Tag: soul

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: JOVM Mainstays Gotts Street Park and Olive Jones Perform “Wake Me Up” at ATA Studios

Leeds-based trio and JOVM mainstays Gotts Street Park— Josh Crocker (bass, production), Tom Henry (keys) and Joe Harris (guitar) —released their full-length debut 2023’s On The Inside, which included “Got To Be Good” feat. Pip Millettt, “Fuego,” “Mountains” feat. ENNY and “Tell Me Why” feat. Olive Jones to international acclaim. And in the subsequent years since its release, the album has amassed over 300 million streams across all DPS with “Got To Be Good” landing in Season Three of BBC’s hit series Boarders and this year’s Finding Emily starring Spike Fearn and Minnie Driver. 

The acclaimed British trio’s recently released sophomore album Somewhere Between is a natural progression from the soulful-groove led sound that has defined their previously with the material drawing from Bill Orcutt, Dylan Day, Dick Gaughan, Jessica Pratt, Big Thief and Blaze Foley, as well as the working methods of the house bands at Stax Records and Sun Records. The result is an album that combines the collective’s signature production prowess with an even greater warmth than before, as they also draw on the spirit of the 1970s troubadour singer/songwriter movement with a cast of long-time collaborators that include Celeste, Olive Jones, Pip Millett, Matt Maltese, Sofia and The Antoinettes, anaiis and Rosie Lowe. While the album finds the band exploring new textures, arrangements and approaches to songwriting that helps to create space for a wider cast of collaborators, the material stays rooted to the understand, live-take-in-the-studio feel that has become synonymous with the band.

Speaking on the evolution of their sound, the band said: “New influences have definitely found their way into this record, but it’s still grounded in our love of soul and jazz. The sounds originally introduced to us through all of us growing up on hip-hop. It’s about new strands weaving through what we already do”.  

“The title only arrived once the album was finished, and it means something slightly different to each of us,” the band continues. ““For me, it reflects the space that collaboration creates, a place where our individual lives, moods and experiences overlap for a while to make something together. We’re all arriving from different places, but in the studio those separate worlds meet. There’s something about making music that feels like stepping into a space between the tangible and the intangible, where ideas seem to come from somewhere beyond ourselves. In many ways, that’s what this album represents: meeting somewhere between who we are individually and what we can create together.”

The album includes the previously released “Some Birds Don’t Fly” feat Matt Maltese, “Easy” feat. Celeste, and the album’s latest single “Wake Me Up” feat. Olive Jones. Featuring a sultry, old-school soul-meets-Soulquarians-like groove with dusty breakbeats, a strutting guitar lick and bursts of bubbling synths beneath Olive Jones‘ breezily soulful yet yearning delivery, “Wake Up” explores the blurred lines between true love and infatuation, capturing the messy uncertainty of someone trying to decipher whether the rush — and hope — of a new romance can develop into something deeper.

“It’s about coming out of the whirlwind stage of early romance and trying to find a steadier, more enduring form of love,” Olive Jones explains. “It’s a phase of confusion and questioning: ‘Am I making the right decision? Is this the right person for me?’ It’s about not wanting to let the fun of the whirlwind go but knowing it can’t last forever.”  

The live footage of Jones and the band was shot by Andy Berriman in Leeds-based ATA Studios.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 80th Birthday, Daryl Hall!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Daryl Hall’s 80th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sunnan Shares Wistful and Cinematic “Echoes in Time”

Swedish outfit Sunnan can trace their origins through a series of unlikely encounters, including pandemic-era change, a barn with panoramic windows in Sunnanhed and a meeting with a Stockholm rave legend. In many ways the band embodies creative serendipity — and unsurprisingly, their origin story, which feels both inevitable and improbable, echoes through their work.

The band quickly built a reputation with the release of a series of standout singles including “My Love For You,” “Wild Horses,” and “The Sound (Make It Come Back),” their collaboration with Titiyo. 2024’s debut studio album Cinema was released to widespread praise across the Nordics and earned two Swedish Grammy nominations.

