The EP emerged from a course Carsten took with Phil Elverum via School of Song, with each track a response to a writing prompt. These origins are apparent in the sound itself. The sense of an artist stepping beyond their desire to rework and overthink, not to mention drawing oblique lines between seemingly unconnected things so get at some deeper level of meaning.

Opening track and lead single ‘Horizon’ is the ideal introduction to the release. An intimate folk song embedded in the natural world via layers of field recordings, the single explores the remedial qualities of the ocean in all of their nuanced diversity. From the lapping calm of the opening minutes to the lung cleansing shore mists of the Pacific Northwest, as well as the enlivening force inherent within the view of a far-off horizon, and of course the rolling power of the waves. In this way, the song could be viewed as a journey out into the water. A paddle through the shallows, the cool rising to your waist, and eventually a passage out into the breakers as the sound rises into a rejuvenating climax of crashes and swells.

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Eli Frank is something of a fixture of the New York DIY scene, playing in the likes of Teenage Halloween, Punt and Winnebago Vacation. Latest project Bummer Camp is their first solo venture, an outlet for layered songs crafted from the basic ingredients of guitar, drum machine and loop pedal. Bummer Camp has just released its second EP, Big Deal, a record Frank says “tackles both the everyday and the everlasting impact of striving to create something meaningful.” Single ‘It’s a Pain’ is a good introduction, beginning as a taut indie pop song before exploding in cathartic noise in the final third.

Watch the video by multimedia artist Preston Spurlock below:

Big Deal is out now and available from the Bummer Camp Bandcamp page.

Diamond Grinder – Let Me Live with You

Back in June, New York‘s Diamond Grinder released their full-length Expectations via Perpetual Doom, an album which introduced the long-time (if intermittent) collaboration between songwriters Margaret Nygard and Eli Recht-Appel. Together with a huge, rotating cast of musicians, the pair create a folk-inflected brand of rock which manages to combine intimacy and dynamism, owing as much to seventies Americana as it does contemporaries such as Big Thief. Having just shared a new video directed and edited by Elizabeth Kroner for the slow-burning single ‘Let Me Live With You’, now’s the time to jump aboard the Diamond Grinder train if you missed it the first time around.

Expectations is out now via Perpetual Doom and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Duster – The Weed Supreme

Hot on the heels of the 25th Anniversary Edition of Stratosphere, slowcore royalty Duster have unveiled a collection of previously unreleased material, Remote Echoes, via The Numero Group. Or kind of unreleased, with some of the material having previously appeared on demo tapes Christmas Dust and On The Dodge. Single ‘The Weed Supreme’ gives an indication of what to expect, bathed in fuzz and possessing the trademark hushed vocals, proving so laidback so as to be almost horizontal.

Remote Echoes is out now via The Numero Group.

Family Man – FATHER JOHN

‘FATHER JOHN’, the latest single from Family Man, is an expose, an exorcism and an apology. Written about his experiences within LA’s private Catholic school system, lead Conner Root takes aim at both the callous dogma of conservative Christianity and the systems of privilege and white supremacy which underpins it. Family Man have made a name with their raw sound, but the intensely personal nature of this song breaks new ground. Years of toxicity and repression expelled with crushing force, castigating those who created such a reality, and making amends to the person inside Root who was waiting to live their life as it was meant to be.

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

Fortunato Durutti Marinetti – Clerk Of Oblivion

We previewed Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean, the forthcoming album by Turin-born, Toronto-based Fortunato Durutti Marinetti on Quindi Records and Soft Abuse, back in September with single ‘Lightning On A Sunny Day‘. “An epic track that manages to weave real drama into its lazy sprawl,” as we put it, “evoking the titular image in its dreamlike blend of space and intensity.” The “poetic jazz rock” artist has now unveiled new track ‘Clerk Of Oblivion’, a song which turns its woozy electronic style towards the monolith of labour, sounding at once seething and stupefied, as though slowly whittled down by the weight of work. It uses the last few ounces of energy to try to communicate just how pointless and cruel the concept can be. “My only objective going into this song was to exorcize the spirit of Robert Wyatt’s The Age of Self, a major source of inspiration,” Marinetti explains. “But as usually happens, something else entirely formed.”

Half Stack – Cruisin USA

“The dusty cowboy aesthetic remains, but there’s more to Half Stack than that. Now they’re allowing their true spirit to shine through.” That’s how we described Sitting Pretty, the new album from the Oakland band on Forged Artifacts and Royal Oakie Records, in a preview earlier this summer. With this new freedom comes influences ranging from psych rock and power pop to honky tonk, and latest single ‘Cruisin USA’ taps into a little bit of everything to create a sound at once reflective and full of swagger. The dual vocals add a real chemistry too, and the result possesses an affirming spirit no matter how uncertain the lyrics might prove.

Laura Zarougian – Back To Piran

We’ve written about several singles from Nayri, the debut album from New York-based artist Laura Zarougian, recently, full of praise of her “one part Armenian cowgirl and one part indie rock” aesthetic. Now the album is out in the world, and we couldn’t help but feature one last song. A timeless slice of country, ‘Back To Piran’ is the record’s midpoint and an encapsulation of everything that’s good about it. A song full of longing and fragile strength, a commitment to remain connected to one’s heritage despite geographical distance. It’s a feeling far more genuinely American than any Hollywood cowboy. A ballad for diaspora everywhere.

