“There’s something of Kraftwerk in the sound, a smidge of Suicide and no small amount of Lou Reed, though the blend of digital and organic tones is clearly the product of a singular imagination.” That’s how we described the work of Turin-born, Toronto-based ‘poetic jazz rock’ songwriter Fortunato Durutti Marinetti back in 2023, writing about the album Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean. Now FDM is returning with new album Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter, what label Quindi Records describe as “his most sweeping, absurd, and emotionally acute statement to date,” and lead single ‘Full of Fire’ hints at the maximalist style at its heart. A song which takes inspiration from iconoclasts like Annette Peacock, Rickie Lee Jones, Donald Byrd, Brigitte Fontaine and Fabrizio De André to paint love as something equal parts fond and fatal.

Green Gardens – Stroom

Leeds ‘feudal indie rock’ outfit Green Gardens have been sharing new material in recent weeks, with singles ‘Year of Love’ (which saw the band, as we wrote, “swapping out some of the grand scale in favour of increased intimacy”) and ‘Ghost of a Tree’ (a song “embodying the spirit of a band who make no distinction between the intimate and the sublime,” as we put it, “positioning an individual’s loves and losses within an almost geolgical span of time”) introducing a slightly new direction for the outfit. The releases have been building up to the announcement of Thistlesifting, a brand new full-length coming later this simmer via Tiny Library Records, and now Green Gardens have unveiled latest single ‘Stroom’ to further whet appetites.

Watch the video made by Joel Johnston and Chris Aitchison below:

Thistlesifting will be released via Tiny Library Records on the 25th August and you can pre-order it now.

Greg Freeman – Curtain

Later this summer, Burlington, Vermont songwriter Greg Freeman is returning with Burnover, a brand new full-length via Transgressive Records and Canvasback Music. It’s a record which pairs laidback country twang with indie rock momentum, furthering the singular style Freeman introduced back in 2022 with previous LP I Look Out. New single ‘Curtain’ captures the mix of playful lyricism and charged energy which makes up the release, Sam Atallah’s piano driving proceedings but Freeman’s vocals stealing the stage. Assured and surprising verbose, like a stream of consciousness unfurling with equal parts conversational immediacy and poetic grace.

My thoughts die out slowly on the blood swept plains where I see you every night
And to the lonely hours, it’s like burning the furniture to keep the house bright at night

The night is getting late and the horns have all been blown
And the drummer’s looking cock-eyed on his rusty metal throne
And I’m somewhere in the distance and you’re somewhere at home

Watch the video directed by Carl Elsaesser below:

Burnover will be released on the 22nd August via Transgressive Records and Canvasback Music and you can pre-order it now.

John Also Bennett – Easter Daydream

His first album for Shelter Press since 2019 solo debut Erg Herbe, John Also Bennett returns this July with new full-length Ston Elaióna. The record—titled ‘in the olive grove’ in Greek—sees the US-born, Athens, Greece-based composer, flautist and multi-instrumentalist blur the lines between the ancient and the contemporary, the physical and metaphysical, with electroacoustic compositions every bit as precise and spacious as fans of JAB will have come to expect. Lead single ‘Easter Daydream’ welcomes the audience into the world of the record, a soundscape built from subtle bass flute and synth which allows the real world to bleed in. Namely the bells from a procession captured during Orthodox Holy Week down the road from Bennett’s apartment in Athens, sounds which have a strangely dualistic effect on the mood, both haunting the track and charging it with immediacy.

Michael Beach – Poison Dart

We’ve long followed the work of Naarm/Melbourne-based songwriter Michael Beach, with 2021 record Dream Violence winning a place among our favourite albums of the year. “Beach reaches into the grab bag of rock history and fashions what he finds into something timely and unique,” we wrote. “Imagine Neil Young meeting The Velvet Underground on a dark and hopeless night in our late-capitalist hellscape to muse on the meaninglessness of existence.” Such a description might have captured the record’s searing heart, though does a disservice to the overall tone of Beach’s work. Because while there is an undeniable darkness, it is often sublime in nature, and certainly anything but nihilistic in its intentions. A fact made clear by new record Big Black Plume, coming soon via Poison City and Goner Records, which works with perhaps the only form of optimism left.  “I was wrestling with the beauty and intensity of the natural world and coming to grips with the human destruction of it,” as Beach explains. “I have an overwhelming sense that humans will come and go, and the world we depend on will outlast us.” Listen to new single ‘Poison Dart’ now:

Watch the video below, directed by Alexandra Millen with cinematography from Claire Giuffre:

Big Black Plume will be released on the 25th July via Poison City and Goner Records and you can pre-order it now.

