A decade down the line, That Do Now See is getting a new lease of life thanks to the good folks at Antiquated Future. The EP is the first in a new series of reissues with which the label seek to highlight self-released and tape-label albums from the recent past which have since gone out of print. Fred Thomas stepped in to remaster the release to ensure the songs are presented in their best light, and each of the tapes comes with a reflective essay in which Olivia Rose considers each song in turn.

Opener and single ‘Prom’ is a great place to start for anyone new to Oh, Rose. A song typical of the band’s spirit, where sincere emotion is stretched across a sound which ebbs and flows, its reflective rhythm interspersed by squally peaks and always gathering towards some crescendo. “I never went to prom,” Rose explains in an Instagram post. “Highschool was painful and more than anything I wanted to be left alone until I was finally free.” The song pulls us back into the experience with a heightened intensity, condensing years of discomfort into a cathartic momentum. As Rose continues:

In a way this song is the embodiment of that time, the excruciating feeling of being forced to attend with a storm breaking at home, the loneliness and isolation that comes with having to show up to a seemingly pointless routine. My senior year I was accepted into Chamber Choir and would sleep through class, only waking up when it was time to sing. I think this song is a little like that. My first official “prom” was in 2014, almost four years after graduating, in the basement of The Guest House in Olympia, WA where this song was recorded and then filmed. It was beautiful.

As if that wasn’t enough, Oh, Rose have also shared a brand single, ‘The Call’. With a soulful, spirited sound, the track pivots from the overtly poppy sensibilities of most recent single ‘Back 2 U’ to suggest a new direction for the next stage of the project’s life. A song which looks to both cling to what has made Oh, Rose so special over the last decade, but also broaden its horizons, if only to assert its belief in the future. As Rose puts it, ‘The Call’ is a song “For anyone who has forgotten their calling, given up on their dreams, or wanted to give up. Don’t give up.” Because ‘The Call’ originated in an inflection point, one where Rose was made to consciously decide to continue her pursuit of her artistic energies when life seemed intent on strangling them. “At the start of Covid I got stuck working at a weed grow,” as she explains:

We were considered essential workers and I ended up working there for three years. I didn’t see the rest of the band for almost a year. My days were spent covered in kief dust in a fluorescent room and finishing my degree in the evenings, so music had pretty much stopped. I think this song became my mantra to remember that it wouldn’t last forever.

Watch the video shot and edited by the band themselves with visual lyric effects by Sean Clark below:

That Do Now See is out now via Antiquated Future. ‘The Call’ is available from the Oh, Rose Bandcamp page.

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Having arrived at such a space, Good Good Blood shows no signs of slowing down. Rather, Smith is looking to capitalise on his newfound confidence. New single ‘Johnny Was An Ocean’ finds an artist comfortable in his style and willing to experiment, pairing acoustic folk with glitchy electronics to tell the tale of the titular Johnny. An ocean creature caught in a net, “as cute as cute can get!” What unfolds captures some of the morbid strangeness of classic folk, where wonder and death exist on level terms, and a sense of fabulist morality hangs over every word.

Time begins to move real slow
Johnny starts to feel real low
Trying to find a way to go
But there’s no one who can show
How he can escape your net
Or how to stop being a pet
Take a look, I can bet
He’s as dead as dead can get!

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The result is Pigeon Songs, a six-song EP that’s being released this September through Fox Food Records. Built around the sincerity and authenticity of Joseph Futak’s writing, the EP is a lesson in unguarded candor, its tone balancing movement and stillness to conjure a genuine intimacy. All pretension is dropped in favour of something more modest, the baritone vocals imbuing everything with a sense of meaning in a manner reminiscent of Devon Welsh.

Lead single ‘Scrambling Around’ showed off just how powerful this could be. At once languid and mournful, the song achieves an ambiguous tone, where tenderness and wry self deprecation swirl into one. The effect is one of direct communication, Futak appearing to speak to you and you alone, a message from one small room in the lonely hours for whoever needs to hear it.

Today sees the release of a brand new single, ‘Gone Before’, a track that builds upon this style. Again there’s a simplicity to the sound, a utilisation of space, and Futak’s vocal drawl lends a sluggish quality. But beneath this lies a curious urgency too, the gentle peaks in the delivery hinting at the intensity of feeling beneath the haze, as though his very soul is there to see, if only this lethargy could be punctured. Check out the video by Ola Arent below:

Pigeon Songs is out on the 4th September via Fox Food Records and you can pre-order it now from the Joseph Futak Bandcamp page.

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Released with our friends at Fox Food Records, Constellation is a brand new full-length album from Old Amica, and one which builds upon the foundations of previous releases to “try to discern hope in the vulgar present.” The songs first started taking shape in the early months of 2016, though the record was only half finished when life intervened. “Sounds became muffled,” they describe. “The music suddenly stopped and the timbre died.”

For a whole year Old Amica produced nothing, but a commission to score a short film helped shake off the paralysis. With the soundtrack complete (an album in its own right, Taiga, out now via Whitelabrecs), they turned to Constellation once more. The inspiration and motivation had returned, and they finally finished what they had started.

