The project of Agriculture’s Leah B Levinson, Cali Bellow makes music concerned with the tension and interplay between the interior and exterior, real and fictional. Thematically, new album Ciao Bella owes as much to Dark Souls and The Muppets as it does Ursula Le Guinn and Joanna Russ, not to mention the environment of Altadena, California. A deep consideration of ideas of artifice and abstraction which always challenges limitations, be they of genre, gender or spirituality. Taking inspiration from songs like ‘Full Of Happiness’ by H.O.T. and ‘I, Me, Mine’ by Godflesh, as well as the hyperactive soundtracks of games like Sonic, new single ‘Goldin Scepter’ is a microcosm of the wider album. A myriad of influences deconstructed and rearranged in order to build a world of its own. “I wanted to pull on the zany character that a lot of ska, funk and pop music teases and push it to a more monstrous effect,” as Levinson explains.

country girl – your favorite girl

Blending an upbringing in classical music with a present love of pop, country girl creates music to bring to life those small personal experiences which make life worth living. Having recently signed with the FADER Label, the project is now back with a new single ‘your favorite girl’, the ideal introduction for anyone unfamiliar with the project. “A song about the movie scenes we film, direct, and act in our heads while in the frenzy of a crush,” as the artist explains. That pressing desire to be a main character in story, however small that story might be. Even if it just means being someone else’s favorite girl.

I wanna look you in the eye
Oh man it gets me every time
I wanna shine inside your world
I wanna be your favorite girl

‘your favorite girl’ is out now via FADER label and available from the usual places.

Death And The Maiden – Waratah

Based in Port Chalmers, Dunedin, Aotearoa/New Zealand trio Death And The Maiden take not only their name from an engraving by Edvard Munch, but their entire atmosphere. A meeting of strength and vulnerability, shadow and light. Moreover, a willingness to embrace ambiguity within a sound which draws upon everything from electronic, folk and psych to house and dance. Released via Fishrider Records (southern hemisphere) and Occultation Recordings (northern hemisphere), new album Uneven Ground is perhaps their most experimental to date, though conversely sees them embrace pop too. Single ‘Waratah’ displays such contradictions in all their alluring layers, allowing freedom and restraint to sit side by side.

dog eyes – drive

“A reach towards an almost cinematic brand of pop that leaves none of the emotion behind,” we wrote of ‘moment’ by dog eyes, “where friendship is at once the most intimate and soaring experiences one might be lucky enough to hold in their life.” The song typified the Oakland band’s new album holy friend, which explores how relationships and connection not only shape us but morph over time. With the record now out via Grand Jury Music, dog eyes have released a new single, ‘drive’. An example of the more folk-adjacent side of the album, the song tells the story of a road trip into the mountains with all the quiet seclusion of the leafy backroads, gentle guitar and ramshackle percussion sparkling sleepily behind sincere vocals. The result feels like a small and sweet moment grasped in its moment of transience and fixed to tape.

I would not say words if I did not mean them
Tired of monotony
Just drive this Sequoia please
To some distance where I cannot see
Where I’ll forget how to tell where I am

Dogwood Tales – driver’s side fantasy

Based in Harrisonburg, Virginia, Dogwood Tales originated in 2016 with Ben Ryan and Kyle Grim and soon expanded to become a full band with the addition of Danny Gibney (bass), Stephen Kuester (pedal steel) and Jake Golibart (drums). Working within a country-inflected rock style, the project has released a number of albums and EPs, most recently Rodeo via WarHen Records, and is putting out a brand new tape later this summer. Latest single ‘driver’s side fantasy’ introduces the sound, occupying that post-Drive-By Trucker’s sphere alongside the likes of MJ Lenderman. Watch the video filmed by Travis Legg below:

‘driver’s side fantasy’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Dwi Riana x Orkes Garasi – Ku Bisa

Indonesian-Canadian artist Dwi Riana has made a name for working across genres, finding inspiration in everything from folk, hip hop and traditional music to bossa nova and jazz, and new single ‘Ku Bisa’ is the project of yet another direction. “I had the amazing opportunity of composing for an Indonesian short film titled A Day Apart on the Seventeenth, directed by Noel Pendawa,” they explain, a process which saw them team up with Toronto-based Indonesian Keroncong band, Orkes Garasi. Channelling the themes of Pendawa’s film, the song explores ideas of homesickness by melding Keroncong and folk styles, and the result sees the narrator turning to dreams as their only mode of escape.

‘Ku Bisa’ is out now via streaming services.

Mother Sun – Giant Bog

“I think with these songs we wanted to create a record that sonically speaks to the magic that is constantly unfolding all around in the natural world.” That’s how lead Jared Doherty describes Mother Sun’s latest album, Meadow 6, which is coming soon via Earth Libraries. Fittingly, many of the songs originated when playing guitar outside in the garden, with the Kamloops, BC outfit not only exploring the diversity of nature but humanity’s relationship with it. Something to escape into, to explore and study, cultivate and exploit. Crafted from a vivid psych-rock sound that reaches towards jazz, krautrock and retro folk, the album comes to form an environment of its own, as captured by new single and closer, ‘Giant Bog’. A sprawling track which serves as a kind of retro-futurist hothouse within which all manner of things can sprout and grow wild.

Stephen Becker – I Held An Echo

This October, Stephen Becker is releasing his new full-length Middle Child Syndrome via Record Euphoria. The album sees the LA-born, Brooklyn-based songwriter work in the indie-psych tradition of the late noughties/early 2010s, adding jazz and baroque pop sensibilities to a more traditional singer-songwriter style. An effort, at least in part, to rise above the mundane present, as though to be trapped within conventions is to be restricted by the same inability to communicate effectively that haunts our everyday lives. Single ‘I Held An Echo’ hints at the widescreen scope of the resulting sound, though the glitch and shimmer of the dreamlike arrangement hints at the precarity of any attempt to escape our usual constraints.