Layperson – I Want To

The recording project of Portland, OR-based songwriter Julian Morris (Little Star, Post Moves), Layperson uses a welcoming folk rock sound to explore the strange contradictions of life. Next month’s new album Massive Leaning, a joint release by Lung Records and Bud Tapes, emerged in the aftermath of a break-up, though Morris consciously subverts the traditions of such records to offer a more nuanced picture. One where the vertiginous sense of loss and loneliness is in some way counterbalanced by a persistent hope. Take latest single ‘I Want To’, where Morris consciously refuses the temptation to return to familiar ground and instead opens his mind towards something different, and the buoyant sound comes to suggest a nascent spiritual awakening.

Baby, I want to
I want that feeling
The feeling that drives all the reasons
Baby I want to

Zoya Zafar – Tunnel Vision

Since the release of a self-titled EP back in 2013, Zoya Zafar has developed a delicate and often searching brand of folk music, probing into the uncertainties of relationships with equal parts vulnerability and strength. Produced by Gia Margaret, 2018 single ‘Sweet Talk’ saw Zafar’s sound evolve in an increasingly dreamy direction, something which carried through into this year’s ‘Wordz’. Her debut full-length album Some Songs is coming soon, and the Lahore-born, Orlando-based songwriter has unveiled latest single, ‘Tunnel Vision’ to further establish this sound. “True love / did it happen to be real love?” go the opening lines, “or just something to get through the night? / We don’t believe in paradise.” This confessional style is delivered on a pillowy arrangement, as though fragility and conviction are one and the same.

Tunnel Vision
I only see you
If I knew why,
It’d be the last thing that I’d do

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Opener ‘Amanda’ captures the mood of the jer project perfectly, where the track’s DIY spirit remains intact as the sound blooms into something far richer than the initial notes might suggest. The vocals are similarly sincere in tone, sitting somewhere between John K. Samson and You Won’t, and managing to evoke larger themes and questions through the most quotidian of images. Be it the big slice pizza (or lack thereof) in ‘Amanda’, the repetitive grind of ‘Pinocchio’ or the daily unease of ‘Ashtray’. The latter is typical of how jer manages to take such things and rework them into a form of compassion, as though in giving voice and credence to those small moments of a day is to empathise more deeply.

From this grounding, the jer sound is is free to move off at tangents, both in terms of style and substance. ‘Firetruck’ rings with a crystal clear clarity, detailing a body in the street and disgruntled emergency services cleaning up, while ‘Landmarks’ is bathed in tape hiss and drifts with a lazy rhythm which ratchets up slowly but never quite manages to escape its languid tone. All to be followed by ‘High Horse’, one of the most upbeat and urgent tracks on the record, the heartfelt ‘Portland, CA’ and almost Dylan-esque ‘Crown’.

‘Cranberries’ is perhaps the album’s most inventive track, and in many ways feels like the heart around which the others take shape. Despite clocking in at less than two minutes, the song takes the listener on a journey spanning between the cosmos to the wild west, leaning into the lo-fi aesthetic to sound like something between a daydream and a secret sung out loud. That is, a love song which leaves all of the wonder, strangeness and insecurity in.

jer is out now via bud tapes and available from Bandcamp.

cover photo by jordan krinsky

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With album Catastrophe Darling out now, California trio Artemisia have unveiled new single ‘Spider’ as a window into their sound. Finding inspiration in everything from Appalachian mountain music to the vivid synths of eighties movie soundtracks, the band conjure songs somehow both organic and ethereal, and ‘Spider’ serves as the perfect example. Born upon seeing the titular creature weave a web over their harp, the track hones in on the intricate splendour of nature, emerging as something as delicate and dreamlike, transporting the listener into a space between the real and the spiritual, where nature takes on an exalted status and beauty and sorrow are one and the same.

Catastrophe Darling is out now and available from the Artemisia Bandcamp page.

Beryl – All Things

Consisting of Gabriela King and Alex Jasprizza, Sydney-based art folk duo Beryl are preparing to release album Dry Peel Crack in the coming months, and latest single ‘All Things’ introduces the central themes. It’s a picture of a relationship crumbling and a lesson in learning to accept the fact, something captured in everything from King’s compassionate croon to the album artwork itself. Blain Cunneen (Julia Jacklin) joins the pair on guitar, bass and drums, helping to bring to life a sound at once melancholic and fond.

Carlos Truly – Much 2 Much

Aside from being a founding member of Ava Luna and a collaborator with the likes of Frankie Cosmos and Princess Nokia, Brooklyn‘s Carlos Hernandez also records solo under the moniker Carlos Truly. Released via Bayonet Records, 2022’s Not Mine highlighted his sleek, ever-inventive brand of pop, and new single ‘Much 2 Much’ continues the play with new directions. Again on Bayonet, the track is the funkiest ode to life’s habit of overwhelming us you’re ever likely to hear. “Not to be too much of a bellyacher,” as Hernandez says, “but sometimes you just want to yell about it.” But loose-limbed and full of swagger, the song is anything but angry, playing like the soundtrack to a late 80s/early 90s city caper where a luckless protagonist can’t help but be the coolest guy around. Watch the video with cinematography by Stefanie Santana below:

‘Much 2 Much’ us out now via Bayonet Records.

