauntology and psychogeography is represented by us going back to Rockfield, where so much history has happened for The Charlatans,” the band’s Tim Burgess says. “That was important as a way of honoring every member who’s played in the band. So we’re honouring ourselves, our past, feeling that energy and reincarnating it, doing something fresh, brand new.” 

The album’s introspective creative process, brought home the fact that love has been the glue that has held the band together for so long, and ultimately that’s reflected on the album’s 11, forward-thinking, future-facing songs.

We Are Love‘s first single, album title track “We Are Love” is a defiantly upbeat, road trip-meets-big venue/festival anthem, anchored by a propulsive, motorik groove and rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses. Tim Burgess describes it as “like an open-top car ride in the credits of your favorite movie, driving along the coast to somewhere amazing.”

One of the first tracks to emerge as they were writing material, “We Are Love” became a pathfinder for the record as the band’s Mark Collins explains: “Early on, we thought it felt right. And it turned out that way: first single, title track, second song on the album. And things started forming around ‘We Are Love.’ There was a certain energy to it that drove us forward.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Augu Shares Brooding “Silence”

Augu is a mysterious and emerging Lithuanian electronic music producer, who caught my attention with “Foreigner,” and “Line.“

The Lithuanian producer’s latest single “Silence” is a brooding, club friendly track that seemingly channels Depeche Mode and Blanck Mass while showcasing an unerring knack for crafting forward-thinking material that’s anchored around remarkably catchy hooks.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Silver Relics Share Hook-Driven “Same Old Tune”

Founded by singer/songwriter Alex Sepsis back in 2017, the New York-based indie outfit — Sepassi (vocals, guitar), Garrett De Temple (bass) and Hitomi Nakamura (drums) — quickly established a sound that saw them effortlessl blending classic and modern rock influences that included The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Nirvana on their full-length debut, 2019’s Generic. 

The trio’s latest single “Same Old Tune” was recently released through Brooklyn-based A Diamond Heart Production. The new single sees the band crating a sound that seemingly draws from and blends the Madchester scene, Nirvana and 90s shoegaze while continuing to showcase a band with an unerring knack for incredibly catchy hooks and rousingly anthemic choruses.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Anna of the North Shares a Breezy and Yearning Bop

Acclaimed Norwegian alt-pop star Anna of the North‘s latest single “Give Me Your Love Back” sees the Norwegian artist bridging the and future, while being a bit of a return to her signature, classic sound: While anchored her ethereal vocals and bittersweet lyrics, the song is a dreamy, melodic bop that showcases her unerring knack for writing a catchy hook.

The new single is part of a forthcoming batch of new music. So be on the lookout for lookout y’all.

The new single drops just as the Norwegian artist’s 2017 hit “Lovers” has been going viral, amassing over 225 million streams on Spotify. Along with that, she announced a Winter 2025 headlining, Stateside tour that includes a November 22, 2025 stop at Music Hall of Williamsburg, All tour dates are below, and you can purchase tickets here.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Still Blank Shares Breakneck and Sultry “Ain’t Quite Right”

Rising, transcontinental duo Still Blank — Kaua’i, HI-based Jordy and Manchester, UK — have quickly established themselves as one of more enigmatic and exciting voices in contemporary alternative music. Drawing from shoegaze, grunge and folk, they’ve developed and honed a sound that’s difficult to pigeonhole, often minimalist and emotionally rich.

Their unique sound comes from rather unlikely roots: Jordy grew up immersed in the natural rhythm of island life in Hawaii, gigging at weddings and fundraisers by the time she was in her early teens, while drawing inspiration from Hawaiian traditions and the solitude of Kaua’i. Ben, who was raised on Manchester’s rich and deep musical legacy, played some of his earliest gigs in pubs with his dad’s band. He developed a love of ambient textures, citing The Durutti Column and Vini Reilly as formative influences. The duo’s unlikely meeting in the UK sparked a lightning-in-a-bottle creative partnership that started as casual jam sessions in a Liverpool basement and quickly evolved to sessions ranging from stripped-back recordings on a broken, classical guitar to long studio sessions fueled by long walks through rural Wales and a shared commitment to imperfect perfection.

