The recording project of Chicago-based songwriter Ben Groth, The Child of Eve is preparing to release the full-length Sozo this summer. The record was brought to life together with Grammy Award winning engineer Ben Rawlins and Northern Ireland Music Prize winning engineer Caolán Austin, not to mention drummer Matt Carroll (Finom), bassist Eli Broxham (The Arcadian Wild), vocalist Sara Di Bella (Anuna) and violinist Gareth Quinn Redmond (Glen Hansard, Ye Vagabonds), and the result is every bit as assured as you might expect from such a talented outfit. Take latest single ‘I’m Here’, a song which explores feelings of fear and the ways in which can come to influence our very identity. “This song addresses a kind of fear I wrestle with,”  Groth explains. “One that convinces me to question my worth, to wear a mask and hide myself away. That I’m embarrassing to others.” But rather than allow himself be consumed by the fear, he instead confronts the feeling. Decides to walk through it no matter how uncomfortable it might be.

Dog Shaped – Reason

Rising from the ashes of Sue Your Landlord and featuring Emily Cabarle, Dog Shaped is a new band announcing itself on the New York scene, and debut single ‘Reason’ serves as their calling card. Described by the band as “a love letter and a longing to reconnect with lost childlike wonder,” the track looks to wriggle free from the difficulties and isolation that so often comes with adulthood and instead return to something more tender and curious. What if loneliness need not be the default setting of our existence? What if there’s a path back to kindness and connection once more?

Ead Wood – Emmeline

“A bittersweet slice of wistful reflection, with Soles evoking that strange mix of comfort and loss inherent within any spot of natural beauty.” So we wrote of Ead Wood‘s single ‘Peace in the Pines‘ back in 2024, describing how the Bristol-based project utilised an Americana-adjacent sound to achieve a mood simultaneously upbeat, melancholic and often a little absurd. With new EP Wild Water coming soon via Breakfast Records, Soles and co. are back ‘Emmeline’, a single which continues the introspective nature of the project while widening its focus, serving as a bridge between previous record Cash Mountain and whatever new territory Ead Wood charts next. “I wrote ‘Emmeline’ during a time when I was touring a lot and constantly heading off somewhere else,” Wood explains. “It made me think about what that experience must feel like for the person staying behind. The song is written from my partner’s perspective—that feeling of watching someone rush out the door again while life at home carries on. It’s about love, patience, and the quiet strength of the person who’s always there when you return.”

Eliza Edens – Leash

More than three years since releasing last record We’ll Become the Flowers, Brooklyn‘s Eliza Edens has returned with brand new song ‘Leash’. The standalone single suggests an evolution in style, moving away from the introspective glow of the previous record and stepping into a newfound sassy confidence. “I’m a goddamn killer, ended many things,” they sing in the opening line which rather nicely sets the tone, “fucked up your mind and stole your parents’ wedding ring.” Insistent bass and peppy percussion buoy things along with irrepressible energy, licks of guitar bursting in at intervals as if a metaphor for the abandonment of self-control at the track’s heart. ‘Leash’ “is a tongue-in-cheek, breezy rock song that celebrates the shadow self,” Edens describes, “our darker impulses, the devil on the shoulder, and the cynic inside us all.”

Eric Angelo Bessel – Upstate

After lead track ‘Double Helix’ introduced Mirror At Night B-Sides, a song “dreamlike and drifting,” we wrote, “emerging full of ambiguous meaning as though dug from deep in the distant past or else visiting from some time or space we are yet to encounter,” Eric Angelo Bessel has now shared its partner single ‘Upstate’ to cap off the release. Fans of the project will relish the opportunity to step out of the frame of ordinary existence and delve into this otherworldly soundscape once again. “’Upstate’ feels like a quiet transmission from somewhere beyond time,” Bessel explains of the track, “where memories blur, dreams surface, and sound moves like breath through spaces you can’t quite place but somehow recognize.”

Helenor  Windshield

The recording project of Brooklyn-based songwriter and visual artist David DiAngelis, Helenor serves as a vehicle to explore the twin threads of stasis and change that run through any life, and provides space to reflect on age old existential questions with a fresh, contemporary edge. Released via Mtn Laurel Recording Co., new single ‘Windshield’ is the ideal introduction for the uninitiated, exploring the ways in which we may or may not alter as we grow and come of age, and the curious comfort which might be found in the answer. “I’ve been spending a lot more of my time with children lately, which feels like a portal but also a mirror,” DiAngelis describes. “The mirror part has me feeling like—damn, I’m really not even that much different than who I was at that age. I guess the only way for me to reconcile this is to just remember that every other self-important someone walking by me in New York City is actually just one gigantic child in disguise.”

Mark Trecka – Wake Dance Romance ft. Lead Into Gold

Chicago-born writer, sound artist, performer, and activist Mark Trecka has a new record, ROMANCE WAKE NAMING, coming out next month via LA label The Garrote. Long-time readers will be familiar with his work which roams the outer edges of post-punk, neo-classical and avant garde, combining themes both personal and political in a sound which have said previously “utilis[es] sound to explore a diverse set of styles and themes in a practice as inventive as it is ambitious.” Collaboration is key to Trecka’s practice and the new record is no different. This time industrial music legend Paul Barker (Ministry) both produces and features under his alias Lead Into Gold, helping to create a trip-hop-influenced sound that’s as big and immediate as it is nuanced and experimental. Lead single ‘Wake Dance Romance’ throws the listener headlong into this style. Check it out below.

