The album’s title is therefore both misleading and perfectly specific. The songs centre on the oilfield town of Houma. Categorically somewhere, yet, at least as far as the rest of the country is concerned, the proverbial middle of nowhere. But there’s another dimension lurking in the title too, one which lends the album its tension and urgency. For Houma and towns like it are on the bleeding edge of the unfolding climate catastrophe, not only battered by ever more violent hurricanes but literally sinking into the sea. One of many places across the world that will soon be nowhere in more than a figurative sense. This record is Convinced Friend’s attempt to commit it to memory.

But no make no mistake, Nowhere Songs is not a lesson in gloating, voyeurism or pity. Wilson might have made it out, but his focus remains firmly on the ground in Houma, shoulder to shoulder with those who walk its streets. An intimacy underlined by a certain sense of disbelief, as though Wilson can’t quite fathom he now lives in Rhode Island, and some part of him never will (which perhaps is not surprising, considering he is one of only two people from his graduating class to leave Louisiana, the other moving to play football for Florida State). “In some ways, I feel like I somehow got… I don’t want to say spared, that feels too strong, but–I got out and other people didn’t, and I don’t exactly know why,” he explains.

But any relief is complicated by competing emotions, something like survivor’s guilt, or else the strange yearning of a writer in exile. Home can be overbearing, claustrophobic, almost inhospitable, but there’s no replacement for it. Those separated from the place they were born are on some level people destined for forever mourn.

Nowhere Songs will be released on the 28th August and you can pre-order it now from the Convinced Friend Bandcamp page.

Photo by Jessina Leonard

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Tether is a fitting name for the release, speaking to both the connection between Hellmuth and her supporting cast—bassists Logan Kane and Miller Wrenn and drummer Justin Brown (Thundercat, Aja Monet)—and how group, and indeed the audience, act something like a leash within the spontaneity of improvisation. The musicians might play themselves out into unexpected territory, but there’s always a line to bring them back into the heart of the group.

After lead track ‘Face The Wall’ introduced the raucous and visionary nature of this sound, subsequent single  ‘Microfictions’ pushed further. The song “wastes no time in pitching the audience into the depths of her adventurous approach,” as we continued, “drawing on Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music to create a style of improvisation centring on melody. Scurrying percussion adds a sense of urgency, while Hellmuth’s trademark sax skates over the surface with virtuosic personality.”

With the album’s release imminent, Alden Hellmuth has shared one final single, ”Definitely Not Friends’. But despite what the title might suggest, the song is an embodiment of the trust and intuition shared between Hellmuth and her bandmates, as well as their elastic habit of playing out in all directions but always snapping back into the heart of the group. The result, like Tether as a whole, is imaginative, daring and often frantic, driven as though by the compelling force of like-minded musicians encouraging one another forward. The listener is cast as an extra party within the experience, themselves an extra member of the ensemble, pushed and pulled between the various elements so as to become fully immersed within the sound.

Tether will be released on the 26th June via LEITER and you can pre-order it now from the Alden Hellmuth Bandcamp page.

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After lead single ‘Everything’, which wrestled with “the impossible task of trying to be everything all at once, balancing all that life throws at you whilst trying to find yourself and your place amidst it all,” as the band themselves put it, atmos bloom have now returned with brand new track ‘Closer’. Attempting to move beyond the conundrum of its predecessor, the single finds Gratton and Paterson looking for contentment in the present and the constant change it represents. Something achieved with a woozy, almost ethereal sound that sits on a knife edge between lucidity and dreams, sanding the edges off of reality in order to consider it more fully.

Photo by Kyoka Seguchi

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Back in 2024, Richmond, Virginia’s canaries released a self-titled EP, six songs that announced their brand of noisy lo-fi fuzz pop. One home-recorded demo aside, they have been quiet since then, that is until returning last week with a double single, released to coincide with a short tour with fellow Richmond locals Star Sign. Both new songs are great, but opener ‘horsepower’ just about takes it. The opening minute is a wordless rush, raw guitar and building percussion gathering into something genuinely exhilarating. Highly recommended if you like your pop songs on the heavier side and slathered in shoegaze-ish fuzz.

