To keep the devil in me
From her big top, one-man show
A little slip, a little kiss
A little tumble, and a dive-
Head first into a tidal pool
much too shallow to survive

To celebrate the six month anniversary of GOOSE, Mol Sullivan has returned with a brand new video for the single ‘Cautiously’. Directed by Sullivan herself along with Josh Evert, the video pushes further into the emotional landscape of the track to bring to life the paradoxical sensations at the end of a relationship, where everything is at once too physical yet somehow intangible too. “The concept for the ‘Cautiously’ music video came about after experiencing a series of depressive freezes after a partner had moved out of the house,” Sullivan explains:

I realized while I stood motionless in my living room for what seemed like twenty minutes, that I had been suspended in several little vignettes around the house that day—locked in a stare, mind blank—while trying to put the pieces of my life back together. Some of these scenes are mid-action, attention taken away from whatever activity, caught in that state of being firmly planted while somehow slipping out of body.

GOOSE is out now and available from the Mol Sullivan Bandcamp page.

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Hailing from California and now based in Glasgow, Alvidrez is a composer and writer who works at the intersection of faith and defiance. Album Antiphon, coming next month on Memorials of Distinction, is built around their renunciation of American evangelicalism, its mix of folk, ambient and drone both reaching back into the past and presenting an epiphanic present. Lead single and opener ‘Hymn For The Corner’ is the perfect example, its rich yet hazy sound conjuring the softened fog of memory, yet its core holds the immediate sense of bright revelation. The old dogmas might have revealed themselves hollow, but Alvidrez is here to show wonder exists beyond the orthodox.

tired of heaven
tired of chemtrails
signing the papers
for a house in this dark land
no one could tell me
how to sing all my songs
it’s a hymn that will show me
that I’ve got it all wrong

Any Other – If I Don’t Care

Any Other, the recording project of Italian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Adele Altro, will release their third album stillness, stop: you have a right to remember later this month on 42 Records. Latest single ‘If I Don’t Care’ serves an encapsulation of their idiosyncratic sound. “This song is about me learning to let go of things that make me angry,” Altro explains, “both personal and societal stuff. It’s reasonable to be angry about inequalities, but at some point you need to distance yourself from that stuff just a little, otherwise it will impact your mental health in an even more negative way.” But anyone expecting a song full of calm wisdom couldn’t be more wrong, with Altro reaching this newfound understanding via a mixture of frustration, impatience and defiance, all bound together to reach an urgent, building catharsis. Watch the video below, produced by 42 Records and EDERA (Milan) and directed by Giulio Rasi, with art direction by Cecilia Grandi.

stillness, stop: you have a right to remember will be released on 26th January via 42 Records. Pre-order a copy from their webstore.

Astrid Sonne – Boost

Later this month, London-based Danish composer Astrid Sonne will release her third record, Great Doubt, via Copenhagen label Escho. For an artist who has made a name in experimental and ambient fields, the album represents something of an evolution, adding vocals and beats for the first time in a foray into the realms of arty pop and contemporary singer-songwriter styles. Latest single ‘Boost’ is one of the record’s instrumental tracks, but the beats are front and centre, charging things with an energy fitting of the title. “I made ‘Boost’ lying in my bed, it’s a quite energetic track coming from a not very energetic place,” Sonne describes. “There’s a sense of release to Boost and a feeling of not caring too much, which can be good sometimes when you need to seek out new settings.”

Fela Dakota – Pour Your Soul

Describing themselves as “a trapeze artist of the midnight-thoughts,” Fela Dakota is a singer-songwriter from Bath whose work smoulders with intensity. Released by Folk Boy Records, ‘Pour Your Soul’ is their debut single and a bold introduction indeed. Built on a minimal background that evokes a dark and cavernous void, Dakota’s vocals arise from this abyss with a combination of romantic grace and tortured fervour, swinging from a quivering whisper to a full-throated roar that lights up the negative space with incandescent feeling. The result is an arresting song that falls somewhere between lament-like hymn and desperate cry into the night.

‘Pour Your Soul’ is out now via Folk Boy Records.

