Monølo is a French classically trained pianist and electronic music artist, who has built a career exploring the intersection of acoustic piano and contemporary techno. Throughout his career, his work has seen him crafting a sound where minimalism, rhythmic tension and club-focused energy — with an emphasis on live performance, organic recording method and a raw production aesthetic. The result is a distinct and modern take on techno that’s equally suited to deeply focused listening and the dance floor.

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 project has blended elements of soul, funk and pop to create a smooth, dynamic sound that's remarkably contemporary yet timeless. Their debut EP Soft Serve…

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.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates the 79th anniversary of the birth of Grateful Dead co-founderBob Weir.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist Flea's 64th birthday.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates the 57th anniversary of the birth of Roy Hargrove.

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.

Electronic music outfit and JOVM mainstays Total Fucking Darkness features:  Stars‘ Torquil Campbell  Young Galaxy‘s Stephen Ramsey English studio genius and synth player Tom McFall, whose engineering credits include R.E.M., Bloc Party, Twin Shadow and Regina Spektor  Over the past 18 months or so, the trio have released a handful of standalone singles, including “Desolation Boys,” “Take It Easy,” “Give Me Everything You Own” “Horizontal Rain” and "Beaten to Write." Their latest single "This Is The Last Time" is glistening sophistipop-meets-80s New Wave-meets New Order-like tune anchored around what may arguably be the most melodic and the most earnest and achingly oversized yearning song of the trio's growing catalog. Sonically, "This Is The Last Time" sees the JOVM mainstays looking backward to move forward. Campbell, Ramsey and McFall have had a long-held obsession with late 1980s and early 1990s electronic music, and the new single pushes that fixation towards its biggest pop-leaning instincts. There aren't software shortcuts hiding beneath the surface either. “No plug-ins, anywhere. This track is all analog, baby.” When asked what inspired it, Total Fucking Darkness' Stephen Ramsey offers a characteristically economic answer, "New Order." “This Is The Last Time” arrived with similarly little ceremony. Ramsay had barely made it through the instrumental once before Torquil Campbell had the lyrics ready. “It may as well be called ‘Real Time’ because Torq wrote this in real time,” Ramsay explains. “By the time I played him the instrumental once, he had written the lyrics.” "'This Is The Last Time" is about the point where letting go becomes forward motion, following whatever dream remains, committing to it completely, and accepting that the only sensible response to uncertainty is to set your heart on fire -- and see what survives. “Every band says their latest music is the best thing they’ve ever done,”the band's Stephen Ramsay says. “It’s obviously cliché at this point and therefore categorically untrue in almost all cases, but I’m telling you, this is the best song we’ve written.” The accompanying video features edited footage from some movie that follows two dogs, who are in love. It's adorable.

Currently split between New York and Atlanta, electro pop duo Normal Bias -- Matt W.(vocals) and Chris C. (synths) -- are a self-described "pump and dump scheme, mining the most bloodthirsty parts of decades of electronic music and striping it for parts" while describing their sound and approach as "equal parts techno synth pop and ruthless venture capital." The duo have supported their recorded output -- 2022's self-titled EP and 2024's Kingdom Come -- with shows and touring with Nitzer Ebb, Boy Harsher, Nuovo Testamento, High Functioning Flesh and Phase Fatale. Adding to a growing reputation in the electronic music scene, the band is currently on tour with Spike Hellis, who has performed and collaborated with Nitzer Ebb, Boy Harsher, Pixel Grip, Buzz Kull, Nuovo Testamento, and more. The duo's sophomore album Ways of Keeping Clean will be released next year through DKA Records. Ways of Keeping Clean's first single "Soft Power" is an EBM and goth-styled banger built with thumping, wall-rattling beats, walls of glistening synths, razor sharp hooks paired with Matt W's sultry Dave Gahan/Michael Hutchence-like vocals. Sonically seeming to channel early Depechde Mode, the song as the do explains "confronts the numbing effects of propagandized multimedia addiction that looms over the modern world and enables the worst instincts of our leaders and institutions, and leads us further into nowhere and nothing." Directed by Logan Devlin, the accompanying video for "Soft Power" is a sleek blend of live performance, stop-motion amination and Dali-esque landscapes with bursts of VHS glitch. While watching it, I thought of So and Us-era Peter Gabriel and Pet Shop Boys -- but with a mix of mischief and menace.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates the 88th anniversary of the birth of Fela Kuti.

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.”

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates the 117th anniversary of the birth of Art Tatum.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates Thomas Dolby's 68th birthday.