Omo Cloud – Ultimate Love

Later this month sees the release of Mausoleum, the debut album from Cole De La Isla’s Omo Cloud on Dusty Mars Records. The album sees the San Diego songwriter reckon with their past with the intention, as per the title, of burying it and moving on. The result, as shown by lead single ‘Ultimate Love’, is every inch as bittersweet as that might sound. Enduring the painful process of returning to old traumas in order to redefine the present and future. “I feel like I spent a lot of my teenhood being very angsty and existential and cynical in a lot of ways, but I don’t want that to be the takeaway of the record at all,” De La Isla explains. “I feel the takeaway is actually a very optimistic one. We’re all capable of growth and change, and it is a lot of work, but it is worth it. I want people to trust their gut. I want to help people connect with hard emotions—and I want people to be inspired.”

Mausoleum is out on the 27th June via Dusty Mars Records and available to pre-order now.

Pacing – Nothing! (I wanna do)

Led by Katie McTigue, Pacing has been catching our eye for a number of years with a sound at once fun, idiosyncratic and deceptively heartfelt. “[Pacing] follows in the playful, tongue-in-cheek tradition of the likes of Kimya Dawson,” as we put it back in 2023, “yet always nudges the ideas further to be more than mere twee humour or sardonic fun.” After a number of successful collaborations and a high profile tour with Cheekface, this summer sees McTigue return with PL*NET F*TNESS, a new album on Asian Man Records, and latest single ‘Nothing! (I wanna do)’ suggests Pacing is firing on all cylinders. Inspired by a brain-numbing commute along Highway 85, the song is described as “a classic upbeat depression banger” (“we are all entitled to one per album, and I’m using mine now,” as McTigue says), and embodies the mission which has long lurked beneath the surface of the project. Because, when you peel back the wry humour and off-the-wall personality, it becomes clear Pacing is asking how we are supposed to live beneath the weight of all that is asked of us. How might we find meaning in a banal world?

Watch a live video for the single below, with gig footage by Hali Tauxe and b-roll by errbody:

PL*NET F*TNESS is out on the 25th July via Asian Man Records.

R&D – Everything Becomes a Sign

We’ve long followed the work of Dan Knishkowy (Adeline Hotel) and Rebecca El-Saleh (Kitba) in their own respective projects, with the latest Adeline Hotel full-length Whodunnit making our list of favourites from 2024 and the Kitba’s exceptional self-titled record winning our praise in 2023 (“Proof that art can offer a picture of identity more nuanced than simple labels,” we wrote of the latter. “A deeper understanding reached via an embrace of confusion. Identity as an ongoing thing”). So it is most welcome news the pair have teamed up under the moniker R&D to create improvised, instrumental songs which further delve into the themes they have explored individually. Because while upcoming album I’ll Send You a Sign marks something of a departure from what we might expect from Knishkowy and El-Saleh in terms of style, its thematic concerns feel more like a continuation or deepening. Take the spare, probing single ‘Everything Becomes a Sign’, which mines patience and sensitivity for all of their exploratory potential.

Rival Consoles – Jupiter

We’ve featured a number of tracks from Rival Consoles‘ forthcoming album Landscape from Memory in recent weeks, with tracks like ‘Catherine‘ and ‘Known Shape‘ finding Ryan Lee West working at the intersection of the human and the digital, crafting soundscapes full of euphoria, melancholy and restless motion. With the release approaching via Erased Tapes, West has shared latest single ‘Jupiter’. A song which embodies the album’s spirit in its combination of repetition and variation, its intricate detail and overarching brightness. “At the heart of this piece is a call and response,” as he explains. “The main idea is changing but the response is always the same, this is connected to life and nature. I wanted the music to feel like materials, bending, distorting, shimmering, colourful shards of glass and metal. To me it feels like the sun touching objects with its warmth and power.”

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Back in July we wrote about  Fort Worth, TX songwriter Cameron Smith, describing how single ‘Under the Cover of Darkness’ drew on “the loaded depths of the southern gothic genre” to evoke “the heartsick wanderer which can be traced back through Molina and van Zandt, where the long night is illuminated only by the blood moon and low fuel light on the dash.” Recorded as part of a Café Solo Songwriters Live session, latest single ‘Shadows of the Moonlight’ follows a similar spirit. This time it takes inspiration from the story of Smith’s great-grandfather Sam Smith who served in WWI and worked as a cowboy before being killed while working as a lineman for the Texas Louisiana Power Company. “I’m not a cowboy but Sam was,” as Smith explains. “It’s a campfire song; a reflection on the mental, spiritual and physical distances a person can travel between night and day.”