Pearla – Loved By Me

Pearla has shared a couple of singles from her upcoming new album Song Room in recent weeks, with ‘Be Around‘ and ‘Imagine Your Face‘ introducing a record which inverts the outward view of predecessor Oh Glistening Onion, The Nighttime Is Coming to instead offer a more introspective style. “A survey not of the exterior but interior,” we wrote, “though one which nevertheless finds a vast world full of strange beauty.” With the release fast approaching, Pearla is now back with new track ‘Loved By Me’ which further grounds the emotional core of the record. “This is a song of unconditional love for someone who is used to measuring their worth by external factors,” she says. “I wrote a lot of the songs on this record guided by the question, ‘What is it that my body needs to sing?’ In this case, it was an expression of love, directed toward the more tender parts within myself and the people in my life.” Watch the video by Enne Goldstein below:

Song Room will be released on the 24th April and you can pre-order it now from the Pearla Bandcamp page.

Polhawan – No Sweat

You might know Tim Rowing-Parker as the songwriter behind acts like Woahnows and Immy, the Bristol-based artist using the later to put out a series of scrappy, surf-inflected releases in recent years. His new project Polhawan is both an evolution and revolution of this style, looking to preserve the immediacy and DIY spirit of Immy while pursuing a newfound polish and depth. The result is clearly Rowing-Parker, but also Rowing-Parker as never seen before. Cryptic, strange, fresh and confident. Take single ‘No Sweat’ from debut EP Wild Mountain Time, coming this May via Breakfast Records, which takes a sunny, surfy sound and applies it to something altogether more supernatural. “After a few years living in the country, I moved back to the city, and honestly it kinda freaked me out,” he explains. “To take the edge off the train station each morning I’d block out the noise with headphones, and for some reason this led to listening to loads of supernatural podcasts. It’s quite funny that people recounting the scariest shit that has ever happened to them seemed more comforting to me than existing alongside fellow commuters in the light of day.”

Rare DM – Compliment

The moniker Rare DM might be cryptic (does it refer to direct message? Dungeon master? Dance music?), but the music of Brooklyn-based singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erin Hoagg is anything but guarded. Leaning mainly on synths, Rare DM creates an immediate, emotionally charged sound which seduces the listener into its embrace before bearing its messy heart, no matter how revealing or intense the process might be. Later this spring, sees the release of new full-length Attention, and single ‘Compliment’  is typical of its sensual, confronting style. “It is inspired by when you are in a relationship, and someone who you had eyes for (before meeting your s/o) suddenly pays attention to you,” as Hoagg expands. “I was sent a suggestive message from someone, and wasn’t single anymore. As the lyrics share: ‘don’t you worry about it for a second, I can take a compliment’ because hey, I don’t want them to feel embarrassed or bad, they didn’t know that I met someone! This all being said… I can’t control if they are thinking of me. ‘You can’t have it… but you can imagine it’.”

Watch the suitably surreal, suggestive video by Lisa Saeboe below:

Attention will be released on the 29th May and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Shaina Hayes – Flourish

When not writing songs or touring, Québec-based artist Shaina Hayes runs a vegetable farm in her hometown, a fact which is more than an interesting tidbit to add to a bio. Because spend any time with Hayes’s music and you’ll come to appreciate a kinship between both of these pursuits: an attention to detail, a deep-rooted connection to the land and its life, not to mention an overarching patience that allows her to reflect upon the present with admirable clarity. In preparation for her third full-length, coming soon via Bonsound, Hayes has returned with ‘Flourish’, a suitably earthy, emotive slice of folk which highlights this style perfectly. A well-timed evocation of spring and all of it inherent hopefulness, blooming with an easy warmth as it gestures towards a brighter future of healing and growth. Watch the visualizer by Flavie Lemée below:

‘Flourish’ is out now via Bonsound and available from the usual places.

Will White – When To Stop

Songwriter and composer Will White has long been known for his work with other artists. The Maccabees, 86TVs and Great White Shark are among the acts he’s collaborated with, and he runs a residency at Ron’s cafe in Peckham which has welcomed everyone from Jasper Llewlyn (of Caroline), Katy J Pearson and Will Rees (Mystery Jets) to Florence Welch, Dry Cleaning and Sam Akpro. Even his own project BLANc practised a certain level of distancing from his personal self. But this May sees White step out into the light on his own for the first time with the release of his debut solo album It’s Easy To Let The Thoughts Gain Ground on state51. A record which takes all of the knowledge and experience gained through years spend in the heart of the UK’s artistic community and applies it to his own intimate, reflective brand of indie rock. Latest single ‘When To Stop’ captures the spirit of the release, offering a decidedly compassionate tone that is nevertheless shot through which a rising tension too. Like a picture of someone caught between the shadows of the past and an obscure future, wishing to hope for something better while the world rocks and burns.

Watch the video made by White  alongside Rosie Terry-Toogood below:

It’s Easy To Let The Thoughts Gain Ground will be released on the 1st May via state51 and you can pre-order it now.

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After lead single ‘Crows’, which we described as “a track fired by nervous energy and unanswered questions, barrelling forwards despite its clear desire to stop and change,” Langkamer have now returned with a pair of brand new singles to further introduce the tone of the the record. First is ‘Deansgate’, a brooding, reflective number interspersed with sparks of noise, as though beneath the morose surface of grey concrete and straight faces stirs something more fierce and chaotic. “’Deansgate’ is a song about Manchester,” Jarman explains, “being reminded of your past behaviour and trying to figure out whether or not you did the right thing. Heartbreak’s a motherfucker, but every battle has a winner. A pyrrhic victory is still a victory.”

Delivered with a wiry, decidedly more hurried energy, ‘Easterly’ could be viewed as this chaos uncorked, as though after a long period of tamping down anxiety, it rises and overcomes. “A while back I got locked out my flat on a particularly busy and stressful day,” Jarman continues. “My key broke off in the lock and in that instant something also broke in my brain. I was watching the pot boil over, I was totally helpless. This is a song about that exact instant.” But rather than consuming its host, the anxiety fires a song which proves strangely cathartic. As though something is gained in submitting to the vulnerability of the moment. Not quite freedom or relief, but a sense of release nonetheless.

No will be released in January via Breakfast Records and you can pre-order it now.

