This spring sees Cola return with Cost of Living Adjustment (AKA C.O.L.A.), a quasi-self-titled album on Fire Talk Records which makes good on this promise. Because while this is evidently still the same band which so impressed us back in 2022, there’s been something of an evolution in intervening years. The sound pushed towards a higher form. Cola becoming itself in turn. Indeed, the play on the self-titled release is fitting, for C.O.L.A. is the release of a band at their most confident and inventive, as though, with the foundations laid, they are now able to really get to work. Both in terms of a more detailed, dare we say maximalist sound, and the thematic concerns it brings to life. “C.O.L.A. considers, among other things, socialism vs. hell,” the album notes read. “It considers: rolling the dice of life. The eerie and sweet pangs that nostalgia can provoke.”

Lead single ‘Hedgesitting’ is the perfect introduction to this new era for Cola. A song which matches a sample drum loop with real drums to up the rhythmic ante. One which veers between the sublime gloom of Disintegration and the infectious brightness of early 90s twee, with a dash of world-weary Protomartyr-esque social critique.

Watch the video directed by Kristina Pedersen below:

Cost of Living Adjustment will be released on the 8th May via Fire Talk Records and you can pre-order it now.

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This month sees the release of Cola’s debut, Deep in View, on Fire Talk Records, and the trio have unveiled brand new single ‘Degree’ to further whet our appetites. A song which continues the mechanical vibes of the previous song, each of its elements working with a kind of automatonic harmony. “I wanted the beat to feel like the opening and closing of a mechanical valve,” Cartwright explains. “The guitar riff supplies this relentless propulsion and I thought that the drums should act as a stiff regulator: aggressively blocking, then releasing the heavy flow that comes pouring out of the guitar.”

But within this functional system lies a sense of experimentation too. A blurring of genres which incorporates psych and electronic styles, as well as the varying sensibilities of each of Cola’s members. “‘Degree’ is based on a 2-step kinda track I produced while trying to do the fabled and well-trodden path of using guitars in electronic music,” Stidworthy adds. “I came up with this psych-drenched outro that I really enjoyed so I decided to base a song around that chord progression.”

If Stidworthy’s input feels a step away from the machine-like efficiency of Cartwright’s vision, then Darcy’s pushes through the other end of the spectrum. “The character in ‘Degree’ is cycling in and out of these dreamscape states (movie theatre, meditation, etc) and then trying to catch up to something in their day to day life,” Darcy explains. “I picture what it feels like running to catch the bus when you’re in a daze and suddenly have to sprint.” A dream-like, conceptual lyricism which pushes the track into new territory. The sense that the machinations might not be mechanical at all, rather the complicated apparatus of brain chemistry.

Have you been to the movies lately?
Did you read the marquee?
It’s not even started and there is a push to leave
In the midst the alley I had a foggy notion
Hounds nipping at the wheels of the bus
Quite a commotion

Check out the video directed by Rapapawn below:

Deep in View is out on the 20th May 20th via Fire Talk and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

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Based in Omaha, Nebraska, 37735i6 works in the lineage of ambient folk practised by artists like Midwife and Grouper. Conjuring intangible soundscapes that nevertheless possess a palpable weight, and utilising this contradiction to evoke intricacies of mood and experience that might otherwise be difficult to describe. Taken from 2020’s stay forever EP, single ‘prairie madness revival’ uses layers of reverb and delay effects to encapsulate this style, inviting listeners into a liminal space between presence and absence, darkness and light.

Ailsa Tully – Salt Glaze

Ahead of a spring tour and slot at the upcoming Green Man festival, Welsh songwriter Ailsa Tully has returned with ‘Salt Glaze’, a brand new single on Dalliance Recordings. The song follows on from Holy Isle, an EP which developed on the classic singer-songwriter style with an array of additional instruments, and channels this invention into conjuring the warm stillness of a familiar home. A sensation Tully experienced when staying in the house of her late grandmother during a period of lockdown. “My Grandma passed away a few years ago and the house remained unchanged, it was like a museum of salt glaze ceramics and abstract art pieces which began to absorb into my creativity,” Tully explains. ‘Salt Glaze’ uses the image to explores ideas of preservation and acceptance in the face of change. Check out the video directed and edited by Finlay O’Hara:

‘Salt Glaze’ is out now via Dalliance Recordings and you can get it from the Ailsa Tully Bandcamp page.

Amelia Jackie – All Around Town

For most of her life, Amelia Jackie has moved from place to place. Raised as one of four sisters by a single mother, hers was a childhood of motion and flux. Now based in New York, Amelia Jackie is preparing the release of her debut album, You Can’t Fuck the Internet, a record that promises to “beckon us into the sensual environments that spawned her, where the smell of sweet peaches meets the fumes of burnt diesel.”

