“I wanted to give myself the agency to distort all truths to see what jumped out to me as truthful in a reactive, and sometimes illusionary or misleading, sense–in all of this faulty rawness,” the San Francisco-based artist explains of the release. “I was really drawn to sounds and images that felt satisfyingly ‘false’–I was drawn to Cecil Taylor’s Unit Structures, my favorite drag queens in Los Angeles who magically bombed every Monday, Ryan Trecartin’s A Family Finds Entertainment, Sunik Kim’s Potential, and so much more. I wanted frenzy that felt disembodying–so disembodying that this time of my life could conjure a laugh.”

With the album’s release quickly approaching, Lucy Liyou has returned with brand new single ‘Crisis (Identity)’. One of several hinge points within the MR COBRA narrative, the song confuses the line between crisis and epiphany, its protagonist Babygirl coming to embrace the dualism or chimeric tendencies of their character. Not quite grasping whether the admission is an exercise in masochism, liberation or both simultaneously. We follow the track from the initial clarity (such an identity is unruly, shameful, an act of performance or else a plain crisis) into something far more nuanced and interesting. That is, the realisation that perhaps any one person’s identity is too large to fully capture with any blanket label. That parts of us will always clash with others, and that contradiction is not an aberration but an inherent feature. Which means that MR COBRA does not represent the classic, affirming arc so familiar in artistic identity quests, but instead something more difficult, messy and real.

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Minneapolis has a rich heritage in energetic indie rock, so its great to see bands like The Dead Century carrying the flame onwards. First drafted during the pandemic but now equally relevant in light of the city’s occupation, latest single ‘Been Better’ wears its influences proudly, taking the raucousness of The Replacements and some of The Hold Steady‘s buoyant positivity and applying them to the less than positive present. The result, essentially a dispatch from a profoundly difficult time, is propulsive, impassioned and ultimately affirming in spite of everything. One, much like the people on the ground of its home city, willing to confront the gravity of the moment and fight for something better regardless of how far away that might seem.

‘Been Better’ is out now and available from the usual places.

figure eight – hummingbird

Back in 2024 we featured Bay Area outfit figure eight, describing how the project has evolved from the experimental noise project of duo Nash Rood and Abby Goeser into something far more developed, with single ‘1999 (cherry)’ from their self-titled EP highlighting the nuance and balance of the sound. “Twin threads of lightness and weight weave across the track into what appears to be the spirit of this new version of figure eight,” we wrote, “a band aware of the transcendent power available at both ends of the spectrum.” Now they are back with until the sun swallows the earth / hummingbird, a double single on Cherub Dream Records, and you only have to contrast the titles tracks to see the balance between heft and elegance remains. After the slow-burn expanse of ‘until the sun swallows the earth’, ‘hummingbird’ offers something more gauzy and restrained, the sound muted though no less full of atmosphere, and ultimately fulfilling its promise to spill over into something thunderous.

Griffin Brown – DRAW

“I need a hint, like a task, to check off and put behind me,” sings New York‘s Griffin Brown on ‘DRAW’, the first glimpse of his forthcoming album Begriffin. “But I don’t quite know what my success would guarantee.” This marbling of assurance and doubt not only runs through the lyrical aspect of the track, but the woozy sound itself. Brown evokes the feeling of starting something without knowing how it will end with a propulsive chorus that never seems to quite reach its natural conclusion. A joint release between Spread Way Out and Better Company Records, Begriffin itself progresses in such a manner.It is undeniably confident and marked by forward motion, yet unsure of its final destination. As though Brown knows what he needs to do and how to do it, just not what the end result might be.

Watch the video by Brown below:

Begriffen will be released on the 8th May via Spread Way Out and Better Company Records. Get it from Bandcamp.

Little Lungs – Dragonfruit

“Songs personal, compassionate and often affirming, driven by equal parts warmth and energy.” That’s how we described the work of Baltimore folk rock outfit Little Lungs back in February, single ‘The Heat’ introducing the band’s forthcoming album of the same name. “A typically emotive track build around [lead Leena] Rhodes’s vocals,” we wrote, “and the braid of tenderness and strength they are able to evoke.” With The Heat coming later this week, Little Lungs have shared new track ‘Dragonfruit’. An example of the more electronic dimension which exists on the record, the song opens like the soundtrack to long lost videogame but soon blossoms into something charged and sweeping, and again Rhodes’s delivery is placed centre stage. “Standing outside, the middle of fall / Dragonfruit vodka clenched in your palm,” she sings in a verse indicative of the striking image-led style of the track. “You met my eyes / I knew that you changed / I hated you then but I couldn’t escape.”