Loic Moonmattress – Sleepless in Eugene

Released as part of the Sunseekers collective, ‘Sleepless in Eugene’ is the title track of a new three-song EP by Edmonton artist Loic Moonmattress. Effortlessly straddling ambient, hip hop and folk styles, the song blurs the line between personal intimacy and wide open space, channelling that strange nocturnal headspace where everything is at once immediate and reflective. Such a liminal space speaks to the themes of the song too, which finds its narrator in a kind of limbo—between youth and adulthood, love and loneliness, consciousness and dreams. “I finished [the track] alone in Whitby, Ontario and very far away from the places and people that inspired it,” Loic Moonmattress explains. “I think of it like a letter to those places, those people, and those times.”

Malachi Graham – Spare Me

With album Caretaker on the horizon, we’ve featured Portland, Oregon-based songwriter Malachi Graham several times in recent months, most recently with single ‘Wonderful Life‘. Another example of Graham’s willingness to delve into the uncomfortable corners of personal relationships to better illuminate the love and suffering therein. Latest track ‘Spare Me’ is no less affecting, a song described as a “relationship meditation and post-mortem” which rakes the coals of a toxic relationship to find both pain and complicity. The work of Malachi Graham doesn’t emerge from its investigations with simple findings or much by way of comfort, and feels all the more authentic as a result.

Middle Sattre – Hate Yourself to the Core

We’ve been anticipating Tendencies, the upcoming record from Austin-based outfit Middle Sattre ever since single ‘Pouring Water‘ had us making comparisons to Sufjan Stevens and Typhoon. Follow up ‘Stop Speaking‘ was no less evocative, with lead Hunter Prueger drawing on the experience of growing up queer in the Mormon church to castigate the cruelty of conservative voices. With the album set for release next month, Middle Sattre have returned with another single which challenges such poisonous influence. Namely, ‘Hate Yourself to the Core’ explores how no-one escapes from such an environment untouched, with pernicious views sinking into the subconscious no matter how differently you might feel. “I think a lot of people have a hard time understanding internalized homophobia,” Prueger explains. “There’s this idea that if you’re gay, then you can’t be homophobic. I wanted to write a song that very clearly lays it all out and explains how this can happen.”

Watch the video below, directed by Maya Lam with performance and choreography by Stephanie Shin:

Tendencies will be released on 9th February. Order it now from the Middle Sattre Bandcamp page.

Mol Sullivan – Goose

We previewed GOOSE, the forthcoming debut full-length album by Mol Sullivan back in November, with ‘Still Tryin’, introducing an exploration of a nascent sobriety. “[The single] uses a hushed, bruised style to welcome the listener into a raw period of life,” as we wrote, “but there’s a glimmer of something else too, a newfound freedom to move towards some better future. Set deep in those early days of a new beginning where everything feels possible yet tenuous and a little too vivid to bear.” With the record out later this month, Sullivan has returned with the title track to not only further develop the themes of personal introspection but introduce the spirit guardian that lends the album its name. It starts bright and folky, but soon slides into tricky complexity, emotions captured perfectly with the tense and idiosyncratic chamber pop instrumentation.

Am I a swan or just a goose
I’d bet the latter, grab my purse
it’s not so difficult a choice
between a joker and a fool
without giving them a voice
do you want an ocean or a pool?

Watch the video by Andrew Spohn below:

GOOSE is out on the 26th January and you can pre-order it now.

Sailor Honeymoon – Bad Apple

After winning comparisons to The Ramones, Kim Gordon and Bikini Kill with debut single ‘Cockroach’, South Korean punk trio Sailor Honeymoon have returned with new track ‘Bad Apple’. The song is the first teaser of a debut EP pencilled for release in the spring on Seoul and London-based label Good Good 굿굿. The band’s entire ethos revolves spontaneity and freedom, offering a sense of ragged, fun abandon as the perfect antidote to the dominant force of K-pop and the pristine polish it champions. ‘Bad Apple’ is an ideal entry point for the uninitiated. A raucous song which stares down a bigoted ‘friend’ without so much as a flinch. Watch the video directed by Kim Taeyoung below:

‘Bad Apple’ is out now via streaming services.

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“Why’s it gotta be so hard?” asks the fitting refrain of first single ‘Eggshells’, though the question refers to more than personal struggle. Namely, the process of maintaining relationships through difficulties and dramas, offering enough of oneself without succumbing to emotional injury too. Mol Sullivan broaches the subject with unerring honesty, but also a certain humour, appropriate for a situation that means so much yet is marked by a certain absurdity.

