This month sees 37735i6 return with a brand new single, ‘MARBLED BARK’. Continuing to probe at the boundary between ambient and folk, the song nurtures an ethereal yet intimate space into which it releases its poetic lyrics. A cryptic, secretive sphere outside of normal time. A dreamscape of words and images. “Marbled bark / gates of glittering / greet bones and lens,” opens the track. “Boughs of fate / hang ornament suns / high in the sky!” But as the track unfolds, this other region is revealed to be rooted not in the intangibility of dreams but rather nature’s own mysterious processes.

This is brought further into relief by the single’s b-side ‘blissed out’ version. A composition which stretches the original six minutes beyond half an hour, further delving into the slow functions of the natural world.

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Based in Omaha, Nebraska, 37735i6 works in the lineage of ambient folk practised by artists like Midwife and Grouper. Conjuring intangible soundscapes that nevertheless possess a palpable weight, and utilising this contradiction to evoke intricacies of mood and experience that might otherwise be difficult to describe. Taken from 2020’s stay forever EP, single ‘prairie madness revival’ uses layers of reverb and delay effects to encapsulate this style, inviting listeners into a liminal space between presence and absence, darkness and light.

Ailsa Tully – Salt Glaze

Ahead of a spring tour and slot at the upcoming Green Man festival, Welsh songwriter Ailsa Tully has returned with ‘Salt Glaze’, a brand new single on Dalliance Recordings. The song follows on from Holy Isle, an EP which developed on the classic singer-songwriter style with an array of additional instruments, and channels this invention into conjuring the warm stillness of a familiar home. A sensation Tully experienced when staying in the house of her late grandmother during a period of lockdown. “My Grandma passed away a few years ago and the house remained unchanged, it was like a museum of salt glaze ceramics and abstract art pieces which began to absorb into my creativity,” Tully explains. ‘Salt Glaze’ uses the image to explores ideas of preservation and acceptance in the face of change. Check out the video directed and edited by Finlay O’Hara:

‘Salt Glaze’ is out now via Dalliance Recordings and you can get it from the Ailsa Tully Bandcamp page.

Amelia Jackie – All Around Town

For most of her life, Amelia Jackie has moved from place to place. Raised as one of four sisters by a single mother, hers was a childhood of motion and flux. Now based in New York, Amelia Jackie is preparing the release of her debut album, You Can’t Fuck the Internet, a record that promises to “beckon us into the sensual environments that spawned her, where the smell of sweet peaches meets the fumes of burnt diesel.”

In preparation, Jackie has unveiled the lead single, ‘All Around Town’, which offers a glimpse at her uniquely humid, country-tinged sound (what Colin Atrophy Hagendorf described for She Shreds as “Southern Gothic, Bastard Out of Carolina, lesbian Americana”). It’s a song about a passionate devotion, the object of which takes on near-supernatural power as they blaze a trail through towns and hearts.

you were born in the middle of a hot night in july
and your momma couldn’t tell if you were laughing or crying
a storm blew in right off the gulf
so you never did learn when enough was enough

Bri Barte – High Noon

Hex Signs, the new record from Ann Arbor-based songwriter Bri Barte, is an album about loss. Saturated with physical imagery and sensations, the songs shift from sluggish crawls to racing energy with little warning, capturing both the sharp sting and diffuse drudgery of life in the aftermath. Take ‘High Noon’, its picture of ruin heightened by odours, textures, heat and light. Barte wanders amid dead squirrels and flies and beating sun, pining for relief.