Middle Child Syndrome is out on the 25th October via Record Euphoria and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Yammerer – ESZ – Erth Station Zebra

How do you convince people to engage with album-length work in this age of streaming and algorithmic playlists? Liverpool’s Yammerer have one potential solution. Erth Station Zebra might be packaged as an album on Bandcamp and the like, but the release is intended as a single composition. Or as the band put it, “a transcendent odyssey” which runs through six movements across its forty-four minutes. Previous releases like Reality Escape Resort might have positioned them in the contemporary post-punk revival, but there was always something different about the outfit. An extra level of ambition and invention. Erth Station Zebra sees them embrace this side of their work wholeheartedly, leaning into transportive psych to not only revitalise the appetite for in-depth pieces of work, but position themselves as one of the UK’s most interesting projects to keep an eye on moving into the future.

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“The ‘Holy Friend’ as a concept, creates an ideal person from scraps of perfection/the divine we find in flawed places,” Firstman explains. “Hopeful, yet grounded, the ‘Holy Friend’ is a testament to the idea that age brings nuance. Something bigger than the sum of its parts that helps guide us, rooted and reflected in the nuance of friendship.” The wistful hush of ‘fair’ was followed by the downbeat fondness of ‘rusty, my dog’, establishing the intimate and often melancholic side of the dog eyes sound, though within the ostensibly quiet arrangement of the latter stirred something larger. An epic quality which might not have quite punctured the presiding subdued vibe, but burned beneath the surface nonetheless.

New single ‘moment’ allows this to bloom further into view, maintaining the bedroom pop sensibilities but fleshing out the sound with a vivid shimmer. What results is the surest evidence of the dog eyes evolution as a project. A reach towards an almost cinematic brand of pop that leaves none of the emotion behind. Something which might fit on the soundtrack of Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow—where friendship is at once the most intimate and soaring experiences one might be lucky enough to hold in their life.

holy friend is out on the 16th August via Grand Jury Music and you can pre-order it from the dog eyes Bandcamp page.

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Last year, East Vancouver post-punks Aversions put out the full-length You Wanted The Bike, an album which “combine[d] heavyweight riffs, pounded percussion and acerbic vocals to comment on our contemporary moment,” as we put it in a preview. Songs like ‘Undecider‘ channelled this raw energy into a sound of “anxiety and latent violence, drawing on a whole host of political and social themes in three and a half minutes of Strummer-esque polit-punk.” Recorded at the same time as that album but not quite sitting right among the rest of the tracks, latest single ‘Wormhole’ sees the three-piece reaching further afield for their stylistic influences, dialling back some of the ferocity to allow in alt-country sensibilities. But the lyrics are as cutting and contemporary as ever, charting the rise and fall of an internet personality who, after selling their soul for recognition, is left lonely on the other side of fame, banging the locked door leading back to normal life.

Blue Canopy x A Beacon School – Bright Spot II

When Blue Canopy‘s Alex Schiff asked Patrick Smith of A Beacon School to remix single ‘Bright Spot’ after its release back in 2022, he probably didn’t quite expect the level of collaboration and vision which followed. Fast-forward eighteen months and the result has now been released as a single via Grind Select. ‘Bright Spot II’ is not so much a remix as a reimagining, a sister track which drags a cover of darkness over the original’s sunny wistfulness, carving out a nocturnal space of electronics which further amplifies the themes of regret and longing in a song about facing difficult periods with a long-term partner. “I just wanted everything to be OK between us,” Schiff explains, “and this song sorts through my feelings throughout that time, hoping for a resolution.”

The song comes complete with a video by Ebony Davies with additional edits from Chase Wagner:

‘Bright Spot II’ is out now via Grind Select and you can get it from Bandcamp.

The Dead Tongues – Body of Light

“Baby there ain’t no rules here / we can just slide / keep bending and drawing new lines / all shapes defined.” So opens ‘Body of Light’, the title track from one half of the upcoming double record from Ryan Gustafson’s The Dead Tongues on Psychic Hotline. Described as a pair of “interweaving and disparate albums,” the release embraces the diaphanous, intangible sentiment offered in those opening words, refusing to calcify into solid form in favour of something ephemeral. As the lead single suggests, the result is something intuitive and ever-shifting, mapped along the unseen currents of both our own interiors and the natural world. “Maybe you don’t know what to call it,” as Gustafson sings, “or it ain’t got a name / i’m here for it all just the same / all colors and shades / i’m just a body of light.” Watch the video by Gustafson and Cat Siravantha below:

Body of Light will be released digitally on the 14th June, and physically as a double album with I Am A Cloud on the 9th August via Psychic Hotline. Pre-order it now.

dog eyes – fair

dog eyes is the recording project of Oakland‘s Davis Leach and Haily Firstman which started when Leach helped produce Firstman’s previous project Mr Marigold. The pair soon realised their collaborative chemistry could stretch much further. Following on from the earnest, delightfully lo-fi debut good, proper sendoff on Grand Jury Music, new single ‘fair’ continues to develop the dog eyes sound. A track about friendship and its strange ebb and flow, the childlike wonder of the vocals is shaded by a lingering wistfulness, as though every perfect moment foreshadows its inevitable end. “When you’re a kid and you make a new friend you think they’ll be your friend forever and often they are not, the band explain. “They were there for a season. A love or crush can be the same.” Watch the video directed by Ev Fitzpatrick below:

‘fair’ is out now and available from the dogs eyes Bandcamp page.

