“Employ[s] the apocalyptic tones of Waits and Cohen at their darkest to explore the dangerous present. A world that feels unwell, with climate collapse, rising fascism, televised genocide and a whole manner of other symptoms racking a planet in the vice grip of whatever stage of capitalism we’ve passed into now.” So we wrote last month of All That’s Solid Melts Into Air, the forthcoming album from Winnipeg-born, New York-based songwriter Devon Church. The title track paired stark Biblical imagery with earnest emotion, and latest single ‘Fall Like Lightning’ continues the style. One which sees pessimism and hope exist simultaneously, a spirit tied to the overtly leftist position of the record as whole. The album notes aptly describe the song as “a kind of ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ for dejected denizens of the internet,” railing against the myriad of contemporary curses brought forth by capitalism’s iron grip, as well as the false prophets who have risen within this milieu, promising the world while grinding us under their boots.

The track also comes with a video, filmed by Ada Roth, edited by Danny Scales and directed by Church himself. Watch it below:

All That’s Solid Melts Into Air will be released on the 7th November and you can pre-order it from the Devon Church Bandcamp page.

Dwi Riana – Dysphoria

Next year Dwi Riana will release her debut full-length Songs from the Yellow Couch, and the Toronto-based songwriter has been releasing singles in recent weeks to offer a preview. Most recently ‘Springtime‘, a song which evoked, as we put it, “the thaw after a long winter where the possibility of growth and love becomes real again.” Now Riana has returned with ‘Dysphoria’, a track which explores the ongoing experience of gender dysphoria via a mix of bossa-nova, indie jazz and folk influences. “I initially wrote this song as a very short interlude for my album, with no hook, just the bossa guitar and one verse. After playing it more, I developed it into a full song and it turned into this indie-jazz version,” Riana explains. “We wanted to create a feeling of controlled chaos, using dissonance and blending differing sounds together to add to the theme of dysphoria.”

Fealty – Walking on Hands

Thad Kopec has been putting out music for years under his own name, the Nashville artist flitting between styles and genres with each passing release and slowly building up a significant back catalogue that covers everything from ornate indie rock to hushed folk and digital pop. However, such a history gets heavy after a while, and Kopec found himself itching for the freedom of a fresh start. Hence Fealty, a brand new project which sees him turn over production duties for the first time as Bennett Littlejohn takes the reins, allowing for a newfound focus solely on performance. After a self-titled EP earlier in the year, Fealty is now back with new single ‘Walking on Hands’. A song of equal parts intimacy and invention, where Kopec’s renewed drive and curiosity are on full show for all to see.

‘Walking on Hands’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Howling Bells – Heavy Lifting

Hailing from Sydney and now based in London, Howling Bells made a name for themselves in the mid-aughties with a dark, brooding and often cinematic style of indie rock, releasing a string of albums which reached out towards folk, krautrock and various other influences too. After the release of Heartstrings back in 2014, the band went quiet for over a decade, but have now announced their return in 2026 with new full-length, Strange Life. The album not only breaks the hiatus but reflects on it, as shown by latest single ‘Heavy Lifting’. “A hazy and grunge-fuelled declaration,” as lead Juanita Stein puts it. “Like anyone who’s worked at the thing they love tirelessly, you build up great resilience. The callouses on your hands, the muscles you’ve strengthened, the swagger in your stride. ‘Heavy Lifting’ is a song about the thousands of miles you walk to acquire this kind of confidence; this is not anything that can be stripped away from you.” Watch the video directed by Orlando Cubitt below:

Strange Life will be released on the 13th February via Nude Records.

Living Hour – Texting

“A song, like The Weakerthans’ ‘One Great City!’ before it, which uses the dismal skies and cityscape of Winnipeg as a kind of mirror, evoking a personal lethargy and lack of colour […] But for all of its sombre gloom, the track refuses to settle within the leaden environment, each chorus like an upward grasp towards something brighter in the hope of piercing the clouds.” So we wrote of ‘Best I Did It’ from Living Hour‘s new album Internal Drone Infinity a few weeks ago, a song indicative of the band’s ability to excavate the magical from the mundane. With the album out now via Keeled Scales (US), Paper Bag Records (Canada) and Beloved Records (Australia), the outfit have unveiled a video for the track ‘Texting’, a track which continues the mood. “‘Texting’ is written from this really mundane but intimate point of view of trying to explain Winnipeg to someone over text,” explains lyricist Sam Sarty. “In the winter, everything disappears in the snow, but when the snow melts, we’re left with the mosaic of shit. I keep a list on my phone of things I see on the sidewalk: garbage that breaks my heart or situations that I try to explain, either to myself or over text—that blue bubble carrying my thoughts somewhere else.”

