With second album Still Life coming later this year on Lay Down Recordings, Lisbon‘s April Marmara has shared brand new single, ‘Who Knows Where the Love Goes’. It tells the tale of a love forbidden yet unyielding, persisting even through a lifetime of separation. Marmara’s warm and mysterious folk style elevates the story toward an almost mythical plane, teasing out the unknowable facets of the heart in all of their human nuance. Check out the video produced by Pipa Marinho/Lay Down Recordings and directed by Martim Braz Teixeira:

Still Life will be released later this year on Lay Down Recordings.

Clementine Was Right – Takes Tall Walks

We last wrote about Clementine Was Right, the songwriting project of poet and fiction writer Mike Young, just over a year ago when we previewed the album, Can’t Get Right With the Darkness. It was a record which left “no emotion untapped as they aim to paint the most vivid version of each story possible,” as we described in our piece, letting the shadows take their full darkness if only so that the joy might burn brighter. New single ‘Take Tall Walks’ retains this spirit while moving the style into new territory, what Young calls “a push away from Americana into full-throated Sam Fender/The Killers western emo.” A tone able to broach the weight of the topics at hand, the lyrics dealing with missed opportunities to reach out and reconnect, playing as one last chance to say what needs to be said.

Hall Johnson – OMWO

This spring, Texas-based outfit Hall Johnson are releasing Haymaker, their debut full-length via The Record Machine. Powered by an upbeat energy and seemingly fond vocals, the track plays as a confident and cheerful number, though scratch the surface of the lyrics and there’s a more conflicted mood underneath. Because ultimately the song is a meditation on a failed relationship and the accompanying missteps, packaged so as to work for any listener, no matter where along the spectrum of love and regret they might be.

July Talk – When You Stop

Toronto‘s July Talk have made a name for themselves with an expert balance of ferocity and control, and new album Remember Never Before feels like their most confident, impassioned yet. Single ‘When You Stop’ serves as a distillation of the album’s themes, and thus serves as the ideal introduction to July Talk’s vision across the record. A visceral and cathartic message of persistence delivered from within a culture all to ready to snuff out such ideas. Above all, a willingness to hope in something more. As the liner notes put it “an album of matter over mind. Instincts. Guts. Radical acceptance of who we are; giant hopefulness for who we can be.”

you say you feel
you don’t believe in anything and it doesn’t matter anyway
you say you feel there’s no one listening
been hearing that a lot these days

when you stop you’ll find out what yer running from

Check out the hand-drawn and animated video by band co-leads Leah Fay Goldstein and Peter Dreimanis below:

Remember Never Before is out now via Six Shooter Records and available from Bandcamp.

 Laveda – Clean

With their full-length album A Place Your Grew Up In on the horizon, Laveda are back with a new single, ‘Clean’. Previous track ‘Surprise’ was what we called a “juxtaposition which both embraces the nostalgia of the dream pop/shoegaze style while also refusing to retreat fully from the realties of living and working through pandemics and other challenges,” and the new track is similarly bittersweet. An examination of growing up that captures both the fondness and loss inherent in the process. “I think for the first time I truly realised that growing up was an inevitable fate,” Ali Genevich explains. “It’s such a strange thing, knowing you’re only to grow further and further from innocence as life goes on. I never wanted to think about getting older as a kid, I wanted to stay eight years old forever. I think there’s a part of that feeling that will always stay with me.”

I’m getting older
You say it’s fine though
Am I playing my cards right
Me and the devil

Check out the video directed by David Martucello, Ali Genevich and Jacob Brooks below:

A Place You Grew Up In releases on 14th April on PaperCup Music. You can preorder it now via the Laveda Bandcamp page.

Nico Paulo – Time

Nico Paulo is a Portuguese-Canadian singer-songwriter who’s based in St John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador. In April she will release her self-titled debut LP via Forward Music Group, a record that promises to follow the nuanced, tender lineage of songwriters such as Gal Costa, Feist and Victoria Legrand. Latest single ‘Time’ is the perfect introduction, a rich folk pop song full of smooth melodies and almost tropical rhythms, like a long-lost seventies masterpiece that you dig out from a crate in a garage sale. Lyrically the track is sparse on detail but strong on imagery, the narrator urging a friend to let go of inhibitions. “’Time’ is a song about friendship, admiration and change,” Nico Paulo explains. “It’s a dialogue between two characters that investigates the discrepancies between them — one is more rigid and one is more free.” Check out the video by LA creative studio Sing Sing below:

Nico Paulo releases on 7^th April and you can pre-order it on a variety of formats via Bandcamp.