YouTube video by MLB

Live concert review of The Strokes with Beach House, TV On The Radio and FCUKERS at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park 10/2/26 for "Culture Riot Media."

Los Angeles-based electronic music act Charm School features Louisville, KY-born, Los Angeles-based multi-hyphenate artist and frontman Andrew Sellers and his longtime collaborators Matt Filip and Dave English. Sellers grew up immersed in Louisville's underground scene, soaking up the work of local acts like Slint, Crain and Rodan, as well as the catalogs of beloved Chicago indie labels Touch & Go and Drag City. Later, Sellers got into PIL, Swell Maps, The Fall and Fugazi and The Nation of Ulysses. All of that informs Charm School's sound and approach. Their debut EP, 2023's Finite Jest introduced listeners to a philosophically-minded, crushingly loud critique of modern life's increasingly maddening realities. Last year's full-length debut, Debt Forever introduced a broader range of influences and a much more acerbic viewpoint with lyrics drenched in salty, satirical humor. Released earlier this year, Schadenfreude Ploy EP picks up where Debt Forever left off, musing on humanity's tortured psyche and the confounding implications of living in a technocratic, dystopian hellscape in which tech billionaires, AI and modern life's various manipulative traps are ubiquitous and seemingly inescapable. Continuing a remarkably prolific period, the Los Angeles trio's latest single, the Matia Simovich-produced "Desolation" is a hook-driven, EBM/darkwave/goth banger featuring 80s synthclavier stabs, thumping 808s paired with Sellers dryly sardonic yet simultaneously sincere delivery. Sonically bringing the likes of early Ministry, Depeche Mode, as well as contemporaries like Public Circuit to mind, the song is a club anthem for our dystopian hellscape. The world's on fire and everything seems hopelessly fucked, so have a little fun, dance and sweat it out with some other humans.

Over the past decade, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sam Zalta is best known as a touring member of JOVM mainstays Bambara, an act that has toured alongside the likes of Foo Fighters, IDLES, Gilla Band, fellow JOVM mainstays METZ and Algiers. As a solo artist, Zalta's work occupies a world entirely his own, one increasingly shaped by elaborate storytelling, recurring characters, dreams, devotion and the uneasy space where beauty and pain meet over the course of four albums, 2015's Paraiso Terminal, 2017's o, 2019's It All Ends The Same and 2023's Memento Mori. The Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist crafts songs that feel superficially soothing but underneath is something more unsettled and stranger that sonically draws from dream pop, shoegaze, indie pop and the likes of The Beach Boys, Spiritualized, Big Star and Swans. Zalta's latest releases finds him pushing further into orchestration, narrative and world-building while still being anchored around his penchant for melodicism. His latest single "I Might Die Tonight" is a shimmering tune that sonically brings Caveman, Tunnel of Love-era Bruce Springsteen and Cocteau Twins to mind and while expressing an aching yearning, there's a churning unease just under the surface.

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.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates Sammy Hagar's 79th birthday.