Last year’s Cinema Sound System helped propel the Swedish outfit onto the global stage with its three singles receiving heavy radio rotation on Nordic radio stations, received strong DSP support and organic crossover into North American and European markets. The band supported their debut and EP with 20 sold-out dates across the Nordics and the European Union. 

Building upon a growing profile, the Swedish outfit released their highly anticipated sophomore album, Spaghetti Soul last week. The album sees the band further cementing their critically applauded cinematic sound but while blending Italian Spaghetti Western soundtrack-styled grandeur with classic soul –filtered through a decidedly modern lens.

The album includes the previously released “Sail (Lady In Waiting)” and the album’s latest single “Echoes in Time” a widescreen, twangy bit of Morricone soundtrack-tinged soul anchored in a wistful, nostalgic ache while nodding at old timey ballads and Bossa Nova. Much like their previously released material, “Echoes in Time” showcases deft, incredibly gorgeous musicianship and songwriting.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 76th Birthday Robert “Kool” Bell!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Kool and the Gang founder Robert “Kool” Bell’s 76th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Two from JOVM Mainstays Ghost Funk Orchestra

Led by composer, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind Seth Applebaum, the New York-based psych soul outfit and JOVM mainstay act Ghost Funk Orchestra will be releasing their fifth album, Yours in The Ranks of Death through Karma Chief Records on December 4, 2026.

Reflective and ethereal, the JOVM mainstays’ fifth album reportedly finds Applebuam pairing down the sounds and conceptual underpinnings, providing his signature trippy grooves and cinematic arrangements a much cleaner pocket.

Yours is The Ranks of Death’s first single, last month’s “Yours” is the first studio track to feature Camellia Hartman on lead vocals on a bluesy shuffle of a track that balances old-timey high drama with kitsch. Inspired by the organ stylings of Ed Lincoln and Dick Hyman, “Yours” is a homage to the mid-century bachelor pad music that’s often overlooked in the dollar bin. But it also showcases Hartman’s yearning delivery.

The accompanying video is fittingly sho ton film and draws from 60s French Nouveau Vague and classic spy movies.

“Leave Me Alone,” the album’s second and latest single is built around fuzz and distortion pedaled guitars, some harmonic space-age Wurlitzer and a propulsive backbeat beneath Hartman’s defiant, take-no-shit/I’ve had enough of your shit delivery telling off someone who’s fucked her over.

“We’ve spent a lot of time experimenting with headier jazz, lounge, and soul sounds on our recent albums. ‘Leave Me Alone’ is sort of a back-to-the-garage track for us, leaning into the garage rock and fuzz rock sounds that were more present in early GFO releases,” Applebaum explains. “Whereas a lot of our recordings have used horns and keyboards as the centerpiece, this one is stripped back to the guitar-driven vibe that defined older tunes like “Walk Like A Motherfu*ker” and “Blood Moon.” Now in her second official GFO appearance following the single ‘Yours,’ Camellia Hartman leads the charge on vocals.”

The accompanying video features Hartman on a Dating Game-styled game show, titled “Leave Me Alone” in which Hartman, who alternates between being disgusted or bored to tears by her potential suitors, taunts them before telling them to — well, leave her alone.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Taiwan’s Yufu Shares Euphoric “Side Effects May Include”

Yufu, “The Soulful Gent” is a Taiwanese soul musician, singer/songwriter and producer, whose deep connection to old-school/vintage soul began in childhood and has evolved into a lifelong study of Black American music and the records that have shaped it. As a self-described perpetual student to Black music, he doesn’t attempt to simply reproduced the beloved old-school sound, he approaches the tradition with respect and curiosity, studying everything from songwriting to arrangements, to recording techniques, instruments and the physical character of the classic studios and their equipment.

That philosophy is central to his work. He embraces tape saturation, microphone bleed, room sound, the imperfect timing and the energy created when musicians play in the same room together. His work is also rooted in a deep desire to keep soul music alive as a living, evolving language while building connections between musicians, DJs and listeners across his native Taiwan, Japan, the UK and the wider global soul community.

