Michael Fox has been working in music in various guises over the past decade, and though Take Care, Stay Warm might be the first release under the Big Bluestem moniker, its assured quality carries all of this experience with it. Take the title track, a stripped-back folk song built around nothing but Fox’s vocals and careful acoustic guitar. Something which feels like the product of a byegone age, folk in its traditional sense, where a person sits down and records the feelings and stories of a life without ostentation. The result is earnest, tender, hushed though not without a certain intensity of feeling. A mood which seems to gather energy from the arrangement’s negative space. As though emotions voiced to the stillness of an empty room carry their own peculiar weight.

So I won’t pull you off the floor, brush the dust off of your coat
get back what’s been missing, or find the perfect quote
that could sum up all the feelings that are lodged inside our throats
but hey: Take Care, Stay Warm

Blue Bayou – New Wind, New Rain

Blue Bayou, who describe themselves as “a new wave, chamber pop band with horns and strings,” have just released their new EP, The Carousel, a five-song release which sees the Oxford-born, London-based project bring the energy of their live sound to tape. Think of a centre of a Venn diagram between the avant-folk of Black Country, New Road, the country rock twang of Brown Horse and the emotional clarity of Big Thief. Single ‘New Wind, New Rain’ is the perfect place to start. A song which feels far larger than its relatively convention three-and-a-half-minute runtime, heralded by mournful horns and driven forward by a bright and peppy percussion, all while the vocals swell together in heart and curiosity.

Charlie Vaughan – Don’t Wanna Drive

Fresh off touring with the likes of The Backseat Lovers and Hamilton Leithauser in 2025, London’s Charlie Vaughan is back with brand new single ‘Don’t Wanna Drive’ to further cement his place among the city’s most eclectic songwriters. The embodiment of his style, the track melds undeniable richness with the magic of happenstance, showing that careful craft and happy accident can exist side by side. “I wanted to write something dreamy and simple—no crazy structures” Vaughan explains of the track. “When we started to play the song on the road it changed a lot, we started playing it fast and with really driving drums. The bit at the end came from a beautiful fluke at a rehearsal and me and the band knew this was the perfect end.” Watch the video directed by La De La Studios below:

‘Don’t Wanna Drive is out now and available from the usual places.

The Dead Century – Hey Chicago

“Minneapolis has a rich heritage in energetic indie rock, so its great to see bands like The Dead Century carrying the flame onwards,” we wrote back in March, the band’s single ‘Been Better wearing its influences proudly, “taking the raucousness of The Replacements and some of The Hold Steady‘s buoyant positivity and applying them to the less than positive present.” Now the band have shared next single ‘Hey Chicago’ and the result is no less momentous or affirming. The track picks its way through the difficult terrain between staying put and moving on, but allows a sheer sense of energy to burn away any hesitation. The song “explores the hope and uncertainty that come from the end of a relationship,” say the band, “the delicate work of discerning what to carry with you and what to leave behind.”

Deer Tick – Everything Born

Folk rock stalwarts Deer Tick are returning with brand new full-length Coin-O-Matic this summer, an album which promises to delve into their homestate of Rhode Island and all of its peculiar histories (not least the collison betweenthe  ordinary working class American Dream and its shadow twin within the world of the mafia and organised crime). With the album set for release in June via ATO Records, the band have shared new single ‘Everything Born’ to give a flavour of this style, pitching the audience straight into the milieu of Providence and the personal dramas therein. “‘Everything Born’ was written quickly about the tenuousness of life and the precious time we have to spend with the people that come into our lives,” explains vocalist and guitarist Ian O’Neil “It’s about family, friends, neighbors, strangers and how these thoughts burrow a little deeper the older we get. I was thinking about my son and the people of Providence, RI while writing it.” Watch the video below, recorded at the Big Nice Studio and directed by Bradford Krieger and Rich Ferri:

Coin-O-Matic will be released on the 5th June via ATO and you can pre-order it now.

Hockitay – buttons

Guatemalan-born, Montreal-based artist Hockitay made a splash earlier in the year with single ‘over/over’, a song “where loneliness and restlessness overlap,” as we wrote. “That curiously digital phenomenon where even an empty room can now be overwhelming.” Follow-up single ‘buttons’ continues this exploration of the technological encroachment on our lives, asking how we might hope to maintain a sense of authentic self in a world automated by things like AI. The video, directed by Buvard and David S. Blouin, employs a full-spectrum modified camera (i.e. one which captures UV, visible and IR light simultaneously) to add a further haunting atmosphere to the track, portraying the digital experience in all of its eerie surreality.

‘buttons’ is out now via Future Gods and available from Bandcamp.

