With the release of the record just over a week away, People Mover have returned with brand new single, ‘James St’. The opening track of the album, the song again occupies the interstitial space between brightness and melancholy, fired by a peppy rhythm but burdened by wistful reflection. Here Sergiacomi and co. recall an old house and all the memories attached, but, for all of the uncertainty and regret within the lyrics (“I don’t know where you are anymore / I could search but what for?” as the chorus asks), the overriding mood is one of acceptance. “Doesn’t matter / we were happy,” the concluding lines realise. “Nothing’s built to last.”

Photo by Keinamon

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The recording project of Teague Cullen and various friends, Foot Ox has made a name with an experimental style of folk, exploring age-old themes of love, loss and longing with rich arrangements and surreal storytelling. Written during extensive travels of the West, new album A Lighthouse with Silver Dog Eyes (forthcoming via Ernest Jenning Record Co.) utilises a genre-spanning style to reckon with the past and present of the area, and ultimately how the mythology of the American West shifts and persists. Following previous single ‘Horseshoe‘, new track ‘Bed of Violets’ shows the nuanced, layered nature of the record, able to recognise the beauty of the landscape while confronting the malevolent forces which haunt it. “‘Bed of Violets’ is a pretty dark song for me, even if it doesn’t seem that way on the surface,” Cullen explains. “It’s about the struggle of facing a dark force in life and overcoming it. Even though the lyrics themselves might not be overtly hopeful, I feel like the orchestration and the strings bring a sense of something vast and beautiful.”

A Lighthouse with Silver Dog Eyes out on the 11th August via Ernest Jenning Record Co. and you can pre-order it now.

General Absurdity & the Open Source – Limestone Ghost

A self-described “CommUNITY Psych-Folk Music Rebel, Performance ARTeest, Pre/Post Historic Bluez, Multi-dimensional BEeing,” General Absurdity & the Open Source is the new project/alter ego of  Lexington, Kentucky songwriter Derek Feldman. Long time readers might recognise Feldman as Doc Feldman, who we last wrote about back in 2021 with the release of A Healthy Dose of Anxiety, an album recorded with full band Doc Feldman & the Alt + Cntry + Delete. “Progressing with what might at first seem like pessimism, decrying magic spells and empty prayers, [single ‘‘Receiving (for Rollo May)’] repurposes such disillusionment into human solidarity,” we described. “Clasping hands not in plea to God but to pull another out of the shit. If we have control over anything, it is what happens here around us.” The mystical bent of General Absurdity & the Open Source might indicate a brand new stage for Feldman, yet this core message remains. Folk music which belongs alongside contemporaries like Will Johnson and strives for human connection within this lonely world.

People Mover – Cane Trash

Brisbane trio People Mover—that’s Lu Sergiacomi (vocals, guitar), Dan Sergiacomi (drums) and Billy McCulloch (bass)—are preparing to release their new album Cane Trash via Little Lunch Records next month, and have unveiled the title track as an introduction. It’s an inherently nostalgic track that draws on memories of the ash which filled the air of hometown Bundaberg during the burn-off of sugarcane before harvest, the bright, upbeat surface belying the melancholic weight at it heart. Which isn’t to say the juxtaposition of joy and sadness is in any way peculiar, for what else is fondness but the persistent presence of those very emotions? “‘Cane Trash’ gives into memories of where you came from and how you used to feel,” as Lu Sergiacomi explains. “It analyses where we go when we need to reset. Is it home, or can it be somewhere that reminds you of it? That memory is an analogy for the album—things are fragile, special and fleeting.”

Shrunken Elvis – K-House

Spencer Cullum, Sean Thompson, and Michael Ruth (AKA Rich Ruth) are all renowned musicians in their own right, be that with their own work—Cullum releasing solo material via Full Time Hobby, Thompson forming bands like Gnarwhal and Promised Land Sound, and Rich Ruth putting out acclaimed albums with Third Man Records—or supporting a wide range of well-known artists in recording and touring. So bringing the three together was always going to be a recipe for success. Under the moniker Shrunken Elvis, they have united to explore their shared passion for experimental music, merging their talents in order to transcend genre and create something new. The project “represents a rare opportunity to create purely for the sake of collaboration and curiosity,” as the album notes put it, the trio drawing on everything from Michael Rother, Alice Coltrane, and Pat Metheny to Can, Ashra and KLF to inform their sound, not to mention inspiration beyond music, be that visual art or the films of Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman. A self-titled album is on the way via Western Vinyl, and you can listen to single ‘K-House’ now. A track which takes something of the nocturnal urgency of eighties cop show theme tunes then expands its horizons with lush psych and cosmic tones.

