In February we previewed Shadow Child, the latest album from Abigail Lapell which was recorded while the Canadian songwriter was pregnant and unsurprisingly explores motherhood. “The tracks emerged stripped back and stark,” we wrote, “a stylistic move at least in part dictated by Lapell’s difficult experiences with IVF and miscarriage that comes to paint the journey to parenthood in all of its too-often unspoken truth.” With the release fast approaching, Lapell has shared the title track along with a video to further introduce this style. “I recently found all my old super 8 films, and I thought this odd little black and white claymation might fit well with ‘Shadow Child’, a song about pregnancy and childbirth – creation and transformation,” she explains. “But when I actually tried pairing the two, it was crazy. The unedited ‘backwards’ visuals fit the song exactly perfectly – like down to the second. Complete with the final reveal of the figure’s shadow, and then my own hands in silhouette, returning it to a formless blob. I couldn’t believe it.”

Shadow Child will be released on the 8th May via Outside Music and you can pre-order it now from the Abigail Lapell Bandcamp page.

Air Mail – Won’t You

Following on from singles ‘Wide Awake (a.m.)’ (“uses a melodic and melancholic style to explore the strange sensation of being faced with disaster at a distance”) and ‘Moss Song’ (“its warm tones and languid rhythms allowing in the outside environment, playing like spring blooming in real time”), Niko Francis’s Air Mail has unveiled debut LP a.m. Continental with latest track ‘Won’t You’. Again falling somewhere between Lenderman-esque alt country and the sun-drenched pop of acts likes Cut Worms, the track explores the sensation of a relationship being slowly dismantled by forces beyond anyone’s control. It meditates not only on the pain of a separation but the enduring fondness that survives beyond physical remove. “As long as words are sincere / and what you want is clear,”  Francis sings in the first verse, “as long as you still feel near, even when you’re far from here / won’t you stay and love me?”

Ben Auld – Red Bandana

This May, Norwich-based artist Ben Auld will release Loserdom, a brand new album via Safe Suburban Home and Repeating Cloud which signals something of a sea change. Whereas Auld’s previous work tended towards the twee end of indie folk, the new record draws on influences like Tony Molina and Teenage Fanclub to offer loud, scrappy and spirited style of power pop. Lead single ‘Red Bandana’ heralds this new sound, as well as the mix of unabashed sincerity and tongue-in-cheek charm which marks his writing. “I was trying to write something that captured the explosive pang that can happen when you reflect on places you’ve lived and people you’ve known,” Auld explains of the single. “That sudden reminder of a life you used to have, the impossibility of returning to it, and the pain of living in the past.”

Frog – Je Nes Sais Pas

When cult favourites Frog put out their 1000 Variations of the Same Song album last year, we didn’t think they were actually aiming for the big four figures. But follow-up The Count arrived hot on the heels of its predecessor and now the New York outfit are already gearing up to release the third full-length in the cycle, Frog for Sale. Described as an album “about how money sometimes gets in the way of love,” the record sees the Bateman brothers take inspiration from the likes of Buddy Holly and Paul McCartney, again switching up the Frog sound while maintaining that idiosyncratic charm that’s made them so beloved. Lead single ‘Je Nes Sais Pas’ is available now, a track of bright energy and fading dreams, not to mention a trademark wit and humour. “You’re just no good anymore since you went away and didn’t darken any door,” as Bateman sings in one typical verse. “Now you got your hair like Anna Wintour except poor.”

Jillian Lake – Human

“Attuned to emotional forces and their significant gravitational pull, namely the strange tension of watching a loved one attempt to navigate a difficult period, willing more than anything to save them from the turmoil but conscious of being dragged into the mire yourself.” So we wrote of ‘Cold Where You Are’ by Jillian Lake last month, a single which embodies the balance between compassion and suffering which marks the Vancouver-based songwriter’s work. Now Lake has shared brand new single ‘Human’ and this balance has never been more evident. It’s an intensely personal song which reckons with the self in the most intimate way possible, displaying Lake’s turn towards richer arrangements while still evoking the austere stillness of an empty room. A place where there is nowhere to look but inwards, no matter how uncomfortable. “’Human’ is a song I wrote about the fear that you’re losing pieces of yourself, and starting to not recognize yourself,” Lake explains. “I remember the first time I saw the Eiffel tower I was so amazed and astonished. When I went back to Paris years later I just stared at it and didn’t really feel anything. It scared me that I lost that sense of wonder. I missed the old version of myself.”