In preparation, Jackie has unveiled the lead single, ‘All Around Town’, which offers a glimpse at her uniquely humid, country-tinged sound (what Colin Atrophy Hagendorf described for She Shreds as “Southern Gothic, Bastard Out of Carolina, lesbian Americana”). It’s a song about a passionate devotion, the object of which takes on near-supernatural power as they blaze a trail through towns and hearts.

you were born in the middle of a hot night in july
and your momma couldn’t tell if you were laughing or crying
a storm blew in right off the gulf
so you never did learn when enough was enough

Bri Barte – High Noon

Hex Signs, the new record from Ann Arbor-based songwriter Bri Barte, is an album about loss. Saturated with physical imagery and sensations, the songs shift from sluggish crawls to racing energy with little warning, capturing both the sharp sting and diffuse drudgery of life in the aftermath. Take ‘High Noon’, its picture of ruin heightened by odours, textures, heat and light. Barte wanders amid dead squirrels and flies and beating sun, pining for relief.

I always liked a punishing summer
The kind that makes you pray for rain
But these days I’d rather have you
I get so lonely out here at high noon

Without you

Catcher – Fallen Stones

Hailing from Brooklyn, Catcher are the latest post-punk brooders to capture widespread attention. Taking the shadowy volatility of Bambara and adding a cathartic forward motion, the six-piece walk the fine line between violence and beauty, and the delivery of vocalist Austin Eichler is suitably unpredictable amid the noise. Single ‘Fallen Stones’ captures the mood perfectly, Eichler emerging from the dense foreboding soundscape with the conviction of some half-drunk preacher.

ce qui nous traverse – Point sur la carte

Montreal-based ensemble ce qui nous traverse seek “to capture the intensive vibrations that compose the surrounding ambiances,” something their most recent record Le sacre de Sainte-Barbe tackles with both ambition and invention. Released on Cuchabata Records, the album is something of a study on a specific place, the outfit utilising their collective experimentation to examine the influence of sound on an old house in a North American village. Single ‘Point sur la carte’ is both an introduction to this strange, nocturnal world and proof that ce qui nous traverse beyond the slow haunting tones you might expect. Check out the video by Guillaume Vallée and Larissa Corriveau below:

Le sacre de Sainte-Barbe is out via Cuchabata Records and available via Bandcamp.

Cola – So Excited

Rising from the ashes of Ought, Cola is the new project of Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy, along with The Weather Station drummer Evan Cartwright. Ahead of their debut album Deep in View, coming this May on Fire Talk Records, they have unveiled new single, ‘So Excited’. Powered by a sleek, taut groove, the track plays like Ought stripped of its excesses, polished down to something tactile and gleaming yet capable of a kind of perpetual motion.

And if you are so excited
Then you are so invited
To take this stone and right it
If you are so excited

Have a gander at the video by Camille Anais Semprez, Cedar Teionietathe Jocks and Jacob Summers below:

Deep in View is out on the 20th May via Fire Talk Records and you can pre-order it now.

FES – Clarinet

Peterborough/Leeds-based trio FES work at the intersection of a variety of genres, drawing on pop punk, math rock and alternative styles to conjure a sound full of invention and weight. Ahead of debut record With Regards From Home, out via Small Pond this spring, they have unveiled new single ‘Clarinet’ to whet your appetite. Check out the video by Sam J. Lance below:

With Regards From Home is out on the 29th April via Small Pond and you can pre-order it now.

Nuevos Mundos – Mis Plantas

Nuevos Mundos are am indie rock band from Madrid, consisting of John Galilea (guitar, keyboard and vocals), Diego Cendra (guitar and vocals), Jaeson Peña (bass) and Miguel A. Sánchez (drums). They have just released their debut EP, Mis Plantas, a collection of three songs that display their talents. From energetic opener ‘Domingos en Casa’, a roaring throwback to the mid 00s indie rock golden age, to a hazily reflective title track that feels smothered with regret, there really is something for everyone.

Ocie Elliott – With the Lights Down

Victoria, B.C. duo Ocie Elliott caught our attention with their stripped back covers of songs from the likes of John Prine, Big Thief and Gillian Welch, and latest single ‘With the Lights Down’ shows their original material possesses all the same tender and intimate tones. Written after a summer solstice birthday party on the beach, the song evokes a sense of quiet gladness. A moment to remember the things you appreciate while they are still close at hand.

Find out more on the Ocie Elliott website, and check out the covers on their Youtube page.

Wildlife Freeway – Flea

“Let this one thing be known,” says Sunny Atema, AKA Wildlife Freeway. “I don’t play music. I use music.” Debut album Sunny, out via Alex Ebert’s Community Music, was created under this sentiment. An album recorded in the aftermath of the loss of her beloved dog when the world felt distant and sad. A tool to reconnect with life. “A wildlife freeway is a bridge for animals to safely cross over busy roads” Atema says of the project and album. “The name also speaks of wildness and life on the road. The actual road, putting in the miles, brings us eye to eye, connecting without a screen between.” Check out lead single ‘Flea’ below:

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