Watch the video filmed by Eden Carter below:

Internal Drone Infinity is out now via Keeled Scales, Paper Bag Records (Canada) and Beloved Records (Australia). Order a copy now from the Living Hour Bandcamp page.

The Michigans – Spring Ahead (Fall In Line)

Consisting of Jeff Mensch (guitar, vocals), Jessica Keuskamp (drums, vocals) and Patrick Greer (bass), The Michigans are a brand new indie rock outfit out of New Jersey channelling the spirit of their Northeastern forebears. As debut single ‘Spring Ahead (Fall In Line)’ attests, fans of the like of Yo La Tengo, Dinosaur Jr. and our old favourites Oxford Collapse would be advised to take notice. The track is executed with the kind of confidence most new projects could only dream of, slowly shapeshifting from the jangling brightness of the front half into something heavier and hazier as psych influences descend like a fog. But regardless of where you find yourself in the song, you can bet on the thrilling sense of forward motion to be barrelling onwards, giving everything an infectious, affirming tone that’s only elevated by the singalong vocals.

More Like Shadows – Hive Mind

Recording under the moniker More Like Shadows, Toronto‘s Jordan Allen combines music and visual art to form his own unique aesthetic. Raw, lo-fi indie rock and collage-based visuals meet and intertwine, each element as playful and inventive as the other. New album Vacation Mode was released earlier this month, and single ‘Hive Mind’ serves as the perfect intro to the project for anyone unfamiliar. What Allen describes as “a song about the mindsets and 10-step programs of media addiction, the collective yearning for uprising, and the job market economy comment section wishlists of now,” it manages to capture the wiry spirit of classic post-punk while offering a more muscular dimension too, all tied together by vocals which phase between sardonic and sincere. “Can we eat the rich? / I just think we’ve had enough of their bullshit,” as Allen asks in one verse, a line wryly humorous for sure, but not without its hopeful sentiment.

Pearla – To Love Something

We last featured Pearla back in 2023, including the album Oh Glistening Onion, The Nighttime Is Coming among our favourite releases of the year. A record where “playful whimsy and unfiltered introspection are kept in check by a certain self-awareness,” as we wrote, “though cannot help but tend towards the potential of some higher mystery,” and thus marking the project as one which “works in awe of life’s mysteries, determined to see the beautiful and the surreal rise above the grind of the everyday.” The first new release since Oh Glistening Onion, new single ‘To Love Something’ builds upon this style with care and grace, again searching for those small details which lift an otherwise mundane existence into something significant. The track is the first taste of a promised full-length set for release sometime next year, and everything points to the record being one to watch out for over the coming months.

‘To Love Something’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

since torino – reunion dinner

Earlier in the year we let you know Sheffield‘s since torino were preparing to release their debut EP, describing ‘transatlantic flight song’ as the perfect entry point to the project. “Opening with a restrained hush, the song sets out a quiet, reflective mood, combining organ and murmured vocals to create an easy meandering fondness, and gradually develops to push the mood further,” we wrote. “First with glitched guitars and eventually sweeps of violin, all working together to create a song which aches with the fondness of nostalgic contemplation.” The EP, which it turns out is titled reunion dinner, is now available, and the title track embodies its ornate literary folk rock style. Another slow burner, the song draws the audience in with the muted quiet of the opening before blooming with the introduction of horns and strings. But it resists the temptation to puncture the overriding restraint to create a wistful, decidedly autumnal air.

Sweet Nobody – Forget Me

“Embraces the twin joys of melody and noise, utilising both pop and garage rock aesthetics to write songs for the meek and modest among us.” So we wrote back in September of the Long Beach, California-based band Sweet Nobody, single ‘Revenge‘ giving a glimpse at new full-length Driving Off to Nowhere. With the album’s release only weeks away via Repeating Cloud, Sweet Nobody are back with new track ‘Forget Me’. The song is heavier and darker than its predecessor, switching out the sunny indie pop energy for something more clouded and stormy. But for all of its shadowy tones and brooding weight, the prevailing mood is one of catharsis. As though across the track a sense of conviction develops, a decision to voice those things unsaid and let go of the past.

