Now Smith is preparing to release Gold & Rust, the debut full-length of his new project Cameron Smith & The Slings which builds upon the earlier foundations, again embracing the drama and tropes of the country genre but with a newfound narrative focus. Terry Allen’s Juarez, Lee Hazlewood’s Trouble is a Lonesome Town and Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger are cited as direct influences, and even some of the daring, cosmic spirit of The Dark Side of the Moon makes its way in too. A concept album centring on the classic archetype of the wanderer, following its protagonist through all his loves, losses and longings towards ultimate redemption.

Featuring guest vocals from Presley Haile, lead single ‘The Way Life Ought to Be’ not only establishes the tone of the release but serves as a microcosm of its main themes. A duet weighed down by addiction and regrets yet pressing forward all the same, loaded with the understanding that forgiveness and the hope which comes with it can only be achieved via a painful reckoning with both the past and the present.

Watch the video below, with photography, direction and video edit by Waffles and compilation and format edit by Metachronism:

Gold & Rust will be released later this year.

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Back in July we wrote about  Fort Worth, TX songwriter Cameron Smith, describing how single ‘Under the Cover of Darkness’ drew on “the loaded depths of the southern gothic genre” to evoke “the heartsick wanderer which can be traced back through Molina and van Zandt, where the long night is illuminated only by the blood moon and low fuel light on the dash.” Recorded as part of a Café Solo Songwriters Live session, latest single ‘Shadows of the Moonlight’ follows a similar spirit. This time it takes inspiration from the story of Smith’s great-grandfather Sam Smith who served in WWI and worked as a cowboy before being killed while working as a lineman for the Texas Louisiana Power Company. “I’m not a cowboy but Sam was,” as Smith explains. “It’s a campfire song; a reflection on the mental, spiritual and physical distances a person can travel between night and day.”

You can grab the track now from the Cameron Smith Bandcamp page.

h. pruz – I Keep Changing

The third single from their forthcoming record No Glory, ‘I Keep Changing’ is the perfect introduction to the music of h. pruz, aka Queens-based songwriter Hannah Pruzinsky. It’s a rich and direct track that wanders further toward rock than previous h. pruz songs, giving weight to the very real emotional power that has always underpinned their music. Like much of the record, the song focuses on a pivotal moment, conjuring almost physical dimensions to inner turmoil and subsequent growth. “The song emerged a few weeks following a pretty life-altering break-up, Pruzinsky describes to Stereogum. “I’m trying to capture the feeling of the moment when you can feel something inside you giving way to a newer form, and how ugly yet unstoppable and freeing that ultimately felt.”

No Glory comes out on 29^th March via Mtn Laurel Recording Co. and is available to pre-order via the h. pruz Bandcamp page.

Habibi – On The Road

Brooklyn’s Habibi return later this spring with Dreamachine, their first new record in four years. Released via Kill Rock Stars, the album promises to be something of an evolution for the garage rock five-piece, drawing on everything from post punk and lo-fi experimentalism to vintage disco and the Middle Eastern psych influences that have always made Habibi stand out. And it’s not a case of style over substance either, the band utilizing these disparate elements to explore themes both physical and spiritual. “There’s always a desire for transcendence in our music,” says lead Rahill Jamalifard, “a desire to go beyond our limitations. Whether it’s spiritual or physical or emotional, it feels like this album really embodies that search for something more.” Check out lead single ‘On The Road’ for an early taste, a beguiling and deadpan track with infectious percussion and stabs of wiry guitar.

On the road again, on the road again
Driving north towards the great star of Bethlehem

Dreamachine will be released on 31st May via Kill Rock Stars and is available to pre-order via Bandcamp.

Hailaker – Gist

A collaboration between songwriters Ed Tullett (Lowsimmer) and Jemima Coulter, Hailaker put out two records pre-pandemic, with both their self-titled debut and follow-up Holding proving testaments to the bond between the artists. However, several years of isolation and social distancing, not to mention other creative endeavours in the interim, left the pair wondering whether the spark had extinguished. It was only when Coulter suggested they park any songwriting ambitions and instead just enjoy one another’s company again did the connection rekindle, and the resulting songs are as ambitious and inventive as anything Hailaker has released to date. Take new single ‘Gist’ with its newfound pop sensibilities, sounding like a new dawn fitting for the circumstances, and one suggestive of a bright future for the project once again.

‘Gist’ is out now via Believe.

Jackie West – Snow Amplified

Back in December, we described how Jackie West‘s ‘Tiny Flowers ii’ drew the audience in with a decidedly ambiguous tone, with a specific line from the song “complicat[ing] the second listen and every one thereafter, its gravity subverting the track’s structure and perspective from what the sound might originally suggest.” West has now announced her debut full-length, appropriately titled Close To The Mystery, to be released this May via Ruination Record Co., made in the hope of edging closer to the truth at the heart of any relationship. But with its oscillation between stark fingerpicked hush and chaotic, weighty momentum, new single ‘Snow Amplified’ suggests such mysteries might resist easy explanation, and instead only draw the audience deeper into the rich ambiguity of Jackie West’s work.