You can grab the track now from the Cameron Smith Bandcamp page.

h. pruz – I Keep Changing

The third single from their forthcoming record No Glory, ‘I Keep Changing’ is the perfect introduction to the music of h. pruz, aka Queens-based songwriter Hannah Pruzinsky. It’s a rich and direct track that wanders further toward rock than previous h. pruz songs, giving weight to the very real emotional power that has always underpinned their music. Like much of the record, the song focuses on a pivotal moment, conjuring almost physical dimensions to inner turmoil and subsequent growth. “The song emerged a few weeks following a pretty life-altering break-up, Pruzinsky describes to Stereogum. “I’m trying to capture the feeling of the moment when you can feel something inside you giving way to a newer form, and how ugly yet unstoppable and freeing that ultimately felt.”

No Glory comes out on 29^th March via Mtn Laurel Recording Co. and is available to pre-order via the h. pruz Bandcamp page.

Habibi – On The Road

Brooklyn’s Habibi return later this spring with Dreamachine, their first new record in four years. Released via Kill Rock Stars, the album promises to be something of an evolution for the garage rock five-piece, drawing on everything from post punk and lo-fi experimentalism to vintage disco and the Middle Eastern psych influences that have always made Habibi stand out. And it’s not a case of style over substance either, the band utilizing these disparate elements to explore themes both physical and spiritual. “There’s always a desire for transcendence in our music,” says lead Rahill Jamalifard, “a desire to go beyond our limitations. Whether it’s spiritual or physical or emotional, it feels like this album really embodies that search for something more.” Check out lead single ‘On The Road’ for an early taste, a beguiling and deadpan track with infectious percussion and stabs of wiry guitar.

On the road again, on the road again
Driving north towards the great star of Bethlehem

Dreamachine will be released on 31st May via Kill Rock Stars and is available to pre-order via Bandcamp.

Hailaker – Gist

A collaboration between songwriters Ed Tullett (Lowsimmer) and Jemima Coulter, Hailaker put out two records pre-pandemic, with both their self-titled debut and follow-up Holding proving testaments to the bond between the artists. However, several years of isolation and social distancing, not to mention other creative endeavours in the interim, left the pair wondering whether the spark had extinguished. It was only when Coulter suggested they park any songwriting ambitions and instead just enjoy one another’s company again did the connection rekindle, and the resulting songs are as ambitious and inventive as anything Hailaker has released to date. Take new single ‘Gist’ with its newfound pop sensibilities, sounding like a new dawn fitting for the circumstances, and one suggestive of a bright future for the project once again.

‘Gist’ is out now via Believe.

Jackie West – Snow Amplified

Back in December, we described how Jackie West‘s ‘Tiny Flowers ii’ drew the audience in with a decidedly ambiguous tone, with a specific line from the song “complicat[ing] the second listen and every one thereafter, its gravity subverting the track’s structure and perspective from what the sound might originally suggest.” West has now announced her debut full-length, appropriately titled Close To The Mystery, to be released this May via Ruination Record Co., made in the hope of edging closer to the truth at the heart of any relationship. But with its oscillation between stark fingerpicked hush and chaotic, weighty momentum, new single ‘Snow Amplified’ suggests such mysteries might resist easy explanation, and instead only draw the audience deeper into the rich ambiguity of Jackie West’s work.

Kierst – Southern Star

“A reflection on longing and self-worth which owes as much to Grouper and Mazzy Star as it does contemporary bedroom pop, the intimate vocals and pressing rhythm lifted by an ethereal soundscape, resulting in a mood which transcends the immediate pain for heartbreak.” That’s how we described ‘Phone Call from Kierst‘s Thud EP on Sad Club Records. Following on from the success of the release, which among other things saw a track placed on Disney+ series Extraordinary, Kierst has returned with a brand new single, ‘Southern Star’. Just as emotive as anything on the previous record, the new single offers the kind of lush dreaminess only possible with patience and attention. “I wrote this a long time ago when I was really heartbroken, there’s no other way to put it,” Kierst explains. “But years have gone by and the song has gone through countless versions and been transformed by people I hold dear—and in that way, it means so much more to me now than ever before.”

‘Southern Star’ is out now via Sad Club Records and available from the usual places.

Luke De-Sciscio – Papa

Looking to capitalise on the creative breakthrough of recent full-length Heaven, an album which parked any sense of overworking in favour of “an intuitive flow which charges the songs with a sense of poetic authenticity,” prolific songwriter Luke De-Sciscio has already released new album, Papa. Described as “nine songs of delicate brevity,” the album takes stock of the ephemeral moments shared by a couple as they pass through the trials of young love towards parenthood, both as a way to preserve what has been and as a kind of ritual farewell. ‘Insights of a Heart’ is the perfect introduction to this tender, reflective collection, understated yet shot through by a frantic longing which belongs to the late night. ‘Blank Inside, Designed And Printed In The UK’ is no less keen in its observations, evoking the mysterious space between an end and a start with De-Scisco’s trademark reverence for human feeling.

