Led by Augusta “Gus” Alexander, indie pop project GOODTWIN derives its name as an ode to Alexander’s very good twin sister. And with the release of handful of singles over the past two years, the […]
Tag: women who kick ass
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.
New Video: Montréal’s DONALDA Share a Glitchy, Politically-Charged Banger
Montréal-based electronic dance music duo DONALDA — Florence Lafontaine and Olivier Martin-Fréchette — derive their project’s name from the name given to the first women admitted to college in Québec in the late 19th century, and is a nod to the fictional character introduced in Claude-Henri Grignon’s 1933 novel Un homme et son péché, who, for several generations, embodied the consequences of patriarchy.
Lafontaine and Martin-Fréchette both have an academic background in digital, contemporary mixed-media and instrumental composition, as well as in jazz interpretation. Inspired by UK garage, dubstep, left field bass and other British electronic music sub-genres as well as the queer nightlife scene, the duo take a pedagogical approach to music in order to deconstruct the boundaries of musical genres. While getting people onto the dance floor is their ultimate goal, they also seek to spark musical curiosity among their audience, something that is at the core of their inclusive, unifying philosophy.
Through composition, sound design and creative coding, the Montréal-based duo tap into their wide-ranging experiences to bring every stage of DONALDA’s creative process to life. And fittingly, their versatility imbued their sound with a coherent and deeply personal artistic identity rooted in a celebration of diversity and inclusion, freedom and the French language.
Earlier this year, the duo signed to Bonsound. And since then, French Canadian outfit have released “C FOU,” “C BEN D’VALEUR” and their latest single “C CHER.” Translated into English as “It’s expensive,” “C CHER” is one-part footwork, one-part Larry Levan/Chicago-styled house and one-part glitchcore with wobbling bass that references Daniel Lanois’ 1989 song “O Marie,” which focused on the grueling, back-breaking labor of French Canadians who used to work in Ontario’s tobacco fields while also being a critique of the frantic pace of capitalism and its physical and psychological effects. The result is a song that turns collective physical and mental exhaustion into a visceral, deeply universal anthem — and is both a cry of frustration and a call to question a broken system that hinders individual and collective fulfillment.
Directed by Cori & Zacksta, the accompanying visualizer features the French Canadian duo making beats, brushing their teeth, stopping a bloody nose, making beats and hanging out with VHS video glitch and in heat mapped-style footage. It’s as trippy and high energy as the song it accompanies.
New Audio: Mynolia Shares Dream-like “Take the Mountain by Surprise”
After years of constant motion and relocation, singer/songwriter and musician Mynolia decided to embark on on a new beginning, landing in the remote wilderness of the American South, where in new isolation, she began writing the songs that would eventually comprise her forthcoming, new album Salt Around My Bed. And while in the South, she found herself turning into the mundane magic unfurling all around her, making friends with her superstitions and recognizing the holiness in the most humblest of tasks — including the burning of pictures, the scattering of salt, the crushing of eggshells for the garden. Minolta conducts each ritual with equal care throughout the album, small acts of protection that hold real power.
She then brought the album to celebrated jazz musician and co-producer Rich Ruth and with the help of a talented cast of musicians and friends around the world fleshed out the material including Pete Pételle and Florian Holoubek on drums and percussion, labelmate Spencer Cullum on pedal steel, Corin Droullard on horns, Patrick McGonigle on violin and mandolin, Sam Que on bass, All Them Witches‘ Charles Michael Parks. Jr. on bass, Blood Root’s Taylor Waffford contributed backing vocals, and co-producer Rich Ruth also contributed synths, guitar and bass.
The Rich Ruth co-produced Still Around My Bed is slated for a January 15, 2027 release through Full Time Hobby and will feature the previously released singles “Needle,” “Run Like Hell” and Holy Line,” as well as the album’s latest single “Take the Mountain by Surprise.” “Take the Mountain by Surprise” is a gorgeous folksy ballad featuring strummed acoustic guitar, gently bubbling synths and bursts of distorted guitar beneath Mynolia’s earthy delivery. Sonically seeming like a blend of old-timey mountain folk, indie rock and shoegaze, “Take the Mountain by Surprise” is both remarkably contemporary and timeless.