Tara Kannangara – Here We Are Again (From Alice Is Fine)

Back in 2024, we wrote about Extraordinary People, the EP by Sri Lankan–Canadian songwriter and musician Tara Kannangara, describing how the JUNO-nominated artist draws on classical training and jazz sensibilities to push synth pop in new directions. Written for the short film Alice Is Fine, new single ‘Here We Are Again’ is no less evocative or inventive. A track Kannangara describes as “an indie pop song about the repressed rage of not being believed,” able to offer both intimate hush and big, bold defiance. The film follows a female protagonist who decides to stand up for herself against a doctor who dismisses her pain, and ‘Here We Are Again’ gives the scenario all the fury and catharsis it warrants.

‘Here We Are Again’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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With the release of Internal Drone Infinity now just a day away, Living Hour have returned with new single ‘Best I Did It’. A song, like The Weakerthans’ ‘One Great City!’ before it, which uses the dismal skies and cityscape of Winnipeg as a kind of mirror, evoking a personal lethargy and lack of colour. “Preparedness for transformation / Performance posthumous display / Of some grizzly bits of pigeon on the side of the highway,” Sarty sings in the opening lines. “Everything’s bright gray / Can’t tell if it’s real, or just in the way.” But for all of its sombre gloom, the track refuses to settle within the leaden environment, each chorus like an upward grasp towards something brighter in the hope of piercing the clouds. “I imagine myself ten years from now looking back at this song and thinking of all the ways I’ve tried to heal myself,” Sarty explains, “and saying I did the best I could. I’m doing the best I can.”

But I’m like the road bird
Head curled in, dead, from all it’s thinking

But it’s the best I did it

Watch the video made by Ryan Steel below:

Internal Drone Infinity releases today via Keeled Scales, Paper Bag Records (Canada) and Beloved Records (Australia). Order a copy now from the Living Hour Bandcamp page.

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There is a repeated line, a single word refrain, in ‘The Glow’, the new song from Aïda Mekonnen Caby, which you may have some trouble comprehending. Fjaðrárgljúfur is the name of a canyon in south east Iceland which Caby and her partner visited in the early days of their relationship, and the landmark’s cinematic majesty leaks into the song’s very DNA, transforming a gentle indie folk song into something rich with widescreen emotion. It also represents something of a new dawn. For one, it is the opening track of the debut Aïda Mekonnen Caby album, Mais Uma, which comes out at the end of August via Mtn Laurel Recording Co. But also because the trip that inspired it and the feelings it evokes marked a turning point in Caby’s life too, one which saw her move first to Portugal and then to France. Mais Uma promises to explore this period of personal change and all its associated heart swells and aches, illuminated throughout with that sense of wonder at newfound love.

Dead Tooth – Song of the Weak

Led by New York-based songwriter Zach Ellis, self-described ‘rodeo-core’ outfit Dead Tooth have made a name crafting an atmospheric and often slightly chaotic brand of post-punk, combining the brooding shadow of the genre with raw energy. With their self-titled debut out now via Trash Casual, Dead Tooth have shared single and opener ‘Song of the Weak’ to introduce their work to the uninitiated. A song full of volatility and bite, Ellis’s vocals spiking with frustration as though driven half-crazed by the constant motion beneath him, or else how it never seems to lead to anywhere new. “In so many words [the song is] about struggling with cyclical destructive decision making,” Ellis explains. “Choosing hedonism over looking in the mirror. I’ve spent many years in NY on what feels like a hamster wheel of trying to fill a void or chase some kind of unattainable self/other. A song written for the darker times that in retrospect I feel have eaten too many years of my life.”

Dead Tooth is out now via Trash Casual and available from Bandcamp.

Living Hour – Wheel

Winnipeg’s Living Hour have announced Internal Drone Infinity, their fourth record, which will release later this year. What the band themselves have coined “yearn-core”, their style combines slowcore, indie rock and dream pop into something shaded by the gauzy texture of memory. The record was in part inspired by lead Sam Sarty’s time as a cinema projectionist, and it exists in a similarly otherworldly setting, its dark backdrop illuminated by a wistful glow as the band express what they call “the quiet magic hidden in everyday life.” To celebrate the announcement, Living Hour have unveiled lead single ‘Wheel’, which shows off both the dreamy yearn and crunchy rock sides of their sound very nicely.

