Back in June we introduced Recurring Common Dream, the forthcoming EP from Great Klons, describing how the release ups the ante on its rather chaotic predecessor. Written and recorded amid a time of turmoil both personal and political, the EP sees Scott Klon and co. expand their already inventive, genre-bending sound to match the uncertainty of the moment. After lead single ‘More Beauty in the Rain‘, Great Klons are now back with follow-up ‘Hidden Signage’. A vivid slice of indie pop rooted in both driving percussion and fresh guitar which uses vocal harmonies and electric violin to further amp up the emotional resonance. And emotional the track is, proceeding with a decidedly wistful air, reflecting on imperfect times with the inevitable fondness we hold for the past.

‘Hidden Signage’ is out now on streaming services.

henry o henry – The Fool

Born in Dublin but now “thirty years a US immigrant,” henry o henry makes music that observes the US from the perspective of an adopted son. He has spent years “absorbing the country’s mythologies” while working various trades across the country (an image that evokes Whitman’s I Hear America Singing), but he has retained ties with his roots too. “Ireland is the DNA of the thing,” as he puts it, “the thing before every other thing.” In September, he will release an album Apocrypha on Western Vinyl. It brings together a collection songs in the lineage of Cale and Drake and Cohen, which function as dispatches from his personal vantage point, or as the press release puts it “the specific weight of being somewhere for a long time without quite being from there.” Lead single ‘The Fool’ is the ideal entry point, a song worn and wistful and weathered but with a glint in its eye, moving with a sincerity and easy grace that comes with experience.

Josaleigh Pollett – Cherry

We’ve written about Josaleigh Pollett‘s new full-length If I Let It Quiet plenty in recent months, with singles like ‘Radio Player‘, ‘The Witness‘, ‘Like a River‘ and ‘Bed of Quiet‘ all suggesting the album will be a fitting follow-up to its predecessor In the Garden, By The Weeds. With the record out now via Audio Antihero and Lavender Vinyl, the Salt Lake City-based artist has shared final single ‘Cherry’ in celebration, and the track is every bit as evocative as we’ve come to expect. Displaying Pollett’s uncanny ability to combine the resonant emotion of memory with the tactility of the present moment, the song emerges through dappled electronics and announces itself with forthright clarity.

We break like belonging,
We’re broken like bread,
When you look you don’t see it,
Don’t know where we’ve been,
From two of us brothers
To both of us dead,
Laid to rest in the 90’s
in the back seat of a van

Jude Brothers – Desire & Devotion

Jude Brothers describes herself as an “Arkansas-forged and New Mexico-moulded folksy leaning singer songwriter with a penchant for whimsy and tender heartedness,” which is just about the perfect introduction. Later this year, she will release Dogwood Maiden Voyage, a collection of timeless folk songs built on the foundations of harp and voice, which she says “reckons with the costs of surrendering wholly to love.” Latest single ‘Desire & Devotion’ does just that, a hymn-like timeless folk song that is suffused with all the doomed romance of a Brontë novel. “How can you doubt me now?” Brothers asks in the line that gives the track its title, “My love ain’t no solemn vow! It is a churning sea.”

King’s Evil – S/T

Stemming from a discussion at a tiki bar back in early 2020, King’s Evil is a new project between Sami Martasian of Puppy Problems and JM Dussault of (T-T)b. The pair, already established as some of Boston‘s most interesting songwriters, imagined a new vehicle for songwriting where the stakes were slightly lower and the scope for invention expanded. A place where they might take risks otherwise avoided in their usual work. The eventual result, a self-titled EP coming via Worry Bead Records, is a testament to the power of such a spirit of working, one which eschews the usual desire to plan and demo songs in order to fully lean into the moment, not to mention that of collaboration. “To hear them say it,” as the label states, “King’s Evil is a project explicitly about the community and solidarity you build in proximity to other artists you admire. Finding energy and freedom in allowing someone else you admire to figuratively root around in your brain.” Listen to the title track now:

Legit Smitty – Picture In My Wallet

Jake Smith, aka Legit Smitty, wrote his forthcoming new record This Living Ain’t That Hard following a serious car accident while on family vacation in Hawaii. Such a near-death event understandably brought a newfound perspective, and the album is an expression of that. As Smith puts it, he is more determined than ever to “continue to share his heart in order that others might feel more at home in their own skin.” Latest single ‘Picture In My Wallet’ is a good introduction, a downbeat but still hopeful song which Smith says “details how his love will remain unchanging, as will his faults.”

