Tag: women who kick ass

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Womack Sisters Share Strutting and Urgent “Chauffeur”

Rising Los Angeles-based soul trio The Womack Sisters — Kucha, Zeimani and BG — can trace the origins of their careers to their childhood: The trio were singing before they could even walk. They grew up on stages and in studios across the globe, singing behind their parents, as well as their legendary uncle, Bobby Womack. And adding to The Womack Sisters’ remarkable pedigree, their grandfather was the iconic Sam Cooke. 

No matter where they called home at the time — London, Thailand, Amsterdam, Kenya, West Virginia, The Bahamas — music and family were always a constant at the center of their lives. Of course, as the sisters grew up, each with their own respective journeys, experiences and heartaches, they managed to find their own voices and their own path.

Each member of the trio has their own individual vocal, but they playfully trade leads and effortlessly (and perfectly) blend their harmonies in a way that only siblings can. 

Back in 2016, a mutual friend introduced The Womack Sisters to Daptone Records co-owner and producer Gabriel Roth, a.k.a. Bosco Mann, who heard them sing and fell quickly and deeply in love with their voices. Shortly after, they met, they went to Daptone’s Riverside, CA-based Penrose Studios to record their label debut, “If You Want Me“/”I Just Don’t Want You (To Say Goodbye).”

The rising Los Angeles trio’s long-awaited self-titled, full-length debut is slated for an August 14, 2026 through Daptone Records. The album’s latest single “Chauffeur” is a strutting bit of old-school-inspired soul that showcases the trio’s remarkable vocal range, impeccable sense of harmony and their deeply personal, lived-in lyrics.

On “Chauffeur,” the sisters recount the trials, tribulations they each faced while trying to make ends meet as Uber drives. In each of their respective verses, they recount the hustle and drive required to make ends meet — by any legal means possible — while having greater ambitions, and grappling with the futility of trying to stack meager fares into rent money. While deeply soulful, the song evokes the drive, unease, desperation and seething frustration of someone who has to grind — to barely survive. And it’s rooted in the plain language of struggle and cash flow.

“’Chauffeur’  is about the hustle of life that we all are in – the day to day, trying to survive, and looking forward to your day in the sun,” The Womack Sisters’ Zeimani Womack says. “It’s a song for the underdogs, and the encouragement to keep pushing. Things can be rough and get a little rocky, but as long as you have the faith, you will make it.”

Directed by Shauna Presto, the stylishly shot accompanying video features each of The Womack Sisters as the song’s titular chauffeur, driving passengers who seem completely unconcerned sit in the back seat. They may be struggling to survive but they have their dignity and their dreams of making it.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Sécurité Shares Punchy, Dance Punk Anthem “Deny”

Acclaimed Montréal-based JOVM mainstay collective La Sécurité — Éliane Viens (vocals, synths, percussion and drums), Félix Bélisle (bass, synths, percussion, piano and production), Kenny Smith (drum, guitar), Laurence Anne Charest-Gagné (guitar, percussion, vocals) and Melissa Di Menna (guitar, synths, vocals, percussion and artwork) — specialize in a brand of art punk that’s equal parts jumpy beats, off-kilter arrangements and minimalistic melodic hooks run through an insomniac filter that’s the result of excessive exposure to the city’s neon-lit late night scene. 

The Canadian art punk collective’s music is about living dangerously and is prefect for being blasted at deafening levels on dance floors. But lyrically, the material is deeply inspired by and shares the ethos of the Riot Grrl movement, celebrating and defiantly advocating for the autonomization of women, friendship and benevolence. 

Since the release of 2023’s full-length debut, Stay Safe!, which landed on the Polaris Music Prize long-list, the Montréal-based art punks have released 2024’s Stay Safe! REMIXED and last year’s “Detour” and “Ketchup.” Along with receiving critical praise both nationally and internationally, the outfit has made the run of the intentional festival circuit, playing sets at M for Montréal, New Colossus Festival, SXSW, End of the Road, The Great Escape, Reeperbahn and Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. They’ve toured as an opener for The Go! Team and The Rapture. And they’ve shared stages with Mauskovic Dance Band and JOVM mainstays Automatic and Death Valley Girls. During that whirlwind period, they also signed with Simon Raymonde‘s label Bella Union. 