‘Human’ is out now via streaming services.

Matthew Squires & Sunk Coast – Wing Song

We’ve followed the idiosyncratic, ever-inventive songwriting of Matthew Squires for a number of years now, from his ‘Ballad of Norm MacDonald‘ and quasi-cover ‘Poor Men Southeast of Portland‘ to ‘Song of a Cactus‘ in 2024. Now, having moved to Ithaca, New York, Squires has teamed up with Zach Totta of Sunk Coast for a new track, and the result is no less distinctive. With vocals that rival Daniel Johnston in their ability to echo Kermit the Frog, the song is classic Matthew Squires, proving that genuinely compassionate music need not leave playfulness or strangeness at the door. “In the face of the absurd, it’s there I’ll find my answer,” he sings in one fitting verse, “I’ll decode the hidden words inside the movements of a dancer: / It’s the story of a king who forgot if he has merit / He sprouts himself some wings and then he sings ‘til all can hear it.”

Old Amica – Bländverk

“A record which explores time with Old Amica’s signature care and patience […] suspended in a negative space seemingly disconnected from anything tangible, memories floating by in abstract grace.” That’s how we described the Swedish duo’s album För alltid back in 2024, again noting how their blend of organic and digital sensibilities manages to evoke memory in all of its emotional depth. With a new full-length set for release next month via Whitelabrecs, Old Amica are now back with ‘Bländverk’, a spare piano-based track that again explores the poignant, often ethereal world of recollection. Stretched across ten minutes, the song mimics the gauzy filter memory can bring, where the reality of a moment is softened, a monument worn smooth by the passing of time.

Sulka – All Bets Off

This summer Glasgow-based songwriter Lukas Clasen, AKA Sulka, will release new full-length Bute on Lost Map and No Soap Records. Following last year’s single ‘Halloween’, that as we said previously combined “subdued vocals with an eerie backdrop of distorted guitars and synths,” he has now released a second track from the album to further whet appetites. Titled ‘All Bets Off’, it’s an ostensibly charming indie pop song that nevertheless delves into a toxic relationship. And not your average one either. Written from an equine perspective, it explores the exploitation at the heart of horse racing. “The song was partly inspired by a storyline in the TV show The Sopranos, where Tony buys a race horse and develops a genuine love for it,” Clasen explains. “I thought writing a song from the horse’s perspective would make an interesting device for exploring the ups and downs of a volatile relationship”

Tory Silver – Microwave

Pittsburgh-based Tory Silver makes a brand of indie rock that she says “[channels] the small joys and inevitable uncertainties of residing in a body.” She has a new record, In Through the Front with Lasers, coming at the end of May via Michi Tapes and has unveiled new single ‘Microwave’ in anticipation. The song is set in the cold chill of dawn, our narrator sat bleary-eyed in their kitchen, enjoying the quiet ahead of a day of selling their body for what Silver describes in an Instagram post as a “silly grocery job under crapitalism.” There’s a healthy does of existential dread sure, but there’s also enough garage rock crunch for it to feel rousing too. An anthem for the masses forced to drag themselves out of bed every morning to keep on keeping on.

Scrambled eggs
On my plate
Getting cold
Microwave

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Writing of Astra Forward back in 2022, we described how the London-based artist combines “classic folk stylings as well as a timeless ethereal atmosphere channeling a bond between human emotion and the natural world that feels somehow ancient.” New single ‘Ben’s Birds’ again possesses a link to nature, though this time the real focus is memory. Joe Taylor (drums/percussion), Callum McGuinness (production/bass/nylon strung guitar) and Laura Hussey (violin) help create a sound capable of conjuring thoughts of a past friendship in vivid detail, and thus breath new life into something precious. “With writing ‘Ben’s Birds’, I hoped to bring into colour ageing memories that felt like they were fading,” the artist explains. “The song seeks to reflect something of this gentle soul’s beauty and our connection, while expressing broader themes of memory, endurance and grief.”