Orchid Mantis x surfgoth – time and space

We’ve long appreciated the work of Orchid Mantis, with most recent release How Long Will It Take on Spirit Goth Records exploring time in all of its dimensions, from reflection to predestination. But never one to rest on their laurels, the project has teamed up with Wilmington’s surfgoth for brand new single, ‘time and space’. Another suitably glimmering slice of lo-fi pop which tempts the listener in with its wistful textures and holds them there with enveloping layers of vocals.

roman around – Comes With Age

Back in June we introduced roman around with single ‘Rhythm‘ on Trailing Twelve Records. The Fresno-based drummer, multi-instrumentalist and teacher “draws on personal experiences as a non-binary, pansexual person, as well as spiritual themes from their upbringing within Native American and Mexican communities,” as we explained, using a palette across post-punk, pop and R&B styles to do so. roman around has now released their debut full-length Tell Me All About You, and single ‘Comes With Age’ offers a glimpse at the hazy side of their sound. A gauzy space through which confessional vocals drift, though the vocals flash with deceptively sharp edges too.

Species Traitor – Acheulean Handaxe

“I used to work as a gardener, and now I’m an archaeologist,” says Joey LeBrun of Species Traitor. “That seems relevant.” The Vancouver band’s self-titled album explores the tension of climate change from this perspective, balancing the dread of an impending doom with the temptation to submit altogether, all presented with an off-the-wall energy. The result achieves the Berman paradox, sounding at once overwhelmed in the immediacy of the present and commenting from a wry remove. A gardener and archaeologist both. Inspired by the work of Anne Carson, single ‘Acheulean Handaxe’ is a good place to start—the tale of a monster who wants more than everything to be nice, only for the world to push him toward a violent end.

Throw your glass in the fire and we’ll make a whole scene
Where everything around you is pouring red to the sea

Wednesday – Chosen to Deserve

“Though Twin Plagues is a record of memories, there’s nothing polished about the experiences being relayed, no rose-tinted gloss applied through repeated telling. There’s no nostalgia either. No intention to preserve or wish to return. Rather, Wednesday portray the past as something still present. The rugged surface across which the present is overlain.” That’s how we described the previous record by Wednesday, released via Orindal Records. Having now signed with Dead Oceans, the Asheville outfit are set to return with new full-length Rat Saw God, and latest single ‘Chosen to Deserve’ suggests they are pushing this style to new heights. There’s pool hopping, Benadryl abuse, Sunday school, a loneliness everywhere and in everything. But like those of bandmate MJ Lenderman, Karly Hartzman’s lyrics offer no distinction between the good and the bad, the fascinating and the mundane, but rather recognise everything as another dimension of life in all its peculiar beauty.

Rat Saw God will be released via Dead Oceans on 7th April and you can pre-order it now.

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After releasing their sixth album See Through You on DedStrange last February, post-punk icons A Place To Bury Strangers are sharing a series of remixed singles from the record. After offerings from the likes of The Pleasure Majenta and GIFT, the most recent sees Annie Hart take the reins for a reimagining of album opener ‘Nice of You to be There For Me’. A version which strips the harsh immediacy of the original in favour of something reflective and shining, the original’s needle replaced by an ethereal air. Where Oliver Ackermann previously railed against greed with a building volatility, here his words carry the melancholy of hindsight. Mourning mistakes rather than threatening to set them straight.

Illbe – It’s Time

Described as being inspired by the “‘beyond the grave feel’ of Nick Cave’s radical introspection,” Illbe’s latest single ‘It’s Time’ introduces the dark and alluring tone of forthcoming EP, Long Gone. The project is the alter ego of Liège’s Gauthier Gilissen, a musician who draws upon cinema as the source of his sound, aiming for something between the nocturnal paranoia of neo-noir and a Lynchian surrealism. ‘It’s Time’ finds its narrator navigating such a world. Searching for answers within an unforthcoming environment, the patient Cave-esque delivery furthering the existential mystery at the heart. Check out the video directed by Corentin Cuvelier below:

‘It’s Time’ is out now and you can get it from the Illbe Bandcamp page. Long Gone will be released next month.

