The project of Gothenburg-based musician, producer and visual artist Lela Amparo, Amparo is an outlet for atmospheric and cinematic music that blends electronic, ambient and folk. Taken from new album Day and Night, out now on Bikiniwax Records, latest single ‘After Ours’ is a great example. Drawing on the likes of Bonobo and The Cinematic Orchestra, the song builds from simple guitar and plaintive strings into a rich, jazz-inflected track that’s thick with a sense of late-night drama and emotion. ‘After Ours’ is “inspired by a night spent in Paris before changing the course of my life,” Amparo explains. “It’s about being in the moment and knowing nothing will ever be the same.”

 Getdown Services – Cream Of The Crop

If John Cooper Clarke’s ‘Evidently Chickentown’ conjured the end days through pictures of a tedious, ruined Britain, then ‘Cream of the Crop’ by Bristol’s Getdown Services offers a new vision of the non-future. A world polished to within an inch of its life and then polished a bit harder. A stage of capitalism so late they’ve stopped updating the time on the board. Think branded boozers and no-change-from-a-tenner street food cuisine. The milieu is brought to life by shiny disco beats, though it is the conversational snark of vocalist Josh Law the grabs the attention. A figure who finds himself in a place so soulless he’s not sure whether to self-immolate or burst out laughing. Either way, he’s stuck there and so are you. Roll up everybody, Chickentown’s had a fresh coat of paint.

Jeffrey Silverstein – Cowboy Grass

Later this spring, Jeffrey Silverstein will release Western Sky Music, his second LP for Arrowhawk Records and first full-length since 2020’s You Become the Mountain. Promising an evolution of Silverstein’s cosmic brand of country, the album again features contributions from Barry Walker Jr (pedal steel) and Alex Chapman (bass), and also adds Akron/Family’s Dana Buoy on drums, as well as guest appearances from William Tyler and VSF fav Karima Walker. Lead single ‘Cowboy Grass’ is our first taste, a song with a little more dust and dirt and barroom boogie than anything Silverstein has made to date. Watch the video, directed by Austin Abbott and starring Eric DuRant, below:

Western Sky Music releases via Arrowhawk Records on 12th May. Pre-order a copy now from the Jeffrey Silverstein Bandcamp page.

Melati ESP – BAHASA BARU

With LP hipernatural coming soon on Carpark Records, Indonesian-American experimental pop artist Melati ESP has unveiled new single, ‘BAHASA BARU’. The record is notable in the way it draws on the breadth of Melati’s cultural influences to achieve its vivid sound (Javanese radio Dangdut, gamelan cassettes, Moving Shadow-era liquid jungle and Japanese chill-out are all listed as inspirations), and the new single serves as the ideal introduction to a style which exists outside of the usual categorization of genre or geography. “It’s a personal statement of intent,” Melati explains, “being comfortable in occupying the third space, and creating new ways of communicating that are tethered to intuition, empathy and understanding.” The song comes complete with a video, directed by Melati’s sister Kathleen Malay, which celebrates this embrace of otherness despite, as Melati puts it, “mostly feeling like a baby alien while growing up in Jakarta, always between two worlds.”

hipernatural is out on the 28th April via Carpark Records.

The Saxophones – Desert Flower

Released to announce their third album, coming early this summer on Full Time Hobby, ‘Desert Flower’ is the new single from The Saxophones. For the uninitiated, The Saxophones is the project of married duo Alexi Erenkov and Alison Alderdice, who make slinky Lynchian lounge music that’s dark and velvety, confronting existential concerns with a smoky sophistication. What Erenkov describes as “about avoidance and fear impeding personal growth and the deepening of relationships,” ‘Desert Flower’ is no different. Creeping and cryptic, it blends the material and the mystical, eventually swelling to emotive peaks as Erenkov’s croon gives way to radiant sax. It’s an intriguing glimpse of what promises to be a strange and sublime record.

There are symbols everywhere
signs that even I can’t deny.
Only if they aligned,
I could lift away the veil.

