Like many artists in recent years, ahem found the process of making new album Avoider a unique and challenging experience. “We were writing songs in ways we never had before,” they explain, with trio Alyse Emanuel, Courtney Berndt and Erik Anderson often working in separate basements. But rather than treat the circumstances as a limitation to be worked around, the outfit choose to embrace the frustrations to charge the songs themselves, something most apparent in single ‘Waterlogged’. As the title suggests, the song provides a sense of confinement or submergence against which it struggles. “A kind of unresolved hope that maybe we can someday break a little loose and get free in whatever ways we need too,” as the band put it. “We wanted the song to feel like you were getting free especially as it went on—like it feels like a celebration of that aspiration and hope even if you’re still just actually stuck.”

Derek Ted – BLACK WIDOW LIGHTNING

Following on from 2022’s times have changed, a record which developed the warm, earnest side of Derek Ted‘s work, the LA-based songwriter returns this year with new album, day went away. First single ‘BLACK WIDOW LIGHTNING’ offers our first glimpse of what to expect. Finding a balance between loose-limbed energy and sincere tenderness, the song is a three-and-a-half minute dose of fondness, capturing a late summer light where the shadows are stretching and temperatures holding, and where the suggestion of any end only serves to strengthen the appreciation of the moment.

Black widow lightning
The end of summer’s coming
I love you more than ever
I love you like no other

Evelyn – I’m A Dog

Described by the artist as both “a heart-swelling love song about attachment theory,” and “a Cancer Moon abandonment-wound ballad sponsored by Big Feelings,” ‘I’m a Dog’ sees Evelyn grapple with the various contradictions bound up within any relationship in search of some sweet catharsis. Especially how the security and comfort of an intimate connection seems to conjure the possibility of the very opposite, as though to experience a good thing is to summon its shadow too. “Late at night, you’re sleeping by my side / And I’m playing out ways that you could die,” as one verse plays, “I keep track of your breathing / I’ll feel better in the morning.”

Watch the video directed by Izzy Dow and shot and edited by Tim Gersten below:

‘I’m a Dog’ is out now and available via Bandcamp. Evelyn’s album Someday We Will Eat A Feast of Light which will be released later this summer.

Fake Fruit – Mucho Mistrust

“This song was a snapshot of how I got through a difficult year.” So says Ham D’Amato of Fake Fruit on the lead single and title track from the Oakland indie rock outfit’s forthcoming record on Carpark Records. Written in response the the end of a relationship and the start of a new one, an alopecia diagnosis and looming big birthday, it’s a typically vibrant and unpredictable song from a band that burn bright with volatile energy. Wry humour and cathartic noise combine to great effect to live up to the Blondie-homage title, which the band say is intended to “encapsulate both the anxieties of daily life, a bloodless music industry, and global capitalism as well as the clear-eyed scepticism needed to rebel against it.”

Holding Hour – Come Undone

Des Moines, Iowa duo Holding Hour first caught our attention back in 2022 (when they went by elison), with single ‘Hopes & Horoscopes‘ confronting vices and regrets with a sound energetic and confident enough to emerge with an affirming air. Latest single ‘Come Undone’ is no less nuanced in its tone, Marissa Kephart’s reflective, hushed vocals painting an introspective mood as the instrumentation rises into something far larger. Holding Hour again mine the rich creative seam at the intersection of dream pop and shoegaze to offer something ethereal yet sensual. “Say something sweet to me,” as one of the verses goes, “I wanna hear my name inside your mouth / Before you chew and spit it out.”

Julia-Sophie – numb

The debut solo album from Anglo-French avant-garde electronic pop artist Julia-Sophie coming soon via Ba Da Bing Records, forgive too slow is a record which charts a journey through life. There are moments of self-destruction, of romance and longing, not to mention the inevitable loss which chases everything. But such developments are not presented in palatable, linear sequence. Instead, Julia-Sophie uses her danceable electro pop sound to present something messier but more authentic. As though the album is not a straight line towards a final goal but an orbit around an elusive answer. Single ‘numb’ highlights the sensuality and cinematic depth of the sound, where the crystalline shimmer of the track makes everything feel so fragile and precious and sharp.

forgive too slow will be released via Ba Da Bing Records on 26th July. Pre-order now from the Julia-Sophie Bandcamp page.

Leif Vollebekk – Moondog

This September see the return of Canadian songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Leif Vollebekk with brand new full-length Revelation on Secret City Records. Pairing his distinctively earnest vocals with almost cinematic arrangements, the album sees Vollebekk follow Jung’s Dreams, Memories, Reflections through to themes such as alchemy and the mystery of the divine, as well as the pervasive uncertainty of our existentially threatened present. What results is something which sits at the intersection between the earthly and ethereal, a style typified by lead single ‘Moondog’. Love held up in all of its magic and strangeness, where chance and predetermination move our lives with their inscrutable gravities.