Today we have the honour of sharing three singles in preparation for the release, tracks that show the emotional intensity of an album dedicated to a diversity of sounds. With a post-rock sense of drama and modulated vocals, ‘Julia, Umeå’ leans as far into the electronic genre as we’ve seen from the band, a dance beat emerging through ghostly harmonies and swirling instrumentation. There’s a haunted sense to the song, ghosts metaphysical or digital or both, though the melancholy fires a cathartic sense of motion and purpose that leads to an affirming conclusion—living up to the hopeful mission statement that inspired the record at its inception.

However, the band themselves admit that finding hope in the vulgar present is difficult, and sometimes the intention fails. Fittingly then, even the most hopeful songs are balanced with a sadness or reflection, Old Amica unwilling or unable to let go of darkness completely. As we described in a preview when the track was released as a single back in 2017, ‘Condensation’ is “a great example of what Old Amica do best, lush layered electronics gild gentle vocals and a steady pulsing drum beat.” The tone is undeniably pensive, “but isn’t necessarily a totally sad song, a point highlighted by its warm, fuzzy undertones.”

Because the hope in the music of Old Amica is hard-won, worked for, the delicate, transient result of engaging with the world without cynicism. Based around an stripped back guitar line and situated much more closely to the folk pole of the spectrum, ‘Juli, Göteborg’ is another case in point. Looking for hope does not mean that we will find it, and finding it does not mean we will hold onto it, but there is something in the act of looking that lifts a weight all the same.

Artwork by Björn Kleinhenz

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Out with our friends at Fox Food Records, Fairytale Delirium is Yani Martinelli’s latest solo release. As the title might suggest, the album is an exploration of ethereal sounds, building from a base of bedroom pop into areas of psychedelia, dream pop and experimental folk, though it’s the authentic DIY attitude that really shines through. This is apparent from the opening title track, sparkling to life with dappled synths before the psych refrain adds a dash of New Age colour. The track swells from here, the backing instrumentation adding a depth beyond the charming simplicity of the vocals, and drawing the track away from accusations of being twee.

There’s a playful yet wistful air to ‘Spirits from Saturn’, a track that maintains a restrained bedroom pop style, while the haunting ‘Solarium’ shimmers beneath skating synths before eventually kicking into a near post-punk rhythm, though the vocals remain detached and floating, a satellite to the main body of the track.

‘Maps to the Deep Deep Ocean’ lives up to its name, blending a tropical lilt with something stranger, almost primordial, a song of teeming life and unknown expanses, though ‘Letter to the Moon’ immediately switches things from earthly depths to outer space. The here the languid style and electronic sparks pitch the listener as the person receiving the titular letters, encased within a low gravity, technological bubble, a thin layer between us and the wide arc of space.

The record closes with ‘Goin To Be’, a return to the bright and grounded pop of the opening. After the transportive styles of the previous tracks, the closer feels like snapping out of a daydream, back to quotidian life. However, in true Yani Martinelli fashion, what you find around you is not rendered dull by the experience but rather heightened, everyday life made wonderful by earnest engagement, magic lurking within the simplest of things.

Fairytale Delirium is out now via Fox Food Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

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Today marks the fifth anniversary of Fox Food Records, and to celebrate James Smith has gathered a large number of the label’s artists for a special compilation, Something’s There But You’re Not Sure What. Essentially a who’s who of the Fox Food roster, the release represents a celebration of what truly independent labels can offer—a diverse group of people from all over the world linked not by a specific sound and style but rather the spirit within.

Opening with an acoustic version of Oh Rose‘s ‘Prom’, Something’s There But You’re Not Sure What features a whole host of our favourites. Nice Legs stop by with another slice of delightfully warm fuzz pop, Spartan Jet-Plex provides an alternate take on single ‘Meant’ and Monarch Mtn returns with his characteristically intimate and melancholic whisper-folk.

Dana Gavanski joins Kaiya Cade on the haunting ‘Garden’, Fazed on a Pony serves up a dose of wonky nostalgia and Goodbye Max welcomes us back into his wistful warmth with the modest wonder of ‘Search Party.’ Then there’s the icy pop of Bloodhype, the whimsical momentum of Plant Food, not to mention the playful hush of Lewtrakimou and cool swagger of Saint Charles. Mixing things up, Henoheno and Fair Mothers offer different takes on patient, sprawling music—the ethereal gloom of the former matched in mood and scope by the foreboding creep of the latter.

Elsewhere, Unisex offer a carefree sway with ‘Let the Tide Take You’, Fairy Godmother a garage rock washed with dreamy haze and the likes of Ratbath, Hairpins, Suzy Jivotovski (of GRNDMS) and Deer Scout all provide stellar examples of intimate bedroom folk. Then, in a fitting finale, Smith’s own Good Good Blood teams up with Astral Social Club for mammoth closer ‘Heathen Astronaut’.