The JOVM mainstay act’s highly-anticipated, Emmanuel Éthier and Félix Bélisle co-produced sophomore album Bingo! is slated for a June 12, 2026 release through Mothland in Canada and the States, and Bella Union for the rest of the world. The new album reportedly sees the band continuing to meander in and around the fringes of punk, new wave krautrock and dance punk, while mischievously flouting stylistic form every change they get. While continuing to implement polyrhythm, counterintuitive chord changes and subtle melodic and harmonic dissonance, the album reportedly sees them introducing more New Wave, no wave, noise rock and shoegaze elements to the sound that has won them intentional acclaim. 

The album’s material features songs that tackles knotty themes like mental health, the autonomization of women, dysfunctional relationships with their custom moxie. Other songs playfully muse about food or address everyday mundanity with sarcasm and irony. There’s a song that celebrates unsung heroes, like the elderly. Much like its predecessor, many of the album’s tracks saw the group improvising lyrics in the studio, effectively catching lightning in a bottle. 

The album was recorded with the band playing live off-the-floor, using rare ribbon microphones and vintage compressors. Adding to the overall free-flowing feel and vibe to the album’s material, many of the song’s hooks were improvised through jazz-tinged musical flights during recording sessions. The album was mixed by Bélisle and Étheir before being mastered by Robin Schmidt. 

The result is an album that harnesses the Montréal-based art punks’ natural sound, a sound that fuses calculated musical chaos and musicality with high decibels. 

Bingo! will feature the previously released “Detour” “Ketchup,” album title track “Bingo,” “Snack City,” and the album’s last pre-release single “Deny.” “Deny” is arguably Bingo!‘s most dance floor friendly song, anchored around a driving four-to-the-floor rhythm, funky polyrhythmic bass lines, slashing guitar volleys, squiggling synth blasts paired with the occasionally complex yet groovy drum fill paired with a punchy yet stern vocal exposing a noxious, dysfunctional relationship before bolting from it.

“Initially written in French and translated to English, the song deals with dysfunctional relationships and getting rid of burdens in your life. Standing up for yourself. This doesn’t work for me; I’m out,” the band explains. “The bass hook was stolen from Standard Emmanuel, Félix’s solo project…”

Directed by Béatrice Cuierrier-Legualt, the accompanying video showcases the uniqueness of each band member — with a playful nod at Tumblr and other digital creation methods. “I wanted to visually create tableaus for each character, based on different homogeneous æsthetics, centered around the concept of denial,” Cuierrier-Legault explains. “It was by delving into the band’s intimacy and consulting their personal archives that five characters were born, each representing a member and their unique traits. I wanted each character to embody elements from their real lives amidst the alter ego.Since La Sécurité is mainly composed of millennials, I wanted to highlight 90s and post-punk influences, but also the arrival of the internet and new digital creation methods.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 84th Birthday, Tammy Wynette!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 84th anniversary of Tammy Wynette’s birth.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 70th Birthday, Sharon Jones!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 70th anniversary of the birth of Sharon Jones.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Hannah Scott Shares Thoughtful and Politically charged “Sitting In The Dark”

Suffolk-born, London-based folk artist Hannah Scott will be releasing her newest EP Threads on June 19, 2026. Threads is the follow-up to Scott’s widely praised third album, 2024’s Absence of Doubt.

The EP marks the first effort the Suffolk-born, London-based has both written and self-produced. She worked alongside acclaimed engineer Adrian Hall and recorded piano, acoustic guitar and vocals at home — with a makeshift vocal booth in her wife’s wardrobe. The EP’s material is inspired by family, nostalgia and grief — and perhaps in a small, unexpected way, a desire to change the rental market for the better. (Shit, you got me there, lady!)

The EP’s second and latest single “Sitting In The Dark” showcases Scott’s thoughtful storytelling rooted in a subtle yet powerful critique of capitalism and the local rental market, calling out the greedy developers, landlords and others, who have helped to put her narrator in a lousy apartment that she can barely afford with shitty furniture and power outages.

I have a shitty and greedy landlord, so this song hit close to home. You’ve most likely have been there, too.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: SHOLTO Teams Up with Phoebe Coco on Brooding and Atmospheric “Everything is Stolen Anyway”

Initially known as being one-half of indie outfit Sunglasses for Jaws, the rising London-based producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Oscar “Sholto” Robertson grew up with with a deep and abiding love of jazz, soul, krautrock and soundtracks from the 60s and 70s. As a producer, Robertson honed his production skills under the guidance and tutelage of Allah-Las‘ Nick Waterhouse and Inflo.