Papa is out now and available from the Luke De-Sciscio Bandcamp page.

Mandy – High School Boyfriend

Best known as the lead singer of Chicago noise rockers Melkbelly, Miranda Winters has also quietly written her own music for over a decade. Despite some small releases over the years, she is now about to step into the limelight proper with the release of Lawn Girl, her debut “solo” full-length on Exploding in Sound Records, released under the moniker Mandy. With assistance from Linda Sherman (guitar), Lizz Smith (bass) and Wendy Zeldin (drums), Mandy make what Winters calls “dirty-bubblegum pop rock” that explores being a daughter, a mother and a woman in general. Lead single ‘High School Boyfriend’ is an exhilarating introduction, a crunchy rock song that packs anthemic noise and clear-eyed sincerity into its barely two minute runtime. Watch the video by  Liam Winters and Marty Schousboe below:

Lawn Girl will be released on 26th April via Exploding in Sound. Pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Pacing x Career Woman – Boyfriends

After the success of album Real poetry is always about plants and birds and trees and the animals and milk and honey breathing in the pink but real life is behind a screen, Pacing has teamed up with Melody Caudill, AKA Career Woman, for a new single on Lauren Records. ‘Boyfriends’ collides the trademark sensibilities of both artists, blending confessional emotion with quirky charm to offer something between wistful rumination and scream of frustration. But by the end of the joint chorus, the overring emotion is something affirming. “It feels very nostalgic to me,” McTigue explains, “like I can’t tell which parts are about being a kid and which parts are about being a grownup.”

We promised that we would live together in a tree
And watch the world end
But you got a boyfriend
I got a… really cool pen
But you got a boyfriend

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It’s fitting then that the latest of these partnerships sees Sun Kin team up with Pacing for a pair of singles, each supporting the other in a mutual lead/support type deal. McTigue takes the lead for ‘Annoying Email’, the third single from Pacing’s forthcoming full-length Real Poetry, which serves as a textbook example of the project’s style. Ironic yet also somehow entirely sincere, the song holds up the everyday in all of its surreal and often torturous truth. There’s a reason, after all, why sending emails is so simple in practice yet feels like pulling teeth. McTigue walks us into the heart of this sensation, constantly feeling on the verge of screaming or breaking into hysterics, yet always just managing to keep that polite, upbeat tone.

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New single ‘Live / Laugh / Love’ captures the mission perfectly. A song about learning to hold your tongue for fear of sounding stupid, or uncool, or too cool, or anti-social. About self-doubt and the impossibility of owning a house, and the way precariousness becomes plain boring once you are too old to dream any romance around it. And most importantly, about how we are trapped within this unbearable space with no way to communicate what we feel. Because unsatisfied with our money and attention and time, capitalism has come for everything else too. The song’s title offers a textbook example of the way in which human words and feelings are commodified and in turn reduced to mush. “How come people who throw stones / Always have the coolest homes?” McTigue asks before raising a shuddering possibility: “Maybe I’m the kind of person who buys pillows that say “Live. Laugh. Love.”

Live Laugh Love
I put the pillow over my face
Live Laugh Love
And I just scream into the lace
Don’t worry I’m just having fun
Hope I’m not bugging anyone

‘Live / Laugh / Love’ is out now and available from the Pacing Bandcamp page.

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This autumn, Pacing returns with their second full-length album, this time via Totally Real Records, and the choice of label proves strangely fitting. “I think the obvious theme of this record is ‘What is real?’ McTigue explains. “‘Real’ is a word people throw around a lot, like ‘real food’ or ‘that’s so real’. I like thinking about stuff like ‘what counts as real art?’ I don’t think of myself as a Real Musician because, well, I’m just obviously not one. I think of myself as more of a Person With Some Stuff to Say.”

“Real poetry is always about plants and birds and trees,” McTigue sings on lead single ‘Bite Me’, another definition of ‘real’ she goes on to challenge across the track. A song which contrasts the organic and digital planes of existence, blurring the line between the real and unreal while pointing to the latter’s insidious creep. “Real trees don’t grow in my yard but I’m moving from the East / To where the Apple stores are plenty and there’s a crack in my screen.”

But worse is the suggestion that we’re all on such a flight path, however metaphorically. McTigue’s tone finds the perfect balance of impishness, promise and melancholy as she slowly reveals our lack of say in the matter. For these days, time spent amid the birds and trees is a frivolous activity favoured by poets and malingerers. Real Life now exists only behind a screen.