Frontlawn – Jenny Says

New Oberlin-based project Frontlawn have unveiled their debut single ‘Jenny Says’ as a calling card for their tender style of folk. The recording project of songwriters Tyler Buckser-Schulz and Viv Tullis, as well as a variety of friends, Frontlawn is clearly a labour of love, and their lead single sets out their intentions from the off. Recorded live to further the emotional immediacy of the sound, ‘Jenny Says’ is subtle but undeniably rich, possessing the closeness of bedroom pop yet brought to life by a full band, including Meredith Grotevant’s lap steel which adds a wistful country twang. Lyrically, the track is thoughtful and earnest, able to conjure both specific moments and images as well as a more reflective assessment of life’s constant yearning. An act to keep an eye on for sure.

Great Klons – More Beauty in the Rain

“[An] inventive collision of genres, as indie rock, psych, folk and Krautrock influences all coalesce into a singular sound able to explore ideas of instability within the contemporary moment.” So we wrote of an EP by Great Klons back in 2024, songwriter Scott Klon drawing on a wide palette to meet a chaotic present. Though if the circumstances surrounding that release were tumultuous, then latest EP Recurring Common Dream only ups the ante. Devasting wildfires, parental illness, the encroachment of pernicious technology… and that’s just on lead single ‘More Beauty in the Rain’. The track has a decidedly mid-00s feel, carved out of a blend of organic and digital textures and lifted by male-female harmonies, simmering as though always on the verge of firing into something altogether more propulsive yet for the most part retaining its understated, tonally ambiguous rhythm.

‘More Beauty in the Rain’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Hadnot Creek – The End Of The Road

Back in May we introduced Hadnot Creek, the recording project of Charlottesville songwriter Robert Sawrey and his rotating band of supporting musicians (including former members of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Kendall Street Company, no less), in preparation for the release of new full-length The End Of The Road. After single ‘River of Love’ gave a flavour of what to expect (“fans of the likes of James McMurty are sure to find much to love,” as we wrote, “Hadnot Creek sketching a decidedly existential picture of life and death without losing a toe-tapping rhythm”), Sawrey and co. are back with the title track. “[The song] is loosely based on two things,” he explains. “An ill advised camping trip to Vermont I took in 1976 (yes I’m that old) and the suicide of an old friend who battled bouts of mental illness. He was a gifted poet and naturalist.” The result is every bit as evocative as you might expect from this description, with vivid imagery (“Black flies so thick / you could kill them with a rake”) combining with an overarching sense of reflection to paint a picture of a man at the dead of night. A person lost in the wilderness or else the dark twists of his own head and confessing as much as plainly as he knows how.

Hana Stretton – salt / stove

Hana Stretton returns later this summer with a brand new record, the much-anticipated follow-up to 2023 sleeper hit Soon. Titled tiarn, the collection of eleven songs was self-recorded in small-town coastal Australia, taking inspiration from the experience of watching whales pass on a nearby migration route to ruminate on feelings of anxiety and loss caused by living through ecological crisis. Stretton takes this heavy subject matter and spins it into something characteristically calm and evocative, as evidenced by lead singles ‘salt’ and ‘stove’. Fans of Soon will instantly recognise the spacious compositions and warm production, but the first two songs hint at a step toward the ambient, with diverse samples and careful electronics evoking a whole world, ambiguous and dreamlike. Check them out below:

Tiarn will be released on 7^th August via brierfield flood press. If you’re in Aus, be sure to snag a copy of the limited first edition LP, which comes with a beautiful blind embossed eel design. And for those in other locations, records are apparently coming soon.

