The recording project of Oakland-based illustrator and lettering artist Kyle Benson, Company Vacation uses music as a way to delve deeper into the everyday, and in doing so invites the listener to notice and appreciate the magic in the small details. Out at the beginning of Feruary, new album Okay Headspace feels like the culmination of these ideas, and succinct single ‘I Have a Little Room in My House’ serves at the nostalgic, buoyant prologue. “As a kid, I dominated the family computer. It was steroids to my tiny brain,” Benson explains. “My parents kept it opposite the TV, centrally located in the family room, to keep anyone from using it to look at porn. Having a computer room felt like the luxury of the rich.”

Lately, I’ve been feeling small
But I feel a whole lot cuter
When I play computer

I have a little room in my house
it has a chair and a desk
it’s where I get on the Internet

Watch the video below, with animation by Jared Clark Gay and illustration by Benson himself:

Okay Headspace is out on the 9th February and available to pre-order now.

 Creekbed Carter Hogan – If I Was

With a self-titled album on its way Gar Hole Records, Austin songwriter Creekbed Carter Hogan has released single ‘If I Was’ to introduce their unwavering style of folk. The record sees the trans artist both catalogue the past and confront the present, with Hogan searching for ways to survive and find community in a society which too often seems to have been built to prevent such endeavours. “If I was a loaded gun / You might / Treat me better,” they sing, hinting at the defiance which sits at the heart of their work, an anti-capitalist song which yearns for something more.

Watch the video directed by Jordan Moser below:

Creekbed Carter is out via Gar Hole Records on the 22nd March and you can pre-order it now.

Den Der Hale – Donkey Skin

With their evocative blend of psych, folk and post-rock, Sweden‘s Den Der Hale established themselves as a mysterious force back in 2019 with EP Harsyra, and having now signed to FatCat Records, forthcoming album Pastoral Light looks set to build upon these foundations to paint a bleak picture of humankind’s decimation of the natural world. After the foreboding simmer of Bela Tarr-inspired ‘Horse From Turin’, the five-piece are back with new single ‘Donkey Skin’. A track which draws on the seventies animation of the same name to create an ethereal sound at once alluring and dangerous, doing for French fairy tales what Lankum do for Irish folk tales.

Hatis Noit – Jomon

Having featured in David Lynch’s Manchester International Festival showcase in 2019 and appearing in Rick Rubin’s Showtime documentary series Shangri-La, Japanese voice artist Hatis Noit released the superlative debut album Aura on Erased Tapes in 2022. “Words cannot describe everything we feel,” she explained in the liner notes. “How can one accurately verbalise the sensation we feel when we’re a newborn and our mother holds us in her arms, and we feel her skin on our cheek […] Music is a language that can translate that sensation, feeling, the memory of love.” The description goes some way to describing the album’s tactile, enveloping sound, one all the more impressive for the fact that it is conjured exclusively from Noit’s voice, looped and layered into entire worlds. Made with Berlin-based Taiwanese-Japanese media artist NAOWAO, the new video for the single ‘Jomon’ brings this to life even further, matching the almost shamanistic sound with visuals every bit as mystical, collapsing the apparently divided spheres of human, natural and spiritual experience onto a single plane.

Aura is out now via Erased Tapes and available from Bandcamp.

Kaia Kater – The Internet

Born in Montreal and now based in Toronto, Kaia Kater makes music inspired by Canadian folk music, her father’s Grenadian heritage and the Appalachian music of her college years in West Virginia. Planning to release a new record sometime in 2024, Kater kicked off the year by releasing a new single, ‘The Internet’. A bright and tumbling folk song, it captures the strangeness of communicating with loved ones at a digital remove, replacing physical proximity with a stream of ones and zeros pinged around the world via satellites and fibre optic cables. “I can only talk to you through the Internet,” Kater sings, “in bits and in bytes and right angles.”

