Last week saw the release of Melody Trail, the new record from the ever-prolific Sam Sodomsky’s The Bird Calls. Again put out by Ruination Records, the album in part deals with Sodomsky losing his position at Pitchfork after Condé Nast’s decision to absorb the site into GQ last year, pulling the rug from under his feet and throwing into doubt one of the last bastions of independent music criticism. But anyone expecting a minor key downer will be sorely disappointed, instead drawing on a range of left of centre pop and folk to create something quite unlike any previous The Bird Calls work. The title track is probably the best place to start, a catchy and breezy acoustic strum that somehow sounds both weary and hopeful, vowing to make a fresh start if not quite committing to actually doing it.

And I’m trying to get my life back
Riding on the right track
Time to move on

Born Ruffians – Mean Time

Having made their name in the indie rock boom of the 00s, Toronto’s Born Ruffians have constantly evolved over their near-two-decade lifespan, resisting the temptation to settle into a groove or rely on nostalgia to instead push their sound to new dimensions. Forthcoming this summer via Wavy Haze and Yep Rock Records, their new album Beauty’s Pride represents another reinvention, embracing change alongside the real-life experience of becoming a parent, as highlighted by lead single ‘Mean Time’. A “sort of autobiographical/speculative non-fiction inspired by Nabokov’s beautiful autobiography Speak, Memory,” as vocalist/guitarist Luke Lalonde puts it. “It’s about those two black voids, the before and the after, and all of the extraordinary moments in between.”

Beauty’s Pride is out on the 6th June via Wavy Haze Records and Yep Roc Records.

Cameron Knowler – Felicity

CRK, the (quasi-)self-titled by Arizona musician Cameron Knowler forthcoming on Worried Songs, is fundamentally a record of time and space. A meditation of Knowler’s hometown of Yuma, Arizona both in its physical presence and historical weight, all achieved via a style of instrumental folk both traditional and visionary. Together with a video featuring local landmarks ranging from the purple Gila Mountains to lettuce fields and a long abandoned adobe prison, single ‘Felicity’ offers the listener an introduction to this style. A soundscape littered with features of the past, indeed shaped by their weight, yet one which is neither overburdened by the load nor bewitched by the seductive will to return to that former place.

Watch the video shot, edited and directed by Steven Perlin below:

CRK will be out on the 4th April via Worried Songs and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Elskavon – How Cold

Elskavon’s new album Panoramas, coming this summer via Western Vinyl, sees Chris Bartels continue to evolve the project, drawing on everything which came before but finding a novel form. As lead single ‘How Cold’ shows, this involves challenging preconceptions of genre and style, crossing boundaries and questioning conventions, be it around what exactly a song or album can be, or indeed the role vocals can play within this. This exploratory mindset allows for a real authenticity to develop, creating an emotional resonance unhindered by any constraints. “This album is a deep dive into everything that’s shaped me as a creator,” as Bartels explains. “My favorite songs and albums are tied to memories and seasons—beautiful, painful, grand, and small—and those experiences inform everything I do.”

Panoramas is out on the 20th June via Western Vinyl and you can pre-order it now.

Fake Dad – Machinery

Consisting of Andrea de Varona and Josh Ford, LA’s Fake Dad make crunchy pop rock that’s concerned with both having fun and making a point. With new EP Holly Wholesome and the Slut Machine on the horizon, the duo have unveiled single ‘Machinery’ to introduce this style. It’s a track which originated after a bad experience at a musical showcase, where female artists were forced to play into their own objectification in order to earn attention. “This song was written as a response to the way this kind of woman on woman (or more generally, artist on artist) hate perpetuates these spaces while the real culprits—our sick, sad society governed by narcissistic, billionaire white men—totally fly under the radar,” de Varona explains. “In the end, the man is the real one we’re calling out. The one that we’re sick and tired of watching get what they want, while we sit back eating from their palm.”

‘Machinery’ is out now and available at the usual places. Holly Wholesome and the Slut Machine is coming soon.

