Later this spring Chicago‘s Babe Report will release their debut full-length album Did You Get Better via Exploding In Sound, the long awaited follow up to their rambunctious 2021 EP The Future of Teeth. But if the band took their time between releases, they waste none within the songs themselves. The ten tracks clock in at less than half an hour in total and all are charged with the same frantic momentum which made aforementioned EP such a fun experience. Or perhaps even more momentum, as opener and lead single ‘Turtle of Reaper’ attests. A searing indictment of clickbait culture which burns white hot, the chorus invokes the hysteria of the Millennium Bug as guitars and drums combine into a frenzy of their own.

Cosmo Sheldrake – More Than A Mountain

London-born, Stroud-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Cosmo Sheldrake always pushes the boundaries of what music can do and be. His previous album Wild Wet World offered undersea soundscapes which incorporated everything from “plaintive whale song to clicking parrotfish and snapping shrimp.” Latest record Eye To The Ear is even more ambitious, a twenty-one song album which combines traditional and electronic instrumentation and also, to quote the album notes, “both human and more-than-human voices” to address both the dire situation faced by the natural world as well as the radical possibilities which might cease or reverse its destruction. Single ‘More Than A Mountain’ is as good a place to dive in as any, offering an understated, brooding tone as it meditates on the scene before us.

Got the beast but left the burden,
It’s the step before the fall,
It’s the pause before the question,
It’s the window or the wall

Little Wings – Ha Ha Blues

Back in February we introduced High On The Glade, the forthcoming album from Little Wings on Perpetual Doom with single ‘Bubbles Go Pop’. A song “every bit as idiosyncratic and inventive as you’d hope,” we wrote, which told “the story of a wild party in a zany vaudevillian procession befitting of a Pynchon novel.” Second single ‘Ha Ha Blues’ might have a more languid rhythm but the writing is no less inventive. Beneath the  rhythm’s apparent warmth stirs a darker, melancholic edge. “Field thinks of this as being his most Irish record, full of heartbreak and violence,” the album notes describe, and ‘Ha Ha Blues’ hints at this side of the record despite its sunny disposition.

Ha ha blues what can I do you for?
What did you choose before a door in your distance
My what news mining persistence
How many wishes once the floor falls through?

Max Blansjaar – Burning In Our Name

After single ‘Anna Madonna’, a song which “acknowledges the hurtful nature of the world and the resulting temptation to react with anger or bitterness” but “becomes the antithesis to such moods,” Max Blansjaar has shared ‘Burning In Our Name’ to further introduce upcoming album False Comforts on Beanie Tapes. It’s another blurring of the line between wry humour and earnest emotion as Blansjaar negotiates the experience of perpetual difficulty that is existing in this world of ours. “Caught up in a maze of hedonists and lies / Putting all our faith in devils in disguise,” as he sings in the chorus. “Just trying to escape when everything’s on fire / And burning in our name.”

nudista – Somebody Else

‘Somebody Else’ is the latest single from London duo nudista (Pilar Matji Cabello and Robbie Carman), ahead of their sophomore EP Nothing Makes Sense Until It Does on Sad Club Records. As with previous singles ‘Different Eyes’ and ‘Waiting Line’, it’s a song full of emotive introspection and a desire to live a truer, better connected life. “’Somebody Else’ is about coming to the realisation of having been living a life not trusting your own voice and path,” Cabello explains. “It explores the idea of not knowing fully who you are, about going on a self-exploration journey to find the voice within you and to tune into your own instinct.” It might unfurl with a gentle grace, all soft acoustic guitar and subtle percussion, but it’s message of self-determination is a powerful one. As Cabello puts it at the end of the chorus: “I guess I’ve just been living for somebody else.”

Nothing Makes Sense Until It Does will be released via Sad Club Records and you can pre-order it now from the nudista Bandcamp page.

Shit Present – Acting Tough

“Start again and you’ll be fine / Aren’t you sick of looking for answers all the time?” So ask Exeter outfit Shit Present on the title track of their forthcoming EP, Acting Tough on the ever-reliable Specialist Subject Records. The song introduces the band’s signature blend of pop punk energy, emo sincerity and raw punk rock attitude, making for a sound at once empathetic and cathartic. A useful blend considering the track’s intentions. An attempt to disarm the defence mechanisms of insecurity, and banish the nagging weight of pessimism through sheer momentum and shout-along release.