Large Brush Collection – Arm’s Length

Back in September we wrote a preview of Off Center, the forthcoming record by Austin folk rockers Large Brush Collection. “The band combine intuitive rhythms with intricate detail to conjure soundscapes able to explore the most personal of things,” we wrote, impressed with their ability to explore thorny issues with nuance and tenderness. The album comes out at the end of the week, and in anticipation Large Brush Collection have unveiled one last single. Titled ‘Arm’s Length’, it is perhaps the most important track of all. “This was the first song I brought to the group when Dan (Magorrian) and Gaby (Torres) and I began playing together,” describes songwriter/bassist Nora Predey. “And we all really connected over it. In a way, I think it became the foundation of the band.” With Torres’s flute and snaking melodies, the song ebbs and flows between dreamy and anxious, floating along sedately before rupturing with stabs of stormy guitar and clattering percussion.

LOUD HOUND – Comet

The project of New Jersey singer-songwriter Tommy Florio, LOUD HOUND is a project that crafts polished pop songs made emotive and interesting with lo-fi guitar and introspective lyrics. Following last year’s album It’s Okay To Be Lonely Part II, LOUD HOUND has returned with a brand new single ‘Comet’, which exists at the quiet, melancholy end of Florio’s stylistic repertoire. This is due to the circumstances in which it was created. “[I] rented a house in the middle of the mountains of Pennsylvania so I could clear my head after the most gut-wrenching break up,” Florio describes. “I needed to isolate myself from the world to understand what just happened and process my emotions so I could slowly get back to myself.” But it’s not all hushed heartbreak, Florio’s tired voice reaches out for hope and healing, and the energetic electronics that support the chorus suggest they might be on the horizon.

Lutalo & Claud – Running

‘Running’ is a joint single between Vermont-based songwriter Lutalo and Brooklyn’s Claud, a song which lands at the super catchy sweet spot between indie rock and pop. Both artists released records last year, Lutalo with AGAIN on Winspear (which we described as “blend of folk, rock and soul which…critique capitalist and racist systems”), and Claud with Supermodels on Saddest Factory Records, both of which established them as some of the freshest new indie pop talent around. The new single is no different, an upbeat, driving indie pop song which explores a tricky relationship with a domineering parent. It comes complete with a video directed by Eleanor Petry which sees the pair act out this relationship in a beautifully warm and grainy seventies colour palette.

‘Running’ is out now via Winspear. Listen via streaming services and purchase a download from the Lutalo Bandcamp page.

Sam Evian – Wild Days

If the soulful psych pop of 2021’s Time To Melt saw Sam Evian embrace a retro aesthetic, then forthcoming album Plunge sees the New York songwriter take things to a whole other level. Carved from the lush pop that marked the seventies, the record is written from the perspective of Evian’s parents, tracing a story of love in all of its complexities and complications. A team of friends including Liam Kazar, Sean Mullins, El Kempner (Palehound) and Adrianne Lenker (Big Thief) all offered their talents, following Evian’s orders to keep things fun and immediate. “No-one knew the songs or what the plan was,” he explains. “We kept it loose and fun. This was the spirit of the sessions. No headphones, no playback, minimal overdubs, or bleed. Fast and loose.” Lead single ‘Wild Day’ gives a glimpse as to what to expect from the album, where the nostalgic haze is leavened by the spontaneity of the process.

Watch the video by CJ Harvey below:

Plunge is out on the 22nd March via Flying Cloud Recordings/Thirty Tigers and you can pre-order it now.

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The result is Personal Best, the first TRAAMS full-length in seven years, to be released this summer on Fatcat Records. An album somewhere between evolution and revolution, clearly indebted to the TRAAMS style but unafraid of bold changes to break new ground. So while some tracks are clearly rooted in the old aesthetic, others represent a transformation. Take the prudent quiet of lead single ‘Sleeper’, swapping out the ferocity of previous releases in favour of something subtle, more human, infused with a certain light.

‘Sleeper’ sees Lowly’s Soffie Viemose lend her vocals, and latest single ‘The Light At Night’ is similarly collaborative. “I had this part where I was trying to sound like a preacher, or someone with unequivocal authority, delivering this ranting speech,” Hopkins explains. “And as much as I tried to get a good version of me doing it, it just wasn’t working. It just sounded like I was trying to be Joe [Casey, of Detroit’s Protomartyr].” So, unlike many a post-punk outfit before them, TRAAMS decided against the cheap knock-off routine and did the only thing left. They asked the man himself.

