Tag: Video Review

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: PANIK FLOWER Shares Brooding and Uneasy “rearview”

Formed back in 2022 through a combination of chance introductions and long-time friendships, Brooklyn-based indie outfit PANIK FLOWER — Sage Leopold (vocals), Mila Stieglitz-Courtney (guitar, vocals), Jordan Buzzell (guitar), Max Baird (bass) and Marco Starger (drums) — have firmly cemented a sound that mixes dream pop with an understated heaviness. The result is a unique soundscape featuring soft and dreamy harmonies, hard-hitting instrumentals and cutting lyricism that evokes the hazy nostalgia of distant memories of love, loss and identity.

Through playing shows around the New York Metropolitan area, the band quickly developed a fanbase and reputation for their live show. Building upon a growing reputation, the band released their Carl Bespolka-produced debut EP, 2023’s Dark Blue.

The rising Brooklyn-based outfit’s sophomore EP, the recently released. six-song rearview is deeply rooted in intentional juxtaposition. Thematically, rearview EP sees the band looking inward to explore identity; namely the dichotomous nature of uncertainty and self-acceptance paired with a lush yet jagged soundscape.

“This EP felt like a lot of us finding ourselves as a band — our sound and how we perform,” the band’s Max Baird shared. “Sage’s spoken word has become such an important part of that and we really wanted to explore it in this project. It contributes a lot to the push-pull dynamic of our music, often adding another rhythmic element on top of an already lush, sonic landscape. Many of the bones of these tracks were brought to us by our drummer Marco, who was our missing piece up until early last year.”

The EP’s latest single, EP title track “rearview” is a stormy and uneasy take on 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock anchored around a wall of shimmering and swirling shoegazer-like guitar, explosive hi-hat driven drumming paired with Leopold’s unhinged wailing. And at its core, “rearview” explores a barely contained simmering rage over being taken advantage of, of being made a fool, and of having to maneuver in the aftermath of an embittering, humiliating experience.

Directed by Harleigh Shaw, the accompanying video for “rearview” is a brooding, horror movie-influenced visual that at one point that features the band’s Leopold as a “final girl” being chased by a relentless pursuer.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: New Zealand’s Phoebe Vic Shares Raunchy “It’s My Pleasure”

With the release of her debut EP, 2023’s Strange Rituals, emerging Christchurch-based singer/songwriter Phoebe Vic quickly established herself as an artist, who paints emotional sonic landscapes with sophisticated, alternative pop songs that range from dreamy and romantic to foreboding, percussive-driven tracks that draw from her own life with sincerity and a self-referential, cheeky sense of humor. The emerging Kiwi artist followed Strange Rituals EP with last year’s “Wasn’t That Deep.”

2025 has gotten off to e a bus start for Vic: Earlier this year, she released the country-tinged “Mad Woman.” Her latest single, the Emily C. Browning-produced “It’s My Pleasure” comes on the heels of playing Nostalgia Festival.

“It’s My Pleasure” is a deliriously unhinged bit of naughty, raunchy fun featuring a glitchy production featuring rubbery bass bounce, skittering trap-beats, bursts of electronic skronk and screech that serves as a lush yet funky bed for the emerging Kiwi artist’s yearning and sultry delivery singing explicit lyrics about sexual desire. It’s a fun, horny, defiantly feminist and pro-sex anthem.

“This song was born from a long dry-spell of lacking in the intimacy department,” Vic says. “So if I wasn’t getting any action, I decided I wanted to make something really hot and horny – that champions owning your sexual fantasies and desires!”

“I really like minimalist prod and it was an exercise in using less elements to create something in-your-face.” producer, Emily C. Browning adds. “We both wanted it to feel like a punchy little arcade game or something, with little reward sounds and different levels.The metal breakdown was Phoebe’s idea and I had to quickly figure out how to play guitar and bass like a metal head. Very fun day in the studio!”