‘Bite Me’ is out now and available from the Pacing Bandcamp page.

Photo by Hali Tauxe

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Combining the sensibilities of lo-fi rock and slow burn country rock, Vermont‘s A Box of Stars have made a name re-examining life’s small moments in search of their weight and meaning. Single ‘Jenny When the Blues’ is the perfect introduction for the uninitiated, a tender, near-whispered folk duet which blooms into life across its runtime, drawing the listener through a seemingly ordinary moment to reveal the depth beneath the surface.

‘Jenny When the Blues’ is out now. Find A Box of Stars in all the usual places.

Cooper Wolken – Hold Me Under

Back in March we premiered ‘So Down‘, the lead single from Cooper Wolken‘s new album Chapters on Earth Libraries. “The album sees Cooper Wolken apply such observations to his personal life,” as we explained, “mining the fine details to illuminate the fundamental truths at the core of his experiences, no matter how vulnerable this might make him.” The album has now been released, and latest single ‘Hold Me Under’ continues this introspective, unguarded mood. A song which combines shimmering textures with an urgent edge, Wolken again pacing out into the woods of his childhood and finding something sacred there.

I left those woods behind my home
The place where I first heard your song
Then I saw your face, unexpected place
If we meet again, if we meet again
If we meet you can

Hold me under holy water

Chapters is out now via Earth Libraries.

Graves – Cavin’ In

Last month we introduced Gary Owens: I Have Some Thoughts, the upcoming album by Graves on Perpetual Doom and Curly Cassettes, with single Little ‘Dumb Dogs’. The song highlighted how the album represents “a throwback to Nashville’s golden age, loaded with a sense of bittersweet nostalgia and a wry humour that brings new vigour to a timeless style.” Latest track ‘Cavin’ In’ continues the vibe, what the label describes as an “upbeat downer” which evokes the bygone simplicity of the previous age while offering a self-deprecating melancholy too, utilizing this style to explore age old themes of regret and mortality.

Olivia Reid – Central Park West

Following 2021 debut Earth Water, Olivia Reid is releasing a series of new songs this year, and latest ‘Central Park West’ highlights the careful arrangements and emotional depth which marks her work. Written after the passing of her aunt and uncle, the track is an effort to preserve specific memories of times shared, its mourning leavened by an overriding gratitude. Because though illness altered and ultimately ended the walks in Central Park Reid would share with her family, she makes a point of choosing to cherish what they shared rather than lament what is lost.

Paper Lady – Swan Song

The esoteric Allston, Massachusetts project Paper Lady has won our attention on several occasions in recent months, from the dense shoegaze spiritualism of ‘Five of Swords‘ to the excoriating romance-gone-bad ‘Starcross‘, the latter “burn[ing] with what could be spurned fury or frustrated embarrassment,” as we put it, “building nonetheless into with unerring intensity of an ancient curse.” Ahead of new EP Traveling Exploding Star, latest single ‘Swan Song’ sands down the sharpest edges of the previous tracks yet loses none of the intensity, building from smouldering beginnings into an all-out blaze, the sound’s sluggish melancholy transcended in a final moment of release.

Traveling Exploding Star is out now and available via streaming services.

Puppy Angst – TKO

Lead vocalist and guitarist Alyssa Milman (Past Life, Blushed), Puppy Angst is a Philly-based outfit which draws upon everything from dream and power pop to shoegaze to capture life’s contradictions. Hence the PA sound embraces raw energy and dreamy hazy, and Milman’s writing is happy to explore vulnerability and strength within the same song. Released via Fire Talk‘s digital singles imprint Open Tab, new single ‘TKO’ is an encapsulation of the sound, its momentum possessing a cathartic empowerment even as the vocals announce their fatalistic conclusions.

Maybe I’m a masochist
I’ll put you first if you insist
Baby I’m a pacifist
Don’t wanna fight so I let you win
I let you win

‘TKO’ is out now and available from the Puppy Angst Bandcamp page.

Rival Consoles – Coda

Back in October we wrote about Now Is, an album by London-based musician and producer Ryan Lee West’s Rival Consoles on Erased Tapes. A record which “sets out to explore the full spectrum of minimalism and the moods which can result,” as we explained, “from anxious isolation to playful curiosity and everything in between.” New single ‘Coda’ is equally ambitious in its reach, looking to portray the duality of the nocturnal environment through haunting quiet and pulsing energy. What results is a soundtrack for the spectrum of night, from the still darkness of an empty room to the house clubs glittering on across the city.