Lesley Mok – williams landing

Based in New York City, Lesley Mok is a percussionist and interdisciplinary artist whose work spans sound, installation, film and theatre. Next month, Mok will release a new record, titled transient, which label American Dreams describe as “an assemblage of sonic vignettes suffused with introversion, poignancy, nostalgia, and contemplative observation.” Named after the street where Mok grew up, latest single ‘williams landing’ is a piece of opaque but strangely affecting ambient music that not only explores the uncanny nature of memory but attempts to evoke it in the listener. “Memories can feel both elusive and fuzzy in the way they sit in my body,” Mok explains. “But sometimes with a bit of attention and time, details come into focus, and a once-vague memory can suddenly become clear, like a photo negative. I hope that this track can be a space where listeners can resonate with the experience of remembering, no matter how fleeting or fragmentary a memory might be.”

transient will be released via American Dreams on 17th July. Pre-order it now via Bandcamp.

oh, hooray – STATISTICALLY ME / WASTELAND2

oh, hooray is a little more than your usual folk pop outfit. Describing themselves as “an art project that makes celebratory sad music,” the band practise a multimedia approach, supporting their sound with everything from film and stop motion to theatrical and dance-centred performance. In the wrong hands, such artistic diversity might prioritise style or substance, but as latest LP the city has teeth i think i saw them once attests, oh, hooray is rooted in an authentic and impassioned emotional core. Take recent single ‘WASTELAND2’, a slow burn slice of bedroom pop which paints the current moment with equal parts devotion and doom. Or sister track ‘STATISTICALLY ME’, which channels Bright Eyes in its fervent, almost desperate delivery. Both songs play like dispatches from the American present, a time we might label ‘late capitalism’ if only the late didn’t seem such an overly optimistic diagnosis. Fatalistic, furious and at least halfway triumphant, if only because they still have the energy to raise their voice to scream.

today i woke up wishing i didn’t
collecting the last cut of my unemployment
i tried to be right, right in the middle of it
but it’s an eye of storm that i stopped chasin’
so the day that i die i’ll be in blissful anonymity
just a percentage on a screen
statistically me

the city has teeth i think i saw them once is out now and available from the usual places.

Piu – Home

Piu might be the solo recording project of Vancouver Island-based songwriter and composer Priyanka Chakrabarti, but new album Milao is anything but the product of a single person. With a title which translates as “to come together,” the record turns to family history, drawing on the songs and melodies made familiar by the matriarchal line of Chakrabarti’s lineage, passed down the generations and ultimately from Chakrabarti’s mother to herself. The result is at once highly personal and inherently historical, rooted in specific details yet shaped by the partition and other national events. Latest single ‘Home’ is the ideal introduction, where layers of modular and analogy synths combine with striking vocals to create a sound expansive enough to do such grand themes justice. “‘Home’ explores the idea of finding belonging within yourself, wherever you are,” Chakrabarti explains. “Written from experiences of moving through unfamiliar spaces, the piece reflects the search for connection amid uncertainty and change. ‘Home’ is both a place of return and an ongoing process of becoming.”

Shredded Sun – Skyscraper

All three members of Chicago indie rock band Shredded Sun, that’s Nick Ammerman, Sarah Ammerman and Ben Bilow, previously played in trash-pop outfit Fake Fictions, which “tore through Chicago’s underground from 2004 to 2009.” Later, they reinvented themselves as Shredded Sun, which despite not fully hitting its groove until 2022, has been pretty prolific since then. Their sound pulls ingredients from all corners of the indie rock pantry, resulting in something that feels both reassuringly familiar and freshly unpredictable. Later this summer, Shredded Sun will release a new record, Never Odd or Even, via Repeating Cloud. Lead single ‘Skyscraper’ is our first glimpse, a song that combines jangly hooks with Replacements-style rock grit.

SIKADE – greedy heart

Oslo-based singer, songwriter, harpist and producer Linnea Vestre, aka SIKADE, has been releasing a steady stream of singles in recent times as she gears up for the release of her debut full-length. So far songs like ‘body of water‘ (“embodies the balance between intimacy and scale which marks the project”) and ‘eleven‘ (“the line between sensuality and symbolism dissolves […] pushing towards a lushness which is almost cinematic”) have raised the anticipation for the record, and latest single ‘greedy heart’ only furthers the excitement. An embodiment of both the yearning at the heart of the forthcoming album and the dreamy compassion with which Vestre brings it to life, and the ideal balm to the oppressive summer heat which has descended upon us.

