Right On sees Undlin joined by Pete Quirsfeld (drums), Pat Keen (bass, organ, percussion, background vocals, synth) and Shane Leonard (percussion, mandolin, background vocals, keys), who together create a folk rock sound that’s undeniably richer that previous Humbird releases. The result is what the label call “the project’s most electric, playful, mettled record yet,” but longtime fans need not worry, the signature Humbird idiosyncrasies and experimentalism remain. “Even so, Right On incorporates friendly winks to the more whimsical, soundscape-y improvisations that audiences have come to expect from a Humbird performance,” Nettwerk continue. “Electrified, gritty, Midwest Americana with a little magic fairy dust thrown in.”

Nowhere is this more apparent than on closer and latest single ‘Song For The Seeds’. The song (rather aptly) grows into its full band arrangement, building from hushed and humble beginnings into a full-bodied country pop song. As the title suggests, it’s inspired by plants and the near-magical transformation from seed to shoot to sapling, finding hope and joy in their resilience, their patience and the hopeful joy of watching them grow. “‘Song For The Seeds’ is a song that could have been hours long,” Undlin tells Under the Radar. “It’s an unending topic of consideration: plants and all they teach us. I realize this sounds fairly hippy-dippy, but I don’t really care and I don’t think the plants do either. It’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to a sort of mantra within a Humbird song yet and I stand by it.””

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Lead single ‘I Needed You’ started life as “a sad little break-up waltz” as Edens puts it, but input from collaborators Pat Keen, Shane Leonard and Dex Wolfe lifted the track into something richer and more nuanced. A meditation on the strangeness of an aftermath, when nothing is as it used to feel and anger and longing are impossible split. “It’s about trying to discover and center your own needs when sometimes it’s easier to lie to yourself and ignore them,” Edens explains. “It’s about perhaps not even knowing what you need and being okay with that.” The result is an ambiguous space between the past and the future. A place where nothing is solid, and is therefore both terrifying and thrilling all at once.

Wasn’t kind of you, wasn’t always true when
I needed you
How cruel to be, this kind of free when
I needed you

Photo by Elizabeth Ibarra

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The solo project of Australia‘s Keeley Young, Claude offers a warm and reflective brand of folk, its gentle sound utilising restraint to map out the depth of its emotion. New single ‘Tamarind’ highlights the interplay between openness and caution inherent to the style, its earnest tone inviting the listener close while retaining a certain guarded nature. As though aware of both its power and fragility, and understanding what it is able to give away without betraying its own needs.

Too many days passed, without a word.
I think, you’ve liked fucking with me.
But I’m heading home to a house filled with warmth,
and I feel okay with holding your scorn;
and maybe someday you’ll see, how misinformed,
you were.

‘Tamarind’ is out now and is available from the Claude Bandcamp page.

Eldridge Rodriguez – Scars in the Vein (feat. Thalia Zedek)

We’ve covered the music of Boston‘s Eldridge Rodriguez several times, most recently with singles ‘Megalodon‘ and ‘Have I Gone Too Far‘. Both tracks are part of forthcoming album Atrophy, and although the release is still TBC, the outfit have unveiled another song to tide us over. Described as a “rant on the ineffectuality of performance activism,” ‘Scars in the Vein’ tears into the moribund politics of the perpetually online, mourning the energy expended grandstanding and fighting with bad faith commentators when it could be put towards more direct action. The song sees the Thalia Zedek (Come, Live Skull, E) lend her vocals, finding catharsis if not hope in its impassioned cynicism.

Atrophy will be released sometime in the future on Midriff Records, so keep an eye on the Eldridge Rodriguez Bandcamp page for more information.

Jake Tittle – Fair Warning

Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Jake Tittle has put out a number of releases on Anxiety Blanket Records, building a collection of  heartfelt tracks which push beyond acoustic folk into pop and soft rock. With James McAlister on drums and Lexi Vega (Mini Trees) on backing vocals, latest single ‘Fair Warning’ takes Tittle’s sound in a different direction, the backing beats adding a certain brooding attitude to a song caught amid the dark clouds of a storm. “I wrote ‘Fair Warning’ in the middle of a dying relationship,” he explains, “I was so scared of being alone that I refused to accept that it was dying and that hurt me even more.”

‘Fair Warning’ is out now via Anxiety Blanket Records and you can grab it now from Bandcamp.

Lori Goldston – The Waves And What’s Under

Composer and cellist Lori Goldston has had a wide ranging career. From scoring films, operas and dance productions to collaborating with the likes of David Byrne and The Wedding Present, not to mention touring with Nirvana in the early nineties. Stylistically her work is equally plastic, reaching across classical, folk and post-rock styles, and forthcoming album High and Low is no less ambitious. The ‘High’ portion of the record consists of solo cello pieces written for and toward the late Geneviève Elverum, and single ‘The Waves And What’s Under’ highlights the mournful beauty of the sound. During her illness, Elverum described feeling “herself floating in the air above a mountain.” Goldston explains. “I had a kind of vision about playing music that would help keep her floating easily there, and at the same time sustain the ripples of her presence in the world.”

High and Low is out on 7th October via SofaBurn and you can pre-order it now.

Mamalarky – Mythical Bonds

Mamalarky have announced brand new LP Pocket Fantasy, coming out on Fire Talk Records later this year, and lead single ‘Mythical Bonds’ shows off the new direction of their sound. After last year’s double single Meadow / Moss, Livvy Bennett, Michael Hunter and Noor Khan push into a brighter, more playful sound, its mischievous energy geared towards a sense of fondness. “I really needed to write something to accurately show Noor how much her friendship means to me, and our journey as musicians and friends,” Bennett explains. “We need more songs about friendship.” Check out the video directed by Ambar Navarro below:

Pocket Fantasy is out on 30th September via Fire Talk Records and you can pre-order it now.

