The recording project of Texas musician Daniel Bryson (who also plays drums in Skirts), A.L. West is an outlet for lo-fi bedroom pop meets indie rock. He recently released a new double single, Nothing At All / Rabbitbrush 2, which is the perfect introduction for newcomers. ‘Nothing At All’ is a lovely patient indie pop song, but it’s ‘Rabbitbrush 2’ that sees things kicked into another gear. As its name suggests, the track is something of a sequel to one from 2023 A.L. West album The Store, but whereas the original was a gentle folk-inflected bedroom pop song, ‘Rabbitbrush 2’ is thick with a heavy fuzz, building from lulls of plodding percussion and Bryson’s draw out vocals into peaks of triumphant noise.

Watch the video by Alex Montenegro below:

Nothing At All / Rabbitbrush 2 is out now via the A.L. West Bandcamp page.

Casper Skulls – Roddy Piper

Turning the page onto a new chapter for the Sudbury/Toronto indie rock outfit, new album Kit-Cat promises to see Casper Skulls push themselves to new heights. Single ‘Spindletop‘ introduced this refreshed sound, drawing on There Will Be Blood to create a moody, ominous atmosphere, and now ‘Roddy Piper’ introduces a more energetic and soaring dimension. Drawing on the titular figure, the track uses a wrestling analogy to explore confrontation within a relationship, the combination of upbeat rhythm and fuzzy weight evoking the dramatic ups and downs of a choreographed bout. Watch the Mortal Kombat-inspired video, directed by Curtis Carriere and Jordan Vandenberg (of Goodscreen Media) along with the band themselves, below:

Kit-Cat will be released on the 11th April via Next Door Records and you can pre-order it now.

Celeste Madden – Lapdog

Having signed with Sad Club Records, recent months have seen Celeste Madden unveil a handful of singles, with tracks like ‘Joan of Arc‘ and ‘Fever Dream‘ embodying the London-based songwriter’s singular style. Songs both unashamedly melodramatic and undeniably strange, drawing the listener directly into Madden’s psyche so that we too might experience the diverse range of moods and feelings therein. Having announced that EP Is It Really Goodnight? will be released next month, Madden has now returned with new single ‘Lapdog’. Another dreamlike folk song where placid surfaces hide a roiling depth beneath, reflecting on difficult experiences in order to exorcise the hold of the past.

‘Lapdog’ is out now and available via the Celeste Madden Bandcamp page. Is It Really Goodnight? will be released on the 27th March via Sad Club Records.

Craig Finn – People of Substance

Anyone who caught Craig Finn on his This Is What It Looks Like tour last autumn will be champing at the bit for a new album, Finn using the solo sets to introduce a number of new narrative-driven songs full of the detail, emotion and empathy which has so long marked his work. The record, it turns out, is called Always Been, and will be released this spring. A fitting addition to Finn’s oeuvre in the year The Hold Steady‘s Separation Sunday celebrates its twentieth anniversary, the album traces the arc of a protagonist through a rise and fall and eventual redemption, the character committing the life of a priest despite his lack of faith. A whole cast of characters pass into the frame within the telling of this story, but for now we have single ‘People of Substance’ as a glimpse at the world within.

Watch the visualizer by David Kelling below:

Always Been is out on the 4th April and you can pre-order it now.

Dead Bandit – Pink

“Something of a landscape,” was how we described Dead Bandit‘s self-titled album, coming soon on Quindi Records, in a preview back in January. “One rural in tone which seems at once physical and emotional. Often stark and severe in its loneliness, a kind of haunted prairie or steppe, yet often possessing some kind of yearning fondness for the wide open space.” New single ‘Pink’ furthers the style. A cryptic, slow-building number which possesses a kind of shadowed mystery, the layered guitar and creeping beats never puncturing the understated air, as though the truth of the track is always drifting just out of view.

Jacob Faurholt – I Will Hold You

We’ve featured the prolific Danish songwriter Jacob Faurholt multiple times in recent years, an outsider artist in the vein of Daniel Johnston and co. who looks to explore existential themes via lo-fi, idiosyncratic combination of folk, rock and pop. Recorded in the room beneath his children’s bedroom while they were asleep, the most recent release of Faurholt’s we covered embraced a hushed style, but new single ‘I Will Hold You’ pivots away from this entirely. It was written in the aftermath of a Dinosaur Jr. gig, post-show tinnitus still ringing, which anchors its poignant emotion and melodies with a dense undercurrent of noise.

‘I Will Hold You’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Léna Bartels – January is the Loneliest Month

It’s Gonna be a Wonderful New Year, a split between NYC’s Léna Bartels and Nico Hedley, is the first release on new label Rock For Sale Records who release music on cassette tapes and not streaming services. Bartels and Hedley have collaborated across a range of projects (both realised and not quite), and this EP is from the intimate end of the spectrum. The pair describe it as a collection of “songs from winter. Songs for the new year. Songs to get by by,” and if lead single, Bartels’s ‘January is the Loneliest Month’ is anything to go by, it makes good on the promise of its admirably optimistic title. Though not with saccharine cheerfulness but a quiet persistence and steady belief in new beginnings.