Jordan Whitlock & Memory Spells – You Tell Me / A Flower Blooming For No One

“This project began as an exchange of demos and became a deeply personal dialogue,” explained Jordan Whitlock of the collaboration with Matt Bauer’s Memory Spells, with the duo having now released their debut full-length This Is What It Feels Like. “Remarkably, Bauer and Whitlock only met in person when the record was already half completed, though far from hampering the intimacy and emotional connection of the music, this distance ultimately helped deepen it,” we wrote in a preview of the record, “the pair dialling into the themes of isolation, bonding and longing.” What the duo call “a quiet meditation on beauty without witness,” final single ‘A Flower Blooming For No One’ heralds the release of the album, offering a glimpse at the wonder which exists every day in the secrecy of isolation.

A hummingbird
Its ruby throat
Catching the light
And letting it go
A shadow cast
A cold white sun
A flower blooming for no one

King Ropes – Baby Bird

“If Dave Hollier and co. are taking on The Spirit of The West, you’d best expect a collection of songs attuned to the contradictions of the experience on the ground, where well-worn myths and old stereotypes rub up against everyday hardships and the outright oddness of twenty-first century living.” So we wrote of King Ropes‘ most recent album Idaho back in 2024, praising how the Bozeman, Montana outfit managed to evoke the landscape of the American West in all of its beauty and harshness. Now King Ropes are back with brand new single ‘Baby Bird’, and while the track might appear altogether more tender on the surface, there’s still room for a brooding dimension to the sound. A reimagining of a classic sixties/seventies love song that swaps out some of the honeyed glow of the period for a stranger, ambiguous contemporary folk style.

It may sound absurd
I’m a man she’s a bird
These things take time to understand

‘Baby Bird’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Luke Francis – Anywhere

Though recorded in LA this past winter with Derek Ted, Luke Francis‘s new single ‘Anywhere’ has roots in a period a year prior, with the Seattle-based songwriter noting a variety of key locations and experiences. “The Bamboo Village parking lot on a snowy Seattle night,” he lists, “the Historic Grand Canyon Hotel, and the front steps of my childhood home in California while a plumber rescued me from what had occurred inside the house.” As you might expect from such a specific set of influences, the resulting track is highly personal, Francis taking the moods and imagery of his own memories and applying a coat of classic country wistfulness to create a modern love song that nevertheless harks back to an old romantic style. “Honey ride with me tonight
I’ve got a bottle of wine and the moonlight on my mind,” as he sings in the opening lines. “We could left and right, through the night
don’t you wanna climb in and let the road unwind?”

‘Anywhere’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Paycheque – Generic Actress

Consisting of Alison Goldfarb and Jackson MacIntosh (TOPS, Drugdealer), Paycheque represent something of a collision between the retro and the contemporary. Though practising a decidedly eighties-flavoured style of indie pop, the duo aim for more than pure nostalgia, repurposing the sound to conjure the modern Los Angeles in all of its glitz, violence and precarity. Their self-titled debut full-length, coming this summer via Mansions and Millions, draws upon the sounds of the Reagan-Thatcher era to explore the present calamities seeded in that period, be they human-induced natural disasters, roving gangs of militarised immigration officers or the general superficiality of the great quest for stardom. Opener ‘Generic Actress’ offers a first glimpse. “In LA, when you go out, you end up spending a lot of time standing outside of whatever event or party you’ve decided to attend,” the band explain of the single. “You’re on the sidewalk, you’re in a strip mall parking lot, you’re on a patio. You smoke, you bump into friends, and you eventually realize you missed half the set you came to see, you never actually made it inside the gallery, the party is winding down. This song is an ode to never quite making it inside.”

Watch the video by Paycheque with additional footage shot by Jessica Dean Harrison below:

Paycheque will be released on the 12th June via Mansions and Millions and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Snake Orange Cake – Lucid

Åland-born, Berlin-based artist Julia Carlsson has released a number of singles under the moniker Snake Orange Cake in recent times, most recently ‘Vision’ back in January. A self-described “hypnotic ritual in sound” which “functions something like an incantation or mantra,” we wrote in a preview, “the vocals repeating a series of mystical images as though hoping to conjure some mystical effect. The pulsing beat only furthers the mesmeric vibe, leading the listener into a space somehow adjacent from every day reality.” Now Carlsson has unveiled Lucid, the project’s debut EP which collects these songs alongside the new title track, and the fresh offering just so happens to serve as the ideal calling card for the project. With an ambiguous tone that embraces playfulness, sensuality and a certain mystical charm, ‘Lucid’ capture the balance between intimacy and openness that marks the Snake Orange Cake sound, as well as the sense of otherworldly potential which emerges from its dreamlike flow.