With ambient textures and electronic beeps and glimpses of sincere emotion peeking through the fog, the track acts as a kind of summary of the compilation and therefore the Fox Food Record’s mission as a whole. Heartfelt, experimental, bound not by expectation or convention but rather some gut-level intuition. Together, the elements coalesce into an intangible yet sustained sense of spirit, something far more powerful and lasting than anything done alone. This might not be something than can be adequately put into words, but that it exists is a testament to Smith’s judgement and effort. Because something is there, even if you’re not sure what.

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The EP opens with ‘She Don’t Wanna Know’, a groove-laden track where electric guitar snakes in sinuous circles, Jones’ crooned vocals wending their own way out. The tone is pitched somewhere between longing and uber-cool disinterest, like some heavily stylised version of heartbreak. This loose-limbed, languid aesthetic is the overarching link between all of the songs on the record, though within this frame Saint Charles is able to explore a range of styles.

Like follow-up track ‘Roses’, the insistent drum beat offset by tropical guitar to produce a rhythmic yet laidback sound that brings to mind the surf rock revival of Wavves and Best Coast. ‘Jetpack’ is perhaps the most rock-orientated track on the record, the drums reaching for shoegaze in their hasty tempo, Jones’ vocals all too happy to follow these quick slipstreams with his fluid cadence. Again, the guitar is light and spiraling, updrafts upon which the vocals float in mellow ease.

Closer ‘Lay On My Feet’ slows things once more, another playful slice of pop albeit coloured by a sweetly wistful edge. While the carefree smoothness remains, and the drum beat is imbued with a peppy kick, the guitar is reigned in somewhat, less showy or forthright than some of the other tracks. The effect is one of earnestness, as though the trendy exterior has dropped just an inch to show that, against all the odds, cool kids feel stuff too.

We’re lucky enough to be able to stream the EP in its entirety, so listen below before summer packs its bags and leaves us once more.

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The album is said to be about “memories, hanging on to them, and being afraid to lose them,” and each track possesses the tension of this mindset. They’re an attempt to remember and appreciate what has been, without being consumed and held back by the prospect of losing it. The result is earnest and vulnerable, as displayed by opener ‘If You Can Even Hear Me’, a disarmingly straightforward and sad song that pairs gentle guitar with bummed-out vocals and some spare synths. “My head hurts, my heart hurts, my blood hurts” the narrator sings, “Why’s a life gotta hurt?”

The compassionate tone of ‘The Rest Is a Lie’ fades into ‘Seventeenth’, a track devoid of vocals per se, though a spoken word sample emanates from the ambience of chirping crickets and reflective synths. The effect is one of wide-open space, like listening to a midnight answerphone message while gazing through the window of some isolated motel. Taking the theme of memory literally, ‘Old Photos’ is almost an Talons’-esque account of scrolling through pictures of the past on websites and hard drives, lost moments suspended in data, informational ghosts able to haunt you at your convenience.

‘Automatic/Slow Down’ is ostensibly a love song, although one that’s spiked with fear of loss and the unstoppable march of time, before closer ‘And Who Am I Now?’ provides a suitably contemplative instrumental outro. The track is a fitting conclusion to what is something of a magical album, a fundamentally small and personal sound that somehow manages to open up great spaces, pockets outside of time and space where the lonely can reside and recuperate.

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With full-length album High From Las Vegas coming at the end of the month on Fox Food Records, we get the privilege of sharing brand new single, ‘Not Too Good’, to ramp up the anticipation. The song has an intricate spirit, flickering to life from small elements and beats and clicking into some higher function, eventually rising into a complex, layered soundscape. Neer’s voice acts as the gathering force for this process, the gravity that corrals the various components and spins them into one cohesive whole, a swirling, miasmic body that you too will be drawn into, before the track dissipates back into its competent parts, fading into the nothing from which it came.

High From Las Vegas is set for release on the 29th June via Fox Food Records and you can pre-order it now via Bandcamp.

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‘falling asleep to spoken word’ kicks off the release, a typically morose and sincere lo-fi folk sound, somewhere between dissatisfied and disinterested, that somehow conveys the opposite emotion. However, ‘found your old casio in the attic’ follows with a taste of the other string in the plant food bow, comprising of nothing but an ambient drone and soft sound recordings. Amongst birdsong and tape crackle sounds the only voice in the track, though it’s too distant for any words to be revealed. ‘baked beans’ follows with something of an amalgamation between the two styles. Here the simple bedroom pop strum is dragged off kilter by various effects and recordings, and again the natural world seeps into the space, knitting into the fabric of the track.

The short, striking simplicity of ‘playing hooky’ is followed by the ethereal ‘you in front of the chapel,’ where again the sounds of nature leak between the notes. The stark patience is only increased on ‘mkat’s kicking in/slacking off in your basement’, sounding like an abandoned country house haunted by a folk song as the rain drums on the porch, before ‘powder worries’ picks up the tempo with a nostalgic beat. It is appropriate that ‘such a beautiful thing’ closes the release, just over sixty seconds of something that feels equal parts dreamy and focused, at once mournful and imbued with gentle sense of hope.

koalas hug trees to keep cool is out now via Fox Food Records and you can get it from Bandcamp, including a nice cassette edition.

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