Joy Guidry – I Will Always Miss You

Writing in March, we described how Brooklyn-based bassoonist and composer Joy Guidry was releasing new album AMEN via Whited Sepulchre Records, where Guidry experiments with the multitude of Black American music styles to create something new. Previous single ‘Members Don’t Get Weary’ combined jazz and gospel music into something impassioned and triumphant, whereas new track ‘I Will Always Miss You’ takes an entirely different path. Built upon a foundation of lush ambient synths and boasting some of the most evocative bassoon you are likely to hear, the instrumental piece offers a meditative space that’s rooted within the wider experience of life—where mourning and joy marble into a single whole.

Lake Michigan – Rituals

Described as an album about “love, OCD, class, addiction and probably a couple of other things too,” La Madrugada is the latest full-length release from Mexico City-based Lake Michigan on Start-track. The record continues the project’s gloomy, intimate bedroom pop style, with arrangements stripped back to their sparest elements to sound like raw messages as voiced in the latest hours of the night. Focusing on OCD and the general unease so intrinsic to the condition, single ‘Rituals’ is great entry point, its vocals emerging through the lo-fi sound as barely a murmur, heavy with weariness yet afraid of relaxing, as though compelled by the need to balance the world.

Mr. Sam and the People People – Go People Go (Part One)

This summer sees the release of Again! Again!, the new full-length album from New Orleans-based songwriting project Mr. Sam and the People People on Tape Dad (distributed by Gar Hole Records). Opening single ‘Go Baby Go (Part One)’ introduces the compassionate tone with a mindful reflection on the beauty inherent in simple things. Mr. Sam Gelband’s vocals land somewhere between Dean Johnson and Frederick Squires in their fond baritone. “I wrote ‘Go Baby Go’ to honor […] my closest people, the lake, the porch, the mountain, the shoreline, the neighbourhood, the quiet moments with myself,” Mr. Sam describes. “I know now that these things are the keepers of my truest joy, and I thank them.” Watch the video by Mayme O’Toole and Sam Gelband below:

Again! Again! is out via Tape Dad on the 11th June and available for pre-order now.

shn shn – Glimmer

We’ve covered the work of shn shn several times in recent years, always admiring how Toronto-based producer, singer-songwriter and creator Shanika Lewis-Waddell reimagines what the project might be with each release. “[shn shn] aims to do more than merely convince the listener to examine themselves,” we wrote of Form(s) last year. “Rather, it allows them to drift off to new frontiers. That is, to dream.” With its expansive ambient tones and idiosyncratic details, new single ‘Glimmer’ furthers this aesthetic. A meditation on the power of patience and understatement which coalesces into something quietly triumphant. “Building up gradually,” Lewis-Waddell sings, “unexpectedly found myself /so close yet so far / to a glimmer of hope.”

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Being Dead is a project built on friendship and trust. A space for Texas-based multi-instrumentalists Falcon Bitch and Gumball to be themselves, however that might manifest in any given moment. New album When Horses Would Run, coming this summer via Bayonet Records, shows how varied and fruitful such a set-up can be, the sound ranging from lo-fi pop and country-inflected rock to something closer to experimental or jazz. Lead single ‘Muriel’s Big Day Off’ captures the duo’s effervescent energy, not to mention the off-the-wall spirit which is always playful but never insincere.

When Horses Would Run is out on the 14th July via Bayonet Records and you can pre-order it now.

Brittain Ashford – Hold On Tight

Trotter, the forthcoming album by Brittain Ashford on Misra Records, is a record about “finality and making regrettable decisions.” A collection of songs crafted in the aftermath of a grief so profound it seemed to seep into anything and everything which comes in close proximity. After the passing of her father, whose surname forms the title of the record, Ashford stayed on a contracted tour, only to run into the full weight of the loss months down the line, a chaotic period which resulted in a cancelled engagement among other things. Single ‘Hold On Tight’ kicks through the ashes with a tangible regret, delivered from the perspective of a newfound distance, allowing a more reflective processing on a fundamentally personal experience.

Hold on tight
I know loving me wasn’t always easy
My entire life, tried to do it right
But I fucked it up completely

Chat Pile – King

After the dazzling, doom-laden intensity of 2022 full-length God’s Country, Oklahoma‘s Chat Pile have returned with Brother’s In Christ, a split with Kansas outfit Nerver on Reptilian Records and The Ghost Is Clear Records. If the previous album railed against capitalism’s pitiless desecration of earth, then the new EP confronts the razed landscape with a kind of fatalistic knowing and utter incomprehension. Because if you pay attention to this world, the misery might not be surprising, but expecting something rarely lessens the impact once it truly arrives. “It’s probably what you’re thinking honestly,” sings leads Raygun Busch. “But I’ve never been to / A place like this / Not even in my dreams.”

Crooks & Nannies – 3AM

“A song which gives in to the rollercoaster ride of intense emotion, no matter how high the peaks or deep the troughs.” That’s how we described ‘Sorry‘, the previous single from Crooks & Nannies‘ LP No Fun, out now via Grand Jury Music. The track was preceded on the release by ‘3AM’, something of a sister song which dials into the same whirlwind of feelings, with everything from volatile sax and “Final Fantasy synths” capturing that disoriented struggle to ground oneself in a world of such hostility. But bursting through this tumult is a big disco beat that closes things out, lending a sense of momentum that might not exactly be triumphant, but it’s momentum all the same.

No Fun is out now via Grand Jury Music and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Laura Wolf – Paper and Plastic

“If reality and fiction are braided into history, then Laura Wolf wants to unpick the threads.” That’s how we concluded our preview of Shelf Life, Wolf’s upcoming album on Whatever’s Clever. Lead single ‘Calligraphy and Calculations’ represented “a sonic of equivalent of family history, where original truths are cherished and embellished into folklore, and stories take on as much importance as the fact of any event.” Latest single ‘Paper and Plastic’ again explores the line between memories and myths, inviting the listener into an ethereal, orchestral soundscape which evokes the foggy allure of retrospection. Watch the video from Dan Criblez below:

Shelf Life is out on the 2nd June via Whatever’s Clever and you can pre-order it now.