Now Mol Sullivan has returned with ‘Still Tryin’, the album’s opening track and the one which grounds its themes. The first song written after the break-up which would eventually precipitate an effort towards sobriety, it uses a hushed, bruised style to welcome the listener into a raw period of life. But there’s a glimmer of something else too, a newfound freedom to move towards some better future. Set deep in those early days of a new beginning where everything feels possible yet tenuous and a little too vivid to bear. “It is a song that I still feel very deeply about, even some six years since I initially wrote it,” Sullivan describes. “It gives me hope.”

GOOSE is out on the 26th January 2024 and you can pre-order it from the Mol Sullivan Bandcamp page.

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Spoils rise from within this strange space, looking not so much to answer to the question as provide another outlier to an already crowded group. New EP Nothing For A Man, out on the 18th August via Happy Families, reaches across the decades in terms of influence. The nineties rear its head, with echoes of the punky power pop catchiness of that dog and some of their grungier contemporaries, though the sound could slot just as easily next to Soccer Mommy, Spirit of the Beehive or indeed any number of the current wave of indie rock and pop. “Mostly, our music is an answer to living in the Midwest,” explains lead Nina Payiati. “We love it here. The landscape of Ohio feels very lush, vast, closely integrated with nature and sky. The culture is pleasant, it feels rooted in history and community, our music is a part of that quilt.” Ultimately, “it’s Ohio style.”

Lead single ‘Come Closer’ gives a taste of the sound. A meditation of post-pandemic living which simmers and twitches and croons, its tone at once bummed out and strangely triumphant. As though in the aftermath of isolation, every bittersweet detail of the community takes on a new shine.

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Expect lots of sunny acoustic guitar and three-way vocal harmonies, something on full display on the two initial singles—piano-led opener ‘Rina’ and pastoral folk song ‘Babe’. Latest single ‘Harriet Ann’ follows suit, built from Dotson’s fingerpicked acoustic guitar, Schwab’s subtle slide guitar and vocals, led by Richards, that ache despite the song’s sweet nature. It sounds as good now as the day it was recorded, a testament to the band’s skill as songwriters and musicians. “I used to tell my son, ‘You can play all the hot licks, be the Eddie Van Halen of your neighborhood, but nothing will last as long as a good song,” the elder Schwab says, reflecting on the songs’ enduring nature. “We didn’t have the ability to properly record in 1975, but Ben reminded me that it’s the quality of the songs that matters, not the recording.”

The Lost Tapes will be released by Earth Libraries on 30^th June. Pre-order it now via Bandcamp.

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While fighting this battle, Mol Sullivan began to self-produce a record with the help of collaborator Alessandro Corona. After getting sober, the pair moved in together and Sullivan’s work began to change its focus. Taking inspiration from the likes of Fiona Apple and Regina Spektor, she swapped her guitar for a keyboard and began to experiment with her vocal range, testing its limits as a means to convey her emotions in the most radically candid way possible. And that’s where the magic happened. The new instrument and wildly untethered vocals (as Sullivan put its, she began to “howl a bit”) allowed her to process the pain of the previous years and finally purge these songs from her system.

Which isn’t to say these are difficult tracks to listen to. As we described in a preview last year, Mol Sullivan specialises in “earnest and unflinchingly intimate songs leavened with pop melodies and confident vocals,” and A Little Hello has plenty of bounce and sparkle to carry the emotion of its subject matter. The opening title track is a case in point, a lilting pop song with a stop-start whirligig energy that allows Sullivan to showcase her unique delivery and ear for the unexpected. The perky opening is undercut by the slow ache of the second half, which gradually gains momentum as if lofted twirling on a warm updraft.

Despite its sedately groovy surface, there’s a something of a tumultuous atmosphere on ‘Frontrunner’, as Sullivan reflects on a past relationship, the lyrics flitting around like persistent anxious thoughts as she asks “Was it a fling? Was it a front? / Was I a placeholder?” Conversely, ‘We Held Up the Sky’ has a velvety richness, unfurling with a slowness that could suggest romance or heartbreak, depending on the listener, while ‘Golden’ feels somehow both spacious and cozy, suffused with the vastness and intimacy of a summer sunset.

Another standout is the record’s second single ‘Bury the Hatchet’, which further encapsulates its blend of raw emotion and quirky irreverence. What Sullivan describes as “campy, moody, lush, and catchy (all at the same time),” the song is not quite as direct an earworm as the title track, beginning in ruminative fashion before building into a bracingly open examination of a dysfunctional relationship. “How can we bury the hatchet when you’re keepin’ it hidden?” Sullivan asks of an evasive partner in the opening lines. “How can we unearth the truth and still find room for forgivin’?”