Diners – Someday I’ll Go Surfing

Diners, the recording project of Blue Broderick, might have made a name with a dreamy sound straight out of the halcyon sixties, but new record DOMINO looks to skip ahead a decade and lean into unapologetic rock. The album is out via Bar/None Records later this month, and new single ‘Someday I’ll Go Surfing’ sees the shift towards newfound energy occurring in real time. A surf pop jam whipped up beyond the languid nostalgia of the genre, choosing instead to set its eyes on the horizon. “‘Someday I’ll Go Surfing’ isn’t exclusively about surfing,” as Broderick confirms, “but rather confronting the unknown and moving on to the next big thing.”

Eldridge Rodriguez – The Strange Things That Happen to People

We’ve followed the work of Eldridge Rodriguez for the past few years, describing recent work as “capturing the strange blend of panic, depression and monotony” with “a tone somewhere between fondness and weariness which builds its own urgent compassion.” With new album Atrophy coming next month, the band have shared single ‘The Strange Things That Happen to People’, continuing the evocative mood of the previous releases by facing up to the accumulated regrets of life. “You burn a lot of bridges when you’re young because you think you’re king shit,” explains lead Cameron Keiber. “You get older and self reflective and you want to repair a lot of the damage you’ve done. I suppose it’s a call to be aware of your surroundings throughout life, really. It’s hard but then you wouldn’t have to make amends later.”

Intac – Strange Soles

“Strange souls / Comin’ out the woodwork / Lookin’ for some good work / Before we go to town.” So goes ‘Strange Soles’, the latest single from Somerville, MA artist Intac. The self-described “Digital Americana / Cyber Folk” artist descends from the likes of kissed her little sister, laying a bed of easy-going pop beats upon which to build a world both slightly surreal and tangibly emotive. For within the languid summer swagger rises a mist of nostalgic longing, a sensation which hangs over things long after the track has faded off over the horizon.

jer – portland, ca

Having featured in a variety of bands across his home of Portland, Jeremy Murphy has become a familiar face in the local scene, though it is only now he’s stepping out into the limelight alone for a solo release under the moniker jer. Out via Bud Tapes, the self-titled album took shape over a number of years before Murphy travelled to Philadelphia to mix the accumulated songs with Nathan Tucker (Strange Ranger, Cool Original). The result, as shown by single ‘portland, ca’, offers a distinctively personal statement from an artist finally in total creative control. Where authentic sincerity is achieved by mixing lo-fi bedroom sensibilities with the polish of indie pop.

Large Brush Collection – Tell Me Again

With debut album Off Center scheduled for release in January 2024, Austin-based folk rock outfit Large Brush Collection have shared their first single, ‘Tell Me Again’. A picture of a child-parent relationship painted in all of its conflicted complexity, where failed expectations and the baggage of the past is counterbalanced by a persistent love, leading a cycle of friction exhausting for all involved. Lead Nora Predey approaches the subject with tender care, pulling no punches in their assessment of the situation while acknowledging the bonds that still remain. “[My mom has] been trapped in a cycle of conflict with me and with herself,” as Predey explains. “I feel a lot of frustration and pain from our relationship, but a lot of love towards her too.”

Ribs – Claws

Originating as a solo piano-led project of Boorloo/Perth-based musician Georgina Cramond, Ribs has now morphed into a full-fledged indie pop band ideally suited to Cramond’s searching, affirming style. With a focus on both dealing with and recovering from trauma, new track ‘Claws’ is an encapsulation of the Ribs aesthetic, its weighty sound offering a marbled image of vulnerability and strength to explore themes of intimate partner violence. “Growing claws is about learning what you will no longer accept,” Cramond explains of the song’s repeated refrain, “how anger can be a protective and productive force, and regaining control over the jagged parts of your history.”

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

The Sizzos – No Big Sky

Led by singer-songwriter George Zaninovich, Eugene-based outfit The Sizzos have just released their latest record Glitter in Gravel, and single ‘No Big Sky’ is the ideal point to jump in. An ethereal combination of indie folk, classic rock and new wave as wide as the desert heavens, though its themes are altogether more grounded. An attempt to find meaning and solace amid personal loss which evokes the album’s title in its search for brightness within an otherwise bleak milieu. “Like winter clouds under cement and steel / Today I’m grey but I keep moving,” as Zaninovich sings, casting the listener alongside the song’s burdened narrator. “And like a sinner vows to love and to heal / Today I pray but you do the choosing.”

yfjesse x Old Man of the Woods – Wednesdays

We’ve long celebrated the work of Seattle-based artist Old Man of the Woods, most recently with album Votives on Totally Real Records. A dream pop album which offered “a collision of reality and unreality, or rather a disintegration of the boundary between the two.” Miranda Elliott has now teamed up with Portland producer yfjesse for new track ‘Wednesdays’, a song which takes the Old Man of the Woods sound and blows it up into lush widescreen, the sound seductive in its languorous rhythms but full of elaborate detail too. A style fitting for a track which takes on the pleasures and pitfalls of a fickle summertime tryst.

‘Wednesdays’ is out now via Totally Real Records and available from the usual places.