Stella Donnelly – Baths

Three years after the release of her last full length, Flood, Naarm/Melbourne songwriter Stella Donnelly has returned with a new double A-side single, Baths / Standing Ovation. Both songs are stripped back relative to her previous work (at least until the back half of ‘Standing Ovation’), with a patience and stillness that gives them a sense of meditative clarity. ‘Baths’ in particular stands out, almost acapella as Donnelly’s vocals stand front and centre over barely-there keyboard notes. The music has the effect of incidental ambient noise and this is no accident, as the track was conceived as the sounds of the world seeped in. “I came up with this melody while I was swimming laps at the Brunswick Baths,” Donnelly explains. “The pool filter was making a humming sound on one note which allowed me to sing a melody over the top. “It then continued when I got home and had a shower with the bathroom fan on… I finally sat with a keyboard and held a note and it all just came together.”

Tim Carr – Alone Playing Piano

Though Tim Carr has made a name as part of other projects, be that Perfume Genius, Hand Habits or collaborating on records like Rebecca Schiffman‘s recent LP, Before the Future, he also has a rich solo career too. His debut release might have followed a folk tradition, but Carr’s sound is one in constant evolution, and new full-length Pleaure Drives leans into digital pop and electronic music. Recorded in the Crescenta Valley, the album draws on the LA golden hour in its romance and mystery, Carr intentionally working from a position of celebration rather than melancholy. “Pleasure drove this album to completion,” as he explains, “as it was made from a playful place as opposed to a melancholic state or being smothered by perfectionism.” Latest single ‘Alone Playing Piano’ encapsulates this spirit both in terms of lyrics (“Alone playing piano / getting into it / hitting wrong notes / trying to find the right ones / let it happen when the time comes”) and sound, the track not living up to the apparent austerity of its title but instead offering a shadowy Lynchian waltz.

villagerrr – Ride Or Die w/ Lydia

“Zeroing in on life’s small, ostensibly ordinary moments to find the meaning within.” So we wrote of villagerrr‘s Tear Your Heart Out in a list of our favourite albums of 2024, a record which saw songwriter Mark Scott embrace his Midwestern roots with a country-inflected brand of indie rock. “The result is a decidedly empathetic collection of songs able to zoom close to the smallest details of small town life,” we continued, “be it light through a sunroof, the smell of cut grass or pencil drawings made in an effort to preserve memories.” Having now signed with Winspear, villagerrr is releasing a new deluxe version of the album featuring a handful of previously unreleased bonus tracks, including new single ‘Ride Or Die w/ Lydia’. Featuring feeble little horse‘s Lydia Slocum, the track is characteristically fond and compassionate, sitting in that liminal space between summer and autumn, where the shadows grow long and the colours tend towards a sepia glow.

Watch the video edited by Trevor Hock below:

Tear Your Heart Out [Deluxe Edition] will be released via Winspear on the 10th October and you can pre-order it now.

Weakened Friends – NPC (feat. Buckethead)

Ever feel like life isn’t quite as real as many like to believe? That unfolding events are predestined, not so much by cosmic fate but something more computational? These are the ideas worrying Weakened Friends on new single ‘NPC’, a decidedly existential track featuring guitarist Buckethead inspired by the reality-bending simulation theory. But far from some exercise in idle sci-fi daydreaming, the song is urgent, defiant and cathartic. Fatalistic, but delivered with the kind of full-throated passion that can only exist in those still with the spirit to fight. This tone runs through Feels Like Hell, the Portland, Maine outfit’s new album coming soon on Don Giovanni Records, where every soul-destroying facet of our present moment is used as fuel on the fire. The hegemony of global capitalism, complete with its mass surveillance, environmental destruction and rampant inequality, is enough to drive anyone to despair, but Weakened Friends are determined to deny it that one last victory. Better to scream, yell, bring the whole thing crumbling down with us.