A handful of years ago, Roberston stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist with his recording project, SHOLTO. And with SHOLTO, the rising London-based multi-instrumentalist has firmly cemented a cinematic take on instrumental, psychedelic soul. 

Now, as you may recall Roberton’s sophomore SHOLTO album, last year’s 12-song The Sirens was recorded at the JOVM mainstay’s Hackney-based SJF Studio, and the album saw him continuing an ongoing collaboration with a familiar cast of musicians, including Syd Kemp (bass), Clementine Brown (strings) and Rachel Horton Kitchlew (harp) to craft an album that’s emotionally unflinching and explores themes of duality temptation and emotional dissociation, “blurring grief with groove, seduction and surrender,” as Robertson says.

Sonically, The Sirens saw Robertson building upon the groove-driven, string-soaked soundscapes and ethereal textures that have won him attention in the UK and beyond but while evoking a haunting, uneasy fever dream.

Robertson’s latest single, “Everything is Stolen Anyway” sees the JOVM mainstay diving deeper into his long-held trip-hop influences with a brooding, jazz groove-driven arrangement that seemingly channels Portishead, Tales of Us-era Goldfrapp and No Angel-era Dido among others.. The song also features frequent collaborator Phoebe Coco‘s mesmerizing, whiskey and longing soaked vocal.

“Everything Is Stolen Anyway” is rooted in two central concepts: the comfort in repetition and that nothing we feel or think is entirely new. “Moments of love, loss, wonder and the quiet awe of the sea’s tide arrive to us as if they’re ours alone, yet they’ve all been lived before. Borrowed feelings, borrowed time,” the two collaborators say.

“’Everything is Stolen Anyway’ leans into the thought that art works the same way; every melody, every painting, every idea carries echoes of something earlier,” Robertson and Coco continue. “Songs are fragments passed forward, reshaped, reframed, and retold through new hands and new voices. In that sense, nothing is truly original. But the first time you hear or feel something, it becomes new again.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Dominque and the Diamonds Share Heartbreakingly Gorgeous “I Don’t Mind”

Led by Colombian-American frontwoman Dominque Gomez, Los Angeles-based country band Dominique and the Diamonds can trace their origins back to 2024: the band came together on a whim, after Gomez was asked to perform a country set at the local summertime concert series The Grand Ole Echo. 

Friends from cosmic country outfit Caravan 222 and rock band Triptides were recruited to play as Gomez’s backing band, and over the course of the subsequent year started to gain attention locally for a sound that seemingly channeled Linda Ronstadt, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Townes Van Zandt and the Laurel Canyon sound — but with a contemporary feel. 

The Los Angeles-based outfit’s Glenn Brigman-produced full-length studio debut album Honky Tonk Queen is slated for a June 26, 2026 release. Recorded at Crestline, CA-based Skyforest Sound, the group tracked the album’s material on tape with a Tascam 388 and then mixed digitally, offering that old-timey/classic grit while being remarkably modern. “The recording sessions for Honky Tonk Queen had such a family vibe to them,” Brigman says. “The band would leave the city behind and trek up to my cabin in the mountains where we recorded on tape, built fires, listened to Grateful Dead records, drank wine… I even made some homemade country biscuits for breakfast just to make sure we had all the vibes dialed in properly. And of course we celebrated after the last session with a night out at the local mountain saloon.”

Brigman is also heavily featured on every song playing a variety of vintage Rhoes, Wurlitzer, piano, Mellotron, organ and some lead guitar, making Brigman the unofficial fifth member of the band.

Honky Tonk Queen reportedly sees the Los Angeles-based quartet summoning the spirt of 1970s Sunset Strip and Laurel Canyon, weaving vintage-era country storytelling with shimmering, reverb-kissed pedal steel and gorgeous harmonies and melodies. While their sound openly and lovingly draws from the likes of The Flying Burrito Brothers, Exile from Main Street-era Stones, Harvest-era Neil Young and Townes Van Zandt, the album’s material never feels imitative; in fact, the band reinterprets those influences through a distinctly contemporary lens in which dreamy and cosmic textures meet down-to-earth, lived-in storytelling.