To Be a Cloud will be released via Full Time Hobby on 2^nd June. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Strange Ranger – Rain So Hard

Strange Ranger are a band who have been defined by a sense of self-reinvention. Winning initial acclaim within the spheres of indie rock, 2019’s Remember The Rockets saw the first shoots of shoegaze and pop influences breaking the surface, and by No Light in Heaven the following year they were entirely rebranded as an experimental electronic outfit. New single ‘Rain So Hard’, out via Fire Talk Records, emerges from this electro ground, its lush and layered sound playing as some nameless immensity above the vocals, be it a looming cityscape or wide open sky. This overwhelming scale registers as a kind of melancholy, the vocals adrift within something to large for them to navigate or control. “How do I get out of this movie now?” asks the repeated refrain, hoping for nothing more than another person to cling onto for the ride. Watch the video directed by Ben Turok below:

‘Rain So Hard’ is out now via Fire Talk Records.

Women Tied to Railroad Tracks – Fake Tans

Back in 2019 we wrote about Women Tied to the Railroad Tracks, describing the sound of their album And Levitating as “indie pop that sits in a strange space between mundane reality and freaky dreams.” With their debut record on the horizon with Anxiety Blanket Records, the LA outfit have shared the brand new single, ‘Fake Tans’. A bright summertime track loosely based on Doris Lessing’s novel The Golden Notebook, where the protagonist speaks of an encounter with a man with a crack in his personality: “like a gap in a dam, and through that gap the future might pour in a different shape—terrible perhaps, or marvelous, but something new.”

Yael S. Copeland – Pool

Having made a name fronting Borito, Tel Aviv’s Yael S. Copeland is setting out alone for her first solo release. If the Borito sound occupied a colourful, retro bracket of the dream pop/rock genre, then Copeland’s solo work turns more toward the intimate and lo-fi, having more in common with Alex G and Elliott Smith. With an album set for release later this month, latest single ‘Pool’ shows how this stripped back style is no less immersive or heartfelt, the lyrics playing like something between a daydream and a poem in their gentle reflection, the sound still managing to envelop the listener in its lush layers.

big sky
like a big pool
blue and clear
but I can’t see my
reflection when I look down here

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Out via Memoir Music, an imprint of Rotterdam label Chillhop Music, Amparo is back with a brand new EP, Lost Ghosts, a three-song release that perfects their style. As the title suggests, the EP is as concerned with the past as it is the present, possessing a kind of duality in its sound. Field recordings anchor the spatial side of the songs in the present, dripping rain and ambient echoes of opener ‘Unlisted’ evoking a calm solitude, but the instrumentation places the temporal dimension somewhere back in time. Lost Ghosts is therefore both an exercise in fond, nostalgic reflection and the quiet place in which to practice it.

Lost Ghosts is out now via Memoir Music and available from Bandcamp.

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Tracklisting:

Frog – American
The Phone Booth – Ballad of Indifference
Spielbergs – 4AM
Neurotic Fiction – Collateral
Neighborhood of Make Believe – Track Names
Pizzagirl – body part
Orchid Mantis – porch song
Gorgeous Bully – patience
Reighnbeau – Trading Heat
Troy Everett – Absent
Amparo – Hounds
REW<< – Victoire Impossible
Okay Embrace – Moving
Young Jesus – For Nana
Vender & The Cobras – Everything is Beautiful
The Lostines – Faith in Love
Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover – Little Wind
Rivulets – Everything Goes
Balto – Bullshit Dream
Meat Wave – That’s Alright
Docks – Kiosk
Satanic Ritual Abuse – Hurting (Adjective/Verb)
SATU – Growing Up
Anna Tivel – Fenceline
Madison Turner – Richmond, Virgina
Elly Swope – 6.8
Nathan Ball – All or Nothing
Monarch Mtn – canyon blues
Stripmall Ballads – You Were Good (I Was Good For a While)
Katie Mullins – Crocuses
Lisa/Liza – Tea Kettle
free cake for every creature – shake it out
Katy Kirby – Tap Twice
Lung Cycles – hottest day of the year so far (4pm version)

You can find all of our Monthly Roundup playlists here, and peruse a wider range of mixtapes that we’ve put together over the years.

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Amparo is back with a brand new record, Palm House, which continues this meditative style. The release is something of a sonic journal, using warm guitar loops to capture moments and memories that might otherwise be lost, preserving them in the fondest light. Opener ‘Hounds’ makes this clear from the off, bathed in warmth and displaying a sense of natural rhythm. Indeed, the songs on Palm House can be said to have an organic sensibility, each its own ecosystem of calm melodies.