Lucy Liyou – Arrested

‘Arrested’ is the lead single from Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name, the new record from Lucy Liyou. Released next month via Orange Milk Records, the album promises to be the Los Angeles musician’s most pop-oriented to date, but anyone expecting a collection of up-tempo dancefloor fillers might be disappointed. As ‘Arrested’ attests, Liyou’s distinctive style is far more complex than that, possessing both a fragile minimalism and lush melodrama, the understated ethereality of the sound and poignant longing of the vocals combining into a reflective and melancholic mood. The sensation of watching a fond memory fade at the edges as the desire to return to its smallest details only grows.

Watch the video shot and directed by Park Seung Won below:

Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name is out on the 21st March via Orange Milk Records and you can pre-order it now.

Mumu The Free Diver – Blossoms

The project of Raleigh, NC-based singer-songwriter Aki Laakso, Mumu The Free Diver offers an evocative brand of indie folk which embraces the authenticity of the DIY aesthetic. Recorded at home with what Laakso describes as “a cheap mic, an old guitar and a bargain-bin audio interface,” new song ‘Blossoms’ swaps out technical polish for a sense of immediacy, sounding like a direct communication from within a moment of grief-stricken vulnerability. But don’t let the description fool you, for though the arrangement is based around acoustic guitar and humble, near-spoken vocals, the track possesses a real sense of richness too. As though through its unguarded nature flows a certain intensity, be it born of compassion, panic, plain hard longing, or indeed a combination of all three.

Penny Loafer – Fridge

Consisting of Emma Barnes (vocals, guitar, keys) and Seth Parker (drums, percussion), Penny Loafer make self-described “post-college rock” which draws from nineties heavyweights like Fugazi and Sonic Youth to offer songs about everyday life which nevertheless possess real weight and bite. With debut EP Daily Deal set for release via Indecent Artistry next month, the Athens, GA-duo have shared single ‘Fridge’. It’s an example of all the ingredients which make the Penny Loafer sound so enticing, with deadpan observation and wry humour meeting tangible heft, all strung together by a chugging momentum which pulls the audience along for the ride. A little bit salty, a little bit sweet and with a noticeable acidic edge.

Tractor Beam – SHOW YOU

“Draws from across the ages in their work, owing as much to 00s indie as 60s folk, and all wrapped up the the contemporary DIY aesthetic, leading to a sound both emotionally immediate and tangibly nostalgic.” So we wrote of Toronto-born, Vancouver-based artist Tractor Beam back in 2023. Now Sasha Balazic and co. are set to return with Monoliths & The Early Reflection, and latest single ‘SHOW YOU’ sees the outfit combine their usual freak folk sensibilities and a more chaotic noise pop style within a single track. The result feels like witnessing a band solidify their ambitions in real time, expanding the possibilities of the Tractor Beam project and pushing closer to their final form. Watch the video directed by Aiden Millroy below:

Monoliths & The Early Reflection is out on the 19th February via Good Stones // Calm Water.

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The guitar again sits front and centre, Swan and Schimpl’s use of the instrument seemingly endless in its variety. The record has country-inflected twangs and post-rock complexities, fuzzed out guitar drones and razor sharp melodies. The result is something of a landscape. One rural in tone which seems at once physical and emotional. Often stark and severe in its loneliness, a kind of haunted prairie or steppe, yet often possessing some kind of yearning fondness for the wide open space.

Lead tracks ‘Glass’ and ‘Half Smoked Cigarette’ serve as an introduction to this world. The former is a smoky, ambiguous number which seems to hover all around the listener. A memory of some old barroom ballad suspended in the air. And while the latter possesses more clarity with its motorik beat, there’s gloom to the sound which feels unending. An overcast sky as viewed from the flattest place on Earth. Grey stretching from one horizon to the next. But for all the tracks’ moodiness and portent, that sense of fondness is never far away. As though within the melancholy lies some inherent fear of loss, and with it a desire to hold on to that which is fragile, or else mourn it prematurely.

Dead Bandit will be released on the 14th March via Quindi Records and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

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“Moves through sounds and emotions like scenes in a dream, seemingly disparate thoughts and feeling united by an uncanny common thread.” So we wrote of Water Words, an album by Bay Area artist Asha Wells which combined a number of genres to “sit in the strange space at the heart of any new relationship,” as we continued, “the period where nothing is decided in any one direction, the potential of both promise and regret latent within every detail.” Next year, Wells is releasing a brand new EP Tears of a Clown on Anxiety Blanket Records and first single ‘Impermanent I’ shows a clear evolution of this style. A piece of idiosyncratic pop which melds the experience of classical training with a willingness to push beyond conventions to mine the fertile ground outside.