Melanie MacLaren – Tourist

Writing of the music of Nashville-based songwriter Melanie MacLaren in the past, we described it as, “indebted to the past and the present without being beholden to either, managing to possess the timeless country spirit without sacrificing any sense of immediacy.” New EP Tourist continues this style, taking well-worn themes of family and loss and addressing them with a tangible immediacy. The title track captures this in all of its poignance, moving through the lows of grief without losing sight of hope. “I wrote ‘Tourist’ for my nieces and nephews during a time when we were all grieving an unimaginable loss in our family,” MacLaren told The Bluegrass Situation. “Overall the song is here to say that most everything is temporary, but that there are some things out there that we don’t understand that are true and eternal.”

Quinn Devlin – Lillian

Pennsylvania-born multi-instrumentalist Quinn Devlin has played with a whole range of acts both on stage and in recording, with Aisha Badru, Alex Lleo, JW Francis and vern matz just a few of the talents he has helped support. Devlin’s new single ‘Lillian’ sees this relationship inverted, with a series of collaborators turning out to bring his own earnest folk style to life. From co-producer Sahil Ansari to contributions from James Woodall (pedal steel and lap steel), Jack Broza (electric guitar), Jordan Wolff (drums), Andy Shimm and Dylan DeFeo (both piano), the range of guests take a laid back indie folk number and lift it into something larger. The result is solo intimacy blown up into something communal, the sound’s careful richness developing into an affirming final chorus.

Quinn Tsan – Roses

The work of Chicago-based songwriter Quinn Tsan has often combined heartfelt emotion with something bolder. Releases like 2014’s Good Winter and more recent single ‘She’s No Better’ blurred the line between folk and rock to conjure a smoking, swaggering barroom sound. New single ‘Roses’ swaps the bravado for something altogether more tender, the stripped back style and pensive croon sounding more like a dispatch from a lamp-lit bedroom at the dead of one bad night too many. But within what appears to be a state of vulnerability, Tsan’s words suggest a sense of agency fully intact, taking control of the situation, no matter of painful it might be.

Don’t buy me roses
Take your clothes from the floor
Leave your silence
Nancy, we don’t belong

Xena Glas – Let Go

Last year, Texas-born, Brooklyn-based visual artist, poet and musician Xena Glas released Movements, an EP which blended classical, ambient, folk and electronic styles to explore their move from southern suburbs to an urban space. A kind of psychogeography of a new environment, as well as a survey of the internal changes that accompany such a culture shock. Latest single ‘Let Go’ is no less inventive or striking, a song built around Glas’s vocals which shimmers with what could be tranquil calm or some slow-gathering energy, ebbing and flowing with a tidal rhythm as intricate details gather and dissipate with a natural ease.

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To accompany the announcement, Crooks & Nannies have shared brand new single, ‘Sorry’. We described ‘Control’ as a song capturing “the knife-edge of mental health and the often unseen work which goes into maintaining the balance,” its rhythm building into something increasingly chaotic and strained, but the new track mimics an altogether different emotional experience. Tender, uncertain verses rise into big widescreen crescendos, then a lingering aftermath ringing with the expended energy. A song which gives in to the rollercoaster ride of intense emotion, no matter how high the peaks or deep the troughs.

“‘Sorry’ is the first and only song I’ve written entirely in one sitting,” Huntington explains. “I recorded a demo immediately afterward, and the final vocal is still the take from that demo.” The immediacy of the process is not only apparent in the track, but speaks to the moment in which it was created. “It came to me in 2018, at an incredibly overwhelming and unstable time in my life,” she continues. “I had recently made the decision to stop ignoring the fact that I was transgender but was struggling to grapple with what that meant for me personally, and was feeling a lot of frustration toward myself for not having figured it out.”

The situation was confounded by a break-up, leaving Huntington single for the first time in a long while at the very time the comforts and supports of a relationship were keenly required. “I was in over my head,” as she says, “looking for strength in the wrong places and having an increasingly difficult time seeing a future for myself.” The track’s volatile energy is therefore hardly surprising, its big dips and fast climbs conjuring a moment where the seatbelts have been lost, brakes cut, the cart possibly running out of line.

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Last month we introduced Real Love, the forthcoming album by Beat Radio on Totally Real Records. An examination of personal turmoil against a wider context of intergenerational trauma which “prob[es] into some of the most tender areas in order to address the wound.” The first song Brian Sendrowitz wrote from the record, latest single ‘Radioactive’ not only sets the album’s fuzzed out tone but established the stakes too. “You were radioactive / And its taken its toll,” Sendrowitz sings, “But you’re learning to change / And to make yourself whole / It’s a fight for your soul.”

Real Love is out on 21st October via Totally Real Records and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Bollards – Crimestopping

Described as a “relentless rush of blood to the head”, ‘Crimestopping’ is the latest track from London outfit Bollards. The song is a blend of post-punk and art rock sensibilities which captures a decidedly urban milieu. Spacious atmospherics coupled with claustrophobic cul-de-sacs and an overarching instability hovering above. This semi-hysterical tone informs the lyrics too, where paranoia about surveillance is matched only by the incessant desire to surveil in turn. A world where you can trust no-one, and no-one trusts you. Check out the video co-directed by Mars Washington and Jonny Dickens:

‘Crimestopping’ is out now and is available from the Bollards Bandcamp page.

claire rousay – wouldn’t have to hurt

LA‘s claire rousay returns this month with wouldn’t have to hurt, a benefit album for the Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people, via Mended Dream Records. Woven from a fabric of field recordings, midi instruments, guitars and piano, as well as guest strings from Theodore Cale Schafer, the title track sees unguarded and forthright spoken word from nurse and Youtuber Madison Van Dine. A discussion of mental health stripped of any mawkish sentiment or quick-fire solutions, just working through things and facing up to every day. An encapsulation, that is, of rousay’s intentions with wouldn’t have to hurt. Still here and communicating to others, no matter how injured, frustrated or flat.