Maybe I’m just fucked in the head
Here daydreaming of annihilation
Maybe we should just hit reset
It’d be the best thing

Watch the video by SunBronx & Olise Forel below:

Feels Like Hell will be released on the 9th October via Don Giovanni and you can pre-order it now.

Wombo – S.T. Tilted

We’ve covered a number of singles from Wombo‘s new full-length Danger in Fives in recent months, noting how the release sees the Louisville outfit push the envelope rather than resting on their laurels. “I don’t want to be in a band that’s confined to one form of writing,” as vocalist and bassist Sydney Chadwick says. “Where’s the fun and the creativity and the exploration in that? You have to push yourself and try something new.” With the album out now via Fire Talk Records, Wombo have shared new single, ‘S.T. Tilted’ as if to prove this sentiment. “It’s the first song we wrote after the Slab EP that made it on Danger in Fives,” as guitarist Cameron Lowe explains. “We weren’t sure it was going to work, but all the contrasting parts ended up being cool. It’s rare for a Wombo song to be written on guitar first like this one, with some of the bass and drum parts jammed out in the basement afterwards. The wacky guitar part came last.”

Watch Lowe’s video below:

Danger in Fives is out now via Fire Talk and available from the Wombo Bandcamp page.

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The Cherries are Speaking, last year’s album by Dan Knishkowy’s Adeline Hotel, represented “another step in Knishkowy’s exploratory path,” as we described. “One with no set end or direction, but one pressing on with larger goals in mind. A part of a greater body of work which comes into view one record at a time, edging closer to whatever the full picture might be.” This October will provide the next stage of this journey as Adeline Hotel is releasing new full-length, Hot Fruit, again via Ruination Record Co. A record, as per Andy Cush’s album notes, “characterized by that push-pull interplay between composition and improvisation,” with Winston Cook-Wilson and Scree’s Ryan El-Solh, Carmen Rothwell and Jason Burger all lending their talents. The title track captures the blend of craft and spontaneity perfectly.

Beti Masenqo – much of anything

Beti Masenqo is a songwriter out of California who has recently unveiled debut single, ‘much of anything’. A track which introduces her style of delicate, often reflective folk which ties together melancholy and joy with a wistful thread. Here specifically on the subject of love, where tenderness doubles as a kind of tenuousness. A spell to submit to or break. “Fell asleep in Mexico, fever in the night / I know this must be obvious but your were on my mind,” Masenqo sings in the opening lines. “Felt compelled to tell you that, just to prove I tried / your fingerprints were on my chest, my soul was left behind. I know you will be gone / can’t think this will be much of anything.”

Cereus Bright – Chasing the Feeling

Cereus Bright, the recording project of Knoxville freak-folk songwriter Tyler Anthony, has been operating for the best part of a decade, though the sound has undergone a constant evolution in the interim. Having recently signed with Nettwerk, Anthony has been sharing a run of singles to show off the latest face of Cereus Bright. A style which follows the reflective tone of 2021’s Give Me Time with a newfound focus on the future, looking forwards and confronting all the mystery, uncertainty and potential therein. Latest track ‘Chasing the Feeling’ errs towards the optimistic side of things, or at least finds itself unable to shake the lingering possibility there might exist a better way to live. “’Chasing the Feeling’ charts the kinds of longings we all have,” as Anthony explains. “It’s nostalgic… it felt important to make it more subtle and melancholy. For me, that’s what the core of this feeling really is—a quiet desire to return to something better than today.” Watch the video shot by Ross Bustin and edited by Corey Campbell below:

‘Chasing the Feeling’ is out now via Nettwerk and available from Bandcamp.

