There is a repeated line, a single word refrain, in ‘The Glow’, the new song from Aïda Mekonnen Caby, which you may have some trouble comprehending. Fjaðrárgljúfur is the name of a canyon in south east Iceland which Caby and her partner visited in the early days of their relationship, and the landmark’s cinematic majesty leaks into the song’s very DNA, transforming a gentle indie folk song into something rich with widescreen emotion. It also represents something of a new dawn. For one, it is the opening track of the debut Aïda Mekonnen Caby album, Mais Uma, which comes out at the end of August via Mtn Laurel Recording Co. But also because the trip that inspired it and the feelings it evokes marked a turning point in Caby’s life too, one which saw her move first to Portugal and then to France. Mais Uma promises to explore this period of personal change and all its associated heart swells and aches, illuminated throughout with that sense of wonder at newfound love.

Dead Tooth – Song of the Weak

Led by New York-based songwriter Zach Ellis, self-described ‘rodeo-core’ outfit Dead Tooth have made a name crafting an atmospheric and often slightly chaotic brand of post-punk, combining the brooding shadow of the genre with raw energy. With their self-titled debut out now via Trash Casual, Dead Tooth have shared single and opener ‘Song of the Weak’ to introduce their work to the uninitiated. A song full of volatility and bite, Ellis’s vocals spiking with frustration as though driven half-crazed by the constant motion beneath him, or else how it never seems to lead to anywhere new. “In so many words [the song is] about struggling with cyclical destructive decision making,” Ellis explains. “Choosing hedonism over looking in the mirror. I’ve spent many years in NY on what feels like a hamster wheel of trying to fill a void or chase some kind of unattainable self/other. A song written for the darker times that in retrospect I feel have eaten too many years of my life.”

Dead Tooth is out now via Trash Casual and available from Bandcamp.

Living Hour – Wheel

Winnipeg’s Living Hour have announced Internal Drone Infinity, their fourth record, which will release later this year. What the band themselves have coined “yearn-core”, their style combines slowcore, indie rock and dream pop into something shaded by the gauzy texture of memory. The record was in part inspired by lead Sam Sarty’s time as a cinema projectionist, and it exists in a similarly otherworldly setting, its dark backdrop illuminated by a wistful glow as the band express what they call “the quiet magic hidden in everyday life.” To celebrate the announcement, Living Hour have unveiled lead single ‘Wheel’, which shows off both the dreamy yearn and crunchy rock sides of their sound very nicely.

The track comes complete with a video by Leigh Lugosi and Brett Ticzon, which you can see below:

Internal Drone Infinity will be released on 17^th October via Keeled Scales, Paper Bag Records (Canada) and Beloved Records (Australia). Pre-order a copy now from the Living Hour Bandcamp page.

Malena Zavala – MELT

Born in Argentina and now living between London and Mexico City, Malena Zavala is a self-taught musician and producer who first caught attention with her 2018 debut, Aliso. Drawing inspiration from both Latin American music and the likes of Devendra Banhart, Beach House and Feist, Zavala’s music layers poetic lyrics over hypnotic and haunting instrumentation. Latest single ‘MELT’, the first single from an EP of the same name that comes out later this year on Zavala’s own new label Paraná Records, is a good example. A soft and cosy love song that Zavala says tries “to express the feeling of being wrapped up in bed,” it’s built on gentle acoustic guitar and her hushed and intimate vocals and accentuated by ethereal harmonies and subtle synths.

‘MELT’ is out now via streaming services

Oh, Rose – For Art

Almost a year on from their last full-length Dorothy, Olympia/Portland mainstays Oh, Rose return in September with For Art, a brand new EP released via the good folks as Antiquated Future Records. The EP finds the band’s members in the midst of some big personal events, like getting married and starting families, and perhaps understandably this has them ruminating on family and relationships. As the label put it, the EP focuses on “themes of long-term commitment and partnership—both in romantic and platonic relationships, as well as to artistic practice itself.” Oh, Rose have released the title track by way of introduction, an unhurried and heartfelt song that captures these themes perfectly. “At first I feel so nervous to be this vulnerable,” Rose sings with courageous clarity, “it’s true that I was thinking about you.”