Watch the visualiser by Zack Willis with clips from Leena Rhodes below [WARNING: contains flashing, high-contrast imagery that may triggering to individuals with photosensitivity or epilepsy]:

The Heat will be released on 12th March. Get a copy from the Little Lungs Bandcamp page.

Lucy Liyou – Babygirl

“Possess[es] both a fragile minimalism and lush melodrama […] The sensation of watching a fond memory fade at the edges as the desire to return to its smallest details only grows.” So we wrote of Lucy Liyou‘s debut Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name back in 2025, an album that was both an exercise in musical invention and most personal of documents, a description that more than holds true for Liyou forthcoming new album, MR COBRA. A release described by label Orange Milk Records as “a semi-autobiographical solo theater-music piece […] that combines free-jazz, Korean folk opera, musique-concrète, 2000s era pop, text-to-speech recordings, film, comedy, and drag-inspired performance,” the record sees fury, frustration, love and yearning all swirl together with the extravagance and grace of the best stage show, allowing Liyou to explore ideas of transition and identity in ways otherwise out of reach. “I was really inspired by sounds and images that felt satisfyingly ‘false’ or “unclarifyingly” true, whatever that means,” she expands. “I was drawn to Cecil Taylor’s Unit Structures, my favorite drag queens in Los Angeles, who magically bombed every Monday, Ryan Trecartin’s A Family Finds Entertainment, Sunik Kim’s Potential, and so much more. I wanted frenzy that felt disembodying, so disembodying that this time of my life could conjure a laugh.” Check out single ‘Babygirl’ below:

Primula – Cobblestone

Do not be fooled by the title, Primula‘s latest EP Nothing New signals a fresh chapter for the Malmö/Stockholm-based outfit. Having made a name across the Swedish scene with a jazz-inflected sound, the new release sees the band bend more towards folk sensibilities, though without sacrificing the sense of collaboration and invention which made their earlier work so special. Single ‘Cobblestone’ serves as the ideal introduction. It’s a track daring enough to eschew the conventional structures of indie music in order to create a dynamic sound that evokes the nuances of being alive. “‘Cobblestone’ is about the difficult yet comforting realization that you’re just a small piece in a much bigger world,” the band explain. “There’s a freedom in not having to be so significant on your own. Even if you feel insignificant by yourself, you’re still an essential part of making something whole.”

Nothing New will be released later this year.

Stephen Becker – Bad Idea

Back in 2024, Stephen Becker released Middle Child Syndrome, an album we described as “an effort, at least in part, to rise above the mundane present, as though to be trapped within conventions is to be restricted by the same inability to communicate effectively that haunts our everyday lives.” Now Becker is set to return with new full-length Gravity Blanket, and the record is no less thoughtful or ambitious. It sees him sift through the ostensibly banal details of memories in order to excavate a deeper human meaning with an otherwise unsatisfying present. As with Middle Child Syndrome, the result is forthright and unguarded, willing to open itself up to vulnerability in order to make progress, as highlighted by opener and lead single ‘Bad Idea’. “‘Bad Idea’ is about a breakup I went through after seeing the ballet,” as Becker explains. “The haunting feeling of the dancers’ movements lingering in my mind, the sad-sweet taste of spiked lemonade on the train ride home. I was thinking about, and trying to manifest, change with a newfound determination to break free from unhealthy routines and patterns in life and in love.”

Watch the video directed by Haoyan of America below:

Gravity Blanket will be released on the 24th April and you can pre-order it now.

True Green – Bindi Sue

True Green, the project of Minneapolis songwriter Dan Hornsby, is named after “medieval nun Hildegard of Bingen’s idea of viriditas, and also a lawn care company.” This combination goes some way towards capturing the project’s style, which uses a laidback, often irreverent tone to tell stories with real feeling. Later this month, True Green will release sophomore album Hail Disaster, a record which, as its title suggests, explores “tragedies real and imagined”. New single ‘Bindi Sue’ is one last glimpse before the big day. A tribute to everyone’s favourite Aussie naturalist Steve Irwin, the song is wryly funny and genuinely poignant. It evokes both the loss felt by an entire generation following Irwin’s untimely death, and the joy of his good-natured relationship with the natural world. “He didn’t hunt them,” as the song begins, “they were his friends”.