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Recorded in an old church near the birthplace of lead Daniel Hedin and taking years to bring to fruition, ‘Hideous Form’ is the new single from Det Hemliga Folket, a collaboration between Hedin and Budapest‘s Marton Fogl. The sound feels intrinsically tied to the origins of the track, offering an austere space full of shadow and cryptic weight, Hedin reaching beyond his surroundings and the present mood to re-engage with something more elemental. A song fitting for a project built around Hedin’s desire to connect with heritage, be that the ancestors who walked the land before him or the very earth of Sweden itself. Det Hemliga Folket is “a re-connection with the wild north inside me and the ancestral blues that whispers within the sound of the earth, the whispers in my head of the very fabric of the land,” he explains. “I hear the ocean and the silence of the forests that raised me like mothers and fathers. The darkness that’s been a part of me is an engine that never can die. It’s not just me, it is the earth where I am from, the deep beneath the soil of the north that is always calling me home.”

Dylan Henner – I Used To See Her On The Way Home from School and She Lit Up The Sky with her Beauty

A collection “which explores both the tactile experience of adolescence and the nostalgia of times now past.” That’s how we described Star Dream FM, the new album from Dylan Henner out via Phantom Limb, with previous singles ‘We Ditched School and Climbed Over the Neighbour’s Fence to Swim in their Pool All Day‘ and ‘We Walked all the Way to the Lake and The Water Was So Still We Jumped in Naked‘ “embracing not just a sentimental fondness for the specific moment but one wider in scope,” as we put it, “longing for the kind of curiosity and carefree spirit which marks youth.” With the album now out, Henner has shared another single and the title of the track says it all. ‘I Used To See Her On The Way Home from School and She Lit Up The Sky with Her Beauty’ is “about the frenzy and passion of love in adolescence,” as Henner explains. “About how your crush can change the whole universe with their presence, make everything feel bigger than you could possibly handle sometimes or so delicate you could lose it in an instance at others. The harp was supposed to represent the sort of angelic ascension of renaissance or classical beauty, which is the only lens you can ever see your crush with when you’re seventeen.”

ERIKA DOHI – Myth of Tomorrow

Later this week, Osaka-born, New York-based composer and pianist Erika Dohi will release Myth of Tomorrow, a brand new full-length via Switch Hit Records and Figureight Records. Described as “a sonic meditation on catastrophe, resilience, and rebirth,” the album builds upon the eclectic style of predecessor I, Castorpollux to push Dohi’s sound in new directions, utilising a variety of sensibilities from dance, jazz, ambient and classical modes to create soundscapes as singular as they are striking. The record draws its title from the Taro Okamoto’s mural of the same name, and the title track draws the clearest line between the two artworks. A song concerned with the endless cycles of existence, not only asking what they demand of us but also how we might find peace and healing within the recurring patterns of life. “For me, the song reflects on resilience and regeneration in the face of life’s relentless cycles,” Dohi explains. “Through its lyrics, I explore the contradictions of modern existence—the struggle to find happiness in repetition, the unspoken burdens we carry, and the illusions we chase in pursuit of fulfillment. Yet, amidst all of this, the song also asks us to pause, breathe, and reconnect with the beauty in the everyday: the sun rising without fail, the moon’s quiet waning, the resilience of a dandelion growing through cracks in asphalt. It’s a song of introspection that invites us to confront our disconnection and rediscover what moves us to live and hope for tomorrow.”

Myth of Tomorrow will be released on the 24th October via Switch Hit Records and Figureight Records and you can pre-order it now.

Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover – Fluorescent Light

Haley Heynderickx and Max García Conover are no strangers to collaboration, the pair releasing Among Horses III back in 2018 on Son Canciones and the anniversary single ‘How Does the Horse Go Home?‘ five years later. “The genius of both Heynderickx and Conover is their ability to draw a relatable emotion from their subject matter,” we wrote, “tapping into a universal sense of nostalgia and longing and presenting it back to us, shaping and polished into its most gleaming form.” Based on the life and work of Woodie Guthrie and this time to be released via Fat Possum, What of Our Nature is a brand new full-length by the pair which builds upon the chemistry they’ve crafted over the years to offer songs as inventive and heartfelt as anything they’ve released to date. After the verbose and sometimes frantic ‘Boar’, latest single ‘Fluorescent Light’ highlights a more delicate, restrained dimension to the record, though true to Guthrie’s spirit, there’s a seam of social commentary running through it too. A tone at once playful, melancholic and cutting, able to take aim at the banalities and cruelties of contemporary life without losing its airy brightness.

Kramies – Goodbye Dreampop Troubadour

Back in August we introduced Goodbye Dreampop Troubadour, the new album from Kramies on Hidden Shoal, with single ‘Hollywood Signs’. The track showed the album’s nuanced nature, the sound following “a newly nostalgic direction, full of dreamlike longing and evening colours,” as we put it, yet one which possesses “something strange and quietly unsettling, full of the mysterious allure which Kramies has always offered.” With the record out now, the title track has been unveiled as a new single, the cornerstone of the record which embodies all of its richness and duality. Blending autobiography with fiction, ‘Goodbye Dreampop Troubadour’ rises from relative restraint into something enveloping, Kramies moving from a spacious, drifting sound into something rich and triumphant, playing like a metamorphosis witnessed in real time.

Langkamer – Crows

Following on from 2024 album Langzamer, as well as lead Josh Jarman’s solo release under the moniker Classic Trucks earlier this year, Bristol‘s Langkamer are preparing to release their fourth album in as many years. Coming early next January via Breakfast Records, No was recorded in the Spanish hills at Zarzalico and carries some of the Mediterranean clarity in its sound, creating enough space to examine the full scale of our frenetic contemporary life. Lead single ‘Crows’ gives a taste of what to expect, a track fired by nervous energy and unanswered questions, barrelling forwards despite its clear desire to stop and change. “’Crows’ is a song about the crazy shapes we contort ourselves into trying to create art in the era of late-stage capitalism,” the band explain. “Working a thousand jobs. Writing songs with the left hand while writing emails with the right hand. Your day is already doomed the moment you open your eyes. Everything’s a bad omen.”

