New Jersey punk rock outfit best dressed ghost are preparing to release their latest EP Let’s Go Home in the next few weeks, looking to build upon the raucous, mischievous beginnings set out on predecessor Dead Rock. If lead single ‘Funhouse’ is anything to go by, the new EP more than lives up to these ambitions. With equal parts brooding shadow and chaotic energy, the song carries a reckless sense of fun, something accentuated by dashes of surf and skate rock sensibilities, not to mention the anarchic vocal delivery. What emerges is something at once fun and slightly dangerous, a spark which might not last long but is determined to burn as hot and bright as possible in the meantime.

Watch the video created by nino + stef dressed ghost below:

Let’s Go Home will be released on the 12th March, so keep an eye on the best dressed ghost Bandcamp page.

Celestine Manno – If You Were Around

Connecticut-born songwriter Celestine Manno won attention back in 2023 with Once You’ve Seen It All, a distinctively sincere album which sat somewhere between indie folk and Sylvan Esso-esque pop. Now Manno has returned with brand new single ‘If You Were Around’ and the emotional resonance has only grown. A song which not only serves as a remembrance to Manno’s mother but an exploration of how loss might impact our lives moving forward. “My mom felt like California personified. Through stories and photographs, I’ve concocted my own memory of her that’s bright, witty, and effortless,” Manno explains. “Written on the 20th anniversary of her death, ‘If You Were Around’ reflects on the absence of her guidance through womanhood, and acceptance of the passage of time. Who would I have become with her influence? How differently would I have been shaped?”

‘If You Were Around’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Eric Angelo Bessel – Double Helix

“[An] enveloping slice of avant garde ambient, soaring with a weightless grace beyond the suffocating confines of our terrestrial life.” So we wrote of ‘Non-Diegetic Sound’, taken from Eric Angelo Bessel‘s Mirror at Night last year. A sound indicative of the album as a whole. “Nothing is quite what it seems within this space, true to Mirror At Night‘s promise to evade simple description,” we continued. “The futuristic vibe is balanced by the nostalgic tones of the Mellotron, and the synths blur the line between the organic and digital. A record that isn’t one thing or the other but everything all at once, offering different reflections depending on your perspective.” Now Bessel is back with a new 7″ EP Mirror At Night B-Sides to push ever further into this mysterious territory, and lead track ‘Double Helix’ lives up to expectations. Dreamlike and drifting, emerging full of ambiguous meaning as though dug from deep in the distant past or else visiting from some time or space we are yet to encounter.

Garet Camella – Gnats (feat. Mukiss)

Midwest-born, LA-based Garet Camella is preparing to release new EP Just Passing Through, a collection of songs with roots in his early twenties, now revised and recorded to revive something which might otherwise have been forgotten. First taste ‘Gnats’ is a suitably nostalgic slice of folk rock to introduce the project, rising from humble beginnings into a full band duet. Camella is joined by Caeleigh Featherstone, AKA Mukiss (who you might know as part of Saintseneca), and the chemistry between the vocals forms a major part of the track’s development. Camella’s searching, uncertain delivery in the opening minute grows in conviction as Mukiss joins and the instrumentation blooms, the song playing like connection made in real time.

Just Passing Through will be released soon.

Party of the Sun – Abandon’s Grip

We’ve followed the work of New Hampshire-based  folk trio Party of the Sun (Ethan McBrien, Rory Hurley and Garrett Cameron) across a number of years, most recently back in 2024 with the release of double single Giver // River. “Songs rich in invention and always tied to the environment,” we wrote of the project, “concerned with searching for new ways to evoke life in its complicated beauty.” Out via Trailing Twelve Records, Party of the Sun’s new release The Twin EP represents a continuation of this style, dating back as far as 2019 and “shaped,” per the label, “as a single, continuous emotional arc.” With a main body of bodhrán, slide guitar and finger-picked steel string but with a real attention to negative space too, the result is every bit as thoughtful and organic as anything the trio have released to date. Listen to single ‘Abandon’s Grip’ now:

The Twin EP is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

The Pretty Flowers – To Be So Cool

“Written within a city (and wider country) shaken by turmoil, be it the unprecedented wildfires or equally tinderbox political moment, [The Pretty Flowers] found themselves driven by the surrounding atmosphere, the anxiety and chaos of their surroundings seeping into the tracks themselves.” So we wrote of the LA indie rock outfit’s forthcoming album Never Felt Bitter back in January, single ‘Came Back Kicking’ highlighting how they turned to barrelling energy as though in defiance. Latest track ‘To Be So Cool’ is no different, a song bound by an irrepressible sense of forward motion which again carries a rebellious air. “’To Be So Cool” is one of my favorite songs on the album, and it’s a blast to play live,” Green explains. “The lyrics just seemed to kind of flow and I didn’t try and overthink writing them at the time. Some months later when I was watching the film Withnail & I for the umpteenth time, I noticed that the lyrics seemed to connect to the film, in how the “I” character sees Withnail going through life. Maybe a student in a community college English class will tease that idea out in an essay at some point.”