Hour – Hallmark (Live at Philamoca, Philadelphia)

Following on from beautiful 2024 album Ease the Work, a release we described in our review of last year’s best releases, as “perform[ing] the same small miracle of the previous records, presenting the everyday in all its joy and melancholy, comfort and strangeness,” Philadelphia ensemble Hour are returning this month with new live album Subminiature on Dear Life Records. Collected across two years of live performances, the album serves as what the label calls “a capstone for the band’s oeuvre to date,” offering versions of pieces from Tiny Houses and Anemone Red alongside brand new arrangements to best represent a project that’s always adapting and evolving. Different songs recorded at different shows, performed by a changing cast of musicians across various months and years, yet all linked by the same spirit. That vital piece of the Hour DNA which commits to such fluidity as a fundamental part of what the project represents.

Watch the video directed/edited by Matt Ober below:

Subminiature is out on the 14th February via Dear Life Records and you can pre-order it now.

Larum – O Virga Mediatrix (feat Bill Orcutt)

The recording project of Chet Doxas and Micah Frank, Larum combines woodwind and electronics to create a sound full of detail and intangible depth, something evident on 2022 EP The Music of Hildegard von Bingen Part One, which occupied a unique intersection between the early medieval and avant garde cutting edge. As the title suggested, the release was only the first instalment of the project, and this April Larum will return with appropriately named follow-up The Music of Hildegard von Bingen, Part Two. Again the result is almost paradoxical in form, managing to imbue the work of an eleventh-century theologian, mystic and composer not just with contemporary resonance but a sense of pioneering potential. Featuring guitarist and composer Bill Orcutt, single ‘O Virga Mediatrix’ embodies this aesthetic, the track representing a thread which stretches away from the present in both directions, inviting the audience to following towards the mysterious spaces beyond.

MacGregor Burns – Put It All On Me

Described as “a new wave sad boy anthem that is a longing cry to pass the blame,” ‘Put It All On Me’ is the latest single from LA-based singer-songwriter MacGregor Burns. Previous tracks ‘Silent Answers‘ and ‘Can’t Go Back‘ highlighted the artist’s idiosyncratic style, “combining nostalgic nods […] while forging a new path forwards, [looking] for further clues in the fertile space between the familiar and the new.” ‘Put It All On Me’ continues this vibe but with some stylistic differences. Namely the lack of guitar, leading to a decidedly wistful sound that nods to the likes of the Psychedelic Furs but nevertheless carries its own bright forward motion.

‘Put It All On Me’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Royal Oakie Records – Canyon Country: LA Fires Benefit Compilation

“[Displays] a sense of cohesion and togetherness which hints at the radical potential within the collective, something we need to remember now more than ever as the suite of challenges which marks the contemporary moment only widens and deepens,” so we wrote of if only i could fly, a compilation in support of those affected by the LA fires organised by  Little Mazarn, hemlock and Jolie Holland. But we could easily have been writing about Canyon County, the new benefit compilation from Royal Oakie Records too. Featuring a mix of unreleased and album tracks from the likes of Holy Matter, Half Stack, Michael James Tapscott and Lauren Helene Green, the comp is what the label describe as a “love letter to Los Angeles and its surrounding canyons and coastlines,” as embodied by the languid warmth of Sandy’s ‘Band Without A Song’.

The Taxpayers – At War With The Dogcatchers

Portland, Oregon emo outfit The Taxpayers might have been on hiatus from releasing new music for going on a decade, but this March puts an end to that. Released via Ernest Jenning Record Co., their latest full-length Circle Breakers reckons with the changes in the world in the time since their previous record, with understandably dark results. Alongside the global pandemic, continued climate breakdown and turn towards reactionary politics were a series of personal tragedies too, and the record sees The Taxpayers pushing through a seemingly unending experience of loss with both fury and hope for something better. Latest single ‘At War With The Dogcatchers’ draws on a run-in with the titular enemies after a deceased friend’s dog was seized and taken to a pound. A song about “loving the broken things in spite of the dogcatchers of the world,” as the band explain, “and trying to find meaning in those things amidst the tragedies.”