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First making a name as part of indie pop outfit Au Revoir Simone, Annie Hart‘s solo work has branched out in a number of directions, most recently Eno-inspired ambient as seen on Everything Pale Blue released via Orindal Records in 2021. With new album The Weight of a Wave coming later this summer on Uninhabitable Mansions, Hart is back with brand new single ‘What Makes Me Me’, and the song suggests some degree of return towards ARS-esque pop. A song which attempts to work through sadness by choosing to smile, as though by calling attention to your own dark moods allows for a certain irony, and with it a sense of distance. “I felt like the only thing I was good at was feeling gratitude—but, paradoxically, I was so melancholy about it,” Hart explains. “I pulled a trick from Belle and Sebastian’s hat and made a song about it as cute, sing-alongable, and folky as I could. If I was going to feel bad about myself, why not have fun with it?” Check out the video shot and edited by Emily James with art direction from Jenna Gribbon:

The Weight of A Wave comes out August 4th on Uninhabitable Mansions. Order a copy now from the Annie Hart Bandcamp page.

Austin Cash – Franklin, King of the Beers

Written over the course of a year but recorded in a single night, Hello, Franklin is the latest release of Fayetteville, Arkansas songwriter Austin Cash. Coming next month via Gar Hole Records, the EP mines a deep history of American Primitive and minimalist styles to paint late-pandemic life in all of its strangeness. A collision of dissonance and harmony which looks to conjure not only the needling dread of the contemporary moment but its small joys too. Single ‘Franklin, King of the Beers’ is the perfect introduction to the record’s tensions, a song which nods to the wide-open landscapes so often painted by the genre while evoking the insular claustrophobia of pandemic living, looping on itself like the anxious motion of a restless mind.

Christopher Tignor – Ritual of a Thousand Limbs

Brooklyn-based composer and violinist Christopher Tignor has won acclaim across classical and experimental music scenes with his evocative electroacoustic arrangements. Latest album The Art of Surrender, coming this September on Western Vinyl, sees Tignor explore instinctive territory, pushing the violin towards an almost atavistic sound which foregoes too much planning or intention to instead embrace raw movement. Single ‘Ritual of a Thousand Limbs’ encapsulates this style, tapping into primal urges to which are brought to life in a video directed by Jason Akira Somma and starring Rachelle Nidra Somma:

The Art of Surrender will be release on the 29th September via Western Vinyl.

Eat My Butterfly – Dolé

With EP Esperar El Sol coming in a few weeks via FPE Records, producer Eat My Butterfly has unveiled new single ‘Dolé’. The EP is described as “a celebration of La Réunion’s folklore,” and the song serves as an encapsulation of this style. A mix of traditional instruments and synthesizers, united by Dilo’s passion for percussion and rhythm which conjures an organic soundscape. Vocals from Romane Mana (of Romane & Gaël) lift the track further, aligning it within the catchy indie pop bracket alongside the likes of Sylvan Esso and more importantly drawing the listening into a living, breathing world of its own.

‘Dolé’ is out now & available on streaming services.

Generifus – Didn’t Even Look at the Mountain

The recording project of Olympia‘s Spencer Sult and assorted friends, Generifus has carved out a space within the independent scene with a steady stream of albums dating back over a decade. A joint release between Anything Bagel and Bud Tapes, latest record Rearrangel sees Generifus back after a hiatus and looking to capture the duality of any journey, where banal details and deep, almost spiritual meaning intermingle along a single road. With live band members Wilson Caicedo, Andrew Dorsett and Henry Wilson joined by the likes of Lee Baggett, the result is brought to life with a rich and often wistful mood, as typified by single ‘Didn’t Even Look at the Mountain’, where regret meets an unfailing fondness.

His His – Underdogs

We’ve written about Toronto‘s His His several times in recent years, most recently back in February with ‘People, Places, Changes’, a “bittersweet” song “both pining for what has now gone and determined to capture the fondness which persists all the same.” Latest single ‘Underdogs’ is similarly concerned with change and the passing of time, though this time the focus is on the gentrification of familiar places. A picture of incremental loss which worsens on every visit, the past slowly changed by multi-millionaires, tree by tree, brick by brick.

Steven van Betten – Yosemite

Though fronting Fell Runner and co-founding School of Song, where he teaches alongside the likes of Phil Elverum, Miya Folick, Luke Temple, Lomelda and Meg Duffy of Hand Habits, it is only now Nevada-born, LA-based songwriter Steven van Betten is releasing his debut EP. Family & Friends sits at the intersection of traditional and contemporary styles, with new single ‘Yosemite’ highlighting van Betten’s ability to evoke both the timeless folk narratives of Townes van Zandt and the ethereality of Sufjan Stevens. The song was written after a close friend lost a parent at the national park, which in turn made van Betten reflect on his own childhood memories of a space where human life gets as close as it might to a sense of something larger. Watch the video shot and directed by Marcus Högsta below:

Hike with your wife
to the top of the falls
and sit in the shade of the afternoon
Your favourite places in the United States
tangible proof that there is a God

Friends & Family will be released on the 27th October via Future Gods.