Watch the video directed and produced by Tambi Haron with director of Photography Nate Klein below:

Never Felt Bitter will be released on 27th March. Order it now from The Pretty Flowers Bandcamp.

Swapmeet – I Know!

South Australia four-piece Swapmeet formed in 2021, though really burst on the scene in 2024 with their debut EP, Oxalis. The release shapeshifted between each of its five songs, the quartet managing to capture the spirit of being a young person in the twenty-first century, constantly moving between love, fear, hopelessness and grief and often embracing several simultaneously. Having now signed with Winspear, Swapmeet are now back with new single ‘I Know!’ to introduce the next stage of their career. Again pairing jangle and fuzz with a buoyant energy, the track represents the very best of the project. A sound able to encompass both sardonic slacker bite and cathartic alt rock release, rising from sly, taut beginnings into something with serious size and heft.

If you wanna hurt me
If you wanna try
If I had your heart in my hand
Would you want mine

‘I Know!’ is out now via Winspear and available from Bandcamp.

Taroug – Najet

Back in January we introduced Taroug, the recording project of German–Tunisian drummer and electronic music producer Tarek Zarroug, and the new album Chott, forthcoming via Denovali Records. Single ‘1995’ highlighted how Taroug “blends digital and organic sounds to create conceptual soundscapes able to evoke the full richness of personal history,” as we put it. “blending a nostalgic, melancholic minimalism with moments of bright intensity.” With the album’s release on the horizon, latest track ‘Najet’ leads the audience further into this style. The bass-centric, layered sound is adorned with Tunisian instrumentation, melding the traditional and the contemporary and charging the record with a depth that stems in equal parts from culture, history and geology.

Thin Lear – Witness

Back in February we introduced Many Disappeared, the new album from Matt Longo’s Thin Lear with Mothman-themed single ‘Silver Bridge’. The story is just one of a whole file of supernatural stores which came to inspire [the record],” we wrote, “which uses all things weird and unexplained as a way to explore themes altogether more human and personal.” With the release on the horizon via First City Artists, Thin Lear has shared latest track ‘Witness’, a song which delves into an experience far more personal but no less confronting. “My friend and I came across a dying cat on the road,” Longo shares. “My friend was nonchalant. But I was utterly horrified. The incident is still a touchpoint for me, every time I come upon the same powerless feeling, whether it be through the loss of a loved one or the general anxiety that the veil between this world and the next is quite thin.”

Watch the video by Ali Aschman below:

Many Disappeared will be released on the 24th April via First City Artists and you can pre-order it now from the Thin Lear Bandcamp page.

villagerrr – Locket

Following on from 2024 full-length Tear Your Heart Out and subsequent deluxe edition which came out last year, Ohio-based indie project villagerrr will release their fifth album Carousel this May via Winspear. The previous record saw Mark Scott explore his close connection with hometown Chillicothe, and the new record chooses another relationship to put under the microscope. Though this time it is not related to place but the act of making art itself, namely the attempt to communicate in earnest with another person within a world which often seems designed to hinder such a thing. In the spirit of this theme, Scott dropped his guard and opened villagerrr up to outside influence more than ever before, with an enviable list of friends and collaborators joining to elevate Carousel into the project’s richest sound to date. Listen to lead single ‘Locket’ now, a suitably sincere number which risks vulnerability in order to communicate more faithfully.

Watch the video directed by Trevor Hock below:

Carousel will be released on the 29th May via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

Wolfschmidt – file

Born within the industrial wastelands of Gothenburg, which has lately become the artistic hotbed of the Swedish city, Wolfschmidt is a ‘nu-gaze’ quintet following the lineage of contemporaries like OVLOV, DIIV and Nothing. Having developed this style across a number of releases since their inception in 2021, Wolfschmidt are back with new single ‘file’ and the track suggests the band are really finding their groove. It’s an epic alt rock number which faces up to feelings of stasis with a combination of hope and fatalism, looking to break free even while the same cycles seem to repeat. But with a quiet-loud dynamic and a propulsive momentum, the result is ultimately cathartic, Wolfschmidt burning through their frustration through sheer energy.