Fittingly, the album is the product of Dominique Gomez’s comfortably poised footing as a California-based country artist. “I’m a vocalist first. But I grew up singing all kinds of genres, country being one of them. In my younger days, I couldn’t really decide on which one I wanted to pursue more because I just loved it all,” Gomez says. As a working songwriter, who has worked in the worlds of sync and music libraries since 2020, the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter found strength and reassurance in country. “I’ve always written different types of songs; soul, pop, rock, country, R&B, blues, etc. But I kept getting hired to write more and more country songs,” she recalls. This helped pushed Gomez to dive deeper within country, and the release of the band’s debut will mark one of many milestones in her career.

Representation is central to the album. The Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter is proudly Latina and she carries that identity into every performance. Her visibility and leadership are deeply intentional: to create a space where her community feels safe, seen and accepted in a genre that admittedly has a troubled history and is still evolving — albeit sometimes, slower than it should. ““I had my hesitations of getting involved in country music for many reasons, but being a daughter of Colombian immigrants was by far the biggest reason why I didn’t think I would fit in. I’m half white and half Colombian but very Latina presenting.”

But as the band progressed and began to build a fanbase, she quickly realized how important her role was, “Connecting with our fans on tour is what really did it for me. In Sacramento, I had a girl come up to me after the show and tell me, ‘I love country music but I don’t feel safe in those spaces being Latina. Because of you, I feel safe to love it now,'” Gomez recalls. “Representation matters and I hope to continue to deliver safety and inclusion to everyone who comes to our shows or listens to our music.” Though the band sounds nostalgic, they’re also a promise — that classic country can expand its circle, embrace new voices and still honor the soulful and gritty roots that inspired it.

Honky Tonk Queen‘s latest single, album title track “I Don’t Mind” is a classic country-styled ballad that showcases some gorgeous, shimmering pedal steel, Gomez’s mesmerizing delivery and her lived-in, story-as-song driven songwriting rooted in a mix of heartache, uncertainty, hope and gratitude.

“I moved to LA in 2021 for music, but the entire reason I ended up in southern CA in the first place was from fleeing a dangerous relationship in the Bay Area,” Gomez recalls. “I didn’t want to leave West Marin. I was heartbroken over that, not so much the relationship itself. I had plans of making it back to that small coastal town I lived in, but when I found out my ex had planted roots there, I knew it wouldn’t be safe for me to go back.” Though Gomez’s heart will always live in that small town, she also knew that Los Angeles had much bigger plans for her

“Moving to LA was the best decision of my life. Yes, what I had experienced was terrible, but unfortunately, I don’t think I would have ended up here if I hadn’t gone through it all. There would be no Dominique and the Diamonds, no songwriting opportunities, no touring. This incredible, dream-like life that I live now because of this project would have never existed. So in the end, I don’t mind that my ex took that old dream away from me. This is exactly where I’ve always wanted to be all along.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 78th Birthday, Kate Pierson!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates The B-52’s co-founder Kate Pierson’s 78th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 56th Birthday, T-Boz!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates TLC’s Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins’ 56th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sugar World Shares Buzzy “Terra Incognita”

Los Angeles-based duo Sugar World — Ryan and Katryn Stanley — can trace its origins back to 2013: The duo started their careers in earnest a member of the Tallahassee-based bedroom pop outfit Naps. After Naps split up in 2016, Ryan and Katryn Stanley started releasing a series of singles and EP as Sugar World, which saw the pair crafting a sound that’s an idiosyncratic mix of lo-fi, twee pop and fuzzy electronica.

The duo released their Sugar World full-length debut, Lost & Found back in 2022. But since 2024, the Los Angeles-based duo have been increasingly exploring a more digital sound that draws from noise pop, hyper pop and underground internet hip-hop that features fuzzy, distorted guitar noise and blown out autotuned vocals.

Their sophomore album supercassettevision is slated for release later this year. The album, which will include the previously released “In Magazines,” will see the band further cement what they’ve dubbed a “new version of classic twee pop for the 2020s” that combines catchy melodies with harsher noisy elements.

supercassettevision’s second and latest single “Terra Incognita” derives its title from the Latin phrase “unknown land,” and sonically seems to channel a woozily lysergic synthesis of Mogwai and Evil Heat-era Primal Scream. The band explains that the song “was an experiment to see if we could bring our indie rock and jangle pop songwriting into a sonic environment inspired by electronic music and digicore. It’s fundamentally about making a bunch of money and then putting that money into car, and then driving the car off a cliff.”