Vesuvian – Fortunate Death

Vesuvian is a Philly-based outfit consisting of Garret Bollin (guitar, vocals), Joey DeGrado (vocals, guitar), Bill Magerr (bass) and Gavin Caffrey Perez-Canto (drums and percussion). Back in 2023 they released More Treble, a punk rock record concerned with everything from horror movies and actresses to the ancient Mediterranean, and now they’re back with a brand new self-titled album which looks push the sound even further. Take latest single ‘Fortunate Death’, which is certainly not your usual scrappy punk number, drawing upon the work of Julio Cortázar and accounts of Mesoamerican history to create something cathartic and boisterous. “Years ago, I read that Aztec sacrifices were honored to die that way,” De Grado explains. “Does this have historic validity? Who knows! But the idea stayed with me, waiting to come out in a song. I took this idea of being overjoyed at death and combined it with some of the images from ‘The Night, Face Up’.”

Waxahatchee – Where’s Your Love Now? (This Is Lorelei cover)

This Is Lorelei is about to release the super deluxe edition of their celebrated 2024 album Box for Buddy, Box for Star via Double Double Whammy, with the ten original album tracks joined by ten covers from an impressive range of artists. Momma, SASAMI, Snail Mail, Tim Heidecker and MJ Lenderman are just some of the acts offering versions of the songs, and Waxahatchee‘s take on ‘Where’s Your Love Now?’ is the latest to be revealed. “I think Nate is one of the best songwriters of this moment, making music that feels current and timeless and also somehow ahead of a curve,” Katie Crutchfield told Stereogum. “When I heard ‘Where’s Your Love Now?’ I thought it was one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.”

Box for Buddy, Box for Star (Super Deluxe) is out on the 17th April via Double Double Whammy and you can pre-order it now.

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As this description suggests, Bloom Again sees runo plum chart something of an arc, following the Minnesota artist from the dark, despondent days after a heartbreak through to the sprouting of new love. With the release now only weeks away, plum has unveiled the EP’s final single, ‘pink moon’, and the song is indicative of the tenderness with which she approaches this topic. Written in the hours after a successful first date, the track is warm and sensual, bathed in the tentative fondness such new beginnings tend to bring. As such there’s an unapologetic romance to both the tone and lyrics, something which asserts itself through a kind of hyperawareness. Sugar on lips, freckles on shoulders, dimples in cheeks, no small observation slips past the eye. The novelty of a new person announcing itself as a beauty worthy of any natural wonder.

Watch the video by CallMeRambo below:

Bloom Again will be released by Winspear on 8th May. Grab a copy now from the runo plum Bandcamp page.

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Such a style is typical of Gravity Blanket, the record seeing Stephen Becker dig through the assorted fragments of ordinary life in search of some lesson or sense of higher meaning, even if it requires him to unearth some uncomfortable things in the process. The songs lead from childhood through adolescence and young adult life, featuring everything from Slinkys and Haribo frogs to break-ups and hallucinations, though Becker’s inventive lyricism and arrangements maintain both playfulness and vulnerability across them all.

Sitting at the louder, slightly more disordered end of the spectrum, latest single ‘Careless’ again focuses on a failing relationship, though is more ambiguous than its predecessor. Because while ‘Bad Idea’ existed within the moment an end became clear cut, ‘Careless’ instead focuses on the uncertainty which worms its way the cracks of struggling partnership. “I was stuck on the word ‘careless’, and how adding a space flips its meaning entirely,” Becker expands. “In relationships, it’s hard to know whether someone’s just being careless (silly, impersonal) or if they actually care less (harsh). I tried to capture that ambiguity with a wily post-chorus guitar riff in the vein of Jonny Greenwood and Ed Rodriguez.”

It’s obvious, that you care less
It’s obvious, that you’re careless
It’s obvious but not obvious to me

Watch the video directed by Haoyan of America below:

Gravity Blanket will be released on the 24th April and you can pre-order it now.

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A pair of tracks from Mox bookend the album, an act we’ve described previously as “follow[ing] in the lineage of Alex G, combining boundless creativity with tangible emotion.” Opener ‘Scared’ sets the tone, displaying combination of bruising heft and emotional tenderness, while closer ‘Leaving’ is more restrained and slow building, allowing the warmth of the project more room to shine.

The offerings from Christina’s Trip opt for a more shoegaze-adjacent style, though again the interplay between heaviness and light is an important element. Take ‘F.B.A.T.’ with its mix of shimmer and scuzz and no small amount of energy. Or the squally ‘Sweep Me’, which embraces the chaos of its sound to culminate in a mood almost buoyant.

The songs from Natasha Sandworms are cleaner in style yet just as infectious, be it the retro indie pop bounce of ‘Bird of My Life’ or gradual unfurling of ‘Perfect Feeling’. There’s a wistfulness to both songs, though rather than being stuck looking backwards in self-reflection, they manage to chart a course forward, however uncertain or bittersweet the awaiting future might prove to be.

Lucky Three is out now via Cherub Dream Records and available from Bandcamp.