Orchid Mantis – Strange Heaven

Change and evolution are key features in the career of any artist, especially one as prolific as Orchid Mantis. “Over the years, Atlanta, Georgia-based artist Thomas Howard has used the [project] as a space in which to explore a host of musical styles,” we wrote back in March, “each release responding to and building upon that which came before it so that the work was always in flux.” In Airports, the second Orchid Mantis full-length to be released this year, not only continues this process but meditates on the very meaning of such an endeavour. What does it mean to commit to a life making music? And how might it help chart all that is lost and preserved over the years? The result feels like the culmination of everything Orchid Mantis has done to date, returning to old styles and techniques as readily is it breaks new ground, and thus becomes something of a mission statement for the project. A declaration of intent to give the past and future equal billing, full of the spirit which has been pieced together over the years yet open to possibility. New single and closer ‘Strange Heaven’ expresses the sentiment most succinctly:

as it fades away
we could keep drifting
we could form a star
we could be lifted

The Planes – Tear the World Apart (MFLB Version)

We last wrote about New York indie rock outfit The Planes back in 2023, describing ‘First Breath After Mask’, a single from EP Dark Matter Recycling Co., as “a song at once depressed and affirming. As though from with its own inertia stirs some last attempt at catharsis.” Now the band are back with Motel For Lightning Bug, a brand new release which sees them continue their own idiosyncratic mix of rock and pop influences, harnessing some of the energy of their livewire shows without losing a sense of emotion or reflection. It is fitting that opener and single ‘Tear the World Apart (MFLB Version)’ is a reworking of a fan favourite from live shows, what the band call label as “slacker indie rock bubblegum” which deals with loss with equal parts wistfulness and wry humour, not to mention an infectious sense of momentum which only builds across the length of the track.

Sister Wanzala – Now You’re Mine

Back in 2022 we heralded the apparently triumphant return of London sibling trio Sister Wanzala, singles ‘Perfume‘ and ‘Top Drawer‘ appearing after a three-year hiatus which started soon after the release of 2019 EP The Circus and signalling an almost reluctant determination to pursue making music in an age which can often appear to be designed to convince you otherwise. Fittingly, both tracks featured dreams as a central motif, though rather than some inspirational battle cry to all those who which to pursue their passions, they either described these dreams as full of disaster (‘Top Drawer’) or declared a desire to have them removed entirely (‘Perfume’). You can already guess what happened next. The return was a false dawn, Sister Wanzala retreated into their shells again, only… what’s that? A new track, two years later? Another self-deprecating press release declaring their career a failure and promising more of the same? You’ll understand if we don’t call ‘Now You’re Mine’ anything more than another small blip in might otherwise be a pristine half-decade of silence, but as soon as the jazzy opening unfurls with all its nineties daytime TV swagger and the cold groove settles with effortless cool, you’ll be glad you got anything from the project, no matter how alluring and brief.

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The result is a sound rooted in the personal yet innately transcendent. An ethereal space not unlike a dream, stitched together from memories, desires and nostalgic longing yet impermanent by its very nature. A place, that is, removed from the physical demands on existence and thus the ideal vantage for self-reflection. One imbued with the weightlessness of flying or floating which offers the opportunity to examine the familiar without the everyday burden of the body.

With the album set for release later this month via Gold Day Recordings (UK) and Orindal Records (US), herbal tea has now returned with brand new single, ‘Submarine’, and again the disembodied motif is distinct. This time, as the title suggests, the world Walker creates is not so much ethereal as aquatic, her vocals submersed within textures dark and heavy and not without beauty, a half-alien world mirrored beneath our own. “When I wrote ‘Submarine’, I thought I was poking at old wounds, but now the meaning keeps shifting as time goes by,” Walker explains. “It touches on the feeling of wanting to disappear into a safe place, in the night, where you feel invisible.” The song is a great example of the tone of Hear as the Mirror Echoes, where ethereal does not necessarily equal airy, and an escape from the physical present needn’t necessitate removing all depth and gravity.

Down in the soil,
up in smoke,
a huff of heavy fumes
Trying not to think of then,
when she was always hiding

Watch the video filmed and edited by Walker along with Henry C Sharpe below:

Hear as the Mirror Echoes will be released via Orindal Records and Gold Day on 29th August. Pre-order it now from the herbal tea Bandcamp page.

Photo by Sarah Rose Currie

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Lily of the Valley, the timely new album from 22° Halo, might centre on something intensely personal and difficult, but it’s more widely relevant too as it actively works to fight off despair and let light in on an otherwise dark time. As we described when writing of previous single ‘Virtual You’, the sound is “wistful, yes, and not immune from a certain sense of longing, but always with an overarching gratitude that such times happened at all.” With the album now out via Tiny Library Records, Will Kennedy has unveiled final single, ‘Cobwebs’. A fittingly introspective track which tracks the early days of the diagnosis which sits at the heart of the album, looking to preserve ordinary life while wrestling with an all-encompassing uncertainty.

I’m trying to believe that you’re good
I’m trying to believe that I’m good
I’m trying to believe that we’re good
I’m trying to believe

Clara Mann – Stadiums

UK singer-songwriter Clara Mann has announced her debut album, Rift, the follow up to 2021 EP Consolations (Sad Club Records). A culmination of her young career so far, label The state51 Conspiracy call the record “a tangible expression of Clara’s entire world—a snow globe raised in her palms for the world to see, in all its layers and complexities, containing all her love, relationships, memories, and experiences.” Mann describes her music as “almost-folk”, and the album’s two lead singles introduce this perfectly. Finely wrought and patient, minimal percussion lapping at the edges of the impressive vocals. ‘Stadiums’ is perhaps the standout, precise and emotive in equal measure, swaying around a still and poised centre.