Drawing from soul, blues. funk, Northern and Latin soul, the Taiwanese artist’s work blends the warmth and imperfections of classic soul recordings with his own contemporary perspective. His full-length debut, last year’s Heal Me Good was released by Dutch label Zip Records to international press attention and radio airplay including Spotify programming and BBC Radio 6 Music — and the album won Best R&B Album at Taiwan’s Golden Indie Music Awards.

“Side Effects May Include” is the Taiwanese artist’s first bit of new material since last year’s Heal Me Good. Sonically, the new single is a euphoric dance floor friendly blend of Northern soul, classic Motown soul and contemporaries like Daptone Records, Big Crown Records and Colemine Records featuring an arrangement of horns, strings, shuffling guitar, Latin percussion, Hammond organ and a big, dynamic drum break beneath Yufu’s remarkably Tom Jones-like vocal.

Thematically exploring the sweet and often irrational symptoms of being hopelessly in love “Side Effects May Include” treats falling in love, much like a potent drug, complete with a series of side effects. In this case, missing that special someone, dancing and singing for no apparent reason and behaving completely out of character. But it’s not from a cynical viewpoint — the song approaches it from a sweet, joyous, deeply human and deeply universal thing. Love can make you act like a dopesick moron, and that’s perfectly normal.

Yufu imagined “Side Effects May Include” being performed inside a soul club in the early 1970s, shaping the production around the feeling of being physically present in that room. And as a result, the recording favors warmth, movement and imperfection over modern polish. The song also represents an ending and a beginning for the Taiwanese artist: It closes the musical world of Heal Me Good while opening a door to whatever coming next.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 81st Birthday, Donny Hathaway!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 81st anniversary of the birth of Donny Hathaway.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: E Lundquist Teams Up with Michael Damani on Breezy “Chasing”

Los Angeles-based producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Eric Borders is the creative mastermind behind E. Lundquist, a project that derives its name from a loving nod to his family lineage, bringing the focus back to his own story. With E. Lundquist, Borders specializes in a warmly cinematic sound rooted in Rhodes-driven soul jazz, funk, R&B, library records and live band groove and analog synth textures, reflecting a shift to an intimate, reflective and composer-led approach. 

Borders’ forthcoming album Chasing My Reflections will touch upon themes of identity, resilience and self-reflection while featuring collaborations with Michael Damani, India Blue, Michael Edwards and JOVM mainstay Kendra Morris.

Chasing My Reflections will include “Wishing” feat. Kendra Morris and the album’s latest single “Chasing” feat. Michael Damani. “Chasing” is an upbeat and breezy tune, anchored around a Motown/Daptone/Big Crown/Colemine Records-like arrangement featuring reverb-soaked Rhodes or Wurlitzer, melodic rhythmic guitars and a steady backbeat beneath Damani’s yearning, equally old-school-like falsetto. Lyrically, the song touches upon themes of optimism, self-discovery and acceptance — all while feeling like a warm summer day.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 82nd Birthday Walter and Wallace Scott!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 82nd anniversary of the birth of The Whispers’ Water Scott — and the 82nd birthday of his twin brother Wallce Scott.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Leon Bridges Returns with Sultry and Soulful “Watch You Dance”

Atlanta-born, Fort Worth, TX-raised singer/songwriter and musician Leon Bridges quickly established himself as one of America’s most exciting new artists with 2015’s platinum-certified, Grammy Award-nominated debut Coming Home, which featured breakout singles “Coming Home” and “River.” Bridges followed up with 2018’s critically applauded Good Thing, which saw him expanding upon his sonic panic while earning a Grammy Award-nomination for Best R&B Album and a Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance for “Bet Ain’t Worth the Hand.”

2021’s Gold-Diggers Sound was the acclaimed Atlanta-born, Fort Worth-based artist’s most adventurous album to date, and the album received critical applause while earning another Grammy Award-nomination for Best R&B Album. His most recent album, 2024’s Lean is an introspective effort inspired by his Texan roots and his artistic evolution.