Routine Caffeine – Green Glass

“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.” So we wrote of Routine Caffeine‘s ‘Philodendron‘ back in 2024, a track taken from the Louisville-based trio’s Weeds Under Concrete Stones. Their first release since that EP, new single ‘Green Glass’ is no less evocative, again crafting an immersive atmosphere to explore themes of nostalgia, belonging and the passing of time. “This song has served as a way for me to reflect on my family’s old farm in Michigan, one of my most treasured places,” they explain. But more than a lesson in simple longing for home, the track also charts the changes to the beloved place which accumulate with every return, adding an extra layer melancholy as the familiar slowly shifts into something different, and the past only grows further away.

runo plum – Lemon Garland

Minnesota singer-songwriter runo plum has slowly amassed a following over recent years, her detailed, wistful style of bedroom folk winning plenty of attention online. Having now signed with the ever-impressive Winspear, plum has released new single ‘Lemon Garland’ to celebrate. The first taste of forthcoming debut album patching, the song embodies the fondness and compassion of the runo plum style, as well as the longing for connection which underpins it. “Give me company / barefoot and muddy,” as she sings, “give me pointing / at the birds we’ve never seen before / we’ll stop to pick some veggies / for the big feast at our friendly table.” The result is inherently bittersweet, a hopeful vision of the future shadowed by the suggestion such community remains just a dream, though the lasting feeling is one of affection. As though it wishing for something so simple and fulfilling, runo plum shows our desires need not be so far away.

Watch the video directed by Karlee Boon below:

patching will be released soon via Winspear.

Scree – TV Sometimes

Brooklyn experimental maestros Scree return next month with August, a brand new full-length on Ruination Record Co. The band—that’s primary trio guitarist/composer Ryan El-Solh, bassist Carmen Quill and drummer Jason Burger, plus lots of guests—are hard to pin down, smashing together everything from Romantic classical music, dusty lonesome Americana, improvisational jazz and weighty indie rock to create some of the most interesting and deep instrumental music around. Scree released the title track as the lead single a few weeks back, and have now returned with a second cut, the enigmatically titled ‘TV Sometimes’. The song has been part of the band’s live repertoire for years, and here it gets a richer arrangement with contributions from the cast of collaborators. “It’s something like a love song,” El-Solh describes. “I probably should’ve chosen a more generally intelligible title, but at the time there was really only one person I was trying to reach with this bit of code and she got the message so the title stuck.”

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Last year, East Vancouver post-punks Aversions put out the full-length You Wanted The Bike, an album which “combine[d] heavyweight riffs, pounded percussion and acerbic vocals to comment on our contemporary moment,” as we put it in a preview. Songs like ‘Undecider‘ channelled this raw energy into a sound of “anxiety and latent violence, drawing on a whole host of political and social themes in three and a half minutes of Strummer-esque polit-punk.” Recorded at the same time as that album but not quite sitting right among the rest of the tracks, latest single ‘Wormhole’ sees the three-piece reaching further afield for their stylistic influences, dialling back some of the ferocity to allow in alt-country sensibilities. But the lyrics are as cutting and contemporary as ever, charting the rise and fall of an internet personality who, after selling their soul for recognition, is left lonely on the other side of fame, banging the locked door leading back to normal life.

Blue Canopy x A Beacon School – Bright Spot II

When Blue Canopy‘s Alex Schiff asked Patrick Smith of A Beacon School to remix single ‘Bright Spot’ after its release back in 2022, he probably didn’t quite expect the level of collaboration and vision which followed. Fast-forward eighteen months and the result has now been released as a single via Grind Select. ‘Bright Spot II’ is not so much a remix as a reimagining, a sister track which drags a cover of darkness over the original’s sunny wistfulness, carving out a nocturnal space of electronics which further amplifies the themes of regret and longing in a song about facing difficult periods with a long-term partner. “I just wanted everything to be OK between us,” Schiff explains, “and this song sorts through my feelings throughout that time, hoping for a resolution.”