Building from Hopkin’s hushed beginning, the track ratchets tighter and tighter before unspooling in the back half, Casey stepping in with trademark fervour as the tension releases in the song’s spiralling crescendo. “They implicit in desperation,” he sings. “They wasted hours with Jesuits / They partied in the House of Royal Values / They were partitioned by robots / They saw both cross and boss-eyed.” A sermon delivered in total conviction, walking the line between derangement and assurance with the hermetic logic of an unhinged man.

But the lips still move
What did they say?
What’s that old saying?
Kill the body the head dies

The song comes complete with a video directed and edited by Charlotte Gosch and Lee Kiernan, with production from Holding Hands with Horses and further work by Rob French:

Personal Best is out via Fatcat Records on the 22nd July and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

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Last autumn, Ahern signed with indie stalwarts Fatcat Records, with plans to release several more singles in preparation for a full-length album. The first taste of the partnership, ‘Hard Luck in Love’ furthered the smoky fondness of the vocal style, and displayed a careful hand in utilising space to convey emotion.

The most recent single, ‘Stone by Stone’ sees a similar use of simplicity to craft its atmosphere, though there is a starker quality to the timbre. The result is the most haunting song from Melissa Mary Ahearn so far, skeletal electric guitar and sparse shuffling drums imbuing a lingering loneliness that calls to mind some Lynchian crooner, sashaying upon a half-lit stage.

‘Stone By Stone’ is out now on Fatcat Records and you can find Melissa Mary Ahern on Bandcamp.

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Ahead of their self-titled debut EP, to be released this spring on FatCat Records, Loose Fit have unveiled lead single ‘Pull The Lever.’ As wiry guitar and shuffling drums orbit the angular bass loop that forms the spine of the track, Langdon’s vocals emerge, cast black as the night sky, offering a scathing report on contemporary society.

Risk is the main player in this world, and the adrenaline kick of its presence the binding force that keeps the players in the game. Be it in terms of personal development, economic success or just the constant, compulsive turn to technology. “Apps on our phones are designed like slot machines,” Landon explains. “It’s addictive and exciting to play a dating app. Refreshing or swiping is like pulling the lever of a slot machine to see what you got. That design is no accident in an attention economy.”

“Pull the lever,
try your luck again,
colours spinning,
wind them up again,
it’s time to start again”

Photo by Zafiro

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Floating in Space – The Edge of the Light

Floating in Space in a recording project of Spanish songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist, Ruben Caballero. Recorded, mixed and mastered in Alicante, his latest release The Edge of the Light blends evocative piano and orchestral arrangements with post-rock energy to create huge soundscapes worthy of the act’s name. Pre-order it now from the Deep Elm Bandcamp page.

Mt. Wolf – ‘Golden (feat. St. South)’

London’s Mt. Wolf put out an EP Hex earlier this year to critical acclaim, and are filling the gap to their debut full length in 2017 with ‘Golden’. Joined by Australian vocalist St. South, the track finds the band pushing their warm yet melancholic sound. The dual vocals play like the communication of some long held relationship, one full of pain and confusion yet now spoken of from a position of comfort, or at least context, allowing the mood to be fond and soft.

Hazel English – It’s Not Real

The third track from her forthcoming EP, Never Going Home, ‘It’s Not Real’ is the perfect introduction for anyone unfamiliar with Australian-turned-Californian Hazel English. With it’s washed out guitar and echoed vocals, the track is a late summer nostalgia jam, packing both indie pop energy and the gentle tug of shoegazy nostalgia. The EP is set for release on the 7th October via Marathon Artists and you can pre-order it now.

Tilman Robinson – Deer Heart 

Based in Melbourne, the Australian composer, producer and sound designer Tilman Robinson makes music “with focus on the psychological impact of sound”. His album, Deer Heart, utilises field recordings and body sounds alongside a multitude of instruments to create lush, cinematic soundscapes that fall somewhere between Benjamin Shaw and Keaton Henson. The record is set for release through Hobbledehoy Record Co. this October and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

rgz – gaver en faar; gaver en gir

gaver en faar; gaver en gir, the latest album from Norway’s rgz, a collection of beguiling ambient and drone songs which ebb and flow between delicacy and harshness. ‘zzzz’ and ‘zszs’ are examples of shorter tracks, their uplifting electronics tempered by odd industrial glitches which threaten to strike into static, while songs like ‘Kom Ned’ offer a more tropical, vapourwave style. Our current favourite is ‘Venter’, a seven-minute slow burner which plays like the sci-fi soundtrack to some forgotten series of Twin Peaks set in space. Grab it from the rgz Bandcamp page.

