Back in March we introduced Spellbreaker, the new full-length from LA pop duo Bouquet. Having not put out a record for a decade, the release sees interdisciplinary artist, writer and composer Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs and songwriter and producer Max Foreman evolve the project while staying true to its spirit, with singles ‘Hold On‘ and ‘Moon Was Made‘ showing off “a rich and romantic style,” as we put it, “that championed restraint within a genre often prone to excesses.” With the album now out, Bouquet have shared the title track—a song which confronts suffocating societal expectations, both in terms of their subliminal pull on us and the agency to be found in rejecting their logic.

Coral Grief – Rockhounds

Seattle trio Coral Grief are set to release their debut album Air Between Us this summer, a joint relase between Suicide Squeeze Records (digital), Anxiety Blanket Records (vinyl) and Den Tapes (cassette) which promises to represent a notable addition to the current dream pop revival. Because though the krautrock and synth pop styles underpinning the project might be drawn from the past, Coral Grief do so much more than peddle nostalgia. Rather, they take familiar sounds and recombine them into something entirely new, as displayed by lead single ‘Rockhounds’. It’s a track of ethereal tones and intricate detail built around a spine of sleek drum loops. The lyrics hint at the core themes of a release all about travel and exploration, championing not the productive gains of such things but rather the inherent value of the process. “I love beachcombing and searching for small treasures,” frontperson Lena Farr Morrissey explains. “This song is an ode to that process, especially when you don’t find anything but it was still worth the journey.”

Watch the video directed and edited by Nick Shively below:

Air Between Us will be released on the 18th July via Suicide Squeeze Records, Anxiety Blanket Records and Den Tapes and you can pre-order it now.

Horsepower – Excalibur

Horsepower, the project of NYC songwriter Charlotte Weinman, is preparing to release a self-titled debut EP next month via Rose Garden, and Weinman has shared new single ‘Excalibur’ to introduce the release. Produced by brother Noah Weinman (of runnner fame), the song offers a glimpse at the heavier dimension of the Horsepower project, following the tender, dreamy tones of previous track ‘Are You Blushing?’ with something altogether more charged and raw. The result is both earnest in tone and inventive in execution, Weinman drawing on her background in theatre writing and performance to convey personal fury in an unapologetically heightened, dramatic register. “I grew up as a massive fan of Hole and Sleater-Kinney and Kim Gordon, and I’ve always generally had a huge attraction to women who are being serrated and disgusting with their language and presence,” Weinman explains, “and not aestheticizing their anger—“feminine rage” etc.—but expressing it with a critical mass of urgency and conviction to dress it up or perform it any other way.”

Watch the video directed by Jonas Bishop Hayes below:

Horsepower will be released on the 27th June via Rose Garden.

OK Cool – Waawooweewaa

Back in 2023 we wrote about Chicago-based project OK Cool, describing how album fawn saw duo Bridget Stiebris Haley Blomquist rise from “a rich lineage of forebears, from contemporary bedroom pop to Midwest emo and feedback-soaked shoegaze” while still “keeping things fresh and experimental.” Now OK Cool are preparing to release follow-up Chit Chat in August on Take A Hike Records, and lead single ‘Waawooweewaa’ suggests the album will build upon these foundations. It’s a track which combines emo confession with an infectious forward motion to create something genuinely cathartic despite its dark tone. “I wish I could say fuck it / and walk out into the lake,” as the final verse goes. “My entire life relies on being far away /  i’m sorry, it’s my own fault.”

Paola Bennet – Landmines

Drawing on a mix of folk, pop and rock sensibilities, Boston-born, New York-based songwriter Paola Bennet is an artist unafraid of the personal, her music delving into intimate themes of illness, desire and relationships with equal parts tenderness and weight. Described as “agony put to sound,” new single ‘Landmines’ shows the full range of this style within a single track. An examination of a friendship conducted in its aftermath, where residual bitterness and burgeoning regret are matched with more complicated emotions. The identity-shaking experience of losing a person from your life when you had always imagined them a part of it. The poignant croon of the opening conjures the vulnerability of such a situation, and the gradual introduction of rock energy drives the track towards its fiercely cathartic climax.

