Now Nice Weather has returned with brand new track ‘Second Hand’. What Pittney describes as “a document of an improvisation,” performed and recorded live this past January directly to analog tape. Essentially double the length of its predecessor, the song takes the same brooding atmosphere but stretches it as far is it will go. The arrangement is expansive, spare and lonely, the negative space just as much a feature as the instrumentation, as though Pittney is creating not only sound but its dark and mysterious twin. If ‘Room Tone’ carried the ominous air of an empty room in the twilit hours of the day, then ‘Second Hand’ chases those same hours out into a starless dusk. A place where every shadow is long, every sight portentous, and human company few and far between.

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With the release of Star Dream FM approaching via Phantom Limb, Dylan Henner has returned with new track, ‘We Ditched School and Climbed Over the Neighbour’s Fence to Swim in their Pool All Day’. Another cut for which the title says it all, embracing not just a sentimental fondness for the specific moment but one wider in scope, longing for the kind of curiosity and carefree spirit which marks youth. Similarly, the result feels personal, though there’s the undercurrent of something different. The sense Henner is not so much tapping into his own memories but a kind of collective yearning. One developed not through individual experience but the culture itself. The cinematic version of youth delivered to us so steadily we come to mourn it as our own.

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Ahead of the the album’s released in less than a month’s time, Bennett has returned with a brand new single. Described as “but one key to opening the album’s multilayered worlds,” title track and opener ‘Ston Elaióna’ again intertwines bass flute, oscillators and DX7ii to recreate the sensation of quiet periods spent “in the olive grove,” or else at some other moment of peace within an otherwise bustling city. But just as the track serves as the door into the landscape and headspace of the album, it represents a door between worlds too. A porous, characteristically Greek threshold between the old and the new which allows the accumulated layers of time to be considered simultaneously.

Photo by Christophe Piette, artwork by Zin Taylor with design by Bartolomé Sanson

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With the release of Columbia Deluxe fast approaching, Fuubutsushi are back with ‘Light In The Annex’, a song with something of an unorthodox origin story for the outfit. “This was a really fun and rare opportunity for us to play a song live before releasing a recording of said song,” the band explain. “We were just starting to put together ideas for some of the songs that would become [2024 full-length] Meridians and ‘Light in the Annex’ was an early contender.” Not that the live version lines up with what would eventually be recorded, with the nature of the live performance and moreover the spirit of Fuubutsushi project meaning that nothing is ever static or set in stone. “This version feels a little more wily compared to the studio/album version,” as they continue. “We find some pockets to push moments of disorder or tension/release pretty far, which was certainly part of the experience for everyone… anticipation and tension and wonder and relief and joy all mixed up together.”

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Latest single ‘Mouvement 6’ embodies the sense of peace which emerges through such an ideal. A track “inspired by the joy revealed by the abundant strength of nature,” as Hebborn puts it, “when all life unites in a swirling movement carried by the continuous flow of the river.” Dappled with bright arpeggios and patient in its execution, the song is intercut with field recordings to further anchor its connection to the environment, building through layers of texture and detail as though pushing deeper into the ecosystem it has created. The climax could therefore be construed as having reached the centre of this network. A place of total connection that registers as an all-encompassing peace.

Album cover by Letizia Le Fur, photo by Lara Gasparotto

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Following on from what has been described as the precursor EP, Correspondances, Laurie Torres is preparing to release Après coup, the first full-length album under her own name, via Tonal Union. Taking inspiration from artists like Gia Margaret and ML Buch, the record sees Torres pivot towards an instrumental sound built from piano, drums, synths and field recordings. “I had an urge to use creativity as a sort of resting place, a place where things can unfold slowly and take time to reveal themselves,” she explains of the decision. “In other worlds words, I felt the need to make something slower, more elusive.”

Made in the spirit of improvisation yet finely crafted in its execution, the result is a cohesive album which offers a nuanced, authentic picture of its creator. “Being othered and tokenised as a woman who plays music, as well as a queer and black person, takes a toll, while also positively feeding a strong urge to push and be seen,” Torres continues. Après coup is the product of this urge. Careful enough to explore the tensions and contradictions within the experience, yet sufficiently defiant in its determination to exist on its own terms. The full power of the album is only revealed when experienced in its entirety, but Laurie Torres has released latest single ‘Lisière’ to give listeners a flavour of the release before it comes out next February.