‘greedy heart’ is out now via streaming services.

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To further raise the anticipation for the record, Scott C Park has now shared the album’s title track. Revival serves as a meditation on ideas of identity and faith, as well as the role of creativity in underpinning or challenging such things, and the new single pushes deeper than ever into these thematic concerns. Park’s childhood was spent in the church on the Isle of Lewis, meaning the word revival, in a spiritual sense, has serious resonance, though the song shows how he is setting out to reimagine the definition, at least in his own head, in part as an act of respect towards his younger self. “I’m reclaiming the term for my own story,” Park explains. “The revival I experienced while making this record was a return to the thirteen-year-old me who just wanted to write songs and play rock and roll.”

Which is not to say the baby is thrown out with the bathwater. Because while Park pushes against the strictures of the church, his exploration never feels purely critical. Rather, he treats his experiences with equal parts curiosity and compassion, acknowledging his own identity and beliefs with claiming they hold any higher value than those of anyone else. And the song has real emotional heft too, growing from subdued restraint into something much bigger, evoking a sense of melancholy majesty as the acoustic drums kick in behind howls of distorted guitar.

Revival is set for release on the 14th August.

Photo by Danielle MacLeod

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Back in May we shared an updated version of Hayman, Watkins, Trout And Lee, a bluegrass record which combined original material with covers of genre classics, and hinted that the release might be the start of a wider project to unearth the full depth of Darren Hayman’s substantial back catalogue and reinvigorate it for the digital age. This process has quietly continued across recent weeks. Previously missing titles from Hefner have reappeared via his own imprint Belka, as well as releases from The French, The Secondary Modern and his debut solo EP Cortinaland, meaning a long-needed sense of order is starting to emerge within Hayman’s online presence. The work of this kaleidoscopic and shape-shifting artist finally catalogued in one place.

But the crowning achievement of this mission is the release of an expanded edition of 2012’s The Violence. Among one of Darren Hayman’s most ambitious undertakings, The Violence is complex and emotionally resonant concept album centring on the English Civil War and the contemporaneous witch trials across East Anglia. With a sound brought to life by a vast ensemble of musicians going by the name The Long Parliament, the record digs right into the violence and superstitions of the period, tracing a country pulled apart by misplaced fervour, illusions of moral superiority, pernicious rumours and the old-fashioned desire for power. A society, that is, very different from our own, yet governed by familiar forces. One in which fear and ignorance curdle into something terrible, and act as a cover for those who wish to enact ideas of cruelty and greed. “The beliefs and fears that led to the Witch Trials are taken from the Puritan idea that it is wrong to glorify or look upon God’s image directly. Taken to its absolute extreme, only the blind were seen as truly pure, and ungodliness was perceived to be everywhere,” Hayman explains:

Evil never thinks of itself as such, and people can act cruelly when frightened. I assume that Matthew Hopkins, the self-named ‘Witch Finder General’ believed, on some level, that he was acting on God’s instruction. In early 1645, Hopkins pushed his ear to his window and overheard conversations between supposed witches. Elizabeth Clarke, a one-legged, 80-year-old widow, was the first to be accused and arrested.

Hopkins claimed that 3 days and nights of ‘watching’ led Elizabeth Clarke to ‘confess many things’; furthermore, that his interrogation witnessed the summoning of numerous hideous imps and demons. Clarke confessed to sleeping with the devil and also pointed the finger at other women in the parish, including Anne West and her daughter Rebecca. All of these women were single or widowed beggars and perceived to be a drain on their communities.