Cloudbelly – November

Last year we featured ‘Leavened‘ by Montague, Massachusetts‘s Cloudbelly, introducing Corey Laitman’s expansive yet personal style which “[found] assurance in their contemplation of identity and relationships.” New single ‘November’ is no less heartfelt and confident, taking the melancholy of the titular month and infusing it with a marching rhythm to evoke the precious fragility of love. “Say my love’s marked ‘return to sender’ / Teach me mercy, cold November,” as Laitman sings. “Hungry lungs, my love’s the space between the notes / I meant them, every word I ever spoke.” Here, the onset of winter is both a threat and a reminder, as well as something which might yet be outrun.

Daphne’s Demise – Bedroom Window

The solo project of Sarnia, Ontario’s Zoë L, Daphne’s Demise has made a name with a home-recorded blend of indie pop, folk and ambient sensibilities. However, the new ‘Bedroom Window’ represents something of a change, with the track seeing Daphne’s Demise take to the studio with a full band. What emerges is a country-inflected labour of love which taps into the dreamy richness of the seventies. But within the enveloping wistfulness and languid drift lies something more direct. “No more can I be / The one that you keep inside your head,” as the opening lines play, “Looming over me is a thing I just won’t see / Can’t watch it spin.”

Through the bedroom window
See it light up green
And fly away

Dead Bandit – Staircase

The recording project of Ellis Swan and James Schimpl, the music of Dead Bandit might be instrumental, but it is decidedly lyrical in spirit. Swan is known for haunting murder ballads within his solo work, while multi-instrumentalist Schimpl weaves expansive soundscapes. So it followed that the debut Dead Bandit album From the Basement combined these sensibilities into a raw, shadowy sound which merged Southern Gothic needle and hauntological strangeness. Again on Quindi Records, new album Memory Thirteen is no less evocative, with single ‘Staircase’ presenting a cryptic mood. Is the past returning to haunt the present? Or is that the future we glimpse breaking through the clouds?

Humbird – Child of Violence

“Another blue sky morning,” sings Humbird’s Siri Undlin on new single ‘Child of Violence’, “In the land of the free to believe / Lies on the Internet and the glamor of money / Missing the real thing.” The Minnesota artist has been releasing a number of singles via Nettwerk in recent months, channelling the politically charged folk rock of yesteryear, and the new track is perhaps the most direct and cutting yet. A song which refuses to treat acts of violence within the US as tragedies or aberrations, but rather a cornerstone of the entire national project. And perhaps most importantly, it identifies how honesty around this fact is central to any hope of change.

I could be a break in the chain
I could be a piece of the change
When I talk about it
I’ll call it by its name

Little Kid – Something to Say

Back in 2020, Toronto‘s Little Kid released Transfiguration Highway, an album “at least in part inspired by an enduring interest in Christian mysticism,” as we described, “and themes of epiphany and revelation allow [lead Kenny] Boothby to explore his own growth.” Next year will see Little Kid return with A Million Easy Payments, a new full-length on Orindal Records, which finds Boothby and co. again probing at the line between the corporeal and the spiritual. Lead single ‘Something to Say’ offers a picture of reality so keenly observed that a sense of latent mystery begins to suggest itself, and with it the possibility of transcendence.

Nora Roy – No Steppy Snik

“Sometimes I want to pull my teeth out / unzip my skin / start over.” So sings Nora Roy on ‘No Steppy Snik’, a new single which pairs surreal detachment and forthright confession to welcome the listener deep into its heart. Joined by Julian Fader (guitar) Brett Nash (bass) and Daniel Siles (drums), Roy follows this dreamlike thread through murmured quiet and towering peaks, though for all of the song’s unreal qualities, the parting sense is that of having been told something true which might not have been communicable any other way. “You love / Like a snake I saw,” as Roy continues, “in a magazine / some time.”

‘No Steppy Snik’ is out now and you can find Nora Roy on streaming services.

Parademaker – Utah

The recording project of Houston‘s Shaun Clarkson, Parademaker creates folk in the mould of John Prine, where heartfelt emotion and wry humour intertwine to form a picture of a specific period and place. New album Good Shit is full of such songs, but single ‘Utah’ encapsulates the spirit perfectly. A story of the second coming where Jesus is kicking about America, looking for somewhere to settle down. “This time he came to live and not to die,” as the lyrics offer. But that’s not to say Christ has no standards when it comes to potential homes. “You won’t find me in Utah / the Latter-day Saints and the petite bourgeoisie ain’t seen a cage they didn’t want to climb inside.”

You won’t find me in U-hecking-tah
the worst damn state that you ever saw
along with Texas, Florida, most of Indiana
and the whole goddam Bible Belt

Prism Bitch – City Nights

Albuquerque’s Prism Bitch originated when Lauren Poole and Chris Walsh met at a small theatre group and imagined creating a band as a piece of performance art. But upon adding Lilah Rose and Teresa Cruces to the line-up, they found themselves shedding the performance aspect and becoming the real deal. Establishing their rambunctious and often flamboyant brand of garage rock, debut full-length Perla showed the switch was more than justified, and it is fitting that new single ‘City Nights’ sees the outfit return to their theatrical roots. A sleek, sensual eighties bop which comes complete with a delightfully tongue-in-cheek video filmed at the Albuquerque public access studio, directed by Lauren Poole with cinematography by Colemar Nichols:

‘City Nights’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

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