Decant – Rest

Bay Area trio Decant are this month releasing two singles, both in preview of an upcoming EP set for release early next year and to celebrate the fact the tracks appear in the film credits for the movie Rust. The first single ‘Rest’ introduces the band’s evocative style, something folky that splits the difference between shadow and warmth. The result is at once poignant and moody, aching with a nocturnal longing yet holding on to a sense of light.

German Error Message – Lilt

Two decades since the project’s conception, the latest release from Paul Kintzing’s German Error Message is a self-titled collection of songs written and recorded since 2020. First released digitally earlier this year, the album is now getting a cassette release from Lily Tapes & Discs as part of their Fall ’24 batch. It’s both reassuringly familiar and somehow fresh, the warm and hushed lo-fi songs reaching out toward a newfound sense of brightness. As Lily Tapes put it: “Where previous albums may have built insular and hermetic worlds with their hushed delivery, German Error Message sprawls outwards, unfolding as a series of nested home-recording experiments disguised as folk songs.” Check out ‘Lilt’ as a taster.

Hamburger – Frankenstein

Bristol six-piece Hamburger are gearing up for the release of their new EP Beat Back the Ghouls via Specialist Subject Records later this month, and latest single ‘Frankenstein’ shows how the collection both builds upon their previous work and pushes the sound in new directions. Where debut EP Teenage Terrified offered equal parts rawness and invention, Hamburger use the new release to show off a more sophisticated, layered sound without sacrificing any of the personality that fans have come to love. ‘Frankenstein’ is the ideal introduction. A richly wistful track which pines for summers past with equal parts soaring energy and enveloping fuzz.

Lone Striker – Dunno

You might know Tom Brown as part of bands like Rural France and Teenage Tom Petties, but new project Lone Striker moves away from the fuzzy jangle of those projects towards something more akin to Americana, albeit one with an off-kilter wobble. With a self-titled album coming next year Repeating Cloud, Safe Suburban Home and Hidden Bay Records, Brown has shared the title track to introduce the project. Something of a theme song for Lone Striker which doubles as an ode to those old school number nines.

Mumble Tide – The Rails

Consisting of singer Gina Leonard and composer Ryan Rogers, Mumble Tide is a Bristol-based project which has made a name with a maximalist amalgamation of synth pop and country. But new single ‘The Rails’, out now on Breakfast Records, sees the outfit pivot towards a different direction. With help from producer Stew Jackson (Massive Attack), Mumble Tide worked with newfound patience, crafting a slow and careful arrangement in which Leonard’s vocals can be heard in all their nuance and depth. The result draws heavily on sixties folk but elevates such sensibilities with an almost cinematic sheen, and the emotive, assured mood which results is central to the track’s themes. “’The Rails’ is like an angry kiss, or throwing stones at a mirror,” Leonard explains. “It’s about leaning into all the things that hold me back and in the process realising that they’re not as solid as they seem.”

Otala – Patchwork

With a sound that combines jazz, math and post-rock with ambient and spoken word, Nottingham’s Otala are not ones to be held to genre conventions. Having recently signed to London’s Lil Chop Record Shop, the band are preparing to release new EP Fire! To The River next February, and single ‘Patchwork’ gives listeners a chance to immerse themselves within the evocative and inventive Otala sound. A song that has been part of the outfit’s repertoire for a long while now reimagined as something fitting their current level. “’Patchwork’ is a song we have been performing since we began playing as Otala, but one that we’d originally planned to let fade into our history,” the band explain. “After seeing a live video from an old set we decided to put the time in to adapt and reanimate it into something we’re proud to release.”

Watch the video by Rory Allen below:

‘Patchwork’ is out now via Lil Chop Record Shop and available from Bandcamp. Fire! To The River will be released in February.

Ruby Gill – Some Kind Of Control

We’ve previously described the work of  South Africa-born, Melbourne/Naarm-based pianist, guitarist and singer-songwriter Ruby Gill as “setting its sights on the overbearing, patronising force of male entitlement,” and “aris[ing] from a very personal situation but end[ing] up speaking to a far wider experience.” New single ‘Some Kind of Control’ follows in the same vein to explore the strange blend of agency and restriction experienced during the lockdown period of the pandemic. “I had been grappling with what it meant to have all and no control over my time and body—all at once,” Gill explains:

In a big way, the world was in charge, but also in a day-to-day way, I had all the power: I could move freely through my kitchen and clothes and kindness however I wished—it was a new experience for me after feeling quite trapped in some difficult spaces and systems for a long time—“always babysitting other people’s arguments instead of my own” as the lyrics say. I feel like this song encompasses so much of what I’ve learnt and reclaimed in the past few years, and feels very reflective musically of my true, silly, powerful self and community.

Watch the video filmed, directed and edited by Bridgette Winten, with shoot and lighting assistance by Sophie Christopher below:

‘Some Kind of Control’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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Again released via Breakfast Records, latest single ‘Peace in the Pines’ sees Ead Wood continue to work this fertile ground, maintaining a certain brightness even if the style is not quite as light-hearted as ‘Menu’. Instead we’re given a bittersweet slice of wistful reflection, with Soles evoking that strange mix of comfort and loss inherent within any spot of natural beauty. “‘Peace in The Pines’ is a song inspired by a month-long cycle trip I did last year, traveling through Spain and down the coast of Portugal to Lisbon,” Soles explains. “It’s about the desire to maintain a sense of adventure and not conforming to the status quo by writing your own narrative. There is always pressure to ‘settle down’, buy a house, get a steady job but it’s just as important really to find space for new adventures and experiences, if not at least that sense of wonder and beauty that can only be found in nature.”