Directed by Lore Films‘ Adam Hogan with support from New Zealand’s On Air New Music Single grant, the accompanying video is set at a depressing open mic, where a terrible stand up comedian is gently pushed off the stage, mid routine before Phoebe Vic steps on the stage and does a raunchy, burlesque style performance that gets everyone in the room uncontrollably horny. “We wanted to make something cheeky, visually stimulating and silly that matched the vibe of the song, while adding an additional heightened story-telling element to it!” Vic says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rafa Tena Teams Up WIth Las Negris on Mischievous “Morcilla”

Rafa Tena is a Madrid-born singer/songwriter, composer and music producer. His career started in earnest, behind the scenes as a lyricist and composer, who wrote material that became internationally recognized hits performed by other artists. Tena has also spent several years working as a producer, musical director for TV and as an apprentice poet.

Enamored with Cuban music, the Madrid-born artist has spent lengthy stints living in Havana, where he collaborated with some of Cuba’s most prominent artists, before eventually stepping out into the spotlight as a member of Son DOS, with whom he’ll release an album inspired by Cuba’s beloved son music.

But in the meantime, the Spanish-born singer/songwriter, composer and producer, who’s best known for work in pop and rock, recently collaborated with gypsy band Las Negris on “Morcilla,” a rowdy and raucous tune that will get the party started. Sonically, the song sees Tena and Las Negris meshing elements of flamenco tango and Cuban guagancó and pairing that with mischievous lyrics that reference morcilla, a blood sausages that’s a beloved delicacy across the Spanish speaking world — with some regional differences in ingredients and how its prepared. The song also references Tena’s travels between Spain and Cuba.

The accompanying video is a surreal and playful visual that features Tena and companions at a long dining table with wine, morcilla and other items. We also see Tena calling a someone from a banana phone, while his bags are packed, ready to hit the road. And of course, there’s a ton of dancing.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Activity Shares Hypnotic and Menacing “Scissors”

Acclaimed Brooklyn-based post punk outfit Activity — currently, Grooms‘ Travis Johnson (vocals, guitar), Bri DiGiola (bass), Russian Baths‘ Jess Rees and their newest member The Pains of Being Pure at Heart‘s and Peel Dream Magazine‘s Brian Alvarez — will be releasing their third album, the Jeff Berner-produced A Thousand Years In Another Way on June 6, 2025 through Western Vinyl. 

A friend asked why the album captured the strange, heavy feeling of being alive right now better than anything else. “Evil is very real and having its way, and love is also real and hasn’t lost yet,” Activity’s Travis Johnson told the friend — describing the album’s overall tone. The album doesn’t try to explain the strange time we’re living in; it simply feels like it. it’s a mix of violence, alienation, and tenderness, reflecting the surreal, dreamlike — and often nightmarish– rhythm of our daily lives. 

The ten-song album sees the Brooklyn-based outfit crafting a blend of experimental rock, electronics and found sounds with a sense of paranoia, desperate flickers of hope and a warped reality. Continuing their ongoing collaboration with Berner, the band manipulated sounds and played with room acoustics to create a feeling that’s disorientating and uneasy — like the air is thick and the walls are listening. 

Coming out of a period of increased uncertainty, the Brooklyn-based quartet — then Johnson, Rees DiGiola and former drummer Steven Levine — pieced the album together from various fragments, including clipped samples, looping guitar lines and spectral melodies. Johnson, Rees and DiGioia share vocal and writing duties, shaping material that feels both deeply personal and strangely alien. Throughout the album, there’s a sense that things could shift or fall apart at any second — nothing says one thing for long. 

Last month, I wrote about the album’s first single “In Another Way,” a brooding and uneasy track that captures an alienated and painfully lonely narrator’s desperate desire to connect with someone while struggling with the chaos and uncertainty both with

A Thousand Years In Another Way‘s first single, album opening track “In Another Way” is a brooding and uneasy track that captures the captures an alienated and painfully lonely narrator’s desperate desire to connect with someone while struggling with the chaos and uncertainty within and without. According to the band’s Johnson, the album’s first single is “a way of letting off a bunch of aggression, rage and resentment at things not being the way they hold be, both personal and global (wishing things were ‘another way’), and feeling completely important about it, except when playing the song.” 

