Tag: women who kick ass

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

Lyric Video: Bee Blackwell Shares Earnest, “120 Minutes”-Era MTV-Like “LALALA”

Bee Blackwell is a rising Austin-based singer/songwriter and musician, who back in 2023 began posting covers of her favorite emo and grunge song online, which helped to create a fanbase that revels in her brand of heartfelt and cathartic music. What began as covers, quickly accumulated into her debut EP, that year’s Calico, an effort that featured fan favorite “Blue.”

The past year or so have been very busy for Blackwell, she released three singles “Dumb,” “The Same” and “Signs.” She made her SXSW debut this past March, along with a handful of energetic live shows around Texas. And with a few months of free time, the rising Texan-based artist wrote and her recorded her highly-anticipated sophomore EP, Nine Lives.

Slated for a June 30, 2025 release, Nine Lives EP reportedly serves as a sort of personal diary entry, exposing her struggles, emotional hardships and life goals. While seeing Blackwell at her most introspective and daring, taking creative risks while maintaining the vulnerability and honesty that has won her fans. Sonically, the EP’s material showcases her knack for clear and atmospheric guitar hooks, smooth calming grooves paired with her love of 90s grunge and 2000s emo.

Self-produced and recorded at Sonic Ranch Studio over a three-day, breakneck stint, the Austin-based artist’s latest single “LALALA” is a decidedly upbeat 120 Minutes-era MTV-like tune, anchored around fuzzy, distorted yet dreamy guitars, swelling synths, Blackwell’s ethereal delivery that builds up to perfectly 90s grunge inspired bridge. And at its core, the song showcases a songwriter, who seems to effortlessly pair catchy hooks with earnest, lived-in lyricism.

“‘LALALA’ is a conversation between two people who haven’t spoken to each other in probably years, with all the weird boundaries and walls that have built up over the time lost,”  Blackwell says. “There’s a sense of familiarity, but you still don’t know if you can fully trust them, so you just make things up to fill silence or to seem interesting.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 69th Birthday, Sharon Jones!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 69th anniversary of the birth of Sharon Jones.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Berlin’s Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys Share Brooding “Reaching”

Over the course of six studio albums, Berlin-based art rock outfit Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys — South African-born Lucy Kruger (vocals, guitar), Liú Mottes (guitar), Jean-Louise Parker (viola, vocals), Sally Whitton (bass) and Gidon Carmel (drums) — has firmly established a sound that blends elements of art pop, ambient noise and dark folk, while drawing comparisons to Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey and Aldous Harding.

Recipients of the Europavox Spotlight Prize back in June 2023, the band has built up a profile across the European Union and elsewhere with sets across the global festival circuit, including Orange Blossom Special, InMusic, Roadburn, Grauzone, Reeperbahn, MENT, Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Fusion Festival, Left of The Dial, Synästhesie, The New Colossus Festival and SXSW.

Outside of her work with Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys, Kruger has contributed vocals to songs by Swans and Underground Youth. And she was selected for the Keychange Initiative, which seeks to promote gender equality in the global music scene.

The Berlin-based outfit’s latest single “Reaching” is the first bit of new material from the band since the band’s critically applauded six album, last year’s A Human Home. “Reaching” is a brooding and tense tune that alternates between slinky and atmospheric verses built around a woozy waltz-like tempo and a bruising and noisy chorus and hook featuring slashing and churning power chords.

The song thematically explores the tension between communication and disconnection, presence and absence, silence and noise. And its core, the song is raw, evocative and probing, while rooted in deeply empathetic observation of human character and nature. “I think the song tries to capture how cacophonic the quiet can feel.” Kruger says.

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.”
 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: ASAMAASAMA Shares Woozy and Fierce “123”

Mount Asama, Japan-based alt-rock/art rock duo ASAMASAMA features two acclaimed Japanese artists — singer/songwriter Rie Fu and producer Hikaru Ishizaki. After stints with anime theme songs and J-pop production, the pair have decided to break the mold and create a rebellious, hybrid sound that crosses musical and geographical boundaries while blending sharp wit, bold satire and a twisted love for Japanese culture.