Soot Sprite – Wield Your Hope Like A Weapon

We’ve featured a number of tracks from Soot Sprite‘s new full-length Wield Your Hope Like A Weapon in recent months, what we’ve called “a call to arms to fight against the forces that make contemporary life so difficult, and a reminder of the radical potential within empathy and community” that focuses on both a societal (on tracks like ‘All My Friends Are Depressed‘ and ‘Days After Days‘) and personal (‘Vicious Cycles‘) level. With the album now out via Specialist Subject Records, the trio have unveiled the title track to celebrate. A mission statement for the record and an embodiment of its cathartic defiance and determination. “As long as there’s blood in my body / I’ll never stop raging against the dark that’s gonna crush me,” as lead Elise Cook sings. “And as long as there’s air to breathe / I’ll do everything just to show you my teeth.”

Star Moles – Key Change

Recording under the moniker Star Moles, multi-instrumentalist Emily Moales has put out a wide range of releases since 2017, with a myriad of singles and covers sitting alongside full-lengths like Camelot, released via Earth Libraries. The oeuvre is a lesson in the potential of bedroom pop, refusing to settle for genre conventions to push the style in new directions. Again out via Earth Libraries, latest single ‘Key Change’ is a worthy addition to the catalogue. A track representative of Moales’s growing boredom with idealised romance of polished pop, choosing to instead get its hands dirty and dig into the messy guts of what love really means. The result is off-kilter and idiosyncratic and all the more believable for it, unfurling as a stream-of-consciousness with little filtered out.

Tyler Bradley Walker – Moon Broke Quiet

Perhaps best known as one half of electronic rock duo Gone to Color, Tyler Bradley Walker is now preparing to release his debut solo album, The Sun The Moon The Earth and Me, next month. Gone to Color have always broken new ground with their work, blurring the boundaries between pop, rock and concert music with traditional and electronic instrumentation, and lead single ‘Moon Broke Quiet’ suggest Walker’s solo work is no less ambitious. A spacious, evocative soundscape which seems to sit at an angle to reality, everything a little stark and surreal and strange. Tim Rutili of Califone fame adds his distinctive vocals, and the result occupies that nocturnal liminal space between waking life and dreams.

Watch the video by Chris Del Rio below:

‘Moon Broke Quiet’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Willi Carlisle – Beeswing

After the acclaim of 2024 album Critterland, Missouri songwriter Willi Carlisle is wasting no time getting back in the saddle with Winged Victory, a brand new full-length coming next month via Signature Sounds Recording Inc. The quick turnaround is perhaps at least in part explained by the urgency of the tracks therein. These are folk songs driven by (or in opposition to) the ever collapsing present, as though sensing that it is within moments of great change and suffering we might be allowed to imagine new ways of living. But far from pie-in-the-sky utopian dreaming, the album acknowledges the blood and sweat required to achieve such a thing, something made clear by Carlisle’s rendition of ‘Beeswing’. “I wanted the record to include a song about romantic love that had ideas about freedom and victory,” Carlisle explains. “For me, the song turns on the line ‘And they say her flower’s faded now / from hard weather and hard booze / but maybe that’s the price you pay for the chains you refuse.’ If you want to be untouchable by the regular world, maybe freedom is actually a really expensive thing, and maybe you have to try really hard to reach it.”

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Opener ‘The Newest Soil’ kicked things off with an intensely personal picture of the most intimate of moments, detailing the occasion Slagg and his family spread his father’s ashes upon receiving his remains after a period in which his body had been donated to science. The purpose of the track was twofold: to introduce the audience to the record’s compassionate, unguarded tone, and signify the manner in which it bridges the apparent gap between the personal and environmental and/or political to offer a more holistic picture of life.

And holistic is certainly the right word for I Don’t Want to Get Adjusted to This World. It’s a record about a world undergoing drastic changes. Or rather, one in which drastic change is the whole world. A geological project which traces the layers of time through the ages, where the natural and technological compete to occupy the landscape. “A natural world built on the ruins of a technological world built on the ruins of a natural world,” as Steve Slagg himself puts it. “A garden growing a city growing a garden.”