“Scissors,” the album’s second and latest single is a trance-inducing and decidedly trip-hop inspired song featuring swirling, atmospheric synths, bursts of feedback-driven shoegazer guitars and skittering, reverb-soaked beats serving as a brooding and menacing bed for Jess Rees’ dreamy delivery.

“The song is about being intentionally reckless and breaking things apart, knowing you’re doing it. About not being precious, and digging into that pile of parts inside and finding a better way with what you already have,” the band’s Rees says, while adding, “I was listening to Beak> a lot at the time.”

The accompanying video was directed by Yasmeen Night who says, “Listening to ‘Scissors’ made me feel like I was in a trance, or a dream state. In the video, I wanted to lean on the concept of coming in and out of consciousness. Opening and closing your eyes – forgetting what is real and what isn’t.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Frankie and the Witch Fingers Shares Punchy and Grimy “Dead Silence”

Acclaimed Los Angeles-based psych punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Frankie and the Witch Fingers — currently founding duo Dylan Sizemore (vocals, guitar) and Josh Menashe (lead guitar, synth), along with Death Valley Girls‘ Nikki “Pickle” Smith (bass) and Mike Watt’s Nick Aguilar (drums) — have spent the past decade restlessly mutating their sound into bold, electrifying new forms with every new release. 

Slated for a June 6, 2025 release through Greenway Records and The Reverberation Appreciation Society, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstay’s eighth album, the Maryam Qudus-produced Trash Classic reportedly sees the band plunging into a sewer-slick fusion of proto punk venom, fractured New Wave and industrial grime. Sonically brimming with wiry synths, angular melodies and squirming and biting grooves, the material is delivered with a sly, playful balance between smirk and sneer. The band layers playful unease while exploring themes of escapism, decay and overindulgence. 

The songs were born in the grime of Vernon, Los Angeles — a wasteland littered with gutted RVs and rusting machinery, where the air tastes like asphalt and dog food. But the alchemy happed during recording sessions at Oakland‘s Tiny Telephone Studio, where producer Maryam Qudus helped transmute the tracks into the final forms with unhinged tones, unconventional recording experiments and wild sonic detours. 

Each day of the recording sessions began with cartoons blaring at full volume — a Looney Tunes ritual that turned the madness of the recording process into something childlike. Late night, sugar-fueled candy binges kept the energy spiking, pushing the sessions into a fever dream of jittery, spastic playfulness. The end result is a raw, twisted monument to rot and excess — and to toxic glamour and nihilistic salvation.

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

  • “Economy,” which offered a glimpse of what to expect from the album: grimy synth pulse right at the front, alongside angular guitar fuzz and muscular yet mathematically precise drumming paired with punchily delivered vocals and mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses. Sonically, the result is a scuzzier and grimier take on Freedom of Choice-era DEVO — with a similar, tongue-in-cheek sensibility. 

  • “Total Reset,” a sweaty ripper that sees the band pairing angular guitar fuzz with squiggling synth pulse, mathematically precise drumming and Sizemore’s punchy delivery with the band’s penchant for mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses. Sonically, “Total Reset” strikes me as a being a synthesis of King Gizzard and Devo — but with a mischievous sense of menace and unease. 

Trash Classic‘s third and latest single “Dead Silence” continues a run of grimy and mischievous DEVO-meets-garage rock rippers, anchored around the band’s unerring knack for rousing, mosh pit friendly hooks paired with Sizemore’s punchy delivery singing lyrics about existential dread and death. Oh, how fitting for our fucked up, dire time!

“This one’s got a nice little origin story,” the band explains. ““We played a festival in Boise with Spacemoth, Maryam Qudus’ brainchild, and met her for the first time there. Cut to a year later, and she’s deep in the guts of this record – producing, engineering, twisting knobs, and arranging sounds with us.

“On the flight home from that Boise show, Josh threw on the Spacemoth album for the first time and got his brain microwaved. He also recorded the plane taking off, just on a whim. That roar ended up in the bridge of ‘Dead Silence’. It’s a nice crusty texture, but it also weirdly bookmarks the start of it all.

Maryam’s all over this record. She sings, plays, distorts, haunts – leaving smudges on everything in the best way. She rules, and we were happy to accidentally mark the occasion sonically with a little jet-engine weirdness.”