“This song had an unconventional birth, inspired by a weird guitar tuning with which I wrote a for-fun song called ‘Sweatpants and Straitjackets’ some years ago. That B part became the guitar foundation for this track, which then came out, lyrics, parts and instrumentation all at once,” Mynolia explains. ” I remember writing and then recording this song in one sitting after a severe rainstorm had washed out part of the mountain road to my house. An act-of-God natural boundary formed between my home and the outside world and it was exactly what I needed. I took it to Florian Holoubek for drums and then to Rich Ruth for final production, mix, and synth flourishes. ‘I wish the creek would rise, take the mountain by surprise / As the landslide pulls away there’s space for me too, today.’ Making yourself small for others to find you more digestible usually has an expiration date. Better to confess in song and set that boundary, as a mudslide won’t always do it for you.”
New Audio: SAOL Shares Earnest and Rousingly Anthemic “Lines”
Irish singer/songwriter and musician Zoë Gough is the creative mastermind of the recording project SAOL, a project that showcases a genre-bending sound that weaves elements of shoegaze, indie rock and grunge paired with vivid lyricism, catchy hooks and an uncanny knack for melodicism. The project is rooted in Gough’s dedication to engaging with music as a social platform while documenting her journey to situating herself within an Ireland that has undergone rapid change while holding onto the strands of the past that tie together the future and finding a way forward.
Gough’s work with SAOL has been played on RTE, RTE 2xm, Galway City Flirt FM and has received national radio play on Ireland’s Radio Nova while drawing comparisons to Hole, The Cranberries, My Bloody Valentine, Sinead O’Connor, and Garbage.
The Irish artist’s latest single “Lines”is a hook-driven tune anchored around earnest songwriting and performances, rousingly anthemic sing along worthy hooks and choruses, fuzzy power chords paired with her powerhouse delivery. While drawing comparisons to Hole, The Cranberries, Smashing Pumpkins and contemporaries like Soccer Mommy and Snail Mail, “Lines” draws out the prolonged process of loss and reckons with being the one left alone.
Throwback: Happy Belated 56th Birthday, MC Lyte!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates MC Lyte’s 56th birthday.
New Audio: Umeå’s Mi Von Ahn Shares Atmospheric “Yet All Drifts”
Over the course of two albums and four EPs, Umeå, Sweden-based singer/songwriter, musician and self-described sound artist Mi von Ahn creates evocative, dreamlike indie rock with intensity and presence that carries a introspective melancholy and a bit of northern Swedish wistful within a lush, dynamic soundscape in which stark open spaces meet inland forests. Her debut album, 2018’s Signals earned a Swedish GAFFA Award nomination for Best Newcomer. And adding to a now-established national profile, she has toured as an opener for The Soundtrack of Our Lives, Ane Brun, Loney Dear, and Christian Kjelvander.
The Umeå-based artist’s third album Delta Veins is slated for a November 6, 2026 release. Co-written and produced alongside Martin Hederos and Anton Sundell, the album sees Von Ahn pushing her sound into a new territory — widescreen and sweeping indie rock with trip-hop and shoegaze-inspired textures. The album’s material moves constantly between the personal and the collective, often without drawing a clear line between them. A song about holding onto an unsustainable relationship is, at the same time, a song about standing beside a burning climate crisis without acting, even while knowing better. Whether a song is about a relationship, identity, or the climate crisis, there’s an undercurrent of searching beneath it.
Delta Veins also marks the first time in the Swedish artist’s career that she has written and sung lyrics in multiple languages with passages in English, Swedish and Sámi woven together throughout the album.
Album single “Yet All Drifts” is a slow-burning tune that eschews conventional verse-chorus-verse song structures in order to let the song’s atmospheric and painterly, shoegazer-inspired textures settle into its own shape, paired with trip-hop-like breakbeats and the Swedish artist’s sultry delivery. Sonically, the result is a song that to my ears seems like a blend of 90s singer/songwriter pop rock like Joan Osbourne‘s “What If God Is One of Us?,” Portishead, Radiohaed and a bit of a A Storm in Heaven-era The Verve to create a song that’s intimate yet expansive, peaceful yet deeply restless, evoking a change that’s felt before they’re seen.
“The song is written from a dreamlike state that can arise when, instead of fighting it, you manage to accept the inevitable change and let yourself drift with it,” says Von Ahn. “On the surface everything is still, but underneath a slow, almost invisible shift is taking place. A sense that we are not victims of the change, we are the change.”
Throwback: Happy 57th Birthday, PJ Harvey!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates PJ Harvey’s 57th birthday.