Watch the video directed by Kaveh Nabatian below:

Revelation is out on the 27th September via Secret City Records.

Nick Zanca – Little Professor

Having spent a decade making electronic music under the moniker Mister Lies and working as a producer with the likes of Wendy Eisenberg, Nick Zanca has now stepped out under his own name for Hindsight—an album which forgoes electronic styles in favour of a theatrical, jazz-inflected brand of rock music. Coming soon via American Dreams Records, the album sees Zanca follow a very personal line to explore some of our society’s most pressing themes, not least the crushing omnipresence of capitalism and the ways this works to undermine anyone who might wish to devote their life to something more fulfilling. Lead single ‘Little Professor’ engages with experiences in the wake of a childhood diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome, not only castigating the harmful language and actions faced by such young people, but offering a new vision where neurodivergence is seen as something valued and respected. Watch the video directed by Hunter Adams and Carl Elsaesser below:

Hindsight will be released on 2nd August and is available via Bandcamp.

West of Roan – The Bell

West of Roan is the recording project of artists/musicians/puppeteers Annie Schermer and Channing Showalter who together draw on a rich folk tradition and centuries of myths and legends to create what they call “a deeply resonant balm for a fractured culture.” This summer, West of Roan will release their second album, Queen of Eyes, via SPINSTER and have unveiled the lead single and opening track by way of introduction. The pair say the song was inspired by “conversations about gods of loss and ancestral wounds [and] texts about the Sumerian underworld demon-goddess Ereshkigal,” all during a near-apocalyptic period of forest fires near their home and the global pandemic. But it’s more than a lament for a world gone bad. Built on the plaintive drone of harmonium and fiddle, it’s sober and aching but somehow hopeful too, finding potential for growth and healing in family, friends and the world around us.

sister find me
sister keep me fed

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US-born, Sydney-based songwriter Ainsley Farrell is set to release her album Dirt later this year, and new single ‘The Way Back’ gives an indication of what is to come. With its careful yet constant rhythm, the song faces up to suffering with a steely determination, urging anyone struggling to hold on a little longer until the clouds begin to break. Farrell wrote the song while a close friend experienced a difficult period, channelling her feelings of futility at being unable to help from a distance into a kind of promise. An insistence that things will not always be this way. “This song is metaphorically holding her in the light, holding some of that pain for her,” as Farrell puts it. “Until she’s ready to put one foot in front of the other and realize it’s worth sticking it out in this world.”

Attia Taylor – S/T

Out next month via Lame-O Records, Space Ghost is the debut album of songwriter and activist Attia Taylor. Taking it’s name from the absurd Hanna-Barbera cartoon, the record draws upon childhood memories within its psych-inflected style, taking the best and worst of the past in order to craft the possibility of healing in the present. The title track is a great entry point, its lush 60s aesthetic populated by Taylor’s confident delivery, though beneath the florid surface lies something more uncertain as she explores her relationship with her mother and their hit-and-miss attempts at connection.

The Burning Hell – The Last Normal Day

Garbage Island. No, it’s not the new official title of the United Kingdom but the forthcoming album by Canadian outfit The Burning Hell on BB*Island. Led by songwriter Mathias Kom along with with multi-instrumentalists Ariel Sharratt and Jake Nicoll and a variety of rotating guests, the band make everything from tongue-in-cheek anti-folk to racing indie rock. Latest single ‘The Last Normal Day’ sees the likes of Nick Ferrio join the gang to weave a bright and mischievous ode to a pre-apocalyptic world. A track which might be terrifying if it wasn’t so much fun.

Watching things get destroyed, a
Brand new schadenfreude
Crept into our conversations
And our dreams

Garbage Island is out on the 24th June via BB Island and you can pre-order it now.

dampsquib – a new slice of pie

The moniker of Brighton born multi-instrumentalist Matt Farrugia, dampsquib takes a heap of experience working in ambient, art rock and pop styles and combines into its own singular entity. His forthcoming EP is described as a “smorgasbord of musical ideas,” refusing to sit still in any one genre in its quest for experimental and improvisational sounds, and single ‘a new slice of piece’ gives one example of what such a process might sound like. Ambient Rhodes and piano lines coalesce with Farrugia’s vocals, the looping Wurlitzer supported by drums run through a tape machine to achieve that trademark 90s texture.

