The title of Adam Spry’s forthcoming album Slightly Off Kilter gives a hint as to what to expect from the San Francisco songwriter. Dispatches from an artist somewhat out of whack with the world, trying to create and communicate in a society which hardly values such things. But with wry humour and a few coats of seventies rock polish, Spry plants his flag regardless, and single ‘Rotten Mausoleum’ captures the bravery of such an act with its tongue-in-cheek humour, however futile it might seem. “Walking through the streets of Rome, I kept picturing an emperor who ‘went into the family business’ so to speak,” Spry explains of his inspiration. “He just wanted to play the lute and study philosophy with his friends. Sick and tired of the class disparity around him, he decided to have the old statues torn down. He was of course killed and replaced with someone who would rule with an iron fist and was subsequently erased from history.”

Emperor made of marble
All you do is stare
Rotten Mausoleum
There’s someone in my chair

Check out the video filmed by Spry himself and edited by Matt Kreizenbeck below:

Slightly Off Kilter will be released on the 24th March and you can pre-order it now.

Bailey Miller – cul-de-sac

“A sound best described as translucent,” was how we described Bailey Miller’s Still Water, released last year on Whited Sepulchre Records. “Not too clear, not too fogged, any ethereality countered by directness, yet nothing allowed to be too grounded for long.” This February sees Miller return with love is a dying, a follow-up record which forgoes some of the nuance and layering in favour of a more forthright tone. Directness as the prime focus. Intention unmasked and offered up. Single ‘cul-de-sac’ gives an indication of what such a change sounds like, its hushed and understated style made almost cavernous by the sense of space Miller conjures around it. An echo which carries the full weight of the dark which surrounds any instance of love.

Crosslegged – Automatic

Ahead of brand new full-length Another Blue, which releases at the end of the month, Keba Robinson’s Crosslegged has unveiled a new track, ‘Automatic’. The album’s second single following the playfully undulating ‘Only in The’, ‘Automatic’ is a tender and assured grower, its spacious sound unfurling into an all-encompassing warmth before folding back up again, Robinson controlling the mood with an expert hand. By the close the listener is cast out into a hazy drift, anchored only by the crooned vocals, a safe hand ever-present allowing you to close your eyes and enjoy the float.

En Attendant Ana – Same Old Story

Ahead of their new LP, Principa, out next month via Trouble in Mind, Paris-based En Attendant Ana have unveiled single ‘Same Old Story’ to give an indication as to what to expect. A blend of playful indie pop rhythms and post-punk angles, the track whips up a detailed and often disorientating sound, pitching the listener into a funhouse room of mirrors with only the smooth clarity of Margaux Bouchaudon’s vocals as a guide. The sound is intended to represent the band as they appear “behind closed doors,” as they put it, “locked in a mortifying loop, repeating over and over the same gestures of a banal and falsely comfortable scene… until exhaustion,” leading to a sound which captures the idiosyncratic combination of escalation and fatigue typical of a racing mind.

Principa is out on the 24th February and you can pre-order it now.

Grocer – Downtown Side

Following on from last year’s Number’s Game, Philadelphia‘s Grocer are set to return with a brand new EP Scatter Plot on Grind Select. Single ‘Downtown Side’ shows the band pushing further into the volatile blend of pop charm and angular dissonance which has come to be their signature, this time utilising the frantic, twitchy energy to capture personal experiences of anxiety and unease. Because the lyrics deal with lead Nicholas Rahn’s experience of living with Vasovagal Syncope, a condition where specific triggers can cause him to faint, and moreover the secondary anxieties which come along with it. Including the very real fear “that at any given point in time,” as he puts it, “I am actually unconscious and simply experiencing a lifelike dream.”

then I realized…
Was I even alive?
I coulda passed out cold on my walk from home
I could be bleeding from my head on the side of the curb
Am I dreaming that I’m even waiting for a dessert?