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The recording project of Chicago-based violinist and songwriter Mallory Linehan, Chelsea Bridge is something of a shapeshifting entity. One as likely to entice the listener in with hazy dreamscapes as it is blast them with intense noise, willing to present sensual and detached sensibilities side by side. Perhaps not a shapeshifter, then, but rather something fluid, an amorphous thing able to exist across and between fixed points. It is therefore fitting that new album K, coming next month via Whited Sepulchre, could be described as both the most accessible and experimental Chelsea Bridge record to date. A collection of songs which sees Linehan reach for pop sensibilities as naturally as she might classical or avant garde, as though to prove such a distinction is of little consequence to an artist fully embracing an intuitive mode of working. Single ‘The Morning’ introduces the result, where plucked violin seems to work hand over hand to tease a lush pop soundscape into life.

cryer mya – Leylines

Based in south London by way of Bristol, cryer mya is the new recording project of songwriter Rishi Saluja. Having previously played in bands with psychedelic influences, Saluja uses the moniker to combine such sensibilities with more personal tastes in soul and folk, resulting in a richly realised sound sure to grab the ears of fans of Sam Evian and Alice Phoebe Lou. Lead single ‘Leylines’ provides the first taste of the cryer mya style, taking a languid summer rhythm and populating it with vocals both heartfelt and searching, the easygoing warmth belying the depth of a track which explores themes of spirituality and mystery.

‘Leylines’ is out now and available from the usual places.

 Ead Wood – Menu

Ead Wood might hail from Bristol in the UK, but their Americana-inflected sound positions them closer to acts like Friendship than any of their British brethren. Following on from last year’s EP A Sparkling Gift, the outfit have returned with new single ‘Menu’ on Breakfast Records. A song which typifies the balance between sincerity and playfulness which marks the Ead Wood sound, delving into an ostensibly mundane situation to reveal the deeper meanings beneath the surface. “‘Menu’ is a (somewhat) lighthearted song about decision making anxieties,” as lead Ed Soles explains. “[That feeling] of being frozen in fear of making the wrong choice, even in those situations where it may not seem to even matter. This is never more apparent than ordering at a restaurant, where I often get the same as whoever I’m with to avoid having to make my own decision, even if it’s not something I want.”

‘Menu’ is out now via Breakfast Records and available from Bandcamp.

Holy Matter – Prince Gloom

This autumn, Leanna Kaiser will release her debut album under her Holy Matter moniker. Titled Beauty Looking Back, the record explores “the changing seasons of life and the passage of time,” featuring intimate meditations on the cyclical patterns of past, present and future that attempt to capture the paradox of time and how we experience it. Namely, how things seem at once immutable and ever-changing. “Holy Matter comes from Leonard Cohen’s novel Beautiful Losers,” Kaiser explains. “There’s one passage that has stayed with me, since – a page with the repeated mantra ‘I change; I am the same.’ This, I would say, is the best description of what this album is about.” Latest single ‘Prince Gloom’ is dreamy and diaphanous, unfurling in a slow, almost tropical swirl.

Japandroids – Chicago

Seven years after their last record, Vancouver indie rock legends Japandroids have announced one last album before they lay the project to rest. Billed by duo Brian King and David Prowse as a parting gift to fans, Fate & Alcohol seems intent on going out in a blaze of glory. “On our last record we wanted to broaden the definition of a Japandroids song,” King explains, “and purposely left our demos quite open and malleable so that we had more flexibility to experiment in the studio.” If lead single ‘Chicago’ is anything to go by, this translates to a sound that’s bolder and more widescreen than anything Japandroids have made to date. Which is saying something for a band who have always been unapologetically maximalist, combining punk rock energy with good-time, fists-in-the-air classic rock.

Kitty Fitz – Laughing Stock

Inspired by both 90s power pop and contemporary pop songwriters like Lorde and Caroline Polachek, the work of London’s Kitty Fitz combines a sometimes chaotic, danceable energy with candid and introspective explorations of turbulent relationships and self-doubt. Less poppy than last year’s debut EP All My Own Stunts, new single ‘Laughing Stock’ has been honed on the live circuit for over a year, forgoing the more bombastic synth pop elements in favour of something a little more poignant. What Fitz describes as “the epitome of me attempting to pass off my own fear of commitment and rejection as character flaw, as being cool and aloof, or once again feeling in a way ‘unloveable,'” the song’s breezy surface is something of a facade, beneath which squirm anxious thoughts and fears.

Maya Ruth – oblivion

“Chapped lips / But nothing like the harshness of smoke / We fall asleep restlessly / Counting the years on our toes.” So sings Maya Ruth in the opening of new single ‘Oblivion’. A song which began life as a poem before morphing into a grungy rock hit, the track mines the banality of every day life for its inherent absurdity, offering a bittersweet sound of sweet textures and edgy bite. The result is both alluring and slightly unnerving, as though beneath the monotony of our normal experience lies something more exciting, something more dangerous. “Die with me here / And you’ll be asking for more,” as Ruth sings in the chorus. “Doesn’t it scare you? / But don’t you feel good?”

‘Oblivion’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Merce Lemon – Backyard Lover

Following recent single ‘Will You Do Me a Kindness’, what we called “a song that ebbs and flows between quiet introspection and a wild, barely-restrained energy,” Pittsburgh songwriter Merce Lemon has announced a new record, Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild. Released via LA label Darling Records, the album promises to marry quiet vulnerability with cathartic power, something immediately apparent on lead single ‘Backyard Lover’. What starts as a warm and swaying country song, complete with propulsive percussion and wistful pedal steel, gathers into a sharp point of wailing guitar and emotional release. It’s a glimpse at a theme that winds throughout the record, and Lemon’s work in general.  “So many of my songs are touched by and explore death, specifically in relation to the loss I experienced of my best friend when I was fifteen years old,” she explains. “That loss has forever changed me and who I am in my relationships to lovers, friends, family.”

Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild will be released on 27^th September via Darling Records. Pre-order a copy now from the Merce Lemon Bandcamp page.