Along with his solo work, Bridges has collaborated with the equally acclaimed act Khraungbin on two albums — 2020’s Texas Sun and 2022’s Texas Moon. In a relatively short time he has earned six Grammy Award-nomiations — three for Best R&B Album — and a Grammy Award-win, has also collaborated with an eclectic array of artists, including John Mayer, Kacey Musgraves, Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, Gunna, The Avanlanches, Gary Clark, Jr. and Shaboozey, all of which showcase a remarkably versatile artist.

Adding to a rapidly growing profile, Bridges has a long-held reputation as a captivating live performer, who has made a run of the global concert and festival circuit, playing an increasing number of the world’s major festivals while making appearances on Saturday Night Live, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert and Austin City Limits.

Bridges’ fourth album, the J Lloyd-Watson and Lydia Kitto-produced fifth album, Happiness Anytime is slated for a Friday release through Columbia Records. Happiness Anytime reportedly sees the acclaimed Atlanta-born, Fort Worth-based artist returning to the warmth of his 2015 debut but while seeing the members of Jungle and Bridges’ signature sensibilities blending to create something entirely new — an expansive, borderless sound and approach that pushes the Grammy Award-winning artist into brand new territory. The material reportedly echoes Fela Kuti, Paul Simon’s 1990 effort The Rhythm of The Saints and Jorge Ben without feeling overly referential. At its core, the album is reportedly boundary pushing while remaining unmistakably Leon Bridges, rooted in his imitable vocal, effortless charisma and melodic sensibilities.

The album was written and recorded across three fast and furious sessions with Lloyd-Watson and Kitto, a collaboration that can trace its origins to the trio repeatedly crossing paths across the global festival circuit. The trio decided to attempt a low-pressure writing session at Los Angeles-based Chaplin Recording Studios. Four days later, they had come up with six songs — half of the completed album. Pino Palladino contributed bass during the sessions. The overall end result is a timeless body of work that feels unfussy and breezy — that they all hope will make the listener feel happiness anytime they play it.

“For me, happiness is not a feeling that you chase,” Bridges says,“I want this album to be something that lingers with people and lingers in people’s bones. There’s this feeling that we have to fix the problems of the world; you feel inadequate or it can be debilitating. My role is to be light. I hope that comes across with this album.” With Happiness Anytime, Bridges actively sets out with a desire to not only find joy but to find movement again.

Early in his career, Bridges was out in front dancing — and that was something that has wanted recently. He wanted to get back to making music to dance to, music to excise the stresses and frustrations of modern life, and to feel grounded in the rhythms of the present. Interestingly, over the summer, he has been introducing audiences to the new album with sets in Paris, Cannes, Los Angeles, Montreux Jazz Festival, London, Chicago and Outside Lands. And as he has being playing the new material live, he has unveiled “Leon Bridges Presents Happiness Anytime,” a reimagined stage production featuring a vinyl DJ, a horn section, three backing vocalists and Bridges out in front dancing and singing. Partly inspired by the communal spirt of Jamaican dancehall culture, the live set mirrors the album’s emphasis on movement — and on dancing your stresses and frustrations away for a bit. You can see what the live show will look like during his most recent appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he performed medley of tunes from the soon-to-be-released album — the strutting Afrobeat-meets-1970s Motown soul-like “Light The Way” and “Illusion” and jubilant, joyous ode to working things out “Talk It Over.”

“Watch You Dance,” Happiness Anytime‘s latest single is a strutting and sultry bit of neo-soul meets classic soul that feels like a funky, dance floor friendly synthesis of Black Pumas, Cody Chesnutt, Daptone Records and Marvin Gaye‘s “Got To Give It Up” but anchored in old-school craft, earnest, seemingly lived-in lyricism and a grown ass folks sensuality. The song’s narrator knows that seduction is a game that you have to play — and he knows how to play it well.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 43rd Birthday, Amy Winehouse!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 43rd anniversary of the birth of Amy Winehouse.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 82nd Birthday, Barry White!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 82nd anniversary of the birth of Barry White.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Leon Bridges Performs “Happiness Anytime” Medley on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”

Leon Bridges performs “Happiness Anytime” medley on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”