“Existing in the strange space between loss and whatever comes next, searching for clues as to exactly what happened, not to mention where the future might lead.” So we wrote of Adeline Hotel‘s 2024 album Whodunnit, a raw picture of codependency and its slow disintegration which offered some of Dan Knishowy’s starkest writing to date. Now Adeline Hotel is preparing to release new full-length Watch the Sunflowers via Ruination Record Co., and it seems the future led to something altogether richer. Because, as new single ‘Dreaming’ suggests, the album is a reaction to the threadbare arrangements of its predecessor, as though, having endured the aftermath of loss, the colour has come back into Knishkowy’s world.

Alexei Shishkin – Magpie

Every single Alexei Shishkin has revealed from new album Good Times has stretched its subject matter in new, apparently unrelated directions, be that computer games (‘Disco Elysium‘), football tactics (‘Tiki Taka 2006‘) or poetry (‘Ode to Carl Dennis’). With the record out now via Rue Defense, Shishkin has returned with final single ‘Magpie’, a track which not only widens the topics covered during the full-length but could be read as a kind of metacommentary on this pick and mix style. Because, like the titular corvid, Good Times sees Shishkin collect all manner of shiny objects as and when they take his fancy. So what better a spirit animal for the album than a magpie? “I was actually going to name the album Magpie, but by the time we got around the finalizing it, Peach Pit had *just* released an album called Magpie, so I obviously couldn’t bite that.”

Altai – Brawl

Back in May we introduced New South Wales duo Altai, that’s multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Tessa Collins and drummer Andrew Wilkinson, with single ‘Like You Need It’. “Released just as the southern hemisphere moves into autumn,” we wrote, “the song is suffused with a romantic nostalgia and the gnawing melancholy of the changing seasons.” With an EP set for release in October via Broken Palace, Altai have new returned with new track ‘Brawl’. It’s a song which explores masculinity and its associated pressures, charged with a sense of urgency as though in attempt to will someone away from the ruinous expectations loaded onto men within the patriarchal system. Collins’s vocals harness this energy, sounding at once stark and compassionate in their willingness to name those destructive forces so directly. Fans of acts like The Weather Station will find much to admire.

Cormorant Tree Oh – The Wrong Kind

Recording under the moniker Cormorant Tree Oh, Dublin-based multi-disciplinary artist and songwriter Mary Keane has established herself as one of Ireland‘s premier practioners of experimental folk, winning much praise for 2024 record Moonish (out via Trapped Animal Records) and sharing the stage with the likes of Lankum. Taken from that album, latest single ‘The Wrong Kind’ is another addition to her catalogue, a song presenting isolation in all of its eeriness and beauty, blurring the line between loneliness and romance with an atmosphere as beguilling as it is austere. The song comes complete with a video made in collaboration with artist Zoe Greenway (formerly of M(h)aol), taking cues from 1948 classic Portrait Of Jennie in its visual style. The video marks a conscious embrace of centring the artistic vision above all else, timed just as Keane has decided, in a move we ourselves also made several years ago, to leave Spotify. “I decided to leave Spotify because Spotify’s CEO David Ek is investing in AI war drones, they pay artists feck all and they are now pushing creepy AI music,” as she succinctly describes. Amen.

Moonish is out now via Trapped Animal Records and available from Bandcamp.

Frog – SPANISH ARMADA VAR. XV

“Even for a band who have made a name for their idiosyncratic style, this might just be their most singular release yet.” So we wrote of THE COUNT, Frog‘s brand new full-length coming later this month via Audio Antihero, when introducing the record a couple of weeks ago. “A concept album which sees lead Daniel Bateman assume the persona of the titular count,” we continued, “a figure straight out of some Warren Zevon song, full of shady history, personal mythology and perhaps even a supernatural edge.” After single ‘BITTEN BY MY LOVE VAR. XI’ (a song “strange, unpredictable and oddly heartbreaking), Frog have now returned with ‘SPANISH ARMADA VAR. XV’. Moving from hushed to hysterical and back again, the track showcases the full plasticity of Bateman’s voice within less than 150 seconds, as well as his ability to present desire and yearning in such a singular manner.