The accompanying video is a mischievous and menacing psilocybin trip featuring cartoonishly bright, analog fuzz and crude, hand-drawn animation, and graffiti that pulses and undulates with the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: DÜÜL SUNS Shares Shimmering and Expansive “Jealousy”

New York-based psych outfit DÜÜL SUNS — James Ruffino (vocals, guitar), Kevin Muenzer (bass), Nick Grau (keys, synths, vocals) and Adam Kriney (drums) — specialize in a blend of neo-psychedelic garage rock, soulful and funky rhythms and jazzy/prog rock experimentation paired with dreamy vocals.

The New York-based quartet’s debut single “Jealousy” is a dreamy yet slick mix of 60s psych rock and 70s prog rock, featuring bursts of glistening and arpeggiated keys, Afrobeat and funk-tinged rhythm guitar and jazz-meets-blues rhythms that serve as a lush bed for dreamy melodies and some remarkably catchy hooks and a blazing guitar solo. Ultimately, “Jealousy” reveals a band that has crafted a unique and self-assured take on a familiar sound while evoking a sense of unease and dread.

Directed by the band’s Kevin Muenzer, the accompanying video for “Jealousy” is fittingly lysergic while capturing the sense of dread, unease and distrust at the core of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: N3WYRKLA Shares Sultry “Plastic Cup”

N3WYRKLA is a rising pop artist, who will supporting FERG on his upcoming The Darold Tour. Her latest single “Plastic Cup” is the lead single from her highly-anticipated full-length debut. Sonically, the track is anchored around a sleek and sultry production featuring atmospheric synths, skittering tweeter and woofer rattling trap-like thump and buzzing bass synths serving as a lush bed for the rising artist’s yearning delivery — before closing out with a classic R&B piano coda.

The rising pop artist explains that “Plastic Cup” captures the late-night temptation of reaching out to that someone — maybe even someone you really shouldn’t reach out to — after a few too many drinks. But you have needs and those needs are winning out over your common sense. Hey, we’ve all been there at some point.

Fittingly, the accompanying video is as sultry and as sensual as the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Diary Shares Jangling and Yearning “Stevie”

Rising Brooklyn-based indie outfit Diary — Kevin Bendis (vocals, keys), Chris Croarkin (guitar, vocals), High Waisted‘s Jessica Louise Dye (guitar, vocals), Two Man Giant Squid‘s Yan Kogan (bass) and Adam Sachs (drums) — can trace their origins to a shared love of jangle-pop, shoegaze, dream pop and psychedelia. 

Last year, the Brooklyn-based outfit released the Speedboat EP, an effort loosely inspired by Renata Adler’s novel of the same name that as the band explained is “about living in New York City and the neuroses that come with it.” They continue, “We’ve always been an NYC band but never fully explored what that meant to us. Living here and playing music here there’s a ceaseless oscillation between anxiety and anticipation. Even as you sleep and dream about the buildings and the hum of the street.”

Sonically, the EP’s material was inspired by Sister-era Sonic Youth, early Dinosaur Jr, Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Methadrone, Swirlies and Drop Nineteens. “But at the end of the day, we just love big pop songs that run super loud and fuzzy.”

“Stevie” is the first bit of new material since last year’s Speedboat EP. The new single is a nostalgia-inducing bit of jangle pop that recalls The Smiths and the like, while anchored around deeply introspective and seemingly lived-in lyrics, Bendis’ yearning delivery and the band’s penchant for razor sharp hooks.

“Lyrically, the song drifts through the strange intimacy that can grow through the algorithms—how a face, a stack of books, or a record sleeve glimpsed online can spiral into a fantasy,” the band explains. “It’s about longing for someone you don’t know and the sweet ache of wanting to believe in a constructed connection.”

Directed by Jane Burns, the accompanying video, which is shot on film, features the band in at a large estate/mansion goofing off and performing the song in the woods and gardens.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Starling Shares “120 Minutes”-era MTV-LIke “I Can Be Convinced”

Founded and led by Kasha Souter Willet (vocals, guitar), rising Los Angeles-based indie outfit Starling was started without a vision of what it would eventually become. Last year, the project became a full-fledged band with the addition of Erik Sathrum Johnson, Grace Rolek and Gitai Vinshtok.

