With 2023 album Cleaning Up With Big Mess, Copenhagen‘s Big Mess introduced a genre-spanning style which tapped into the unbridled joy of good old-fashioned punk rock, and new release Terry EP indicates they have no intention of slowing down. The record is out now via Specialist Subject Records, and opener and title track shows off the vibe of the collection. Repurposing Kirsty MacColl’s hit into a power pop gem, ‘Terry’ distils the wry humour and bite of the original into their purest states. The result races into life from the off and never lets up, harnessing MacColl’s cheeky defiance as its own form of momentum, and proving as cathartic as it is fun.

Ciao Malz – Clementine (Elliott Smith cover)

Back in December, Ciao Malz released their debut EP Safe Then Sorry, a four-song grab bag that veered between alt-country twang and woozy pop confidence. Now Malia DelaCruz is showing another dimension to the project with a cover of Elliott Smith’s ‘Clementine’, recapturing the hushed intimacy of the original in all of its sincerity and narrative depth. “‘Clementine’ is probably my favorite Elliott Smith song,” as DelaCruz explains. “The way he picks up on a bartender singing and turns it into something so eerie and beautiful is wild. The harmonies are something I’ve always wanted to nail, and I love experimenting with them when I’m recording. And yeah, sometimes it’s just fun to channel Elliott Smith for a while.”

You can find Ciao Malz on Bandcamp.

Committeemen – Therapy

Consisting of DJ Gilmore-Innis (vocals/guitar), Ken Dannelley (drums), Matt Kast (bass), and Graham Bell (guitar), Houston punk rockers Committeemen owe as much to post punk royalty like Gang of Four as they do contemporaries Osees and Parquet Courts. But, they’re no cheap copy, managing to recombine this range of influences into something wholly their own. With a new EP on the way via Rue Defense, single ‘Therapy’ highlights the searing intensity of their sound. Taking aim at the burgeoning ecosystem of quacks and narcissists which seems determined to tell us how to live, this is blistering punk complete with yell-along chorus, treating this vapid, insidious cohort of podcasters, Youtubers and televangelists with the contempt they deserve.

Daily Toll – Killincs

Described as “eleven songs traversing three years of forged friendships, collaborative experimentation and a shared love of growing through words and song,” new album A Profound Non-Event sees Sydney post-punks Daily Toll take the next step in their evolution, building upon what came before with a growing sense of confidence and conviction. With the release coming this June on Tough Love, the trio have shared lead single ‘Killincs’, and the track embodies the sound of a band striving towards their most truthful form while appreciating such a quest might prove unending. “The light reflects an upside-down image of a life I might never visit,” as lead Kata Szász-Komlós sings. “Too far to touch, not far enough to forget.” And as the song progresses, its verbosity belying the relatively understated, assured tone, it becomes clear the unresolved is something to be accepted, even embraced. As a later line states: “I have the key still, but I’ve buried the path.”

Watch the video directed and edited by Szász-Komlós below:

A Profound Non-Event is out on the 20th June via Tough Love and you can pre-order it now.

eggcorn – Observer Effect

Taking its name from the phenomenon where an observed system is disturbed by the very act of being observed, eggcorn‘s new album Observer Effect sees songwriter Lara Hoffman explore the ways in which reflecting on one’s life and surroundings can shape our experiences. Moving away from the synth pop sensibilities of debut Your Own True Love, the album adopts a pop-inflected brand of chamber folk which combines sincere compassion with unerring honesty, a sound able to probe deep into the heart of the matter and unafraid of getting dirty in the process. The lead single and title track is the ideal entry point, Hoffman using the impatient frustration of a slow-healing injury to delve into unpalatable truths about herself and the desires therein, baring vulnerabilities and reckoning with their implications without sacrificing a certain playfulness.

MF Tomlinson – Die To Wake Up From A Dream

Over a series of releases in recent times, Brisbane/Meanjin born, London based artist MF Tomlinson has challenged genre conventions, progressing beyond classic folk styles with the addition of psych, rock and other sensibilities. This summer will see him return with Die To Wake Up From A Dream, a brand new album via PRAH Recordings which continues this exploration of the possibilities of folk. Described by Tomlinson himself as a treatise on “resilience, hope and the frankly wildly psychedelic experience of being alive,” the lead single and title track shows one such possibility, drawing on everything from John Martyn to Talk Talk and My Bloody Valentine to create a sound which might originate in folk but ends up beyond any easy genre categorisation.