Some songs explore ideas of migration, be it avian or human. Others represent something like a topological study of a specific part of America, be that geographically (“a farm in Missouri, a river in North Dakota, an orchard in Utah, a park in Chicago”) or thematically (with Western imagery, heroes and villains, as well as concepts of ancestral grounds and land rights). And, ultimately, the album is a simultaneous expression of grief and defiance—the regret of living in a world which for so long we seemed determined to erase, and the affirming decision to exist as truthfully as possible in spite of everything.

Sitting at the heart of the record, the title track serves as something of a centrepiece. A song which opens with three heroes of Slagg’s—Iris DeMent, Rosanne Cash and his grandmother—detailing the virtue and indeed miraculousness inherent within their smallest gestures. Each somehow a bulwark against the cruelty of the world. “Iris’s Mama / Sang hymns at the piano / With her neck craned upward / As if to the Lord,” goes the opening verse. “Roseanne’s daddy / Sang “My God Is Real” / But his fingers loved the feel / Of the minor chords // My grandma drank her coffee black / And mouthed prayers for her boys and girls / I don’t wanna get get adjusted to this world.”

I dreamed I had a vision
My whole body was religion
I flickered, then I glowed
Like Mother Mary did

In my wonder I was singin’
In my terror I was singin’
In my laughter I was singin’
Through my tears I was singin’
In my pain I was singin’
In my pleasure I was singin’
In my patience I was singin’
In my “please”
In my “yes”

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Now Holy Matter is back with brand new single, ‘Autumn’s Envy’. Again released via Royal Oakie, the song dials back some of the smoky atmosphere for a more spacious yet no less atmospheric sound. Brought to life with help from guests Kate Bollinger, Andy Kahn, Raphi Gottesman (Sonny and the Sunsets) and Josh Housh (Michael James Tapscott), the song plays less like a dancehall ballad than one delivered within the shadowed under canopy of the woods in fall. “I often get phrases stuck in my head and I kept thinking about the Pavement song title Summer Babe,” as Kaiser explains. “What happens to a Summer Babe in the fall?”

The result occupies the liminal space between the real, emotional and spiritual, as though through loss and introspection, one can lead themselves towards uncanny places. “‘Autumn’s Envy‘ is about experiencing someone drift away as the seasons of love are fickle and change, and the jealousy and insecurity that come along with knowing you are ‘out of season’ while watching someone move on,” Kaiser explains. “It’s about doubting yourself. About longing and calling out for someone, wanting them to open themselves to you completely and the comfort and relief that brings.”

Darling, won’t you call my name
So I am happier, again?
Cut off from the agony and the envy
of a Summer Babe in the Fall
(in the Fall, oh)

‘Autumn’s Envy’ is out now via Royal Oakie Records.

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Best Fern is the ambient pop collaboration between New York’s Alexia Avina and Montreal’s Nick Schofield. The pair met while in residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, where they drew on the surrounding Rocky Mountain landscape to devise a style that sits in the ethereal middle ground between ambient and pop. The debut Best Fern album, Earth Then Air, releases early next year on Backward Music and Youngbloods, and lead single ‘Way Inside’ is an indicator of what is to come. A track at once soaring and earthy, the fecund mistiness eradicating any distinction between organic and dream matter. The song comes complete with a video directed & edited by Hugo Bernier. Watch it below:

Earth Then Air releases on 3^rd February via Youngbloods. Preorder it now via the Best Fern Bandcamp page.

CO-ED DORMS – Milk Drinker

Part of what they call the “Neo-Classical Post-Industrial Post-Punk Revival,” English four-piece CO-ED DORMS have shared new single ‘Milk Drinker’ as a statement of intent. A finely crafted track which grasps for a number of stylistic influences, the lush instrumentation held in line by almost marching percussion, while the near spoken-word vocals are sardonic and playful and wry.  Think Black Country, New Road fronted by Mark E. Smith, this time sponsored by Big Dairy. Drink the damn milk.