I always liked a punishing summer
The kind that makes you pray for rain
But these days I’d rather have you
I get so lonely out here at high noon

Without you

Catcher – Fallen Stones

Hailing from Brooklyn, Catcher are the latest post-punk brooders to capture widespread attention. Taking the shadowy volatility of Bambara and adding a cathartic forward motion, the six-piece walk the fine line between violence and beauty, and the delivery of vocalist Austin Eichler is suitably unpredictable amid the noise. Single ‘Fallen Stones’ captures the mood perfectly, Eichler emerging from the dense foreboding soundscape with the conviction of some half-drunk preacher.

ce qui nous traverse – Point sur la carte

Montreal-based ensemble ce qui nous traverse seek “to capture the intensive vibrations that compose the surrounding ambiances,” something their most recent record Le sacre de Sainte-Barbe tackles with both ambition and invention. Released on Cuchabata Records, the album is something of a study on a specific place, the outfit utilising their collective experimentation to examine the influence of sound on an old house in a North American village. Single ‘Point sur la carte’ is both an introduction to this strange, nocturnal world and proof that ce qui nous traverse beyond the slow haunting tones you might expect. Check out the video by Guillaume Vallée and Larissa Corriveau below:

Le sacre de Sainte-Barbe is out via Cuchabata Records and available via Bandcamp.

Cola – So Excited

Rising from the ashes of Ought, Cola is the new project of Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy, along with The Weather Station drummer Evan Cartwright. Ahead of their debut album Deep in View, coming this May on Fire Talk Records, they have unveiled new single, ‘So Excited’. Powered by a sleek, taut groove, the track plays like Ought stripped of its excesses, polished down to something tactile and gleaming yet capable of a kind of perpetual motion.

And if you are so excited
Then you are so invited
To take this stone and right it
If you are so excited

Have a gander at the video by Camille Anais Semprez, Cedar Teionietathe Jocks and Jacob Summers below:

Deep in View is out on the 20th May via Fire Talk Records and you can pre-order it now.

FES – Clarinet

Peterborough/Leeds-based trio FES work at the intersection of a variety of genres, drawing on pop punk, math rock and alternative styles to conjure a sound full of invention and weight. Ahead of debut record With Regards From Home, out via Small Pond this spring, they have unveiled new single ‘Clarinet’ to whet your appetite. Check out the video by Sam J. Lance below:

With Regards From Home is out on the 29th April via Small Pond and you can pre-order it now.

Nuevos Mundos – Mis Plantas

Nuevos Mundos are am indie rock band from Madrid, consisting of John Galilea (guitar, keyboard and vocals), Diego Cendra (guitar and vocals), Jaeson Peña (bass) and Miguel A. Sánchez (drums). They have just released their debut EP, Mis Plantas, a collection of three songs that display their talents. From energetic opener ‘Domingos en Casa’, a roaring throwback to the mid 00s indie rock golden age, to a hazily reflective title track that feels smothered with regret, there really is something for everyone.

Ocie Elliott – With the Lights Down

Victoria, B.C. duo Ocie Elliott caught our attention with their stripped back covers of songs from the likes of John Prine, Big Thief and Gillian Welch, and latest single ‘With the Lights Down’ shows their original material possesses all the same tender and intimate tones. Written after a summer solstice birthday party on the beach, the song evokes a sense of quiet gladness. A moment to remember the things you appreciate while they are still close at hand.

Find out more on the Ocie Elliott website, and check out the covers on their Youtube page.

Wildlife Freeway – Flea

“Let this one thing be known,” says Sunny Atema, AKA Wildlife Freeway. “I don’t play music. I use music.” Debut album Sunny, out via Alex Ebert’s Community Music, was created under this sentiment. An album recorded in the aftermath of the loss of her beloved dog when the world felt distant and sad. A tool to reconnect with life. “A wildlife freeway is a bridge for animals to safely cross over busy roads” Atema says of the project and album. “The name also speaks of wildness and life on the road. The actual road, putting in the miles, brings us eye to eye, connecting without a screen between.” Check out lead single ‘Flea’ below:

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‘Diamonds’ is perfectly titled and serves as an excellent introduction to the new See Through Dresses aesthetic. It’s a big glittering thing, as dreamily atmospheric as it is wide and spacious, 80s synth pop meets morbid post punk, all cast in a wide-screen twenty-first century clarity. What’s still the same is the dynamic between the two primary songwriters and vocalists—Sara Bertuldo and Mathew Carroll—who take turns at spearheading songs across the record.

