We’ve long followed the work of Hamilton’s Basement Revolver, most recently in 2022 with the full-length Embody, which used the band’s signature weight and compassion “to confront the intricacies of modern life with a newfound steel and depth.” This usually involves complicated themes of identity and faith, though latest single ‘Red Light’ offers a picture of a far more specific problem of modern living—the infuriating experience of getting a red light ticket that costs far more than a pay check. But through a blend of pummelling energy, dreamy textures and Chrisy Hurn’s earnest vocals, the song becomes a wider meditation on the inevitable costs of pursuing one’s dreams, and how society can appear to be constructed in opposition to anyone looking to pursue creative ideals.

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

Casual Technicians – Homecoming

Following last year’s Four Corners EP, Portland-centred but now geographically separated indie rock band Casual Technicians have announced their debut full-length record. Self-titled and comprising of 19 tracks, it promises to be a comprehensive introduction to the band’s style, what we described previously as “[a] playful sound that’s not only willing to experiment between genres but to meld them together seamlessly.” Following the oddball lo-fi pop of lead single ‘Lucy in the Dark’, Casual Technicians have now released a second song from the record, ‘Homecoming’. It’s just as strange, but in a different way, possessing a homebrew folk style that centres around the signature deadpan delivery.

clay pigeon – Dark Blue

The new recording project of Canadian songwriter James Clayton, clay pigeon makes songs that combine a laidback, listenable quality with impressive emotional depth. In July, he will release The Aching Taste of Blue, his debut full-length recorded at Hotel2Tango in Montreal with acclaimed engineer Howard Bilerman. In anticipation, he has released lead single ‘Dark Blue’, a song that acts as the perfect calling card for what clay pigeon is all about. “’Dark Blue’ was one of the first songs I wrote for the project and in hindsight, it set the canvas for the rest of the record,” Clayton describes. “The fingerpicking pattern melted the beginning and end of the phrase together and everything became very meditative, yet unresolved, as if to ask a question. Is everything okay?”

Daniel Brouns – Lizard Killer

Described as a concept album about first experiences, Stock Music For The Cosmos sees songwriter Daniel Brouns condense his life into nine seminal moments—including brushes with love, death, pornography. With the album coming this May on Anxiety Blanket Records, Brouns has unveiled single ‘Lizard Killer’. As the title suggests, the song presents an encounter with loss in the form of a class pet, Brouns describing the experience of finding the lizard dead in its cage with the flat, near-spoken despondency of David Bazan. Indeed, the latest Pedro The Lion albums are a good touchstone for the Daniel Brouns sound, where the past is presented as a kind of duality between fond nostalgia and bitter regret. Watch the video by Dalton Pate below:

Stock Music For The Cosmos is out on the 17th May 17th via Anxiety Blanket Records.

DD Island – Runnin’

Originating as a solo project in Nashville, DD Island moved to New York in 2021, where lead Brandon Rhodes recruited an assortment of friends and accomplices to build a fresh line-up capable of bringing a new era of the project to life. Rhodes used live shows as the nursery for this version of the band, so its fitting that the new DD Island EP Runnin’ was recorded live to embrace this spirit. But as the lead single and title track confirms, this immediacy does not preclude a sense of intention, the band tapping into an easy-going rhythm to support the wistful lyrics and warm sound to create something as heartfelt as it is fun.

Runnin’ is out now and available from the usual places.

MVSO – Heaven

An exploration of the “universal themes of life, death and the passing of time through a decidedly personal lens.” That’s how we’ve previously described the work of MVSO (AKA duo Mat Vairo and Saumon Oboudiyat), singing the praises of both ‘Hold Clear’ and ‘Passing Through‘. With the release of EP Proprioception fast approaching, new single ‘Heaven’ follows suit with another sparsely evocative sound, marbling intimate tenderness and haunting space to form something airy yet loaded with unseen weight. The song was inspired by the 2019 film The Specials (originally Hors normes) directed by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, which tells the true story of two men who train underprivileged youth to care for young people with autism. It serves as a testament to the compassionate potential of people in a world which can seem determined to prove the opposite.

