Not every song on the record moves in such a clearly affirming direction, but each holds the idea as a possibility even when agency is stripped away. Written while a close friend was dealing with a difficult situation, ‘The Way Back‘ “faces up to suffering with a steely determination,” we we put it previously, “urging anyone struggling to hold on a little longer until the clouds begin to break.” The vulnerability and directionlessness of unguarded opener ‘So Small’ seeks answers to correct the situation, and ‘Dark Spell’ goes as far as to invite pain so as to speed up the process of working through the end of a relationship.

I never took it all too well
You watched me wither
Under your dark, dark spell

So break me and tell me what hurts

Stemming from an all-too common brush with a disrespectful man, ‘Buffet‘ also deals with a sense of powerlessness, though refuses to settle for the usual consequences of such imbalances. “The resulting track simmers with competing energies,” we we wrote in a preview. “The writhing discomfort of the experience matched only by an ever-present anger now brought to the boil.” It’s perhaps the most explicit example of the indignant bite which runs through Ainsley Farrell’s work. Fury as “an attempt to reverse the situation,” as we concluded, “[to] draw power from the music and regain the agency which is chipped away day by day.”

‘Motel 6’ exists within a more nuanced yet no less sticky situation with a man. One where the narrator is unsure whether they want the attention or not. “I saw the smoke from your breath turn to poetry / The light you blew burned through a silence in me,” Farrell sings in her deftly precise manner. “You gave me my first kiss in a Motel 6 / So young just dying to be part of it.” The wistful yet bright closer ‘Oblivion’ rises from amid all of these tales of doubt and darkness, perhaps possessing little by way of answers, but leavened enough by the experiences to float above the tumult and find something like reflection.

If I vaporize before your eyes
Would you cool my molecules as they start to rise?
Watch me shake this cloud is gonna break
See me swirl and let down all my weight

Don’t cry I’m moving on
Don’t cry when I’m gone

Dirt is out now and available from the Ainsley Farrell Bandcamp page.

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The US-born, Sydney-based songwriter is gearing up to release a full-length album later this year, and has released another single, ‘Fireworks’, to offer a glimpse at yet another dimension of her work. It’s a track which fits into the indie rock lineage of Dacus and Bridgers, confessional in its tone and cathartic in practice, holding up vulnerabilities as a way in which to conquer them.

This time Ainsley Farrell takes a disorientating experience on the fourth of July in Rhode Island and reworks the scene to speak to such ideas. “I was working through some sadness and anxiety but forced myself to go out to see the fireworks with friends,” she explains. “We were biking down the river path thick with smoke when I lost them. I paused in the thick smoke and couldn’t see anything else around me. I could only hear the sound of the fireworks going off in the night sky and imagined what it would feel like to burn that bright.”

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Feelings of powerlessness again feature on latest single ‘Buffet’, albeit within an entirely different context. “This song came from a place of feeling angry, powerless and minimized after a few different experiences where men thought they could violate my space and then just go about their day,” Farrell explains. With the central image that of a older man who decided it appropriate to come onto her at a buffet by comparing her to the food. That strange and deflating mismatch of power, where something so throwaway to one person can leave such a bruise.

The resulting track simmers with competing energies. The writhing discomfort of the experience matched only by an ever-present anger now brought to the boil. “Told you that I’m not part of the buffet,” Farrell sings, “push me round your plate / Go about your day.” It’s delivered with latent strength, taut guitar and pounding percussion eventually breaking into a squally release. An attempt to reverse the situation, draw power from the music and regain the agency which is chipped away day by day.

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US-born, Sydney-based songwriter Ainsley Farrell is set to release her album Dirt later this year, and new single ‘The Way Back’ gives an indication of what is to come. With its careful yet constant rhythm, the song faces up to suffering with a steely determination, urging anyone struggling to hold on a little longer until the clouds begin to break. Farrell wrote the song while a close friend experienced a difficult period, channelling her feelings of futility at being unable to help from a distance into a kind of promise. An insistence that things will not always be this way. “This song is metaphorically holding her in the light, holding some of that pain for her,” as Farrell puts it. “Until she’s ready to put one foot in front of the other and realize it’s worth sticking it out in this world.”

Attia Taylor – S/T

Out next month via Lame-O Records, Space Ghost is the debut album of songwriter and activist Attia Taylor. Taking it’s name from the absurd Hanna-Barbera cartoon, the record draws upon childhood memories within its psych-inflected style, taking the best and worst of the past in order to craft the possibility of healing in the present. The title track is a great entry point, its lush 60s aesthetic populated by Taylor’s confident delivery, though beneath the florid surface lies something more uncertain as she explores her relationship with her mother and their hit-and-miss attempts at connection.

The Burning Hell – The Last Normal Day

Garbage Island. No, it’s not the new official title of the United Kingdom but the forthcoming album by Canadian outfit The Burning Hell on BB*Island. Led by songwriter Mathias Kom along with with multi-instrumentalists Ariel Sharratt and Jake Nicoll and a variety of rotating guests, the band make everything from tongue-in-cheek anti-folk to racing indie rock. Latest single ‘The Last Normal Day’ sees the likes of Nick Ferrio join the gang to weave a bright and mischievous ode to a pre-apocalyptic world. A track which might be terrifying if it wasn’t so much fun.