Watch the video by Preston Spurlock below

Circle Breaker will be released on the 21st March via Ernest Jenning Record Co. and you can pre-order it now.

Yael S. Copeland – 2AM

“Unable to lose the romantic notion that things can be different, can improve. Mellow Submarine looks for good thoughts amid the chaos, and might just have you believing they are just around the corner after all.” So we wrote of Yael S. Copeland‘s most recent full-length back in 2023, applauding the manner in which the Queens-based songwriter looks to preserve the small, fleeting moments within an often calamitous world. Detailing an after hours encounter between two receptive strangers, new single ‘2AM’ is no different, offering a distinctively nocturnal tone to conjure a sense of ethereal romance. A sort of lightning-in-a-bottle sensation both characters can only cling to while it lasts. “You know we / Will probably be / only friends / for this night,” as Copeland sings in the chorus, “Maybe till the morning?”

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Following a slew of singles, Royal Oakie Records have now released the debut Holy Matter album, Beauty Looking Back. Aptly named after a painting by 17th Century Japanese artist Hishikawa Moronobu, the album is unsurprisingly preoccupied with time and the impact of the past on the present moment, following the changing seasons of a life with equal doses of nostalgic longing and reassuring closure. “It seemed an appropriate title because this is a collection of backwards looks,” Kaiser explains. “A survey of emotions and moments, written between 2020 and 2023. I think a lot about the past, how a life is built up of all that came before it.”

Opener ‘Autumn’s Envy’ “occupies the liminal space between the real, emotional and spiritual,” as we described in a preview, “as though through loss and introspection, one can lead themselves towards uncanny places.” And the follow-up ‘Eve’s Hollywood’ is no less dreamy, drawing on the cinematic aspect of Kaiser’s parallel career to craft what we previously called “an immersive country-tinged dream pop croon worthy of a David Lynch set-piece.” But if that track was succinct, ‘Fallen Leaves’ pushes concision even further. A brief, ethereal snapshot of the most ephemeral of seasons, though one which lingers much like leaves persist upon the forest floor.

This willingness to offer compact, swift songs not only helps Holy Matter circumvent the more self-indulgent aspects of the dream pop genre, but also feels intrinsically linked to the themes and mood of the album. The songs cycle through as one might a collection of memories, each appearing fully formed and dissolving before we move onto the next. Be it the retro pop croon of tracks like ‘Wishing Well’ or ‘Prince Gloom’, or the hypnogogic and slightly surreal instrumental ‘Queen of Hearts’. ‘The Dove’ encapsulates the style perfectly, a brief yet elegant track which plays like something between a nursery rhyme and fable in all of its heightened longing. In my tower sewing / I can hear the doves’ song,” as Kaiser sings. “In their circle crowing / My love comes to me, anon.” Watch the video directed by Yun Chen below:

Final track, ‘Lore in Green and Blue’ was the first song Kaiser wrote for the record, a decision which on another record might seem like an odd one, but here seems perfectly fitting. Something of a companion piece to ‘Fallen Leaves’ it again looks back to a disconsolate period of anxiety and depression. She says it’s a song about “missing the green and blue hillsides of the Ozarks, thoughts on astrology, numbness and apathy, the whole kit and caboodle,” and this vulnerability is palpable. Both in the gentle, quiet folk of the majority and the swelling catharsis of the finale. “I wanted the last part to be a lot different and more bombastic,” Kaiser explains. “It’s like a final cry out. I wanted it to feel desperate and raw but also lead to something more resolved on the horizon.”

Beauty Looking Back is out now via Royal Oakie Records. Get it from the Holy Matter Bandcamp page. A physical release for those of us in the EU and UK will follow in early December.