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“Picks through self-destructive tendencies in something like a lament, swapping guitar for organ to further amplify the sorrowful atmosphere of the Minneapolis-based songwriter’s work.” So we wrote of Annie Schultz’s recent single ‘MIS‘, a track which marked a conscious effort to move away from the blueprint of previous album It Bends Until It Breaks to open up new territory. Latest single ‘Search and Destroy’ is further proof such experimentation yields fruit. Schultz uses a woozily layered combination of drum machine and keyboards to evoke a dreamlike world, though a pressing electric bassline pulls the listener through. What emerges is something hypnotic and slightly ambiguous, playing somewhere between antagonistic and alluring and never quite showing its hand.

‘Search and Destroy’ is out now via Trailing Twelve and available from the usual places.

Bleary – Foyer

“If Bleary‘s new single ‘bug’ seems to carry a notable sense of depth, then it is with good reason,” we wrote in a preview of the Nashville band’s full-length Little Brain back in February, the song taken from a body of work first developed before the pandemic then more recently honed into something special. With the album’s release little over a month away via yk records, the outfit have shared brand new track ‘Foyer’, and the result is no less impressive. The perfect introduction to the signature Bleary aesthetic, where big wall-of-sound shoegaze sensibilities are paired with a mood more reflective and melancholic. The result is something equal parts visceral and thoughtful that’s sure to swallow you in its embrace.

Death Tennis – Racehorse

Based in Montreal, Death Tennis are a indie rock band unafraid of emotion, as new EP Thank You. No, Thank You attests. Talya Gad (vocals) Marco Petrella (guitar, vocals), Dave Hjin (electric guitars, acoustic guitars), Nathan Cann (electric guitars), Matthew McCormack (bass) and Daniel Pavkeje (drums) add healthy dollops of alt and shoegaze influences to bring these high stakes to life, allowing tenderness and weight to sit side by side. Take opener and single ‘Racehorse’, an emotive number which places Gad’s sincere vocals front and centre, though gradually deepens into something epic. “‘Racehorse’ is a song about loss, told from the perspective of the recently departed,” the band explain. “Do we get a chance to communicate with those we loved from the other side?”

Frog – Dark Out

“Thank you for the day but go slow when you walk out, its dark out,” sings Daniel Bateman on ‘Dark Out’, the latest single from Frog‘s new album Frog for Sale, coming soon via Audio Antihero. “The dogs are barking like Dachau / I need you when it’s dark out.” These lines might sound like depression condensed into half a verse, but the track itself is altogether more jaunty and cool, continuing the new sleek style introduced on previous albums 1000 Variations of the Same Song and The Count. The result has all the idiosyncratic style which has won the New York outfit such a following, managing to maintain a toe-tapping brightness despite the desperation and soul bubbling beneath the surface.

Golden Tiles – Peace

Portland trio Golden Tiles announced themselves to the world in late 2024 with The First EP. Back then we described their sound as “a bright, laidback brand of basement rock which combines playful melodies, fuzzy textures and reflective vocals,” inspired by the last forty-odd years of PNW lo-fi indie rock. Next month, Golden Tiles will release their debut LP, Set Up on the Leaves, via Antiquated Future Records, and the record looks to build on the band’s early promise. Expect catchy pop melodies, left-field song structures and an eye for improvisation, taking something that could feel nostalgic and twisting it into new shapes. Lead single ‘Peace’ is a great introduction. A fleeting sub two-minute rock song that feels warm and intimate but with an air of bittersweet mystery, there and then gone in a flash of satisfying guitar, rambling percussion and fragmentary lyrics.

Josephine Illingworth – The Mythical

The work of London-based musician and multi-disciplinary artist Josephine Illingworth sits at the intersection of song, storytelling and soundscape, drawing on traditions of folk music and folklore but with a modern, experimental edge. Her forthcoming EP, Bright Things I Found In The Dark, follows the narrative of a girl raised by wolves, mapped across the lunar cycle and enveloped in field recordings to intertwine each song in the rhythms of nature. Lead single ‘The Mythical’ was in some ways the record’s genesis, the first song written for it and a critical inflection point in the story where it is still unclear which direction it will take. “[‘The Mythical’] sits in the moment of childhood awakening where reality sharpens and the soft edges of fairytale fall away,” Illingworth describes, “when you can no longer see shapes in the clouds or voices under the bed. It’s about refusing to quite let that other world go.”

Bright Things I Found In The Dark will be released on 1st May.