Tremolo Fields – Stumble On Out

The recording project of Iowa-raised, Portland-based artist David T. Rogers, Tremolo Fields combines folk sensibilities with rock and electronic styles to weave its evocative sounds. With debut album still as can be out now, latest single ‘Stumble On Out’ serves as the perfect introduction to the project. A song where heartfelt romance meets brooding drama, strung on a drum machine rhythm though prone to drifts upward, capturing a balance between physical and ethereal sensations. The rhythm builds as the track develops, eventually descending into an overwhelming crescendo which carries both passion and desperation—love as a kind of longing, even in the present moment.

I once heard the drum
deep in your chest
pulsating blood below
our hands pressed
and we held each other so close
counting down til the sun rose
six, five, four, three, two, one
I’ll always feel
the beating of your drum

still as can be is out now and available via the Tremolo Fields Bandcamp page.

Zeus – Air I Walk

Almost a decade since their last record (2014’s Classic Zeus), Toronto indie rock band Zeus return this September with their fourth album, Credo, via Arts & Crafts. Inspired by equal parts classic rock and 80s synth pop, the record promises to see a continuation of the Zeus M.O., indie rock at once fresh and timeless and full of hooks and harmonies. Lead single ‘Air I Walk’ is our first taste of the new material, a song that’s been a fixture of live sets for a while and serves as a stepping stone from past to present Zeus. What lead Neil Quinn calls “lovesick cowboy music,” there’s a slight dusty folk influence amidst the guitars and electronics, a niggling ache beneath the catchy chorus. Watch the video, directed by 1TruR, below:

Credo releases 8th September via Arts & Crafts. Pre-order a copy now via Bandcamp.

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Back in 2020 Sandoval released Howilis, the debut Surcarilita album released on cassette by the good folks at Bud Tapes. It put the project on the map in both her home of Tijuana and San Diego’s DIY scene. Together with collaborator and bandmate Ana Cossio, Sandoval found a community of like-minded artists, playing shows and honing her penchant for writing sweet indie pop songs elevated with innovative production and unique stylistic choices. 

Now Surcarilita is back with sophomore album, Mírala Mirando, which preserves everything good about the debut and builds on it with flourishes that keep things fresh and surprising. This is apparent from opener ‘Silly Freaky’, which sounds like an early Free Cake For Every Creature song, strummed electric guitar and bounding drums spinning around Sandoval’s understatedly beautiful vocals. It’s the perfect illustration of what Surcarilita does so well, fun and energetic and a little bit noisy, but somehow calm and tender too. “Sweetness and softness and strangeness are all wrapped up together,” as we put it in our review of Howilis, “earworm melodies and earnest vocals layered beneath fuzzy instrumentation, or almost discordant rhythms that fizz with energy.” 

‘Tag Along’ has that golden hour calm of springtime dusk, acoustic guitar accompanied by the needling whine of singing saw like a breeze squeezing through an old window frame. Then in the final third it is as if darkness falls and the vocals mimic this high-pitched melody, ooh-ing gently like a chorus of benevolent cartoon ghosts.

These idiosyncrasies mark the album a elevate it beyond a collection of simple pop songs. Take the squidgy synths on ‘Garden Squirrel’, ‘July’s plinky whimsical backing, the jingle-like melodies of ‘Pebbles’ which evoke Dear Nora’s catchy digi-pop. ‘Tiempo Para Ti’ has echoes of an early-era Casiotone For the Painfully Alone release, modulated vocals bubbling forth in unsteady rhythms alongside subtle synths. 

There are relatively uncomplicated moments on Mírala Mirando too. ‘Coin Coin Dream’ is a slice of scrappily lo-fi acoustics, while ‘Ripening Seed’ is almost a folk song, focused on patiently picked guitar and Sandoval’s sincere vocals. Closer ‘Walking Online’ ties both these threads together neatly, summing up the whole album in the process. Just under two minutes of subdued synth pop that showcases Surcarilita’s unique creative outlook. Soft and pillowy as a cotton wool cumulus cloud, and threaded with a warm glow that feels calm and welcoming. As Bud Tapes put it: “Now grab a cat, plop down in your favorite spot on the couch, and enjoy this magnificent new album from one of DIY music’s most magical minds.” 

Mírala Mirando is out now on cassette tape via Bud Tapes. Grab a tape from their Bandcamp page, or a digital copy from the Surcarilita Bandcamp. 

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The title of Adam Spry’s forthcoming album Slightly Off Kilter gives a hint as to what to expect from the San Francisco songwriter. Dispatches from an artist somewhat out of whack with the world, trying to create and communicate in a society which hardly values such things. But with wry humour and a few coats of seventies rock polish, Spry plants his flag regardless, and single ‘Rotten Mausoleum’ captures the bravery of such an act with its tongue-in-cheek humour, however futile it might seem. “Walking through the streets of Rome, I kept picturing an emperor who ‘went into the family business’ so to speak,” Spry explains of his inspiration. “He just wanted to play the lute and study philosophy with his friends. Sick and tired of the class disparity around him, he decided to have the old statues torn down. He was of course killed and replaced with someone who would rule with an iron fist and was subsequently erased from history.”

Emperor made of marble
All you do is stare
Rotten Mausoleum
There’s someone in my chair

Check out the video filmed by Spry himself and edited by Matt Kreizenbeck below:

Slightly Off Kilter will be released on the 24th March and you can pre-order it now.