Crooks & Nannies – control

This month saw the return of Crooks & Nannies, AKA West Philadelphia duo Madel Rafter and Sam Huntington, with their first new music in a number of years. Released via Grand Jury Music, ‘control’ is a single which explores the knife-edge of mental health and the often unseen work which goes into maintaining the balance. The gentle progression slowly ramps as discordant noises punctuate the background, soon escalating into a chaotic rhythm. “I wanted to capture the feeling of walking through an art museum and holding all of your muscles tightly because if you don’t, you might give into some crazy impulse and do something really really bad,” Rafter explains, “like pull a painting off the wall and put your foot through it.” Check out the video with art by Sam Huntington and animation by Sarah Alvarez below:

‘control’ is out now via Grand Jury Music and you can get it from the Crooks & Nannies Bandcamp page.

daarling – Metamorphosis

Chicago-based indie rock band daarling are gearing up to release their debut full-length, and new single ‘Metamorphosis’ gives an insight into what to expect. A simmering, brooding number which dwells on the inevitability of change and the friction which results, with lead Erin Lyle riding the peaks and troughs of the instrumentation to find a tone both cutting and cathartic. “Metamorphosis is bullshit / I’ll cultivate my state either way,” she sings. “Your idleness affects no one / You confuse stability for stagnation.”

Kevin Dorff – Impossible Objects

Kevin Dorff is a songwriter and playwright originally from Des Moines, Iowa and now based in Brooklyn, who recently released his debut LP Silent Reply. A record which explores the lasting impact people have on our lives, even after their death, Silent Reply combines elements of folk and Nineties indie rock into a sound that shifts effortlessly from poignant to energetic. Dorff’s style is thanks at least in part to its influences—he cites the songwriting of David Berman and Craig Finn as big inspirations, but also the novels of Rachel Cusk and portraits of visual artist Alice Neel, which goes some way to explaining a tone that’s both sincere and wryly humourous. A standout is ‘Impossible Objects’, possibly the most touching track to ever name check M. Night Shyamalan and Toy Story 3.

Orchid Mantis – Lucid Dreams

The prolific Orchid Mantis is gearing up to release their seventh album via Spirit Goth Records, and first single ‘Lucid Dreams’ gives an indication of direction Thomas Howard is taking on the new tunes. After the newfound optimism of Visitations, an album we described as “an attempt to push beyond the past, keeping a clear-eyed focus on the present and what comes next,” the song finds itself inevitably turning back toward the past, even if just in the night-time visions suggested in the title. “Back out on my friend’s porch / or down by the church,” Howard sings, “feels like a lucid dream / like it was 10pm in 2016”

and nothing feels the same
but nothing really changed
i’m filling up my head
with memories that
i don’t ever want to resurrect
i wake up again

‘Lucid Dreams’ is out now and available from the Orchid Mantis Bandcamp page. How Long Will It Take is out via Spirit Goth Records on the 11th November.

Ross Jenkins – Plain as Day

Writing back in March, we described Free All Day by Vancouver’s Ross Jenkins as a record marked by “a sense of restraint and quiet grace,” which brought to mind “the solo records of Canadian songwriting heavyweights Bry Webb and John K. Samson.” Recorded during the same period as that album, latest single ‘Plain as Day’ embraces this style once more while also leaning into the seventies-era psych sensibilities which also reared their head. The gentle rhythm belies the strength underpinning its intentions, coming off as an assured statement and worthy addition to Jenkins’s catalogue.

Sweetbreads – Out of Range

Led by Melody Stolpp in collaboration with Nick Watt, and featuring a rotating cast of musicians, Brooklyn’s Sweetbreads make a hybrid of alt-country and pop which aims to get your toes tapping and hearts swelling in equal measure. Latest single ‘Out of Season’ follows protagonist June and her quest to resist the thankless treadmill of modern living, opting for an unproductive and entirely more positive way of life. Complete with a “muppet-inspired” background chorus with over forty voices, the song celebrates breaking conventions in the most joyous way possible, and ends up as the perfect antidote to the breakneck bluster of the world we call home.

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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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Cold Beat – Mother

Out via DFA Records, the latest Cold Beat album, Mother, came into existence when front person Hannah Lew was expecting a child. “I found myself trying to describe our earth to a new human who had never been here,” they explain, submerged in what is undoubtedly a pessimistic age. “It was a bleak year to be pregnant, but I was simultaneously filled with so much love and hope at the same time.”

Mother is Lew’s attempt to communicate these conflicting sensations. Shot through with a binding sense of energy, the record channels the like of Au Revoir Simone in its otherworldly beauty, synths and guitars offering sparkling yet melancholic soundscapes that are constantly shifting. That said, the songs actively work against the sense of doom of our age, unearthing light amid the darkness, and finding a sense of hope and perseverance in the cycle of life.

MAITA – A Beast

Inspired by the songwriters of 2000s indie rock, from Conor Oberst to Lesley Feist, Maria Maita-Keppeler found her own artistic vision in the amalgamation of reality and poetry. The result is songs both honest and emotionally resonant, driven by the urge to communicate more deeply. “For me, songwriting comes from a place of wanting to find the truth in life,” Maita-Keppeler explains. “Sometimes that truth is so complex and nuanced that it requires a whole song to explain.”