With their debut EP, last year’s 2324, the quartet quickly established a sound and approach with a soft heaviness that effortlessly weaved from classic grunge to singer/songwriter and shoegaze. They combine bedroom warped production with angular leads and rich vocal melodies. Although the band’s sound is genre agnostic, the feel is a general yearning for contentment, a person, a place. The result is a vulnerable yet enthralling style of rock.

The Los Angeles-based quartet’s highly-anticipated sophomore EP, Forgive Me is slated for a June 27, 2025 release through San Antonio-based label, Sunday Drive Records. Confusion, frustration, love and loss are all expressed through the new EP’s material. Written over the course of roughly a year, the band recorded themselves in various sheds, apartments and garages. Adding to the DIY ethos, the EP was mixed by the band’s Erik Sathrum Johnson and the EP’s artwork was shot by the band and their friends. The material was mastered by Greg Obis, who has mastered work by MJ Lenderman, Wishy and Duster.

Forgive Me is a fully DIY and deeply personal effort in which the band has shaped every sonic detail themselves. So, every chord, melody, rhythm and feeling is internationally placed and wholly theirs.

The EP’s lead single “I Can Be Convinced” would fit in perfectly on a 90s grunge/120 Minutes-era MTV themed playlist as the song features angular and jangling guitars and soaring synths for the song’s verses and fuzzy and scorching power chord-driven choruses and hooks serving as woozy, barely controlled bed for thunderous drumming and Willet’s dreamily coquettish cooing. While reportedly one of the EP’s more upbeat tunes, the song is ironically deceptive with the song examining all-consuming, contradictory and confusing love that’s simultaneously exciting and confining.

“Smothered. Wrapped up in a warm blanket so tightly you cannot move. A song written about needing stillness, to be told no, to be confined all in a confused love,” the band says. “Kasha did not intend the song to take such an upbeat direction when she brought it to the band. Although it is a sad and yearning song, the beat and arrangement made this song our lead single.”

Directed by David Milan Kelly, the accompanying video for “I Can Be Convinced” was shot in and around Los Angeles and features a collection of ballerinas dancing on the streets and in the studio as the band performs the song.

“The ‘I Can Be Convinced’ music video came together with a lot of hard work from our friends who believed in the project, scraping all resources to make it happen,” the band told the folks at Flood Magazine. “David Milan Kelly is a close friend of ours who directed the video and worked with us to create a visually interesting music video that honored the feeling and matched the pacing of the song. David and Kasha both separately had the thought to add ballet dancers to the mix, so when it was brought up by Kasha, they knew it had to come to fruition. From the big white skirt Kasha found at a thrift store not knowing what it would be used for at the time of purchase, to the dancers who came ready to improvise and learn poses on the spot; as much planning as we did a lot of this came together by trusting the process and allowing things to fall into place.”

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tanika Charles Shares Sultry “Talk To Me Nice”

With the release of her first three albums, 2016’s Soul Run, 2019’s The Gumption and 2022’s Papillion de Nuit, two-time Juno Award R&B/Soul Recording of the Year-nominee and three-time Polaris Music Prize long-listed, Toronto-born and-based singer/songwriter and soul artist has made a name for herself in the Canadian and global soul scenes for crafting work that revels in unflinching honesty and a high energy, endearing live show that has won over audiences across the globe with extensive touring across North America and Europe.

Charles has made the rounds of the European festival circuit with sets at France’s Trans Musicales Festival, Germany’s Fusion Festival, and the UK’s Mostly Funk, Soul Jazz Festival, Switzerland’s Holy Groove Festival and Spain’s Canarias Jazz Festival. She has also shared stages with the likes of Estelle, Mayer Hawthorne, Hiatus Kaiyote, Lauryn Hill, Bedouin Soundclash and Macy Gray. And adding to a growing profile, the JOVM mainstay has received airplay and/or coverage from KCRW, KEXP, BBC 6 Music, Exclaim!, CBC Music, Uncut Mag, PopMatters and Albumism among others.