Watch the accompanying video—described as a “visual essay”—by Andrea Zvadova below:

Die To Wake Up From A Dream is out on the 11th July via PRAH Recordings.

sachi’s mirror – a new shape

The recording project of Oakland-based experimental violinist and composer Shaina Pan, sachi’s mirror offers rich, genre-bending soundscapes which use pedal effects to push the violin to new ground. Classically trained, Pan dipped a toe in experimental music as a vocalist and bassist for Bay Area art-punks Juicebumps during the pandemic, and is now reaching further across ambient, avant-garde and art pop sensibilities to weave her own compositions. Taken from debut release coral miracle church, single ‘a new shape’ embodies the style, a song full of space and intricate detail which grows with subtle grace. Spoken word samples further the mood, and the result feels like a doorway into some adjacent, ethereal world.

Serfing – no new friends

Consisting of Austin Weber and David Caploe (Singer of Hate Drugs, BEST DAD), LA‘s Serfing are preparing to release their debut EP to properly introduce themselves to the world. Lead single ‘no new friends’ is the first taste of what to expect. Painted in long, relaxed strokes, the track offers a dreamy meditation on making connections with other people, its languorous tempo able to draw out both the warmth and anguish inherent within such a process. “It’s hard to keep yourself from falling / falling in love,” as the opening lines go. “Spend enough time with somebody / falling in love.” But true to the ambiguous mood of a sound that could be taken as dawning fondness or anxious hesitancy, the lyrics soon offer conflicting thoughts.

Why even plant a tree to cut it down?
you know those roots are staying in the ground
better off just being no-one
than falling in love

The Taxpayers – Outline of Your Blood

We’ve covered a number of singles from Circle Breaker, the new full-length from  Portland, Oregon emo outfit The Taxpayers, in recent weeks, be it ‘At War With The Dogcatchers‘ with its search for love amid tragedy and cruelty or ‘I Am One Thousand‘, an ode to those afflicted by war and its adjacent sufferings. With the album now out via Ernest Jenning Record Co., The Taxpayers are releasing a new single, ‘Outline of Your Blood’, as a celebration. The closing track to the album which encapsulates everything which came before, stricken by discouragement and burgeoning doom yet unable to shake a sense of hope despite it all. As the title suggests, this is an album of cycles, the grandest of which being the circle of life itself, and no matter how dark the present, The Taxpayers want to remind you that new life is always being born too.

Circle Breaker is out now via Ernest Jenning Record Co. and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Wishy – Over and Over

“Everything fans of the band have come to love.” That’s how we described ‘Fly’ back in February, the lead single from Wishy‘s forthcoming EP Planet Popstar. “A song,” as we put it, “that looks to move beyond heartbreak with a mix of affirming energy and wistful longing.” With the EP coming next month on Winspear, the Indianapolis outfit are back with fresh track ‘Over and Over’. With vocal duties shifting back to Kevin Krauter, and Nina Pitchkites offering backing harmonies, the song sees fingerpicked guitar melded with breakbeat rhythms, offering a sound packed full of detail while maintaining a languid calm, and further marking Wishy as one of the most inventive acts working today.

The song comes complete with a video directed by Demi Fenicle, edited by Aaron Agler and with visual Effects by Stephen Orban, which you can watch below:

Planet Popstar is out on the 25th April via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

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Many of these tracks were born of anxiety—from my turning to a guitar to externalize (and organize) a sense of chaos that otherwise felt trapped inside me. We recorded the bulk of it with a live band as a means to maintain the raw energy at the center of the record. What results is a time capsule for a year of intense personal expansion in my life—and the layers of warmth, wonder, sensitivity, and sharpness that come with growing.

With the album set for release this April on Audio Antihero, Avery Friedman has unveiled lead single ‘Flowers Fell’ to introduce the style. With a melancholic yet rising sound, the track seems to sit in the interstitial space between trauma and growth. That lull between the ceasing of decline and visible signs of recovery, where improvement exists only as a nascent understanding of the possibilities which lay ahead in time.

The idea behind the song originated during a night-time walk down Greene Avenue in Brooklyn. “I had noticed that the flowers that once lined the branches had been replaced by leaves—seemingly in the blink of an eye,” Friedman says. “I was briefly disappointed until I considered that the petals had made way for something more sustainable—and equally full of life. The song became a meditation on the concept of place—how things of our surroundings like ‘sidewalks,’ and ‘balconies’ and ‘trees,’ can act as fixed backdrops upon which we measure our personal evolutions (and the evolutions of our relationships) across the span of many seasons.”