New Audio: Twin Temple Shares Breathtakingly Gorgeous “Nothing Matters”
Formed back in 2017, Twin Temple — married couple Alexandra and Zachary James — are an acclaimed Los Angeles-based duo, who specialize in a new sub-genre and style that they’ve dubbed “Satanic Doo Wop,” which blends their practice of Satanism with a sound that’s influenced by The Platters, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly and the like.
The Los Angeles-based duo have developed for being one of the contemporary scene’s most talked about crossover acts, earning widespread coverage from media outlets like Rolling Stone, NME, Billboard, American Songwriter, Stereogum, Consequence, Revolver, Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Loudwire, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times and a long list of others, and for being one of the most provocative acts out there right now. Their uncompromising artistic vision routinely sparks much larger and more serious conversations about artistic freedom, religious freedom, freedom of expression, censorship, the role of controversy in art, and on a broader sense, the wider role of art within the cultural landscape.
Now, some of y’all heard of the acclaimed Los Angeles-based duo after Charley Crockett abruptly dropped the band from his tour earlier this year — specifically because of their usage of Satanic imagery. That led to Jack White publicly inviting the band to open for his Los Angeles show back in September. And serendipitously, the duo’s highly-anticipated third album Doomed Lovers will come right on the heels of their latest, and arguably biggest controversy to date.
Slated for an October 9, 2026 release through their own Pentagrammation Records, the Shooter Jennings-produced Doomed Lovers was recorded at Hollywood-based Sunset Sound‘s iconic Studio 3 and marks the acclaimed duo’s boldest chapter to date.
Born from one of the darkest periods of their personal lives, Doomed Lovers is reportedly their most intimate and emotionally revealing work to date. Expanding upon the cinematic scope of the sound that has won them acclaim while remaining rooted in the timeless sound and traditions of early rock ‘n’ roll, the album is their most ambitious and fully realized artistic statement so far. The album continues the band’s commitment to analog recording while expanding upon their sound with lush orchestral arrangements performed by a 37-member orchestra. Yes, 37!
“We poured everything into this new record that we made with Shooter,” says the acclaimed and controversial duo. “We wanted to push ourselves creatively and expand the production further than we have before, drawing inspiration from the lush orchestral productions of Roy Orbison, The Ronettes, and The Shangri-Las, and added in some Countrypolitan flair. We brought in some incredible musicians like Matt Chamberlain and Jay Bellerose, and a 37-piece orchestra. We wanted to make something as beautiful as we possibly could – of course with our dark spin on things.”
The truth is, this album was made during one of the darkest periods of our lives. We had been struggling with grief, health issues, addiction, and depression. But day by day, going into Sunset Sound, making music with incredible people who believed in us, and being surrounded by that creativity slowly brought us back to life. We started smiling and laughing again. I was becoming alive again. It connected us to why we fell in love with music in the first place and became our most personal album yet.”
The album will include the previously released, “Doomed Lovers,” and “Haunt Me,” as well as the album’s last pre-release single “Nothing Matters.” “Nothing Matters” continues a remarkable run of breathtakingly gorgeous and cinematic material that to my ears at least, sounds a bit like a blend of Patsy Cline with Roy Orbison, anchored by a similar aching sense of loss and grief.
“‘Nothing Matters’ was born out of the bleakest, lowest point of depression and apathy following a devastating loss, functioning as a modern day Gothic lament for a love that refuses to die,” Twin Temple’s Alexandra and Zachary James say. “Channeling a kind of Nihilistic and Byronic romanticism, the song tackles the abject feelings of hopelessness, disorientation, and loss of self that profound grief evokes. We wanted to make something beautiful out of that experience, pairing the tragic narrative weight with the lush, cinematic sweep of a 37-piece orchestra.”
Throwback: Happy 59th Birthday, Toni Braxton!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Toni Braxton’s 59th birthday.
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.
New Video: Delivery Shares Club Friendly Art School Rock Tune “Measuring Cup”
Rising Melbourne-based indie outfit Delivery — Bec Allen (bass, vocals), James Lynch (guitar, synths, vocals), Scarlett Maloney (guitar, vocals), Jordan Oakley (guitar) and Liam Kenny (drums, vocals) — emerged from their hometown’s COVID pandemic lockdowns and quickly established a sound that blends elements of post-punk, punk, garage rock and dance floor rhythms into something distinctly their own. The quintet have built moment with the release of last year’s Force Majuere, which Rolling Stone called a “statement of intent” and relentless touring to support the album, becoming one of Oz’s most compelling and restless rock bands.