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Over the past thirty years, Cursive have established themselves as one of the most consistent and inventive indie rock/emo bands, providing a series of albums which delve into dark, challenging themes with a searing energy. And they show no signs of letting up, with new album Devourer coming later this year on new label Run For Cover. Every bit as intense as anything in their back catalogue, the record explores ideas of consumption in its various guises and how this inevitably slides towards imperialistic exploitation of power. Lead single ‘Up and Away’ introduces the themes with a surprisingly poppy style, though one which squares melody and dissonance off against one another to better capture the tension at the album’s heart. “‘I had the ‘up, up, up, up, up, up and away’ section of lyrics in my head from its inception but hadn’t planned on using something so bright, cheery and arguably trite,” explains singer/guitarist Tim Kasher, “until it occurred to me that what I was really singing about was something floating away from me, something I was losing, not my personal elevation into some stratosphere.”

Watch the video by Brea Grant below, the first in a series of collaborations between Cursive and genre directors which draws on horror tropes to bring the themes of depression further into relief.

Devourer is out on the 13th September via Run For Cover Records and you can pre-order it now.

Evan Uhlmann – Lake Michigan

After penning his first song at the tender age of five and later studying under Ray Davies of The Kinks, it’s fair to say songwriting is in Evan Uhlmann‘s blood. The Chicago-based musician has now enlisted the help of brother Greg Uhlmann (who you might now from his collaboration with Hand Habits as Duffy x Uhlmann on Orindal Records) to record a new collection of songs to be released via Future Gods. First single ‘Lake Michigan’ is the perfect introduction to the kind of intimate, reflective tone of this phase of Uhlmann’s career, tapping into the quotidian rhythms of life to better explore a deep well of emotions. “I wrote this song while grappling with self-doubt in a new relationship, consumed by the fear of not being worthy and the anxiety of anticipating where things might lead before they even started,” he explains. “Lake Michigan became my reflective space; a place to process this unfolding experience.”

Watch the video below with art direction and animation by Sam Congdon:

‘Lake Michigan’ is out now via Future Gods and available from Bandcamp.

Great Klons – Twilight Gardener

Starting out as the bassist for indie pop outfit Eureka Birds in the 2010s before moving to record solo as Great Klons, Scott Klon has been making music for over a decade now, exploring everything from dub-adjacent noise pop to Spaghetti Western-inspired psych folk. The latest Great Klons EP expands upon this with another inventive collision of genres, as indie rock, psych, folk and Krautrock influences all coalesce into a singular sound able to explore ideas of instability within the contemporary moment. With its dual vocals, woozy organ and underlying Motorik beat, single ‘Twilight Garden’ uses Klon’s current home of Finger Lakes, NY as an example of the friction and unease of our present. A time when wealth and poverty make uneasy bedfellows and once proud places crumble amid a wider gentrification. “Lakeside transitory towns / and in between a hundred more,” as Klon sings in the opening verse, “and in the middle the church is falling down / where there are more graves than people.”

‘Twilight Gardener’ is out now via streaming services and you can follow Great Klons on Instagram.

Herr God – jesus candle in the liquor store

The side project of songwriter Chloe Gallardo, San Francisco-based slowcore outfit Herr God is named for a line in a Sylvia Plath poem, a reference which goes some way to illustrate its bruised, introspective style. Herr God has recently released debut single ‘jesus candle in the liquor store’, a song which introduces this style perfectly with its lethargic, downbeat atmosphere. Distorted guitars grumble and smoulder behind shuffling percussion and Gallardo’s listless, mumbled vocals, all coming together to evoke something dark and gloomy but with a strange fatalistic energy.

Watch the video by Ella May Sahlman (director), Liz Charky (director of photography), Zoé Kraft (editor) and Natalia Minguez (PA/BTS) below:

‘jesus candle in the liquor store’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Holy Matter – Wishing Well

Last October we wrote about Leanna Kaiser’s Holy Matter, describing how single ‘Autumn’s Envy’ “occupies the liminal space between the real, emotional and spiritual, as though through loss and introspection, one can lead themselves towards uncanny places.” Again released via Royal Oakie Records, latest single ‘Wishing Well’ sees the LA-based musician and experimental filmmaker continue to mine the rich strangeness of such spaces, where desires are matched by the understanding of their own impossibility. Amid a dreamy, retro soundscape, Kaiser admires a crush from afar while knowing deep down any potential romance is doomed to fail, a weightless headspace where things are both decided and not. “This was a rare instance of knowing exactly how I wanted a song to sound as I was writing it, and it actually turning out identically to how I heard it in my head,” as she explains. “I kept thinking about this restaurant I went to as a kid called The Wishing Well, which had a faux stone well in the middle of its wood-panelled dining room. I imagined this song playing in that dingy room over some crappy 70s restaurant speakers.”