But she still finds room for some cathartic fun too, with inventive melodies and even a genuine, capital-Y yeehaw. The music video, created by Sullivan with help from Joey Allen, Olivia Meade and Loren McNames, illustrates the atmosphere perfectly, the austere shots of the first scene morphing into something far sillier after an early twist. Check it out below:

The questions Mol Sullivan poses on ‘Bury the Hatchet’ get at something deep at the heart of the album. Prompts intended to instigate communication. An open-hearted sharing of the fears, quirks and mistakes we all possess. All in the hope the act of posing these questions might better equip herself for the whatever lies ahead, and furthermore offer some hard-won knowledge to others to encourage mutual support. As we described of closing track ‘Deep End Dive’ in a preview, A Little Hello “is the sound of a clear mind piercing the storm clouds of the past and allowing more positive progress into the future.”

A Little Hello is out on 3rd February via Ruination Record Co. Order it now from the Mol Sullivan Bandcamp page.

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As well as being a part of Friendship and 2nd Grade, JR Samuels has a made a name with his experimental, improvised releases, as captured by 2019’s In Brend on Dear Life Records. “An eight-song album of improvised guitar that exists for no purpose beyond enjoyment and intuition,” as we put it. “Ambitions are dropped, artistic ideals and intent left behind, the songs allowed to flow.” Out next month on Lily Tapes & Discs, Spasm sees Samuels push further into this intuitive space, delving deep within himself and presenting whatever he finds, unfiltered and in real-time. What emerges is an at times dense, undeniably strange record, though one somehow more human for its refusal to shape itself for mass consumption. Listen to the short single, ‘Wearing a Groove’, below.

KT Laine – Again

Drawing inspiration from contemporaries like Big Thief and classics such as Judee Sill, KT Laine is a songwriter from Victoria, BC who is soon to release her debut full-length Knock Knee on Victory Pool. New single ‘Again’ is the perfect introduction to the nuance of her work, its warm fondness complicated by uncertainty, lending the track an inscrutable air which never quite reveals its hand. ‘Again’ centres on a relationship in some kind of turmoil, its pieces pushing apart, though it is never quite clear if the longing at the track’s heart wants to reconnect these parts or sever the ties for good.

‘Again’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Langkamer – Total Motion

We last featured Bristol‘s Langkamer back in May, when we wrote about their single ‘Soul Bucket’, what we described as “a bit of folk, a bit of indie rock, a ton of playful personality.” Now Langkamer have announced a brand new EP on Breakfast Records. Titled Red Thread Route, the record promises to expand on the band’s signature combination of slacker era indie rock and easy country-influenced melodies, albeit with a few surprises up its sleeve. Lead single ‘Total Motion’ is a great introduction, its twisty, loud-quiet dynamic giving way to an anthemic singalong chorus. Willie J Healey provides guest vocals, one of several guests of the EP seemingly cherrypicked from Bristol’s music scene. Check out the video by JJ Jarman and Jimmy Taylor below:

Red Thread Route comes out on 30th November via Breakfast Records. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Leggy – Lipstick on the Mic

We first covered Cincinnati‘s Leggy back in 2019, describing how the innate tension of single ‘Taffy‘ offered “a tautness that always appears on the verge of snapping.” While the rambunctious punk rock style of that track has been swapped out in favour of something more languid on new single, ‘Lipstick on the Mic’, the sense of building pressure remains. This time a sensuous combination of desire and frustration, the song sitting on the knife edge of pleasure and pain yet wrapped within a hazy shawl. A sense of remove which allows a view into the paradox of the situation even as it plays out. “I love to be alone,” as the chorus puts it, “why do I live to be in love?” Check out the suitably sultry and surreal video by Twenty Twenty Productions below:

‘Lipstick on the Mic’ is out now and available from the Leggy Bandcamp page.

Levi Thomas – Shasta

The title track of the third album from Oakland‘s Levi Thomas, ‘Shasta’ is a song seized by the sublime scale of the American West. “The neons fade / To the pink cascade / And right now I can’t feel a thing,” Thomas sings. “The sun don’t rise / Under wild skies / All the shit just starts to shine.” The revelatory experience is captured with a decidedly seventies style, equal parts classic country and cosmic psych which invites the listener into the moment, never losing control of its relaxed rhythms despite everything.