Wombo – Thread

We’ve covered Wombo a number of times in recent years, culminating in last year’s full-length Fairy Rust on Fire Talk Records. A released we described as “a collection of songs which explores the contemporary preoccupation with the unreal.” This month sees Wombo return with Slab, an EP which looks to harness the outfit’s instinctive creativity, favouring immediacy over perfection with stylistic freedom and scratch take guitar. Single ‘Thread’ hints at the result—a picture of a band in constant motion, always looking to challenge themselves with new directions while nevertheless growing increasingly assured upon the ground they’ve made their own. Watch the video directed by Wombo’s own Cameron Low below:

Slab is out now via Fire Talk Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Yvonne Hercules – Phoenix

Based in Cambridge, Yvonne Hercules is a singer-songwriter whose work draws on the rich lineages of folk, Blues and soul, tying them together with a contemporary twist. Last week she released Olive, a brand new EP on Trapped Animal Records, a collection of songs which “celebrate the strength of Black Women and the ability to rise up and overcome adversity” and fully captures her rich and varied style. Closing track ‘Phoenix’ is perhaps the standout, a soulful, quietly epic ode to Hercules’s mother and her resilience and compassion in the face of adversity.

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With new EP Learning To Love Again on the horizon via Nettwerk, Aisha Badru has unveiled new track ‘Lazy River’. A meditation on the process of healing and the various twists and bends which accompany it, and moreover learning to be kind to oneself while adrift on slack currents. The track’s essence is brought to life by hushed, almost whispered vocals, moving away from the style in which Badru has made her name to explore new sounds and moods. “It’s this freeing of myself and allowing myself to try things that people would not expect of me,” as Badru reveals. “I feel more comfortable not meeting those expectations.”

Time moves like a river, winding and slow
Holding on to you is helping me float
I drift in the breeze as your memory washes over me
I will let you go, eventually

Getting over you is like a lazy river ride
I’ve been taking my time

Watch the video directed by Laura-Lynn Petrick below:

Learning To Love Again is out on the 2nd June via Nettwerk.

Color TV – Planchette

Based in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Color TV is a project led Mark Teachout. Having been self-releasing music since 1993, Teachout teamed up with Animal Tapes for Witching a Well, a full-length released late last year. Opener and single ‘Planchette’ serves as the perfect introduction to the experimental, lo-fi sound. It slowly coalesces into life with a palpable assurance, channelling the likes of Guided By Voices, Sebadoh and Califone in its reflective and enveloping textures.

His His – People, Places, Changes

“A small daydream where one’s wishes are allowed to drift to the surface, and longing is permitted to express its true form.” That’s how we described ‘West Coast‘, the previous track from Toronto’s His His. New single ‘People, Places, Changes’ is an altogether more morose affair, confronting grief in all of its lingering influence. Written after the loss of a loved one, the song plays with a bittersweet warmth, both pining for what has now gone and determined to capture the fondness which persists all the same.

‘People, Places, Changes’ is out now.

Kalila Badali – Panacea

Based in Toronto, Kalila Badali is a singer-songwriter whose musical style combines witchy folk and moody art pop and helps her make sense of the world and its mysteries as a neurodivergent person. She is also a psychotherapist, running a private practice that works with neurodivergent people, LGBTQ2SIA+ people, and arts workers. This other avenue of her life informs her music, something that is sure to be apparent on her forthcoming EP, Panacea. The latest single and title track is a wonderful introduction to the record, an ethereal and melodic folk song that Badali wrote when helping a friend through mental illness. It’s a rare example of a song that explores such struggles from the perspective of a therapist, expressing a deep desire to help a loved one whilst trying (seemingly in vain) the dangers of growing too close in the process.

Unconsciously, I’ve attached myself to you.
Rhizomal, with roots instead of a body.

Noele Flowers – Wait for Me

Describing herself as “a relentlessly optimistic, anxiety-ridden, and friendship-obsessed songwriter,” Massachusetts-raised, Brooklyn-based Noele Flowers is preparing to release a new EP titled Wait For Me. Perhaps the most folk-adjacent song on the record, the latest single and title track is a ballad that pairs acoustic guitar with three-part vocal harmonies and includes piano from Aviv Gilad and strong quartet arrangement played by Tiger Darrow and Chase Potter. It’s a song about falling in love while still recovering from the end of a previous relationship. As Flowers explains: “This song is about the anxiety that comes with feeling like your healing process is going to get in the way of something good—asking someone to wait for you.” But it’s deeper than that too, its message of patience applicable to pretty much all aspects of life.