The acclaimed Toronto-born and-based artist’s fourth album Reasons To Stay is slated for a May 16, 2025 release through Italian purveyors of soul Record Kicks. Thematically, the album is a collection of intimate letters to members of the Canadian artist’s family, to herself and to the listener.

Reasons To Stay’s third and latest single, the Scott McCanell-produced, Kelly Finnigan-mixed “Talk To Me Nice” to my ears is warm, vibey bit of a Soul II Soul-like take on neo-soul featuring a stuttering drum pattern, a strutting bass line and a soulful flute solo serving as a lush and supple bed for the Toronto-based JOVM mainstay’s velvety, come-hither delivery.

“’Talk To Me Nice’ is an intimate, solely verbal, conversation. Working with director Taha Muharuma on the concept, we immediately gravitated to the long (landline!) phone calls of our younger years,” Tanika Charles says. “Playing around with ideas of how to depict that in an interesting way on screen, we decided a light homage to Theresa Randle’s character Judy in Spike Lee’s Girl 6 would be a fun concept that allowed a lot of freedom in looks and movement.”
 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New VIdeo: bat zoo Shares Haunting “Frozen Milk”

bat zoo is a rising American-born, Berlin-based singer/songwriter and producer, who has developed a reputation for boundless creativity — and for genre-agnostic work.

As a child, the rising artist and producer was immersed in a melting pot of musical influences, as a result of his father’s eclectic record collection. He grew up listening to soul, R&B, hip-hop and much more — and it opened his young years to kaleidoscope of sounds and styles, which helped informed his genre-blurring sound and approach.

He also brings his artistic vision to life by seamlessly blending his work with dynamic visuals. Embracing authentic and innovation, the American-born, Berlin-based artist continues to push boundaries as a jack-of-all-trades creative director of his solo recording project, a culmination of many years of trial and error. He’s extremely busy: while developing his own sound as a solo artist, he’s also a part of the acclaimed Berlin-based vocal ensemble A Song For You and one-half of R&B duo GOLDA.

bat zoo’s forthcoming EP, The Upward Bird is slated for a July 22, 2025 release through Lekker Collective. The EP’s latest single, the hauntingly minimalist, Nick Hakim-like “Frozen Milk” features the Berlin-based artist accompanying himself on strummed acoustic guitar paired with swirling electronics serving as a atmospheric bed for his achingly tender falsetto singing lyrics that touch upon themes of chaos, brief and the desperate search for balance amidst self-destruction and connection.

The bat zoo-directed and edited video for “Frozen Milk” is a stark contrast with the haunting minimalist of the song, with the visual being a whirlwind of raw emotion and vivid imagery, rooted in flashes of personal, archival footage featuring the artist and his friends not just partying, but escaping their grief, numbing themselves with fleeting, often self-destructive thrills that quickly spiral out of control. What begins as fun, turns into a desperate escape from harsh, brutal reality. But there’s also moments of love, affection and connection between lovers and friends. And those moments are often the most deeply moving, profound moments of our lives.

The song and the video reminds the viewer that while life can be brutal, harsh and unforgivingly cruel, life is most often about small but mighty measures of love, small joys and pleasures, the sweet and funny moments with our dearest ones. Without those things life would be too difficult to keep on.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Bucharest’s Alessiah Shares Sultry “Made You Cry”

Alessiah is a young, emerging and remarkably prolific Bucharest-based artist, who quickly established a sound that blends elements of pop, dance pop and electronica while showcasing a songwriter, who has a singular focus on writing songs that are rooted in the raw emotions and unvarnished honesty of a young woman at the beginning of her life’s journey.

Using art to overcome her own shyness, she is determine to create music full of positivity and to become a role model that girls — and young women — can be inspired by.

The Romanian-born and-based artist’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Obscentra is slated for an August 28, 2025 release. The album’s first single “Made You Cry” pairs Alessiah’s sultry vocal delivery with an uneasy and haunting production.