Cynthia Hamar – Where Your Love Lives

Back in June, we wrote about Alberta-born Métis singer-songwriter Cynthia Hamar, labelling single ‘Shaken’ as “a track which finds a balance between soulful confidence and poignant sadness, led by the kind of bitter assurance gained only from learning the hard way.” Again out via Neon Moon Records, latest track ‘Where Your Love Lives’ is no less mature and reflective in its tone, taking a nostalgic look at the past in all its bittersweet glory. Charting the things gained and lost along the way, and the slow change constantly unfolding. The song’s video furthers this excavation of bygone years, with director Korban Hamar and editor Jessica Lowe creating a collage of home videos from Hamar’s family collection.

‘Where Your Love Lives’ is out now via Neon Moon Records and you can listen in the usual places.

Dunebug – Still Dreaming

Now based in London, Dunebug is the project of Manchester-born Chi Limpiroj. Regular readers will be familiar with her work as we’ve covered a couple of singles in the last few years which, along with a self-titled EP released in 2019, have established a distinctively bittersweet lo-fi indie pop style. Now Dunebug has returned with a new single, ‘Still Dreaming’, the latest release ahead of a forthcoming debut album. Limpiroj describes ‘Still Dreaming’ as “a song about being afraid to sleep due to recurring nightmares of an abusive past lover,” but despite this heavy subject matter it’s presented as a surprisingly sweet laidback pop song. The track comes complete with a contradictorily bright video by Alyssa Mello, which you can check out below:

‘Still Dreaming’ is out now and available from the Dunebug Bandcamp page.

Esme White – Pearly Gate Crashers

Hailing from New York and now based in London, singer-songwriter Esme White started writing during the early months of the pandemic and has worked with Spiritual Records in Chalk Farm on new tracks. Single ‘Pearly Gate Crashers’ is a great introduction to White’s sound, an infectiously upbeat folk rock track with real narrative weight. God is real but heaven is closed, great crowds gathering at the gates demanding to be let in. Shady snakes in suits bribe angels for backdoor entries as old ladies threaten to burn the whole thing down, the rhythm building as a sense of desperation grows.

Yeah I may be human
but that’s not on me, that’s on you, man

‘Pearly Gate Crashers’ is out now. You can find Esme White on Instagram.

LIES – Camera Chimera

The new project of Mike and Nate Kinsella, LIES have won attention with a string of singles which combine beauty and strangeness into something fitting for the contemporary moment. Latest track ‘Camera Chimera’ further develops this style, an exploration of life online which starts out seductively mellow and soon morphs into something dark and unnerving. “It’s about not only feeling manipulated by others, but also being confronted with the reality and consequences of your own lies and manipulation,” Mike Kinsella explains, “and how that can mentally and emotionally cause one to spiral.” The song comes with a video directed by Rachel Cabbit of POND Creative which furthers these themes, amplifying the mood of shadowy mystery by printing and scanning frames to produce a distorted, lo-fi style.

‘Camera Chimera’ is out now via Polyvinyl Record Co. and available from the usual places.

Mizan K – Go

‘Go’ is the latest single from New York’s Mizan K, an effortless pop song that bubbles with quiet energy that she describes as a “four-minute fever-dream inspired by fragments of fantastical children’s novels.” Built on an infectious melody and adorned with quirky embellishments, the track is a strange, kaleidoscopic commentary on our hyperactive, money-focused world. As Mizan K goes on to explain: “A dozen celestial characters including myself, float in a space-casino and chase their fate in a speedy and unstable world. The singer (me) is a trickster, presenting glimmers of opportunity, then changing voices to relay worldly wisdom and warnings of failure. The song winds its way through a frantic universe while angling towards fun and optimism.”

My Politic – Cursing at the Night & the Morning

Next month, Nashville-based duo My Politic will release Missouri Folklore: Songs & Stories From Home, an album grounded in the landscape of the Ozark Mountains which looks to explore the nuanced and often conflicted identities of those who call Missouri home. “There are songs about judgment, existentialism, forgiveness, love, death, growing, and healing,” as Kaston Guffey explains. “It’s a lot of material focused on the nuance and mundanity, in some sense, of being a person.” Latest single ‘Cursing at the Night & the Morning’ captures this spirit of imperfection with a keen eye and careful charm, steeped in the wistful ache of all the best folk music but choosing to confront this nostalgia too.