‘Picture In My Wallet’ is available now on streaming services. Stay tuned for news on This Living Ain’t That Hard.

oh, hooray – MY BROTHER’S NEW BLACK EYE

A few weeks ago we featured a couple of tracks from the city has teeth i think i saw them once, the new record from Houston‘s oh, hooray. We described those songs as “fatalistic, furious and at least halfway triumphant,” calling them “dispatches from the American present, a time we might label ‘late capitalism’ if only the late didn’t seem such an overly optimistic diagnosis.” That description holds up across the record, but some songs are more personal in scope than others. A good example is ‘MY BROTHER’S NEW BLACK EYE’, which details an exasperating relationship with the title’s mercurial sibling. “‘MY BROTHER’S NEW BLACK EYE’ is about my brother,” describes lead Jamie McDonald. “I love him, I hate him, I am confused by him, I support him, I resent him. No matter how much he has alienated myself or my family, he will always be just that. My Brother.”

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

Promiseland BBQ x Tory Silver – Where’d All the Firemen Go?

Promiseland BBQ is the recording project of Ross Weidman, originally from West Virginia and now based in Pasadena. We last featured his music back in 2023, writing about the album Murder In The Friendly City, which explored his parents hometown in blue collar Appalachia following the death of his mother. He released another EP, Promiseland BBQ Airways, last year, and is now back with a new standalone single, ‘Where Did All the Firemen Go?’ Altogether more lighthearted than the last album, Wediman says the song, a full band arrangement including Tory Silver on vocals, “imagine[s] a world where everyone got the job they wanted,” a laidback and swaying country rock jam that sees a cast of characters swap professions and bemoans the loss of a certain brand of smalltown hero.

You can download ‘Where Did All the Firemen Go?’ now from the Promiseland BBQ Bandcamp page.

Sand Duney – Saw You In the Roses

September will see the release of Plant Material, the debut full-length from Sand Duney (Portland, Oregon songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jess Jones), via the triple threat of Orindal Records, Anything Bagel and Bud Tapes. As per the press release, the record “explores a deepening of selfhood, love, and understanding the natural world,” while searching for “hope and a daily rhythm in a world that’s changing in massive and indecipherable ways.” Our first glimpse is ‘Saw You In the Roses’ a giddy, ambling psych pop song that continues the signature Sand Duney style, what we have described in the past as “equal parts meditative and energetic.” Jones plays every instrument, from guitar and bass to pedal steel, organ and drums, layers which reel and swim around her relaxed and composed vocals. Check out the video, directed and edited by Dawn Riddle, below:

Plant Material will be released on 4^th September and is available to pre-order from the Sand Duney Bandcamp page.

Sera Cahoone – Not How I Hoped

Alongside drumming for acts such Carissa’s Wierd and Band of Horses, Seattle’s Sera Cahoone has developed rich oeuvre of solo work, starting with the dusky, melancholic self-titled album back in 2006. Twenty Years on, Cahoone is preparing to release her fifth full-length I’ve Missed You All These Years via Sub Pop, and it seems time has only deepened her warm and aching sound. As its title suggests, latest single ‘Not How I Hoped’ confronts disappointment and regret with unerring candour, the clarity of Cahoone’s voice supported by a vivid arrangement featuring violin, pedal steel, piano and Hammond organ. “This song flew out of my broken heart many moons ago,” Cahoone explains. “It was the first song I wrote for this record. It’s quite sad, but writing it really helped me work through those hard feelings.”

Watch the video below, made by Cahoone herself along with Adam Evarts and Arriba Media LLC:

I’ve Missed You All These Years will be released on the 28th August via Sub Pop and you can pre-order it now.

W. Y. Huang – Running Into Walls

Last month, we introduced On Stranger Hills, the forthcoming new record from Singapore-born, New York-based singer-songwriter W. Y. Huang. Lead single ‘Born to Lose’ “owe[d] a debut to both Daniel Johnston and Adrienne Lenker and drawing on [Huang’s] own immigrant experience,” and now W.Y. Huang has unveiled a second track to further generate anticipation. Titled ‘Running Into Walls’, it’s an introspective indie folk song that the press release says “stages a tender reckoning with inherited trauma and the unbearable weight of survival.” It’s set during a late-night train ride, and captures perfectly the sense of solitude and emotional clarity that such journeys often evoke, mimicking the brain’s tendency to ruminate as the carriage falls silent and dark landscapes fly past the window.

‘Running Into Walls’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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The first single was ‘Microwave‘, a song which finds a narrator preparing themselves in the early morning ahead of a soul crushing day working in a grocery store under whatever stage of capitalism we’re calling the present. “There’s a healthy dose of existential dread sure,” we wrote, “but there’s also enough garage rock crunch for it to feel rousing too. An anthem for the masses forced to drag themselves out of bed every morning to keep on keeping on.” Then came ‘Your God‘ which set “an exploration of friendship (or rather, the lack thereof) and religious bigotry to an upbeat, almost carefree sound,” as we put it, highlighting the interplay of lightness and weight across the album. “How you interpret this style is up to you, and both have thematic resonance: A Trojan horse where difficult subjects are broached under the guise of having fun? Or an attempt to sand some of the sharp edges from these difficult subjects so it is possible to talk about them at all?”