Where’s Beth – Ache Is A Cricket In The Night

‘Ache Is A Cricket In The Night’ is the title track from the new record by Where’s Beth, the recording project of Seattle-based Sarabeth Weszely. The follow up to 2024 debut Bone Broth, the album “draw[s] on apparently mundane moments from every day life,” as we put it previously, “to chart the universal experiences of love, grief and longing,” building upon the style of its predecessor in the process. The album is now out, and the title track is an ideal entry point for those unfamiliar with the Where’s Beth project, looking for a place to dive in. “I can feel your heart beat like a candleflame / Fingers stretching out, flicker in the rain,” Weszely sings in the opening lines, immediately evoking the intimacy and compassion of the record. “Wind blows, I want to tell you it’s okay / To let in.” The rest of the track unfolds within the warmth of this beginning, a safe harbour from the outside world and its accumulation of difficulties, but importantly not a total escape. For, as the title suggests, Where’s Beth is not interested in blocking out sadness or suffering but rather creating enough distance that we might examine them in the context of everything else.

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Lead single ‘All My Dreams Are Coming True’ represented “a clear example of the subtle power of the new arrangement,” we continued, “Devin Shaffer’s vocals and guitar […] front and centre, the accompanying instrumentation not so much embellishing the sound as working to hold up its key elements,” as well as a taste of a nuanced style of writing born of “her willingness to embrace what might seem contradictory moods simultaneously.” Then ‘I Guess I’m Crawling‘ surrendered to the limitations, disappointments and frustrations, “the record’s penultimate track and perhaps its most illustrative one,” as we put it, “its gentle pace and soft tone confronting all of life’s doubts and injustices with a steady patience.”

With the album’s release a little over a week away, Shaffer has returned with new track ‘Anyone’. Joined by Sarah Galdes (drums) and Lucy Liyou (piano), the song sees Shaffer conjure something of a counterpoint to the rest of the album, its atmosphere leavened and light. As though within the process of submission that is Patience, Shaffer stumbled upon a small epiphany. A fleeting moment where there is only the present and everything feels good and right. One perhaps all the more precious for its ephemeral nature. Something to be grasped while it shows itself, then longed for during the late hours of the night. “Most of my music reflects indecision, fantasy, conflict, obsession with elsewhere… I really live in that limbo,” Shaffer explains. “It can be paralyzing. ‘Anyone’ is like the antithesis of all that. It’s me saying, I know exactly what I want this time and nobody can stop me. This song is so joyous and hopeful, it actually breaks my heart to listen to, because nothing is permanent. It makes me think about the way the sky turns sort of yellow and glows really beautifully right before a storm.”

Patience will be released via American Dreams on 7th November. Pre-order it now from the Devin Shaffer Bandcamp page.

Photo by Ash Dye

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Now Devin Shaffer is back with Patience, a brand new full-length album on American Dreams. As it’s the first album on which she is joined by a group of supporting musicians—Lucy Liyou on piano, Sarah Galdes (L’Rain, Bartees Strange) on drums, Marilu Donovan (LEYA) on harp and Mari Rubio (More Eaze) on pedal steel—you’d be forgiven for anticipating something even richer and more intricate. But the reality is something different. Because rather than showing off an increasingly ornate, layered sound, Patience pivots towards the opposite. A sound stripped back and intimate, swapping out its textures in favour of increased precision, the instrumentalists coming together in a collective effort towards clarity.

This turn towards lucidity speaks to the themes of Patience too. If In My Dreams I’m There represented an arc of sorts, Shaffer moving from confusion and hesitancy towards a sense of acceptance, then the new record instead interrogates just what it requires to achieve lasting peace. That is, to reject the idea of a neat arc entirely, resist the temptation to believe one achievement or epiphany will solve your life for good. The songs of her debut sound like Shaffer battling against the noise of the world in search of an answer, but in dropping this ambient backdrop, Patience ceases the fight. Submits to the messiness of our interiors and indeed the wider world. “I keep thinking about this idea that once you think you’re on the path, you’ve lost the path,” as Shaffer explains. “There is no certainty, there is no knowing. It’s all about surrender.”