Shana Falana – Here Comes The Wave

Okay, so we haven’t actually missed this one, but we wanted to tell you that Shana Falana has a new album, Here Comes The Wave, coming this October on Team Love Records. Made with partner Mike Amari, the record offers dream pop amped up to eleven, clashing warmth and wildness and whopping instrumental sections to create a sound both dark and thrilling and strangely empathetic. We’ll get a full review up closer to release but you can pre-order the album now from the Team Love website.

Tall Ships – Meditations on Loss

Brighton’s Tall Ships have been on our radar pretty much since we started WTD, with our post on There is Nothing But Chemistry Here one of the first on our fledgling Tumblr page. We’ve moved on somewhat from then, and so have Tall Ships, who are now atmospheric indie rock anthems like ‘Meditations on Loss’. The single, out on FatCat Records, comes complete with a video directed by Ben Phethean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxXBzeMkrks

Jana Irmert – untitled (slow)

A sound artist based in Berlin, Jana Iremert is no mere musician. Her work in film sound, electroacoustic composition and audiovisual installation art has seen her appear at international festivals and exhibitions such as the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the I-Park Environmental Arts Biennale and the Banff Centre in Canada. Her debut album, End of Absence, is being released on Austrian label Fabrique Records in October. This is the first single, a sound and video piece that shifts and blurs, inspired from fragments of text from Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves.

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This idea made me think of the The Twilight Sad. The band have been labelled along a spectrum, from grumpy, dour Scots to a more extreme, probable-trauma-as-a-child sort of category. While it’s understandable that people will take what an artist presents as some clue as the nature of its creator (they have nothing else to go on, after all), to see albums or careers written off as miserable, aloof or frigid based on the artwork and some cherry-picked lyrics is not only unfair, but also missing the point quite spectacularly (FYI Lead James Graham has nice supportive parents). 

Nobody Wants to Be Here… is the The Twilight Sad’s fourth album. Their début, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, was a critically acclaimed masterpiece, but the others, all too often lumped in with the more saleable Frightened Rabbit and We Were Promised Jetpacks, were overlooked for the most part. Graham told The Skinny that the new record is an attempt “not to prove people wrong, but to prove people right,” and it is immensely pleasing to see that this does not mean conforming to a trend but working doubly hard at what TTS are best at.

‘There’s a Girl in the Corner’ opens on a familiarly unsettling vibe, the refrain “you’re not coming back, you’re not coming back from this” hinting at something awful. This indirect method of delivery continues across the album. To choose a few examples, ‘Last January’ is bitter and unrequited and creepy in a desperate way…

“I see you at night,
and I stare at you
You don’t care for me

Without the light,
I still glare at you,
look away from me”

…and ‘I Could Give You All That You Don’t Want’ mixes specific imagery with a dream-like fogginess…

“She said “Pray over there”
She sat and prayed over there
How dare you decide what’s right?
No, you won’t”

This continues throughout the album, until the final track, ‘Sometimes I Wished I Could Fall Asleep,’ a bleak love letter stripped back to the bare bones, just stark piano and Graham’s lyrics. The layers of metaphor are peeled back to produce what is the explicit song on the record, a simple, straight conclusion to what proves a complex piece of work.

The effect the indistinct writing is that of trying to view a disaster unfold through a keyhole, only opening the door once it is too late and the room is empty save for the hum in the air of residual violence or grief. Only Graham seems unable to fully accept what has happened out of sight and instead treads the thinnest, most ridiculous sliver of hope rather than lay down and unravel.

The moral of the album, looping right back around to Berninger and Ellis, is that dark music does not always make for miserable creators or listeners. I’m reminded of the line in Withered Hand’s ‘Religious Songs’, “how does he expect to be happy when he listens to death metal bands?” The Twilight Sad are excellent for the very reason that they deal with pain and darkness in an affirming way, opening up difficult, alienating emotions to show that we are all difficult, emotional aliens. And that we are these things together.

You can buy the album now from FatCat Records, The Twilight Sad’s website or their Bandcamp page.

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