Me and the guys walked over with buckets of fries
Boarding the Spanish armada, that’s what I thought when I saw ya

Lawn – Pressure

Built around co-lead singers/songwriters Mac Folger and Rui De Magalhaes, New Orleans band Lawn have excelled with an idiosyncratic combination of jangly pop and taut post-punk across three full-length albums, defying genre conventions to show that fun and edge need not be mutually exclusive. Coming later this month via Exploding in Sound, new full-length God Made The Highway finds Lawn perfect this style. While previous single ‘Davie’ showed off the bright side of the release, latest single ‘Pressure’ falls on the wiry end of the spectrum. A track which coils like a tightening spring as De Magalhaes mulls over perceived judgement on his life choices from elsewhere, building and building in seething tension as things threaten to spill over into chaos. Whether the feelings are justified or just the product of personal insecurities is left up in the air, but it doesn’t really matter, there’s catharsis in the chorus all the same.

Watch the video directed by Daniel Lynch / Company Businesses Inc below:

God Made The Highway will be released on the 19th September via Exploding in Sound Records and you can pre-order it now.

múm – Kill the Light

We’ve covered a couple of tracks from Icelandic mainstays múm in recent months, previewing their forthcoming new album History of Silence. First ‘Mild at Heart’, what we called “a controlled, ever-curious track that shows the power of understatement while also reaching towards new ground,” then ‘Only Songbirds Have a Sweet Tooth’ which “embod[ies the colour and playfulness of the record as a whole,” as we described, “all manner of glitches and pops play[ing] across the background melody, offering a bittersweet tone which the dual vocals only further in their searching, reflecting style.” With release imminent via Morr Music, múm have shared new single, ‘Kill the Light’, and the song is no less striking. One lighthearted and playful yet evocative too, typical of the sense of nature running through the record. As ever, múm craft with a gentle hand yet evoke things far larger and grander than everyday existence.

History of Silence will be released via Morr Music on 15th September. Pre-order it now from the múm Bandcamp page.

New Balance – Lemon Slice

Originating back in 2017, New Balance was conceived as the solo project of Jeremy Leasure, a space in which to experiment and improvise with help from a rotating band of collaborators. One which appeared to offer a swan song back in 2022 with second album More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid, as Leasure came to feel the style had reached its apex and thus run its course. However, rather than putting New Balance to rest, Leasure instead evolved the project into something different, the line-up now solidified as a full band with the permanent addition of Jacob Maag, Emily Monnig, Dawson Timpany and Andy Campbell. A full-length is planned for 2026 with Anxiety Blanket Records to fully establish this new era, but for now double single Lemon Slice / Pocket Change gives an indication of what to expect. ‘Lemon Slice’ is perhaps the best introduction, its easygoing sound masking lyrics that focus on everyday disasters, what Leasure refers to in the chorus as “these little devastations.”

Lemon Slice / Pocket Change is out now via Anxiety Blanket Records.

Sweet Nobody – Revenge

Hailing from Long Beach, California, Sweet Revenge are an indie pop quartet whose work embraces the twin joys of melody and noise, utilising both pop and garage rock aesthetics to write songs for the meek and modest among us. Out via Repeating Cloud, latest single ‘Revenge’ shows both the fun and bite of this style, using sunny momentum as a source of energy to confront the phonies and their convoluted ways of living. “It’s hard to feel like you’re the only one searching for the genuine among the accusing masses,” as the band explain. “The hardest thing to face in conflict is knowing that someone is lying and not knowing who it is. This song is for those without an angle. It’s for those who love the straightforward.”

