Lily of the Valley, the timely new album from 22° Halo, might centre on something intensely personal and difficult, but it’s more widely relevant too as it actively works to fight off despair and let light in on an otherwise dark time. As we described when writing of previous single ‘Virtual You’, the sound is “wistful, yes, and not immune from a certain sense of longing, but always with an overarching gratitude that such times happened at all.” With the album now out via Tiny Library Records, Will Kennedy has unveiled final single, ‘Cobwebs’. A fittingly introspective track which tracks the early days of the diagnosis which sits at the heart of the album, looking to preserve ordinary life while wrestling with an all-encompassing uncertainty.

I’m trying to believe that you’re good
I’m trying to believe that I’m good
I’m trying to believe that we’re good
I’m trying to believe

Clara Mann – Stadiums

UK singer-songwriter Clara Mann has announced her debut album, Rift, the follow up to 2021 EP Consolations (Sad Club Records). A culmination of her young career so far, label The state51 Conspiracy call the record “a tangible expression of Clara’s entire world—a snow globe raised in her palms for the world to see, in all its layers and complexities, containing all her love, relationships, memories, and experiences.” Mann describes her music as “almost-folk”, and the album’s two lead singles introduce this perfectly. Finely wrought and patient, minimal percussion lapping at the edges of the impressive vocals. ‘Stadiums’ is perhaps the standout, precise and emotive in equal measure, swaying around a still and poised centre.

Decant – Rest

Bay Area trio Decant are this month releasing two singles, both in preview of an upcoming EP set for release early next year and to celebrate the fact the tracks appear in the film credits for the movie Rust. The first single ‘Rest’ introduces the band’s evocative style, something folky that splits the difference between shadow and warmth. The result is at once poignant and moody, aching with a nocturnal longing yet holding on to a sense of light.

German Error Message – Lilt

Two decades since the project’s conception, the latest release from Paul Kintzing’s German Error Message is a self-titled collection of songs written and recorded since 2020. First released digitally earlier this year, the album is now getting a cassette release from Lily Tapes & Discs as part of their Fall ’24 batch. It’s both reassuringly familiar and somehow fresh, the warm and hushed lo-fi songs reaching out toward a newfound sense of brightness. As Lily Tapes put it: “Where previous albums may have built insular and hermetic worlds with their hushed delivery, German Error Message sprawls outwards, unfolding as a series of nested home-recording experiments disguised as folk songs.” Check out ‘Lilt’ as a taster.

Hamburger – Frankenstein

Bristol six-piece Hamburger are gearing up for the release of their new EP Beat Back the Ghouls via Specialist Subject Records later this month, and latest single ‘Frankenstein’ shows how the collection both builds upon their previous work and pushes the sound in new directions. Where debut EP Teenage Terrified offered equal parts rawness and invention, Hamburger use the new release to show off a more sophisticated, layered sound without sacrificing any of the personality that fans have come to love. ‘Frankenstein’ is the ideal introduction. A richly wistful track which pines for summers past with equal parts soaring energy and enveloping fuzz.

Lone Striker – Dunno

You might know Tom Brown as part of bands like Rural France and Teenage Tom Petties, but new project Lone Striker moves away from the fuzzy jangle of those projects towards something more akin to Americana, albeit one with an off-kilter wobble. With a self-titled album coming next year Repeating Cloud, Safe Suburban Home and Hidden Bay Records, Brown has shared the title track to introduce the project. Something of a theme song for Lone Striker which doubles as an ode to those old school number nines.

Mumble Tide – The Rails

Consisting of singer Gina Leonard and composer Ryan Rogers, Mumble Tide is a Bristol-based project which has made a name with a maximalist amalgamation of synth pop and country. But new single ‘The Rails’, out now on Breakfast Records, sees the outfit pivot towards a different direction. With help from producer Stew Jackson (Massive Attack), Mumble Tide worked with newfound patience, crafting a slow and careful arrangement in which Leonard’s vocals can be heard in all their nuance and depth. The result draws heavily on sixties folk but elevates such sensibilities with an almost cinematic sheen, and the emotive, assured mood which results is central to the track’s themes. “’The Rails’ is like an angry kiss, or throwing stones at a mirror,” Leonard explains. “It’s about leaning into all the things that hold me back and in the process realising that they’re not as solid as they seem.”

Otala – Patchwork

With a sound that combines jazz, math and post-rock with ambient and spoken word, Nottingham’s Otala are not ones to be held to genre conventions. Having recently signed to London’s Lil Chop Record Shop, the band are preparing to release new EP Fire! To The River next February, and single ‘Patchwork’ gives listeners a chance to immerse themselves within the evocative and inventive Otala sound. A song that has been part of the outfit’s repertoire for a long while now reimagined as something fitting their current level. “’Patchwork’ is a song we have been performing since we began playing as Otala, but one that we’d originally planned to let fade into our history,” the band explain. “After seeing a live video from an old set we decided to put the time in to adapt and reanimate it into something we’re proud to release.”