The song comes complete with a video by Ebony Davies with additional edits from Chase Wagner:

‘Bright Spot II’ is out now via Grind Select and you can get it from Bandcamp.

The Dead Tongues – Body of Light

“Baby there ain’t no rules here / we can just slide / keep bending and drawing new lines / all shapes defined.” So opens ‘Body of Light’, the title track from one half of the upcoming double record from Ryan Gustafson’s The Dead Tongues on Psychic Hotline. Described as a pair of “interweaving and disparate albums,” the release embraces the diaphanous, intangible sentiment offered in those opening words, refusing to calcify into solid form in favour of something ephemeral. As the lead single suggests, the result is something intuitive and ever-shifting, mapped along the unseen currents of both our own interiors and the natural world. “Maybe you don’t know what to call it,” as Gustafson sings, “or it ain’t got a name / i’m here for it all just the same / all colors and shades / i’m just a body of light.” Watch the video by Gustafson and Cat Siravantha below:

Body of Light will be released digitally on the 14th June, and physically as a double album with I Am A Cloud on the 9th August via Psychic Hotline. Pre-order it now.

dog eyes – fair

dog eyes is the recording project of Oakland‘s Davis Leach and Haily Firstman which started when Leach helped produce Firstman’s previous project Mr Marigold. The pair soon realised their collaborative chemistry could stretch much further. Following on from the earnest, delightfully lo-fi debut good, proper sendoff on Grand Jury Music, new single ‘fair’ continues to develop the dog eyes sound. A track about friendship and its strange ebb and flow, the childlike wonder of the vocals is shaded by a lingering wistfulness, as though every perfect moment foreshadows its inevitable end. “When you’re a kid and you make a new friend you think they’ll be your friend forever and often they are not, the band explain. “They were there for a season. A love or crush can be the same.” Watch the video directed by Ev Fitzpatrick below:

‘fair’ is out now and available from the dogs eyes Bandcamp page.

Joy Guidry – I Will Always Miss You

Writing in March, we described how Brooklyn-based bassoonist and composer Joy Guidry was releasing new album AMEN via Whited Sepulchre Records, where Guidry experiments with the multitude of Black American music styles to create something new. Previous single ‘Members Don’t Get Weary’ combined jazz and gospel music into something impassioned and triumphant, whereas new track ‘I Will Always Miss You’ takes an entirely different path. Built upon a foundation of lush ambient synths and boasting some of the most evocative bassoon you are likely to hear, the instrumental piece offers a meditative space that’s rooted within the wider experience of life—where mourning and joy marble into a single whole.

Lake Michigan – Rituals

Described as an album about “love, OCD, class, addiction and probably a couple of other things too,” La Madrugada is the latest full-length release from Mexico City-based Lake Michigan on Start-track. The record continues the project’s gloomy, intimate bedroom pop style, with arrangements stripped back to their sparest elements to sound like raw messages as voiced in the latest hours of the night. Focusing on OCD and the general unease so intrinsic to the condition, single ‘Rituals’ is great entry point, its vocals emerging through the lo-fi sound as barely a murmur, heavy with weariness yet afraid of relaxing, as though compelled by the need to balance the world.

Mr. Sam and the People People – Go People Go (Part One)

This summer sees the release of Again! Again!, the new full-length album from New Orleans-based songwriting project Mr. Sam and the People People on Tape Dad (distributed by Gar Hole Records). Opening single ‘Go Baby Go (Part One)’ introduces the compassionate tone with a mindful reflection on the beauty inherent in simple things. Mr. Sam Gelband’s vocals land somewhere between Dean Johnson and Frederick Squires in their fond baritone. “I wrote ‘Go Baby Go’ to honor […] my closest people, the lake, the porch, the mountain, the shoreline, the neighbourhood, the quiet moments with myself,” Mr. Sam describes. “I know now that these things are the keepers of my truest joy, and I thank them.” Watch the video by Mayme O’Toole and Sam Gelband below:

Again! Again! is out via Tape Dad on the 11th June and available for pre-order now.

shn shn – Glimmer

We’ve covered the work of shn shn several times in recent years, always admiring how Toronto-based producer, singer-songwriter and creator Shanika Lewis-Waddell reimagines what the project might be with each release. “[shn shn] aims to do more than merely convince the listener to examine themselves,” we wrote of Form(s) last year. “Rather, it allows them to drift off to new frontiers. That is, to dream.” With its expansive ambient tones and idiosyncratic details, new single ‘Glimmer’ furthers this aesthetic. A meditation on the power of patience and understatement which coalesces into something quietly triumphant. “Building up gradually,” Lewis-Waddell sings, “unexpectedly found myself /so close yet so far / to a glimmer of hope.”