Hopkins began offering his services to other towns. For a fee, he would help rid these communities of their ‘witches’

The expanded edition of The Violence comes complete with its companion EP The Four Queens, plus several unreleased songs and demos. “It’s so important to me to have this record available again. It’s the hardest I’ve ever worked, and I believe it sounds like nothing else in my back catalogue,” Hayman explains. “I write easily about modernity and pepper my lyrics with slang, brand names, and colloquialisms. I wanted to write about something in Essex’s past that spoke of its strangeness and also forced me to write in a language suitable for another period.”

The Violence (Expanded Edition) is out now and available from the Darren Hayman Bandcamp page.

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This autumn will see the release of Wishy’s second album Nature’s Pill on Winspear, and it seems Pitchkites, Krauter and co. have built upon everything which came before and embraced the madness of the contemporary moment. The label describe the record as a “jubilant remix of the past” which manages to tackle the uncertainty and anxiety of the present within a 90s/00s aesthetic, all while preserving the playful, almost mischievous edge which has so longed marked the Wishy sound. “Being in an indie band feels bizarre when the world is on fire,” as Krauter explains. “What can you do at the end of the day other than carve out some space—at the very least I have my imagination and I can invite others to join me there. At a certain point you need to say fuck it and roll with it.”

Lead single ‘Lovesick’ kicks things off. An unapologetically romantic track which creates the slightly intoxicated state of the title in all of its headspinning glory, refusing to dial down the lyrics in order to fully embrace the headspace. As though to be in love is to experience everything saturated and bright. “Cut the pink out of your hair / For your grandma’s funeral, don’t stare / Go on, get in your car and drive,” as one typical verse goes, “Killin’ time / Cut the shit! / Baby, you’re on fire.” Far from being a temporary high, the vibe looks set to inform the record as a whole. A collection of songs which might not be immune from the age-old problems of loneliness, worry and regret, but choose to ramp up the colour in the world and focus on the possibility inherent within these emotions instead of getting buried by their weight.

Watch the video directed by Trent Wayne below:

Nature’s Pill will be released on the 2nd October via Winspear and you can pre-order it from the Wishy Bandcamp page.

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Back in 2023 we wrote about Somethinghood by A Box of Stars, an album which saw “the Burlington outfit weave what is best described as a sense of complete attention,” as we put it, “a focus which elevates what might seem ordinary situations into something almost sublime.” Now Macaulay Lerman and co. are back with Walnut Street, a brand new record which doubles down on the style to capture both the beauty of life’s smallest details and the implicit sadness which stems from the knowledge that everything will one day fade away. Single ‘Remain’ is the ideal place to jump in, a typically lo-fi and authentic track which carries a flame of love despite the looming threat of loss around.

Alden Hellmuth – Microfictions

“Tether is a fitting name for the release,” we wrote of Alden Hellmuth‘s new album on LEITER back in May, “speaking to both the connection between Hellmuth and her supporting cast—bassists Logan Kane and Miller Wrenn and drummer Justin Brown (Thundercat, Aja Monet)—and how group, and indeed the audience, act something like a leash within the spontaneity of improvisation. The musicians might play themselves out into unexpected territory, but there’s always a line to bring them back into the heart of the group.” After single ‘Face the Wall’ kicked things off, Hellmuth has now shared latest track ‘Microfictions’. The opening number on the album, ‘Microfictions’ wastes no time in pitching the audience into the depths of her adventurous approach, drawing on Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music to create a style of improvisation centring on melody. Scurrying percussion adds a sense of urgency, while Hellmuth’s trademark sax skates over the surface with virtuosic personality.

Tether will be released on the 26th June via LEITER and you can pre-order it now.

Cheekface – I Don’t Work Here

LA trio Cheekface have made a name in recent years with mischievous brand of indie rock. Their music combines post punk angles and playful pop bounce with a droll talk-singing style of vocal delivery to create something sometimes caustic, often irreverent and always dialled into the ridiculous age we call the present. For anyone left uninitiated, latest single ‘I Don’t Work Here’ bundles up the Cheekface aesthetic into a tidy three minutes, railing against everything from the surveillance state to the steady creep of the corporate into civic life with equal parts swagger and seethe. A world where everyone is watched yet perpetually lonely, and unrealistic demands come from bosses and customers alike.