The flowers fell off when I was asleep
But it’s okay, ‘cause now it’s all green

Design by Alexa Terfloth, photography by Mamie Heldman

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I wrote the bulk of the EP after work, these stories and characters came to me subconsciously and asked to be spoken into existence. These songs are about the unlikely connections we make, how they’re simultaneously inexplicable and meaningful. I work through these contradictions with unpredictable melodies, explosive choruses, and with the recording process itself. We did everything on the fly to capture as much raw emotion as could fit in the four walls of the basement studio. I wanted the project to feel how it did when I was messing around on GarageBand on my first computer—unrestrained.

This sense of immediacy and exploration is clear on listening to Safe Then Sorry, with Ciao Malz covering significant territory across the four songs. ‘Bad For The Bad Guy’ represents a change of pace after the charged frustration of ‘Two Feet Tall’, progressing with a real alt country spirit that unfolds with all the languid rhythm of a lazy summer afternoon, while ‘Take Me Out of Here’ switches things up further, the tempo remaining downbeat but the country sensibilities switched out for a dose of woozy longing. But it is closer ‘Gold Rush’ that is perhaps the stand-out track. An embodiment of the introspective style that makes up the release, delivered with equal parts confidence and feeling.

Safe Then Sorry is out now via Audio Antihero and you can get it from the Ciao Malz Bandcamp page.

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“As inventive as it is relaxed, the whole thing buoyed by a sense of patience and curiosity as it explores whatever avenue seems appropriate.” So we wrote of Open Door Policy, the recent release by Brooklyn songwriter Alexei Shishkin, back in June. If the album typified Shishkin’s sense of invention, then it is fitting that new release Greenwich Mean EP is something different altogether. A collection of jazz-adjacent (mostly) instrumentals which takes the patience and curiosity of ODP and applies them in another manner. Only opener and title track ‘Greenwich Mean’ has vocals. The portal through which listeners are invited into the album. The abstract lyrics might sound foreboding on first listen, but take the time to listen and you come to realise there’s no substance behind the mood. As though Shiskin is working to prove how even the most nonsensical strings of words might come to take on a certain feel if presented with a particular soundscape.

Casper Skulls – Spindletop

New single ‘Spindletop’ represents something of a fresh start for indie rock band Casper Skulls. It is the first taste of the band in their new three-piece setup, and also sees guitarist Neil Bednis take on vocal duties for the first time since the band’s debut record. The song explores the Texas oil boom of the early 20th Century, and Bednis describes how he “tried to capture the ominous atmosphere and avarice” of Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood while writing it. In contrast, the music video is a lighthearted one, what guitarist and vocalist Melanie St-Pierre calls “a funny lil take on me being annoying and late to jam,” following her journey to band practice through the local Sudbury scene, amp in tow.

‘Spindletop’ is out now and available from the Casper Skulls Bandcamp page.

Casual Technicians – This Emotion

Catching “the ache and yearn of a lonesome night under the stars” as we described in a preview, single ‘Midnight Moon’ by Casual Technicians introduced their new album, Deeply Unworthy on Repeating Cloud. The record “sees the three songwriters cross the beams of their creativity once more and embrace the loveable strangeness of the result,” we continued, with everything from Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch to Smile-era Beach Boys and Steely Dan listed as influences. With the album now out, the trio have shared single ‘This Emotion’, the album’s closing track which at least partially turns away from the overtly western sensibilities of the previous songs but lacks none of the heartfelt reflection or idiosyncratic charm.

Ciao Malz – Two Feet Tall

Having caught the attention of Audio Antihero with a cover of Frog’s ‘You Know I’m Down‘, Connecticut-born, Brooklyn-based Filipino-American Ciao Malz (Malia DelaCruz) is teaming up with the label to release their debut EP, Safe Then Sorry. The Ciao Malz sound pairs equal parts upbeat energy and probing introspection to explore themes of identity and love in young life. “These stories and characters came to me subconsciously and asked to be spoken into existence,” DelaCruz explains. “These songs are about the unlikely connections we make, how they’re simultaneously inexplicable and meaningful.” Lead single ‘Two Feet Tall’ introduces the project to the uninitiated, embodying the release’s unguarded nature with lush textures and a binding sense of forward motion.