What I know and what I’ve heard
Are different things I’m sure
But the differences all blur
Cuz time’s a warping glass

Siv Jakobsen x Ane Brun – Sun, Moon, Stars

With new album Gardening coming next January on The Nordic Mellow, Oslo songwriter Siv Jakobsen has unveiled latest single, ‘Sun, Moon Stars’. With Jakobsen joined by renowned Norwegian songwriter Ane Brun, the track weaves a plaintive mood scored with careful details and evocative harmonies. An ode to the people who stand steadfast through the worst moments, reliable points which allow us to navigate our own ways through. The song is “inspired by my least favourite month of the year and the heaviness I tend to feel during it,” as Jakobsen explains, “as well as the beauty and hope I’ve found in a companion that has the ability to pull me out of the dreariest corner of my mind, even during the darkest month of the year.”

Gardening is out on the 20th January via The Nordic Mellow.

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Today we’re delighted to share the second Nightosphere single, ‘Faim Dévorante’. A song more fierce and taut than the previous track, at least initially, its intro snapping to life with real purpose in the kind of mean-eyed clarity you might expect from earlier Pedro the Lion. But the energy breaks to leave something more expansive if no less foreboding, as though the energy hasn’t dissipated so much as dispersed across a wide sweep of space. The vocals arrive within this charged quiet, crooned gently but masking some underlying tension, the consuming hunger alluded to in the title perhaps, every aspect of the track pulled by the latent force within its structure, waiting for a spark to ignite the blaze.

Watched a spider crawl down your arm
While you fixed your sharp eye on me
Everything you have you took from someone else
But you say you still feel empty

Don’t look at me
when you’re thirsty
Don’t look at me
when you’re hungry

Artwork by Laura Benson, photo by Lindsey Yoneda

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“Did you ever wonder why I stay broken?” Pearl asks at the beginning of opener ‘Say it Back’, a track which segues between gloomy introspection and blazingly fierce indie rock. There are hints of Oh Rose in Pearl’s raw-throated delivery, which confronts the record’s themes of addiction and toxic relationships with raging catharsis. “Rest in peace, you sleep easy now,” they howl from amidst the ruins left in the wake of a bad influence. “And I can’t clean the mess you leave for me.”

Follow-up ‘One Hit’ explores addiction more explicitly, beginning with denial (“keep that shit away from me”), but slowly slipping into acceptance. The atmosphere is slow and smoky, rising to an energetic spike in the middle before settling back down. Closer ‘Dairy Lottery Tobacco’ picks things up from inside this lull.

This time focusing on a toxic relationship, Pearl again pulls no punches with the direct opening line. “I know you’re no good, but I can only see the good you could be,” a seemingly small self-deception that can excuse so much suffering. The stark drumbeat and snaking guitar give way to what again begins as something almost dreamy, but as the frustration builds so do the noise levels, yelping vocals held aloft on crunchy guitar and cymbal-heavy percussion. As the sound gathers so too does the conviction and anger, Reggie Pearl riding the crest of righteous violence toward the death of those who exert their control.

REGICIDE is out now and available from the Reggie Pearl Bandcamp page.

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This summer sees Rae Fitzgerald return with a brand new EP, and her first with the ever-impressive Keeled Scales. The Lonely Listener builds on what came before, again incorporating synth and drum machine into what are ostensibly folk songs, but the release also represents a real evolution of the Rae Fitzgerald sound. Together with Will Reeves (drum loop, bass) and Ian Vardell (electric guitar), Fitzgerald has honed her style and achieved a newfound confidence, the songs’ various elements pulling in harmony to conjure something intuitive.

Lead single ‘Smileland’ is the perfect example. Where Popular Songs… crafted transportive soundscapes, the mellotron pads and drum loops serve the opposite purpose, grounding the listener in the immediate experience, and moreover finding beauty there. The result is a track of reconnection, with one’s self and the world all around, and in doing so lifting what might at first appear ordinary into something ecstatic.