Recording under the moniker MAITA, the Oregon-based musician works with such ideas in mind, crafting emotionally resonant tracks that look to convey what might otherwise be left unsaid. New single ‘A Beast’ is a superb example, drawing the listener in with the gentle lilt of the opening before plunging you headlong into the cold rush of the chorus. However, MAITA has a firm grip of your shoulders, and pulls you out for breath before immersing you once more.

Best Wishes will be released via Kill Rock Stars on the 3rd April and you can pre-order it now from the MAITA Bandcamp page.

Orpine – Sondern

Orpine is UK duo Eleanor Rudge and Oliver Catt, self-described migratory birds “singing in harmony 300 miles removed.” The pair had spent time together in the past, lending their talents to various bands and records, yet fell out of touch for several years before Rudge eventually reached out once more. A trip to Black Hill in the Scottish Borders entailed, and a four day writing period where the collaboration truly began.

The result was Grown Ungrown, a full-length album to be released this May on Heist or Hit. Forgoing the trappings of contemporary life, the album is a celebration of the natural and organic—tapping into the great rhythms of nature so as to create a space in which their own emotions can ebb and flow. Lead single ‘Sodern’ is a great example, a song ostensibly about loss and mourning that nevertheless finds the time to cycle through various moods and states. A seasonal song that finds not only comfort in the patterns of life, but something like awe.

Cold ice water covering my head
And a long, hard winter breaking whatever’s left
And black coal burning, warming my legs
And my old, lone island, sinking for itself

Grown Ungrown is out via Heist or Hit on the 15th May and you find Orpine on Bandcamp.

Alli Millstein – Smoke in Her Eyes

Combining folk and rock sensibilities and driven by an impressive vocal range, the music of Brooklyn songwriter Alli Millstein is an evocative trip through the emotions and vulnerabilities of modern life. New EP Psychic Distance represents an authentic and idiosyncratic experience, drawing as much on classic country rock as contemporaries such as Lucy Dacus, and capable of both urgency and dreamy patience.

Latest single ‘Smoke in Her Eyes’ is firmly in the latter camp. A slow ballad of lazy saxophone and unfurling lyrics, the song brings to mind the moving conversational power of Frederick Squire, Millstein possessing the confidence to lean into the expansive half-paced style.

There is a flame burning all day
too hot to touch it
There is a name on every page
too shy to say it

she’s on the tip of my tongue
and the skin of my hands
I sleep in her waves
and live on her land

Chase Weinacht – Leap Day

Best known as the singer of Austin band Marmalakes, Chase Weinacht records solo under his own name, and has teamed up with the ever-reliable Keeled Scales to release a brand new single, ‘Leap Day’. In contrast with the slick polish of the Marmalakes sound, Weinacht’s solo work is far more individual and textured, refusing the urge to iron out every kink or answer every question.

Such a sense of uncertainty marks ‘Leap Day’. The song is “about how big and small New York feels when you’re there with the people you’ve known for years,” Weinacht explains, “but how you can feel like an imposter in that very familiar person’s very unfamiliar-to-you world, like you can’t understand how they are so in their element in a place that feels so different from the space where you made the initial connection.” Chase Weinacht is not writing perfect answers to every ambiguity but mapping their shapes, making them known so that the common humanity there might be teased to the surface.

On a rooftop in Bushwick at 5am
I couldn’t look at you
Without almost leaning in
And if we’d been alone
I’d have had no control
but if we’d never met up
How would I have ever known

V.V. Lightbody – If It’s Not Me

Back in May last year, we wrote about ‘Babe, Honestly‘, a single by Chicago’s V.V. Lightbody on Acrophase Records. The song has a “surreal, constantly-shifting atmosphere that subverts and surpasses the genre conventions,” we wrote, noting the duality between the “delicate and hospitable sound masking a colder, more vicious tone.” Again working with Acrophase, Vivian McConnell and co. are back with a brand new full-length album, Make a Shrine or Burn It, to be released this May.

Lead single ‘If It’s Not Me’ serves as our introduction to the record. Although there might be an ambiguous space between the soft, warm sound and the lyrical themes, the bite of the previous single is replaced by something altogether more conciliatory. For rather than anger or jealousy, the song attempts to make peace with an ex and their new flame, viewing the ‘other woman’ not as some poisonous figure but a fellow human being. Treating this person “with respect and dignity,” McConnell explains, is “an important step for healing and one’s sanity.”

Make A Shrine Or Burn It will be released on the 1st May via Acrophase Records.

Grizzly Coast – Forever

Writing last year about the single ‘Half-Light Boy‘, we described the music of Alannah Kavanagh’s Grizzly Coast as “vivid […] heartbroken rock,” the song “operating within the liminal space between clinging to and moving on from someone who was once important […] a cathartic detailing of the profoundly wounding experience of another’s selfishness.”

A brand new Grizzly Coast single has just been released, and the song builds upon this style. Finding harmony between thoughtful lyricism and instrumental immediacy, ‘Forever’ is dream pop in its most potent form. The haziness of the genre is present but not overpowering, Kavanagh’s vocals cutting through the velvet tones in a forthright, confrontational manner. The result is something of a subversion of the usual conventions, a fight against the false romanticism of longing and loneliness.

Grizzly Coast is releasing her debut EP this spring, so be sure to follow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more news.

Foreign Fields – Rose Colored

Hailing from Wisconsin, Foreign Fields have been crafting some of the most evocative folk music of recent years, starting with their debut record in 2012. Indebted to both the natural world and the human experience, the songs of Eric Hillman and Brian Holl have always carried a quiet grandness, melancholy and wonder wound tight into soundscapes both lonely and affirming.