Dog Shaped – Please Hold

In part rising from the ashes of former band Sue Your Landlord, Dog Shaped is songwriter Emily Cabarle alongside Nicholas Djukic Cocks (lead guitar), Michael McCanna (lap steel), Matt Shuham (drums), Angelo Ross (keys, backing vocals) and Freddy Haug (bass). With an EP slated for release next month, Cabarle and co. have shared single ‘Please Hold’ to introduce their sound. A song described by the band as “a power ballad about wanting to be close and connect with friends/lovers but being scared of what happens when you’re vulnerable,” it confronts the needling doubt of fearing you are too much for those around you while pining for acceptance and connection. Watch the video produced and directed by Mars Alba below:

‘Please Hold’ is out now via streaming services.

Jacob Brodovsky – Kids

Back in April we introduced Tell The Kids We Tried, the forthcoming full-length from Winnipeg songwriter Jacob Brodovsky, describing how the album “meditate[s] on themes of community, connection and family within the tumult that is the present moment,” with a set of characters “attempting to build a life within a world where the future seems unwilling or unable to materialise.” Latest single ‘Kids’ addresses this style more directly than anything on the record, written while Brodovsky was wrestling with what it meant to have a young child and another on the way while the future of civilisation seems so bleak. “For me, having children has been a massive source of both optimism and dread,” he explains. “Being around children and watching them discover themselves is such an incredible gift to behold, while also terrifying to realize all the ways they could hurt themselves and the limits of my own abilities to protect them.”

Tell The Kids We Tried will be released on the 10th July via Make My Day Records and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Kate Prascher – Jubilee

Later this summer, Memphis-born, Hudson Valley-based songwriter Kate Prascher will release new full-length Sunday Afternoon. The follow-up to 2024’s Shake the Dust, the record sees Prascher build upon her distinctively honest, unguarded style of folk. Lead single ‘Jubilee’ embodies both the atmosphere and emotional clarity of the release, the sound with one foot in the past but always looking forward, allowing memories and hopes for the future to sit side by side. “I wrote it while walking on an old train trestle in Rosendale, New York, a town ringing with the eerie history of a stone quarry, carrying memories of my hometown across it,” Prascher explains. “By the time I climbed down from the track, the song was mostly written. It’s a lyrical exploration of the word ‘jubilee’ as both a signal of celebration and of forgiveness.”

Sunday Afternoon will be released on the 28th August via First City Artists.

MEGGO – just my luck

Following on from 2025 EP eavesdropper ;; death stories, Montreal-based songwriter MEGGO is returning this summer with the next chapter of a trilogy of releases, with lead single ‘jaws of life‘ giving a taste of what to expect earlier in the year. Now she is back with new track ‘just my luck’, a song which allows repressed anger to bubble the surface, not only as a form of simple catharsis but also to clear the ground in order for the process of healing to begin. “There’s a part of me that needs to yell and scream. I don’t call on her that often, but she’s in there!” MEGGO explains. “‘just my luck’ is what comes from that inevitable explosion. It’s about letting go of grudges and making room inside yourself for forgiveness. It acknowledges where there is pain, looks right at it, and lays it bare so that it no longer needs to be carried. What’s left is compassion and peace in its wake.”

Two Runner – Strawberry Rhinestone

Described by label Gar Hole Records as “a warm reassurance for anyone who’s gotten dressed up just to come home alone,” ‘Strawberry Rhinestone’ is the lead single from Two Runner’s upcoming new album Porchlight. The Northern Californian duo, songwriter Paige Anderson and fiddler Emilie Rose, have lived a life steeped in folk music, growing up in the mountains and playing from a young age, and the experience shines through in the Two Runner sound. The single is a slice of lively barroom bluegrass, equal parts wistful and reassuring as it delivers a message both wise and world weary. “”Love is in your favor if you can outlast the bad ones.”