Lead single ‘All My Dreams Are Coming True’ is the ideal introduction to the style. A clear example of the subtle power of the new arrangement. Devin Shaffer’s vocals and guitar sit front and centre, the accompanying instrumentation not so much embellishing the sound as working to hold up its key elements. But also a taste of the nuanced tone of Shaffer’s writing. Her willingness to embrace what might seem contradictory moods simultaneously. “I’ve been pacing back and forth / For so long / I think it’s a sport,” she sings in one decidedly sardonic line, though never does this wryness undermine the song’s emotional sincerity.

Watch the visualizer shot by Kim Upstill, Marilu Donovan and Devin Shaffer below:

Patience will be released via American Dreams on 7th November. Pre-order it now from the Devin Shaffer Bandcamp page.

Photo by Ash Dye

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Liyou has described wanting to make the album since college, though only now possesses the skills to do the idea justice. The upshot of this is a strange duality within the songs. Liyou at 19, longing for parental acceptance as a closested trans person, and Liyou seven years later, wishing a romantic relationship might extend beyond its apparent end. “I feel really affected by this parallel between the love in wanting my parents to accept me for who I am and the love in wanting my partner to stay with me regardless of our circumstances,” they explain. “I always assumed that these two loves were separate but I think recognizing that (for trans people like me, or maybe just for me specifically) these loves have overlap has been simultaneously distressing and comforting.”

With the album’s release fast approaching on Orange Milk Records, Lucy Liyou has shared new single and opener, ’16/8′. A track which introduces both the record’s nuanced pop style and its thematic intention. To document a moment in time in all of its conflicted emotion and tactile experience. “While writing ’16/8′, I remember asking myself what does waiting for someone you love sound like, feel like?” Liyou explains:

Having played classical piano for so long, I couldn’t help but compare this feeling to rests in music—the anticipation building in the silences between notes, phrases, and ideas. I thought about the way some musicians like myself count during rests (e.g., the lyrics: “a kiss and click of the tongue”). I thought about how the growing anticipation in the rests make these silences feel substantive and material (e.g., the lyrics: “metal sheen of 16th’s and 8th’s, plexiglass and gold quarter shapes). And then it’s suddenly my turn to play. And I play what I have practiced for so long:

“please stay.
please stay.
I have so much love to give, please stay.”

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The recording project of Texas musician Daniel Bryson (who also plays drums in Skirts), A.L. West is an outlet for lo-fi bedroom pop meets indie rock. He recently released a new double single, Nothing At All / Rabbitbrush 2, which is the perfect introduction for newcomers. ‘Nothing At All’ is a lovely patient indie pop song, but it’s ‘Rabbitbrush 2’ that sees things kicked into another gear. As its name suggests, the track is something of a sequel to one from 2023 A.L. West album The Store, but whereas the original was a gentle folk-inflected bedroom pop song, ‘Rabbitbrush 2’ is thick with a heavy fuzz, building from lulls of plodding percussion and Bryson’s draw out vocals into peaks of triumphant noise.

Watch the video by Alex Montenegro below:

Nothing At All / Rabbitbrush 2 is out now via the A.L. West Bandcamp page.

Casper Skulls – Roddy Piper

Turning the page onto a new chapter for the Sudbury/Toronto indie rock outfit, new album Kit-Cat promises to see Casper Skulls push themselves to new heights. Single ‘Spindletop‘ introduced this refreshed sound, drawing on There Will Be Blood to create a moody, ominous atmosphere, and now ‘Roddy Piper’ introduces a more energetic and soaring dimension. Drawing on the titular figure, the track uses a wrestling analogy to explore confrontation within a relationship, the combination of upbeat rhythm and fuzzy weight evoking the dramatic ups and downs of a choreographed bout. Watch the Mortal Kombat-inspired video, directed by Curtis Carriere and Jordan Vandenberg (of Goodscreen Media) along with the band themselves, below:

Kit-Cat will be released on the 11th April via Next Door Records and you can pre-order it now.

