Based in Nashville, Anne Malin is a poet and songwriter whose work exists at the intersection of country, freak folk and indie rock. New album Summer Angel, coming this June on Dear Life Records, works this space to explore the conflicted themes of love and violence, Malin at its centre both curious about the possibilities of the world and painfully aware of its cruel extremes. Serving as the perfect introduction to the release, lead singles ‘Destroyer’ and ‘Redeemer’ are harrowing in both senses of the word. Vulnerable songs which descend into distress and pain, but also songs sharp and toothed, capable of breaking new ground and imagining the field anew.

Summer Angel releases on 17th June via Dear Life Records. You can pre-order it now from the Anne Malin Bandcamp page.

Chris Bathgate – Don’t Look Back

Next month sees the release of The Significance of Peaches, the latest album from Michigan songwriter Chris Bathgate on Quite Scientific Records. Continuing Bathgate’s distinctively evocative style, new single ‘Don’t Look Back’ evokes the mythic tale of Orpheus and Eurydice to explore a more personal mythology. A love story coloured by both tragedy and defiance, finding compassion in its hard won wisdom. “Ain’t it strange how the things we’ve done,” he sings, “often are the cause of us undone– / that’s love, or something.” Check out the video by Kevin Romeo and Bathgate himself below:

The Significance of Peaches is out on the 13th May via Quite Scientific and you can pre-order it now.

HUSHPUPPY – Nervous

The project of New York‘s Zoë Brecher, HUSHPUPPY makes a cathartic brand of indie rock, as highlighted by latest track, ‘Nervous’. The latest in Hardly Art‘s Singles Series, the track confronts difficulty with defiance, finding empowerment in the knowledge that others suffer too. “As someone who suffers from anxiety and depression, I often struggle to leave the house,” Brecher describes. “This song is about acknowledging I’m not the only one who feels that way.”

Keeps – Over Again

Keeps are an indie rock four-piece from Nashville, Tennessee. Following on from their second album Affectianado released in 2020, they have returned with a brand new single, ‘Over Again’. Written by singer Agustin Escalante and guitar player Robbie Jackson through the lens of pandemic-induced isolation, the song charts the pressures time and distance can put on a relationship, the warm jangle and melancholic vocals combining into a decidedly wistful air.

Kisskadee – Black Hole Era

Next month sees the release of Black Hole Era, the new album by Kisskadee on Anxiety Blanket. The project of LA multi-instrumentalist Kasie Shahbaz, the record combines folk, pop, psych and ambient styles to realise its distinctive sound. Its title track displays just how evocative this blend can be. The various styles knit together into a near cosmic bed of sound which holds Shahbaz’s vocals, the lyrics probing into universal mysteries and possibilities beyond what we understand as reality, a very human line of questioning amid the spacey sound.

Black Hole Era releases on 3rd June via Anxiety Blanket. Pre-order it now from the Kisskadee Bandcamp page.

Metavari – Kings Die Like Other Men (Rediscovery)

Described as “in communion with the decade past,” Soft Continuum sees Nathaniel David Utesch’s Metavari reimagining their 2009 debut full-length, Be One of Us and Hear No Noise. Out this June on Joyful Noise Recordings, the new record functions as both a work by and tribute to founding member Ty Brinneman who passed away in 2020, his recordings expanded into what eventually became the album. With stellar contemporary electronics elevated by a range of styles, from Italian horror movie dramatics to the cosmic experimentation of kosmische and new age music. Lead single ‘Kings Die Like Other Men (Rediscovery)’ drops the listener straight into this style, especially when paired with the video directed by Alex Osmolovsky along with director of photography Vlad Voronin.

Soft Continuum (Studies Vol.2) is out via Joyful Noise Recordings on the 10th June and you can pre-order it now from the Metavari Bandcamp page.

Riches – The Frequency

Riches is described as the “manifestation of an ongoing dialogue” between Catherine McCandless (of Young Galaxy) and the choreographer Wynn Holmes. “A glowing and airy slice of pastoral folk,” was how we described previous track ‘Light of Dawn‘, and though new single ‘The Frequency’ retains some of the lightness, it heads into altogether deeper territory with a full band arrangement that introduces an almost gothic dream pop sound. “The frequency is: being swept up, being in love, longing and belonging, soothing and alive,” the band explain. “It is a calling on the ethereal to take on form, on music to bring touch and connection over the frontiers of physical walls and distances.”