Kelsey Magnuson – Faking It

Following on from previous single ‘Beep Beep‘, Olympia‘s Kelsey Magnuson has unveiled another track from forthcoming debut Don’t Budge on Earth Libraries. Closing out the album, the song again highlights Magnuson’s ability to sound at once earnest and playful, as though the thoughts communicated are entirely meant, yet delivered with a certain self-awareness. But ultimately the needle settles on the sincere side of things, ending on a sense of hope which feels all the more heartfelt for its plainness. “Cuz growing up feels like were faking it ’til we learn to fake it better,” Magnuson sings in the final lines. “Growing up up feels like were faking it so why don’t we fake it together?”

Laveda – Surprise

The music of Laveda always promises lush textures and heartfelt emotion, and new single ‘Surprise’ is no exception. Introducing an upcoming second album to be released later this year on Papercup Music, the single offers a bright, upbeat sound which belies the turmoil of the lyrics. A juxtaposition which both embraces the nostalgia of the dream pop/shoegaze style while also refusing to retreat fully from the realties of living and working through pandemics and other challenges. “Being alive is just getting old,” Ali Genevich sings, “I’m not surprised that I’m not sober.” Check out the video directed by Genevich herself and shot By Derick Noetzel and Valerie Barbosa below:

‘Surprise’ is out now and available from the Laveda Bandcamp page.

Mali Obomsawin – Odana

Mali Obomsawin is a Wabanaki bassist, composer, and songwriter whose work opposes the Western idea that indigenous cultures are somehow inflexible and backward looking, highlighting the continuous process of resistance and adaptation required to survive in the face of colonialism. Obomsawin recently announced a new album, Sweet Tooth, on Out of Your Head Records. A collection of songs which draws on many threads—jazz, folk, Wabanaki stories and Catholic hymns—to explore contemporary indigenous life and celebrate its endurance and creativity, even when faced with great violence and cruelty. “My people have had to innovate endlessly to get our stories heard,” Obomsawin explains. “Learning to express ourselves in French, English, Abenaki… but sometimes words fail us, and we must use sound.” Lead single ‘Odana’ introduces the record perfectly. A ballad first written in the 1700s, it pays homage to the Abenaki reservation in Quebec, Odanak, founded by Obomsawin’s Sokoki and Abenaki ancestors in 1660 as they fled to modern-day Canada to escape Royally-sanctioned persecution by English colonizers.

Pale Angels – Casper

Based between the Welsh city of Swansea and Rahway, New Jersey, Pale Angels make what label Specialist Subject Records describe as “transcontinental punk trash.” They have just announced a brand new record, their first in six years, titled Plastic Legacy pt II and lead single ‘Casper’ is a glimpse of what to expect. For all of its punk rock fuzz and grittily desperate vocals, it’s actually a lot more sincere than SSR’s label suggests. Founding members Jamie Morrison and Michael Santostefano are joined by Vacation songwriter Jerome Westerkamp on drums to create something with a real emotional punch.

Rival Consoles – World Turns

Rival Consoles, the recording project of London-based musician and producer Ryan Lee West, is set to release new album Now Is via Erased Tapes next month, and latest single ‘World Turns’ welcomes listeners into the blended, digital and acoustic soundscapes West creates. There’s a certain minimalism to the Rival Consoles sound, even if the tag doesn’t quite do justice to the detail of the songs. A sense of clarity developed via a central repetition. This single, for example, is “built around this pendulum-like bass, that constantly drives the piece forward,” as West explains. Minimalism in the way of fine machinery. An elegant coherence to design. “I like having parts in music which are repetitive but everything else is changing around it,” West continues, “almost like a kind of hidden structure, because the repetition becomes more subliminal.”

Secret Shame – Luxury Bitch

“A ferocious, no holds barred descent into the depths of a psyche, emerging if not triumphant then somehow born again.” That’s how we described ‘Hide’, the last single from Asheville post-punks Secret Shame. Next month sees the release of the band’s long-awaited new album Autonomy, and new single ‘Luxury Bitch’ is every bit as intense, barrelling headlong into anxieties surrounding mental health and the knock-on effects such struggles can bring. “Will you still be there / to hold me when I am trying,” asks lead Lena Machina, “when I am losing and when I lose?” If Autonomy represents Machina pivoting towards a new direct approach to songwriting, then ‘Luxury Bitch’ shows exactly what you can expect.

