With the EP’s release fast approaching, Caroline Strickland has returned with one final single, ‘Prettiest Girl of Heaven’. Again utilising a sense of infectious energy to its benefit, the song adopts its title as a kind of mantra, repeating the phrase over and over as though to convince or make true via force of will. “Can I / Grab a hold of your hand make you understand / That I / Am in love with you now?” Strickland asks in one verse, and the desire behind this question fires the entire song.

Holding onto you I see it
Broken in disguise
Sunset on a blue pacific
Prudent emerald eyes

You are one of the prettiest girls of heaven, heaven

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Back in February we described how the music of self-described “depression pop band” bathtub cig lives up to the image of their name. “A project which looks to evoke those private moments of contemplation and small comforts,” as we put it, “be they born of wallowing or self-care.” With EP Good Mourning, I love you out now, bathtub cig are back with new single ‘Marry Me’, a perfect example of an album about loving in a time of loss. “Meet me at your mom’s, boyfriend’s old farm house,” as the song opens. “I’ll be in the field with crickets singing and the frogs.” And it is a testament to the writing that the song fits a number of relationships, doubling as both an ode to platonic friendship or bi love.

Caroline Strickland – Loving You Right

Writing last year, we described how the work of  New York-based songwriter Caroline Strickland combined abrasive energy and intimate tenderness to explore a gamut of conflicting emotions, and her latest single ‘Loving You Right’ builds upon the style expertly. The first taste of EP Martha’s Calling, which is forthcoming on Good Eye Records, the song looks to work through a period of uncertainty and distance through sheer momentum. “The thesis of the song is this,” as Strickland explains. “Mannequin Void. I felt like a hollow, plastic body, a frame, a pencil sketch. I said, ‘I wonder if someday I should take the time to break the MANNEQUIN VOID and give it one last try. Have I been loving you right?'” The mission to break this feeling is applied almost literally, the song gathering a head of steam as though Strickland plans to thrust herself into something hard at high speed in the hope of shattering that which imprisons her.

Martha’s Calling is coming soon via Good Eye Records.

Circus Trees – Trap Door

“Circus Trees makes music that doesn’t fit with their age, their gender, their living conditions;” explains the bio of the Marlborough, Massachusetts band. “They are young, they are sisters, they spend their lives in the wastelands of suburbia.” The sibling trio make a raucous, evocative brand of indie rock capable of evoking the sadness and frustration of suburban living. Coming later this month via Five By Two Records, new full-length This makes me sad, and I miss you shows how cathartic this style can be. Offering a hefty, emotionally charged sound, Circus Trees mine their own personal struggles for the universal experiences of pain, and in doing so invite the listener to burn off their own difficulties through the power of energy and sound.

This makes me sad, and I miss you is out on the 20th September via Five By Two Records and you can pre-order it now.

Dummy – Blue Dada

Last week saw the release of Free Energy, the new album from LA’s Dummy, on Trouble in Mind. The record is a wildly ambitious one, even for a band who have made a name for their creative spirit and left-field choices, taking the basic formula of 2021’s Mandatory Enjoyment and making everything bigger, better, weirder. Think shapeshifting psychedelia, insistent motorik rhythms, jangly guitar rock experimentation and looped vocals and catchy choruses straight out of smash hit electro pop. It’s an album impossible to capture in one song, but perhaps the best introduction is final single ‘Blue Dada’, which takes all of the above and wraps them in a coat of 90s throwback atmospherics. “This was one of the first songs that really came together for Free Energy,” Dummy describe, “with the idea of cross-wiring genres, between ambient dance music, á la Seefeel, and revved-up drone-pop, á la Dunedin sound. ”

Field Report – Trust In Movements Made

Back in 2023, LOTUS Legal Clinic—an organisation in Milwaukee which helps survivors of human trafficking and sexual violence by blending comprehensive civil legal services, victims’ rights representation and therapeutic arts programming—reached out to Field Report‘s Christopher Porterfield about being an artist-in-residence. The following period saw Porterfield work with five writers to create original music inspired by poetry they had written during the program’s creative writing workshops. The resulting five songs are being released as Trust In Movements Made, an EP released under the Field Report name but truly collaborative in practice. “I consider myself co-writer of these songs, along with the original authors,” as Porterfield explains. All proceeds from the release will be donated back to ensure LOTUS can continue their vital work.