KMRU – Along A Wall

The first release from KMRU‘s own label OFNOT, new album Dissolution Grip emerged from a period of study at Berlin’s Universität der Künste, where, under the tutelage of Jasmine Guffond, he used field recordings in a novel manner. Rather than including these recordings directly, he used their waveforms as a guide for his own compositions, essentially tracing over the real-world sounds and recreating them as digital soundscapes. Take single ‘Along A Wall’, a bonus track on the digital release, where the wind of Nairobi is recreated in all of its fickle movement with nothing but electronic tones.

Kramies – Days Of (acoustic version)

Back in 2022 we wrote about the self-titled album by Kramies, describing it as “what feels like the culmination of a career to date. Where everything is consolidated and offered in its most fully realised form. Life in all its surreal wonder and visceral reality. Kramies, told as truthfully as possible, whatever form that truth takes.” Having teamed up with VanGerrett Records and with a new album coming next year, Kramies has unveiled the functionally titled EP, The Original Undecorated Takes from the Kramies LP. Four songs from the album as they appeared when acoustic demos. Lead single and opener ‘Days Of’ highlights the difference from the original, the stark depth swapped for a more intimate sound, though one retaining all of the emotional power.

Pretty Bitter – What I Want!

Self-described “psychedelic synth pop gumball machine” Pretty Bitter is Emelia Bleker and Miri Tyler, along with multi-instrumentalist Zack Be, drummer Jason Hayes and guitarist Chris Smit. Together the outfit craft a sound which lives up to their label, where inventive pop sensibilities are blended with driving indie rock energy and some of the sardonic lyricism and delivery familiar to riot grrrl and post-punk. Latest single ‘What I Want!’ utilises this sound to take on eating disorders and the process of recovery. A combination of gallows humour and rising catharsis which eviscerates those responsible for the outside pressures behind such an experience.

If you’re lonely
Try being someone else

If you’re shrinking
At least they love you while you hate yourself

Could you tell I was not well?

Sinai Vessel – Tangled

Aside from some outtakes and demos, ‘Tangled’ is the first release from Caleb Cordes’s Sinai Vessel since 2020’s stellar full-length Ground Aswim, and introduces the next step in the project’s evolution. The Asheville-based songwriter has long won acclaim for his distinctively emotive and searching style, though Cordes truly stands out for the way in which he layers in other emotions too. This is on full display on ‘Tangled’, where a gentle warmth belies the thread of paranoia running beneath the surface. “We are at the mercy of a tangled web of wires / Snaring one another / strung up by our words,” Cordes sings, voice barely breaking a murmur. “Intent is one among a set of signs / if misaligned, you’ll misinterpret.” Once this dimension of the track clicks, you’ll never quite hear it in the same manner, the hushed style no longer sounding intimate so much as lonely, walled off from others and no longer trusting words as a reliable means to bridge the divide.

There’s no poison like
Believing an enemy’s in sight
When there’s no threat at all

Soft Covers – The Real Housewives of Porpoise Spit

In October, Naarm/Melbourne-based indie pop band Soft Covers will release their debut album Soft Serve on Little Lunch Records and Hidden Bay Records. Previous EP Permanent Part Time set out a jangly DIY aesthetic, and the new record sees the trio go bigger in every regard—instrumentally, thematically, and in terms of ambition—without sacrificing the authenticity that made the original songs so great. Lead single ‘The Real Housewives of Porpoise Spit’ is a great introduction for those unfamiliar, taking the nostalgic fondness of retro jangle pop and injecting a certain momentum, not to mention a playful lyricism that blurs the line between wistful and witty.

Tamra – Omens, Silos

Based between Boise and Los Angeles, Tamra is a band, as per the press release, “animated by the idea that, though there’s nothing to do, there’s still something to say.” Their debut EP Light Reading emerges from the dead expanses of the American landscape and lead single ‘Omens, Silos’ introduces this aesthetic with a staccato, opaque poetry. It melds early 00s college favourites with Astral Weeks-era Van Morrison and a turbulent undercurrent of Midwest emo. The result, with its distorted guitar and vocals that rise and fall on sonic updrafts, is oddly captivating, both gloomy and not, full of inelegant beauty like a deserted stripmall under a bruised and stormy sky.

Light Reading will be released later this year.

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