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

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Again released via Trailing Twelve Records, new double single Giver // River is the latest step in this continued process. What the label describe as a release which “explores the complexities of navigating unprecedented times through wailing guitar solos, contemplative lyrics, and a single crooning vocal.” There’s a languid rhythm to ‘Giver’ which belies any of the release’s more difficult themes, the vocals sat within a warm bed of electric guitar and listing a growing list of things one might away. “Give it death, give it strength, give legs and give it grace,” as the track opens, “give it luck, give it a stone, give it jealousy’s broken bone.” As the sequence unfolds, the entries offer a myriad of tones—heartfelt, wryly funny, odd and poetic—and the accumulation comes to represent a life of its own.

‘River’ offers a more sedate pace, its reflective acoustic strum landing somewhere between fondness and melancholy. Again the lyrics are delivered as something of a list. “River that’s swollen, a river that gives, a river that wrecks and a river that spreads. River that’s losing, river that winds, a river improving, a river that climbs.” A song flowing not unlike its central image, its rhythm timeless in its calm yet never quite the same thing twice. The lyrical style of both songs achieve this result, the sense of detail and level of abstraction granting the listener some semblance of control in terms of what they read into or take away. “These songs are like sleds flying down a hill, you can jump into them, steer them where you like,” as the band explain. “Pick new words, new phrases, they’re songs in motion, they were recorded quick and rough, they’re about the scene, the tragedy of war’s persistence, the lingering cure and the complexity of change.”

Giver // River is out now via Trailing Twelve Records.

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“A diverse album entirely committed to whatever direction each song takes, as though leaning into the spontaneity of the moment.” That’s how we have previously described Wise Blood, the forthcoming album by Blue Yonder on Earth Libraries. With the release now on the horizon, the band have unveiled final single, ‘Nightingale’, and this time they pitch us right into the middle of a seventies spaghetti western. The song opens with a nocturnal simmer, Karalena Fjortoft’s vocals emerging with an almost haunting croon, though soon the rhythm picks up and adds a sense of urgency, as though the dark figures at the door have been evaded and now we are racing across the desert floor with only the moon in pursuit.

Wise Blood is out on the 24th February via Earth Libraries.

Dari Bay – Same Old Bumpy Road

Described as “an ongoing thought experiment disguised as a band,” Dari Bay is the project of Burlington, Vermont’s Zack James. Though originating as something rough and chaotic, new album Longest Day of the Year sees the Dari Bay style morph into an altogether smoother sound, albeit with some of the strangeness left intact. Take ‘Same Old Bumpy Road’, the country pop jangle a clear departure from the harsh and often abstract noise of the previous releases, while a certain playfulness underpins everything. Life is no less odd for Dari Bay, they are just finding new ways to describe it.

Emelia Austin – Shifting Weather

With debut album From Another Sky coming very soon via Anxiety Blanket Records, Emelia Austin has been releasing a series of single to offer glimpses into her style. Tracks like ‘Hand Soft’ and ‘Desire to Reveal’ hinted at the amalgamation of sparkle and cloudiness which constitutes her shoegaze-adjacent sound, though it is the hefty closer ‘Shifting Weather’ which is perhaps the perfect introduction to From Another Sky. A slow song which gathers weight behind itself gradually, like a thunderhead coalescing into something dense and charged before its tumultuous finale, offering a cathartic view of possible futures where you come to accept yourself just as you are.

Kassi Valazza – Watching Planes Go By

Having introduced herself in 2019 with debut album Dear Dead Days and consolidated the style with last year’s EP Highway Sounds, Kassi Valazza has established herself among the new generation of country songwriters who build their craft around celebrating and subverting the traditions of the genre. With new album Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing out via Loose Music (UK) and Fluff & Gravy Records (US), Valazza is now a labelmate of acts like of Anna Tivel, Margo Cilker and Courtney Marie Andrews, and single ‘Watching Planes Go By’ shows she belongs among such company. A song centred on ideas of loss and the inability to move on which draws a psych-inflected richness around itself, it bears all the hallmarks of the best retro tracks while refusing to fall for nostalgic imitation.

Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing is out on the 26th May. UK fans can preorder from Loose Music and US fans from Fluff & Gravy Records.