Kid Tigrrr – Therapy

Singer-songwriter and visual artist Jenna Fournier made her name as the lead of Cleveland shoegaze outfit Niights, though after a couple of studio recorded albums and international tours, found herself wanting to explore a different kind of music, both in terms of process and style. Hence Fournier split from her record label and started out solo under the moniker Kid Tigrrr. She turned to home recording and production as an antidote to her previous studio experience, and uses the project as a vehicle to explore intensely personal themes and challenge stigmas around mental health, addiction and abuse. Debut album Stoned + Animald therefore represents a fresh start for an artist pining to work with a new level of intimacy, and latest single and album opener ‘Therapy’ is the ideal introduction.

Leif Vollebekk – Peace of Mind (Evening)

“As confident as it is poignant, furthering Vollebekk’s investigations into the deepest of themes. [Namely] the phenomenon of love as it stretches over time. Longing as some echo through the years.” That’s how we described ‘Southern Star’, the recent single from Leif Vollebekk‘s upcoming LP Revelation on Secret City Records. With the release fast approaching, Vollebekk is now back with new track, ‘Peace of Mind (Evening)’, an alternate version of a song on the record which lives up to its title with its golden crepuscular shine. ““This is the evening version of ‘Peace of Mind’,” Vollebekk explains. “This version isn’t even on the record. It just wanted to be its own thing…The melody came along fully formed right after I’d spent a few weeks’ vacation with my family. I rediscovered my solitude for the first time in a while. And, in the stillness, I sang about them. I dreamt a child placed a dandelion on my grave. For some reason, I awoke incredibly peaceful. What does that mean?”

Revelation is out on the 27th September via Secret City Records.

Leila Dandan – my room’s a mess

Hailing from Huntington Beach, California and currently based in Dallas, Texas, Leila Dandan is a songwriter who takes various vulnerabilities and stitches them into a blanket—something capable of offering comfort and protection if you are brave enough to wear it proudly. New single ‘my room’s a mess’ typifies the kind of song Dandan has made their own, embracing their own insecurities in an effort to overcome them. “I wrote this song amid a panic attack,” Dandan explains. “I was at a point where I felt like I couldn’t really tell anyone because I was afraid of being so vulnerable. I didn’t want people to see the mess because it felt embarrassing, but in reality, things wouldn’t have been so messy if I had let myself rely on others for a little help.”

‘my room’s a mess’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Meagre Martin – Never Thought

With Gut Punch, released last year via  Mansions and Millions, Berlin’s Meagre Martin showed off their evocative, politically aware style, from existential ‘The Big Death‘ to the nostalgic ‘Malcolm‘. With a string of appearances at the Reeperbahn Festival, Pop Montreal and Pitchfork London approaching in recent weeks, the band have put out a brand new single, ‘Never Thought’. An example of Meagre Martin’s more relaxed side, the song draws on elements of folk and blues to inform its languid indie rock style, though its seemingly easy-going vibe belies the doubt and desperation running through the lyrics. “‘Never Thought’ questions how well we know the people in our lives, and how our security in them can still be shaken even after years of knowing them,” the band explain. “The chords and melodies encircle and repeat, much like the rumination of thoughts in our heads.”

Moira Smiley x tUnE-yArDs – Go Dig My Grave

Though made popular as the lead single and opener of Lankum‘s most recent album, the song ‘Go Dig My Grave’ has a far longer history, with versions (often titled ‘The Butcher Boy’) stretching back to the 1920s and verses being taken from songs older still. Part of new album The Rhizome Project, Moira Smiley’s take on the track traces its roots back to the haunting Appalachian spirit of Jean Ritchie. Merrill Garbus (AKA tUnE-yArDs) helps craft the stark arrangement, where ominous strings simmer behind the vocals, charging the delivery with the desperation and fury of the song’s forsaken lead, what Smiley describes as “this beautiful, dissonant cry against a loss of bodily autonomy in 2022.”

The Rhizome Project is out now and available from the usual places.

Video Age – Record Shop

Last month we wrote about the release of a new version of Video Age‘s single ‘Out In The Country’ featuring Esther Rose, a reworking of a track which first appeared on the 2023 LP Away From the Castle. Now the New Orleans duo are back with ‘Record Shop’, the A-side of a 7″ single featuring ‘Out In The Country’ released as part of an expanded edition of Away From The Castle on Winspear. Described as “a theme song for record shop employees,” the track charts the days of a humble store clerk with all the lonely nobility of a modern cowboy. “I got my job at the record shop, I play the songs that I like a lot,” as the chorus goes, “My two girlfriends are a broom and mop / And they dance with me when the needle drops.”