Bailey Miller – cul-de-sac

“A sound best described as translucent,” was how we described Bailey Miller’s Still Water, released last year on Whited Sepulchre Records. “Not too clear, not too fogged, any ethereality countered by directness, yet nothing allowed to be too grounded for long.” This February sees Miller return with love is a dying, a follow-up record which forgoes some of the nuance and layering in favour of a more forthright tone. Directness as the prime focus. Intention unmasked and offered up. Single ‘cul-de-sac’ gives an indication of what such a change sounds like, its hushed and understated style made almost cavernous by the sense of space Miller conjures around it. An echo which carries the full weight of the dark which surrounds any instance of love.

Crosslegged – Automatic

Ahead of brand new full-length Another Blue, which releases at the end of the month, Keba Robinson’s Crosslegged has unveiled a new track, ‘Automatic’. The album’s second single following the playfully undulating ‘Only in The’, ‘Automatic’ is a tender and assured grower, its spacious sound unfurling into an all-encompassing warmth before folding back up again, Robinson controlling the mood with an expert hand. By the close the listener is cast out into a hazy drift, anchored only by the crooned vocals, a safe hand ever-present allowing you to close your eyes and enjoy the float.

En Attendant Ana – Same Old Story

Ahead of their new LP, Principa, out next month via Trouble in Mind, Paris-based En Attendant Ana have unveiled single ‘Same Old Story’ to give an indication as to what to expect. A blend of playful indie pop rhythms and post-punk angles, the track whips up a detailed and often disorientating sound, pitching the listener into a funhouse room of mirrors with only the smooth clarity of Margaux Bouchaudon’s vocals as a guide. The sound is intended to represent the band as they appear “behind closed doors,” as they put it, “locked in a mortifying loop, repeating over and over the same gestures of a banal and falsely comfortable scene… until exhaustion,” leading to a sound which captures the idiosyncratic combination of escalation and fatigue typical of a racing mind.

Principa is out on the 24th February and you can pre-order it now.

Grocer – Downtown Side

Following on from last year’s Number’s Game, Philadelphia‘s Grocer are set to return with a brand new EP Scatter Plot on Grind Select. Single ‘Downtown Side’ shows the band pushing further into the volatile blend of pop charm and angular dissonance which has come to be their signature, this time utilising the frantic, twitchy energy to capture personal experiences of anxiety and unease. Because the lyrics deal with lead Nicholas Rahn’s experience of living with Vasovagal Syncope, a condition where specific triggers can cause him to faint, and moreover the secondary anxieties which come along with it. Including the very real fear “that at any given point in time,” as he puts it, “I am actually unconscious and simply experiencing a lifelike dream.”

then I realized…
Was I even alive?
I coulda passed out cold on my walk from home
I could be bleeding from my head on the side of the curb
Am I dreaming that I’m even waiting for a dessert?

Jack Keyes – Skyscraper

Across a series of albums and singles in recent years, Kentucky-based songwriter Jack Keyes has developed a warm and intimate sound somewhere between folk and bedroom pop. With a new full-length due later this year, new single ‘Skyscraper’ serves as both an acknowledgement of collaboration and a reminder to trust one’s own tastes. “[The single] is a celebration of the wonderful musical community I’ve found in Kentucky,” Keyes says “with contributions from friends I’ve met throughout my musical journey in town,” but also “about wanting to be more comfortable in my own choices and in my own skin.” A song which feels like an artist taking stock of how far they have come before setting off on a new journey.

Joanna Mattrey & Steven Long – EP

Next month Joanna Mattrey & Steven Long will release their debut full-length Strider on Dear Life Records. An ambient album written and recorded with a clear set of rules: each track must revolve around one idea and one idea alone. But while this seemingly spartan approach might stand distinct in a genre prone to ambiguous meanderings, Mattrey and Long were endlessly inventive within each song, looking everywhere for possible sounds. That includes a variety of synths, a toy keyboard, a seventies electric Kimball organ and the “curious and magical” Stroh Violin, as well as field recordings
of ice clashing in the Hudson river. Not to mention, as per the liner notes, how the pair “banged, blew on, and bowed various dusty pieces of junk, antiques, and old metal franklin stoves that filled [Mattrey’s] family’s house in upstate New York.”

Jonny G and the Music Factory – Life of Jonny

Next month, Jonny G and the Music Factory (AKA Jonny Gundersen) is releasing his debut full-length album Life of Jonny via Bud Tapes. Having been working as a musician for over decade, the record finds Gundersen in a pretty unique position—in possession of all the hard-won experience required to craft a collection of meaningful songs, yet still retaining the freshness and freedom which comes with a debut. Both the lead single and opener, the title track highlights how powerful such a mix can be, living up to its title to cast an eye over Gundersen’s life and paint a nuanced picture of living and creating. Highly personal details to capture something more universal, from the experience of existing within a working class space to the ups and downs of life in general. What changes within a person, what proves enduring.