Elvin Jones (1927-2004) was known for redefining jazz drumming as we know it, liberating the instrument from simple timekeeping and instead treating it as a fluid, multi-layered voice. He was also famously known for being the polyrhythmic backbone of John Coltrane's legendary quartet, contributing to some of the most beloved and influential recordings ever made. Back in 1967, an 11-year old Tony Moreno was determined to see the legendary drummer Elvin Jones perform live for the first time, and soon realizing he was out well past his bedtime fell asleep on the table of the jazz club he was at. He was awakened by Jones, who sat down at the table, and upon leaning that the young Moreno hadn't owned a drum set yet, invited him up to his apartment. Jones quickly assembled and gifted Moreno, a drum set, which he played on as a member of the Coltrane Quartet. The exchange kicked off decades of mentorship and friendship. (And in case you were wondering, Moreno still owns that drum set.) For Moreno, who has worked with Dave Liebman, Barry Harris, Mal Waldron, Frank Kimbroough, and a lengthy list of others across the globe, that day in Jones' home marked the beginning of a career that has now spanned more than 50 years. In 2024. the 20th anniversary of Jones' death, Moreno felt that the time was right to assemble a project to pay tribute to his most formative mento and dear friend. Intent on celebrating the titan from his own lens, he collaborated with arranger Rich Shemaria to present the music orchestrally, providing an interpretation that combines the ferocity the drummer is widely known for with the sensitivity and attention to detail that isn't brought into the spotlight often. He eventually assembled an all-star ensemble featuring there-time Grammy Award-nominated tenor saxophonist Troy Roberts, Grammy Award-nominated pianist Manuel Valera, Grammy Award-winning percussionist Mauricio Herrera, alto saxophonist Patrick Cornelius, and bassist Gene Perla, who spent the first half of the 1970s in Elvin Jones' band. Moreno's newest effort, A Celebration of Elvin Jones is slated for a November 6, 2026 release through Mayimba Music. Playing tribute to his mento and friend, who gave him his first drum set, the album features ten tracks associated with Jones' work as a bandleader with spirited new renditions that pain a portrait of the legendary drummer's dynamism and humanity. A widely acclaimed, singular drummer, who came up in the famed Jazz Composer Orchestra Association (JCOA) loft scene, A Celebration of Elvin Jones served as a portal that transported Moreno back to the moments that sparked his profound love of the music. “Playing Elvin’s music is like going home,” he explains. "My formative years were based on the things that I learned from him, but every musician gets to a point where they realize that your own identity is paramount. It may be difficult to shed some of the history that you’ve lived in your music, but you realize at a certain point that you have to make personal statements, which took me in different directions. So this feels like returning home, and it’s been an emotional journey.” The Jones tribute album's first single "E.J.'s Blues" is a strutting, swinging blues that simultaneously marks Moreno's return to his musical roots and showcases the adept, soulful musicianship of Moreno and his cast of collaborators. Reflecting on the profound impact Elvin Jones had on him, Moreno said, “This album is a tribute to a man I consider to be my father figure. Elvin gave me a purpose, to live and grow and to be a musician, so this is my way of giving thanks.”

Elvin Jones (1927-2004) was known for redefining jazz drumming as we know it, liberating the instrument from simple timekeeping and instead treating it as a fluid, multi-layered voice. He was also famously known for being the polyrhythmic backbone of John Coltrane's legendary quartet, contributing to some of the most beloved and influential recordings ever made. Back in 1967, an 11-year old Tony Moreno was determined to see the legendary drummer Elvin Jones perform live for the first time, and soon realizing he was out well past his bedtime fell asleep on the table of the jazz club he was at. He was awakened by Jones, who sat down at the table, and upon leaning that the young Moreno hadn't owned a drum set yet, invited him up to his apartment. Jones quickly assembled and gifted Moreno, a drum set, which he played on as a member of the Coltrane Quartet. The exchange kicked off decades of mentorship and friendship. (And in case you were wondering, Moreno still owns that drum set.) For Moreno, who has worked with Dave Liebman, Barry Harris, Mal Waldron, Frank Kimbroough, and a lengthy list of others across the globe, that day in Jones' home marked the beginning of a career that has now spanned more than 50 years. In 2024. the 20th anniversary of Jones' death, Moreno felt that the time was right to assemble a project to pay tribute to his most formative mento and dear friend. Intent on celebrating the titan from his own lens, he collaborated with arranger Rich Shemaria to present the music orchestrally, providing an interpretation that combines the ferocity the drummer is widely known for with the sensitivity and attention to detail that isn't brought into the spotlight often. He eventually assembled an all-star ensemble featuring there-time Grammy Award-nominated tenor saxophonist Troy Roberts, Grammy Award-nominated pianist Manuel Valera, Grammy Award-winning percussionist Mauricio Herrera, alto saxophonist Patrick Cornelius, and bassist Gene Perla, who spent the first half of the 1970s in Elvin Jones' band. Moreno's newest effort, A Celebration of Elvin Jones is slated for a November 6, 2026 release through Mayimba Music. Playing tribute to his mento and friend, who gave him his first drum set, the album features ten tracks associated with Jones' work as a bandleader with spirited new renditions that pain a portrait of the legendary drummer's dynamism and humanity. A widely acclaimed, singular drummer, who came up in the famed Jazz Composer Orchestra Association (JCOA) loft scene, A Celebration of Elvin Jones served as a portal that transported Moreno back to the moments that sparked his profound love of the music. “Playing Elvin’s music is like going home,” he explains. "My formative years were based on the things that I learned from him, but every musician gets to a point where they realize that your own identity is paramount. It may be difficult to shed some of the history that you’ve lived in your music, but you realize at a certain point that you have to make personal statements, which took me in different directions. So this feels like returning home, and it’s been an emotional journey.” The Jones tribute album's first single "E.J.'s Blues" is a strutting, swinging blues that simultaneously marks Moreno's return to his musical roots and showcases the adept, soulful musicianship of Moreno and his cast of collaborators. Reflecting on the profound impact Elvin Jones had on him, Moreno said, “This album is a tribute to a man I consider to be my father figure. Elvin gave me a purpose, to live and grow and to be a musician, so this is my way of giving thanks.”