Pick up your pen
Accusations fly again
It’s all pretend
Even your friends
You ride the high
Kill anyone who asks you why
You try to cry
But you’re dead inside

Spirited Followers – Awakened

Cardiff‘s Spirited Followers have steadily built an audience in recent times, practising a singular blend of experimental folk and post-rock which reaches around the globe for influence. The resulting sound invokes the act’s title in its impassioned, enveloping style. With members hailing from Cyprus, India and Wales, Ireland, and England, the diversity of inspiration is perhaps unsurprising, though the work of Spirited Followers pushes beyond those backgrounds too. You’ll hear elements of Appalachian mountain music in the stark guitar, as well as a Greek flavour among several others. Now the band have released their debut single ‘Awakened’ via Roccoco Sŵn, and the track is the ideal calling card. One typical of the project’s sense of detail and scale, ebbing and flowing across its length yet, led by Avaneesh Bavadekar’s striking vocals, always building towards something higher, drawing the audience into its evocative, mesmerised state.

Wide Orbit – He’s A Wizard

Described by label 22Twenty as “a Midwest cough drop for the sore soul,” Chicago’s Wide Orbit are a DIY band in the best sense. A group of college-town buds recording in their cramped room with equal parts heart and playfulness. Suitably titled debut album Introducing… Wide Orbit has just been released, a calling card for the project and its emotive, mischievous spirit, as highlighted by single ‘He’s a Wizard’. The country-inflected indie rock number pairs irreverent energy with almost deadpan vocals, telling the tale of a teenage rogue and their attempts to get the better of their parents (“In May or April of 2006 / my mom bought me a brand new pair of kicks,” as one verse goes. “And I ran every which way even far away from them / And they’d come get me in the Honda Odyssey”). But by the back half of the track, the droll humour ramps up into something different, embracing the sing-a-long energy of a barroom jam.

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After lead single ‘Mild at Heart’, a song which “shifts and drifts across its length,” as we put it, “a controlled, ever-curious track that shows the power of understatement while also reaching towards new ground,” múm are back with brand new track ‘Only Songbirds Have a Sweet Tooth’. The song “is something that sounds like you would think it would” the press release describes, embodying the colour and playfulness of the record as a whole. All manner of glitches and pops play across the background melody, offering a bittersweet tone which the dual vocals only further in their searching, reflecting style.

History of Silence will be released via Morr Music on 15th September. Pre-order it now from the múm Bandcamp page.

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Back in May we introduced Part Of The Problem, Baby, the new full-length from Fortitude Valley coming this August on Specialist Subject Records, with single ‘Sunshine State‘. “A track which finds [lead Laura] Kovac addressing her younger self,” we described, “delving into the person she was before and during her move from Brisbane to the UK, and how the competing desires for home and escape never really go away.” With the album’s release edging closer, Fortitude Valley are back with new track ‘Video (Right There With You)’. “The song is about trying to get inside the head of someone you love, and how hard it can be surviving together in what feels like an increasingly hostile and scary world,” Kovic explains. “It also plays into the central theme of the album, which is about feeling distant from people you care about, both literally and figuratively.”

Watch the video directed by Stuart Laws below, shot as the band performed at the Machynlleth Comedy Fest and starring comedian Celya AB.

Part Of The Problem, Baby is out 1st August on Specialist Subject Records and you can pre-order it now from the Fortitude Valley Bandcamp page.

 French for Rabbits – Gold and Blue

Ahead of the Matariki holiday and an upcoming winter tour around Aotearoa, Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington-based outfit French for Rabbits have returned with brand new standalone single, ‘Gold and Blue’. Written by lead Brooke Singer in a prolific period before the birth of her son, the track meditates on the future and the mysterious ways in which it realises itself, be it through chance, fate or an intuitive reaching forward. The song comes complete with a video by director Martin Sagadin and cinematographer Bill Bycroft. “For the video, we wanted to throw the listener through time and space,” Singer explains, “feel a gasp for breath as they tumble them through the present and past to moments of change, connection, and fluctuation.”