Celeste Madden – Lapdog

Having signed with Sad Club Records, recent months have seen Celeste Madden unveil a handful of singles, with tracks like ‘Joan of Arc‘ and ‘Fever Dream‘ embodying the London-based songwriter’s singular style. Songs both unashamedly melodramatic and undeniably strange, drawing the listener directly into Madden’s psyche so that we too might experience the diverse range of moods and feelings therein. Having announced that EP Is It Really Goodnight? will be released next month, Madden has now returned with new single ‘Lapdog’. Another dreamlike folk song where placid surfaces hide a roiling depth beneath, reflecting on difficult experiences in order to exorcise the hold of the past.

‘Lapdog’ is out now and available via the Celeste Madden Bandcamp page. Is It Really Goodnight? will be released on the 27th March via Sad Club Records.

Craig Finn – People of Substance

Anyone who caught Craig Finn on his This Is What It Looks Like tour last autumn will be champing at the bit for a new album, Finn using the solo sets to introduce a number of new narrative-driven songs full of the detail, emotion and empathy which has so long marked his work. The record, it turns out, is called Always Been, and will be released this spring. A fitting addition to Finn’s oeuvre in the year The Hold Steady‘s Separation Sunday celebrates its twentieth anniversary, the album traces the arc of a protagonist through a rise and fall and eventual redemption, the character committing the life of a priest despite his lack of faith. A whole cast of characters pass into the frame within the telling of this story, but for now we have single ‘People of Substance’ as a glimpse at the world within.

Watch the visualizer by David Kelling below:

Always Been is out on the 4th April and you can pre-order it now.

Dead Bandit – Pink

“Something of a landscape,” was how we described Dead Bandit‘s self-titled album, coming soon on Quindi Records, in a preview back in January. “One rural in tone which seems at once physical and emotional. Often stark and severe in its loneliness, a kind of haunted prairie or steppe, yet often possessing some kind of yearning fondness for the wide open space.” New single ‘Pink’ furthers the style. A cryptic, slow-building number which possesses a kind of shadowed mystery, the layered guitar and creeping beats never puncturing the understated air, as though the truth of the track is always drifting just out of view.

Jacob Faurholt – I Will Hold You

We’ve featured the prolific Danish songwriter Jacob Faurholt multiple times in recent years, an outsider artist in the vein of Daniel Johnston and co. who looks to explore existential themes via lo-fi, idiosyncratic combination of folk, rock and pop. Recorded in the room beneath his children’s bedroom while they were asleep, the most recent release of Faurholt’s we covered embraced a hushed style, but new single ‘I Will Hold You’ pivots away from this entirely. It was written in the aftermath of a Dinosaur Jr. gig, post-show tinnitus still ringing, which anchors its poignant emotion and melodies with a dense undercurrent of noise.

‘I Will Hold You’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Léna Bartels – January is the Loneliest Month

It’s Gonna be a Wonderful New Year, a split between NYC’s Léna Bartels and Nico Hedley, is the first release on new label Rock For Sale Records who release music on cassette tapes and not streaming services. Bartels and Hedley have collaborated across a range of projects (both realised and not quite), and this EP is from the intimate end of the spectrum. The pair describe it as a collection of “songs from winter. Songs for the new year. Songs to get by by,” and if lead single, Bartels’s ‘January is the Loneliest Month’ is anything to go by, it makes good on the promise of its admirably optimistic title. Though not with saccharine cheerfulness but a quiet persistence and steady belief in new beginnings.

Lucy Liyou – Arrested

‘Arrested’ is the lead single from Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name, the new record from Lucy Liyou. Released next month via Orange Milk Records, the album promises to be the Los Angeles musician’s most pop-oriented to date, but anyone expecting a collection of up-tempo dancefloor fillers might be disappointed. As ‘Arrested’ attests, Liyou’s distinctive style is far more complex than that, possessing both a fragile minimalism and lush melodrama, the understated ethereality of the sound and poignant longing of the vocals combining into a reflective and melancholic mood. The sensation of watching a fond memory fade at the edges as the desire to return to its smallest details only grows.

Watch the video shot and directed by Park Seung Won below:

Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name is out on the 21st March via Orange Milk Records and you can pre-order it now.