Now Tory Silver has now returned with brand new single ‘Boy Disco’ to pave the way for the album’s release later this week. “I’ve been thinking about death / It’s complicated and unfair,” go the opening lines. “But it’s natural / and we have to learn to live with it.” The sound is marked by a simmering energy and palpable weight, the creeping momentum like a building force that eventually has to vent. And vent the track does, intermittently breaking into squally crescendos which carry their own cathartic power, and ultimately embody the spirit of an album which faces up to the most dispiriting of life’s features and refuses to be cowed.

“This song is a stream of consciousness at heart,” they explain. “The album is about moving forward in life despite the obstacles thrown our way, and this song is where I just wrote down what I was feeling. By the end, it shifts into something more tender – a reminder of how important it is to have the right people in your life, and a hope that everyone has that. That, and it’s a freaking rock song.” Watch the video directed by Sandy Loaf below:

In Through the Front with Lasers will be released on the 29th May via Michi Tapes and you can pre-order it now.

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Now Tuxis Giant has returned with You Won’t Remember This, a brand new full-length released via Worry Bead Records which both continues the themes explored across this sequence of albums and expands their sonic palette. With the help of familiar bandmates Eleanor Elektra (lead guitar, vocals), Fenn Macon (bass) and James Steinberg (drums), O’Connor pushes the Tuxis Giant sound further beyond its alt-country origins without losing the spirit of the project, returning once more to isolation to bring it to life. “This album was a big, collaborative labor of love,” they describe. “We wrote it together, arranged it live, and recorded it in the dead of winter, pummelled by snow squalls in a house with a shoddy wiring.”

The result very much follows in the same lineage as its more restrained predecessors, though reaches further afield for inspiration. O’Connor lists Smog, Yo La Tengo, Uncle Tupelo and even the films of Hayao Miyazaki as touchstones, and the variation is apparent from the diversity across the tracklist. Songs such as opener ‘Simple Days’ feel like a transition from the previous album, its soft, intimate folk arrangement punctuated with moments of rising intensity, a style which serves to charge the ostensibly mundane imagery of its lyrics (making the bed, frying onions in a pan) with an urgent fondness. ‘Holy Water’ is no less warm though more reflective in tone, its slower rhythm carrying a wistful edge. ‘Days’ on the other hand skips with something more agitated, ‘Trying to be Numb’ gestures towards an almost slacker-esque vibe and ‘Silver Cup’ is downbeat in an altogether more brooding manner, even if its message is one of affirming conviction.

But more than a lesson in testing the borders of a project, the invention and experimentation seen across You Won’t Remember This serves its ultimate intention. That is, to paint a picture of life as it is lived, a full spectrum of moods, the shades shifting day to day. And moreover, something experienced not only as the immediate present but also a constant retrospection, memories appearing, merging and changing as the months pass by, each colouring our outlook at any given moment. The album’s most autobiographical song ‘Heart Surgery’ encapsulates all of this in one track. A retelling of the day O’Connor’s mother underwent the titular operation, complete with stark emotion, naked concern and the small funny details which pop up no matter how serious the occasion. But it is also a meditation on memory. The things we remember, the things we do not, and how both of these might haunt or protect us as we grow and heal.

most memories of that day are gone
but a few linger on

like my dad cracking jokes
and my brother glued to his phone

when the doctor appeared, we were insane
he had blood on his shoe

“all’s well that ends well”
“a bird in hand is…”

she was sitting up and talking
when the nurse said:
“you won’t remember this”

You Won’t Remember This is out now via Worry Bead Records and available via the Tuxis Giant Bandcamp page.

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In recent months we’ve been following London-based songwriter Eli Carvajal as he prepares to release new full-length Eyen Forever in October via Safe Suburban Home Records. After singles like ‘Stretch Marks‘ (which “manag[es],” we wrote, “to evoke the ways in which love elevates the ordinary into something wonderful, and creates the possibilities of new myths and dreams before us”) and ‘Scar’ (“welcom[es] the audience into the mundane details of everyday existence in order to gesture towards themes more poignant and sweeping”), Carvajal has returned with the album opener, ‘Forever’. Another emotive, tender track, the song finds Carvajal at perhaps his most intimate, the arrangement stripped right back to its bare necessities and possessing the kind of wistful fondness only accessed when one finds themselves far away from home. As he explains: “‘Forever’ was inspired by my two years’ teaching English in Tokyo, Japan. In the song, I play with the language we use around romance, reframing love and loss with poignancy as well as humour.”