Motherhood – Kyle Hangs Ten

Canadian rock outfit Motherhood have never been content to sit still, constantly hopping between genres and moods across their five full-length albums, and often within those records too. When working on last year’s Thunder Perfect Mind, they couldn’t quite settle on a single form of one of the songs, vacillating between surf and spaghetti western sensibilities. The later vibe won out for the eventual album track ‘Kyle Hangs At Noon’, but the sister version was also recorded and is now being released as a b-side. ‘Kyle Hangs Ten’ is an interesting counterpart to its twin, ramping up the tempo to make for a perfect slice of summer, while also serving as a window into the creative spirit of a band constantly pushing at the boundaries of their own work. “Usually by the time we release a song, the original influences have been hidden under layers of subterfuge, with our attraction to play far outweighing our ability to stay put,” they explain. “With ‘Kyle Hangs Ten,’ we were trying to write the most surfy song we could without over-complicating a genre that, at it’s core, is just swaggy country music.”

Nic Panken – Out in the Rain

“An compassionate number which takes the image of its title further than you might expect, pushing the love song beyond romance and into something existential.” That’s how we described ‘2 Hearts‘ by Nic Panken back in March, the latest single from the Spirit Family Reunion frontperson’s forthcoming solo album, Near Divine or Merely Rhyme. With the record now just a week away, Panken has unveiled brand new single ‘Out in the Rain’ to further whet appetites. A song which again elevates a personal experience into something near spiritual, it finds Panken positioning love and beauty as things which connect us to older, more mysterious forces. “Did I see you baring your soul / Uncovered the holy portal,” as he sings in one typically striking verse, “Heart was free then, resting in flight / A parcel of light immortal.”

villagerrr – Swimming

Last month we shared ‘Locket’, the lead single from villagerrr’s new record Carousel. We described how the record celebrates the act of opening up, that combination of fear and joy involved in, as we put it “the attempt to communicate in earnest with another person within a world which often seems designed to hinder such a thing.” Winspear will release the record at the end of next month, and villagerrr have dropped a new track to tide us over until then. Titled ‘Swimming’, it’s another slice of sincere indie pop, this time nudged in a country-ish direction with sparkles of pedal steel and Mark Scott’s signature heart-on-sleeve lyrics that focus on small pleasures in the face of the day-to-day trials of existence. “I cried watching the TV, it felt a lot like healing,” he sings in a typically frank line that captures the song’s balance between struggle and self-acceptance. “This song will be my enemy / My brain it wants to kill me.”

Zoon – One Too Many Nights (feat. Sam Jr.)

We have previously described the work of Daniel Monkman’s project Zoon as “an ever-evolving sound rooted in shoegaze that explores themes of activism and Indigenous experience.” The Polaris Prize-shortlisted musician draws as much from traditional First Nations music as they do contemporary indie rock, and in doing so explores themes both national and intensely personal. June sees the release of a brand new Zoon record, Happy Thought School, on Paper Bag Records, and lead single ‘One Too Many Nights’ is our first glimpse. Monkman is joined by Sam Jr. for a cathartic exploration of the strange unmooring caused by the end of a relationship. “When a relationship ends, it’s not just the person you lose it’s the version of yourself that existed beside them,” Monkman describes. ‘“One Too Many Nights’ is about that recalibration. I don’t date often, so when something shifts, it shifts my whole orbit. In that moment, being alone felt like the honest path forward.”

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The brand new Trails and Ways full-length Open Water will be released soon, and the band have shared two singles to reintroduce themselves after their time away. Described by the band as a song “about making peace, learning Spanish, and swimming open water,” first single ‘Patiently’ immediately re-establishes what made the group so fun back in the day. And its upbeat, positive sound carries a fitting message too. A reminder that life is richer in company, and that social isolation can be overcome, written and performed by a trio who worked through that very process themselves to bring the track to life.

Follow-up ‘Young’ is no less accomplished, though dials down some of its predecessor’s energy to offer something more sleek and dreamy. But despite the decidedly hazy sound, there is still a central rhythm to the song, a sense of forward momentum which speaks to the themes of growth and maturation which inform the track. “When we were young / we didn’t sit, too much to do,” as the opening verse goes, “now we’re settled down / we don’t move over the ground like we used to.”

Both ‘Patiently’ and ‘Young’ can be found on the Trails and Ways Bandcamp page.

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Lemoncello have now announced their brand new album Perfect Place, coming in May via Claddagh Records. The record has roots in a residency on the Skellig Islands off the southwest coast of Kerry, Quirke and Kinsella taking those ideas forward and working on them over a two year period, leading to what might be the pair’s most considered and emotionally daring songs to date. “In the past I think I’ve abandoned songs a little bit too soon,” as Quirke explains. “I hid behind flowery language instead of getting to the heart of the thing. With this album we wanted to express things that are difficult and messy. Sometimes to be clear emotionally you need to be abstract lyrically but you can’t be afraid to take everything off and just stand there completely vulnerable.”

Latest single ‘Articulate Animal’ suggests the entire release will be just as finely crafted and probing. A cello drone simmers just below the surface, the vocals delivering a single which repeats throughout the track. “Wish I could stop telling myself things.” Something like a mantra, a spell intended to cut to the quick of the self, hurdling over the rational part of the mind and sinking into the instinctive. As it progresses, the song blooms with subtle detail, but never moves too far from this core ideal. As though it is an act of careful effort, and something of a mission statement for an album determined to get the the real heart of things.

