Now Loic Moonmattress has returned to see out the year with another EP, Last Nostalgia, and as the title suggests, the collection builds upon the themes of its predecessor to explore ideas of memory and fondness. Again drawing upon a diverse range of influences, the songs combine lush ambient textures with hip hop and bedroom pop sensibilities to weave soundscapes at once expansive and intimate, delving into the small, personal moments to excavate the full warmth within.

The title track of the EP is a great place to jump in. A perfect example of the patient, slow-moving style, with Loic Moonmattress taking the time to examine a specific moment in all of its varied, wistful texture. “[It’s] a song about the clarity, overwhelm, and sense of finality that comes with looking backward on era of ones life that has just come to pass,” the artist describes. The result is something touching, melancholic and more than a match for its title. An attempt to preserve a fleeting moment in sound.

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Hailing from California and now based in Glasgow, Alvidrez is a composer and writer who works at the intersection of faith and defiance. Album Antiphon, coming next month on Memorials of Distinction, is built around their renunciation of American evangelicalism, its mix of folk, ambient and drone both reaching back into the past and presenting an epiphanic present. Lead single and opener ‘Hymn For The Corner’ is the perfect example, its rich yet hazy sound conjuring the softened fog of memory, yet its core holds the immediate sense of bright revelation. The old dogmas might have revealed themselves hollow, but Alvidrez is here to show wonder exists beyond the orthodox.

tired of heaven
tired of chemtrails
signing the papers
for a house in this dark land
no one could tell me
how to sing all my songs
it’s a hymn that will show me
that I’ve got it all wrong

Any Other – If I Don’t Care

Any Other, the recording project of Italian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Adele Altro, will release their third album stillness, stop: you have a right to remember later this month on 42 Records. Latest single ‘If I Don’t Care’ serves an encapsulation of their idiosyncratic sound. “This song is about me learning to let go of things that make me angry,” Altro explains, “both personal and societal stuff. It’s reasonable to be angry about inequalities, but at some point you need to distance yourself from that stuff just a little, otherwise it will impact your mental health in an even more negative way.” But anyone expecting a song full of calm wisdom couldn’t be more wrong, with Altro reaching this newfound understanding via a mixture of frustration, impatience and defiance, all bound together to reach an urgent, building catharsis. Watch the video below, produced by 42 Records and EDERA (Milan) and directed by Giulio Rasi, with art direction by Cecilia Grandi.

stillness, stop: you have a right to remember will be released on 26th January via 42 Records. Pre-order a copy from their webstore.

Astrid Sonne – Boost

Later this month, London-based Danish composer Astrid Sonne will release her third record, Great Doubt, via Copenhagen label Escho. For an artist who has made a name in experimental and ambient fields, the album represents something of an evolution, adding vocals and beats for the first time in a foray into the realms of arty pop and contemporary singer-songwriter styles. Latest single ‘Boost’ is one of the record’s instrumental tracks, but the beats are front and centre, charging things with an energy fitting of the title. “I made ‘Boost’ lying in my bed, it’s a quite energetic track coming from a not very energetic place,” Sonne describes. “There’s a sense of release to Boost and a feeling of not caring too much, which can be good sometimes when you need to seek out new settings.”

Fela Dakota – Pour Your Soul

Describing themselves as “a trapeze artist of the midnight-thoughts,” Fela Dakota is a singer-songwriter from Bath whose work smoulders with intensity. Released by Folk Boy Records, ‘Pour Your Soul’ is their debut single and a bold introduction indeed. Built on a minimal background that evokes a dark and cavernous void, Dakota’s vocals arise from this abyss with a combination of romantic grace and tortured fervour, swinging from a quivering whisper to a full-throated roar that lights up the negative space with incandescent feeling. The result is an arresting song that falls somewhere between lament-like hymn and desperate cry into the night.

‘Pour Your Soul’ is out now via Folk Boy Records.