As a collaborative unit, their work draws from introspection and their surroundings, echoing the mood and vibe of acts like Yo La Tengo, Big Thief and Cat Power paired with lyrics informed by people-watching, dreams, nature and existential observation.

The duo’s sophomore single “Ain’t Quite Right,” comes on the heels of their critically applauded debut single “What About Jane,” which received praise from Under The Radar, Clash, Dork, DIY and a lengthy list of others. “Ain’t Quite Right” sees the pair swapping roles in the creative process while crafting a breakneck post punk tune that’s sultry and vulnerable yet simultaneously confrontational and accusatory in a way that subtly channels PJ Harvey.

“We wrote the song around Christmas in rainy Manchester while listening to a lot of Sonic Youth and PJ Harvey,” the transcontinental duo explain. “Usually, Ben leads the music and I work on lyrics and melody, but this one flipped. We wanted it to feel on edge—building tension. The lyrics explore a dysfunctional relationship where both sides are suffocating, and neither can let go. The guitar almost talks back to the vocal, responding with this jarring energy that adds to the unease.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Total Wife Shares Woozy “second spring”

Over the past decade, the experimental Nashville-based duo Total Wife — Luna Kupper and Ash Richter — have firmly cemented as fixtures of both the Nashville and East Coast DIY scenes.

The duo’s fifth album, Come Back Down is slated for a September 25, 2025 release through Julia’s War Recordings. Come Back Down is the follow-up to 2023’s in/out and builds upon their varied and rich catalog, while featuring the previously released 0 EP tracks “naoisa,” and “(dead b).”

The album’s latest single “second spring” is a woozy track that features fuzzy and churning guitars paired with syrupy sweet, ethereal melodies. At its core, the song evokes both the hope of new beginnings and the unease and anxiousness of what those new beginnings will actually mean for you and your life.

“Ash started the lyrics for this song in early spring of 2020, and worked them out over the next few years before Luna wrote this song, which helped her finish them,” the Nashville-based duo explain. “Hard to remember, but flowers will bloom with or without you,” is from the same poem that “Reveal Sky,” was written from (total wife Self-Titled LP, “It’s easy to forget that it’s spring, staring through grey-blue drywall”).“

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Tan Cologne Team Up With Trentemøller on a Minimalist and Dreamy Rework of “In Resin”

Enigmatic Taos, NM-based duo Tan Cologne — Lauren Green and Marissa Macias — released their third album Unknown Beyond last month through Labrador Records. Unlike their previously released material, Unknown Beyond sees Green and Macias reaching for the heavens and an intangible greater existence; the infinite and unexplainable while embracing the beauty of timeless uncertainty. 

Written, performed and recorded entirely by the duo at their Taos, New Mexico-based home, the album found the pair seeking solitude and retreat as they attempted to come to terms with the personal loss of family, friends and childhood homes — within a relatively short period of time. The album’s creative process quickly became a therapeutic outlet for grieving, dealing, changing and understanding new life transitions and ways of being, with each track being a part of the story of the entire album. 

The album’s material is centered around a more spiritual process. “We looked for signs and signals during the recording process” the duo says in press notes. “If we saw a shooting star, imagined a fire burning on a hill, or remembered an old satellite dish in someone’s yard, we explored that lyrically. Those visual guides became our pathways to the album. They were the signs to move forward.”

Interweaving and layering hypnotic beats, hazy shoegazer textures, abstract live drum patterns and sounds of searching for signals — of comfort and communication — from the invisible web, Unknown Beyond may arguably be their most immersive and emotive work to date. 

In the lead up to the album’s I written about three of the album’s previously release singles, “Cloud of Mirrors,” “Infinity“ and “Cool Star.”