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

Glenn Echo – Give + Take

The project of Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist Matt Gaydar, Glenn Echo is an outlet for patient and introspective folk music. Gaydar has just released a new Glenn Echo EP, No Believer, a collection of five songs recorded with help from Will Stratton that showcase this style perfectly. Second track ‘Give + Take is perhaps the standout, opening with the warm country croon of guitar before settling into a slow, contemplative momentum. “Been driving away, over the county line,” Gaydar sings in the opening line which immediately captures the song’s sense of night-time hush, “past the firehouse, all through the night, blind driving, silent.”

Jess Kerber – Tropical Storm

We’ve written about a number of singles from Jess Kerber‘s debut album From Way Down Here in recent months, describing how the Nashville-based songwriter melds traditional folk and contemporary electronic sensibilities to bring her emotive style to life. ‘Next to You’ rose from a dreamy haze to clarity, while ‘Never Again’ introduced the themes of loss and belonging so central to the record. With the album now out via Felte Records, Kerber has released latest single ‘Tropical Storm’. Another poignant, wistful slice of nostalgic longing, rooted in the specific imagery of memories as imprinted on the young mind. Watch the video edited by Kerber herself below:

From Way Down Here is out now via Felte Records and available from the Jess Kerber Bandcamp page.

Jeffrey Martin – Edge of Lost

With albums like One Go Around and Thank God We Left The Garden, Portland, Oregon songwriter Jeffrey Martin has developed an evocative brand of folk concerned with both the personal and the societal, centring the classic Americana style within the unique circumstances of the present (“The climate is collapsing, diseases rising, robots striving to take over the globe, and still there’s not enough money for the people who actually need it,” as we wrote of the latter album, “still the future holds a distant promise, the past haunts with its glory and regret”). Out via Fluff and Gravy Records, new single ‘Edge of Lost’ is every bit as heartfelt and urgent. Inspired by Davey Schaupp’s No Place to Grow Old, a documentary interviewing people experiencing homelessness or the threat of it across Portland, the song explores the strange contradictions of such a life. Where existence is at once heavier than it should be yet also translucently thin, the eyes of society sliding past as you though barely exist at all. “I tried to capture the chasm between the housed and unhoused,” Martin explains, “and how the psychological burden of that divide is a very difficult thing to hold as people try to navigate their way out of homelessness.”

Jillian Lake – Tactile

“There’s a city in my head,” sings Jillian Lake on latest single ‘Tactile’, a line repeated across the track in what might be warning or explanation. Based in Vancouver, the singer-songwriter has made a name with intimate, personal folk songs, though has increasingly pushed her sound into richer, more urgent territory without sacrificing any of the heartfelt charm. The new single is a lesson in how effective such a combination can be. Indeed, the refrain can be held as a key to the song’s spirit, presenting an exploration of grief in all of its complexity, an emotional landscape as bustling, nuanced and contradictory as any urban space. ‘Tactile’ is about how grief is this invisible and intangible thing that is so hard to navigate,” Lake explains. “A scraped knee, a black eye, a broken arm—is so much easier to make sense of than something you can’t pinpoint. Something you can’t bandage or brace.”

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

Jouska – Flower Moon

Jouska is the recording project of  Norwegian songwriter and producer Marit Othilie Thorvik. Originally a duo, the project started out making pop-orientated electronic music, but now that it’s Thorvik alone, the atmosphere has evolved into something more intimate and introspective. New single ‘Flower Moon’, Jouska’s first since 2023 record Suddenly My Mind Is Blank, leans into dream pop dimension of the project to invoke a sense of detachment, the vocals drifting through a wash of ethereal tones as though untethered yet longing for solid ground. “I was anxious,” as Thorvik explains, “distracted by things at home. Physically in one place, emotionally somewhere else, missing out on both.”