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Back in 2020 Sandoval released Howilis, the debut Surcarilita album released on cassette by the good folks at Bud Tapes. It put the project on the map in both her home of Tijuana and San Diego’s DIY scene. Together with collaborator and bandmate Ana Cossio, Sandoval found a community of like-minded artists, playing shows and honing her penchant for writing sweet indie pop songs elevated with innovative production and unique stylistic choices. 

Now Surcarilita is back with sophomore album, Mírala Mirando, which preserves everything good about the debut and builds on it with flourishes that keep things fresh and surprising. This is apparent from opener ‘Silly Freaky’, which sounds like an early Free Cake For Every Creature song, strummed electric guitar and bounding drums spinning around Sandoval’s understatedly beautiful vocals. It’s the perfect illustration of what Surcarilita does so well, fun and energetic and a little bit noisy, but somehow calm and tender too. “Sweetness and softness and strangeness are all wrapped up together,” as we put it in our review of Howilis, “earworm melodies and earnest vocals layered beneath fuzzy instrumentation, or almost discordant rhythms that fizz with energy.” 

‘Tag Along’ has that golden hour calm of springtime dusk, acoustic guitar accompanied by the needling whine of singing saw like a breeze squeezing through an old window frame. Then in the final third it is as if darkness falls and the vocals mimic this high-pitched melody, ooh-ing gently like a chorus of benevolent cartoon ghosts.

These idiosyncrasies mark the album a elevate it beyond a collection of simple pop songs. Take the squidgy synths on ‘Garden Squirrel’, ‘July’s plinky whimsical backing, the jingle-like melodies of ‘Pebbles’ which evoke Dear Nora’s catchy digi-pop. ‘Tiempo Para Ti’ has echoes of an early-era Casiotone For the Painfully Alone release, modulated vocals bubbling forth in unsteady rhythms alongside subtle synths. 

There are relatively uncomplicated moments on Mírala Mirando too. ‘Coin Coin Dream’ is a slice of scrappily lo-fi acoustics, while ‘Ripening Seed’ is almost a folk song, focused on patiently picked guitar and Sandoval’s sincere vocals. Closer ‘Walking Online’ ties both these threads together neatly, summing up the whole album in the process. Just under two minutes of subdued synth pop that showcases Surcarilita’s unique creative outlook. Soft and pillowy as a cotton wool cumulus cloud, and threaded with a warm glow that feels calm and welcoming. As Bud Tapes put it: “Now grab a cat, plop down in your favorite spot on the couch, and enjoy this magnificent new album from one of DIY music’s most magical minds.” 

Mírala Mirando is out now on cassette tape via Bud Tapes. Grab a tape from their Bandcamp page, or a digital copy from the Surcarilita Bandcamp. 

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Cóiste Bodhar, the new record by The Phonometrician out now on Lost Tribe Sound, is named after a similar Celtic folktale, this time from Ireland. The Cóiste Bodhar is a death coach that was said to move through a town or village, driven by a headless coachman and his four black horses. To see or hear this visitor was a terrible warning, a portent of death for either the witness or a close family member. The album takes inspiration from these tales to explore both the concept of death and our relationship with it, the strange combination of inevitable mundanity and arcane superstition and the role of art and ritual in every culture’s attempt to explain and cope with it.