Nuisance – Holy Basil

Over recent years, few could have done more to work against the traditional studio-based recording process than William Seidel and Ryan Weber of Nuisance. Whether working as part of Eric & Magill or REW<<, Weber has created albums in some of the world’s remotest areas while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer, while Seidel has worked on music in hotels and mini-cab taxis during his extensive travels. Not to mention their development of the virtual sounds database Poetic Devices which underpins Nuisance releases. The pair are now back with Squash Blossom Necklace, a new full-length which furthers their exploration of possibilities within this frame of working, bending genre conventions in order to incorporate pop, folk, electronic and classical sensibilities into something unique to them. Listen to single ‘Holy Basil’ now:

Sylvia – Found and Lost

With members hailing from all over Australia, Sylvia is a Melbourne/Naarm-based band which is equally diverse in its points of reference. Gemma (vocals/guitar) is one half of dream pop duo Earache, Murray (drums) used to power Brisbane noise-rock outfit No Sister, Dee (bass) also plays in dystopian industrial band Red Hell while Sean (guitar) spent time in powerviolence as part of Canberra’s Hygiene. United as Sylvia, the result draws on all of this past experience to create something straddling shoegaze, power pop and indie rock, while maintaining a certain intensity of noise too. New EP II is a good place to jump in, with single ‘Found and Lost’ seeing noisy rock and twee pop collide in a short, sharp burst.

variety – Plover

Earlier this year, Austin-based outfit variety—That’s Jordan Emmert (Porcelain/Pleasure Venom), Nick Stout (New Strangers), Rhys Woodruff (Borzoi/Leche) and Zach Wood (Borzoi)—released ‘Plover’, the first single of their forthcoming album pencilled for release this autumn. A twitchy rush of anxious energy, the song uses the titular wader and ornithological themes more generally to paint a picture of an ecosystem gripped by a constant tension. As though every environment is a network of individuals with competing desires, be they animal or human, and each organism is set on edge by the presence of everything else. Watch the video directed by Taylor Browne below:

‘Plover’ is out now and the variety album is coming soon.

Wild Pink – The Fences of Stonehenge

Following on from 2022’s hit ILYSM and John Ross’s successful collaboration with Laura Wolf under the moniker lilts, Wild Pink have signed with the good folks at Fire Talk and announced new full-length album, Dulling The Horns. But if Ross’s recent output has seen discursions into dreamy and often ornate pop styles, the new record is a recentering of Wild Pink as a rock band. One ready to be more immediate, less polished and finely crafted. “I wanted to make economical songs,” as Ross explains. “Music that is very much at its core three or four people rocking.” First single ‘The Fences of Stonehenge’ leads the way, heralding not only a fresh collection of songs but what feels like a new era for the band. One which finds them revitalised and ready to commit wholeheartedly all over again.

Dulling The Horns is out on the 4th October via Fire Talk and you can pre-order it now.

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Our first taste of the record is lead single ‘Richard E Grant’, a song that’s light on its feet but possesses surprising depth. Guitar and bass duck and weave between vibrant percussion and uplifting flourishes of synths, all leading towards a terrifically catchy chorus. But there’s a darker, uncertain edge too. Like much of the record, this is ultimately about the loss of loved ones. “This is a song about grief, in the short term and the long term,” describes lead singer and drummer Josh Jarman. “It’s about finding healthy coping strategies to deal with loss.”

Richard E Grant tickets
and dinner for two
Finding a feeling
like a fever in your funeral suit

Watch the video by JJ Jarman and AJ Stark below:

Langzamer is due for release via Breakfast Records on 16th October. Pre-order a copy now from the Langkamer Bandcamp page.

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With a tour fast approaching this December, the outfit have returned with ‘Jenny’, a new single which encapsulates the Langkamer vibe perfectly. “Silver in the city and I’m dragging my heels, walking home in the morning mist,” go the opening lines, setting out the downbeat tone. “And if I could I’d tell you what it cost / but Jenny that’s a long, long list.” A sense of guilt or something like it hangs like a fog over our narrator. A desire to come clean matched only by the fear of what that would reveal.

“’Jenny’ is a song about vulnerability and self-defence,” the band explain. “About the walls that some people put up around themselves to try and stay safe. Some people have this veneer of bravado and distance, but it only serves to make them weaker and more vulnerable.”

Jenny, if I let you in now you’re gonna fucking kill me

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San Francisco band Cindy specialise in a dreamy, slo-mo brand of pop music, centred on lead Karina Gill’s distinctive vocals and poetic vision. At the beginning of April, Cindy will release a brand new record Why Not Now? via Tough Love and have unveiled lead single ‘A Trumpet on the Hillside’ by way of introduction. Landing somewhere between Galaxie 500 style slowcore and a half-speed Au Revoir Simone track, the song is a quietly transcendent hymn to the wonder that’s threaded into even the most mundane experiences. “It’s about being in a room with people, the closeness and distance involved in that,” Gill describes. “And it’s about the vividness and grandness (sometimes) of the most ordinary experience.”

En Attendant Ana – Wonder

Back in January we wrote a little about ‘Same Old Story’ by Paris indie pop band En Attendant Ana, taken from their new LP Principia. We described it as “a blend of playful indie pop rhythms and post-punk angles… [that] pitch[es] the listener into a funhouse room of mirrors with only the smooth clarity of Margaux Bouchaudon’s vocals as a guide.” The album is out now on Trouble In Mind and the band have released an animated music video for single ‘Wonder’ to celebrate. A song that explores conflicting emotions of legitimacy, opening gentle and pensive before a motorik beat drops with a clockwork energy, building towards a cathartic close, embodying that weird blend of strength and doubt of trying to do your best but always second guessing yourself. Watch the video by Jérôme Papaphotiou below:

Principia is out now via Trouble in Mind and available from the En Attendant Ana Bandcamp page.