‘Oakwood’ has a more reflective vibe, though is coaxed into an uplifting rise, and ‘Coastal Dusk’ excavates the wistful imagery of its title, finding beauty in the small sense of loss that accompanies every change. With its shimmering energy, ‘Gardermoen’ plays like a tropical evening, the sun dipping below the horizon to cast pastel spectra across the water, while the slow unfurling brightness of ‘Strangers’ feels like a dawn awakening, the sun warming the land into life.

Closer ‘Dalslands Honey’ is perhaps the most spacious track on the release, though again finds poignancy amidst serenity, great sweeping strings that might otherwise be mournful instead offering an affirming sensation. The track is indicative of Palm House, and indeed Amparo as a whole—melancholy not as some personal sadness or woe but rather a curious wonder, something to do with being a small part of a huge world, and something to do with the passing of time.

Palm House is out now on Modularfield Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

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As we wrote in a preview, opener ‘Ruby’ “combines sombre piano, sparse guitar and minimal spoken samples to form something that sounds moving and elegiac,” and this wistful shimmer is present across the EP. ‘Lidkoeb’ is perhaps a little more insistent, the indecipherable voices that flit in and out giving the track an introspective edge, as though too busy in its own head to distinguish the external world. This sensation is perhaps true of the release as a whole, a kind of sad wonder at being outside of so much, the environment moving around you and the people who inhabit it, all unaware of your trivial but life-determining problems.

The final track ‘Balderdash’ remains true to this aesthetic, though takes it a step further. The guitar loop cycles with its personal feeling once more, though is this time supported by a cinematic swell, as though Rains wishes to reinforce the inherent beauty in the situation, no matter how melancholic, and leave you with a mindful appreciation of your small part in the world around you.

Rains is out now via Taabiir and available from the Amparo Bandcamp page.

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A new volume will be posted every few weeks and will offer a collection of really great songs that we’re determined not to let slip past our radar.

Blushing – Weak 

Working out of Austin, Texas, Blushing is a quartet made up of two husband and wife couples that make a shimmering brand of shoegaze that stokes the flames of nostalgia while pushing ahead into new territory. With the band set to release a new EP, Weak, they’ve unveiled the title track as a single to whet our appetites. The track, which nods at forebears such My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive as well as contemporaries like Pains of Being Pure At Heart, weaves a gauzy atmosphere and feedback and reverb, though the poppy vocals are also allowed to bob to the surface.

Check out the video below, which was directed, filmed and edited by drummer Jake Soto with help from Eddie Chavez.

Weak is to be released via Austin Town Hall Records on the 26th January, 2018, and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Amparo – Ruby

Amparo is the project of Arizona’s Lela Amparo, who is due to release their debut EP, Rains, later this week, the first ever release on label Taabiir. The first single from the record, ‘Ruby’ combines sombre piano, sparse guitar and minimal spoken samples to form something that sounds moving and elegiac. The track was inspired by the rhythms of the natural world, as Amparo explains. “This past summer I spent time in Gothenburg, Sweden surrounding myself with the nearby woods. The original intention was to continue crafting electronic music, however after a friend loaned me his guitar, the outcome was entirely different. Over the course of two days, I sat down and began to sketch out guitar hooks and loops, which would eventually transpire into this EP.”

Rains is due for release on the 10th of December via Taabiir.

Veronica Bianqui – Victim

Multi-instrumentalist Veronica Bianqui makes music inspired a variety of sources, melding the 60s pop with classic soul and finishing off with the rough edges of garage rock. While her debut album is not scheduled for release until 2018, new single, ‘Victim’, gives a good insight in her sound and aesthetic. Bianqui’s sister died young after struggling with drug use, and the song plays as an attempt to prevent such tragedies, imploring those struggling addiction to find the strength to change and live. As such, ‘Victim’ is about breaking patterns of self-victimization in order to heal and grow, maintaining an upbeat, positive vibe despite the grave matter at hand.

‘Victim’ is available now from Veronica Bianqui’s Bandcamp page.. All of the proceeds are being donated to the Harm Reduction Coalition, who fight to promote the health and dignity of individuals and communities impacted by drug use.

Lavender Child – Happy Illusions

Based in Toronto, Canada, Lavender Child makes what they describe as “ethereal dreamscapes” intended to “inspire listeners to reconnect with nature, community, and themselves.” The result is something pitched halfway between indie pop and ambient, taking equal inspiration from Grouper, Julianna Barwick and Sharon van Etten. The lead single from a new EP, Reflections, ‘Happy Illusions’ demonstrates the vivid, dream-like soundscapes that Lavender Child conjures, evoking not only a sense of wilderness but also a rich inner life too, as though the interior and exterior are merged into one soaring fabric.