The Japanese duo’s latest single “123” is a fiercely feminist anthem that features glitchy electronics, boom bap-like beats and bursts of slashing power chord-driven guitars serving as a woozy bed for Fiu’s unhinged delivery, which sees her alternating between spoken word/sing-songy passes and bratty, J-pop-meets-Fever to Tell-era Karen O-like crooning. Interestingly, “123” showcases the duo’s ability to craft a mischievous, forward-thinking sound and approach anchored around remarkably catchy hooks.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Jahnah Camille Shares Rousingly Anthemic and Cathartic “sit with you (pain)”

Rising, 20 year-old, Birmingham, AL-born and-based singer/songwriter and musician Jahnah Camille (pronounced as “Hannah”) can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood: Overhearing her father’s guitar lessons, she first picked up a guitar when she was four, and by the time she turned 10, she was writing her own songs. 

Throughout her life, supportive coincidences have pushed Camille’s creative tenacity. Her mother encouraged an elementary school-aged Jahnah to perform for their apartment’s maintenance man, who then gifted her a red Gibson SG and an amplifier. At a hippie kids camp, she met a mentor, who helped to champion her early crowdfunded recordings. 

“My mom was always having me sing and play guitar for people,” says Jahnah. “I’ve always had people who believed in me, and I feel like I’ve internalized that. That’s been really beautiful.”

Later opportunities to open for acclaimed artists like Clairo and Soccer Mommy led to her burgeoning status as a keenly self-examining indie rock singer/songwriter in a Birmingham scene saturated with punk and hardcore bands — many of which she played with in her earliest DIY shows. 

“The first year after I graduated high school was kind of horrifying,” says Jahnah. “I had just basically broken up with most of my band. I wasn’t going to college. I was seeing how everyone else that I had known growing up, their lives were changing. I knew that whatever happened in my life, it wasn’t going to be that, and there wasn’t really any proof that things were going in a positive direction.”

The rising Birmingham-based artist’s sophomore EP, the Alex Farrar-produced My sunny oath! is slated for a June 13, 2025 release through Winspear. The EP comes on the heels of a run of tour dates with Blondshell and previous shows opening for TOPS,Soccer Mommy and Clairo — and after the success of her debut EP, last year’s i tried to freeze light, but only remember a girl. 

My sunny oath! is set in the pressure cooker of new adulthood and is reportedly features a defiant collection of alt-rock, lo-fi grit and sardonic grunge that channels Jahnah Camille’s influences, including The Sundays, Liz Phair, Minnie Ripperton and Japanese Breakfast among others. 

Last month, I wrote about EP single “what do you do,” a 90/120 Minutes MTV-era indie rock inspired anthem, anchored around a classic grunge rock structure paired with the young artist’s remarkably self-assured vocal turn and uncanny knack for an enormous, well-placed hook. “I wrote this while trying to understand the feeling of losing control,” the rising Birmingham-based artist says, “I was paralyzed by a need to control how other people saw me and needed to write about it.” 

My sunny oath!‘s latest single “sit with you (pain)” begins with a lush and dreamy, singer/songwriter, acoustic guitar section with gently rumbling feedback that slowly builds up into a full-throated, bombastic, feedback and grungy power chord-driven anthem. While continuing to showcase a young songwriter, who can craft a big, rousingly anthemic hook and chorus, the song is anchored in deeply lived-in and earnest hurt.

The song “is about cutting someone out of your life who you still care for deeply,” she explains. “All of your critiques and drawbacks are still secondary for the love that you have. I wanted to make a habit of doing things that were good for me even if they hurt.”

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

Throwback: Happy 77th Birthday, Kate Pierson!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Kate Pierson’s 77th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Berlin’s Shimizu Teams Up with Giorgia-May on a Euphoric, Feminist Anthem

Brazilian-born, Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Rafa Mura, initially relocated to Berlin when he was 18 years-old to study Computer Science. While in school, he built a home studio in his dorm room. After dropping out of his computer science program, he went on start his own recording project Shimizu. Shimizu sees Mura creating a sound that’s melancholic yet danceable while drawing from R&B, house, breakbeat and neo-soul.

Mura’s latest Shimizu single “BxbyGirl” features Giorgia-May’s self-assured and sultry delivery ethereally floating over a slick and euphoric club and lounge friendly production that draws from Larry Levan-era house and UK garage. Thematically, the song is anthem for female empowerment, touching on themes of feminine energy, women’s rights and bodily autonomy.

“I wanted to write a short R&B song that was to the point and felt somehow empowering,” says Giorgia-May. “As women, we don’t just get to feel safe in our bodies—it’s something we have to constantly learn and practice. We face rules and regulations that restrict us, society pits us against each other, we earn less than men, and we are continuously subjected to harassment and control over our autonomy.”

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?