Bennett Heidelberger – Eater of God/100usd

Having been around the Nashville music scene for a number of years, Bennett Heidelberger finally decided to release some songs of his own in 2024, starting with EP Wood Ducks. That record was a collection of small, tender tracks which centred on loss in various guises, from bereavement to the end of a romantic relationship. Now Heidelberger is back with new double single ‘Eater of God/100usd’, a pair of songs no less heartfelt in their execution yet showing a newfound sense of scale and weight. The former opens in a sincere hush before developing into something bigger and bolder, and ‘100usd’ follows suit with Heidelberger’s weightiest sound to date, the tone slightly more wry but lacking none of the emotion.

boyhood. – looking for you

Back in August we wrote about boyhood., a project which represents “an attempt […] to consider what has been gained and lost through the slow process of self-actualisation,” as we put it. “To save the parts worth saving, and potentially fill in the gaps.” Like previous single ‘wes anderson (your dog)’, new track ‘looking for you’ rises from restrained, downbeat beginnings into something richly affirming, as though the track’s confessional tone coaxes the sound to life. An exploration of love and grief most striking for its authenticity, delivered with the ambience of the moment left intact. “I recorded dozens of ‘clean’ vocal takes between October and now, and ended up just keeping the crude demo and bringing in friends to help me build around it,” boyhood. explains, “keeping the imperfections and clicks and bits of conversation to maintain the emotional space I wrote it in.”

‘looking for you’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Lavender Blue – Wishbone

Based in the mountains of Asheville, NC, Lavender Blue is the recording project of Kayla Zuskin. Following on from 2022 EP Slow Down, Lavender Blue is back with new singles on Ghost Mountain Records. The latest of which, ‘Wishbone’, takes inspiration from the image of a tree split in two yet continuing to grow, something moving in different directions but fundamentally united at the root. “[The song is] about the cognitive dissonance we all can experience when people or places inherently grow apart but alas remain connected,” as Zuskin puts it. Mary Steinbrecher (bass, vocals) and Jack Victor (drums) lend the talents to bring to life a sound that owes as much to emo as it does folk or dream pop, combining sharp and smooth textures to evoke the duality at the track’s heart.

Lofi Legs – Chain

With a new album on the way, San Francisco indie rockers Lofi Legs have returned with the single ‘Chain’. We previously wrote about how they melded “garage rock and bedroom pop with psych and surf sensibilities […] to capture the highs and lows of life,” and the new track builds upon the vibe to gloriously hazy results. Harking back to the buzz bands of the early 00s, ‘Chain’ delivers a brightly carefree spirit within a bundle of scrappy energy and fuzzed-out textures, leading to a sound that is entirely committed despite not taking itself too seriously. Watch the suitably surreal video below:

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

Matthew Squires – Song of a Cactus

‘Song of a Cactus’, the latest single from Matthew Squires, was penned during the pandemic, though its sense of lost direction was familiar before the virus, and has persisted to the present day. “I have that annoying songwriter habit of wanting to defer to the work itself rather than my explanation of it,” Squires says, “but I’d say it’s about finding some quiet sense of desperate hope in an apocalypse.” Fans of the Texas songwriter will recognise the idiosyncratic and heartfelt tone, with a newfound use of synths deepening the mood without sacrificing the raw immediacy so key to Squires’s work. The result feels like an urgent dispatch from within an uncertain present. As Squires concludes: “I wanted to make sure I released it before the election as my little quixotic attempt at creating a psychical place of refuge in anticipation of whatever direction the world might lurch.”

Routine Caffeine – Philodendron

We first wrote about Routine Caffeine at the beginning of the year, describing how single ‘In The End Now’ embodied the Louisville outfit’s “penchant for rich, bittersweet soundscapes” and introduced their EP, Weeds Under Concrete Stones. With the full release now out in the world, Routine Caffeine have shared new single and opener ‘Philodendron’. It’s a track which marries a taut central rhythm with a dreamy haze, and hints at a sharp bite too, all highlighting just how much control Katie O’Brien Kelley (vocals, guitar), Madison Elizabeth Case (bass, synth, background vocals) and Emma Treganowan (drums) have over the mood of their work.

Sarah Swire – Tight!