Mumu The Free Diver – Blossoms

The project of Raleigh, NC-based singer-songwriter Aki Laakso, Mumu The Free Diver offers an evocative brand of indie folk which embraces the authenticity of the DIY aesthetic. Recorded at home with what Laakso describes as “a cheap mic, an old guitar and a bargain-bin audio interface,” new song ‘Blossoms’ swaps out technical polish for a sense of immediacy, sounding like a direct communication from within a moment of grief-stricken vulnerability. But don’t let the description fool you, for though the arrangement is based around acoustic guitar and humble, near-spoken vocals, the track possesses a real sense of richness too. As though through its unguarded nature flows a certain intensity, be it born of compassion, panic, plain hard longing, or indeed a combination of all three.

Penny Loafer – Fridge

Consisting of Emma Barnes (vocals, guitar, keys) and Seth Parker (drums, percussion), Penny Loafer make self-described “post-college rock” which draws from nineties heavyweights like Fugazi and Sonic Youth to offer songs about everyday life which nevertheless possess real weight and bite. With debut EP Daily Deal set for release via Indecent Artistry next month, the Athens, GA-duo have shared single ‘Fridge’. It’s an example of all the ingredients which make the Penny Loafer sound so enticing, with deadpan observation and wry humour meeting tangible heft, all strung together by a chugging momentum which pulls the audience along for the ride. A little bit salty, a little bit sweet and with a noticeable acidic edge.

Tractor Beam – SHOW YOU

“Draws from across the ages in their work, owing as much to 00s indie as 60s folk, and all wrapped up the the contemporary DIY aesthetic, leading to a sound both emotionally immediate and tangibly nostalgic.” So we wrote of Toronto-born, Vancouver-based artist Tractor Beam back in 2023. Now Sasha Balazic and co. are set to return with Monoliths & The Early Reflection, and latest single ‘SHOW YOU’ sees the outfit combine their usual freak folk sensibilities and a more chaotic noise pop style within a single track. The result feels like witnessing a band solidify their ambitions in real time, expanding the possibilities of the Tractor Beam project and pushing closer to their final form. Watch the video directed by Aiden Millroy below:

Monoliths & The Early Reflection is out on the 19th February via Good Stones // Calm Water.

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Despite having been together for more than a decade and releasing a plethora of singles and EPs, Brisbane‘s Babaganouj had never put out a full-length album. That is, until Jumbo Pets dropped via Coolin’ By Sound last week. And the long gestation period shows in the vivid confidence of the dream pop/indie rock hybrid sound. Take single ‘She Wears Velvet’, a collision of hypnotic rhythms, playful details and cathartic peaks, all tied together by lead vocals from Harriette Pilbeam (AKA Hatchie). A song which captures the Babaganouj spirit in its ability to offer vulnerability and affirmation simultaneously.

Cosmo Sheldrake – Bathed in Sound

London-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Cosmo Sheldrake has made a name crafting inventive and endlessly curious soundscapes which draw upon inspirations from across the natural world. Previous album Wake Up Calls was built around recordings of British birds on the red and amber endangered lists, but forthcoming record Wild Wet World pushes deeper into nature, quite literally. An album of aquatic environments which promises everything from plaintive whale song to clicking parrotfish and snapping shrimp. Lead single ‘Bathed in Sound’, which is being released as part of Brian Eno’s EarthPercent Charity campaign, welcomes the listener into the world of its title—an ancient place of great majesty which seems to be already in mourning. As though feeling the consequences of human activity within the very water, and the slow drift toward a silence they did not choose.

glow in the dark flowers – Stay Close to Me

With their self-titled album coming coming later this month on Born Yesterday Records, New Douglas, Illinois duo glow in the dark flowers have unveiled latest single ‘Stay Close to Me’ to welcome us to the newest iteration of their sound. Having started collaborating back in the late 00s and developing a scuzzy garage rock style with their band The Funs, the pair have continually reinvented their work while staying true to their spirit, and the latest single signals a further step in this evolution. With its fuzzy textures and buoyant rhythm, the track is evidently born from The Funs DNA, but offers a more mature and poetic vision too.