Fulton Lights – Hold That Thought

Recording under the moniker Fulton Lights, Andrew Spencer Goldman last put out new music in 2018, when album Moonwalking into the Future highlighted the ambition and invention of his work. New EP Well the Night Has Come shows the hiatus has done nothing to dampen his creative energies. Take single ‘Hold That Thought’, a song concerned with the very process of making art in a world of distraction. Along with guests TJ Lipple (Aloha) on drums, John Davis (ex-QandNotU/Georgie James/Title Tracks/Paint Branch) on backing vocals and Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu) on percussion, Goldman crafts a sound layered and languid, though the laid-back rhythm belies the urgency and depth of feeling present in the delivery. Because this is a track about “trying to remain open to those moments where creativity is born,” as Goldman explains. “Capturing and releasing them before they dissipate. It can be an act of resistance against all of the things conspiring to distract.”

Leilani Patao – Cut

Starting in 2021 at the tender age of seventeen, Brooklyn (via Los Angeles) based songwriter Leilani Patao put out a series of DIY self-releases, culminating in the acclaimed 2024 album But What If? which earned, among other things, a feature on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. But despite this success, Patao grew disallusioned with the biz, not an unfamiliar story within a contemporary music scene which demands not only on hard work in an artistic sense but an even greater degree of effort (and luck) be spent on self-promotion, algorithmic appeasement and any number of equally soul-destorying things. Many criticize this system but few take concrete action against it, which makes Patao’s new EP daisy, forthcoming this autumn via Audio Antihero, all the more notable. A release which promises to shun streaming services, playlists and social media in order to focus on what really matters, and thus an experiment to judge what exactly is possible within the conditions of the twenty-first century. “Is it possible to share my music properly, pay everyone who was involved, get paid myself, and not have to interact with the many systems in place that make me dread music?” Patao asks. Lead single ‘Cut’ is out now for an early glimpse at a release we’re rooting for in more ways that one.

Little Angry – Outerside

You might know Evan Hashi as part of acts like The Hive Dwellers, Mega Bog, Twig Palace and Flying Circles, but the Seattle-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has also long recorded under the moniker Little Angry, blending pop, punk and psych influences with an experimental, DIY spirit. Set for release next month via Antiquated Future Records, the fourth Little Angry album Screamin’ Inside Your Heart!!! is the first to see the project become a full band, and thus a slightly new name—Little Angry & The Sweets—though the spirit remains the same. With Jen Weisberg (bass guitar, vocals) and Joseph Kuta (guitar, vocals), Little Angry sound better than ever, Hashi using the album’s title (taken from COVID-era safety instructions provided to riders of roller coasters in Japan) to explore the idea of being a ‘good immigrant’ in the US, a notion reinforced through generations. Listen to opener and lead single ‘Outerside’ for an idea of the drama and playfulness of the record.

Screamin’ Inside Your Heart!!! will be released on the 2nd October via Antiquated Future Records and you can pre-order it now.

LUCKY – Olden Goldy

We’ve been following Bay Area supergroup LUCKY (that’s Half Stack‘s Peter Kegler and Andrew St James alongside Marika Christine and Zach Elsasser of Affectionately) in recent months as they gear up to release their self-titled album, with songs like ‘Friends‘ embodying the buoyant rhythm and wistful edge of the project. With the album out now via Royal Oakie Records, LUCKY have shared new single ‘Olden Goldy’ to win over anyone not yet on board. The album’s closer, the song encapsulates everything that makes the outfit so special. “Out in the big olive groves / where the warms wind blows / I’m a young man who’s getting old,” go the opening lines, though again the reflection of the lyrics and delivery is slightly at odds with the upbeat, swaggering style of the sound itself. As though understanding, for all of the slow realisations and dawning regrets, life will go on kicking yet.

Up in the lonely pines
the wind haunts my mind
I spent days just losing time.
The sky’s is getting long,
the night is looking cold
and I’m still a young man who’s getting old

But I can’t let go

Night Teacher – New Cage

Consisting of multi-media artist and singer-songwriter Lilly Bechtel and drummer, writer and producer Matt Wyatt, Night Teacher sits somewhere between indie rock, chamber pop and doom folk in its style, a sound tied together by Bechtel’s emotive, often haunting delivery. Ahead of new album Year of the Snake, coming this autumn via First City Artists, Night Teacher have shared new single ‘New Cage’. The song utilises the Charlottesville duo’s evocative and thoughtful style to meditate on pernicious influences of social media in contemporary culture, positioning such forces as a kind of imprisonment we enter on our own volition. “I was reading Naomi Klein’s brilliant book Doppelgänger, where she writes about the original surveillance system as the concept of God, which in many ways has been replaced by the concept of the idealized self,” Bechtel explains. “Social media may be doing a very old thing in a new way: getting people to run surveillance on themselves in order to become better commodities for the marketplace.”