The rising Aussie quintet’s highly-anticipated third album Zone 3 is slated for a February 26, 2027 release through Heavenly Recordings. Zone 3 reportedly marks a new chapter for the rising Aussie quintet. Written in the wake of extensive time on the road, the album captures Delivery as a fully-formed unit that’s confident enough to trust their instincts and adventurous enough to push beyond the sounds that initially defined them.
Conceived as a late-night record, Zone 3 is specifically for crowded bars, packed dance floors, darkened clubs and the hazy hours before sunrise. Sonically you’ll hear rigid drum-machine driven grooves, synth pulses, wiry guitar bursts, hypnotic baselines and vocals that effortlessly shift between detached cool and infectious urgency.
Recorded in a furious 12-day session at Melbourne-based York Street Studios with producer Dan Lusscombe and engineer Stefan Blair,. the Aussie quintet’s third album reportedly finds them at their most focused, playful and expansive — and may arguably be their boldest effort to date.
Znne 3′s first single “Measuring Cup” is hook-driven tune anchored around a hypnotic, motorik groove, wiry post-punk guitar lines and pulsing synths paired with coolly delivered vocals. The result is a song that sonically to my ears is one-part Sonic Youth-like art punk, one-part pub rock and stoner rock bombast, one-part dance punk.
“There is a certain kind of pressure in modern society to be vigilant about who someone is, what they stand for and if they are ‘your people,'” Delivery says. “But it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a challenge to engage positively with people who hold different values or stances, and a celebration when you know you’ve found someone who aligns with you, whether that’s politically, socially, or personally. ‘Measuring Cup’ is like an invitation to get on a level together and join the club.”
Directed by the band’s Scarlett Maloney, the accompanying video for “Measuring Cup” features the members of the band as they plan and then commit a perfectly planned, perfectly executed heist, complete with an inside man. And the only way it could have been possible was that they were all with their people.
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New Audio: JOVM Mainstay Elisapie’s Ethereal Take on The Cranberries’ “Dreams”
Acclaimed Salluit, QC-born, Montréal-based singer/songwriter, musician, actor, activist and JOVM mainstays Elisapie‘s fourth album, 2023’s Inuktitut features inventive re-imaginings of songs by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Blondie, Fleetwood Mac, Metallica and more, with the album being an act of cultural re-appropriation that reinvigorates the poetry of these beloved songs by placing them within Inuit traditions.
Through the album’s 10 songs, the acclaimed Montréal-based artist tells her story, while offering its songs as a loving gift to her close knit community. But the album is also a testament to the power and remarkably universality of pop music and an ode to the experiences, memories, places and people, who have shaped us.
Recorded for the CBC, APTN and Netflix original series North of North, “Sinnatuumakka (Dreams)” marks the first bit of new material since 2023’s Inuktitut and sees the acclaimed Inuk artist translating and adapting The Cranberries‘ beloved smash-hit 1992 song “Dreams” into her mother tongue. While retaining the familiar and beloved melody of the original, Elisapie’s rendition of the song is a slightly slowed down, more ethereal take that pulls a yearning, escapist thread out to the forefront.
“It’s a song that really resonates with the Inuit world,” says Elisapie. “In the North, it’s cold, and life isn’t always easy. That’s why dreams take on a special place. They’re a way to escape and imagine something else.“
North of North‘s second season, which includes episodes featuring the acclaimed Iunk artist and her new song will launch globally on Netflix later this fall. Set in the Canadian Arctic, the show’s second season sees Siaja (Anna Lambe) still making bold decisions and even bolder mistakes in her effort to level up her life and prove she’s ready to take charge as winter closes in on the Ice Cove community. “It was very moving to see Siaja’s character open up and dream throughout the episodes,” Elisapie says. “This series allows us to dream, and I think the Inuit need that.”
Elisapie was invited by Red Marrow Media and Northwood Entertainment, North of North‘s production team to take part in the show’s second season, which was filmed earlier this year in Iqaluit, NU and Toronto. In addition to making a cameo, she can be seen performing “Sinnatuumakka (Dreams)” and “Arnaq.”
“During the shoot, there were times when I wasn’t sure if it was reality or fiction,” says Elisapie. “And I was lucky enough to share this experience with my band!”
“When we wrapped, Elisapie played a couple more songs just for the crowd so they could enjoy a performance without having to hold back their reactions,” say Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, North of North’s co-creators and executive producers, and founders of Red Marrow Media. “She dedicated a song to any residential school survivors in the room, and there wasn’t a dry eye. There are a few hundred Inuit who will carry that experience with them for the rest of their lives, us included.”