múm – Mild At Heart

Icelandic experimental royalty múm have established themselves as one of the most interesting and atmospheric projects since their inception in the nineties, each of the six previous albums building upon the last while always exploring new territory. Their first full-length in over ten years, History of Silence finds the band as ambitious as ever. An album “recorded, deconstructed, put back together again, refined and finished over the course of two years,” the release blends electronic and analogue sounds to explore ideas of distance in our fast-changing world, the songs rejecting linear progress to instead embrace tangents and digressions. Take the way lead single ‘Mild at Heart’ shifts and drifts across its length, a controlled, ever-curious track that shows the power of understatement while also reaching towards new ground.

Watch the video filmed & edited by Sigurlaug Gísladóttir below:

History of Silence will be released via Morr Music on 15th September. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

The Noisy – Twos

Back in 2024 Philly dream pop outfit The Noisy released The Secret Ingredient is More Meat, an album written for and funded by the queer community which served as a celebration of their kinship, performance, joyous excesses and plurity. Now The Noisy are preparing to release a deluxe version of the record via Audio Antihero, appropriately titled The Secret Ingredient is Even More Meat, offering reimagined versions of the songs. Single ‘Twos’ and its gloriously cinematic video by Sam Cush indicates the new direction they take. “I wrote this song like a pop song but wanted the production to bend towards Mannequin Pussy with sludgy guitars and twinkly keys,” frontperson Sara Mae Henke explains. “The music video literalizes the too much-ness of the story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Grey Gardens meets two dates to the prom.”

‘Twos’ is out now via Audio Antihero and available from Bandcamp.

Tyler Bradley Walker – Because of the Many

We introduced The Sun The Moon The Earth and Me, the debut solo album from Tyler Bradley Walker, back in May, describing how the artist best known as one half of electronic rock duo Gone to Color was every bit as ambitious and adventurous in his solo work. ” Single ‘Moon Broke Quiet’ offered “a spacious, evocative soundscape which seems to sit at an angle to reality,” we wrote, “everything a little stark and surreal and strange […] occup[ying] that nocturnal liminal space between waking life and dreams.” With the album now out, TBW has shared opening track ‘Because of the Many’ as a new single, an experimental pop protest song that takes aim at modern day USA. The track’s idiosyncrasy and slow-burn intensity is intensified with a video every bit as odd.

Out gunned, not done
The fucking light is green
No one eats their eggs that way
Wise man funny man
Write your own story
Very large worlds untouched untouched

Watch the video directed by Andrew Petersson and produced By Carson Cox (Mod Visual) below:

The Sun The Moon The Earth and Me is out now and available to purchase from the Tyler Bradley Walker Bandcamp page.

Will Orchard – Something’s Gotta Go

If you’ve been reading VSF over the last few months, you may know that Nashville-via-New England songwriter Will Orchard has a new record, Behind the Shadow Glass, coming out later this year. The initial two singles ‘Down’ and ‘Nothing Fog’ gave a pretty good idea of what to expect, and now we have a third cut to further whet appetites. Titled ‘Something’s Gotta Go’, the song finds Orchard with his sleeves rolled up as he digs through the dirt. Crunchy Americana meets Neil Young folk rock which sees him picks through internal knots and tangles that have been tripping him up over the years. “[The song] is a cathartic release, and an acknowledgement of self-inflicted pain.” Orchard describes. “It’s about getting into the pattern of never being satisfied with yourself. Calling the song finished was somewhat of a challenge because of how raw and in some ways, non-poetic it felt. But that’s the spirit of the song, just putting it all out there and letting go of your will to try so hard.”