Jack Keyes – Skyscraper

Across a series of albums and singles in recent years, Kentucky-based songwriter Jack Keyes has developed a warm and intimate sound somewhere between folk and bedroom pop. With a new full-length due later this year, new single ‘Skyscraper’ serves as both an acknowledgement of collaboration and a reminder to trust one’s own tastes. “[The single] is a celebration of the wonderful musical community I’ve found in Kentucky,” Keyes says “with contributions from friends I’ve met throughout my musical journey in town,” but also “about wanting to be more comfortable in my own choices and in my own skin.” A song which feels like an artist taking stock of how far they have come before setting off on a new journey.

Joanna Mattrey & Steven Long – EP

Next month Joanna Mattrey & Steven Long will release their debut full-length Strider on Dear Life Records. An ambient album written and recorded with a clear set of rules: each track must revolve around one idea and one idea alone. But while this seemingly spartan approach might stand distinct in a genre prone to ambiguous meanderings, Mattrey and Long were endlessly inventive within each song, looking everywhere for possible sounds. That includes a variety of synths, a toy keyboard, a seventies electric Kimball organ and the “curious and magical” Stroh Violin, as well as field recordings
of ice clashing in the Hudson river. Not to mention, as per the liner notes, how the pair “banged, blew on, and bowed various dusty pieces of junk, antiques, and old metal franklin stoves that filled [Mattrey’s] family’s house in upstate New York.”

Jonny G and the Music Factory – Life of Jonny

Next month, Jonny G and the Music Factory (AKA Jonny Gundersen) is releasing his debut full-length album Life of Jonny via Bud Tapes. Having been working as a musician for over decade, the record finds Gundersen in a pretty unique position—in possession of all the hard-won experience required to craft a collection of meaningful songs, yet still retaining the freshness and freedom which comes with a debut. Both the lead single and opener, the title track highlights how powerful such a mix can be, living up to its title to cast an eye over Gundersen’s life and paint a nuanced picture of living and creating. Highly personal details to capture something more universal, from the experience of existing within a working class space to the ups and downs of life in general. What changes within a person, what proves enduring.

Moved back home.
Life is change
I have changed
and now I’m changing again

Pile – Nude With A Suitcase

With new LP All Fiction arriving next month on Exploding in Sound, rock stalwarts Pile have been sharing numerous singles over recent weeks, from the frantic motion of ‘Loops’ to the slow tilting heft of ‘Poisons’. Latest track ‘Nude With A Suitcase’ is no less striking, a dense, tenebrous song which invites the listener inside its cryptic world with what might be alluring shimmer or ominous dread. A fitting ambiguity for an record built around subjectivity and its disorientating pressures, forcing the listener to sit down and examine just what is unfolding around them, even if there is no correct answer at all. Watch the video by Sam Circle with animation from Lynn Tomlinson below:

All Fiction is out on the 17th February via Exploding In Sound and you can pre-order it now.

Romanie – Anthony

Belgian born, Naarm/Melbourne based songwriter Romanie has never been afraid to push into personal territory in her music. 2021’s Little Big Steps delved into themes of loneliness and self-doubt, but new single ‘Anthony’ cuts especially close to the bone. Written after seeing Anthony Hopkins in The Father, and in the aftermath of losing a close relative with dementia, the track combines a pressing energy with passionate delivery to confront the cruelty of the illness while declaring an unwavering love. A promise to go on caring and remembering no matter what is taken away.

Sad Girls Aquatics Club – Who’s Your Witness

A self-described “dramatic duo” from Pittsburgh, PA, Sad Girls Aquatics Club specialise in what they describe as “breakup pop”. First announcing themselves with debut EP Vodkawine back in 2018, the pair (Chelsea Rumbaugh and Marie Mashyna) make sharp and slightly melancholy pop songs that combine personal angst and a sense of wider social critique. They now have a full-length record on the way, and have recently released a couple of singles in anticipation of its release. ‘Who’s Your Witness’ might be the standout, a somewhat facetious wave goodbye to someone or thing that has outstayed its welcome, all wrapped in a 90s alt-rock fuzz.