 L.T. Leif – Gentle Moon

Back in December we previewed Come Back To Me, But Lightly, the a release from L.T. Leif released by Lost Map Records in collaboration with OK Pal. An album in which the Calgary-born, Scotland-based artist “draws on both the imagery of these northern climes and the talent which resides there to create songs able to explore intimate processes of development.” The album has just been released, and opener ‘Gentle Moon’ captures the compassionate and striking tone for anyone who still needs convincing. A song which uses lunar imagery to explore the wax and wane of relationships, not to mention the gravitational pull which seems to hold some power over the smallest and largest of things. Check out the lyric video by Bart Owl below:

Gentle moon
you are shining
in the shape
of a human body

Come Back To Me, But Lightly is out now via Lost Map Records and OK Pal Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Party of the Sun – Forget Me Knot

“Psych-inflected folk songs anchored to the natural environments in which they were created, tracks possessing both tension and harmony.” So we wrote of Capsule II, the previous EP from New Hampshire‘s Party of the Sun on Trailing Twelve Records. Next month sees the release of the appropriately named follow-up Capsule III, and lead single ‘Forget Me Knot’ suggests the psych-folk outfit are continuing to push this style. A song which lives up to its title, the careful details and easy intuition evoking the patterns of a forest or perhaps the knotted layers of the trunks themselves, eventually rising into a soaring crescendo in the closing minutes.

Saloon Dion – I Don’t Feel

Bristol post-punks Saloon Dion are back with a new single, ‘I Don’t Feel’, the first taste of their forthcoming debut EP on Mucker Records. It follows a spate of singles in the last few years that have established the five piece’s distinctive style, what we previously described as “an eclectic blend of punk and funk topped by raw and volatile energy.” Delivered with considerable pop polish, ‘I Don’t Feel’ is built on grooving beats and bass riffs, its big chorus hinting at a future of radio airtime and festival appearances. “[It’s] a song about being reluctant to seek help from others,” Saloon Dion explain. “What it isn’t, is a song about having no feeling, but more of choosing what to feel and when to feel it. It speaks of the barriers we all put up to protect ourselves, no matter the damage they may do in the long run”.
Watch the video by Clump Collective below:

‘I Don’t Feel’ is out via Mucker Records and available from the Saloon Dion Bandcamp page.

Symbol Soup – Overdressed

The project of London-based songwriter Michael Rea, Symbol Soup takes inspiration from folk, country, indie pop and electronica to create something that sounds sunny and insouciant. Latest single ‘Overdressed’ is a great introduction, fusing a classic British folk charm with something rather more American, including faint notes of country and a couple of spoonfuls of Alex G-style lo-fi indie rock. What Rea describes as “a love song from the perspective of someone who’s overly cynical,” ‘Overdressed’ takes aim at the superficial nature of human interaction, its narrator sick and tired of meaningless etiquette and small talk, yearning instead for something deeper. “They don’t learn a whole lot by the end of the song,” Rea continues, “but they are fully connected to one person, and that’s the connection to something deeper that they’re desperate for.” Check out the lighthearted if indigestion-inducing video, directed by Kirsty Wells of Kondor Films, below:

‘Overdressed’ is out now. Get it from the Symbol Soup Bandcamp page.

Zoon – A Language Disappears

Following the success of recent EPs Big Pharma and A Sterling Murmuration, Daniel Monkman’s Zoon is set to release brand new full-length Bekka Ma’iingan this spring on Paper Bag Records. The Zoon sound is a constantly evolving thing, and with guests and contributors including Owen Pallett, Michael Peter Olsen, Andrew McLeod (Sunnsetter) and Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), the new album is no exception. But as single ‘A Language Disappears’ suggests with its themes of lost heritage, the sense is that Zoon is not morphing away from its origin but rather moving closer to some central truth. “This album is about acknowledging a part of me that I felt was there the whole time,” as Monkman puts it. Check out the 3D animated video directed by Tkaronto-based multimedia sculptor Shawn Chiki below:

Bekka Ma’iingan is out on the 28th April via Paper Bag Records and you can pre-order it now.

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The track captured the spirit of the EP, which has now been released via Trailing Twelve Records. Psych-inflected folk songs anchored to the natural environments in which they were created, tracks possessing both tension and harmony, with Party of the Sun unafraid to follow sonic tangents in order to fully elucidate the themes. Which is how the “nylon boogie” of ‘Hymns Forgot‘ and its exploration of “an urban life removed from the peace of the natural world,” as we’ve put it previously, can sit next to the breezy joy of ‘Throughline’. Or the likes of ‘Thought I Knew’ and ‘Electric Night’, described as “ambient deconstructions” of songs from Party of the Sun’s back catalogue, can bookend the vivid verdant folk swells of ‘Tamarack Gate’.