Sheenah Ko – Eyes of the Ego

Montreal electronic artist Sheenah Ko makes introspective and sophisticated pop music in the vein of Kate Bush or Björk. Earlier this summer, Sheenah Ko released her sophomore album The Future is Now, what she described as “a cautious reminder to take advantage of the little time you’ve been given in our wonderous world.” Since the record’s release, Ko has unveiled music videos for several of the tracks, the latest being for ‘Eyes of the Ego’. Directed by Anne Marie Munoz, the video was made with a 100% female, majority LGBTQ+ cast and crew, starring filmmaker/artist/actor Katharine King So and Le Couleur vocalist Laurence Giroux-Do alongside Ko. “Passion and anger are manifestations of the ego; that can drag us deeper and deeper into our minds, into a dream where we can’t escape,” Ko explains “This video is a representation of the exploration of the self, to identify and accept the ego as a part of us, but it does not have to be us or define us. To realize we are the eyes behind our ego and that we can be the observer of the ego.”

Future Is Now is out via Lazy At Work and you can get it from the Sheenah Ko Bandcamp page.

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The latest signing of Furious Hooves, BAL is the brand new project of Jack Foster and Jordan Powers, long-time bandmates from acts like House of Fools and Far-Less, who longed to tap into a different side of their artistic sensibilities. Namely a passion for sci-fi and 90s alt/heavy rock. Debut single ‘Seafoam’ introduces this style, a track which transports you to a lush new world, one weighted not by gravity as we know it but hefty guitars and drums. Check out the video by Brandon Hackler below:

‘Seafoam’ is out now via Furious Hooves and you can get it from the BAL Bandcamp page.

Bartees Strange – Heavy Heart

We’ve followed Washington D.C.’s Bartees Strange since 2018’s Magic Boy, and his subsequent rise has been nothing short of meteoric. After his acclaimed debut album Live Forever on Memory Music, Strange has now signed with 4AD, a new period marked by new single ‘Heavy Heart’. The single feels like an acknowledgement of everything that has changed and all that has not. An apology, a promise.

I never wanna miss you this bad
I never want to run out like that
Sometimes I feel just like my Dad
Rushing around
I never saw the God in that
Why work so hard if you can’t fall back?
Then I remember, I rely too much upon
My heavy heart

Check out the video directed by Marisa Dabice of Mannequin Pussy below:

‘Heavy Heart’ is out now via 4AD and you can get it from the Bartees Strange Bandcamp page.

Cave People – I Don’t Want Hope

“I don’t want hope / I don’t need that kind of misinformation.” So opens the lead single from upcoming LP Wind Burn by Philadelphia‘s Cave People on Disposable America. But contrary to its central sentiment, ‘I Don’t Want Hope’ is an upbeat indie rock number that finds some affirming joy in relinquishing one’s optimism. As though the only thing weighing it down were the dreams and expectations, empty things now cast to the wind. “Just don’t give me something to believe,” the track continues, “it won’t agree with my new cynicism / fatalist but at least it’s my decision.”

Dao Strom – Inside

Following 2020’s Traveler’s Ode, Portland, Oregon-based artist Dao Strom has returned with a brand new album, Redux, on Antiquated Future Records. Or perhaps not brand new, because as the title suggests, the tracks are reimaginings of older songs taken from past decades, reworked into what the label describes as a “haunting song-cycle about loved ones, the natural world, and the nuances of emotional memory and Vietnamese diasporic identity.” It’s a process which proved more fruitful than Dao Strom ever expected. “I wrote my songs from a place of honesty in those times,” she explains, “yet in re-recording discovered in them even truer timbres. As if the songs had been waiting for me all this time, to come back to them, to reclaim something left undone; still hidden; left othered.” Check out the single ‘Inside’ below:

Dittocrush & Daniel Young – Coral Rose

With last year’s debut album Growth at a Death Pace, Dittocrush introduced their transportive blend of organic and electronic sounds, using analogue tape samples to create slow and subtle soundscapes full of spirit and texture. A collaboration with Daniel Young, new single ‘Coral Rose’ is no less evocative. Wending pedal steel anchors the track in the American landscape, though by the close you will suddenly realise you have been taken away from earth and returned just as gently.

Laveda – bb

Albany’s Laveda have made their name with a brand of dream pop which feels far larger and deeper than something made by two people. New single ‘bb’ sees Jake Brooks and Ali Genevich pull the trick once again. An introspective meditation on pandemic isolation, the track grows slowly from morose shadow and blossoms into something urgent. “It sounds sad, but it’s not,” Genevich explains. “It’s just reality, and sometimes it’s ok to be angry with the way things are.”