The song’s lyrics blur the line between devotion, humiliation and control, revealing a songwriter, who’s not only remarkably self-assured and mature beyond her relative youth, but who also is a astute observer of human nature. The song’s narrator points out that love is often a confusing and beguiling push and pull mix of longing, lust and humiliation with a seemingly lived-in fashion. “This song captures the emotions we don’t always want to admit to. It’s about love, but not in the way we usually define it,” the emerging Romanian artist explains.

The accompanying video for “Made You Cry” continues a run of visuals filmed in diverse, exotic and often far-flung locations, including Japan, Zanzibar, Nigeria, Spain, Italy, Greece, Hong Kong and even Dubai. And from the new video, we’re catching a budding, global pop star in the making.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: CIVIC Shares Bruising “The Hogg”

Since their formation back in 2017, Melbourne-based punks CIVIC — Jim McCullough (vocals), Roland Hlvaka (bass), Lewis Hodgson (guitar) and their newest member Eli Sthapit (drums) — have developed a reputation for reimagining the reckless intensity of proto-punk for our era of seemingly unending and unceasing uncertainty and strife.

The acclaimed Aussie outfit’s forthcoming third album, the Kirin J. Callinan-produced Chrome Dipped is slated for a May 30. 2025 release through ATO Records. Eager to step beyond the raw, unmistakably Australian punk rock sound of their first two albums, Chrome Dipped reportedly sees the band pushing into uncharted sonic terrain without scarfing the long-held fierce energy that has defined them.

The band tapped Aussie singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kirin J. Callinan to produce Chrome Dipped. And it was his idea to spend a week recording at Hobart, Tasmania‘s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), a far cry from the outback house in which the band laid down 2023’s Taken By Force. “We’ve always done our records DIY,” CIVIC’s Jim McCullough says. “This time we wanted to step up and make it sound as big as we could.”

“We kind of stuck to the rules a little bit earlier on like, do Australian punk rock properly and all that,” CIVIC’s Lewis Hodgson says. “But after touring around the world and seeing what all these other bands are up to it’s like, you can really do whatever the fuck you want. And so it’s fun to just kind of let go.”  He continues, “I hope people feel a little confused at first. Then a bit angry, and then feel good, and then interested, and then they feel like, ‘Oh, this is sick.’ That process exactly. I hope it’s a bit challenging.”

CIVIC also brought on a filmmaker to capture behind-the-scenes and in-studio footage, with plans for a longer documentary in the works. The film explores the physical and emotional place that inspired Chrome Dipped,  following the band through their journey of making the album. 

Chrome Dipped‘s second and latest single “The Hogg” which is named for its “disgusting sounding riff,” is a bruising ripper anchored around a grimy, chugging riff and thunderous drumming paired with McCullough’s punchy delivery. While continuing to channel the grime, filth and fury of their previous releases, “The Hogg” showcases a band pairing delicate lyrical imagery with sinister, deeply unpleasant overtones with a subtle studio polish.

As the band explained to Flood Magazine, the song is about “staring into the abyss and seeing nothing but its pure beauty. Surface level pleasure with sinister undertones. A porcelain dancer draped in flesh, pirouetting to the infinite beat. ‘The Hogg’ is my reality. ‘The Hogg’ is my destiny.”

Directed by Marcus Coblyn, the accompanying video for “The Hogg” features a young woman in a dinner, sitting in front of a table full of breakfast foods while on her phone and texting. In a series of trippy sequences, we see a waiter come by with another full plate of something, the woman get up to dance and we see her becoming messy with her food.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Aussies Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers Share Raucous and Rowdy “BALCONY”

Currently split between Ngunnawal/Canberra and Naarm/Melbourne, the rising Aussie indie outfit Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers — Anna Ryan they/she, vocals, guitar), Scarlett McKahey (she/her, guitar, vocals), Jaida Stephenson (she/her, bass) and Neve van Boxsel (she/her, drums) — broke out into the national and international scene with 2022’s Pretty Good For A Girl Band EP, which received praise from The Guardian and Teen Vogue, as well as airplay from triple j.

Pretty Good For a Girl Band EP‘s lead single “Girl Sports” landed at #55 on the triple j Hottest 100 list. Their full-length debut, 2023’s I Love You debuted at #6 on the ARIA Albums Chart and included “I Used To Be Fun,” which landed at #52 on the Hottest 100. That same year they opened for Foo Fighters — and they were named one of Spotify’s New Noise Artists to Watch for 2024.

