The brand new Trails and Ways full-length Open Water will be released soon, and the band have shared two singles to reintroduce themselves after their time away. Described by the band as a song “about making peace, learning Spanish, and swimming open water,” first single ‘Patiently’ immediately re-establishes what made the group so fun back in the day. And its upbeat, positive sound carries a fitting message too. A reminder that life is richer in company, and that social isolation can be overcome, written and performed by a trio who worked through that very process themselves to bring the track to life.

Follow-up ‘Young’ is no less accomplished, though dials down some of its predecessor’s energy to offer something more sleek and dreamy. But despite the decidedly hazy sound, there is still a central rhythm to the song, a sense of forward momentum which speaks to the themes of growth and maturation which inform the track. “When we were young / we didn’t sit, too much to do,” as the opening verse goes, “now we’re settled down / we don’t move over the ground like we used to.”

Both ‘Patiently’ and ‘Young’ can be found on the Trails and Ways Bandcamp page.

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Now the pair are set to release This Is What It Feels Like, the collaboration’s debut full-length album, to showcase the sound they have built together. Remarkably, Bauer and Whitlock only met in person when the record was already half completed, though far from hampering the intimacy and emotional connection of the music, this distance ultimately helped deepen it. “This project began as an exchange of demos and became a deeply personal dialogue,” Whitlock explains, the remove of the pair dialling into the themes of isolation, bonding and longing which marks so many of the tracks.

Latest single ‘Do You Think Of It Sometimes?’ serves as the ideal introduction to the project for anyone still unfamiliar. If the album sees Memory Spells and Jordan Whitlock evoke the various fragilities of any relationship, then this single brings to life the chronic ache suffered by any yearning heart. Part memory, part dream, the song captures the transience of any given moment, and the nostalgia which builds around love even within the present. As though even the most beautiful of moments carry their own melancholic barb, the knowledge that time will pass haunting every day of our lives.

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With this sense of possibility comes a wider sonic palette, Howard choosing to sacrifice tightness and order so that he might encompass all of the styles which have informed his work over the the previous decade. “I sort of underwent a crisis as I became a more confident producer and instrumentalist,” he explains. “The more I could imitate or recreate a sound, the more I would confront demos I’d made and think ‘this is good, but it doesn’t feel like it’s mine.’ This was a new problem for me. I scrapped two albums worth of semi-finished material, carrying my personal favorites over to this final release. As a result, it’s probably my messiest record, but I grew to appreciate that. It’s a full genre-map of everything I’ve made over the last ten years. I made sure every song meant a lot to me.”

Fittingly, the changeable nature of the sound matches the themes of the record. In Airports was named for a period in which Howard found himself stuck in an airport for almost a week, left with nothing to do but watch people and wait. The surreal experience offered what might be the ultimate image of ephemerality, the people around him constantly changing, his own time ticking down as the delayed flight approached. Orchid Mantis has long employed a dreaminess but here it carries a confessional, reflective edge, as though newly aware of the shifting world around it, and the slow, gradual losses accumulated over time.

The idea is present from the very first track, ‘Generation Loss’, titled after the technological phenomenon where data degrades which each copying process. Howard positions personal memory as a similarly fragile thing, vulnerable to decay. But while there is sadness in the realisation, there is something warmer too. Call it fondness, call it love, the feelings all the more meaningful for the transience of their focus, and the purpose of art only deepened in its conservational efforts. “I know you / in the rearview / passage of time / falls behind you,” as Howard sings in the rich, romantic ‘Comedown Phase’. We’re constantly losing everything we’ve been given, which makes attempt at preservation all the more beautiful.

In Airports is out now via Start-Track and available from Bandcamp.

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Landing at what the press release describes as “the intersection of ambition and approachability,” the Facing sound pushes dream pop to new ground, embracing the ethereal richness of the genre without ever being beholden to its more restrictive conventions. The result is often as ominous as it is alluring, crafting decidedly cinematic soundscapes which swirl and sweep and screw in strange directions.

As single ‘Undiu’ shows, a certain sense of dissonance is present too, the trio unafraid to add abrasive textures to an often pillowy style, and thus the sound expands the meaning of dream within dream pop. One not always as grand or romantic as the genre suggests, but rather closer to the lived experience of our nighttime wandering. Ambiguous, suggestive, opaque, and ultimately held together by a curious intuitive logic which exists somewhere off behind our conscious reasoning.

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Focusing on nature’s ephemerality, first single ‘full moon & snow boots’ saw Leoblu set “personal emotions against larger, almost mystical backdrops,” as we wrote in a preview, “as though the natural world was our own longing manifest,” while ‘it’s just a coffee’ homes in on a more specific yearning. An attempt to navigate the post-break up emotional terrain where the wish to return to what has been lost exists in tension with the desire to move on.

‘Backlash’ follows as a kind of answer to its predecessor, an attempt to break free of the liminal present painted in all of its visceral struggle, before closer ‘vem kan segla förutan vind?’ transcends the entire experience with a powerful (re)connection to history. The first Leoblu song to be recorded in Swedish, the track is a reimagining of a traditional folk song from Carlsson’s home of Åland. A means of reaching beyond the conflict of the present, back through Carlsson’s childhood and beyond, tapping into histories of place and landscape and emerging with a newfound comfort within the perpetual cycles of love and loss.