The duo recently teamed up with Trentemøller on a reworking of Unknown Beyond closing track “In Resin.” The album track is a slow-burning and hazy tune featuring swirling, almost painterly, reverb-drenched, shoegazer guitar textures. While recalling A Storm In Heaven, the arrangement serves as a lush bed for Green’s and Macias’ dreamily ethereal harmonies.

The Trentemøller reworking retains the duo’s dreamily ethereal harmonies but replaces most of the shoegazer guitar textures with a looping, twinkling and eerily beautiful piano figure, which emphasizes the mysterious vibe of the song while giving it an old-timey feel and sound.

“In Resin” encapsulates the entire project thematically, as well as the duo’s experiences over the lat few years. “It talks about being everything once and then being it all again, and living several lives at the same time,” the band says. “‘In Resin’ is a special track that we spiritually found ourselves oscillating between leaving it as a rare gem to discover on the album or presenting as a focus,” they continue. “We opted for the mystery, but Trentemøller dove into it.”
 
The band expands, “A few years ago, Trentemøller connected with us and our sound. Now into the present and future, he offered to rework one of our tracks from our new album and selected ‘In Resin.’ He finished the new interpretation while we were on tour together in Europe. We feel our music is a communication and we are honored to continue ‘In Resin’’s sonic conversation with Trentemøller.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Cochemea Shares Soulful and Meditative “Ancestros Futuros”

Acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, arranger and composer Cochemea Gastelum comes from a long line on musicians on both sides of his lineage. Over the past 25 years, Gasteum has built a distinct and accomplished career as a soloist and arranger/composer, collaborating with an eclectic array of artists across a wide range of genres — from his lengthy stint with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings to the likes of Kevin Morby, Run The Jewels, Jon Batiste, Amy Winehouse, The Roots, Archie Shepp, Mark Ronson, the legendary Quincy Jones and a lengthy list of others.

His previously released material has received praised from both critics and DJs. 2019’s All My Relations, the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, arranger and composer’s critically applauded Daptone Records debut was a family reunion of sorts, uniting spirits, musicians and melodies across space and time. Leading a nonet, Gastelum and company employed drums, winds and vocals to create a deeply personal meditation on the interconnectedness of all things. Vol. 2: Baca Sewa expanded this exploration into the archives of family history, mythology and the cultural imagination.

Slated for a September 26, 2025 release through Daptone Records, Gastelum’s forthcoming effort, Vol. 3: Ancestros Futuros completes a triology while anchored in the cultural fabric that has nurtured him from the beginning. A Californian of Yaqui ancestry, Gastelum describes a central part of his work as “accessing ancestral memory that comes in different forms — sometimes when you visit a place, sometimes in dreams . . . it’s in our DNA.”

“For me it’s about seeking wholeness in these zones of fracture.” In fact, dreams play a vital role in his creative process., “A lot of melodies come to me through dreams,” he says. “I’ve kept a dream record for years, shaping the language into what I call dream scores.” One of these scores appears on the back over of Ancestros Futuros, reflecting the intuitive and layered nature of his work. This dream-guided approach carries into the album’s opening track, “Transmisíon del Soñar,” which serves as a “portal” between dimensions, echoing his connection with both the dream realm and the dynamic interplay of time and space.

His musical and spiritual synthesis is made possible through his deep reverence for the horn, and the music and traditions that precede him. Inspired by Eddie Harris, Yusef Lateef, Jim Pepper and Gary Bartz, Gastelum attempts to bride ancestral rhythmic traditions with forward-looking vision, to create a signature sound that’s both deeply rooted and expansive. With the new album, Gastelum continues to expand upon his work, effortlessly blending past, present and future into a ritual offering, in which memory, survival and imagination converge. The album’s material is also shaped by stories of survival and resistance.

The acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer gathered a core group of longtime collaborators, an octet featuring some of New York’s best percussionists and members of Daptone’s world famous rhythm section. Additionally, the album sees Gastelum collaborating with Daptone Records founder Gabriel Roth, a.k.a. Bosco Mann returning as producer and mixing engineer, recording the band live to 8-track analog tape.