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Maybe it’s just because I’m listening with this prior knowledge, but the opening track of Old Factory, ‘Big Ghost’, sounds like a man who’s ready to be back. The guitar is slick and electrified, the whole thing full of energy and life. Bathgate delivers lyrics about pumping hearts and ghosts emerging from throats like static before the song builds into a swirling clattering outro with a waspish droning background. Old fans of Bathgate will be delighted too with ‘Acorns’, a slice of the kind of superior folk rock that made his name, where a slammed drum beat eventually kicks the song into life, becoming its pulse, lingering even in the moments of near silence. SIngle ‘Calvary’ is slow and stirring, with additional vocals from Samantha Cooper, as well as piano and strings. Lyrically its something of a paradox, simultaneously hurt and victorious, wise and suspicious and joyously naive. I guess that’s something that can happen when songs are crafted over the course of years, things and people change, lines that held certain sentiments at the outset may take on another meaning altogether.

“Ain’t it good to be alive
with the wounds still in your side?”

‘Wait’ is elegant and sombre, again with piano and violin and cello, before closer ‘Red Arrow Highway’ burns slow with lush and pretty instrumentation, the kind of patient and considered folk rock that sounds really good during the dawning spring.

Let’s hope that it’s not another half-decade before we hear more from Chris Bathgate. You can but Old Factory now via the Chris Bathgate online store or Quite Scientific Records. And if you haven’t already, why not dig into his back-catalogue? I promise you won’t regret it.

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The album builds upon the band’s two previous albums (2008’s Orion Songbook and 2010’s Deadmalls and Nightfalls – both of which I would highly recommend), and confirms the ability to make sun-soaked Americana with a literary lyrical bent. Indeed the album’s lyrics are extremely dense – coming in at over 5,500 words – and paint a vivid picture of growing up in suburban Detroit during the 90s. The album artwork serves to capture the themes on display and does a better job than I could possibly hope to with words. The era evoked will certainly hold greater appeal to those of a certain generation and I’d guess that if your birthday falls between 1980 and 1990 then you will identify with a lot of the lyrics, from sun bleached VHS tapes to sports coaches to the birthday parties of friends and school mates. This is not simply a chronicle of childhood, however. A lot of the lyrics are tinged with nostalgia and a sort of wistful sadness. This is probably best illustrated by sampling a few of the lines from the album:

There’s a dead world locked in a Nintendo 64
In some divorced friend’s mom’s apartment bedroom drawer

(From Open It Up)

Or:

The shrink-wrapped cosmetics and cardboard aesthetics of department store picture frame inserts that my 
Mother keeps under a sink in a cupboard with her high school diploma and it hurts to try
To keep all our treasures intact for forever

<a href=“http://music.frontierruckus.com/track/dealerships” data-mce-href=“http://music.frontierruckus.com/track/dealerships”>Dealerships by Frontier Ruckus</a>

I would advise that this brand of folk or Americana is not for everyone. Frontier Ruckus have not attempted to jump on the bandwagon of popular contemporary folk acts and tried to make foot-stomping, sing-a-long choruses that could grace huge venues and festival headline slots. But this is not a criticism, in fact I mean it more as a complement. There is remarkable restraint and real feeling here. I found it very difficult when listening to the album to draw direct comparisons, although I think that it would be fair to cite  The Mountain Goats, particularly The Sunset Tree, with it’s evocation of coming of age and being a teenager in America. Other artists that come to mind are John K. Samson’s The Weakerthans and Will Sheff’s Okkervil River (particularly their earlier albums) and Decemberists, mainly because of the literary style lyrics, which you could almost read as poetry from the liner notes.

The band have also released a video for the closing track, Careening Catalog Immemorial, which was directed by David Meiklejohn and again captures the album’s aesthetic pretty nicely. Watch it below:

Europeans can pre-order the album from Loose Music, while North Americans can get the album in a beautiful double vinyl package, on CD, or by digital download via Quite Scientific. The band are also about to embark on a European tour, including several stops in the UK. Check out the dates below:

01 Mar – Windmill, LONDON
02 Mar – Burgerweeshuis, DEVENTER
04 Mar – Stengade, COPENHAGEN
05 Mar – Pustervik, GOTHENBERG
06 Mar – Debaser Slussen, STOCKHOLM
07 Mar – Debaser, MALMO
08 Mar – Kulturhaus 73, HAMBURG
09 Mar – Underground, COLOGNE
10 Mar – Fachwerk Gievenbeck, MUNSTER
12 Mar – Rote Fabrink, ZURICH
13 Mar – Cardinal, SCHAFFHAUSEN
14 Mar – Silencio, PARIS
16 Mar – Start The Bus, BRISTOL
17 Mar – Whelans, DUBLIN
19 Mar – Ruby Lounge, MANCHESTER
20 Mar – Bloc Bar, GLASGOW
21 Mar – Fibbers, YORK
22 Mar – Jericho Tavern, OXFORD
23 Mar – The Borderline, LONDON

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