Pacing – Aliens

“Things are getting kinda weird over here.” So sings Katie McTigue on the new Pacing single, ‘Aliens’. Part of WAVE, a forthcoming compilation by Very Jazzed, the song sees McTigue push further than the playful self-deprecation of recent album hatemail into an altogether darker space. A slow burning folk number which starts out placid but gradually escalates into something disorderly, a lonely nighttime drive suddenly interrupted by something bright and loud. Whether this sudden company is extraterrestrial or something more metaphorical is up to you, but either way, the force imposes itself on the sound and abducts McTigue, forcing her to view the world from above regardless of her opinions of such a vantage.

‘Aliens’ is out now and available on streaming services.

Tinge – Armed to the Teeth

Led by Veronica Blackhawk, an Anishinaabe multi-hyphenate from Lake of the Woods, Ontario and now based in Winnipeg, Tinge follows the likes of Camp Cope in heartfelt yet fierce music unafraid to dig through the most personal depths. Having recently signed with House of Wonders Records, the outfit are preparing the release their debut EP Big Deep Sigh next month and have unveiled single ‘Armed to the Teeth’ by way of introduction. A slow burning confessional which finds cathartic release in its forthright style. “This EP means I am finally ready to take up space and open it up for others going through similar phases in their growth,” Blackhawk explains of the release. “To finally exhale those deep breaths I’ve been drawing in over the past few years.”

TV Room – Stacey

Following on from previous single pretend, which we described as “A song about being close to someone, almost too close to say what needs to be said,” TV Room has returned with Sad Club Records with new track, ‘Stacey’. Another example of Lucy Rushton’s ability to write songs at once understated and charged with feeling, the song confronts the decidedly disheartening prospect of negotiating a friend who might not be that much of a friend after all. “It’s about being around people who have main character syndrome and romanticise all the damage they are causing around them instead of taking responsibility for it,” as Rushton explains. “About giving up hope on trying to understand someone and keep up a connection with a person who is trying to hurt and compete with you instead of appreciating the relationship you have and in turn destroying it.” TV Club might describe bad experiences in relationships, but they find room to say what needs to be said.

‘Stacey’ is out now and available from Sad Club Records.

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Writing of the “distinctively sardonic style” of single ‘Sunny <3‘, we hinted at the tongue-in-cheek tone of McTigue’s work. “Do not be fooled by the title,” we wrote, “or at least be sure to excavate its wry connotations, as this FOMO anthem does not find joy or self-actualisation at the end of a productively jammed day. Just creeping panic as the pressure to be better and better coils like a spring.” The song is indicative of the first half of the record, where the cutting edge is still sharp, the meanness still fresh. Be it coming from a seemingly personal point of view, as on ‘I Hate You :(‘, or that of a frustrated Chrissy Moltisanti (‘The Family’). But as the album progresses, there’s a slight change of tone. The edge dulling somewhat, the meanness softening, fondness breaking through like a reluctant weed. Perhaps not quite scientific proof of the value of vitriol, but a promising start at least.

Alongside the album, Pacing set up web project anxiety.place, a portal which asked people to submit their deepest insecurities anonymously. The results have been collected into a brand new video for the song ‘Who has ADHD now lol?’, where the fears pop up as an incessant stream of notifications over the archive footage and internet memes. “I am a brand new person / Now that I’ve received medication,” McTigue sings in spite of these unwanted messages pinging in at random. “Don’t expect me to be a f-up / You’ll be out of luck / Cause I’m a damn brand new human being.” This being Pacing, things are of course rarely so simple, but if you can laugh about it then perhaps you might forget to worry too much?

hatemail is out now and available from the Pacing Bandcamp page. The anxiety.place form is still live too, so if you have any burning insecurities to share, you know where to drop them.

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Following 2020 album Unearth on Topshelf Records, Brooklyn-based artist Alexia Avina is set to return with a brand new LP, A Little Older. Released via Lost Map Records, the album began on a borrowed guitar and a friend’s floor, slowly blossoming into a deep and searching meditation on the existential functions of love and art. “What does it mean to feel small, to feel nothing, to feel everything?” asks the album notes, “to skirt around the edge of true vulnerability unknowingly and yet somehow so consistently?” Clocking in at over eight minutes, slow-burning single ‘I Am Opening’ shows that while Avina might not have an answer, her rich and evocative compositions create spaces in which to contemplate such questions.

The Bins – Santa Cruz Mountains (Remix by Danny Spiteri)

Last summer, The Bins released the album Happiness Complete, a stellar collection of songs which showed off Clark Barclay’s joyous plunderphonic style. But as if his own endlessly inventive cut and paste experiments weren’t ambitious enough, Barclay then turned over his sonic mosaics to other artists and asked they rework them into new forms. The result is Happiness Completely Remixed, an entire album of these reimaginings. Danny Spiteri’s take on ‘Santa Cruz Mountains’ is emblematic of the power of such processes, rendering the originally buoyant track into something reflective and subdued. A meditation on place which excavates not just the sunny present but the ghosts of the past too.