Ancestros Futuros‘ first single, album title track “Ancestros Futuros” is a composition that sounds and feels simultaneously ancient and remarkably modern, meditative yet defiant. The acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, arranger and composer says “I was thinking about survival as a continuum connecting past and future connections,” which is a theme that echoes throughout his work. The song also draws from the story of a Yaqui midwife, who would bury the navels of newborns in the ground, so that future generations would rise and reclaim the land.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Berlin’s Nilipek. Shares Expressive and Expansive “Yalan Söyledik”

Turkish-born, Berlin-based singer/songwriter Nilipek. has developed a sound and approach that has shaped the landscape of Turkish language alternative music for the past decade. Her critically applauded debut, 2015’s Sabah marked the arrival of a unique voice in the scene.

Since then the Turkish-born, Berlin-based artist has continually evolved, exploring new textures and sonic landscapes. 2017’s Döngü and 2020’s Mektuplar found Nilipek. embracing a decided shift towards a richer, more layered sound that blended introspective lyrics with bold, experimental arrangements.

Her striking reinterpretations of Turkish classics like “Gözleri Aşka Gülen” and “Bir Gün Beni Arzularsan Gel” helped to further cement her reputation for reimagining familiar songs in unexpected ways. Building upon a growing profile, much of her work has appeared in popular TV and streaming series, like 2019’s One Love Two Lives and Halka which have helped introduce her sound to a much wider audience. She has also collaborated on several boundary-pushing efforts like “Castles” with French indie pop artist Oscar Anton and “Vazgeçtim” with Turkish producer Taner Yücel, expanding her creative universe beyond the lines of genre and geography.

Nilipek.’s fourth album, last year’s Uydurduğumuz Oyunlarla (“The Games We Made Up”) was arguably one of the more interactive and emotionally resonant batches of material she’s written and recorded to date that sees her weaving poetic Turkish lyrics with cinematic arrangements and haunting melodies.

Album single “Yalan Söyledik” manages to recall PJ Harvey and Juana Molina with the song being anchored around an expansive arrangement with cinematic flourishes paired with Nilipek.’s sultry delivery. The song evokes a complex and confusing emotional landscape with seemingly lived-in sensibility.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rëa Shares Cathartic “Living Without You”

Rëa is an emerging, Black, queer, Canadian alt pop artist, who has quickly developed a sound that draws from early 2000s rock and meshes elements of dark pop, rock and ethereal soundscapes, anchored around haunting melodies, ethereal harmonies and gritty, fuzzy guitars. Thematically, her work sees her telling stories of love, loss and survival while exploring feminine rage, heartbreak and survival. She describes her work as “cathartic anthems for the beautifully unhinged.”

The Canadian artist’s debut single “Living Without You,” will appear on her forthcoming debut EP House on Fire. But in the meantime, “Living Without You” is a cathartic tune that’s built around a grunge rock song structure featuring alternating atmospheric verses and arena rock-like anthemic hooks and choruses with fuzzy power chords paired with Rëa’s enormous, pop belter delivery.

The result is a song that’s simultaneously cinematic and yet powered by deeply lived-in personal experience.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Club 8 Returns with Shimmering and Yearning “Born The Wrong Time”

Last year, Stockholm-based JOVM mainstays Club 8 — Karolina Komstedt (vocals) and electronic music producer, artist and Labrador Records founder and label boss Johan Angergård — released their 11th album, A Year With Club 8, which featured the Joy Division/New Order-meets-The Raveonettes-like “Something’s Wrong With My Head,” a woozily blissful and escapist song that continued a run of material dabbling in 80s New Wave nostalgia. 

The duo have been busy, releasing a single every month throughout the course of this year. including “ooo,” “None Of This Will Matter When You’re Dead” and “Staying Alive,” which I wrote about on this site.

The duo’s latest single “Born The Wrong Time” is a slow-burning and dreamy track that reminds me a bit of a lush synthesis of JOVM mainstays Still Corners, The Sundays and Souvlaki-era Slowdive paired with Konstedt’s yearning vocal, nostalgic longing for a seemingly simpler time.