Watch the video below, directed by Saoirse Johnston Gaffey, produced by Billy Buckley with director of photography Leon Forristal:

Perfect Place will be released on the 8th May via Claddagh Records and you can pre-order it now. Lemoncello are heading out on an extensive tour across the UK in the coming months and you can find the list of dates below:

Wed 6 May – Glasgow, UK (Joshua Burnside support)
Thu 7 May – Leeds, UK (Joshua Burnside support)
Fri 8 May – The Jacaranda, Liverpool, UK (Album Launch Headline Show)
Sat 9 May – Stroud, UK (Joshua Burnside support)
Sun 10 May – London, UK (Joshua Burnside support)
Mon 11 May – Bristol, UK (Joshua Burnside support)
Tue 12 May – Theatreship, London, UK (Album Launch Headline Show)
29–31 May – Night & Day Festival, Roscommon, IE
24–26 July – Deer Shed Festival, UK
23–26 July – WOMAD Festival, UK

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The recording project of Chicago-based songwriter Ben Groth, The Child of Eve is preparing to release the full-length Sozo this summer. The record was brought to life together with Grammy Award winning engineer Ben Rawlins and Northern Ireland Music Prize winning engineer Caolán Austin, not to mention drummer Matt Carroll (Finom), bassist Eli Broxham (The Arcadian Wild), vocalist Sara Di Bella (Anuna) and violinist Gareth Quinn Redmond (Glen Hansard, Ye Vagabonds), and the result is every bit as assured as you might expect from such a talented outfit. Take latest single ‘I’m Here’, a song which explores feelings of fear and the ways in which can come to influence our very identity. “This song addresses a kind of fear I wrestle with,”  Groth explains. “One that convinces me to question my worth, to wear a mask and hide myself away. That I’m embarrassing to others.” But rather than allow himself be consumed by the fear, he instead confronts the feeling. Decides to walk through it no matter how uncomfortable it might be.

Dog Shaped – Reason

Rising from the ashes of Sue Your Landlord and featuring Emily Cabarle, Dog Shaped is a new band announcing itself on the New York scene, and debut single ‘Reason’ serves as their calling card. Described by the band as “a love letter and a longing to reconnect with lost childlike wonder,” the track looks to wriggle free from the difficulties and isolation that so often comes with adulthood and instead return to something more tender and curious. What if loneliness need not be the default setting of our existence? What if there’s a path back to kindness and connection once more?

Ead Wood – Emmeline

“A bittersweet slice of wistful reflection, with Soles evoking that strange mix of comfort and loss inherent within any spot of natural beauty.” So we wrote of Ead Wood‘s single ‘Peace in the Pines‘ back in 2024, describing how the Bristol-based project utilised an Americana-adjacent sound to achieve a mood simultaneously upbeat, melancholic and often a little absurd. With new EP Wild Water coming soon via Breakfast Records, Soles and co. are back ‘Emmeline’, a single which continues the introspective nature of the project while widening its focus, serving as a bridge between previous record Cash Mountain and whatever new territory Ead Wood charts next. “I wrote ‘Emmeline’ during a time when I was touring a lot and constantly heading off somewhere else,” Wood explains. “It made me think about what that experience must feel like for the person staying behind. The song is written from my partner’s perspective—that feeling of watching someone rush out the door again while life at home carries on. It’s about love, patience, and the quiet strength of the person who’s always there when you return.”

Eliza Edens – Leash

More than three years since releasing last record We’ll Become the Flowers, Brooklyn‘s Eliza Edens has returned with brand new song ‘Leash’. The standalone single suggests an evolution in style, moving away from the introspective glow of the previous record and stepping into a newfound sassy confidence. “I’m a goddamn killer, ended many things,” they sing in the opening line which rather nicely sets the tone, “fucked up your mind and stole your parents’ wedding ring.” Insistent bass and peppy percussion buoy things along with irrepressible energy, licks of guitar bursting in at intervals as if a metaphor for the abandonment of self-control at the track’s heart. ‘Leash’ “is a tongue-in-cheek, breezy rock song that celebrates the shadow self,” Edens describes, “our darker impulses, the devil on the shoulder, and the cynic inside us all.”

Eric Angelo Bessel – Upstate

After lead track ‘Double Helix’ introduced Mirror At Night B-Sides, a song “dreamlike and drifting,” we wrote, “emerging full of ambiguous meaning as though dug from deep in the distant past or else visiting from some time or space we are yet to encounter,” Eric Angelo Bessel has now shared its partner single ‘Upstate’ to cap off the release. Fans of the project will relish the opportunity to step out of the frame of ordinary existence and delve into this otherworldly soundscape once again. “’Upstate’ feels like a quiet transmission from somewhere beyond time,” Bessel explains of the track, “where memories blur, dreams surface, and sound moves like breath through spaces you can’t quite place but somehow recognize.”