Some lovers are like the mountains
Some lovers are like the ocean
Some of them stick like velcro
And some leave in mysterious ways

‘Strawberry Rhinestone’ is out now via streaming services.

W. Y. Huang – Born To Lose

We last wrote about Singapore-born, New York-based singer-songwriter W. Y. Huang back in 2024 with the release of the EP Knots. The release possessed “a fluidity and ease suggestive of an artist who has spent time exploring their tastes and honing their craft,” we wrote. “One ready to share something intimate.” Fast forward a couple of years and W. Y Huang is preparing to release his debut full-length On Stranger Hills, and lead single ‘Born To Lose’ suggests the album will be even more honest and personal. With a lo-fi sound which owes a debut to both Daniel Johnston and Adrienne Lenker and drawing on his own immigrant experience, Huang “explores the loneliness and anxiety of what it means to be invisible in a foreign land,” as the album notes explain, “tracing the edges of belonging, where memory and place begin to blur.”

‘Born to Lose’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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With these foundations established, Black Duck is now pushing the envelope further. After touring across Spain with acclaimed Basque musician Elena Setién, the trio felt they had discovered someone else clearly attuned to the Black Duck spirit, and have taken this forward to not only invigorate the project, but to reimagine its very boundaries. Again released with Thrill Jockey, Black Duck with Elena Setién sees Black Duck become a quartet in order to bottle the lightning of this live performance. “This record for me, is a prolongation of that tour together in Spain,” Setién explains. “We combined our sets and every night new improvisations evolved. So we took that same freshness to the studio.”

This was achieved by a fleet-footed approach to recording, the foursome only rehearsing for a matter of hours before heading to the Palisade studio with trusted collaborator Nick Broste and unleashing the spontaneous creativity which has so marked the tour. “Working with Nick Broste was easy and natural for us,” Rumback continues. “At this point we have all probably recorded multiple projects with him in different bands, so it was a shared language that let us move fast.” Setién adds, “Nick is the kind of sound engineer who makes music with the band–sound is his instrument.”

Listen to lead single ‘Land of the Many Eyes’ now:

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Or perhaps not despite the clarity of the title, because while the thicket of feelings might be disorientating to experience, Brown maps this complexity with such precision and care that a sense of order starts to emerge. Meaning, as the album progresses, we follow her characters out of this tangle of interpersonal relations towards something enticingly close to lucidity, if not outright epiphany.

To ground this thematic arc, Izzy Oram Brown has shared two singles from the end of the record to hint at just where What I Want ends up. And, more than that, the songs also serve to demonstrate how this mission extends beyond the lyrics to the very sound itself. Multi-instrumentalist Jesse Bielenberg (Altopalo, Jesse in Grey, Dora Jar) and drummer Connor Parks (Cafune, Little Mystery, Tony Vaz) join to elevate the arrangements, and the fittingly layered and complex results align perfectly with the emotional weather through which Brown’s characters move. “Far from sounding like a typical indie-folk songwriter record,” Winston Cook-Wilson writes in the album notes, “What I Want is full of synth comet-streaks and fiery bits of unidentifiable sonic debris that function like musical evocations of both life’s unwelcome surprises and unprecedented wonders.”

First comes penultimate track ‘Love U the Same’, a warm, acoustic pop number which plays as though emerging from the other end of confusion within a relationship, not so much with specific answers for each and every problem but rather a kind of overarching meta-understanding. The hard won knowledge that love will always come loaded with knots and contradictions, and will likely never settle into anything close to perfection, but instead requires constant work. Closer ‘I Believe’ pushes the idea further. A track grander than its predecessor which takes this understanding and paints it in huge letters across the sky. A conclusion that feels almost defiant. “But I believe in the in between / And I believe in the starting clean,” as Brown sings in the song’s closing verse. “Well if that makes me wrong / So let it be.”

What I Want will be released on the 26th June and you can pre-order it now from the Izzy Oram Brown Bandcamp page.

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