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GRNDMS

“Capitol Mill is proof that sunny little songs need not be mindless nonsense, and that you don’t need to write explicitly sad songs to resonate with the listener” – we reviewed the début album from GRNDMS, out now on Fox Food Records.

Eskimeaux

“About doing the best you can and hoping it’s enough, about accepting and learning and growing so that whatever hand you’re dealt, you carve out some semblance of meaning and happiness to make everything worthwhile” – Eskimeaux’s O.K., out now on Double Double Whammy and Mt. Home Arts, is a triumphant success.

Peptalk

“Peptalk paint ecosystems, thriving arrangements of geology and biology where plants and animals and wind and rain follow their own instinctive patterns. However, things are not quite what they seem…” – We welcomed you to the weird and beautiful world of Peptalk’s Islet.

Craig Finn

“Finn’s sharp turn of phrase… elevates mundane situations to something meaningful, transforming everyday words and imagery into things imbued with symbolism” – the first song from a new album by The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn.

Henoheno

“Emotional suffering is presented in a detached manner, as if the narrator has transcended into an outer body experience or else knows the pain so well it lacks the immediacy it once possessed” – we were delighted to premiere ‘Destroy’, the first track from Henoheno’s upcoming album I Made These Songs Before I Moved.

Kalle Mattson

“Strummed guitars and slow-burning drum machine beats which conjure a vivid, nostalgic image, like a city as seen from a dark shore at night” – ‘A Long Time Ago’, a new song from Kalle Mattson’s upcoming EP Avalanche.

PONY

“Sun-kissed and salt-lipped… four songs about romance and break-ups during the summer months” – we reviewed CRUSHED, the debut EP from Toronto band PONY.

Old Earth

“[Milwaukee] completely shaped and nurtured me. I grew up and spent most of my life here, so going from being a teenager seeing punk shows in VFW halls in the early ’90s to being an artist that some people know and read about in the city is kind of crazy” – Old Earth spoke to Milwaukee Record about the pros and cons of moving to California.

Kathryn Joseph

“I never felt like we were making something beautiful. I just thought my songs were shit, and that this is all really embarrassing” – Kathryn Joseph spoke to The Skinny before winning Scottish Album of the Year award for Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled. We reviewed the album here, and certainly aren’t surprised.

Joseph also unveiled a new song, ‘the worm’, via The Line of Best Fit.

Jenny Hval

I feel a little intimidated at the prospect of writing about Apocalypse, girl, the new album from Jenny Hval. Luckily there are already some great reviews out there, we particularly liked these from The Quietus and God is in the TV.

Crosslegged

“In the past, my summers have been defined by the artists that manage to capture the heaviness of a muggy afternoon or the confusing side of a fleeting romance. I know Speck will be a record that falls into that special category for me this year” – The Le Sigh are streaming Speck by Keba Robinson’s Crosslegged.

Naps

“Finding out about Naps felt like being told a really good secret” – understanding that there can never be enough quality new music, The Le Sigh also premièred a new song from Florida band Naps (who we have featured on numerous occasions).

Frog

“Irreverent, strange and just a little addictive” – Clash premiered a video for Frog’s ‘Judy Garland’. ICYMI, we reviewed (and loved) Kind of Blah and spoke to Frog about their music.

Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus have released Sorry About the Delay, a mix of demos, rarities and unheard album cuts in preparation for the forthcoming album The Most Lamentable Tragedy. Pitchfork have all the details, including the link for a free download.

Strand of Oaks

“Filled with bite and sometimes regret, but also a good deal of warmth” – The indomitable Timothy Showalter visited NPR’s Tiny Desk Sessions. We have written about Strand of Oaks quite a bit, but probably still haven’t conveyed how much we love Showalter’s work.

And… our favourite 8tracks playlist of the week was this one by beneller (that cover art!!)

the ultimate summer playlist from beneller on 8tracks Radio.

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