Helenor  Windshield

The recording project of Brooklyn-based songwriter and visual artist David DiAngelis, Helenor serves as a vehicle to explore the twin threads of stasis and change that run through any life, and provides space to reflect on age old existential questions with a fresh, contemporary edge. Released via Mtn Laurel Recording Co., new single ‘Windshield’ is the ideal introduction for the uninitiated, exploring the ways in which we may or may not alter as we grow and come of age, and the curious comfort which might be found in the answer. “I’ve been spending a lot more of my time with children lately, which feels like a portal but also a mirror,” DiAngelis describes. “The mirror part has me feeling like—damn, I’m really not even that much different than who I was at that age. I guess the only way for me to reconcile this is to just remember that every other self-important someone walking by me in New York City is actually just one gigantic child in disguise.”

Mark Trecka – Wake Dance Romance ft. Lead Into Gold

Chicago-born writer, sound artist, performer, and activist Mark Trecka has a new record, ROMANCE WAKE NAMING, coming out next month via LA label The Garrote. Long-time readers will be familiar with his work which roams the outer edges of post-punk, neo-classical and avant garde, combining themes both personal and political in a sound which have said previously “utilis[es] sound to explore a diverse set of styles and themes in a practice as inventive as it is ambitious.” Collaboration is key to Trecka’s practice and the new record is no different. This time industrial music legend Paul Barker (Ministry) both produces and features under his alias Lead Into Gold, helping to create a trip-hop-influenced sound that’s as big and immediate as it is nuanced and experimental. Lead single ‘Wake Dance Romance’ throws the listener headlong into this style. Check it out below.

Pearla – Loved By Me

Pearla has shared a couple of singles from her upcoming new album Song Room in recent weeks, with ‘Be Around‘ and ‘Imagine Your Face‘ introducing a record which inverts the outward view of predecessor Oh Glistening Onion, The Nighttime Is Coming to instead offer a more introspective style. “A survey not of the exterior but interior,” we wrote, “though one which nevertheless finds a vast world full of strange beauty.” With the release fast approaching, Pearla is now back with new track ‘Loved By Me’ which further grounds the emotional core of the record. “This is a song of unconditional love for someone who is used to measuring their worth by external factors,” she says. “I wrote a lot of the songs on this record guided by the question, ‘What is it that my body needs to sing?’ In this case, it was an expression of love, directed toward the more tender parts within myself and the people in my life.” Watch the video by Enne Goldstein below:

Song Room will be released on the 24th April and you can pre-order it now from the Pearla Bandcamp page.

Polhawan – No Sweat

You might know Tim Rowing-Parker as the songwriter behind acts like Woahnows and Immy, the Bristol-based artist using the later to put out a series of scrappy, surf-inflected releases in recent years. His new project Polhawan is both an evolution and revolution of this style, looking to preserve the immediacy and DIY spirit of Immy while pursuing a newfound polish and depth. The result is clearly Rowing-Parker, but also Rowing-Parker as never seen before. Cryptic, strange, fresh and confident. Take single ‘No Sweat’ from debut EP Wild Mountain Time, coming this May via Breakfast Records, which takes a sunny, surfy sound and applies it to something altogether more supernatural. “After a few years living in the country, I moved back to the city, and honestly it kinda freaked me out,” he explains. “To take the edge off the train station each morning I’d block out the noise with headphones, and for some reason this led to listening to loads of supernatural podcasts. It’s quite funny that people recounting the scariest shit that has ever happened to them seemed more comforting to me than existing alongside fellow commuters in the light of day.”

Rare DM – Compliment

The moniker Rare DM might be cryptic (does it refer to direct message? Dungeon master? Dance music?), but the music of Brooklyn-based singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erin Hoagg is anything but guarded. Leaning mainly on synths, Rare DM creates an immediate, emotionally charged sound which seduces the listener into its embrace before bearing its messy heart, no matter how revealing or intense the process might be. Later this spring, sees the release of new full-length Attention, and single ‘Compliment’  is typical of its sensual, confronting style. “It is inspired by when you are in a relationship, and someone who you had eyes for (before meeting your s/o) suddenly pays attention to you,” as Hoagg expands. “I was sent a suggestive message from someone, and wasn’t single anymore. As the lyrics share: ‘don’t you worry about it for a second, I can take a compliment’ because hey, I don’t want them to feel embarrassed or bad, they didn’t know that I met someone! This all being said… I can’t control if they are thinking of me. ‘You can’t have it… but you can imagine it’.”