Moved back home.
Life is change
I have changed
and now I’m changing again

Pile – Nude With A Suitcase

With new LP All Fiction arriving next month on Exploding in Sound, rock stalwarts Pile have been sharing numerous singles over recent weeks, from the frantic motion of ‘Loops’ to the slow tilting heft of ‘Poisons’. Latest track ‘Nude With A Suitcase’ is no less striking, a dense, tenebrous song which invites the listener inside its cryptic world with what might be alluring shimmer or ominous dread. A fitting ambiguity for an record built around subjectivity and its disorientating pressures, forcing the listener to sit down and examine just what is unfolding around them, even if there is no correct answer at all. Watch the video by Sam Circle with animation from Lynn Tomlinson below:

All Fiction is out on the 17th February via Exploding In Sound and you can pre-order it now.

Romanie – Anthony

Belgian born, Naarm/Melbourne based songwriter Romanie has never been afraid to push into personal territory in her music. 2021’s Little Big Steps delved into themes of loneliness and self-doubt, but new single ‘Anthony’ cuts especially close to the bone. Written after seeing Anthony Hopkins in The Father, and in the aftermath of losing a close relative with dementia, the track combines a pressing energy with passionate delivery to confront the cruelty of the illness while declaring an unwavering love. A promise to go on caring and remembering no matter what is taken away.

Sad Girls Aquatics Club – Who’s Your Witness

A self-described “dramatic duo” from Pittsburgh, PA, Sad Girls Aquatics Club specialise in what they describe as “breakup pop”. First announcing themselves with debut EP Vodkawine back in 2018, the pair (Chelsea Rumbaugh and Marie Mashyna) make sharp and slightly melancholy pop songs that combine personal angst and a sense of wider social critique. They now have a full-length record on the way, and have recently released a couple of singles in anticipation of its release. ‘Who’s Your Witness’ might be the standout, a somewhat facetious wave goodbye to someone or thing that has outstayed its welcome, all wrapped in a 90s alt-rock fuzz.

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Cave Cricket is the project of Portland, OR‘s Kira Sassano, who makes drone and ambient-inspired folk music that seems to emanate from another plane entirely. Her latest album, The World, is being released later this week on cassette by the good folks at bud tapes, a release in which the label say “cascading tones and abounding noises ebb and flow like the mellow waves of a lake or sand on a beach shifting in the breeze.” Lead single ‘The World Pt 1’ offers a glimpse of this in action, a song that feels at once spacious and intimate, Sassano’s vocals ringing out like an otherworldly choir above soaring drones and pulsating drum machine.

There are so many problems in our world
Oh the world moves so fast
it makes my head spin
Oh the world is so vast
with all its moving parts

hojascirculares – asleep

hojascirculares is the recording project of Mexican-American producer, songwriter, and visual artist Ara Hernandez. Latest single ‘Asleep’, released to coincide with last month’s full moon, sees hojascirculares continue to perfect a dark and spiritual brand of synth-based ambient music. There’s a ghostly, gauziness to the song, something which shares an uncanny alignment with its overall sense of dissociation, of feeling somehow unreal. “It’s about those states, gliding through life like a ghost, stuck and frozen inside my own mind,” Hernandez describes. “Paralyzed by my fears of the unknown, the future.” But the song isn’t a simple descent into inky anxiety, it offers a sense of reprieve and respite too. “But I know the flood always returns and sets me free again.” she continues “I am grateful for those moments, when I can feel everything again.”

MF Tomlinson – A Cloud

Born in Brisbane/Meanjin and now based in London, MF Tomlinson is a singer-songwriter who knits psych and sixties sensibilities into his folk style to conjure something as detailed as it is evocative. Having recently signed with PRAH Recordings, Tomlinson has unveiled new track ‘A Cloud’ in preview of his second album which is due sometime next year, developing his sound into an almost orchestral richness. The song picks up where the last record left off, finding Tomlinson suspended within a bittersweet dream-state, where the pain of longing is counterbalanced by an appreciation of the beauty inherent in even the smallest moments of life. Check out the video by Daisy JT Smith below:

‘A Cloud’ is out now via PRAH Recordings and you can grab it from Bandcamp.

PACKS – iknowiknow

Fresh off the back of debut album Take the Cake released via Fire Talk Records and Royal Mountain Records last year, Toronto‘s PACKS is back with a brand new EP, WOAH. We described the previous release as “a delightfully fuzzed-out balance between dreamy stasis and forward motion, all tied together by [Madeline] Link’s inventive, wry lyrics.” WOAH continues the conversational-yet-poetic style within more subdued, acoustic arrangements. Latest single ‘iknowiknow’ is a great example, a confessional track undercut by a sardonic edge that’s all tumbling acoustic guitar and downbeat vocals.

RA Washington / Jah Nada – Bobbi Lynn

It seems futile to attempt to sum up In Search of Our Father’s Gardens with a single track. The debut record from Cleveland duo RA Washington and Jah Nada out later this year on Astral Spirits, the release is an epic double LP split into four sides (or five, if you count the bonus digital addition), with each taking on very different moods and styles. They are even designed so that they can be played simultaneously if you have two record players at hand. All that said, single ‘Bobbi Lynn’ isn’t exactly an average song either. Representing ‘side D’ of the album and a culmination of everything which comes before, it clocks in at over eighteen minutes and highlights the full ability of the supporting fourteen-piece ensemble.