Perish – God I’m Freaking Out

“A vivid slice of folk-inflected rock which sounds at once wistful and affirming, a combination which looks to be a signature of the Perish sound,” we wrote of single ‘Cool Guys‘ back in July when previewing Brooklyn outfit Perish‘s new self-titled album. “Because while [Katie] Callihan’s delivery is thoughtful, her lyrics probing beneath the surface of things, the sound retains an upbeat, exultant air. As though there’s some energy to be found in the act of being open and honest to the point of vulnerability.” With the record out now via Rue Defense, Perish have shared new single ‘God I’m Freaking Out’. The song started life as something of a slow ballad when Callihan was playing solo, but the new version is altogether different, the full band adding extra groove and charge to a track all about the push and pull of solitude in the face of stress.

Ribbon Skirt – LUCKY8

Principally consisting of Anishinaabe musician Tashiina Buswa and guitarist Billy Riley, Montreal’s Ribbon Skirt won acclaim earlier in the year with the release of their debut Bite Down on Mint Records, an album which explored ideas of memory and heritage with a raw, stark style of post-punk. Fast-forward a few months and Ribbon Skirt are back with PENSACOLA, a brand new EP intended as something of an epilogue to its predecessor. One which seems to exist in the wake of Bite Down, powered by the still-charged air and smouldering heat. Lead single ‘LUCKY8’ welcomes listeners into this space, a track of woozy layers and surreal, dreamlike imagery which nevertheless holds a pulsing urgency beneath the surface. Like a memory bathed in the feedback and distortion of time yet still possessing its serrated edge.

One day you’re gonna wake up crystalline and mountain-clear
Left her hanging on a word in Thunder Bay the 15th year
You lift your shirt up and then tell me you’re the chosen one
The family knew back then that god made you the lucky one
You make it easy to believe that you’re so strong like that
It’s not a promise and believe me
he could con like that

Watch the visualizer by Rory Stobart below:

PENSECOLA will be released on the 3rd October via Mint Records and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Starcharm – The Color Clear

The Fire Talk imprint Angel Tapes has been unearthing emergent artists for a number of years now, introducing the likes of Retail Drugs and Jawdropped to audiences, and their latest addition Starcharm is another act you will want to get to know. Featuring Elena Buenrostro (vocals, guitar), Jasmin Feliciano (bass) and Amaya Peña (drums), the Chicago trio has risen from the ashes of Buenrostro’s defunct project Soft and Dumb with all the confidence and energy of new beginnings. Debut single ‘The Color Clear’ displays both pop and noise sensibilities, pairing off-kilter post punk vibes with a rising intensity so that everything feels a little odd and unreal. The song “is inspired by a time when I lost all faith in love and felt like men were seeing me as a projection instead of a real person,” Buenrostro explains. “I was going through a bit of nihilistic mania during this time which I think you can definitely hear. An avoidant attachment anthem if you will.”

Watch the video directed and produced by Peña themselves below:

‘The Color Clear’ is out now via Angel Tapes and available from Bandcamp.

Tiberius – Moab

With the release of new album Troubadour edging nearer via Audio Antihero, Boston farm emo band Tiberius have shared latest single ‘Moab’. After ‘Sag‘ and ‘Felt‘ introduced the conflicted, searching and cathartic style of the record (“ebbs and flows across its runtime,” we wrote of the former, “pulled in all directions by competing emotions. Uncertainty, doubt, desperation, a recurrent yet skittish determination to embrace some inner truth”) the new song highlights a different dimension. A track more farm than emo, leaning closer to alt country in its warm twang and compassionate delivery, though one no less cathartic for its more relaxed approached. “’Moab’ was a song I wrote about trying to let go. At the time I was defining myself by expectations of a strained relationship. I was feeling pretty insane—like the kind of insane you feel back in 8th grade where you come home crying all of the time because you have absolutely no sense of self,” explains lead Brendan Wright. “Writing ‘Moab’ offered catharsis. Looking back, I feel a lot of embarrassment around those feelings, but it was how I felt at the time and that was the place I was in. I wish I had acted differently, and I strive to now.”

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New album Troubadour, coming this autumn on Audio Antihero, feels like the culmination of this aesthetic, emerging from a difficult yet necessary period for Wright. “For most of my life, I defined myself almost completely on who I was in relation to others—my friends, my family, and my relationships,” they explain. “Troubadour was written in a short period of time where these relationships changed significantly, and it felt as if I underwent complete ego death. For months, I felt insane but inevitably found solace in nature and the constant of the trees. For a period, I felt utterly connected to the universe in a way that was completely outside my sense of self. I was everything all at once, and it was one of the most profound experiences I’ve ever had. And it was hard. And I think I was lucky enough to capture it in these ten tracks.”