Brand new album The Beauty of Survival looks set to continue this style, holding up small pockets of human warmth against the cold. Latest single ‘Rose Colored’ displays this with its fittingly moving sound. A song “about contentment and the paths we take to reach it,” the song looks into the past for answers about the present. “It is probably the most autobiographical song on the record that closely follows our path and journey in making this record.”

Merpire – Heavy Feeling

Recording as Merpire, Melbourne’s Rhiannon Atkinson-Howatt released her debut EP Endless Chatter back in 2018, a record that introduced her distinctive brand of urgent pop emotion. Leading up to an as of yet unannounced debut album, a series of singles followed that saw the sound evolve and grow. As our friends over at Swell Tone put it: “Building from acoustic beginnings, [Merpire] has developed a sound that maintains her songwriting’s signature punch of familiarity but ignites it with unexpected textures and tones to create her own mystical sonic world.”

Based around experiences of anxiety and discomfort, latest single ‘Heavy Feeling’ is a good view into the world Merpire is creating. Rich, affirming and confident, a steely-eyed glare into the face of one’s demons in the hope that they might just blink. “I write music to get those thoughts out of my head so that they seem like less of a reality I’ve created and more just thoughts that will pass,” Atkinson-Howatt explains. “This song is more straight-up lyrically, melodically, production-wise than previous releases. Straight to the point of ‘anxiety is shit so I’m going to write a loud, strummy song to get it out’.”

The debut Merpire album is on the horizon, so be sure to follow on Facebook and Instagram for further updates.

Minor Powers – Wound Like Me

Minor Powers is duo Megan Lightell and Derek Greene, partners from the Appalachian foothills who combine mountain music with indie rock to produce a bittersweet sound perfectly positioned to explore the age old themes of love and loss. Album Stones We Keep is a collection of such tracks, staying true to folk influences while adding newly emotive edges. As the Minor Powers website explains, the songs are “haunted by the past while grasping at the ephemeral nature of the present […] search[ing] for the meaning of memories and second chances.”

Single ‘Wound Like Me’ is the perfect example. The song “explores what life is without the one that chose another,” the band explain, as well as “the regret that follows.” But rather than the self-pity and melodrama of many a break-up record, Minor Powers offer something far more poignant. Embedded in the organic world, loss and longing are presented as another of nature’s cycles, persistent features of being alive.

Jordana – Crunch

The recording moniker of Wichita’s Jordana Nye, Jordana put out the record Classical Notions Of Happiness last year to some pretty impressive acclaim. Teaming up with Grand Jury Music, this March sees the re-release of that record, giving those who missed it the first time around the perfect opportunity to right the mistake and fall for Jordana’s distinctive brand of indie pop.

Despite being the closing track, latest single ‘Crunch’ is as good a place to start as any. Introducing Jordana’s knack for taking relatable vignettes and twisting them into evocative, layered weirdness, the track highlights how Nye masks her clever and often cutting writing within deceptively simple scenarios. “Crunch is a feeling of an overbearing want for validation from someone and getting the cold shoulder from them,” Nye explains. “The song starts out with the confidence in knowing this person could possibly notice you, and ends in anger and frustration seeing that they ignored you, established by a distorted guitar solo.“

Laveda – Ghost

Regular readers of VSF will recognise Laveda, the Albany duo of Jake Brooks and Ali Genevich, after we covered several releases in the past, including single ‘If Only (You Said No)’ back in November. Unbeknown to us, the song was actually part of the band’s forthcoming debut record, What Happens After, set for release this spring on Color Station.

Laveda used new single ‘Ghost’ to make the announcement. “It was the song that invented our sound,” Genevich explains. “If we had never written it I don’t think the rest of the record would sound the way that it does. It felt obvious and just right to make it the first track on the LP because it laid the foundation for all our other songs.” As we’ve come to expect, the song packs a real punch, setting up What Happens After to be one of the most anticipated dream rock albums of 2020.

Thanks for stopping on by for Vol. 33! Be sure to check out the Reviews and Previews sections for more in-depth writing, and do let us know what you’ve been listening to on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

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At times her vocals have a carefree swagger, though this can shift just as quickly into a keen desperation, as though certain lines are dragged from within her chest by some external force. The result could be described as adolescent, where moods swing in an attempt to best frame an insistent rage, though the self-conscious lyrics hint at an over-arching intelligence operating behind all this too.

Samia is back with a new double single that sees her carve out this niche even further, and make it her own. ‘Lasting Friend’ has a confidence and bravado, though this time it’s channeled not into a Father John Misty pastiche but boisterous indie rock with real heart. The playfulness is left to the video, directed by Ruby Rose Makkena.

In contrast, ‘Paris takes a more restrained, introspective style, leaning much further into folk and replacing the previous energy with a smouldering emotion. While the swagger from the previous track might have gone, ‘Paris’ is perhaps even more forthright and sincere, even the guard of self-confidence dropped in favour of tenderness—fondness so keen that it comes with a vulnerability.

Lasting Friend / Paris is out now via Grand Jury Music and you can get it from the Samia Bandcamp page.

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Mess – Cave

Mess are a quartet from Kansas City who are gearing up to release their debut album Learning How to Talk later this year. In the meantime, the band have released a new single ‘Cave’ as something of a taster to keep your appetites whetted over the summer.

“‘Cave’ is a snapshot of a toxic relationship,” explains songwriter Allison Gliesman. “It was written in a tense head-space, characterised by the helpless feelings paired with watching someone you love be controlled.” Which goes some way to explaining the dichotomous nature of the track, the tender-yet-fierce sound portraying two levels of a relationship—the old, true affection driving a desperate plea for change. However, through the tumultuous crescendos, Gliesman’s vocals remain steady and bright, a lighthouse in the storm hoping to aid navigation, and welcome their dear person to safety on the other side.