Kierst – Southern Star

“A reflection on longing and self-worth which owes as much to Grouper and Mazzy Star as it does contemporary bedroom pop, the intimate vocals and pressing rhythm lifted by an ethereal soundscape, resulting in a mood which transcends the immediate pain for heartbreak.” That’s how we described ‘Phone Call from Kierst‘s Thud EP on Sad Club Records. Following on from the success of the release, which among other things saw a track placed on Disney+ series Extraordinary, Kierst has returned with a brand new single, ‘Southern Star’. Just as emotive as anything on the previous record, the new single offers the kind of lush dreaminess only possible with patience and attention. “I wrote this a long time ago when I was really heartbroken, there’s no other way to put it,” Kierst explains. “But years have gone by and the song has gone through countless versions and been transformed by people I hold dear—and in that way, it means so much more to me now than ever before.”

‘Southern Star’ is out now via Sad Club Records and available from the usual places.

Luke De-Sciscio – Papa

Looking to capitalise on the creative breakthrough of recent full-length Heaven, an album which parked any sense of overworking in favour of “an intuitive flow which charges the songs with a sense of poetic authenticity,” prolific songwriter Luke De-Sciscio has already released new album, Papa. Described as “nine songs of delicate brevity,” the album takes stock of the ephemeral moments shared by a couple as they pass through the trials of young love towards parenthood, both as a way to preserve what has been and as a kind of ritual farewell. ‘Insights of a Heart’ is the perfect introduction to this tender, reflective collection, understated yet shot through by a frantic longing which belongs to the late night. ‘Blank Inside, Designed And Printed In The UK’ is no less keen in its observations, evoking the mysterious space between an end and a start with De-Scisco’s trademark reverence for human feeling.

Papa is out now and available from the Luke De-Sciscio Bandcamp page.

Mandy – High School Boyfriend

Best known as the lead singer of Chicago noise rockers Melkbelly, Miranda Winters has also quietly written her own music for over a decade. Despite some small releases over the years, she is now about to step into the limelight proper with the release of Lawn Girl, her debut “solo” full-length on Exploding in Sound Records, released under the moniker Mandy. With assistance from Linda Sherman (guitar), Lizz Smith (bass) and Wendy Zeldin (drums), Mandy make what Winters calls “dirty-bubblegum pop rock” that explores being a daughter, a mother and a woman in general. Lead single ‘High School Boyfriend’ is an exhilarating introduction, a crunchy rock song that packs anthemic noise and clear-eyed sincerity into its barely two minute runtime. Watch the video by  Liam Winters and Marty Schousboe below:

Lawn Girl will be released on 26th April via Exploding in Sound. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Pacing x Career Woman – Boyfriends

After the success of album Real poetry is always about plants and birds and trees and the animals and milk and honey breathing in the pink but real life is behind a screen, Pacing has teamed up with Melody Caudill, AKA Career Woman, for a new single on Lauren Records. ‘Boyfriends’ collides the trademark sensibilities of both artists, blending confessional emotion with quirky charm to offer something between wistful rumination and scream of frustration. But by the end of the joint chorus, the overring emotion is something affirming. “It feels very nostalgic to me,” McTigue explains, “like I can’t tell which parts are about being a kid and which parts are about being a grownup.”

We promised that we would live together in a tree
And watch the world end
But you got a boyfriend
I got a… really cool pen
But you got a boyfriend

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Based in Fort Worth, TX, singer-songwriter and musician Cameron Smith cut his teeth in hardcore and post-punk before settling into a solo career in folk rock. Drawing on the loaded depths of the southern gothic genre, Smith has now made the field his own, and latest single ‘Under the Cover of Darkness’ serves as the ideal introduction for the uninitiated. A song for the heartsick wanderer which can be traced back through Molina and van Zandt, where the long night is illuminated only by the blood moon and low fuel light on the dash. But through its melancholic haze rises an impassioned chorus, doubling down on the will to eventually make it home.

Coming home tonight
I’m coming home tonight
Under the cover of darkness
Where the sky grows wide

Dippers – Recurrent Sight

Hailing from Naarm/Melbourne, Dippers is the project of Matthew Ford and Innez Tulloch. Formerly known as Thigh Master, the band make an energetic and immediate brand of jangly indie pop which wears its rough edges with pride, and forthcoming album Clastic Rock promises to find the band at its most raucous to date. That is, if lead single ‘Recurrent Sight’ is anything to go by. The song is inspired by a coping method Ford devised to help with what he describes as “the constant mental anguish caused by the less gratifying neurodivergent traits,” namely, “to portray myself as the protagonist in a coming of age sci-fi film, where an extra-terrestrial life-force is attempting to send me a message via tedious and inconvenient hijinks.” The sound intensifies as it progresses, ramping up towards the transportive tumult of the closing guitar solo.