Oscilla – Tongue-Tied

Back in December, we featured Oscilla, the project of San Francisco‘s Frances England, describing how the quiet sincerity of single ‘Tornado’ “functions something like a plea in the face of elemental danger. An attempt to will oneself onto surer ground.” The song was the first from a forthcoming EP called Drink Up the Sun, which is due for release later in the Spring. Now Oscilla have unveiled the record’s second single, ‘Tongue-Tied’, a nostalgic indie pop song with the warm and oversaturated tones of a photograph from an old summer vacation. England creates this sound with the help of producer Omar Akrouche (who also plays in LA art pop band Worthitpurchase), elevating what would be a pretty and melodic song into something thick with the sweet and hazy poignance of long summertime days.

July, cherry juice stains on your chin and fingers
Sweet grass almost knee high
Rolling down the windows past the field and pine trees
Power lines flash by

Razor Braids – It Goes Quiet

Back in November we introduced Brooklyn-based outfit Razor Braids with single ‘She’. A song which typified both the band’s nineties rock aesthetic and the spirit at the heart of their work, “willingly shaking itself from past desires in order to find new hope and joy in desires as of yet unrealised.” The track was taken from upcoming full-length Big Wave, and new single ‘It Goes Quiet’ offers another glimpse at the album’s bittersweet mood. Hesitant uncertainty and cathartic motion collide on the same song, encapsulating an album that promises to explore not only love but the constant process of growth and change which accompanies it.

 Roselove – Marionette

‘Marionette’ is the latest single from Roselove, a musician, photographer, visual artist and writer based between New York and Philadelphia. Taking equal parts London indie sleaze pop and Philly shoegaze, the song draws on personal experience of the difficulty living and working as transgender woman in creative industries to explore loneliness more generally. But while the track comes with an understandable degree of frustration and longing, it is far more than such emotions. Rather, it offers a voice of empathy and solidarity to every person suffering within this contemporary epidemic, as well as a steely intensity to face down those who reinforce the conditions which allow it to fester.

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Tender, the debut solo album by Colorado’s Allison Lorenzen on Whited Sepulchre Records was marked by “a transience which feels deeply compassionate,” as we described in our review. “Hope manifest as an understanding of the potential for change.” Follow-up single ‘The Fourth Cycle‘ continued this examination of change, detailing the gamut of emotional states involved with any upheaval, and latest track ‘MTO’ feels like the next step along the process. Described as sounding like a “final climax of a Mark Fisher-influenced hauntological prom scene,” the song looks to recognise the repeating patterns of the past so that Lorenzen might heal and move forward.

Bad Tiger – Enough

Last year, we described how Bad Tiger’s 2020 album The Goat and the Bad Tiger was “far from being the full realisation of [Yasi] Lowy’s goals,” but instead “merely opened the doors to new possibilities.” The San Francisco outfit are back with ‘Enough’, a new single which focuses on the precariousness of the present moment. With Lowy’s tender and confessional vocals, the track paints a vulnerable, open-hearted mood which longs for certainty within the painful fervour of love.

City Dress – Empires of Honey

“Music is for everyone who spent their childhoods obsessively reading the lyrics to their favorite songs.” That’s how Brooklyn‘s Christina Skramstad describes her folk pop project City Dress. Together with guitarist Johnny Simon Jr. (Wilsen), she writes lush and literary folk songs, which we last featured back in 2020. Fast forward a few years and City Dress is back with a new single, ‘Empires of Honey’, a rhythmic and resolute exploration of the self-deception involved in ego and boundless ambition. “The song is about standing at a crossroads and making decisions you imagine will bring you joy and contentment,” Skramstad describes, “but realizing that sometimes your wants and needs are misaligned.”

‘Empire of Honey is out now via streaming services.

clay pigeon – Come Down

Having released an EP and album under his own name, Montreal-based songwriter James Clayton has now adopted the moniker clay pigeon for his new material. Clayton recently recorded the project’s debut album at Hotel2Tango with Howard Bilerman and Shae Brossard, and debut single ‘Come Down’ gives a glimpse into what to expect. A simmering blend of shadow and rhythm, where the understated mood grows taut as it progresses, threatening to snap into an all-out crescendo but never quite breaking its controlled progress.