The recording project of Mexico City-based composer Carlos Morales, The Phonometrician creates dark, folk inflected ambient/neoclassical music that fits neatly alongside other Lost Tribe artists such as William Ryan Fritch, Western Skies Motel and Alder & Ash (aka Adrian Copeland, who guest stars with cello on the track ‘Death Rides a Horse: Part II’). Morales constructs his compositions from a palette of acoustic guitar, Venezuelan cuatro and synths, the stringed instruments’ cyclical melodies moving above a collection of low-end groans and stomps and thuds, all of which add a foreboding depth and weight. This ominous, uncanny atmosphere is set right from the beginning, opener ‘Death Rides a Horse: Part I’ embodying the approaching coach as it gathers momentum, like a cloud of dust in the distance growing larger as it’s thrown up by those four black steeds.

But if ‘Part ‘’ sees the death coach on the horizon, ‘Death Rides a Horse Part II’ sees it arrive in all its terrible glory. A piece all galloping hooves and quick snorted breaths, Copeland’s cello screaming in an awful hum that sends the townsfolk fleeing to their homes and locking their doors. The sound of fear manifest as an otherworldly visitor, and whether this visitor is real or imagined is beside the point. Because it is the result of thousands of years of ritual and superstition, of genuine emotions of terror and grief.

The funereal march of ‘Death is a Woman’ is a patient slow-burner, making its way unhurried towards its inevitable conclusion, while ‘I See You’ pairs signature tumbling melodies with distorted gusts and howls, like an alien wind across some scorched plain. In comparison, ‘The Light’ feels like something of an aftermath, a misty dawn-time calm descending with the faint solace of weak morning light. It’s just one moment on the record of something like peace and is indicative of how The Phonometrician refuses to simplify its complex subject matter. Death and its surrounding customs are handled with far more than the obvious sense of doom. So while Cóiste Bodhar has its bleak moments, there are feelings too of acceptance, a renewed vigour for life, and even wonder at the sheer unknown that we will all face eventually.

And this is the record’s ultimate strength. The Phonometrician avoids empty platitudes and refuses to offer simple answers, swapping faux wisdom for the instinctive and the ritualistic. In doing so he captures the darkly magnetic pull of the folktales that have been told by people the world over, and both laments and celebrates the eternal mystery that we are no closer to unravelling today. Because no matter where we are from, or how far we feel we’ve come, death is unyielding, and belief in its weird portents will continue to be general.

Cóiste Bodhar is out now via Lost Tribe Sound and is available from The Phonometrician Bandcamp page.

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Comprising of thirteen mostly short songs, Holiwis is an album that never settles in one place. Sandoval writes and plays everything herself, excepting for drums, bass and mandolin on several tracks from Ana Cossio, and the result is wonderfully idiosyncratic. Sweetness and softness and strangeness are all wrapped up together, earworm melodies and earnest vocals layered beneath fuzzy instrumentation, or almost discordant rhythms that fizz with energy. Take for example the wild percussion on ‘Community’, which clunks and clatters over Sandoval’s vocals and scuzzy guitar with all the wild fervour of a DIY basement show.

In comparison, ‘Heart/Wire’ sounds tender and sensitive, recalling Free Cake For Every Creature in its quiet sentimentality, although still spikes in places with flurries of strummed guitar. This is something of a theme across Holiwis, the way each song combines sounds and emotions, sometimes directly overlaid on one another. ‘Truly Awake’ feels like a multicoloured hallucination, a strange echoey pop song adorned with beeps and blips and tropical flourishes, while ‘Catching Up’, the record’s longest track at over three and a half minutes, is built on subtle beats and cymbal bursts and layers of vocals that overlap and dissipate. There are moments of clarity too, when songs are stripped back to their bare bones. ‘Derail’ shimmers with digital static, while ‘I still remember you’ barely rises above a subdued murmur, and ‘Nighthike’ is a crystal clear folk song, just acoustic guitar and Sandoval’s voice.

But surcarilita is strongest when throwing everything together, collecting sparks from the friction between a song’s dozen constituent parts. Listen to ‘Come Outside/Inside’ and try to deny there’s something joyous about it. What could have been a totally okay slice of indie pop transformed into something truly unpredictable and singular. It’s what surcarilita is all about, the bravery to experiment and the instinct to tease melody from a tangle of elements.