Blu Lucid Nightmare is out now and available from the usual places.

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Latest single ‘Crystal Blue’ is no exception. Painting a picture of lovers separated by the expanse of an ocean, the track offers longing as an expanse of its own. A wide space through which even the smallest whispers carry, illuminated by nothing but the mood. The song is as stripped back and patient as this might suggest, buoyed by the subtle backdrop of a tidal wash as Murray delivers her yearning with a plainspoken clarity.

The imagery has the subconscious poetic logic of a dream, a fact which is no accident. “The genesis for a lot of these songs came from dreams,” Murray explains. “Every night I would write down the dreams I could remember. While recording I would pull out my book of dreams and sing over various looped phrases Greg had been working on. The repetitive nature of the looping and singing almost felt like going into a trance [and] what I thought were sort of ramblings ended up surprising us with their various meanings.”

Do fishes sleep,
in the ocean blue?
Do you dream of me like I dream of you?

Dream Talk is out on the 5th April via Wrecking Light Records and you can pre-order it now.

Photo by Darcie Thompson

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With a new album set for release sometime in the new year, Kraków Loves Adana have returned with Nothing’s Set In Stone, a new EP which released last week as something of a surprise. The record is comprised of three tracks and corresponding instrumental versions which are part of a slew of new material that will also form the band’s next full-length, due for release sometime next year. When chronic pain forced Çiçek into a six month hiatus in playing guitar, she turned attention to previous recordings that hadn’t quite made the cut for albums, cherry picking three to form the new EP.

But this isn’t a random assortment of b-sides. All three songs share both a common lineage and overall atmosphere. Written on acoustic guitar, they hark back to Çiçek’s earliest forays into creating music, swapping out some of the unsettling electronic elements in favour of stripped-back instrumentation and direct lyricism. “These three songs paint a picture of hopeful melancholia,” she describes, “and also remind me of my earlier work where there was just me and my guitar.”

Nowhere is this more apparent than on the opener and title track, which exists in a kind of insular hush, a listless lonely atmosphere full of quiet uncertainty that occasionally peaks in moments of emotional clarity. The song’s video, shot and edited by Çiçek herself, accentuates these feelings, consisting mainly of close-cropped shots of the singer gazing into space, lost in her thoughts. Check it out below:

Nothing’s Set in Stone is out now and available from the Kraków Loves Adana Bandcamp page.

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With new album everett coming soon on Track Number Records, Schiaffino has shared the title track to hint at where the body / negative sound has gone since. Developed with a team of collaborators including Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Justin Maranga, Dawood Nadurath and others, the album was set to be recorded at Johnston’s New Mexico studio, though Schiaffino’s father subsequently fell ill and the album’s creation was fundamentally changed. Instead, everett was brought into being while Schiaffino cared for their father in the hospice, and inevitably the record bent towards themes of grief, love and remembrance. With vocals captured on telephone handset instead of a microphone, the sound takes on nostalgic, melancholic tone. An attempt at communication through planes of existence and accumulated time. Continuing the ideas first introduced on Fragments but charged with a newfound immediacy amid the direst of personal circumstances.

The title track might be the album’s closer, but it is the ideal introduction too. A hint at both its texture and depth, as well as the mournful yet fond atmosphere which results. Aided by the distinctive Midwife style, ‘everett’ sees body / negative reaching across seemingly impassable gaps to ensure the line between loved ones remains open, regardless of how distant they might come to seem.

The track also comes complete with a video directed by Ryan Betschart and Rachel Nakawatase which you can watch below:

everett is out on the 8th December via Track Number Records and you can pre-order it from the body / negative Bandcamp page.

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Ahead of a West Coast tour with STRFKR, Ruth Radelet has now returned with ‘Shoot Me Down’, a brand new single that further develops these ideas. Building from an brightly insistent opening, the track offers a rich and airy sound which belies the difficult experiences from which it was conjured. “Although this song is very personal to me, I think it tells a story that many people can relate to,” Radelet explains. “It started out as a sad girl piano ballad, written after a particularly bad night, and in the end became one of the most fun tracks I have ever worked on. I believe that creating music is a way to transmute pain, and making this song was healing in that sense. I feel joy when I listen to it now, whereas when I wrote it I could only feel the hurt.” What results is a kind of alchemic process. Pain and suffering not only overcome by music, but transformed into a curative substance which leads towards future empowerment.

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The latest single from the record, ‘KITM’ offers a glimpse at yet another dimension of yoyo. A Beacon School at its most dreamlike, the vocals suspended within a gauzy haze which even the not inconsiderable energy struggles to fully puncture. As though all of the track’s feeling and weight is submerged beneath a heavy mist, lending a lethargic air even as the guitars and drums attempt to rally.

It’s a fitting mood, given the themes behind the track. The title is short for ‘Keep It To Myself’, and the song sees Smith explains the inexplicable stasis which descends upon even the most enthusiastic artists. Where inspiration is no issue, but acting upon them feels like wading through treacle. “On ‘KITM’, I’m very much talking to myself, voicing my frustrations with how long it takes me to do anything,” as he explains. “I have all these plans and ideas and frustrations, but never act on them. It’s kind of a pep talk to say ‘hurry up and do something!'”

Watch the suitably dreamy video by Alex Beebe and Chase Wagner below:

yoyo is out via Grind Select on the 13th October and you can pre-order it now.

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