Lavender Child‘s EP, Reflections, is out on the 1st December.

1971 – Anxiety (In The Depths Of Northwestern Ontario)

Cameron Glen Cranston, bassist and founding member of 1971, very sadly died earlier this year aged just 25. The band have called it a day in response, but have decided to release their final two recordings as a cassette single, No Matter Where You Go, There You Are.

One of those tracks, ‘Anxiety (in the Depths of Northwestern Ontario)’ was written for Cranston back in 2016, during a very difficult period before his death. We’re glad we have ‘his’ song,” the band told Exclaim! “even though it’s hard to listen to sometimes.”

The song deals in the kind of sparse and expansive Canadian indie rock that will appeal to fans of Wintersleep or Summering, the pain and emotion that inspired it spiking in punky yelps during the chorus, and whipping into a blizzard of squealing guitar and pounded drums for the finale.

No Matter Where You Go, There You Are is out Dec 1st and available via the 1971 Bandcamp page.

Joe Russell-Brown – Post-Youth Depression

Recorded on nothing but a laptop and cheap microphone in his grandmother’s bungalow, Joe Russell-Brown’s debut EP Post-Youth Depression manages a surprising anthemic richness to accompany what is still an undoubtledly lo-fi sound. The title track is the perfect example of this, coming off as a jagged celebration of times gone by, detailing the facets of teenage years in boring towns that become suddenly beautiful in hindsight.

Post-Youth Depression is out now via Warren Records and you can grab it from Bandcamp.

Bryde – Desire

Bryde is the recording project of Pembrokeshire native Sarah Howells, who makes a dark blend of indie rock and pop that probes at the sinister underbelly of love and relationships. Following on from her debut EP, ‘Desire’ is a new single that furthers this style, serving as a critical, semi-disgusted look at a relationship gone wrong. According to Howells, the songs is about “our need for instant gratification, about desire’s addictive qualities and how they can make us behave,” charting the transforming or transmogrifying power of love and lust. Here, passion is not the beguiling force of Hollywood movies, rather an instinctive, near-animalistic force capable of destroying your sense of self and better judgement.

‘Desire’ was released earlier this month via Seahorse Music, and precedes Bryde’s debut album, pencilled in for next Spring.

Little Star – Providence

Starting out as the solo project of Portland, Oregon’s Daniel Byers, Little Star grew to include band members John Value and Julian Morris for 2016’s Being Close this year’s self-titled record. However, returning to his roots, Byers has taken to the studio as a solo act once more to record a new EP, Even in Dreams, that will be released next year on Good Cheer Records. Until then, we have ‘Providence’ as a taster, a track that combines an intimate bedroom pop with 80s college rock, with elements of shoegaze thrown in for good measure—resulting in a song that blends emotion and deadpan observation in a way similar to the excellent Friendship record we reviewed a few weeks ago.

Even in Dreams will be released on Hidden Bay Records and Good Cheer Records on the 12th January and you can pre-order it now. In the meantime, check out the Big Star Bandcamp page for their previous albums.

Allegra Krieger – So Glad You Said Goodbye

Based in New York, Allegra Krieger is a songwriter rooted in the traditions of folk, as much of a storyteller as a musician. Indeed, as with much of the best folk, her debut album Circles deals with themes of moving, coming out of a period spent “living on the road; in tents, caves, strangers couches.” As such, the record feels like a sincere attempt at communicating the experience of life, with situations and relationships always beginning and ending, the narrator left to navigate the constant change and subsequent heartache. ‘So Glad You Said Goodbye’ is a perfect example, pitched on the vague space between heartsick and wistful, finding solace or strength in the act of moving forwards.

Circles is out now and you can get it from the Allegra Kriger Bandcamp page.

Me and The Moon – Standing Still

After much praise for their debut single, ‘Get Away’ , Guildford trio Me and The Moon are back with a second single on My Little Empire Records. ‘Standing Still’ is an indie-pop song with shoegazey elements and near mathy influences, making for a track that’s both upbeat and melancholic in the best way possible.

The single is out via My Little Empire, and available now from Bandcamp.

Be sure to check out our previous Bright Sparks posts via the tag, and keep your eyes peeled in the opening weeks of 2018 for the next edition.

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