Closer ‘In The Hall’ serves as the perfect conclusion to the release. A slow-burning track aching with fondness and longing and but something else too. A conviction tied to the land itself. “In the hall of the heart,” opens the track, “you will feel the timeless torch burning through that worried doubt. Cause you are born to do your thing.” And though the cynics and detractors speak up, the feeling remains, returning at odd hours of the day.

When the night comes to pull right through you, another tangled plan, you say “I’ll find an hour to do my thing.” And the plot turns ever after, you’re gonna hear that drum and say “I don’t believe it was ever gone”

Capsule II is out now via Trailing Twelve Records you can get it from the Party of the Sun Bandcamp page.

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Writing of previous single ‘Hymns Forgot‘, we described how Party of the Sun “stitche[d] together layers of bright guitars, shuffling percussion and lush harmonies to evoke an easy springtime warmth,” though the lyrics were more conflicted. Dealing with a rising distance between nature and humanity, the song positioned this phenomenon in relation to the crimes of the past, where land was viewed merely as something to be taken and exploited, thus ushering in “an urban life removed from the peace of the natural world,” which can be traced directly to historic cultural violence.

Latest release ‘Tamarack Gate’ offers a slower rhythm to the the previous song, its lush guitars dotted with gentle vibraphone and pattering percussion to create what is a richly fertile soundscape. McBrien’s vocals winds their way through the world as one might a temperate forest, their slow quiet muted by drizzle and dew as they reflect on the value of a more sedate style of living. The journal entry shared alongside the track gives more detail:

Mud season swallows the road outside the Brick House, 24” ruts, impassable. It’s the early morning of the year, late March, a good time for lucid dreaming. “Tamarack Gate” asks us to reimagine its form, we do so while tracking live, it happens quick. Joy hums. This one is about finding a way to slow down and still keep the ship right side up.

Photo by Rachel Allen

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Back in February, we wrote about Dana Gavanski‘s forthcoming album When It Comes on Full Time Hobby, describing the record as “more unguarded and ambitious than its predecessors.” With its delicately eerie tones, latest single ‘I Kiss The Night’ is another example of Gavanski’s commitment to sitting with vulnerability on the new record, practising an instinctive and honest examination which roots itself in the voice. It possesses a sense of hushed, late-night seclusion, that unique lonely feeling experienced only when it feels like the rest of the world has gone to bed. But far from an ominous experience, the song is “an ode to the night,” as Gavanski explains, “learning to lean into its magic, and the magic and spookiness of solitude in a winter storm.”

Fresh – Babyface

Writing of the single ‘Morgan & Joanne‘ back in December, we described a new positive side to London punx Fresh. The track, which displayed a willingness to subvert “traditional narratives to develop a truer picture of the queer experience,” held a distinctively upbeat, celebratory tone. The vibe might not always be so sunny and playful on new record Raise Hell, to be released this summer on Specialist Subject Records, but something of the brightness is retained on latest single ‘Babyface’. A song described by lead Kathryn Woods as “a cry for help masquerading as a pop song.”

FonFon Ru – Fatty Tissue Thorn

Ahead of their fourth record Collapse Of The Silver Bridge, out next week on Repeating Cloud, Maine trio FonFon Ru have shared latest single, ‘Fatty Tissue Thorn’. Barrelling headlong into the spiralling chaos of a hypochondriac mind, the track spikes its indie rock energy with an anxious post-punk needle, the building momentum falling somewhere between catharsis and catastrophe as it gathers its volatile motion. Check out the video directed by drummer Wes Sterrs below:

Collapse Of The Silver Bridge is out on the 15th April via Repeating Cloud and you can pre-order it now from the FonFon Ru Bandcamp page.

JoJo Worthington – The Divide

Based in Montreal, songwriter, composer and producer JoJo Worthington works at the intersection of pop, folk and ambient styles. Utilising an array of technological techniques to conjure songs both mysterious and intimate. Soundscapes as a kind of emotional geography. Latest single ‘The Divide’ turns its attention to the partisan nature of contemporary society, and how between the fervour and bombast of its extremes stretches a deep and lonely canyon. “You know in movies when there’s an earthquake and the earth splits open and it separates the protagonist and the love interest and then sometimes you see people fall in the gap?” Worthington asks. “[The song is] kinda about the people in the gap and trying to find a home there.”