When the dawn breaks through it shakes you
like a messenger of light
but the flower beds still greet you
and the water eats the sky

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New album a little light of our own may well be the last by american poetry club, at least in its current form, as the band disperse after finishing college. But, despite the potential farewell album vibes, it seems like Weinstock and co. are intent on burning out as bright and pure as a sparkler, the songs infused with a collective energy that displays a real sense of community.

“If you think you are struggling alone just to be fine,” Weinstock sings in opener ‘in your own way, at your own pace, pulling through!’, “know that i am always right here next to you, I am always by your side.” It sets the tone for the album in more ways than one, direct and intense and at times painfully earnest, american poetry club go all out to say what they mean and mean what they say. Second track ‘as slow and vast as our love can take’ is equally short and direct, a ramshackle indie pop song that’s almost reminiscent of Emperor X. ‘summer of the century’ kicks up the tempo even further, a glorious pop punk singalong that ends with a plea to embrace and celebrate each other and ourselves as individuals.

what you feel is alright, don’t worry you burn bright
how you think is okay, please do this your own way

‘pro pic’ is the album’s standout moment, and in some ways feels like the song american poetry club have been buildings towards over these last few years. The balance between heart-on-sleeve emo and twee indie pop is just about perfect, as Weinstock and his friends sing (and sometimes yell) over shuffling drums and subtle horns. Thematically, it’s one of the more reflective songs on the album, our narrator reminded of a previously dear relationship/friendship by occasional glimpses of a social media profile picture.

‘hampton ave’ is the album’s most reserved moment, a quiet acoustic track that still maintains the purity of feeling of the other songs. It’s proof that american poetry club can do things stripped-back, and bodes well if Weinstock intends to play these songs solo if the band goes on hiatus.

Finale ‘snbm’ then takes everything that has come before, not just in this album but through the entire american poetry club catalogue, and distills it into just under three minutes. It begins hushed and spacious, just guitar and Weinstock’s voice, but grows into a swelling outro that based around a mantra for positivity and self-love. It’s a fitting end to both the album and american poetry club as a project.

no more low self-esteem
we’re gonna be all we dream
we are bursting at the seam
we are a brilliant sunbeam

a little light of our own is out now on It Takes Time Records and Feels So Reel Music, and available from the american poetry club Bandcamp page.

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From the shuffling, sparkling indie pop of ‘Vodkas’, to the jangly high school vibes of ‘London’, Tennis Club cover young love in all its ups and downs. There is heart-quickening excitement and gooey romance and crushing rejection, and above all a sense of longing, either for the past or an imagined future. ‘Stay’ is a good example, what Hernandez calls “probably the only radio friendly song on the record.” It’s a song about self-delusion, about holding out hope in spite of obvious signs. “I wanna stay with you,” Hernandez sings, “don’t hurt me again.”

‘Mexico City (Rich Girls)’ is the first Spanish-language Tennis Club song, an impossibly upbeat track that lasts exactly 60 seconds. The post break-up song ‘Ghost Cops’ has an interesting back story, as Hernandez tells Counterzine, “A couple of months ago I was picking up my mom from the airport when I got pulled over by the police in a creepy Oklahoma town […] I call them ghost cops because they linger in the dark and come out of nowhere.”

Closer ‘Baby’ strips things back to just guitar and vocals, maybe the prettiest break-up song of the summer. Despite the departure in sound from the others tracks, it’s the perfect illustration of what Tennis Club do so well, light and catchy indie pop songs that nevertheless contain a core of heartbreak.

Pink is out now and you can get it from the Tennis Club Bandcamp page.

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We caught up with the band to delve a little deeper into the record and what it means to them.

Hi Shady Bug, thanks for talking to us! How does it feel to have Lemon Lime out in the world?

We are so happy to have these songs out in the world to share!! It’s been really fun touring and hearing everyone’s reaction to the record.

Lemon Lime is an album of juxtapositions, from the guitar playing to the lyrics to the sweet and sharp imagery of the title. Would you agree with that? And if so, is it something you aimed for, or did these opposite but balancing elements come together naturally?

Definitely, there’s a lot of dynamic range on the record and we wanted a hyper contrasting sound with twists and turns and surprises. I love to write songs that may seem happy-go-lucky but then switch to something dark, in the music or lyrics. We also have two very different guitar styles – I’m more jangly and sweet while Tom is more sharp and sour. For some reason this works, not sure how but we just have fun with it!! The album title is on purpose to highlight our aesthetic, but it’s also from a lyric in ‘Make it Up’ about drinking sprite with your crush from a styrofoam cup.