Eric Angelo Bessel – Secret Lake

We’ve written about Laura Mariposa Williams and Eric Angelo Bessel’s Lore City several times in the recent years, with 2021 LP Participation Mystique and last year’s Under Way highlighting the band’s evocative, esoteric style and the manner in which it blurs the physical and metaphysical so seamlessly. The pair set up Lore City Music to facilitate the release of their work, and April sees the imprint release Bessel’s debut solo album, Visitations. Single ‘Secret Lake’ invites us into the world of the record, its slack drift like some sitting bogland but soon deepening into something more. A depth alluring in its own way, beautiful and strange in the manner unique to hidden spaces, allowing the listener to descend through its column while refusing to give anything away freely.

Visitation comes out on 21st April and you can pre-order it from the Lore City Music Bandcamp page.

Foyer Red – Plumbers Unite!

Yarn The Hours Away, the debut full-length from Brooklyn‘s Foyer Red coming this spring on Carpark Records, is described as a collection of short stories—where each track aims to build a fully rendered sense of character and place. Previous single ‘Etc‘ hinted at the depth of such an intention (“exploring,” as we put it, “a mismatched relationship of indistinct philosophical musings and robotic computations.”), and new single ‘Plumbers Unite!’ is no less ambitious. A song which not only uses the relentless trials of a side-scrolling videogame as a metaphor for life’s daily grind, but then imagines the sentience of the console once the power has been cut. “When I was little I was obsessed with my Gamecube, but after entering cheat codes on my Harvest Moon game, I felt sooooooo guilty,” explains Elana Riorda. “I impulsively deleted my game data and later had recurring nightmares about my Gamecube’s anger towards me, something I knew was unrealistic but felt so creepy and real.” Watch the video filmed, edited and directed by Leif Morton below:

Yarn The Hours Away is out on the 19th May via Carpark Records.

Nicolas Krgovich – Front Stoop #2

“For years and years I guess I was lonely / but refused to call it so.” So opens ‘Front Stoop #2’, the first single from Nicolas Krgovich’s Ducks, out next month on Orindal Records. The realisation is prompted by a direct question on the titular front stoop, one the narrator answers simply. Yes, he is lonely. “
To answer a plain question with a plain reply / Feels new to me and good.” What follows is so rooted in specific details it almost feels, paradoxically, like a dream. That weird summer, the smoke, the deserted beach. Tossed pebbles and sand and shells and “things that don’t matter and things to forget.” With Ducks, Krgovich promises to explore how moments are catalogued and remembered via minutiae, and the manner in which complexity of any present is not so much reduced to images but coded in them. “I let them whirl, a little cyclone,” as he concludes at the end of the song. “Living in a world of love.”

Seminar Shadow – Luring (Excerpt)

Seminar Shadow, AKA duo Lucie Vítková and Teerapat Parnmongkol, are preparing to unveil their new release HEATWAVE via Dear Life Records. Recorded on a pair of baby grand pianos during the August 2022 heatwave and comprising of two improvised side-length tracks, the release probes the present for the full weight of the past, exploring how any apparently ‘live’ moment rests upon an unseen foundation of everything which preceded it. “Liveness as in a self-organization in action can’t detach or distinguish from skeleton of memory,” as they explain. “A wave of heat is rinsing out inseparably within this heat, where the liveliness is revealing itself as a part of motion and movement that lives through this instinctual response to the environment around it.” You can hear an excerpt of the opening track ‘Luring’ now:

Shit Present – Voice in Your Head

“It really did come as breaking news to me in 2016 that I am not my thoughts and I might learn to have some agency over them,” explains Shit Present’s vocalist and guitarist Iona Cairns of new single ‘Voice in Your Head’. What they describe as a ‘textbook’ I’ve-been-to-therapy song which serves as the perfect introduction for those unfamiliar with the Bristol outfit’s blend of emo and power pop. Committed to offering honest dispatches from the trials of mental health, wide open in their vulnerability but armed with the power of noisy catharsis. ‘Voice in Your Head’ is sincere in its message, wry in its tone, and ultimately empowered by the realisation that you can learn to live with your thoughts. “I could fucking destroy you or be your best friend,” sings the titular being in the chorus. “I’m here ’til you’re dead.”

talker – Don’t Want You To Love Me (Oceanator Remix)

“Indie rock with glitter all over it,” that’s how Celeste Tauchar describes the talker sound. Last year’s In Awe of Insignificance showed off the style in all its vivid glory, working to elevate Tauchar’s moody, emotionally-driven vocals. Following on from the success of the release, talker is putting out a brand new EP of remixes, with offerings from the likes of Overcoats and FRENSHIP. Latest single sees VSF fav Oceanator reimagine ‘Don’t Want You To Love Me’, adding gauzy textures over the clarity of the original without losing any of the sound’s urgent motion.

Zoon – Manitou

‘Manitou’ is the second single from Bekka Ma’iingan, the forthcoming sophomore record by Daniel Monkman’s Zoon on Paper Bag Records. Regular readers will by now be familiar with Monkman’s work, an ever-evolving sound rooted in shoegaze that explores themes of activism and Indigenous experience. The new song continues this trajectory, a lush orchestral piece that strips any notion of shoegaze back to its bare bones, emotional swells rising up amidst the atmosphere of lingering melancholy. “‘Manitou’ is about the group of friends I had growing up in Selkirk Manitoba,” Monkman explains. “We’d run a cross the red bridge and have fires and drink. Our little piece of heaven.” But far from a simple rose-tinted exercise in nostalgia, ‘Manitou’ reflects on the difficulties of that time too, acknowledging struggles and vowing never forget friends lost before their time.

And live out your youth
And all the stars shine fine
And keep this close to me
And live out your youth

Bekka Ma’iingan will be released by Paper Bag Records on 28th April and you can pre-order it now from the Zoon Bandcamp page.

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