Jacob Furr – Not That Bad

The music of Jacob Furr has always felt like it served a clear purpose, be it the intensely personal picture of grief that was Trails & Traces or Sierra Madre and its wider wrestle with darkness and loss. Through the analogy of a (not always so) trusty car, latest single ‘Not That Bad’ sees the Texas artist explore this functional aspect of songwriting, where the mechanics of progress are dented by bad luck and punctuated by small moments of faith. “‘Not That Bad’ was written in the middle of the night in the backseat of my ’89 Camry while broken down beside I-20 somewhere around 2015,” Furr explains. “Music has been the vehicle that has carried me through so many days and nights, and sometimes it feels like a broken down car. But then a friend comes along, you get the new alternator installed, and off you go again with your dreams and plans.”

Empty space in the middle of my heart
With my faith in this broken down car
I’m leaving tonight
Turn the key praying for the best
Tomorrow I’ll sing this song again
If the tune don’t let me down

Julie Meunier – I Don’t Want To Be Friends

We first featured the work of Julie Meunier back in April with ‘World War X‘, a collaboration with Dwi Riana we described as “an exchange between lovers which begins as a seemingly innocuous conversation but ratchets up with every sentence, soon precipitating into an argument which draws the relationship’s tensions out into the open.” Meunier’s latest single ‘I Don’t Want To Be Friends’ is equally personal in focus but more a monologue than dialogue. A one-sided conversation which arose from the lockdown-era of the pandemic, where the desire for human connection was balanced against a fear of romance or intimacy.

Lady Apple Tree – S/T

Back in April we wrote about ‘Silver Hands‘, the first single from a forthcoming self-titled EP from Lady Apple Tree, AKA Northern California-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Haylie Hostetter. “A soulful, sinuous song built around the voice at its heart,” as we wrote, “Hostetter’s vocals rising from sultry croon to impassioned urgency, playing like something from a forgotten country star brought into the present.” Hostetter has now returned with the title track of the EP, a reflection on the orchards of Northern California which mines the landscapes for all of its metaphorical weight, again slotting into the classic country style with its balance of melancholic nostalgia and playful charm.

The New Eves – Mother / Original Sin

Having just signed with Broadside Hacks Recordings and Slow Dance Records, Brighton outfit The New Eves have released the double single, Mother / Original Sin. The former track first appeared on a Slow Dance compilation last year, introducing band’s idiosyncratic blend of punk and pagan sensibilities, owing as much to Picnic at Hanging Rock as The Velvet Underground. ‘Original Sin’ pushes this combination further, a folk horror reimaging of Genesis as told from Eve’s perspective, pride, shame, pleasure and pain combining into one heady mix, though the presiding emotion is that of a defiance. Check out the video directed by the band themselves below:

Original Sin/Mother is out now and available from the usual places.

Steak Blake – Wonderbread

‘Wonderbread’, the latest single from London-based artist Steak Bake on Step Sideways Records, was written when the artist returned home to their native Minneapolis. George Floyd had been recently murdered near their mother’s home, and song inevitably saw a turn towards all those past encounters with prejudiced authority. “When I was only ten or twelve years old / my father sat me down and told me about the skin I hold,” go the opening lines, the droll vocals sitting in a bed of taut post-punk menace. “This is how we live, this is what you’re not / You your father’s son so you might get shot.” And it doesn’t take long for the volatile potential to be realised, the track dipping into manic bursts of noise as though coming to appreciate the absurdity of a nation which has such circumstances inscribed into its very soul.

Tiny Leaves – Campanula Rotundifolia

Tiny Leaves is the moniker of composer and multi-instrumentalist Joel Pike, who hails from the borderlands between England and Wales. The project has just released its fifth full length album, Mynd, which weaves a sonic portrait of the Shropshire countryside that Pike calls home. The record is built from strings, piano, synth soundscapes and, perhaps most importantly, field recordings from a residency Pike completed at The Long Mynd, a heathland plateau and designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the area. Single ‘Campanula Rotundifolia’ captures this landscape in both its sweeping vastness and intricate detail, resulting in not so much of a static picture of the surroundings as a moving, breathing environment.

Mynd is out now and available from the Tiny Leaves Bandcamp page.

Tractor Beam – Backseat

Tractor Beam is the “post-folk” recording project of producer Sasha Balazic. Hailing from Toronto and based in Vancouver, Balazic draws from across the ages in their work, owing as much to 00s indie as 60s folk, and all wrapped up the the contemporary DIY aesthetic, leading to a sound both emotionally immediate and tangibly nostalgic. Having recently released new record Turtles All The Way on Kingfisher Bluez, Tractor Beam have shared their latest single, ‘Backseat’. The ideal introduction to the intimate, reflective tone of the album, where Balazic’s warm vocals blur the line between past memories and future dreams.

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