A release which “accepted this state of things, viewing honesty as the first step towards moving forward.” That’s how we described It’s Been a Long Year Vol. 1, the recent EP by the Montreal-based songwriter Alex Nicol. It was a collection of songs “written in a time when the pandemic only underlined years of chronic neglect and saw once bustling towns pushed further into decay,” which presented a lingering sense of loss with a wry playfulness. This December sees Nicol add a second batch of songs to the EP for a full-length album, Been A Long Year Vol​. ​1 & 2, and new single ‘Working On My Tan’ dials into this mood again to offer sound attuned to both the sadness and mysteriousness of the world we have created.

Watch the video by Jérémie Boivin below:

Been A Long Year Vol​.​1 & 2 is out on the 1st December and you can pre-order it now.

Christopher Tignor – Forms In a Flame

Writing of previous single ‘Ritual of a Thousand Limbs‘, we described how Christopher Tignor’s new album The Art of Surrender “explore[s] instinctive territory, pushing the violin towards an almost atavistic sound which foregoes too much planning or intention to instead embrace raw movement.” The album is out now via Western Vinyl, and final single ‘Forms In a Flame’ is the jewel at the heart of the release. A mammoth, near thirteen-minute collision of poignant classical and urgent electronic styles, fragile, aching violin joined by glitter atmospherics and galloping percussion.

Daneshevskaya – Challenger Deep

Daneshevskaya‘s forthcoming album Long Is The Tunnel, out next month on Winspear, presents a peculiar image of time. One “where the past, present and future are treated not as distinct things but rather parts of an encompassing whole,” as we wrote of single ‘Somewhere in the Middle‘. It’s a fitting device for a record which explores how personal histories and present experiences come to shape the world as we experience it. Latest track ‘Challenger Deep’ is typical of the poetic tone of Daneshevskaya’s work, the wistful fondness of the delivery landing somewhere between lullaby, hymn and love song.

There’s a foxhole prayer I say
A mistake I like to make
Saving you for the end
It’s all pinks and reds
There’s a dog chasing the fence
And now I’ll never see you again

Will you wait for me
Where there is no later on
Will you wait for me at the end, the end

Watch the video filmed by Madeline Leshner and edited by Zach Stone below:

Long Is The Tunnel is out via Winspear on the 10th November and you can pre-order it now from the Daneshevskaya Bandcamp page.

Gilded Lows – Brave

After learning the trade as part of Austin jazz punk outfit Dead Swagger, Spencer Carter has since turned his attention to new project Gilded Lows. Taking some of the croon of the previous band and adding a healthy dose of cowboy attitude, Gilded Lows follows a lineage descending from Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Nick Cave. A country style charged by Spencer’s baritone to sound both full of longing and supremely confident. That old cowboy spirit where the wish for a better life is matched only by nostalgia for what was. The result is a present at once fatalistic and self-deprecating. “I’m not brave / I’m not sweet,” Spencer sings at the close of the track, “In fact, I’m the one who’s terrified of feeling much of anything.”

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

Middle Sattre – Pouring Water

“It’s my way of processing internalized homophobia, religious trauma, and shame from growing up gay in the Mormon church,” explains lead Hunter Prueger of Middle Sattre. Writing songs as an act of both confrontation and defiance. The project started as a solo project in Salt Lake City and has since blossomed into a eight-piece in Austin, retaining the intensely personal tone while pushing the instrumentation in all sorts of interesting directions. The result, as captured by new single ‘Pouring Water’, lands somewhere between Sufjan Stevens and Typhoon, where collaboration brings a immersive richness to the sound but never occludes the intimate lyricism at the track’s heart.

Riley Skinner – Dirty

Based in Minneapolis, singer-songwriter Riley Skinner makes music that invites the listener into a world of honest and courageous vulnerability. Next month, she will release new album Surrender, a record that explores queer identity through the lens of the natural world, embracing its inherent chaos to experience the peace and acceptance at its heart. Latest single ‘Dirty’ is a great example, a quietly powerful folk rock song about finding the bravery to be your true self. “When I wrote ‘Dirty’,” Skinner describes, “I was thinking about the ways in which we withdraw from closeness and love because we feel we are not worthy or deserving of receiving it.”

Surrender releases on 10^th November and you can pre-order it now from the Riley Skinner Bandcamp page.

TESHA – Like a man

Back in 2019, we wrote about Growing Pains II by Israeli-born, Brooklyn-based artist TESHA. A collection of songs we called “ethereal yet rooted in personal suffering,” it drew on the likes of  Bjork and Fever Ray to combine experimental electronics with an otherworldly power. Now TESHA is back with a brand new single, ‘Like a Man’, which seethes with righteous anger as it takes aim at the patriarchy and the ongoing unrest in her home country. A dark and pulsating pop song, it urges an end to the masculine posturing and the blind search for power, instead finding strength in compassion and vulnerability.

‘Like a man’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Upper Narrows – My Lottery Dream

While We’re Warm, the upcoming album from Upper Narrows on Repeating Cloud, represents a meeting point between digital and organic sensibilities. “[Tyler] Jackson’s delivery [provides] that human core to what could otherwise be an almost extraterrestrial soundscape,” as we put it in a preview. “His voice [adds] a warmth so often lost in synth pop, and helps the album to live up to its name.” The final single before the album’s release, ‘My Lottery Dream’ furthers this style, leading the listener into a detailed, technological soundscape with the vocals as a guiding hand. But despite the blips and bloops, it maintains a real heartfelt humanity.

Weeper – De Algo Hay Que Morirse

‘De Algo Hay Que Morirse’, the new single from Buenos Aires-based indie pop band Weeper, was written about a recurring dream experienced by lead Mary Craig. “I used to drive people off of cliffs, bridges, etc to our deaths and wake up,” she describes. “When I dreamt the dream with my Argentine partner, he responded, ‘You have to die of something – De algo hay que morirse.’” The song starts gentle and heartfelt as it reflects on the dream’s sense of loss and guilt, but builds in energy as it progresses. “I’m alive and I can’t believe my luck,” Craig sings around the halfway mark as she comes to find a carefree joy in accepting her own mortality.

‘De Algo Hay Que Morirse’ is out now via streaming services.

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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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