Dawning – Demo Tape

After fronting post-folk Apricot Blush, South Carolina’s Jackson Wise has emerged from a musical hiatus with brand new project, Dawning. A collaboration with artist and musician Matt Massara, the outfit work between brooding punk and gauzy slowcore, the tracks united by the texture of their style. Soundscapes that drift over you, invite you to lose yourself inside. The debut release Demo Tape shows off this aesthetic, from the frustrated yells of ‘We All Went Swimming’ and the searing energy of ‘Kreuzberg’ to the searching melancholy of ‘Sediment’. Each of the six songs feels like a door through which the Dawning project might head, and Demo Tape has more than enough to suggest you would be advised to follow whichever they choose.

Demo Tape is out now.

Dead Nettle – Undertow

The recording project of Nashville/California artist Lindsey Wall, Dead Nettle is set to release album How I Thought later this year. With its slow burning intensity, single ‘Undertow’ introduces the engaging and poetic style the record promises to bring. Opening with acoustic strums and smoky vocals, it builds from wistful warmth to fierce conflagration, finding a sound which engages with emotional turmoil yet finds buoyant energy within the roil. As though the updrafts of the burn lift Wall high above the situation, floating high and free if only for a moment.

Denitia – Highways

Raised in Houston and currently living in New York’s Hudson Valley after time spent in Nashville and Brooklyn, Denitia is an artist often on the move. New song ‘Highways’ embraces this nomadic spirit while recognising the value of connection too. An ode to the road which is nevertheless unwilling to leave home behind. “‘Highways” is a song about looking forward but taking the past along with you,” Denitia explains. “I’ve had many friends and loved ones in my life and as time passes and I move from place to place, phase to phase, I hope to always take those connections with me wherever I go. I want to take home with me everywhere I go.”

Itch Princess – To Be Your Fool

The recording project of New York‘s Katelyn Farstad, Itch Princess make self-described psycho-existential-dredge ballads which wrestle with the various torments of human living. Latest record POP CALLS PASSES, out now via Crass Lips Records, was written at the end of an eighteen-year struggle with substance abuse, and directs all of its ambition and energy to communicating the move beyond suffering into a more creative space. Single ‘To Be Your Fool’ is the perfect introduction to the record’s off-kilter vibe, capturing its embrace of left-field oddness symbolic of a wider acceptance of life and its unpredictable motion.

Marissa Nadler – Cold Wind Blowin’

This spring sees the release of Todo Muere SBXV, a compilation celebrating fifteen years of Sacred Bones which asks artists from across their roster to cover one another’s songs. With songs from Anika, The Hunt, Dean Hurley, Black Marble, Hillary Woods and others, the result is a testament to the diverse and ambitious line-up the label has built over a decade and a half. A group linked not by clear style or genre but something more oblique. A shared commitment to artistic vision, whatever shape that might take. A great example is Marissa Nadler‘s take on ‘Cold Wind Blowin’ from David Lynch‘s The Big Dream, a version which understands the twin forces of familiarity and strangeness which underpin Lynch’s work and treats each with the reverence they deserve.

Todo Muere SBXV is out via Sacred Bones on the 27th May and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

Pacing – Sunny <3

Combining the twin forces of anxiety and sarcasm, Katie McTigue uses Pacing to explore the busy and oftentimes ridiculous period we find ourselves inhabiting. Ahead of new mixtape hatemail later this spring, McTigue has unveiled lead single ‘Sunny <3’ to get us acquainted with her distinctively sardonic style. Because do not be fooled by the title, or at least be sure to excavate its wry connotations, as this FOMO anthem does not find joy or self-actualisation at the end of a productively jammed day. Just creeping panic as the pressure to be better and better coils like a spring. “I’m gonna be good,” goes the tongue-in-cheek refrain. “I’m gonna be so good.”

hatemail is out on the 13th may and you can pre-order it from the Pacing Bandcamp page.

This Frontier Needs Heroes – Not Gonna Write a Song

Following on from 2021’s Go With the Flow, the fifth album from David Bradley Lauretti’s This Frontier Needs Heroes, this spring sees the project return with a new song series titled Every Song is a Single. The first taste of this new material comes with the ironically titled ‘Not Gonna Write a Song’, a wry take on a break-up number which sees Lauretti break his own promise in real time. A song about resisting the urge to write. But despite this playful humour, the sound itself commits to a subdued warmth. Earnest and reflective, caught between looking back and moving on. Lauretti is gonna continue to write songs, and the world is all the better for it.

Take what you have to take
And I’ll break what I have to break
I know that it’s not a mistake
So I’m not gonna write a song for you

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