Watch the suitably surreal, suggestive video by Lisa Saeboe below:

Attention will be released on the 29th May and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Shaina Hayes – Flourish

When not writing songs or touring, Québec-based artist Shaina Hayes runs a vegetable farm in her hometown, a fact which is more than an interesting tidbit to add to a bio. Because spend any time with Hayes’s music and you’ll come to appreciate a kinship between both of these pursuits: an attention to detail, a deep-rooted connection to the land and its life, not to mention an overarching patience that allows her to reflect upon the present with admirable clarity. In preparation for her third full-length, coming soon via Bonsound, Hayes has returned with ‘Flourish’, a suitably earthy, emotive slice of folk which highlights this style perfectly. A well-timed evocation of spring and all of it inherent hopefulness, blooming with an easy warmth as it gestures towards a brighter future of healing and growth. Watch the visualizer by Flavie Lemée below:

‘Flourish’ is out now via Bonsound and available from the usual places.

Will White – When To Stop

Songwriter and composer Will White has long been known for his work with other artists. The Maccabees, 86TVs and Great White Shark are among the acts he’s collaborated with, and he runs a residency at Ron’s cafe in Peckham which has welcomed everyone from Jasper Llewlyn (of Caroline), Katy J Pearson and Will Rees (Mystery Jets) to Florence Welch, Dry Cleaning and Sam Akpro. Even his own project BLANc practised a certain level of distancing from his personal self. But this May sees White step out into the light on his own for the first time with the release of his debut solo album It’s Easy To Let The Thoughts Gain Ground on state51. A record which takes all of the knowledge and experience gained through years spend in the heart of the UK’s artistic community and applies it to his own intimate, reflective brand of indie rock. Latest single ‘When To Stop’ captures the spirit of the release, offering a decidedly compassionate tone that is nevertheless shot through which a rising tension too. Like a picture of someone caught between the shadows of the past and an obscure future, wishing to hope for something better while the world rocks and burns.

Watch the video made by White  alongside Rosie Terry-Toogood below:

It’s Easy To Let The Thoughts Gain Ground will be released on the 1st May via state51 and you can pre-order it now.

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Subsequent track ‘Witness‘ might not have concerned such a well-known urban myth, but was no less striking for it. Longo recounts watching a cat die after being struck by a vehicle, as well as the inexplicable nonchalance of a friend who saw it too. “The incident is still a touchpoint for me,” he explained. “Every time I come upon the same powerless feeling, whether it be through the loss of a loved one or the general anxiety that the veil between this world and the next is quite thin.”

With the album’s release fast approaching via First City Artists, Thin Lear has returned with brand new single ‘A Cherished Man’. Its predecessors might have held a sense of ambition in their themes and narrative, but this song pushes even further. A triptych of character studies which follows three ostensibly eccentric people through their honest attempts to connect with others from the margins of society. There’s Andy, who drinks so much each evening he draws a tourist crowd to see his public scenes of shame. Annie, whose isolated urban life is punctuated, or rather punctured, by her compulsion to poke people with pins, as though looking to prove her ability to leave any mark on the world at all. Then finally Charlie, a man who eats all manner of irregular objects, including corks, stones, birds and snakes, just to earn a drop of recognition. “I see myself in all of them,” Longo explains. “They’re looking for meaningful engagement, they’re just not sure how to broker it.”

Watch the video below by Ali Aschman:

Many Disappeared will be released on the 24th April via First City Artists and you can pre-order it now from the Thin Lear Bandcamp page.

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“I wanted to give myself the agency to distort all truths to see what jumped out to me as truthful in a reactive, and sometimes illusionary or misleading, sense–in all of this faulty rawness,” the San Francisco-based artist explains of the release. “I was really drawn to sounds and images that felt satisfyingly ‘false’–I was drawn to Cecil Taylor’s Unit Structures, my favorite drag queens in Los Angeles who magically bombed every Monday, Ryan Trecartin’s A Family Finds Entertainment, Sunik Kim’s Potential, and so much more. I wanted frenzy that felt disembodying–so disembodying that this time of my life could conjure a laugh.”

With the album’s release quickly approaching, Lucy Liyou has returned with brand new single ‘Crisis (Identity)’. One of several hinge points within the MR COBRA narrative, the song confuses the line between crisis and epiphany, its protagonist Babygirl coming to embrace the dualism or chimeric tendencies of their character. Not quite grasping whether the admission is an exercise in masochism, liberation or both simultaneously. We follow the track from the initial clarity (such an identity is unruly, shameful, an act of performance or else a plain crisis) into something far more nuanced and interesting. That is, the realisation that perhaps any one person’s identity is too large to fully capture with any blanket label. That parts of us will always clash with others, and that contradiction is not an aberration but an inherent feature. Which means that MR COBRA does not represent the classic, affirming arc so familiar in artistic identity quests, but instead something more difficult, messy and real.

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