Lila Tristram – shelter

Next month, Where It’s At Is Where You Are (wiaiwya) will release home, the new album by East London singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, artist and writer Lila Tristram. It’s the follow-up to 2020’s sister EPs Our Friends pt. I & II, promising a continuation of Tristram’s distinctively delicate brand of folk, combining intricate fingerpicking with gently melancholic vocals. First two singles ‘january’ and ‘caravan’ captured this tone perfectly and the latest, ‘shelter’, is no different. At its core a piece of timeless British folk music, all misty moors and rolling green hills, it’s elevated with gentle atmospherics which add a glowing ethereal layer that rises to the surface across the two minute runtime.

Lucy Liyou – Dog Dreams (개꿈)

Lucy Liyou is a San Francisco-based songwriter and composer who draws upon ambient, jazz and sound poetry to create impressionistic, collage-like soundscapes. Described as “a rumination on the doublesidedness of trauma and love,” forthcoming album Dog Dreams (개꿈) utilises such a style to explore the nuances and contradictions of life, looking to broach the big questions not so much with straightforward answers but something more ambiguous. This extends right to the record’s title, because though the Korean term 개꿈 downplays the significance of dreams, Liyou takes them seriously. “‘Dog Dreams’ is about desire,” they explain. “It is about naively rejecting “dog dreams” (개꿈)—a Korean term used to dismiss and diminish dreams as nonsensical impossibilities—and endlessly searching the mercurial “face” of desire.” This is explored further through a music video and interactive video game, further manifesting this abstract sense within aural, visual and tactile fields.

Mox – 4lilmonkeys

With LP Heart coming in a few weeks on Cherub Dream Records, Merced, California‘s Mox has unveiled new single ‘4lilmonkeys’ to give further insight into her sound. The record promises to follow in the lineage of Alex G, combining boundless creativity with tangible emotion, and the new track shows just how effective the mix can be. A song that might be about the titular monkeys making residence in Mox’s brain, or perhaps serves a metaphorical view of her childhood as a little monkey herself, starting as a woozy childlike hallucination and escalating into something with real weight.

The National Park Service – What is the sound?

Rochester, NY label (and VSF favs) Lily Tapes & Discs are kicking off the year with two reissues. Last summer’s sold out Jason Calhoun release ben c, this is for you is getting another run, complete with new artwork by Jeremy Ferris, and Room For Love by Lily Tapes staple The National Park Service is getting its first ever physical release. Originally released digitally in March 2019, Room For Love is what the label describe as “a massive statement built of meditations from the brink of parenthood,” a patient, gentle and deeply personal collage of guitars, keys, drums, samples, field recordings. Second track ‘What is the sound?’ captures the atmosphere beautifully, meditative guitar sliding across subtle percussion and ambient textures.

Stuck – The Punisher

“They’ve got good news / it’s so sick living in a fanfic” reveal Stuck on ‘The Punisher’, opening track from the upcoming LP Freak Frequency on Born Yesterday Records. “They’ve got good news / There’s new life springing from a death cult.” Politically-charged post-punk might be a dime a dozen these days, but rarely does a band commit to their ideas so completely. Drawing on everything from Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism to the mindless cycles of bombast and ruin portrayed by FromSoftware’s Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Stuck offer an image of the West in its crazed death-throe contortions, a public driven mad at the intersection of violent history and bleak (non-)future. As ‘The Punisher’ demonstrates, the result leans on neither sneering humour nor all-out gloom, but a darkly incandescent sound born of the contradictions of our age.

A whole new dark age!
It’s burning bright with a hot white rage!
What did we do before light?

Watch the video directed by Zack Shorrosh below:

Freak Frequency is out on the 26th May via Born Yesterday Records and available to pre-order now.

Tom Lark – Radio Blaster

Shannon Fowler had parked his Tom Lark moniker for the past seven years, favouring instead the more pop-centric style of alternate project Shannon Matthew Vanya, but the Ōtautahi-born, Auckland-based songwriter has returned to Tom Lark for his first full-length album, Brave Star, out later this year on Winegum Records. Lead single ‘Radio Blaster’ gives an insight into the psych-inflected folk style of the record, a patient and thoughtful introduction which shimmers with a desert heat and the slightest cosmic overlay. “Sunburnt psychedelic folk fit for sensitive cowboys to meander and philosophise to,” as the artist describes it, like staring off at the horizon as the sun dips and the sky reveals its real depth.

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