The track comes complete with a video by Leigh Lugosi and Brett Ticzon, which you can see below:

Internal Drone Infinity will be released on 17^th October via Keeled Scales, Paper Bag Records (Canada) and Beloved Records (Australia). Pre-order a copy now from the Living Hour Bandcamp page.

Malena Zavala – MELT

Born in Argentina and now living between London and Mexico City, Malena Zavala is a self-taught musician and producer who first caught attention with her 2018 debut, Aliso. Drawing inspiration from both Latin American music and the likes of Devendra Banhart, Beach House and Feist, Zavala’s music layers poetic lyrics over hypnotic and haunting instrumentation. Latest single ‘MELT’, the first single from an EP of the same name that comes out later this year on Zavala’s own new label Paraná Records, is a good example. A soft and cosy love song that Zavala says tries “to express the feeling of being wrapped up in bed,” it’s built on gentle acoustic guitar and her hushed and intimate vocals and accentuated by ethereal harmonies and subtle synths.

‘MELT’ is out now via streaming services

Oh, Rose – For Art

Almost a year on from their last full-length Dorothy, Olympia/Portland mainstays Oh, Rose return in September with For Art, a brand new EP released via the good folks as Antiquated Future Records. The EP finds the band’s members in the midst of some big personal events, like getting married and starting families, and perhaps understandably this has them ruminating on family and relationships. As the label put it, the EP focuses on “themes of long-term commitment and partnership—both in romantic and platonic relationships, as well as to artistic practice itself.” Oh, Rose have released the title track by way of introduction, an unhurried and heartfelt song that captures these themes perfectly. “At first I feel so nervous to be this vulnerable,” Rose sings with courageous clarity, “it’s true that I was thinking about you.”

Routine Caffeine – Green Glass

“A track which marries a taut central rhythm with a dreamy haze, and hints at a sharp bite too, all highlighting just how much control Katie O’Brien Kelley (vocals, guitar), Madison Elizabeth Case (bass, synth, background vocals) and Emma Treganowan (drums) have over the mood of their work.” So we wrote of Routine Caffeine‘s ‘Philodendron‘ back in 2024, a track taken from the Louisville-based trio’s Weeds Under Concrete Stones. Their first release since that EP, new single ‘Green Glass’ is no less evocative, again crafting an immersive atmosphere to explore themes of nostalgia, belonging and the passing of time. “This song has served as a way for me to reflect on my family’s old farm in Michigan, one of my most treasured places,” they explain. But more than a lesson in simple longing for home, the track also charts the changes to the beloved place which accumulate with every return, adding an extra layer melancholy as the familiar slowly shifts into something different, and the past only grows further away.

runo plum – Lemon Garland

Minnesota singer-songwriter runo plum has slowly amassed a following over recent years, her detailed, wistful style of bedroom folk winning plenty of attention online. Having now signed with the ever-impressive Winspear, plum has released new single ‘Lemon Garland’ to celebrate. The first taste of forthcoming debut album patching, the song embodies the fondness and compassion of the runo plum style, as well as the longing for connection which underpins it. “Give me company / barefoot and muddy,” as she sings, “give me pointing / at the birds we’ve never seen before / we’ll stop to pick some veggies / for the big feast at our friendly table.” The result is inherently bittersweet, a hopeful vision of the future shadowed by the suggestion such community remains just a dream, though the lasting feeling is one of affection. As though it wishing for something so simple and fulfilling, runo plum shows our desires need not be so far away.

Watch the video directed by Karlee Boon below:

patching will be released soon via Winspear.

Scree – TV Sometimes

Brooklyn experimental maestros Scree return next month with August, a brand new full-length on Ruination Record Co. The band—that’s primary trio guitarist/composer Ryan El-Solh, bassist Carmen Quill and drummer Jason Burger, plus lots of guests—are hard to pin down, smashing together everything from Romantic classical music, dusty lonesome Americana, improvisational jazz and weighty indie rock to create some of the most interesting and deep instrumental music around. Scree released the title track as the lead single a few weeks back, and have now returned with a second cut, the enigmatically titled ‘TV Sometimes’. The song has been part of the band’s live repertoire for years, and here it gets a richer arrangement with contributions from the cast of collaborators. “It’s something like a love song,” El-Solh describes. “I probably should’ve chosen a more generally intelligible title, but at the time there was really only one person I was trying to reach with this bit of code and she got the message so the title stuck.”

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