Lael Neale – White T-Shirt

Following the release of her sophomore record Star Eaters Delight back in the spring, LA’s Lael Neale has released standalone single ‘White T-Shirt’, a take on one of her older songs that didn’t quite fit on the album. As producer Guy Blakeslee describes, “White T-Shirt’ dates back a number of years to when I used to follow Lael around LA to all of her barely publicized performances. The song never ceased to silence the chatter in the room…it’s a raw gem that stands alone and cuts through the noise” Blakeslee is not wrong. Clocking in at under two minutes, ‘White T-Shirt’ has an almost uncanny timeless quality, stripped back to guitar and Neale’s distinctive vocals

‘White T-Shirt’ is out now via Sub Pop and available via the Lael Neale Bandcamp page.

Left Tracks – Strawberry Moon

LA‘s Kabir Kumar (AKA Sun Kin) and Oakland‘s Phil Di Leo (DI LEO) first met in 2016, though it is only now they’ve decided to combine their skills. Enter Left Tracks, a brand new project that sees Kumar and Di Leo use all of their skills as composers, vocalists and multi-instrumentalists to imagine a new future in the wake of COVID and the adjacent catastrophes. What emerged was End Times Hauling, an EP which sits on the precipice of disaster but makes a decision to envisage a different world, working on the logic that no significant change can occur without first rekindling a sense of imagination. Opening track and single ‘Strawberry Moon’ introduces the left-field folk-inflected pop sound, as well as the compassion and collaboration which marks the release.

Nina Keith – Blow Up Yr Life (U Need To)

LA-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Nina Keith first caught attention in 2019 with MARANASATI 19111, an LP which decorated piano arrangements with a whole host of flourishes from flute to field recordings to better explore ideas of memory and death. With a tour opening for Youth Lagoon fast approaching, Keith has returned with ‘Blow Up Yr Life’, a single featuring Barrie and Qur’an Shaheed which again combines classical and contemporary styles to urge its audience to break from from their circumstances and live on their own terms. “Lately the more I wear the turmoil of my life on my sleeve the more often I find myself in conversations with strangers and loved ones that reach a similar end,” as Keith explains. “I can never be the one to tell someone to burn it down and start over. They see the ash stains on my shirt and ask to borrow a match so they can play with it, save it for later, but sometimes it’s like ‘girl, the house is already on fire, you can’t stay in there’.” Check out the visualizer by Nik Arthur below:

‘Blow Up Yr Life (U Need To)’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Ratboys – The Window

Later this summer, Chicago indie rockers Ratboys return with The Window, a brand new record via Topshelf Records. Having already released two singles – the epic ‘Black Earth, WI’ and expressive ‘It’s Alive’ – they have now unveiled the title track, an uber-personal song that forms the record’s emotional centre point. “I wrote that song a few days after the death of my grandma” explains lead Julia Steiner. “She didn’t have Covid, but because of the pandemic my grandpa wasn’t able to visit her in person at the nursing home to say goodbye. He ended up standing outside her room and saying goodbye through an open window.” It starts quiet and sober, but this is not your standard sad song. It soon kicks up a gear, becoming a country-tinged rock song that displays the Ratboys knack for combining tenderness with raucous noisy energy. Watch the John TerEick-directed widescreen video below:

The Window will be released on 25th August. Pre-order a copy from the Ratboys Bandcamp page.

Upper Narrows – Tinker’s Darn

Based in Portland, Maine, Upper Narrows is the recording project of songwriter and producer Tyler Jackson. Jackson’s process is an unusual one, swapping out drums and guitars for programmed beats and an array of synths. In October he will release While We’re Warm, the debut Upper Narrows full-length via Repeating Cloud, and debut single ‘Tinker’s Darn’ is our first taste of what to expect. A deep and spacey sound that balances its digital soundscape with a very human emotion, resulting in something as immersive as it is affirming, even if the lyrics hold a more conflicted view.

hungover when I cry
my bucket of bolts on fire
preach forgiveness around the clock
pretend I’m not a liar

fathoms of forgiveness
from the magazine to the gun
the apples inside her are turning to cider
the terror of not having fun

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