Photo by Sara Lorusso, album art by Maria Zahle

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Lead single ‘Grows Along The River Slow’ provides a suitable entrance for the listener. “This was one of the first cues I made for the series and served sort of like an unofficial theme song for the show,” as Saxl explains. “It was inspired by the languid flow of the LA river and the plants that grow within and alongside it, pushing through cracks in cement and finding ways to flourish despite the human-built landscape.” The themes are brought to life via a subtle yet striking evolution across the track, with the synths and synthetic harp and flute samples gradually shifting into real acoustic flute performed by Bogie. “I would say this track is me leaning into the psychedelic and floaty sounds of Californian music a bit beyond my comfort zone as a New Yorker,” Saxl continues, “but it felt right for the series to lean deep and create music evocative of the musical scene past and present in Southern California.”

Earth Focus is set to be released via Western Vinyl on 15th November. Pre-order it now from the Elori Saxl Bandcamp page.

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The single offered the first taste of new full-length album För alltid, a record which explores time with Old Amica’s signature care and patience. The songs follow ‘Tiden Far’ in their elusiveness, suspended in a negative space seemingly disconnected from anything tangible, memories floating by in abstract grace. Opener ‘Vågorna på Arcus’ sets the tone, an ambient track with a sense of distance, not to mention a balance between intimacy and heft. Another juxtaposition informs ‘Klorofyll’, its layers of field recordings seeing birdsong and something altogether more electronic meet within a wistful soundscape. Another dispatch from the past where memories of the organic peek through a digital medium.

Described by the artist as a “homage to an old friend slowly floating away from us, on a wooden raft under the starlit sky,” ‘Mot natten’ sees Old Amica maintain the ambient style while leaning someway back towards the folk end of the spectrum. A song almost Sigur Rós-esque in its gathering tones and landing somewhere adjacent to Radical Face with the fondness of the hummed vocals. The result possesses an almost ritualistic tone, a kind of funeral procession for the cherished individual to shepherd them towards whatever waits on the other side.

This same blend of melancholy and wonder runs through the length of För alltid. Be it the shining ‘Gammalt ljus’ or shadowed ‘Neckar’, the plaintive simmer of ‘Till dig’. A distinctly human sound rising through accumulated time and distorted static, something represented almost literally in ‘Sommaren 96’. It’s a song which energes through snowy fuzz without quite conquering it, ever-haunted by snatches of analogue transmissions whose meaning has long since disintegrated. But emerge the song does, a fact which seems intrinsic to the album as a whole. The universe is a lonely place, and time only makes the chasm deeper. Yet somehow we endeavour to reach across the void, even if it is only in small gestures of sound.

För alltid is out now and available from the Old Amica Bandcamp page.

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The product of Principato’s residency with the National Park Service on the titular island, forthcoming album On Fire Island offers another vivid example of this style. Layers of field recordings anchor the sound within the locale, with particular attention paid to the elemental forces of wind and waves which have long shaped the environment. But ever perceptive to the subtleties of a place, the Saapato sound captures the full spectrum of moods present within such phenomena. And, together with conscientious ambient arrangements, manages to evoke both the raw power and tender beauty of which such forces are capable.

But there’s another, deeper duality at the heart of On Fire Island. One perhaps inherent within any piece of art which attempts to explore the natural world in the contemporary age. Because while the release is an overt celebration of the landscape and the life which inhabits it, there is a sense of lamentation to the sound too. As though, in the years we are living through, to recognise the beauty of any environment is to mourn its ongoing and escalating loss. To understand how humanity is slowly decimating everything it should hold dear.

Thus for all of its meditative birdsong and amphibian calls, tracks like lead single ‘Morning Swale Song’ are underpinned by a certain urgency. A slow-moving feeling which creeps up from inside the spacious arrangements, something bound up within both melancholy and joy. A sensation subtle until the moment it suddenly isn’t, and you realise that we are responsible for much of the fragility around us. That we must act if we wish to preserve all this intricate detail, this beauty, this life.

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The understated, simmering style of ‘Hold Clear’ suggested the form such an endeavour  takes, “where,” as we continued, “the intimacy of the personal opens out into something cryptic and deep.” Now MVSO have returned with brand new single ‘Passing Through’ to further introduce their evocative sound. A stark guitar line draws the listener through the track’s shadows, where the muted ambient sounds blur into the background to evoke a sense of empty clarity. When the vocals emerge into this soundscape, they are all the more striking for it. Restrained in tone but foregrounded by the arrangement’s haunted quiet, murmured as though in distant regret or world weary contemplation.

Proprioception will be released in spring 2024. You can find MSVO on socials and streaming services.

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