Mark Mulcahy – Won’t You Be My Neighbor

Back in January, Perpetual Doom released Stayed Tuned: Season One, a TV theme covers compilation which saw the likes of Macie Stewart, Karl Blau and Dawn Riding take on everything from the themes of Twin Peaks, Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse to those of Cheers and Fraiser. This month sees the beginning of a brand new season, with a new cover released every Thursday and acts like Accessory (AKA Dehd‘s Jason Balla), Bill MacKay, Wild Pink, Vetiver, Sarah La Puerta, Leon III and others promised. This week sees Mark Mulcahy take on Fred Rogers’s ‘Won’t You be My Neighbor,’ adding a shadowy strangeness while keeping the sentiment at song’s heart.

Stayed Tuned: Season 2 is up and running now on Perpetual Doom and you can follow it on Bandcamp.

nina gala – we looked like angels

After releasing a couple of EPs, Baltimore’s nina gala is set to released her debut full-length album swan heart this autumn, and lead single ‘we looked like angels’ gives a glimpse of what to expect. A sweet track where romance and melancholy marble together, the bright shimmer of the guitars evoking the celestial imagery as gala’s vocals hark back to some lost love. “One day I’ll call you again / you’re a memory till then,” she sings, “something I can reach out and touch / but can’t touch back.” Left for now to remember fondly, hoping the heavenly being might descend again.

Nothing Really – Backseat Driver

The time since Melbourne‘s Nothing Really released their debut EP Yuck has been anything but easy, various personal upheavals and losses compounding an already difficult period. New single ‘Backseat Driver’ emerges from this phase, a track shaded by discouragement as though turned cynical by recent times. But within the despondency lies something else. An attempt to recognise the value of persisting despite everything, and in doing so helping others too. Indeed, vocalist/guitarist Vic Austin describes the track as “a reflection on how to care for others while also giving them the space to make their own mistakes. These lyrics are really about learning how to be a better friend.”

‘Backseat Driver’ is out now and available from the Nothing Really Bandcamp page.

Oh Lonesome Ana – MEG/\DETH TEE

Sacramento’s Oh Lonesome Ana released their debut full-length MEG/\DETH TEE earlier this month. The collection is inspired by and built around the poetry and prose of friend Johnny Allen, adapted into music by the band’s Evan Bailey. The title track offers a glimpse of the kind of melancholic yet wryly humorous tone which results. A meditation on the passing of time which identifies what changes, what is lost and what remains behind. “Am I too old to wear this Megadeth tee?” asks one such verse. “How could anyone / After all these years / Still like me?” Like Allen before them, Oh Lonesome Ana might not have an answer for such questions, but in ensuring they are still asked, offer hope in the very process of searching. Of continuing on in spite of everything.

Pat Keen – Love & Drugs

Writing of album Cells Remain back in 2020, we described Pat Keen‘s music as a “complex web of arrangements […] experimentation devoid of pomposity or pretension,” which attempts to conjure the nuances of a person’s inner life. The Minneapolis-based artist returns this month with ‘Love & Drugs’, a new single which furthers this ideal, exploring how chemicals might alter the appearance and texture of life, and how care is required to get the balance right. All delivered with a bright yet understated confidence, Keen’s vocals barely more than a murmur. Like confessions told directly into your ear.

Precocious Neophyte – AIWA

Haling from Seoul and based in Chicago, Precocious Neophyte is a songwriting project that germinated from a period of demoralization. “I decided that I would never play the guitar in front of people,” explain the liner notes of new album Home In The Desert. “I shut myself in. Cocooning. Just read Korean novels, a little poetry.” But their thoughts eventually turned to past times, old friends, watching the dawn over Hongdae. And thinking about home led to the guitar again. Solo jams at first, eventually a band. An album with singles like ‘AIWA’, which offer the past like dreams to experience anew.

Titus Andronicus – (I’m) Screwed

This autumn sees the return of Titus Andronicus with brand new album The Will to Live on Merge Records, and latest single ‘(I’m) Screwed’ finds them as passionate and furious as ever. Patrick Stickles has carved out a place among the best songwriters in the country over the past decade and more, and the new album is no less ambitious. A meditation on the fragility and beauty of life, and a railing against all those things which refuse to grant it the respect and reverence it deserves. “Naturally, though, our long-suffering narrator can only arrive at this conclusion through a painful and arduous odyssey through Hell itself,” Stickles explained to Pitchfork. “This is a Titus Andronicus record, after all.” ‘(I’m) Screwed’ drops us into the deep end, the narrator trapped on all sides as his beliefs are tested. Check out the video by Ray Concepcion below:

The Will to Live will be released via Merge Records on 30th September and you can pre-order it now.

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This summer sees the release of Cells Remain, a brand new full-length Pat Keen record. With help from Adelyn Strei, John McCowen, Shane Leonard, and Brian Joseph, Keen weaves a complex web of arrangements, but the experimentation is devoid of pomposity or pretension. Instead, the elaborate soundscapes are an attempt at something far more organic and intimate. An inner life, and the other lives which orbit around it.

Lead single ‘Cell Song’ gives an indication of what is to come. With a gentle yet intricate sound built from dappled drums and hummed harmonies, the track has a compassionate atmosphere that proves enveloping. And this is very much in keeping with the themes of the track and the album more generally. The idea of digging beyond surface appearances and emotions, of contemplating the full depth of every person and circumstance with an eye to empathy and understanding.

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