Trout – bugs

Trout is a throwback to the golden age of MP3 blog gems, when mysterious projects emerged from nowhere with no social media presence, no EPK or press campaign, hardly any information on who they are at all. New single ‘bugs’ is “about watching the bugs outside your window be more productive than you,” is as much as we get by way of explanation, though no more is needed. A song sitting between bedroom pop confession and gauzy Gleemer-esque weight, its downbeat drift captures a day passing in a torpor, sparks of energy appearing and disappearing like flares of frustration.

Waterbaby – Thin Air

Avant pop duo Waterbaby, AKA sisters Martha and Jessica Kilpatrick, have made their name weaving soundscapes which play with the distinction between lightness and weight. Having signed with untitled (recs), the pair are back with single ‘Thin Air’ to further this style, a track at once ethereal and dense. “It’s a song about duality,” they explain. “We shapeshift from being in the driver’s seat to going along for the ride […] and travel from day to night.” And further changes take place across this journey, not least a rise and fall which offers the listener both the joy of the ascent and the rush of the plummet back down. As the band put it “Throughout the song you soar and crash, sometimes looking down on the world below, existing somewhere in the clouds like an angel watching earth.”

‘Thin Air’ is out now via untitled (recs) and you can find it in all the usual places.

Zoon – Oil Pastel / Dope Sick (ft. Cadence Weapon)

A few weeks ago we previewed Big Pharma, a forthcoming album from Hamilton‘s Zoon on Paper Bag Records. An exploration of the “enduring face of colonialism via the power and violence of the pharmaceutical industry,” as we described, which also worked to uphold indigenous language. Latest single ‘Oil Pastel/Dope Sick’ invites Cadence Weapon to meld shoegaze and hip hop into a sound rich and detailed enough to capture the experience of being on the ground amid the opioid crisis. His intuitive, flowing verses take aim at the corporations who caused the catastrophe, looping in meditative cycles until they become something like a mantra for instigating change from the bottom up.

Big Pharma is out now via Paper Bag Records and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

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The sound which emerges is at once intimate and far-reaching, what we described on single ‘Song for the Garden’ as “an uncanny marriage between personal insight and a wider mystical experience.” The mood is right there in the title. An environment quiet and half-lit but also cathedralesque, some latent mystery lurking not only in the shadowy corners but within the flames themselves.

Inspired by the work of surrealist Leonora Carrington, opener ‘Inn of the Dawn Horse’ pitches the listener straight into this world. A track build upon natural textures, Carsten’s delivery remains reflective and hushed. Though against this quiet rises Yaara Valey’s flugelhorn, like some invading force which knocks the track spinning from its natural rhythm into something erratic and odd. “My hollow hand looms, conducting visions unmade, absolute,” Carsten sings in the fitting final line, “and I’m at the root now, I’m at the root somehow / with all your visions echoing inside my little wooden room.”

The record is full of such songs. What Carsten calls “mythopoetic paeans to the domestic uncanny” which, as with Carrington’s paintings, present reality with extra dimensions superimposed. Half Shadow’s songs could be called poems, or perhaps spells or charms, incantations delivered into quiet spaces to summon strange and nameless things. Be this literal, as in ‘In My Room (A Creature Approaches)’ (“in my room,” Carsten sings, “a creature / a hidden creature / approaches”), or more oblique, as with tracks like ‘The Very Eye of the Night’ or ‘I Practice Dying (in the Spare Room)’.

Today sees the release of a brand new video for another such track, ‘A Full Day Spent (Between the Worlds)’. The song was born of a chance encounter, originating from a piece of text found on scrap paper at the back of a draw and evolving into what Cartsen calls a “mysterious travelogue into the unknown.”  A recorded memento of a journey into a space eerie and pastoral. The video employs medieval imagery to capture this bucolic mood, though its wry tone and green-screen backdrops adds an uncanny edge once more, and feeds into the central question of the record itself. “How does one find themselves in the house,” Carsten asks in the closing lines, “when on every door comes a ceaseless knocking that refuses to stop?”

At Home With My Candles is out now via Bud Tapes, Dove Cove Records and Illusion Florist Records and you can grab it from the Half Shadow Bandcamp page.

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Not that the subject matter necessarily suggests a more expansive sound. A joint release between Bud Tapes, Dove Cove Records and Illusion Florist Records, At Home With My Candles was recorded during quarantine, and as such directs its attention toward the ordinary/odd duality so often found behind closed doors. “An album of mythopoetic paeans to the domestic uncanny,” as the press release puts it. “The mysterious and unseen worlds experienced at home.” But to have such a cloistered record push into the largest and most encompassing sound yet feels entirely fitting for Half Shadow, and indeed the logical progression of its explorations of inner worlds.

Lead single ‘Song for the Garden’ serves as an introduction to this newly expansive style. With the plucked acoustic guitar and reverb-laden synth supported by Yaara Valey‘s flugelhorn, the song offers something lush and rhythmic to celebrate the growth beyond a home’s walls. These conditions prove fertile ground for  Half Shadow’s poetic sensibilities too, the rich sound wrapping around Carten’s vocals and lifting them to the the fore, an uncanny marriage between personal insight and a wider mystical experience.

I watch the poppies bloom
weeping evening blue
mineral bright water
effortless dew
I sleep with you… at the root

At Home With My Candles comes out on the 8th April via Bud Tapes, Dove Cove Records and Illusion Florist Records. You can pre-order it now from the Half Shadow Bandcamp page.

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