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates the 91st anniversary of the birth of Sam Moore.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates the 71st anniversary of The Smithereens' frontman Pat DiNizio's birth.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates MC Lyte's 56th birthday.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates the 107th anniversary of the birth of Art Blakey.

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

Swedish outfit Sunnan can trace their origins through a series of unlikely encounters, including pandemic-era change, a barn with panoramic windows in Sunnanhed and a meeting with a Stockholm rave legend. In many ways the band embodies creative serendipity — and unsurprisingly, their origin story, which feels both inevitable and improbable, echoes through their work. The band quickly built a reputation with the release of a series of standout singles including “My Love For You,” “Wild Horses,” and “The Sound (Make It Come Back),” their collaboration with Titiyo. 2024’s debut studio album Cinema was released to widespread praise across the Nordics and earned two Swedish Grammy nominations. Last year’s Cinema Sound System helped propel the Swedish outfit onto the global stage with its three singles receiving heavy radio rotation on Nordic radio stations, received strong DSP support and organic crossover into North American and European markets. The band supported their debut and EP with 20 sold-out dates across the Nordics and the European Union.  Building upon a growing profile, the Swedish outfit released their highly anticipated sophomore album, Spaghetti Soul last week. The album sees the band further cementing their critically applauded cinematic sound but while blending Italian Spaghetti Western soundtrack-styled grandeur with classic soul --filtered through a decidedly modern lens. The album includes the previously released "Sail (Lady In Waiting)" and the album's latest single "Echoes in Time" a widescreen, twangy bit of Morricone soundtrack-tinged soul anchored in a wistful, nostalgic ache while nodding at old timey ballads and Bossa Nova. Much like their previously released material, "Echoes in Time" showcases deft, incredibly gorgeous musicianship and songwriting.

Marigny is post-punk/heavy rock/goth project of a mysterious Brooklyn-based artist, who blends coldwave textures, heavy analog distortion and dark atmospheres to craft material that’s simultaneously intimate and volatile. Their sound is intentionally analog and physical — loud, low end, corroded textures, cassette tape-like saturation and tension that feels more like a live room recording than a clean, polished digital mix. Thematically, the band’s work explores grief, obsession, addiction, masculinity and spiritual decay through a modern Afro-gothic lens.  Earlier this year, I wrote about "The Still," which served as a bold introduction to the project and its sound. The project's latest single "I Grieve" is a bruising blend of post-punk, industrial, dark wave and goth -- with the song arguably being the most decidedly goth-leaning song from the act to date. And while rooted in raw, soulful emotion, "I Grieve," continues to showcase the artist's ability to craft punchy, hook-driven material.

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."

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates the 109th anniversary of the birth of Thelonious Monk.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates David Lee Roth's 72nd birthday.

C2C Festival Turin announces 2026 lineup.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates the 86th anniversary of the birth of John Lennon.

Fuck Ice, Elmhurst, Queens, NYC 6/17/25

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates the 82nd anniversary of the birth of The Who bassist John Entwistle.

JOVM's William Ruben Helms celebrates PJ Harvey's 57th birthday.

Over the course of this site's 16+ year history, I've managed to spill a lot of virtual ink covering the ridiculously prolific New York-based producer, DJ, remixer and JOVM mainstay Rhythm Scholar. During that period, the long-time JOVM mainstay has carefully built a nationally and internationally recognized profile for slickly produced, crowd-pleasing mashups and remixes of some of the most beloved songs ever written and recorded. So do y'all want to feel extremely old? Gorillaz's landmark self-titled album was released 25 years ago. And to celebrate the occasion, the JOVM mainstay has given the Damon Albarn-led project's breakthrough single "Clint Eastwood," his unique remix treatment. The Rhythm Scholar Beatslinger remix places Albarn and Del The Funky Homosapien's vocals within a dizzying and mind-bending array of samples including Ice Cube and Da Lench Mob. Visually, the accompanying video features footage from Clint Eastwood-era Spaghetti Westerns, Yo Gabba Gabba, The Kinks, footage of a young Jane Goodall in the field, Donkey Kong, the original video for "Clint Eastwood," Dirty Harry, old-timey cartoons and a lot more.

Leon Bridges announces The Happiness Anytime Tour 2027.

Live concert photography of The Charlatans and RIDE at Webster Hall earlier this month.