Fittingly, the accompanying visual is comprised of fuzzy, VHS-style shot footage, treated in harsh color negatives. The result is a video that videos the lysergic buzz of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: TANGIENTS Share Dream-like “The Ether”

Los Angeles-based duo TANGIENTS — multi-instrumentalists Chelsea Ray and Be Hussey — specialize in a unique take on shoegaze that draws from 80s post-punk, 90s shoegaze and dream pop anchored around Chelsea Ray’s dream-like delivery […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Afterlife Shares Atmospheric and Yearning “Lovers Maze”

Currently split between Paris and Copenhagen, Danish-born Olivia Danielsson is a multidisciplinary artist with a background that spans both music and fashion. Danielsson is also the creative mastermind behind the emerging indie pop solo recording project Afterlife.

With Afterlife, the Danish-born artist’s work reflects a cross-disciplinary approach in which visual and sonic elements are created in parallel. And as a result, her releases exist within a cohesive expanding universe that sees her exploring emotional and existential states unfolding through an intimate inner dialogue. Sonically, her work moves between ambient pop and experimental pop, rooted in an atmospheric, otherworldly quality.

Danielsson’s latest Afterlife single, The Bird-produced “Lovers Maze” is a hook-driven bit of electro pop featuring glistening synth arpeggios effortlessly gliding over a pulsing, Giorgio Moroder-like baseline paired with the Danish artist’s ethereal and yearning croon. The result is a song that evokes the sort of woozy, euphoric haze shared in the intimate moments between lovers with an uncanny, seemingly lived-in precision.

Shot on grainy VHS-styled analog film, the accompanying video follows the Danish artist in a long red dress wandering through a Danish forest. It’s one part music video, one-part fashion shoot.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tricky Teams Up with Marta Złakowska on Breakneck “Out of Place”

Trip hop pioneer Tricky will be releasing his 15th studio album, Different When It’s Silent July 17, 2026 through his own label, False Idols. The new album is the first full-length effort from the legendary and influential artist and producer under his own name in six years.

Different When It’s Silent came about during a rather prolific period of activity. Since 2020’s Fall to Pieces, Tricky has released material under several different guises including, Lonely Guest‘s 2021 self-titled effort, a collaboration with Mike Theis, called Theis Thaws, which released 2024’s Fifteen Days and last year’s collaborative album with Marta Złakowska, Out The Way.

Returning to releasing an album under his own name took on a different shape. Recored between Tricky’s home in France and sessions in Bristol, the album is reportedly a direct, focused batch of material that reconnects with the distinct sonic language that has defined the legendary artist and producer’s work since 1995’s iconic Maxinquaye. And he does by drawing deeply on the musical community that has shaped him and his work. Central to the album’s sound is Bristol-based vocalist Mitch Sanders, whose soulful falsetto is featured through such of the album’s songs. Their deep connection reflects a shared musical background and an instinctive chemistry between the pair.

“In my mind it was another side project” Tricky explains. But after hearing the material, his manager Alan McGee felt the songs clearly belonged to a Tricky record.

The 14-song Different When It’s Silent sonically sees Tricky blending skeletal blues, brooding electronics, distorted guitars and stark hip-hop rhythms into a sound that’s simultaneously stripped-back and expansive. The album moves fluidly across different styles while rooted in the restless experimentation that has long defined Tricky’s work over the past three-plus decades.

“I just love making music” Tricky says. “I’m grateful I’ve had the chance to live this life and keep creating.”

Different When It’s Silent‘s first single “Out of Place” feat. Marta Złakowska features a brooding and cinematic string sample introduction before morphing to a breakneck middle section which features Tricky’s imitable gravelly vocal with a punchy, almost punk-like deliver and Złakowska’s sultry yet restrained crooning. The song closes with a boarding and cinematic string sample. The result is as song that’s simultaneously forceful, uneasy and gorgeous while evoking the sweaty, self-aware sensation of somehow being out of place in your environment through a shifting series of contrasts.

Originally written for Złakowska’s own album, Tricky ultimately reclaimed the song for the forthcoming album.

Directed and edited by Steve Gullick, the accompanying video for “Out of Place” features the collaborators shot in blurred and constant motion in the foreground. In the background we see stylishly shot footage of each artist singing their respective part — or just being in a brooding photo shoot. It further emphasizes the feeling of being out of place.