Lead single ‘Sag’ sees Wright going through this process in real time, reaching for what they want Tiberius to sound like and who they want to be. “I wrote ‘Sag’ when I was really playing the ‘comparison game’ in my head and asking myself what role I wanted music to play in my life,” Wright explains. “It was the first in a batch about looking at yourself in relation to the others around you and trying to decipher who you are without that context.” The result ebbs and flows across its runtime, pulled in all directions by competing emotions. Uncertainty, doubt, desperation, a recurrent yet skittish determination to embrace some inner truth. And while there might not be any clear answer by the end, the song itself represents one in its own right. An amalgamation of styles woven into something singular and delivered with cathartic weight.

Photo by Zoe Hopper

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With Beautiful Extension Cord set for release at the beginning of April, (T-T)b have returned with new track ‘Bug on the Ceiling’. With the chiptune sensibilities again pushed back into a supporting role, the song offers a weighty indie rock style that leans towards acts like Greet Death and Tuxis Giant, and the result blurs the line between playfulness, emotion, nostalgia and catharsis. There’s no small amount of reflection and regret with stories of lives in basements and favourite bands breaking up, but the chorus burns through any torpor with an infectious brightness and heft. You get the sense that things are always tilting towards the affirming energy and repeated refrain of the closing minutes, as though quite literally transcending that which came before.

Photo by @bigbabyintoyland

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Their first release since 2016’s And Then Like Lions, Blind Pilot‘s forthcoming album In The Shadow Of The Holy Mountain finds the Oregon outfit having undergone something of a necessary hiatus. “I was struggling with a lot of fear surrounding expectations of who I was supposed to be,” lead Israel Nebeker says, “I’d lost my path with music.” The time away allowed Nebeker to travel to Scandinavia to reconnect with his Sámi heritage, as well as visit places like Mexico City as part of a humanitarian group helping migrants. “I got the idea to write a song that looks at ideas of ownership and othering, and what it does when we tell people, ‘This is our home, not yours’.” he continues. The new record flowed out in less than a month. Lead single ‘Just A Bird’ introduces the new sound, one possessing all the heart which won fans over to Blind Pilot in the first place, but an extra sense of focus for those energies. Watch the visualizer by Lotte Budai below:

In The Shadow Of The Holy Mountain is out on the 16th August via ATO Records and you can pre-order it now.

Coolhand Jax – Everything Changes All of the Time

After moving on from surf-psych band Sunshine Brothers Inc., Los Angeles-based songwriter Jake Weissman took to the road across America and started working on new demos. The songs would eventually make up the first Coolhand Jax releases, which came out via Spirit Goth Records, and the project has never looked back. Latest single ‘Everything Changes All of the Time’ shows Weissman’s knack for combining bright rhythms with intimate emotion, following a challenging conversation during a car ride which turns towards themes of loss and death. But far from emerging as something bleak, Coolhand Jax instead wrap these ideas in a rich, wistful sound that highlights the romance of such themes. Finding some comfort in the concept of change, if only to feel a sense of movement.

Cooza – Blonde

In June, UK folk songwriter Cooza released Getting Better At Knowing You, a brand new full-length on Folk Boy Records. Described as an album “written for and about his sister Ellie,” the songs might have emerged from a period of mourning, but their intent is to do more than evoke feelings of grief. Because while loss sits at the heart of Getting Better At Knowing You, the record actively works against the totality so often ascribed to the experience. Ellie might not be here in the way she once was, Cooza seems to be saying, but she is far from lost. Single ‘Blonde’ is our first taste of this affirming album and the tender, incredibly intimate emotions found therein.

Getting Better At Knowing You is out now via Folk Boy Records.

G. Himsel – Sweet William

You might know Geoff Himsel as the songwriter behind Portsmouth, New Hampshire trio Bird Friend, but after finding his groove in recent times and writing an abundance of material, he has decided to begin releasing music under the solo moniker G. Himsel for the first time. With an album on the horizon, Himsel has unveiled single ‘Sweet William’ for a glimpse into the world of his sound. A sonic representation of the New England landscape, where expansiveness meets intricate detail and whispered subtleties, resulting in something patient, delicate, and fully attuned to geographies both physical and emotional.

hey i’m outside – Frontyard

“You’re in an overgrown front yard at sunset. The worldwide vibe is kinda off right now but you gotta try anyway.” That’s how Medford, MA’s outfit hey i’m outside describe the vibe of ‘Frontyard’, the first single from their upcoming album. The tone is heartfelt if a little woozy, as though clinging on as everything we know shifts off-kilter. It finds a person trying to preserve the small joys and points of interest they stumble across, even if the attempt is doomed to fail. “saw you in the front yard / looking at flowers, just about dark,” as the first verse plays. “I lined up my camera, I tried to compose / but a fragment of time can only come close.”