Wombo – Neon Bog

“Feeling every inch the product of a band nearing ten years together, [Danger in Fives] finds the Wombo sound realised in its purest form,” we wrote of the Louisville trio’s new album coming later this summer on Fire Talk Records, “combining the experimentation and risk-taking which marked their earlier releases with the growing confidence so evident on Fairy Rust. That is, the sound of project which has come to understand its spirit and ambitions and is now committing to them with total conviction.” Latest single ‘Neon Bog’ shows just how deep such conviction runs, the band embracing happenstance and happy accidents during the recording process to create something as atmospheric as it is idiosyncratic.

The song comes complete with a video directed by Cameron Lowe along with assistant director Scotty “Sleepy” Anderson. The film leans further into the haunting tones of the song, using practical effects a la Michel Gondry. “I’ve been watching a lot of the TV show Ghost Adventures and have been somewhat haunted by the implications of the paranormal,” as Lowe explains. “I thought the video was a good outlet for expressing that in an abstract way.”

Danger in Fives is out on the 8th August via Fire Talk and you can pre-order it now from the Wombo Bandcamp page.

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Ah, 2002. Who could forget the International Year of Ecotourism, Mountains, and the Outback (in Australia)? If that wasn’t enough, the queen celebrated her golden jubilee, the king came back with a bang to win the World Cup, and Hollywood decided it would release (almost) nothing but sequels. Of course, there was also a lot of great music, and here’s a selection of our favourites.

Tracklisting:

1) Broken Social Scene – Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl
2) Say Hi To Your Mom – Kill the Cat
3) The Decemberists – July, July!
4) Spoon – The Way We Get By
5) The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1
6) The Mountain Goats – The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton
7) The Libertines – Time For Heroes
8) Mclusky – To Hell With Good Intentions
9) Pavement – Baptiss Blacktick
10) Sleater-Kinney – One Beat
11) The Mountain Goats – No Children
12) Okkervil River – Westfall
13) Thee More Shallows – Where Are You Now?
14) Julie Doiron – All Their Broken Hearts
15) Múm – Green Grass of Tunnel
16) Iron & Wine – Faded From Winter
17) Carissa’s Wierd – So You Wanna Be A Superhero
18) Wilco – Radio Cure
19) Songs:Ohia – Didn’t It Rain
20) Sigur Ros – Untitled I

What did we miss from 2002? Let us know via the usual channels! Be sure to check out our posts on 2000 and 2001, and come back next month when we’ll be turning our attention to… 2003.

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Oh, and there’ll one a month from now on, which will give us plenty of time to have a think of a new idea before we catch up to present day.

The year 2000 was remarkable for lots of reasons. We got to be the first people to see a new millennium in, well, a millennium, Putin took over within the Kremlin, Bush Jnr. all but made it into the Oval Office, films such as Gladiator, O Brother Where Art Thou? and the indomitable Chicken Run thrilled the public, and, most importantly, Roberto Di Matteo won the cup (again). There were also some pretty notable musical releases, and we’ve cherry-picked some of our favourites (admittedly in retrospect) for your listening pleasure below:

Tracklisting:

1) Shellac – Prayer to God
2) The New Pornographers – Letter From an Occupant
3) Pedro the Lion – Simple Economics
4) Johnny Cash – I See A Darkness
5) Bratmobile – It’s Common But We Don’t Talk About It
6) Elliott Smith – Son of Sam
7) Cat Power – Satisfaction
8) Sleater Kinney – You’re No Rock ‘n Roll Fun
9) Lifter Puller – Nice Nice
10) At The Drive In – One Armed Scissor
11) Dillinger Four – Who Didn’t Kill Bambi?
12) Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Yr. Skinny Fists, Like Antennas to Heaven…
13) Yo La Tengo – Everyday
14) Múm – Asleep On a Train
15) Sigur Ros – Staralfur
16) The Weakerthans – Left & Leaving
17) Damien Jurado – Johnny Go Riding
18) Songs:Ohia – The Ocean’s Nerves
19) Ryan Adams – Come Pick Me Up
20) Smog – Permanent Smile

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P.S. Also check out Úlfur’s previous project Klive.

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