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The song is part of Watch, the three-song EP which serves as Caroline Strickland’s debut release. Now it’s out in the world, it is clear the other tracks tread a similar balance between what might seem conflicting emotions. So while ‘Invoice’ pitted cathartic power against a dented ego, opening single ‘Coolest Girl on the Fifth Floor’ combines abrasive arrogance with careful tenderness, all package as a simmering indie rock number which lifts Strickland’s smoky vocals towards a thrilling crescendo. “This is a song I wrote about my evil neighbour,” as she explains:

We lived in an SRO building in the East Village. It was a weird little green structure built in 1920 that used to be a hospital, then a hotel, at one point an orphanage, and now it’s full of tiny rooms with tiny bathrooms for people who are willing to live tiny lives for a tiny amount of money. When I would practice guitar or sing in my fifth floor room in the tiny building, my neighbor would scream at me through the thin walls Once, she sang back to me, chanting, “This isn’t your personal opera house!!!” I said yes it is! The song was born.

‘Watchdog’ offers a more understated tone, its rhythm floating with a more reflective air as Strickland voices an almost plaintive mood, though soon skipping into something more pressing. There’s the sense the instrumentation is seeking to pull the vocals along with its momentum, doing its best to lift the downbeat vibe, and by the closing section Strickland obliges, her voice rising into one more impassioned statement before the track peters out for good.

Watch is out now via Saint Bear Records and available via Spotify.

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Describing themselves as “a quixotic mix of American post-punk and ’80s post-hardcore,” East Vancouver Aversions combine heavyweight riffs, pounded percussion and acerbic vocals to comment on our contemporary moment. Loosely based on the visual essay About Face by graphic novelist Nate Powell, Aversions say ‘New Whip’ is a song about “how the impact of generational thinking shapes the people we become, and the beliefs and opinions we’ll go to any lengths to enforce…shin[ing] a light on how toxic masculinity is passed down like a gene.”

‘New Whip’ is out now via the Aversions Bandcamp page.

bedbugz – if i cried, we’d both drown

Back in June we wrote about Canterbury outfit bedbugz and their self-titled single on Tonetic Records. “With its upbeat rhythm and searching vocals, the title track is a bittersweet tale of young love,” we described, “while the b-side sets out further into shoegaze territory.” The debut bedbugz full-length all hail the goblin king! is out later this week, and lead single, ‘if i cried, we’d both drown’, shows how the band have knitted these styles into something of their own. A sound which owes a debt to both bedroom pop and indie rock without quite belonging to either, and offers a delightful blend of sincere emotion and noisy charm. Check out the video by Elliott Sirota-Gott and Tom Postgate below:

‘if i cried, we’d both drown’ is out now via Tonetic Records.

bmq – Spontaneity

Tokyo‘s bmq have been at work for fifteen years, though it is only now they are releasing their debut full-length album, Order, Spontaneity and the Body. Drawing inspiration from fields as diverse as post-punk, krautrock, ambient and US indie rock, the record feels like it utilises every month of this gestation period, weaving a finely honed style which constantly tests the line between control and volatility. Take single ‘Spontaneity’, which explores the tension between repetition and change with a simmering energy, unpredictable but always harnessed by an understated confidence. The sound of a band who have spent a long time working out what they want to say and how they want to say it.

Burs – Nearly

Back in September, Toronto‘s Burs released their latest album Holding Patterns, a record which blended various shades of indie, folk and dream pop to allow the quartet to explore a myriad of different moods and settings. What resulted was a rich and often ethereal collection of songs able to change with fluid ease, from the vast, spacious opener ‘The Year Now’ to the urgent ‘Lily’. But it is perhaps latest single ‘Nearly’ which best encapsulates the Burs style. The restrained acoustic intro heralding the considerable chemistry of their dual vocal style, the track slowly deepening with subtle layers of textures and warmth.

Once again I find myself awake inside a dream
Two of us and me, myself and I
Four on the floor, one in the door, a light
Out of purgatory darkly shines

Cat Clyde – Mystic Light

Next February sees the release of Down Rounder, the latest album from Ontario‘s Cat Clyde. Writing back in 2019 we described Clyde’s sound as encompassing “everything from folk and rock to blues and jazz, leading to a sound that swaggers with attitude and smoulders with smoky emotion, and lead single ‘Mystic Light’ suggests the new record builds upon these foundations to offer a fresh vision of the country style. One crafted from personal emotion but imbued with something more ancient and mysterious too. Watch the video directed by Laura-Lynn Petrick below:

Down Rounder is out on the 17th February and you can pre-order it now.