Despite being heartsick and hopeless, ‘Radiant Boy’ is full of fuzzy pep, the disbelief of death and its permanence layered behind a the radiant rhythm, while ‘Pretty Police’ sees Bertuldo take over vocal duties. The track is rich with syrupy dreaminess but shot through with an undercurrent of shadowy unease. “I always knew you would return one day with teeth,” Bertuldo sings with disquiet, making it increasingly clear that this is not the innocent nostalgia of poppy shoegaze. “To tear out of me the secrets I can’t keep.”

‘Herbivore’ feels slightly harder at the edges, with hints of the complex indie rock of End of Days, while ‘Violet’ returns to the more familiar synth pop sound, a big warm nostalgic song that retains a sense of positivity despite the lyrics, Caroll delivering his lines with a sense of directness and sincerity. ‘Shelley’ returns to crystalline synths and heavy, humid air, a song that recalls the emotive rock of Gleemer or heady bedroom pop of the recent See You At Home EP in its thick and smoky emotion. Again, the track acknowledges pain and darkness while championing the effort of holding on to hope.

‘Lucy’s Arm’ is a chance for See Through Dresses to rock out, giving bassist Alex Kirts and drummer Nate Van Fleet a real chance to shine, although it maintains the atmosphere that’s been crafted up to this point. The euphoric chorus punctures the gauzy MBV shoegaze vibe, though again the lyrics are anchored to something far darker, the imagery ominous and loaded:

“You wear that black dress well
Take it off on Tuesday morning
I used to watch that dark horse run
through the veins in Lucy’s arm”

The title track is far more introspective, the vocals barely more than a whisper to form what seems a sparse and vivid epilogue, that is until around the 2:30 mark, when everything explodes in a cacophony of wailing guitar and pounded drums. Just like the album it caps off, the song is caught between anger and fierce love, as though protecting those you care about and a desire to avenge their pain are two competing emotions, neither quite winning out. As such, Horse of the Other World is both tender and furious—the themes of abuse and addiction peeking out from behind the haze, See Through Dresses meeting their eye and staring right back, unmoving.

You can get Horse of the Other World now from Tiny Engines and the See Through Dresses Bandcamp page.

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As is the case with this type of music, good writing is the key behind the success. A lot of music focuses on the sharp and immediate aspects of love, the moment you fall in or out of it, leading to the use of many tired clichés and making the whole thing seem somehow forced or false. Holmquist addresses many different times and situations across a relationship and manages to keep things feeling honest and realistic. For example in the title track ‘Carson City’, rather than delving into the stereotypical ‘I can’t live without him/her etc. etc.’ he writes from the point of view of a couple that are obviously not in the immediate and fantastical ideal of true love. They have real problems of children and money. They are just trying to get by with as little pain as possible, trying to find some sort of fulfillment. Throught the album this is one of the things that hit me the most – the lack of the overblown and the trite. There are no grandiloquent accounts of fairytale affairs, this is based in the real world. That isn’t to say that Holmquist’s characters lack warmth or emotion, they are steeped in it. Instead they appear more rounded, more real. They are lonely. They miss their wife and kids. They struggle with addictions and demons and pine for the past with intense regret.

I have been reading lots of Raymond Carver’s short stories recently and listening to Carson City I drew a lot of comparisons. Both contain people just trying to get by but invariably finding themselves fucked up. Both have that sense of melancholic nostalgia for small towns and the people that inhabit them; people away from the superficial trappings of technology and modern life. This video, from HearNebraska, is a good watch to further your understanding of what Holmquist is trying to achieve. I come back to it again but I feel it perfectly sums up the sound: this is honest music. Unlike some folk and americana bands around now (not naming any names), you get the impression that his family and friends are living in the world he is singing about.

In my opinion Holmquist is achieving big things, and, perhaps just as importantly, he is doing it the right way.

Carson City is set to be released on June 26th and is available for pre-order here.

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