I’ve been feeling two, two feet tall
I’ve already heard, heard it all
I’ve been meaning to, call your bluff
But I can never tell, quite tell you stuff

Clover County – Under These Conditions

Growing up in Florida and now based in Athens, Georgia, Clover County is a songwriter inspired by the greats in the genre—from Stevie Nicks and Carol King to Ella Fitzgerald and Dolly Parton. With new EP Porch Lights out now via Thirty Tigers, new single ‘Under These Conditions’ introduces the artist as a continuation of this lineage, with vulnerability and strength marbling into something as assured as it is heartfelt. “[The single] was the ‘kick-in-the-ass-come-to-Jesus’ talk I needed to have with myself,” she explains. “A reminder not to sacrifice the life I wanted while people pleasing the generational expectations placed on me by the town I was living in, the church I grew up in, or the people I was raised by.”

Porch Lights is out now via Thirty Tigers and available from the usual places.

Grandmas House – Screw It Up

Following last year’s EP Who I Am, which garnered attention from all corners with its anarchic energy, Bristol post-punks Grandmas House are back with new single, ‘Screw It Up’. The band say the song is about “having to walk on eggshells in a relationship and feeling like you have to keep you emotions bottled up in order to be liked,” but there’s nothing held back in the sound that twitches and snarls with furious frustration. It’s a loud one, even from a band who have made a name for it, moody guitars and stomping percussion jostle for space behind brash and cathartic vocals. Watch the video by the band themselves below:

‘Screw It Up’ is out now via streaming services.

mary in the junkyard – this is my california

Back in May, London group mary in the junkyard released their debut EP, this old house, to much fanfare and critical acclaim. The record’s unique style of experimental rock and unsettling visual imagery saw the trio’s (that’s Clari Freeman-Taylor, Saya Barbaglia and David Addison) reputation skyrocket. Now the band have returned with a new single, ‘this is my california’. What Freeman-Taylor describes as “a nostalgic song about finding my own dreams,” the song dials back the unpredictability and intensity that made the EP so startling, opting instead for a laidback vibe that lands somewhere between Sun June’s twilit dreamy grooves and the knotty emotion of Big Thief.

naya mö – wanderlust

Recorded in Baltimore with help from Bartees Strange, ‘wanderlust’ is the new single from French alternative artist naya mö. The song draws on the grunge and alt-pop of the nineties and the soaring indie rock of the mid 00s, resulting in something that sparkles with possibility despite being coated in gritty fuzz and shadowy reverb. “The lyrics explore the bittersweet journey of longing and letting go,” naya mö describes. “It captures the feeling of being caught in a loop of memories while hoping to find a way forward.” With a new EP scheduled for release early in 2025, the single marks mö as an artist to keep an eye on moving into 2025 and beyond.

‘wanderlust’ is out now via streaming services.

Niall Summerton – No One

When we last featured Yorkshire artist Niall Summerton back in September, we mentioned he had a new EP, Tread Water, on the way via Tiny Library Records. The title track represented both “an ode to friendship and an antidote to our busy world,” we wrote, “brought to life by the patient guitar and soothing delivery, a spacious arrangement which allows the surrounding world to bleeds into the gaps.” Latest single ‘No One’ is no less unhurried in style, though here the languid rhythm brings to life a different shade of character. An almost slacker-style sound which lands somewhere between downbeat lethargy and calming respite. “No one’s coming in,” Summerton repeats to capture this mood, a statement which carries inherent loneliness but also a clear thread of relief.

Tread Water is out now on Tiny Library Records and available via streaming services.

Sunny War – Walking Contradiction

After releasing critically acclaimed record Anarchist Gospel in early 2023, Sunny War moved into her late father’s Chattanooga home and began obsessively working on new material save she slip back into the substance abuse that almost killed her in the past. These long hours of crafting elaborate demos allowed her to experiment, trading her acoustic guitar for an electric one. “I definitely wanted to make this album for a badass five-piece band,” she says of the resulting record, Armageddon In A Summer Dress, which comes out next year on New West Records. Our first glimpse of this new, louder direction is ‘Walking Contradiction’, a duet with Crass’s Steve Ignorant which brings elements of punk rock into her usual folk and Blues stylings, a blend which actually makes a lot of sense. As Sunny War explains “Folk used to be very anti-establishment. Pete Seeger, union songs, Woody Guthrie—that’s punk rock shit. It’s all about being an outsider.”

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