Jacob Furr – Take Care

“I was thinking about an old junkyard/antique collection that I know of and how those objects were all once important to someone’s life,” explains Jacob Furr of new track ‘Take Care’. The Texas-based songwriter uses the energies and meaning inherent within such ephemera as a springboard to explore care in a wider sense. What results is every bit as warm and compassionate as anything Furr has written to date, serving as a reminder of both the power of kindness and the need to cultivate such feelings to stave off the selfishness and cynicism so prevalent in these days. “Take care of the well that’s in your heart,” as he sings, “draw deeply on its waters but don’t let down your guard / Because the darkness comes without / The darkness comes within / and it’ll try to take everything you’ve been given.”

Jae Soto – Standing

The solo moniker of Brooklyn-based songwriter and producer Justina-Maria Soto, Jae Soto creates music which exists at the intersection of the traditional and contemporary, with classic songwriting sensibilities merging and interacting with various electronic styles. Released via Switch Hit Records, new album Leave the Light On demonstrates the inventiveness and potential of such a style, showing how an exploratory sound need not lack a sense of meticulous crafting. Single ‘Standing’ is a good place to jump in, introducing the themes of growth and self-care that run across the record. It’s a song which represents “an earnest reflection of the solitary, empty feeling a person can have after coming out of a long, stressful period where they were operating in survival mode,” Soto explains. “It can sort of feel like you’re living as a ghost since the rest of your life hasn’t caught up to shape around the new person you’ve become. Ultimately, the message is ‘I’m still here!'”

Julie Doiron & Astral Swans – Last Night I Saw My Love

Following on from the successful collaborative EP Split with Chad Vangaalen, Astral Swans are now preparing to release Split 2, a second joint EP this time with Canadian songwriting royalty Julie Doiron. Released via Stoner Bird Records and as a limited edition lathe cut vinyl via Red Spade Records, the EP finds two artists at the height of their abilities, however contrasting their styles. Doiron with her earnest invocations of love, Astral Swans with an altogether more sardonic slacker contemplations. Focus track ‘Last Night I Saw My Love’ captures the full nuance of the style—an ode to a lover delivered over great distances which chugs and croons its fondness with a building momentum.

Luke De-Sciscio – Only A Woman Knows

Most people might take a few months to themselves on entering parenthood, getting to grips with the inevitable life changes, but for prolific songwriter Luke De-Sciscio, the process only served up a deeper source of inspiration. Where previous LP Papa painted a couple on the precipice of their new life, latest album Theo sees them fully immersed within it. A collection of songs written and recorded in snatched moments during his daughter’s first six weeks, the record offers an unusually immediate picture of new fatherhood, something furthered by the live-recorded style. Single ‘Only A Woman Knows’ demonstrates the release’s delicate power, where anxiety and self-doubt bubble on the surface of a new wellspring of love.

Madam Sad – Hope For You

Madam Sad, that’s Hamilton, Ontario-based duo Maddison Schreiber and Evelyn Charlotte Joe, is a project which exists in defiance of poverty and disability, functioning both as a source of healing and a way to spite the challenges life has placed in their way. New single ‘Hope For You’ shows the heart which underpins the Madam Sad sound, as well as its willingness to confront difficult things with a compassionate face. “The song title is a way of holding myself accountable to make sure I am always hoping for the happiness of those who have hurt me,” as Schreiber says. “I also do get to a more genuine place where I feel compassion for an ex-lover’s success, and that’s a nice kind of sad.”

‘Hope For You’ is out now via streaming services.

Marisa Finley – Hallelujah (Movin Through Ya)

Exploring the timeless themes of love, loss and growing up, the work of Canadian singer-songwriter Marisa Finley uses a hazy, reflective sound to further its wistful charms. Her debut single ‘Hallelujah’ sees her team up with friend and collaborator Peter Mol, a musician and producer known for work with the likes of Father John Misty and Quincy Jones, and the result is as richly heartfelt as it is melancholic. An indie pop song bathed in ambient textures and sound recordings, as though Finley’s voice emerges through the cloudy fog of her accumulated past to make itself heard. What she has to say delivered with a heavy heart, charting the experience of falling in love prematurely and the slow process of realisation, though always with an assured fondness that respects the time which has passed.

‘Hallelujah (Movin Through Ya)’ is out now via streaming services.