Adding to a growing list of accolades, the band received a J Award-nominations for Australian Album of the Year and Song of the Year for “I Used To Be Fun,” an APRA Award-nomination for Emerging Songwriter of the Year and Rolling Stone Australia Award-nominations for Best New Artist and Best New Single. They also won an AIR Award for Best Independent Rock Album or EP, a MusicACT Award for Artist of the Year and the Michael Gudinski Breakthrough Artist ARIA Award.

Last year’s deluxe album, I Love You Too featured standout collaborations with Softcult on “Dull” and the rapidly rising The Linda Lindas on “Please Me.”

While developing a reputation as one of the Australia’s most urgent and exciting contemporary acts, the band has also received attention for their political concerns, including advocating for Green Music’s No Music on a Dead Planet, contributing to an Aussie Parliamentary inquiry into live music and being outspoken supporters of AAM’s Michael’s Rule. The rising Aussie outfit has found ways to channel their passion for music and social change into everything that they do.

The Aussie quartet’s latest single, the raucous Catherine Marks-produced “Balcony,” finds the band channeling the likes of Wet Leg, Amyl and the Sniffers and Dream Wife with the band pairing rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses with a relentless motorik groove, angular and fuzzy power chords, McKahey’s punchily coquettish delivery and a glitchy trip hop-like bridge. At its core, the song describes a desire to get out there, drink, party, flirt with some pretty young thing and just cause some fucking chaos. It’s a Friday, and you just got out of work song y’all.

“BALCONY IS FOR WHEN YOU’RE FEELING CHEEKY AND WANT TO KISS SOMEONE ON THE FACE AND GET KICKED OUT OF A BAR!!! CHAOS!!!!!” The band says.

“Balcony” marks a bold new chapter for the band, with the band expanding their signature sound with a widescreen flair. It’s the first bit of new material that came out of a five-week recording session at New South Wales-based The Grove Studios with Catherine Marks, who the band calls “a frickin’ dream.” They add “We have learnt heaps from her and have been such huge fans for so long! She’s stupidly hardworking and makes us all feel very motivated and inspired, which is hard to do when you’re locked in an isolated studio for 5 straight weeks. Hallelujah and god bless Miss Marks.” 

Directed by Nick Sullivan, the accompanying video for “Balcony” features the members of the band at a rowdy house party, including the titular balcony. Of course, there’s booze, lines for the bathroom, folks making out and hooking up — and drunk POV shots. Maybe you shouldn’t be doing that — but you know, YOLO, right?

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: L’Eclair return with Trippy House Banger “VERTIGO”

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 established a sound centered around mind-bending, cosmic grooves.

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.

L’Eclair’s fourth album Cloud Drifter is slated for a June 20, 2025 release through Innovative Leisure. Meticulously crafted over the last four years, Cloud Drifter is a decided departure from the group’s signature instrumental music, with the album’s material featuring vocal contributions from a wide array of frequent collaborators they’ve worked with over the past few years, 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. 

Earlier this month, I wrote about Cloud Drifter‘s first single “ODESSOS,” which featured Phoebe Coco‘s and A Ghost Column’s ethereal vocals paired with twinkling and oscillating synths and a dub-inspired motorik groove. While being one of the most club friendly songs the acclaimed Swiss outfit has ever released, “ODESSOS” is a bold, sonic left turn that retains the group’s long-held penchant for crafting mind-bending, expansive grooves. And perhaps more than ever, the track manages to convey the freewheeling, improvisation-driven and infectious energy of their live shows.

“VERTIGO,” Cloud Drifter‘s second and latest single is synth-driven, deep house instrumental that sounds like a synthesis of the material off 2021’s Confusions, Larry Levan-era house and krautrock, anchored around the Swiss unerring knack for hooks and mind-bending groove.

Edited by VVIDEO, the accompanying video for “VERTIGO” is a mix of kaleidoscopic and fittingly hallucinogenic imagery and footage of the band performing the song lie — sometimes simultaneously.