Recording under the moniker Sister Swire, Toronto songwriter and actor Sarah Swire has caught our attention with with a delightfully idiosyncratic brand of art rock, from the nuanced, ominous take on psychosis on ‘I Shot the President’ to the unapologetically malicious fun of ‘Pulleys and Gears‘. Released under her own name, new single ‘Tight!’ is every bit as inventive as its predecessors, and has no less force in its bite. Owing as much to the weird fiction of Joy Williams as it does Captain Beefhart or Nick Cave, the track is a monologue delivered in the manner of a wound spring, twisting tighter and tighter until it unravels in a moment of chaotic release. The video—directed by Swire and shot by Nicole Cecile Holland, with animations and editing by Eric Stephen Martin—only furthers the surreal intensity of the track, Swire’s movements charged and contorted by her words as if not so much speaking or singing as channelling a deeper energy.

‘Tight! is out now and available from the usual places.

Shady Baby – Held In

Released to celebrate a successful year including a performance on the main stage at Y Not Festival and shows with Malice K, Shady Baby‘s new single ‘Held In’ is a fitting way to cap off 2024. With the Brighton outfit leaning further than ever into the bittersweet drama of nineties alt rock, the song finds Sam Leaver and co. pairing weighty crescendos with emotional depth, leading to what might be their most assured, evocative sound to date. A sense of control binds the majority of the track, though the constant simmer of its energies pays off in the soaring conclusion. Watch the video filmed by Meg Sweeney and directed and edited by Leaver below:

‘Held In’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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The success of Anthony’s song seemed inexplicable at first, then entirely obvious. It was just what the world needed: another reminder to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make your bed in order to fight the wild injustice of the world. So enraged was Matthew Squires by the prevalence of this insipid and not-so-sneakily reactionary song that he ripped a hole in the time-space continuum to find another dimension where things went a little different. “Meanwhile, in a parallel universe,” Squires continues, “Anthony Oliver told Roe Jogan his name was inspired by Casey Anthony. He was nostalgic for a more innocent time, when Americans could still unite around our fleeting spectacles of controversy, and weren’t yet confused as to which ones were astroturfed by right wingers.”

The result of this journey into another universe is ‘Poor Men of Southeast Portland’, a song which both mirrors Anthony’s and proves its polar opposite. Gone is the prejudice and the punching down and the populist shit-stirring, replaced instead with simple sincerity and an informed, critical viewpoint.

Love’s a lot like dyin’
Love’s a lot like a Pepsi inside a church
Love’s a lot like flyin’
Love’s a lot like a heaven encased in Earth
Love’s a lot like cryin’
Love’s a lot like the space ‘tween death and birth

‘Poor Men Southeast of Portland’ is out now and available from the Matthew Squires Bandcamp page.

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Out this autumn, forthcoming release The Electric River sees Matthew Squires continue his journey into America’s strange heart, again joined by trusty backing band the Learning Disorders. With Gianni Sarmiento (lead guitar, backup vocals), James Lavery (lead guitar), Savanah Shanks (synth, backup vocals), Zane Frisch (bass guitar) and Ray Flynt (drums, backup vocals), the release sees a pivot toward a starker, country-psych sound. One attuned not only to the revelationary terror of our current situation but also the search for meaning and goodness within such a world.

There could be no better introduction to the release than lead single ‘The Ballad of Norm MacDonald’. A classic highway visitation song updated for late capitalism—an age of precarious labour, commodification and ubiquitous entertainment. Like Steve Earle’s ‘The Tennessee Kid’ if it wasn’t Satan who visited the narrator but some kind of modern-day saint. Norm MacDonald to be exact. Fittingly written after a long shift at Whole Foods.

“I had been chewing on the almost Andy Kaufmanesque way he died and listened to some very enigmatic interviews he had given about life and death, where he seemed to me to have a strong Kierkegaardian streak,” Matthew Squires explains. “When I wrote the song, in a way I was trying to pay homage to the spirit of his idiosyncratic brand of humour, what with my sort of ironic playing around with the trope of the balladeer who talk-sings at the beginning of a song about walking down a highway.” Just as MacDonald repurposed old tropes with a balance of irony and earnestness, so to does Squires this country archetype. A religious experience both terrifying and thrilling and utterly bizarre.

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