It’s such a shame to have to see you acting tough
Did somebody make you feel like you aren’t good enough

Tara Jane O’Neil – Glass Island

Written during what she calls “the skirmishes and shuffle of the seven years since her self-titled album,” The Cool Cloud of Okayness is the forthcoming new album from California multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Tara Jane O’Neil. Fittingly for a record preoccupied with life’s changeable nature, it was recorded at O’Neil’s home studio, which is built on the ashes of her previous home destroyed by the Thomas wildfire that devastated southern California in 2017. These themes of destruction and new growth, life’s cyclical rhythms and cruel repetitions snake throughout the record, nurturing green shoots of hope in the charred earth of loss and grief. Latest single ‘Glass Island’ explores these patterns with all the delicate beauty the title suggests. “Another day,” O’Neil sings, “ring around the moon and back again,
dig in again.”

The song comes complete with a video by Harry Dodge:

The Cool Cloud of Okayness is out on the 26th April via Orindal Records and you can pre-order it now.

tilt – all and nothing

tilt is the project of Brooklyn-based trio Isabel Crespo Pardo (vocals), Kalia Vandever (trombone, vocals) and Carmen Quill (acoustic bass, vocals), who draw on their considerable solo credentials to make formally inventive, jazz-inflected art pop. Next month, tilt will release their debut album something we once knew on Dear Life Records, a record which takes us by the hand and leads us into a world of improvisation and idiosyncratic style. Lead single ‘all and nothing’ feels like a doorway into this landscape, a calm song that breathes in an organic rhythm behind its careful composition. A delicate but confident vocal duet rises and falls on the mournful draught of Vandever’s trombone, tracing elegant and unexpected patterns on the backdrop of negative space. The result is both bright and somehow pensive, like the shapes thrown by golden afternoon sunlight as it slants through a window.

Work Wife – Control

“A warm and introspective song of trying to find yourself in the vast bustle of the city amidst its noise and countless strangers […] ending in a thumping singalong finale.” That’s how we described ‘Strangers’, the first single from Work Wife‘s EP Waste Management. With the EP now out via Born Losers Records, latest single ‘Control’ highlights a different side to the release, swapping out the intimate clarity of the opener in favour of something dreamy and enveloping. Despite clocking in at barely two minutes, the track possesses a real sense of scale, washing over the listener with layered richness. When Meredith Lampe’s vocals eventually emerge, it feels as though you have passed into the centre of something to find the intimate truth within.

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Hailing from Iran and now based in Paris, 9T Antiope has served as a vehicle for duo Nima Aghiani and Sara Bigdeli Shamloo to explore the unique difficulties of the expatriate experience. New album Horror Vacui lives up to its title to go further still. To live between two cultures is to never quite belong to either, to perpetually seek firmer roots in the present while fighting the fear of forgetting where you have come from, or even that place forgetting you. 9T Antiope address such dualities with a concept album almost cinematic in scope, and single ‘Shapeshift’ offers a compelling mix of haunting and alluring tones to welcome the listener through its doors.

Beti Masenqo – better than before

Following last summer’s debut single ‘much of anything’, which we described as a “delicate [and] often reflective folk [song] which ties together melancholy and joy with a wistful thread,” California songwriter Beti Masenqo is back with a new song, ‘better than before’. What she describes as “a nostalgic tune about loving someone who is plagued with uncertainty,” the track pairs an upbeat rhythm with another reflective tone, capturing a bittersweet mood which looks to shake free of doubt and look towards something brighter.

‘better than before’ is out now via streaming services.

Blitzen Trapper – Cosmic Backseat Education

Portland, Oregon‘s Blizten Trapper have been a significant force in indie rock for over twenty years now, and new album 100’s of 1000’s, Millions of Billions, coming this spring on Yep Roc Records, returns to the ideals which first fired the project into being to explore ideas of freedom and rebirth. With guests including Eric D. Johnson (Fruit Bats/Bonny Light Horseman) and Anna Tivel, the album melds earnest folk/psych rock with something more metaphysical. Lead single ‘Cosmic Backseat Education’ returns to the childhood experience of listening to the radio in the car, when music was nothing more than a source of joy. The video, directed by Mychal Sargent, offers a playful dimension, riffing off Mr Rogers and ultimately questioning just who is in control of the puppet/puppeteer relationship.