Caroline Strickland – Invoice

New York’s Caroline Strickland unveiled her debut single, ‘Invoice’, this month. A confessional track which pits deceptions and truths against one another, exploring the ways in which honesty can hurt the hardest, and lies hold small victories of their own. All set within a swirling moment of love persisting beyond a relationship, and a job with zero fulfilment or worth, Strickland’s vocals burning with a smoky intensity as she navigates both. “It makes you feel devastated, feel like letting go,” as Strickland’s own perceptive take puts it, “feel like California, feel like rock and roll.” Coming clean might be cathartic, but creating fictions might just be the best escape route.

Maybe with the extra cash
I’ll take a trip Ireland
Pretend my name is Marianne
play some music I can drown in
Remind myself it’s over
Standing on the streets of Sligo

Dignan Porch – Electric Threads

Led by South London’s Joe Walsh, Dignan Porch made a name across the 2010s with a distinctive blend of psych rock and fuzz pop, working with labels such as Captured Tracks and Art Is Hard along the way. With Walsh having now moved to Manchester, next February sees the release of a brand new album Electric Threads, this time a joint release by the stellar trio of Hidden Bay, Repeating Cloud and Safe Suburban Home Records. The title track gives a glimpse into the newest iteration of the project. A combination of earnest emotion and off-kilter playfulness which refuses to recognise any distinction between fun and melancholy.

Electric Threads is out on the 23rd February via Repeating Cloud, Hidden Bay and Safe Suburban Home Records and you can pre-order it now.

Lina K.O. – Two-Player Mode

Brooklyn-based artist Lina K.O. is gearing up to release new EP Earth Apple next month, and the latest single serves as a great introduction to her sound. Falling on the rockier side of what she herself describes as “digitally-infused melancholic indie,” the song combines Bridgers-esque indie folk with a grungy weight to achieve its delightfully ambiguous tone. Where doubt and assurance act as perfect counterbalances against one another, Lina K.O. singing with reflective wisdom even within the confusing immediacy of the moment. Check out the video by Mike White and Lina K.O herself below:

Earth Apple is out on the 13th January and you can pre-order it now.

Luke De-Sciscio – The Tourist

There are prolific songwriters and then there is Luke De-Sciscio. Reaching double figures of full-length albums at only thirty, De-Sciscio has consistently honed his work and challenged prior expectations, forever circling around that elusively perfect way in which to communicate what needs saying. Through a series of highs (e.g. being booked to support the likes of Cat Stevens and Jose Feliciano) and lows (the COVID-induced cancellation of said shows), he has not stopped in this search, and new album if one thing were different, nothing would be the same feels like the closest he’s yet come to reaching that mythical ideal. Take closer ‘The Tourist’, seven minutes plus of stark passion and poignance. The culmination of everything which has been before.

Niall Summerton – Human, Dying

You would be forgiven for taking a quick listen to the work of Leeds-based songwriter Niall Summerton and concluding his work to be that of warm, easy-going assurance. But as the name of new single ‘Human, Dying’ gives away, his work uses this welcoming richness as way into the weightier, darker themes of the human experience. With new album What Am I Made Of? coming soon via Tiny Library Records, the new song offers the perfect example of this style. Confronting the heaviest question of them all, Summerton threads anxieties around mortality into the textures of the everyday, and in doing so not only captures a compassionate view of the subject but also something of its pervasive, ever-present weight.

What Am I Made Of? will be release in April 2023 via Tiny Library Records.

Stella Rose – Angel

Following on from the success of debut single ‘Muddled Man’ a few weeks ago, New York-based singer, poet, and musician Stella Rose has shared brand new track, ‘Angel’, via Kro Records. After the insistent energy of the first single, ‘Angel’ offers an altogether more reflective tone, swapping out the electrified intensity for something slower and richer. What results is a strange ode to melancholy, exploring how sadness can serve as the shadow to highlight the brighter parts of life. The song comes with a video directed by Primordialfreaks, who explains how the film aimed to capture the light and dark of the song. “It’s a sad but also triumphant song, like a celebration of loss and loneliness and how the most difficult things can make life more pure in a strange sort of way.”

‘Angel’ is out now via Kro Records.

Sun Kin – I Know This One

We’ve written a fair bit about Kabir Kumar’s Sun Kin this year, from the upbeat pop of single ‘I Wanna Believe‘ to the deep, thematically rich ambient styles of painting whales part 1  and 2. Somewhere in the mix Kumar found the time to release another single, ‘I Know This One’, ironically a song about the creative frustrations which emerge when you set the bar too high and push every new piece to be a genre-bending prototype. Luckily, there’s an antidote to such a malady—dropping any notions of genius and appreciating the simple joys of life. Namely hanging out with your cat.

i’m always saying
how i can’t behave
right in front of you
there sits a bowl of your food
i poured in the morning
of this blessed day

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