My mind left my body north on the five
And I feel like the last man alive

Macie Stewart – Defeat

Released on Orindal back in 2021, Macie Stewart‘s Mouth Full of Glass was a journey in solo creation after a career of collaboration. The sound of “an artist surveying their own inner workings through considered and open-ended exploration,” as we put it. “Leaning into solitude as a medium of discovery and learning from all that has occurred before without ever becoming beholden to the past.” The album is getting a new release next month via Full Time Hobby, and has been expanded to include two new singles. One of the tracks, ‘Defeat’, is a direct confrontation of the stresses of working with others, warning of the dangers of overcommitting and how it can end up withering the very creativity is should foster. Stewart takes on all the instrumentation on the song, with the exception of flutes from V.V. Lightbody, and sings with the calm of a lesson learnt. “Composing a word to take back the meaning,” she sings, “I promised my best and that’s not what I’m giving.” Watch the video directed and edited by Sid Branca below:

‘Defeat’ is out now and available from Bandcamp., and the expanded edition of Mouth Full of Glass is available from Full Time Hobby.

Michael Cormier O’Leary – Heard From The Next Room

To describe the work of Michael Cormier O’Leary takes some time. From the playful warmth of last year’s solo album More Light!! to the almost fragile intricacy of Hour, not to mention his work in Friendship, Cormier O’Leary spans the full spectrum between free and controlled. Out next month of Lily Tapes & Discs, new solo release Heard From The Next Room moves completely toward the former, an exploratory, spontaneous collection of improvised piano compositions recorded on a single day earlier this year. The resulting two pieces live up to the release’s title in their unguarded charm, following the haphazard rhythms of the moment without any sense of outside audience, and thereby capturing an easy comfort only possible at home. Hear an excerpt from the first below:

Volunteer Department – Swell

Back in September we wrote about ‘Make It Easy‘ by Nashville‘s Volunteer Department, the first track from a forthcoming release on Like You Mean It Records. A scathing track with vocals “barely more than a whisper,” we wrote, “almost unpalatably bitter in [its] acerbic tone.” Latest single ‘Swell’ might possess a brighter rhythm, but thanks to the wry and fatalistic songwriting, the sour tone remains. “I’ll cut my fingers off and mail them to France,” sings Oliver Hopkins, “at least then some small part of me won’t be stuck here arguing the ins and outs of something which has no shape.”

Wayne Graham – How Was Your Night?

With new album ISH on the horizon via K&F Records, Wayne Graham have shared one last single as a final taster of what to expect before release. Primarily the project of brothers Kenny and Hayden Miles, the Whitesburg, Kentucky outfit wrote a new album in the years since previous record 1% Fruit, though decided to change course for what would eventually become ISH. What emerged was something more intimate and ambitious, drawing on science, fiction and scripture to search for meaning in this strange world. ‘How Was Your Night?’ not only opens the album but poses the question which hangs over everything which follows.

Don’t you know I’m not alright?
Can’t you taste my mind?
Just trying to make it through the night,
no reason and no rhyme

ISH is out on the 11th November via K&F Records.

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“I tend to get lost in nostalgia—fixated on the past, out-of-touch with the present, uninterested in the future,” explains Balto lead Daniel Sheron. The Californian outfit’s latest single ‘Spanish Wine’ confronts this habit head on, albeit with digressions toward trysts in laundromats, conga lines in Cuba and the ghost of an imagined future with no distinction between state and civil society. “I wrote this song in the height of the pandemic as a rejection of that concept,” Sheron continues. “I needed a reminder that the past is an illusion—it doesn’t exist anymore!”

Big Joanie – In My Arms

London punk trio Big Joanie return later this year with new album Gone Home on Kill Rock Stars and the Daydream Library Series from Ecstatic Peace Library. A record which promises to examine the concept of home in all of its variety, be it where we’ve come from, where we’re going, or some imagined place we work towards and dream about. Single ‘In My Arms’ combines these elements of past and future, reflecting on fond memories as a way to instigate a desired future. Check out the video directed by Lydia Garnett below:

Back Home is out via Kill Rock Stars and Ecstatic Peace Library on the 4th November and you can pre-order it now.

Butch Wifey – Eighteen

Based in Boise, Idaho, Butch Wifey is the recording project of Chloe Ponder, who makes indie pop songs she says “aim to dredge up the uncomfortable feelings associated with queer relationships.” Her latest single ‘Eighteen’ draws upon two periods of anxiety faced several years apart. The first was leaving home for the first time at eighteen, and the second was early-twenties romantic troubles, both of which elicited a similar sense of unease and confusion. But for all the discomfort of the subject matter, the single is ostensibly a slick and summery pop song, Ponder’s vocals providing a nostalgic and wistful edge.