When there’s so many delusions
When there are so many truths
Maybe I’m confused
Sometimes I don’t know what to think or do

Nancy Mounir – Khafif Khafif

Described as “a remarkable communion with ghosts,” the debut record of Egyptian composer Nancy Mounir juxtaposes its microtonal and non-metered arrangements with recordings of artists from back in history. Titled Nozhet El Nofous (‘Promenade of the Souls’), the release is in dialogue with a different era of Arabic music, one before the dominant maqam (modal systems) were established and creativity reigned. First single ‘Khafif Khafif’ highlights the blend of haunting emotion and steely defiance which underpins Mounir’s work.

Nozhet El Nofous is out on the 3rd June via Simsara Records and you can order it now from the Nancy Mounir Bandcamp page.

Panda Riot – E.S.P.

This summer sees the return of Chicago‘s Panda Riot with a brand new album, Extra Cosmic, and lead single ‘E.S.P.’ throws listeners head first into their detailed yet immediate sound. After a period of experimenting with increasingly complex guitar pedal work, the song finds the band at their most intricate, but everything is tied together by an intuitive forward motion, a sense of release which lines up with the cathartic epiphany of the themes. “‘E.S.P.’ is a song about trying to connect with someone and never quite getting there,” the band explain. “Every time you think you’ve got it, you realize you’re still passing one another by and not quite syncing up.”

Extra Cosmic is out on the 10th June and you can pre-order it from the Panda Riot Bandcamp page.

Party of the Sun – Hymns Forgot

Despite having released new EP Capsule I barely a month ago, New Hampshire‘s psychedelic folk outfit Party of the Sun are not ones to rest on their laurels. Out via Trailing Twelve Records, latest single ‘Hymns Forgot’ is the most recent in a series of monthly releases, a self-described ‘nylon boogie’ which stitches together layers of bright guitars, shuffling percussion and lush harmonies to evoke an easy springtime warmth. Lyrically, the track explores an urban life removed from the peace of the natural world, and charts this disconnect through historic cultural violence. “Was it mine to take or yours to find?” they ask, “Maybe the one who chose to give it.”

Sailing down
Never would I have come
To the land devotion lost
Giving power to a sun

‘Hymns Forgot’ is out now via Trailing Twelve and available via streaming services.

Pet Deaths – swingtime

Following their acclaimed 2019 album to the top of the hill and roll…, London duo Pet Deaths return this spring with a brand new record, unhappy ending. The release takes inspiration from the likes of Alice Coltrane and Miles Davis to conjure an exploratory and colourful sound, a kind of spiritual freedom which carries the highly personal lyricism of lead Liam Karima beyond its immediate resonance. The result, as single ‘swingtime’ shows, is often intimate and surreal, something captured in the video by photographer Kulbir Thandi and Karima himself.

unhappy ending is out on the 27th May and available to per-order from the Pet Deaths Bandcamp page.

Rose Brokenshire – Better Now

Splitting the year into summers as a firefighter and winters making music, BC‘s Rose Brokenshire has learned to embrace larger rhythms within her work. The path has seen her develop her folk style into a more ambient-based sound, something patient and compassionate gained only through experience. Looking to accept the past in all its nuanced truth, latest single ‘Better Now’ utilises this wisdom to offer a salve against suffering. As though embracing the emotional volatility of life can provide its own balm. “I wanted to make something that honoured the journey of growth,” Brokenshire explains. “Something that expressed love for both the ups and downs, the light days and dark days, and the tools I found most healing during a more desolate chapter of my life.”

‘Better Now’ is available from the Rose Brokenshire Bandcamp page.

WILDES – Woman In Love

The first new release since 2020 EP Let You Go, London-based singer-songwriter WILDES has returned with single, ‘Woman in Love’. Taking inspiration from the defiant work of artists like PJ Harvey and Patti Smith, the track confronts suppressed emotions with an unerring eye. The vocals emerge through smoky layers of the sound with a searing honesty, what begins stripped-back and taut eventually blossoming into something lush and soulful. “‘Woman In Love’ is a song of anger,” she explains. “It’s all about the façade presented by someone who isn’t all that happy, and the rage that lies under the glassy exterior.” WILDES is here to crack the glass, to feel the empowerment of release.

Bitter memories, digging up the treasure I sunk
Love your enemy, maybe you can keep them infront
How would you know what I’ve seen, what I’ve done?
How would you know I’m a woman in love?

‘Woman in Love’ is out now and available on streaming services.

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