Soot Sprite – I Went Swimming

Next month sees Exeter trio Soot Sprite return with I Went Swimming / Home Among Your Bones, a brand new 7″ double single on Specialist Subject Records. Through releases like album Poltergeist and single ‘Lazy‘, the band have established a cathartic, often confrontational style, calling out the slights and injustices of modern living in search of a sense of self-worth. ‘I Went Swimming’ applies the style to personal relationships, its thundering momentum and impassioned delivery typifying Soot Sprite’s willingness to stand up to all that is toxic and wrong. The track is about “recognising a red flag in your relationship and emotionally shutting down to that person and cutting things off,” as lead Elise Cook explains. “Some people describe this as getting ‘the ick’ but that feels like a trivial term. Sometimes we have to learn from our mistakes and protect ourselves and that’s exactly what this is about.”

The sky is filling up with red flags
And you can’t take that back
I went swimming in the water
And now I only see black

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The song was the perfect introduction to an EP which looks to escape the systems and people which make life difficult via cathartic expressions of vulnerability. Each song on the release approaches a breaking point of some kind, where frustrations, fears and anger reach a critical mass and precipitate. The screaming crescendo of ‘Red Line’ captured this eruption most directly, and though the title track might not be quite as explosive, there’s still a gathering energy which builds beats its fists on the glass walls of its cage. ‘to take your hand’ follows a similar pattern, the hushed tone coalescing into something heavy as the vocals circle like thoughts at the dead of night.

Again offering an intimate acoustic opening, ‘Garlic Song’ offers a quiet, personal vibe, though one loaded with the attached baggage of violence and control. The weight of an empty room, or perhaps the internal pressures which never quite equalise no matter how sedate the present moment might seem. “Garlic on my kitchen shelf / They’ve all begun to sprout,” as C.J. Red Mouth sings, “peel the sheaths right off their backs / Crush the growing buds out.” But within the action lies an implicit fury, and a reminder of past cruelty held inside like a scar. “And it strikes me, the brutality / In my fingers all along,” as the lines continue. “And I wonder at the violence / That my body’s holding onto.”

Greenhouse is out now and available from the C.J. Red Mouth Bandcamp page.

Album art by Jesso Wang

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After meeting at Berklee College of Music, the five quickly became friends and have become a fixture of the DIY scene in Allston and the surrounding Boston area. Following a couple of singles last year, including the beguilingly dreamy ‘EVE’, Paper Lady are preparing to release a new EP in 2023 and have kicked off the year with a brand new single to whet appetites. Titled ‘Five of Swords’, the song heralds something of a stylistic shift for the band, moving into noisier, shoegaze-shaded territory while maintaining the other-worldly spiritualism of their previous work. As the title suggests, it is inspired by a card from the tarot deck. “Five of Swords represents a battle well fought,” the band explain, “where no one truly came out victorious.”

how can you stand so tall
when I’ve fallen and it was your call

Check out the video shot, directed, and edited by Indie DiMartino below:

‘Five of Swords’ is out now via streaming services. Also be sure to stay tuned to the Paper Lady Bandcamp page for info on the EP, and to listen to previous releases.

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If this mood is facet of the human condition, then it is one the millennial generation have taken to heart. A cohort that feels childish in front of what is expected of them, their every waking moment subconsciously or otherwise judged on some scale of productivity. The guilt of being oneself. When O’Connor sings about not being able to live in dreams forever, the sense is that they feel to the need to ‘grow up’, to leave the fantasies of the young and enter the ‘real world’. But what if the irony of our time is that the expectations are the fantasy? The ‘real world’ not real at all?

The release of Goldie coincided with the early months of the pandemic, a period which O’Connor spent in a Vermont cabin, alone and writing songs “about the pursuit of a perfect, heavenly feeling.” What they describe as “the kind of dreamy fantasy that hooks you hard but is always a little out of reach.” Songs, that is, which again probe the line between reality and dreams in search of a healthier, more fulfilling way of life.

With long-time band member James Steinberg (drums, bass, aux percussion) joined by Eleanor Elektra (guitar, backing vocals, piano), O’Connor took to Big Nice Studio in 2021 to record the resulting tracks. Sixteen in total, though talk of a double album was ultimately shelved in favour of a neater package. So while the next Tuxis Giant full-length is currently being mixed, this November sees us get the first taste of this new period with the release of EP In Heaven on Candlepin Records. A collection of six songs—four of those written in Vermont and two ‘transition’ tracks featuring spoken word samples taken from a old cassette tape of O’Connor’s parent’s wedding.

Today we have the pleasure of sharing the EP’s first single, ‘New Roman Gods’. A song which continues the alt-country style put forward on Goldie with its bright and welcoming sound, O’Connor wrestling with love and the efforts required to stoke its warmth. “It’s not always easy to love someone. Or yourself,” O’Connor says. “And if you’re feeling distant from love, you may need to will yourself into it. For better or worse.”

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