Canary – i used to write you love songs

If there seems to be something of a paradox at work on ‘i used to write you love songs’, the latest single from Pennsylvania‘s Canary, then it’s one which depends on the definition of a love song. Because though the track has all of the tenderness and contemplation of a classic love song, it doesn’t take long for the track to reveal its fangs. By the time Zach Dennis’s guitar goes spiralling and Kat Leverenz sings the titular refrain, it becomes clear this isn’t a love song at all, at least not in the usual sense. What begins soft and sedate blooms into a heavy and dynamic exploration of heartbreak and betrayal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1MYacMeP9s&ab_channel=Canary

‘i used to write you love songs’ is out now and available on streaming services.

Couch Prints – All I Know

Described as “centred around the American car crash,” New York-based Couch Prints’ forthcoming mixtape Waterfall looks to capture the contemporary moment. The project of Jayanna Roberts, Brandon Tong, and Jacob Truax, Couch Prints make synth pop that’s equal parts danceable and introspective, and latest single ‘All I Know’ represents perhaps their furthest foray into the latter aspect of their sound. The song is “a simple expression of the unease caused by the boundless media and content of the modern world,” say the band, “an ode to ignorance is bliss”. Sonically it feels like a balm for this sensory overload, stripping back the dance elements to leave a gently spacious song built on gentle guitar and Roberts’ soft vocals.

dani mack – fleabag

We first featured dani mack, the project of Baylee Barrett, back in April when we covered her single ‘Someday’, released via LA label Future Gods. We called it “bright and disarmingly straightforward…weav[ing] a careful balance between strength and vulnerability.” Now Barrett returns with a new single, ‘fleabag’, a taut and irreverent pop song about trying to let go of residual shame. “In simplest terms, which most can relate to, it’s a nod to dating and how terrible it is,” Barrett explains. “[But] on a deeper level, it’s a song about my own sexual repression and my difficulties with casual relationships. I grew up a devout Christian and letting go of the guilt that was instilled in me from such a young age is still something I still struggle with. There’s still a little part of me that’s afraid that come judgment day.”

‘fleabag’ is available now via streaming services.

Fusilier – No Words

Fusilier is the project of Atlanta-born, Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist Blake Fusilier. Later this month he will release a new EP, Treason, which promises to explore themes of selfhood, alienation and belonging in a style that draws on a diversity of influences, from Bill Withers and Fela Kuti to TV on the Radio and Nine Inch Nails. But as lead single ‘No Words’ shows, the result is something wholly his own, sleek and sinuous yet charged with a desire to make meaningful change. Namely through a reframing of the self within a wider picture, reaffirming one’s own ability to define themselves beyond whatever outside forces might think or want them to be. As Fusilier puts it, the song is about “letting go of the thought that I’m not the main character in my own story.”

Maya Lucia – numb or something

‘numb or something’ is the latest single by indie rock artist Maya Lucia, who makes angsty and exuberant songs that allow her to vent her emotions in the healthiest way possible. Taken from a forthcoming album, miss girl world, the song is a great introduction for newcomers, a stormy and infectious pop song that’s noisy enough to purge any lingering frustrations. “This is the song you scream in your room after a long day,” Lucia describes. “It’s melodrama at its core — the feeling of the world ending only to realize you’re crying over nothing.”

You wouldn’t care if I went and disappeared
You wouldn’t care if I drowned myself in tears

miss girl world comes out on August 19th and you can preorder it from the Maya Lucia Bandcamp page.

 Mol Sullivan – Deep End Dive

Cincinnati‘s Mol Sullivan has made a name over the last decade making earnest and unflinchingly intimate songs leavened with pop melodies and confident vocals. Latest single ‘Deep End Dive’ is described as “a reflection of a regretful approach to a loved one,” and combines difficult soul searching with feelings of growth and hope. Born of Sullivan’s recent sobriety, the track displays a genuine sense of self-reflection and reconciliation, a clear mind piercing the storm clouds of the past and allowing more positive progress into the future.

‘Deep End Dive’ is out now and available from the Mol Sullivan Bandcamp page.