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The varied and undefinable style is perhaps a product of Michelle Blades’ nomadic life. Born in Panama to a Mexican mother, Blades escaped the regime of Manuel Noriega by moving to Florida. From there she found the underground music scene during a spell in Arizona, and finally relocated to France to fully-realise her potential as a musician. Her family were Central American pioneers of salsa, and music is in the Blades genes—her grandmother a Cuban pianist and singer, her father a producer and composer, and her uncle Rubén Blades a huge force in the contemporary scene.

Visitor feels like a culmination of this personal and familial history, a genre-bending ode to where she has come from. Situated within a 70s-style aesthetic of protest and political struggle, the record finds Blades both confident and fierce, as though all of the faces and places that have inspired the record are standing with her, shoulder to shoulder in solidarity.  With help from Victor Peynichou (bass, guitar), Alexandre Bourit (guitar), Marius Duflot (synth, piano, vibraphone, percussion), Pierre-Louis Vizioz (drums), Edouard Pons (piano, vibraphone), Daniel Hart (violin) and Manfred Kovacic (saxophone), Blades has created an experimental album that aims to explore not just musical conventions but those of language and culture too, making for a sound that is radical without sacrificing complexity.

Nowhere is this clearer than opening track, ‘Politic!’, a techicoloured art-rock track that brings together psychedelic peculiarities and Patti Smith’s nonchalant poetry, with notes of krautrock and even ska threaded through the sound too. The track has a pervasive energy, the peppy bounce of its tempo a vehicle through which Blades delivers her message, the sound as irrepressible as the people it describes.

This refusal to settle in any one genre or style is the true radical spirit of Michelle Blades. Many songs on the album could be said to creep close to a ‘commercial’ accessibility, though with constant invention and a knack for the strange, Blades always subverts conventions. Which is how one minute ‘Behind the Black’ can offer a languid shake, shimmering psych mirages playing across its surface, and the next ‘Piri Piri’ can supply a playful brand of pop cast in tropical hues. Some, like ‘Literally’, strip things back to acoustic guitar and swirling ambient tones, while others bloom in kaleidoscopic intricacy. The frenetic spaghetti western post-punk of ‘Dr Pysch’ juxtaposes almost completely with the sultry slow-motion of ‘Acid On The Hillside’, though both are united by a theatrical energy that matches their hallucinatory groove.

The willingness to experiment essentially serves to stoke the curiosity of the listener, pushing them to dig down into even the more straightforward tracks. As we described of the aforementioned ‘Kiss Me on the Mouth’, there appears a kind of duality, where the surface of the lyrics is stalked by some strange second (or third, fourth etc.) meaning. Blades’ ability to draw our attention to the unseen without sacrificing its cryptic allure is one of the true strengths of the record—something perfected on the captivating single, ‘Ring’.

Lookin’ at the ring on yr finger
A look too long could cause a disaster
We’re no longer kids
everything is weird
everyone’s got a job to talk about
And I don’t learn from my mistakes

Visitor is out now on Midnight Special Records and you can get it from the Michelle Blades Bandcamp page.

Album artwork By Lou Benesch

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Our choice of songs for this one perhaps isn’t the most subtle, and might well highlight our naivety/ignorance when it comes to the geographic differences between American folk music, but we just went with tracks which we felt capture the mood of Hinojosa’s work in some way. The tracklisting carries links to the artists we’ve covered in the past, if you want to read our thoughts on their music.

Tracklisting:

1) Will the Circle Be Unbroken – Marisa Anderson
2) Floating Rhododendron – Sarah Louise
3) Out West – The Coal Creek Boys
4) Fable – Sam Moss
5) Impress My Memory – Stephen Steinbrink
6) Sometimes – Noel’le Longhaul
7) Hands in Our Names – Karima Walker
8) Mexican Blanket – Wes Tirey
9) Stained Glass Eye – The Dead Tongues
10) Around and Around – Mountain Man
11) Revelation Drift – dbh
12) Dark Was the Night – Ry Cooder

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Dawn and Armando are now married and play together in a band called The Tallest Tree. You can hear their first single, ‘Tree’ right now.

youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qbjWpXgty8

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