Watching things get destroyed, a
Brand new schadenfreude
Crept into our conversations
And our dreams

Garbage Island is out on the 24th June via BB Island and you can pre-order it now.

dampsquib – a new slice of pie

The moniker of Brighton born multi-instrumentalist Matt Farrugia, dampsquib takes a heap of experience working in ambient, art rock and pop styles and combines into its own singular entity. His forthcoming EP is described as a “smorgasbord of musical ideas,” refusing to sit still in any one genre in its quest for experimental and improvisational sounds, and single ‘a new slice of piece’ gives one example of what such a process might sound like. Ambient Rhodes and piano lines coalesce with Farrugia’s vocals, the looping Wurlitzer supported by drums run through a tape machine to achieve that trademark 90s texture.

Doll Spirit Vessel – Train Brain Rot

“Write another half song / Grief under a summer sun,” opens ‘Train Brain Rot by Kati Malison’s Doll Spirit Vessel project. “Dead flies in the candle crater / Promised that I’d call you later / But I’m not me, this is a shell of someone.” The lead single from debut album What Stays which is coming later this summer on Disposable America, the song hints at both the band’s wry humour and questioning tone, the slacker-esque sound refusing to settle for easy comforts even as it invites identity crises to the door. Check out the video directed by Jon Cox and Kati Malison below:

What Stays is out on the 12th August via Disposable America and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

elison – Covered Me

Writing about single ‘Hopes & Horoscopes‘ back in January, we described the work of Des Moines duo Elison as “distinctive balance between tender emotion and gauzy soundscapes” which the band used to “confront bad habits and vices, from mourning unrealised dreams to becoming lost in superstition or introspection.” New single ‘Covered Me’ adds a sense of momentum to the style, the insistent drums evoking a certain tension as elison chart a troubled relationship with a narcissistic partner.

You’re the reason I don’t trust myself
With me you’re someone else
Nothing you say is true
Cause you want everyone to love you

Frank Meadows – Dead Weight

To call Frank Meadows’s forthcoming record Dead Weight a country album is both entirely fitting and slightly reductive, drawing as it does from a rich array of influences scattered across the American continent. Out next month on Ruination Record Co., the release sees the Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist look to the various stops of his past in order to more fully realise the current moment, stringing the pearls together with a palpable momentum which gives the whole thing an affirming air. The title track is as good an introduction as any, full of the warmth and self-reflection with marks the record thanks to Meadows’s piano-led style and contributions from the likes of Michael Cormier O’Leary, Oliver Kalb and Winston Cook-Wilson.

Maja Lena – No More Flowers

Ahead of forthcoming album Pluto on Chiverin Records, Maja Lena has shared brand new single, ‘No More Flowers’. With bucolic folk and cosmic synth sounds, the song explores the way in which friendships can change or end, and acknowledges that sometimes it is better to walk away rather than try to resuscitate something outside of your control. Like much of the record, imagery and ideas are drawn from fictional sources, in this case a particular branch of animation. “I’d been re-watching Studio Ghibli films at the time and fell in love with some of the earlier heavily synth driven soundtracks,” Lena explains. “I liked the idea of some the parts sounding like creatures from another world in conversation with each other, which Rob [Pemberton] managed to emulate better than I could imagine.” Check out Martha Webb’s video below:

Pluto is out via Chiverin Records on the 18th November. You can buy the single via Bandcamp.

Maya Lucia – sleepy baby club

We first covered Maya Lucia with the release of lashing out back in 2019, an EP which signalled a pivot from love ballads into rambunctious garage rock. New record miss girl world builds upon these foundations, again channelling the mischief and exaggerated pain of youth into something full of both fun and heart. Described as “an internal dialogue of growing up and moving on,” single ‘sleepy baby club’ song faces a decidedly pessimistic present without losing hope of something better just over the hill, all delivered with an infectious pop rock bounce.

Touch the Clouds – Feeling Light

With members of Few and Far Between, King For A Day, Lovesick, and others, Touch the Clouds is something of a Detroit scene supergroup. With equal parts pop and punk, the band combine the energy of post-hardcore with the invention of space rock, allowing infectious harmonies and vast ambient textures to coexist with the same song. Take ‘Feeling Light’, the first track from a forthcoming Touch the Clouds album, a song full of impassioned energy and left-field turns which combines emo earnestness with a transportive atmosphere.

I’m feeling light
floating right
in tune with ultraviolet I’m set free

TOLEDO – L-Train

New York‘s TOLEDO have released brand new single ‘L-Train’ with Grand Jury Music, a track which finds Dan Álvarez de Toledo and Jordan Dunn-Pilz confront the struggles of living and creating within the contemporary moment. ‘L-Train’ was “written at a low point for the both of us,” the band explain. “We had just moved to Bushwick and started playing shows every week. We were drinking and partying and losing sight of ourselves.” The age-old paradox of the touring musician, where a career expressing yourself can turn upside down, pushing the truth further away.

each morning I wake up
the headache
the shape of release still far from my doorbell
and I don’t wanna do this anymore
i wanna know me better

Check out the animated video by Kohana Wilson below:

‘L-Train’ is out now via Grand Jury Music and is available from the TOLEDO Bandcamp page.

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