100’s of 1000’s, Millions of Billions is out on the 17th May via Yep Roc Records.

Crow Baby – Pity Party

Having both been raised in Johannesburg multi-instrumentalists Cherilyn MacNeil and Jean-Louise Parker formed Crow Baby upon being reunited in Berlin. Debut album Get Yourself Together will be released this spring, and if single ‘Pity Party’ is anything to go by, it’s going to be quite the ride. An ever-shifting track which never quite settles in any one shape, creating and undermining a number of moods and meanings, and ultimately leaving the listener to question the very ground beneath their feet. The result is something as clever as it is infectious, and as the triumphant chorus comes around, the self-pity is proven to be anything but.

Get Yourself Together will be released this spring via Duchess Box Records.

Grocer – Packrat

We’ve covered Philadelphia‘s Grocer several times in recent years, always appreciating the unapologetic chaos of their sound. Recent EP Scatter Plot felt like a band exploring the possible new directions such a style might take, and this spring sees Grocer return with their second full-length on Grind Select to capitalise on these gains. Evoking the sensation of “feeling stricken with the inability to make decisions and the procrastination paralysis of anxiety,” single ‘Packrat’ finds Grocer at their most collaborative, trusting in the bonds which have now developed between the members to make something far greater than the sum of its parts.

Hot Wheels – August

What do you get if you mix equal parts Brian Eno, Julee Cruise and Link Wray? LA-based painter and musician Dan Bruinooge, AKA Hot Wheels, has the answer with ‘August’, a new single on Earth Libraries. The song looks to add sixties surf and ambient sensibilities to nostalgic dream pop in order to bring to life a sonic representation of the culture and climate of California. But far from being a blissed-out image of Western sun and sea, ‘August’ sees Hot Wheels mine the landscape for all of its complexities and contradictions, where every instance of natural beauty is countered by gridlocked traffic, and apparently carefree summers are stalked by worsening wild fires.

‘August’ is out now via Earth Libraries.

Little Wings – Bubbles Go Pop

Kyle Field has recorded under the moniker Little Wings since the late nineties, pushing and pulling his folk rock sound into every shape imaginable while leaning into the joy of the ephemeral moment. A few years ago Antiquated Future tried to capture this ever-shifting style in one album with Sing Wide (Selected Songs 2002​-​2019), though true to the spirit of the project, Field has since taken the Little Wings sound onwards. New full-length High On The Glade will be released this spring on Perpetual Doom, and single ‘Bubbles Go Pop’ is every bit as idiosyncratic and inventive as you’d hope. With its ramshackle percussion and sing-song melody, it tells the story of a wild party in a zany vaudevillian procession befitting of a Pynchon novel. “The bubbles go pop,” as Field sings, “the laughter doesn’t stop / Effervescence grows into a roar.”

Night Hawk – Bedroom Waltz

Back in February we featured Night Hawk, the Brunswick, Maine-based project led by Colter Adams and Peyton Semjen. As we wrote previously, the pair work alongside “a rotating cast of band members […] to create a sound which evokes the Edward Hopper painting after which they are named.” After a slew of singles, the band are readying their debut EP, Everything Good Ends, and have just unveiled lead single ‘Bedroom Waltz’ as a taster of what to expect. It’s a picture of a relationship curdled by overdependence, depicted with both raw feeling and poetic grace. Cello and guitar weave across each other in somber patterns, while the percussion drives things forward towards the eventual cathartic climax.

In love with an addict
He works fighting fires
He gets paid in forgiveness
And he never gets tired

Trailer Dust – Sunday Morning (feat. Kelley Swindall) (The Velvet Underground Cover)

Taking inspiration from the likes of Sparklehorse and Sonic Youth and adding a country inflection, Trailer Dust is the new project of songwriter/producer, Greg Griffith. As if to highlight the success of such a marriage, Griffith has enlisted Kelley Swindall for a take on The Velvet Underground’s ‘Sunday Morning’. A version which swaps the dreamy drift of the original for something with more dirt on its boots. Griffith and Swindall’s chemistry is clear in the playful, carefree atmosphere, the song lifting towards its affirming conclusion as though gambolling in childlike wonder.

‘Sunday Morning’ is out now via streaming services.

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