Doll Spirit Vessel – Train Brain Rot

“Write another half song / Grief under a summer sun,” opens ‘Train Brain Rot by Kati Malison’s Doll Spirit Vessel project. “Dead flies in the candle crater / Promised that I’d call you later / But I’m not me, this is a shell of someone.” The lead single from debut album What Stays which is coming later this summer on Disposable America, the song hints at both the band’s wry humour and questioning tone, the slacker-esque sound refusing to settle for easy comforts even as it invites identity crises to the door. Check out the video directed by Jon Cox and Kati Malison below:

What Stays is out on the 12th August via Disposable America and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

elison – Covered Me

Writing about single ‘Hopes & Horoscopes‘ back in January, we described the work of Des Moines duo Elison as “distinctive balance between tender emotion and gauzy soundscapes” which the band used to “confront bad habits and vices, from mourning unrealised dreams to becoming lost in superstition or introspection.” New single ‘Covered Me’ adds a sense of momentum to the style, the insistent drums evoking a certain tension as elison chart a troubled relationship with a narcissistic partner.

You’re the reason I don’t trust myself
With me you’re someone else
Nothing you say is true
Cause you want everyone to love you

Frank Meadows – Dead Weight

To call Frank Meadows’s forthcoming record Dead Weight a country album is both entirely fitting and slightly reductive, drawing as it does from a rich array of influences scattered across the American continent. Out next month on Ruination Record Co., the release sees the Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist look to the various stops of his past in order to more fully realise the current moment, stringing the pearls together with a palpable momentum which gives the whole thing an affirming air. The title track is as good an introduction as any, full of the warmth and self-reflection with marks the record thanks to Meadows’s piano-led style and contributions from the likes of Michael Cormier O’Leary, Oliver Kalb and Winston Cook-Wilson.

Maja Lena – No More Flowers

Ahead of forthcoming album Pluto on Chiverin Records, Maja Lena has shared brand new single, ‘No More Flowers’. With bucolic folk and cosmic synth sounds, the song explores the way in which friendships can change or end, and acknowledges that sometimes it is better to walk away rather than try to resuscitate something outside of your control. Like much of the record, imagery and ideas are drawn from fictional sources, in this case a particular branch of animation. “I’d been re-watching Studio Ghibli films at the time and fell in love with some of the earlier heavily synth driven soundtracks,” Lena explains. “I liked the idea of some the parts sounding like creatures from another world in conversation with each other, which Rob [Pemberton] managed to emulate better than I could imagine.” Check out Martha Webb’s video below:

Pluto is out via Chiverin Records on the 18th November. You can buy the single via Bandcamp.

Maya Lucia – sleepy baby club

We first covered Maya Lucia with the release of lashing out back in 2019, an EP which signalled a pivot from love ballads into rambunctious garage rock. New record miss girl world builds upon these foundations, again channelling the mischief and exaggerated pain of youth into something full of both fun and heart. Described as “an internal dialogue of growing up and moving on,” single ‘sleepy baby club’ song faces a decidedly pessimistic present without losing hope of something better just over the hill, all delivered with an infectious pop rock bounce.

Touch the Clouds – Feeling Light

With members of Few and Far Between, King For A Day, Lovesick, and others, Touch the Clouds is something of a Detroit scene supergroup. With equal parts pop and punk, the band combine the energy of post-hardcore with the invention of space rock, allowing infectious harmonies and vast ambient textures to coexist with the same song. Take ‘Feeling Light’, the first track from a forthcoming Touch the Clouds album, a song full of impassioned energy and left-field turns which combines emo earnestness with a transportive atmosphere.

I’m feeling light
floating right
in tune with ultraviolet I’m set free

TOLEDO – L-Train

New York‘s TOLEDO have released brand new single ‘L-Train’ with Grand Jury Music, a track which finds Dan Álvarez de Toledo and Jordan Dunn-Pilz confront the struggles of living and creating within the contemporary moment. ‘L-Train’ was “written at a low point for the both of us,” the band explain. “We had just moved to Bushwick and started playing shows every week. We were drinking and partying and losing sight of ourselves.” The age-old paradox of the touring musician, where a career expressing yourself can turn upside down, pushing the truth further away.

each morning I wake up
the headache
the shape of release still far from my doorbell
and I don’t wanna do this anymore
i wanna know me better

Check out the animated video by Kohana Wilson below:

‘L-Train’ is out now via Grand Jury Music and is available from the TOLEDO Bandcamp page.

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Last autumn saw the release of the debut elison single, ‘Meet Me Halfway’, introducing the band’s distinctive balance between tender emotion and gauzy soundscapes. The new year sees them return with the follow-up single, ‘Hopes & Horoscopes’. Again self-reflective, the track sees Kephart confront bad habits and vices, from mourning unrealised dreams to becoming lost in superstition or introspection. But rather than become paralysed beneath these confessions, elison ramp up the energy and burn through with fleet-footed confidence, rediscovering agency in the act of owning one’s less desired behaviours.

I’ve been missing people I’ve never met
I’ve been holding tight to my last regret
I’ve been stuck here living in my past
Never thinking anything will ever last

‘Hopes & Horoscopes’ is out now and available from the elison Bandcamp page.

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