Watch the video directed by Kaiser herself below:

‘Wishing Well’ is out now via Royal Oakie Records and available from Bandcamp.

Luce Rushton – Slinky

Back in April we introduced Slinky, the debut EP from Luce Rushton. Then writing of single ‘How It Works’, we described how the EP is “follows the travails of a young artist attempting to negotiate their own tricky interior within an already overwhelming world,” delivered with a “seamless blend of wry humour and earnest emotion.” Now the record is out in full, Rushton has released a video for the title track which furthers the exploration of gender presented across the release. “The word originally referred to feeling forced into ‘slinky’ women’s clothing throughout my life,” Rushton explains. “In the song, I look back on those feelings and reflect on how much I’ve changed and learned about myself.’’

look how hard i try to
climb up to the ladies room
and what you made me do
sped all day and it costs a fortune
debtor
corner
but you wouldn’t catch me dead in it anymore though

Slinky is out now via Sad Club Records and available from Bandcamp.

No Beauty – JUNE

Led by Helena Alexandria alongside Jonathan Malstrom and Will Fachin, No Beauty is a Hamilton, Ontario-based project gearing up to release their new EP, No Beauty Will Remain, this summer. Single ‘June’ typifies the blend of lightness and weight which constitutes their brand of indie rock. Weighty guitars are propelled by a driving drum line, positioning No Beauty alongside the likes of Basement Revolver in their cathartic heft. But amid the density lies an altogether brighter dimension, with ‘JUNE’ offering a picture of summertime love radiant enough to transcend any encroaching darkness.

a cashmere glow from a small window
fell on the bed
we talked for all the hours on the bed
we found out we had perfect bodies on the bed

Watch the video by Alice Hirsch (director, DOP, editor) and Helena Zogogiannis (AD, creative director, props) below:

No Beauty Will Remain will be released later this summer. No Beauty can be found at the usual places.

Sam Weber – Oregon

Ahead of hitting the road with Anna Tivel this month, Vancouver Island-based singer-songwriter and guitarist Sam Weber has revealed the latest track from his forthcoming album, Clear + Plain. ‘Oregon’ typifies the fusion of traditional and contemporary sensibilities which marks Weber’s sound, with strong percussion and bass anchoring layered vocals and his signature guitar work to offer an ode to its titular state. “‘Oregon’ was written on a trip to Ashland,” as Weber expands. “We were renting a casita on this big property where all these hippies lived. It’s a bit of a sensory abstract poem that just sort of emerged. I think the imagery is my own from the I-5 corridor, seeing the lush green flora, very pagan-beautiful, natural imagery of the state, contrasted with the scraps of humanity strewn around. And the progressive culture of Portland.”

Clear + Plain will be released on the 23rd August and you can find Sam Weber at the usual places.

Secret Flowers – Malibu Burns

Los Angeles fourpiece Secret Flowers—that’s Michael Hentz (vocals, guitar), Jacquelyn Sky (vocals, drums), David Greening (guitar), and Abraham Rodriguez-Smith (bass)—fall somewhere at the intersection of dream pop, psych and shoegaze, offering a sound as confident with dark romance as with laidback jams. New release Balboa EP shows off the full potential of this blend, as shown by lead single ‘Malibu Burning’. Inspired by the wildfires in California over recent years, the song offers slow, lush duet which envelops the listener, evoking not only the stasis of our alarming moment, but the wish to retreat to the small comforts of our loved ones amid encroaching catastrophe.