Watch the video by Rory Allen below:

‘Patchwork’ is out now via Lil Chop Record Shop and available from Bandcamp. Fire! To The River will be released in February.

Ruby Gill – Some Kind Of Control

We’ve previously described the work of  South Africa-born, Melbourne/Naarm-based pianist, guitarist and singer-songwriter Ruby Gill as “setting its sights on the overbearing, patronising force of male entitlement,” and “aris[ing] from a very personal situation but end[ing] up speaking to a far wider experience.” New single ‘Some Kind of Control’ follows in the same vein to explore the strange blend of agency and restriction experienced during the lockdown period of the pandemic. “I had been grappling with what it meant to have all and no control over my time and body—all at once,” Gill explains:

In a big way, the world was in charge, but also in a day-to-day way, I had all the power: I could move freely through my kitchen and clothes and kindness however I wished—it was a new experience for me after feeling quite trapped in some difficult spaces and systems for a long time—“always babysitting other people’s arguments instead of my own” as the lyrics say. I feel like this song encompasses so much of what I’ve learnt and reclaimed in the past few years, and feels very reflective musically of my true, silly, powerful self and community.

Watch the video filmed, directed and edited by Bridgette Winten, with shoot and lighting assistance by Sophie Christopher below:

‘Some Kind of Control’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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Debut single ‘Spider’ serves as the perfect introduction to this aesthetic. Along with Cameron Worne (drums), Alice Robbins (cello), John Thompson (bass) and Henry Scott (electric guitar), Jiminil weaves lush, layered sound shot through with a folky rhythm, achieving an enviable balance between texture and forward motion. The resulting mood is hard to place, its undeniable warmth undercut by a certain ominousness, a contradiction which extends to the themes of the track.

“Spider is a song about discovering yourself in a social or political landscape that your ignorance or tolerance has been complicit in creating,” Jiminil explains, “and the disillusionment that follows which in turn finds you further alienated from where you find yourself. Sometimes your apathy can allow the cobwebs to take up all the corners, and through a blasé indifference the spiders can take over the house.”

But within the track’s perky motion lies a sense of hope too—that there are ways in which to acknowledge and confront these creatures, and in doing so reclaim spaces for those who chased out by the arachnid threat.

You take all the gold while the rambler’s in the garden
You won’t find them there hiding shy
Wear the jester crown while we bathe our heads in silver
But the blue gown is wearing another lie

You can run, run, you can run from me
You can run, you can run, you can run

You’re the spider
You’re the spider
You’re the spider
You’re the spider
In the right of my eye

Artwork by Faye Robinson, photography by Adrian Vitelleschi Cook

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‘Slasher’ isn’t as dark and creepy as the title suggests, in fact quite the opposite, the gauzy vocals sliding over gentle instrumentation that tumble and squeaks and generally sounds quite cheerful. The instrumental ‘Komorebi’ is chipper and gently wistful, like happy memories on a sunny evening, and ‘Golden Egg’ follows a similar vibe, a cyclical guitar line held in place by soft and rounded keys, the vocals rising above it all like cirrus clouds.

The closing track ‘Manitode’s Goblin Teeth’ is remarkable not just for its strange title but also its equally strange lyrics, opaque references to genes and Armageddon and “the green gel locker”. Despite all the weirdness, the track is mellow and leisurely paced with the atmosphere of a warm and pleasant dream.

“It’s scale
not time
that reveals
all life”

Container is soft and sad and wistful, but with a hint of something else, some magical force, a suggestion that there’s something else beyond all our human worries. I like to imagine it as the scene on the cover artwork, a shimmering golden cloud that comes out of the woods and wraps around us.

You can get Container now on limited edition CD, or a name your price download, via the Hawk Moon Records Bandcamp page, or from the Albosel Bandcamp page. If you want a CD then you need to hurry because they’re going fast.

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‘Education Pt. 1’ kicks things off as the band mean to go on, an almost immediate squall of noise shrouding a head-bobbing shoegaze track, before ‘Fantasy Football is Ruining My Life’ leans a little more to the pop punk side of things, albeit the shrieking guitars and faraway vocals are still present. ‘Goodspeed You Solid Eggs’ is a glimmering curtain of noise, while ‘Bury Me’ fuses post-punk with the expansive nature of post-rock.

‘Remedios’ begins with sedate piano before guitars start to slide around and the whole thing erupts in a wall of noise, and ‘The Fog’ has industrial undertones, with an ominously thumping drumbeat and searing crescendo. Former single ‘Aubrey’ brings together all of the ingredients Debris Slide have chosen to work with in perhaps their most accessible form, and to my ears the band are at their best when the pop of their shoegaze rounds of the edges of the noise, or rather the noise deranges their pop songs to just the right extent.

Fluff have pressed a limited run of 100 copies of Araido, so if you want you an LP then get one now via the Debris Slide Bandcamp page, or ask your local record shop to order you a copy.

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