Mark Twang – Sweetness & Love

Gambier, Ohio duo Mark Twang are preparing to release their debut full-length, Companion, and the first single gives a real insight into the album’s sincere, reflective tone. Rising from the ashes of a past relationship, ‘Sweetness & Love’ stands apart from the traditional bitter break-up track, instead choosing to acknowledge and foster the fondness that remains. What emerges is small and tender, and no less beautiful for it.

i hope you find someone
who can give you what you want
i wish you nothing but sweetness and love

Wombo – Below the House

Louisville‘s Wombo have been putting out a series of great singles on Fire Talk Records and their latest ‘Below the House’ is no different. The song is “about leaving things buried for the best sometimes when there’s nothing you could gain from trying to make sense of them,” as the band put it. A track “loosely based on a nightmareish type dream” which exudes its own inherent unease. Like some liminal space between waking and dreaming where nothing is quite what it seems.

‘Below the House’ is out now via Fire Talk Records and you can get it from the Wombo 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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That this is perhaps something of a contradiction fits in with the Laveda aesthetic, eschewing as it does any commitment to simple binaries and instead straddling both sides of the the divide. Raw and lustrous, fuzzy and crystalline, nostalgic and fully focused on the future, careering forward without second thought.

Laveda are back with a brand new single, ‘If Only (You Said No)’, and we’re delighted to be able to share it a day before it’s official release. Opening with a prehistoric shimmer of synths, the track soon evolves into an impassioned pop song that utilises dual vocals to delve deeper into the relationship at its heart, in a way reminiscent of Dexter Tortoriello’s Houses. Genevich takes the first verse, her words whispered and poignant. After joining for the refrain, Brooks takes the second verse, his words sincere and desperate and halfway hopeful too, even if its just the misplaced hope of those unable to let go.

This plays into the themes of the track too, which aim to “reflect the internal conflict of really wanting someone but struggling to admit it.” If having the vocals separated by verses suggests a dialogue between two voices, then it is one conducted indirectly. The words whispered to oneself late at night, deep wishes internalised, a fantasy place beyond the miscommunication of the real world, where feelings can be conveyed directly and without distortion.

I hear you come around standing at the door
I know it’s you think I’ll ignore
While the rest of them are falling
Love isn’t something that I need anymore

If only you would go but I won’t stop calling
If only you could know this door won’t open
If only you stayed home I’ll be waiting for it
If only you said no

So hear I am waiting standing at the door
It’s just another night but there’s something else in store
While you were out there falling
I was hoping that you wanted me the most

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Tracklist:

Field Medic – henna tattoo
Leggy – Taffy
Myshiuno – Turf War In Chinatown, SF
Press Club – Suburbia
Shady Bug – Make it Up
Calicoco – Anchor Park
LUNCH – Forget Everything
krissanthemum – Honesty Hour
Wy – Pavements
UV Rays – Flowerhead
Fanclub – Stranger
Jeffrey Silverstein – Easy Rider
Ryan Dugré – Tonight
Okay Embrace – Phantom Text
Samia – Lasting Friend
community college – karaoke
runnner – eggshell
Fields of Heaven – Song of Loss
Minor Moon – Hold Me Up (Liar)
Lampland – You Little Liar
Westkust – Swebeach
kate can wait – licantropía
Bleeder – Rusted and Raw
Laveda – Dream Sleep
Pass/Ages – As It Rises
Yuri Tománek – In the end, we all fade away
Tender Glue – Dear Peri
Red Wedding – Bones
Women Tied to Railroad Tracks – Endless Carpet
Eyesore & the Jinx – On An Island
Bellows – What Can I Tell You About the World?
Merival – Sinner
Vassals – Lil Anvil
The This – The Strangest Ritual
Breakup Films – You Said You Hate Not Seeing Me
The Phone Booth – Healthcare
Seamstress – Everything
Zelma Stone – Light Bulb Boy
Charlotte Cornfield – Andrew
Wicketkeeper – Night Night (Whatever)
a. harlana – faces
Lady Dan – What Sanity
Tesha – Funeral

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Despite this surface-level immediacy, the band say the song is about “being trapped somewhere you feel like you don’t belong,” and mixes feelings of excitement and possibility with doubt and regret. That this is perhaps something of a contradiction fits in with the Laveda aesthetic, eschewing as it does any commitment to simple binaries and instead straddling both sides of the the divide. Raw and lustrous, fuzzy and crystalline, nostalgic and fully focused on the future, careering forward without second thought.

Hey turn the lights off
and all the stars and
all the stars let them die

Head to the Laveda Bandcamp page to download ‘Dream. Sleep.’

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