Slice – Shopping

Consisting of Megan Magiera (guitar, vocals), Barbara Barrera (bass) and Alex Hattick (keys, vocals), Slice have developed a loyal fanbase in Long Beach with their impassioned indie rock sound. After almost a decade of playing together, new single ‘Shopping’, out via Selenite Records, signals a new era for the outfit. It’s the culmination of what has come before, drawing equal does of angst and catharsis to explore themes both personal and political. “When I was writing the lyrics, I was thinking about the different clear-outs of unhoused communities in Echo Park, in Santa Monica, even in Downtown Long Beach,” Hattick explains. “The irony of unhoused communities being cleared out while unaffordable high-rise loft apartments are being built is impossible to ignore. When you’re removing people from these spaces, where do they go? Where do you expect people to go when there’s nowhere to go?”

Thavoron – My Man

Seattle-based Cambodian-American artist Thavoron has made a name for emotive, searching songwriting through a series of singles with Trailing Twelve Records, exploring themes of grief, desire and cultural identity from within the queer experience. Latest track ‘My Man’ is every bit as evocative as we’ve come to expect. A slow-burn anthem which aches with longing, shot through with striking imagery and unguarded emotion. But the sound escalates as the song progresses, gathering a momentum as though Thavoron finds a newfound conviction within it’s build, coming to reach the conclusion that the other he so desires does not hold the key to his own identity. That feeling at home in one’s body is a process to be face on their own terms. Watch the video directed by Thavoron and Maddie Ludgate below:

‘My Man’ is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

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Royal Oakie also co-released Half Stack‘s Sitting Pretty alongside Forged Artifacts, an album which saw the Bay Area outfit evolve their sound in exciting new directions. “The record loosens its grip on the country aesthetic and in doing so allows all sorts of stylistic directions to show themselves,” as we put it last summer. “Psych rock, power pop, even a dose of honky tonk, each song opens up a new avenue to explore. But this unpredictability feels less like a band experimenting with possibilities as one finally able to embrace their fuller selves. The dusty cowboy aesthetic remains, but there’s more to Half Stack than that. Now they’re allowing their true spirit to shine through.”

To celebrate the year, Royal Oakie Records has released Greatest Hits of 2023, a compilation which collects the “fan favorites and deep cuts” from across their roster. All of the prior mentioned acts feature, as do Jeff Moller, Michael James Tapscott, Well Well Well, Whiskerman, Go By Ocean and Bard’s Flying Vessel. Listeners unfamiliar with the label can use this as the perfect primer, but equally, just as with Orindal Records’ recent compilation Powerful Forces Beyond Our Understanding, those already acquainted can come to appreciate the label more fully, with the chance to hear their artists back to back allowing fans to find the links and resonances between otherwise disparate projects.

Greatest Hits of 2023 is out now and available from the Royal Oakie Records Bandcamp page.

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Now Holy Matter is back with brand new single, ‘Autumn’s Envy’. Again released via Royal Oakie, the song dials back some of the smoky atmosphere for a more spacious yet no less atmospheric sound. Brought to life with help from guests Kate Bollinger, Andy Kahn, Raphi Gottesman (Sonny and the Sunsets) and Josh Housh (Michael James Tapscott), the song plays less like a dancehall ballad than one delivered within the shadowed under canopy of the woods in fall. “I often get phrases stuck in my head and I kept thinking about the Pavement song title Summer Babe,” as Kaiser explains. “What happens to a Summer Babe in the fall?”

The result occupies the liminal space between the real, emotional and spiritual, as though through loss and introspection, one can lead themselves towards uncanny places. “‘Autumn’s Envy‘ is about experiencing someone drift away as the seasons of love are fickle and change, and the jealousy and insecurity that come along with knowing you are ‘out of season’ while watching someone move on,” Kaiser explains. “It’s about doubting yourself. About longing and calling out for someone, wanting them to open themselves to you completely and the comfort and relief that brings.”

Darling, won’t you call my name
So I am happier, again?
Cut off from the agony and the envy
of a Summer Babe in the Fall
(in the Fall, oh)

‘Autumn’s Envy’ is out now via Royal Oakie Records.

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