There’s a similar theme in the lyrics too, sweet and sour ruminations on relationships and life in a Midwestern city. How did the songwriting process work? And what was your inspiration when writing these songs?

I write all the lyrics for these songs, usually on notes in my phone, about my life or things that happen to my friends. My process is never the same each time, sometimes it takes one day to write a song, and then other times a month. I’m definitely influenced by my surroundings in St. Louis. The city is falling apart in some places and lively and exciting in others. At the time I wrote this record, all my friends were broke and going out almost every night. I was writing about going to shows and having fun, against the feeling of heartbreak, anxiety, feeling lost with no direction in your life, and being surrounded by all these old brick buildings in south city St. Louis.

I really like how lots of the songs have a darker, unrestrained edge, both sonically and lyrically. Is that an attempt to confront the fact life in 2019 isn’t just all crushes and soda? And how important is it that bands acknowledge the troubling times we live in?

I’ve had a lot of anxiety about global warming and the political state. I think it’s really refreshing when bands write about what’s actually going on because we can all relate and it makes us feel less alone. Writing about my fears has helped me cope and not ignore these real issues in the world. Writing about my heartbreak has also helped me come to terms with my sadness and heal.

Hannah’s background is in classical guitar, while Tom is self-taught. How do these opposing styles come together? And at what point does a classically trained guitarist decide they want to form an indie rock band?

At first we didn’t really understand each other, I never knew what Tom was trying to play (still don’t!), but I think that’s kind of cool. We have our own guitar voices in each song that contrast but also flow together at unexpected times. It’s been fun working with people that can teach me new ways of approaching music and I can also teach them! Aaron our drummer is trained in jazz upright bass so he also has a whole different mindset about music.

I actually have been playing DIY shows since I was in high school with my folk band with my twin sister called Dubb Nubb. I was pretty familiar with the scene but just never thought I could play rock guitar. I was intimidated by the ‘boys club’ lol. Years after Dubb Nubb was well established in our area I started writing some solo songs and borrowed an electric guitar. I finally began to create riffs and use pedals. I actually didn’t even try to get a full band together but I told Aaron about my songs and he took the initiative to form a band with me. For Shady Bug I bought my first electric guitar and tube amp, and I started playing with a pick haha. I still play classical sometimes but have completely lost my chops, which is sad.

Lemon Lime is your first album on Exploding in Sound Records, which seems like such a perfect fit for your sound. How did that relationship come about? And what does it mean to have a label like EIS?

Well, we were huge EIS fans. All of us have been listening to bands from the label for a long time and were influenced by bands like Ovlov, Pile, and Speedy Ortiz. Post-Trash music blog reviewed our first album ‘tbh idk’ and premiered our first music video. When Dan Goldin expressed interest in putting our next record, we were SO excited, it was a dream come true!!

As for the label itself, we are so lucky to work with the best people that just care about releasing good music. The music industry sucks but EIS is definitely a special label, they are real.

Going back to the St. Louis/Midwest theme, do you feel there is something distinct about midwestern music, compared to that being made on the coasts?

People always say we sound like ‘midwest emo’ or ‘that St. Louis math rock’ lol! But I think the scene here is unique because it’s so small, we have a lot of crossover from the different genres and there’s lots of support. I feel like we have a certain soul and way of life in the midwest that you can’t find on the east or west coast. The people here are slower paced and more understanding, but it’s also easy to feel stuck here. The honest and raw art made in St. Louis reflects this midwestern angst, but formed in an intimate DIY community of just making music with friends in basements.

Finally, could you name four or five artists you are enjoying at the moment? They can be new, old, popular, obscure, whatever you find yourself turning to.

Hannah – Weyes Blood
Aaron – Miles Davis, Second Great Quintet
Tom – Patio
Chris – Team Dresch

Lemon Lime is out now via Exploding in Sound Records and you can grab it from Bandcamp.

Photo by Mabel Suen

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