Loic Moonmattress – Sleepless in Eugene

Released as part of the Sunseekers collective, ‘Sleepless in Eugene’ is the title track of a new three-song EP by Edmonton artist Loic Moonmattress. Effortlessly straddling ambient, hip hop and folk styles, the song blurs the line between personal intimacy and wide open space, channelling that strange nocturnal headspace where everything is at once immediate and reflective. Such a liminal space speaks to the themes of the song too, which finds its narrator in a kind of limbo—between youth and adulthood, love and loneliness, consciousness and dreams. “I finished [the track] alone in Whitby, Ontario and very far away from the places and people that inspired it,” Loic Moonmattress explains. “I think of it like a letter to those places, those people, and those times.”

Malachi Graham – Spare Me

With album Caretaker on the horizon, we’ve featured Portland, Oregon-based songwriter Malachi Graham several times in recent months, most recently with single ‘Wonderful Life‘. Another example of Graham’s willingness to delve into the uncomfortable corners of personal relationships to better illuminate the love and suffering therein. Latest track ‘Spare Me’ is no less affecting, a song described as a “relationship meditation and post-mortem” which rakes the coals of a toxic relationship to find both pain and complicity. The work of Malachi Graham doesn’t emerge from its investigations with simple findings or much by way of comfort, and feels all the more authentic as a result.

Middle Sattre – Hate Yourself to the Core

We’ve been anticipating Tendencies, the upcoming record from Austin-based outfit Middle Sattre ever since single ‘Pouring Water‘ had us making comparisons to Sufjan Stevens and Typhoon. Follow up ‘Stop Speaking‘ was no less evocative, with lead Hunter Prueger drawing on the experience of growing up queer in the Mormon church to castigate the cruelty of conservative voices. With the album set for release next month, Middle Sattre have returned with another single which challenges such poisonous influence. Namely, ‘Hate Yourself to the Core’ explores how no-one escapes from such an environment untouched, with pernicious views sinking into the subconscious no matter how differently you might feel. “I think a lot of people have a hard time understanding internalized homophobia,” Prueger explains. “There’s this idea that if you’re gay, then you can’t be homophobic. I wanted to write a song that very clearly lays it all out and explains how this can happen.”

Watch the video below, directed by Maya Lam with performance and choreography by Stephanie Shin:

Tendencies will be released on 9th February. Order it now from the Middle Sattre Bandcamp page.

Mol Sullivan – Goose

We previewed GOOSE, the forthcoming debut full-length album by Mol Sullivan back in November, with ‘Still Tryin’, introducing an exploration of a nascent sobriety. “[The single] uses a hushed, bruised style to welcome the listener into a raw period of life,” as we wrote, “but there’s a glimmer of something else too, a newfound freedom to move towards some better future. Set deep in those early days of a new beginning where everything feels possible yet tenuous and a little too vivid to bear.” With the record out later this month, Sullivan has returned with the title track to not only further develop the themes of personal introspection but introduce the spirit guardian that lends the album its name. It starts bright and folky, but soon slides into tricky complexity, emotions captured perfectly with the tense and idiosyncratic chamber pop instrumentation.

Am I a swan or just a goose
I’d bet the latter, grab my purse
it’s not so difficult a choice
between a joker and a fool
without giving them a voice
do you want an ocean or a pool?

Watch the video by Andrew Spohn below:

GOOSE is out on the 26th January and you can pre-order it now.

Sailor Honeymoon – Bad Apple

After winning comparisons to The Ramones, Kim Gordon and Bikini Kill with debut single ‘Cockroach’, South Korean punk trio Sailor Honeymoon have returned with new track ‘Bad Apple’. The song is the first teaser of a debut EP pencilled for release in the spring on Seoul and London-based label Good Good 굿굿. The band’s entire ethos revolves spontaneity and freedom, offering a sense of ragged, fun abandon as the perfect antidote to the dominant force of K-pop and the pristine polish it champions. ‘Bad Apple’ is an ideal entry point for the uninitiated. A raucous song which stares down a bigoted ‘friend’ without so much as a flinch. Watch the video directed by Kim Taeyoung below:

‘Bad Apple’ is out now via streaming services.

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