Prudence – Waste Some Time

The recording project of Sydney‘s Tom Crandles, Prudence makes what we’ve described previously as “human traits wrapped up in a gloominess as grey and chilly as the Cold War-era of the post-punk and new wave it references, revealed only in the intermittent illuminations made so prominent by the twilit tones.” New album Negatives looks to continue the aesthetic, a fitting soundtrack for the troubled world in which it was created. Lead single ‘Waste Some Time’ introduces the shadowy and conflicted atmosphere, a lean and linear pop song that’s all sinew and forward motion, forgoing the repetition of the conventional verse-chorus structure.

Negatives is out on 26th August and you can pre-order it now from the Prudence Bandcamp page.

Snake Lips – Braindead II

After a series of releases on Repeating Cloud and Totally Real Records, Portland, Maine’s Snake Lips have unveiled brand new record Happy Anxious. The title feels like the perfect fit for their hectic sound, lead Cody Mitchell’s vocals delivered with both volatility and wry humour, as though strung out between hope and despair and choosing to ride the instability. Single ‘Braindead II’ sets the mood, its lo-fi punk style barrelling along with real pace as Mitchell shouts, shrieks and smirks about the hand life has dealt him.

Zack Keim – Canyon

Pittsburgh singer-songwriter Zack Keim cut his teeth in music from an early age, forming bands from his early teens and touring as the frontperson of punk outfit Nox Boys when only sixteen. But, despite the band’s success, his creativity wasn’t satisfied, turning to solo work as a new outlet with the 2017 album First Step. New single ‘Canyon’ represents Keim’s first solo work since, emerging from some major life changes as well as the usual global turmoil with a newfound freshness and confidence. A bright-eyed refusal to back down from his passions and will to create, and perhaps the first time he has really started to develop his artistic voice.

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The record comes from a lived history. A gradual understanding that words are never enough. Career changes, failed attempts at grad school, SSRIs then no SSRIs. Different homes, different communities, different years. A “spiritual crisis” which led to a silent retreat, from which Miller emerged to find “any word she uttered seemed to fall short” and with a new understanding of music. “Every song came from a place of great surrender,” she says. Giving oneself up to whatever exists beyond the surface of things, and thus working within a space which feels both removed from reality and, paradoxically, somehow like reality distilled.

You might think of lead single ‘Parallel Place’ as an introduction to this space. The drifting synths and driving beat evoking the hauntological branch of UK dubstep, Miller’s vocals at once wispy and plainspoken, their soft and seemingly abstract style hiding blunt questions, the tone never too far from flesh and blood. “This is a parallel place,” she sings, “the spiral of time, a line on the face / or was it just a way to get to first base?”

Cover photo by Vy Pham

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The follow up to 2017’s Seen + Unseen, Soften have just released a new EP which sees them perfect this formula. Titled Soften Forever, the record is intended as a statement of solidarity, created after the band survived what they describe as “a year of bad breaks, break ups and turmoil writ large.”

‘Undo’ opens with a messy squall of feedback and battered drums, but soon settles into the current that directs the EP’s flow, a beguiling rhythm that makes even the harshest moments oddly accessible. The song confronts many of the album’s key themes immediately, haunted by a sense of fragmenting relationships and personal anguish. But nevertheless, it somehow manages to remain composed and empowered. “I wish I knew now what I knew back then,” Kelly sings, equal parts wistful and accepting, “and I wish I knew then what I know now.”

The record’s centre-point in more ways than one, ‘Sun Comes Out’ is an emotive slow build, wrapped in a hazy murk, that explores the shadows that loom over us, that come creeping up even when everything seems okay.

when the sun comes out
when I stand on solid ground
make some meaning in the clouds
well it starts slipping like a rock
out from under my feet
crashing like a landslide into the sea

Puncturing the gauzy bubble, ‘Iridescent’ is more direct and immediate, rich and velvety shoegaze that nevertheless maintains the emotional core of the Soften Forever. “But I can’t, I can’t keep you for myself,” Kelly sings in what might be the most romantic break-up song of the year, “no I can’t, I can’t keep you at all.”

A +7 minute epic, closer ‘Forever, Completely’ ends with the EP’s most nakedly earnest moment, beginning wrapped in smoky negative space before growing into first an affecting shoegaze-pop song and then great swells of indie rock noise. It’s a great illustration of the range Soften cover on Soften Forever, and testament to their ability to make music that is at once vaporous and powerfully physical.

Soften Forever is out now and you can get it from the Soften Bandcamp page.

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