Learning How to Talk is due out this autumn, so be sure to keep an eye on Mess’ Facebook and Soundcloud pages for more news.

Foundlings – Misery / Your Sister

Foundlings are a new four-piece out of London who released their debut single this spring. Put together at Marketstall Recording in Bermondsey, the tracks have an insistent, guitar-driven energy across which the vocals are lifted, setting the tone somewhere between urban style and sweet nostalgia. ‘Misery’ places itself firmly within the later category, the frenetic guitars and drums creating a semi-dangerous swagger, while ‘Your Sister’ is altogether brighter, a time viewed in retrospect—the edges softened and rounded, the primary emotion that of fondness.

Head to the Foundlings Bandcamp page to buy both tracks.

Squirrel Flower – Conditions

We’ve featured Squirrel Flower, the project of  Ellä Williams, several times here at VSF, covering both ‘Not Your Prey’ and ‘Daylight Savings’ from their debut EP, Contact Sports. This summer sees the re-release of that EP on vinyl, complete with shiny new artwork and two previously unreleased tracks.

In order to celebrate the release, Squirrel Flower have put out a video for the track ‘Conditions’ by Williams and Helena Gruensteidl, which serves as a great introduction to the style and sound for those who might have missed it the first time around. Straddling a brooding sense of emotion with an earnest openness, Williams’s vocals soar through the moody guitars with a calm conviction, though as the track progresses a vague sense of threat comes to the fore, as though the track is trying to persuade and warn simultaneously.

Contact Sports is set for re-release on the 20th July and you can pre-order it now via Bandcamp.

Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread – Less Than Positive

After time fronting Page France and Cotton Jones, Michael Nau set out solo in 2017, releasing the well-received album Some Twist and The Load EP. Forming a band of the same name, this summer sees Nau put out a brand new record, Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread, building upon his previous work to form a layered, sprawling record of poetic folk rock.

The lead track from the self-titled album, ‘Less than Positive’ finds Nau tucked into the space between carefree cheer and suffocating gloom, as though these opposite poles depend on one another for existence, and to fall into one completely would be to fall into nothing. Better then, to toe the line right the way down the track, to try to figure out the big picture while embracing the rhythm of life.

Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread is set for release on the 3rd August via Full Time Hobby.

Samia – 21

New York-based songwriter Samia makes music pitched somewhere between ironic and sincere, or perhaps embracing both poles simultaneously. Her brand new single ’21’ is no different, combining an intense sense of feeling with wry humour that makes the overall tone hard to pin down. At times her vocals have a carefree swagger, though this can shift just as quickly into a keen desperation, as though certain lines are dragged from within her chest by some external force. The result could be described as adolescent, where moods swing in an attempt to best frame an insistent rage, though the self-conscious lyrics hint at an over-arching intelligence operating behind all this too.

“I weigh a hundred and fucking something pounds,
That makes me almost good.
It is nice to be a hero,
but it’s better to be anything
that anyone could want in a woman.”

Samia is on Grand Jury Music and you can find her on Bandcamp.

Hop Along – How Simple

Hop Along’s 2015 album Painted Shut cemented their place amongst the very best in the indie rock genre, with the songwriting and vocal delivery of Frances Quinlan and distinctive and captivating as any in the field. This spring saw the release of Bark Your Head Off, Dog, the long-awaited follow-up album that retains all of the immediacy and spirit of previous records, and pushes the boundaries of the Hop Along sound with new, varied sources of inspiration.

While we hope to get a full review up at some point, for now let us point you toward lead single ‘How Simple’ as the perfect demonstration of what make Quinlan and co. so noteworthy. Complete with a video by Derrick Belcham, the song marries every aspect of the holy trinity of music—a keen sense of energy, emotional immediacy and clever lyricism. As such, the song disproves any theory that aiming for a sense of movement and catchy chorus means sacrificing any complexity or depth in terms of writing or feeling.

Bark Your Head Off, Dog is out now via Saddle Creek and you can get it from Bandcamp.

The Duke of Norfolk – Dylan Thomas / Bitter Bitter

“I’ve long been fascinated by Dumas’s idea that there’s neither happiness nor misery,” says Adam Howard of The Duke of Norfolk. “There is only the comparison of one state to another.” Such nuance and thought is intrinsic to Howard’s sound, as new single ‘Dylan Thomas / Bitter Bitter’ attests. Blending the intimacy of folk with a grand orchestral sound, The Duke of Norfolk follow the likes of Typhoon in building a kind of ‘sublime folk’—songs that seem to coalesce from the surrounding landscape, channelling energies far older than the music communicating them.

Inspired by ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, the poem Dylan Thomas wrote after the death of his father, Howard’s single alters Thomas’ call for rage into one of mournful sadness to create a requiem for his own terminally ill father. However, that is not to say the track comes off morose, with the instrumentation swelling around the profoundly personal lyrics to creating a soaring, transcendental response to loss and grief.

The Duke of Norfolk are releasing a new full-length, Attendre et Espérer, on the 15th June and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Valley Queen – Chasing the Muse

LA-based Valley Queen are readying their debt full-length, set for release in the summer, and have released the first single, ‘Chasing the Muse’ in anticipation. Continuing the throwback folk-rock of their EP Destroyer, the song sees lead Natalie Carol deal with the aftermath of a break up in a way that’s at once reflective and swaggeringly defiant.

“One part anger , two parts heartbreak
Three parts relief
I’m escaping this reality we made
Four parts fear
I’ve made a terrible mistake but
only a fool would stay”

The album is going to be released on Roll Call Records, and you can pre-order it now from the Valley Queen Bandcamp page.

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