Arena Rock Appetizer, the new EP from LA‘s Bridey (coming this summer on Anxiety Blanket Records), is a release which explores the sensation of “coming out of a fog.” “Sometimes it’s tough for me to see the light from whatever tunnel I’m in at the time,” she explains. But the EP fuses heartfelt emotion and upbeat energy, not only acting as a reminder of the promising glow somewhere down the line, but moreover having fun while doing so. Lead single ‘Her’ channels such a spirit, written after travelling to stay with her sister and newborn niece after a downer spell, finding some healing magic within the act of caring for other people. “It was intense and tiring and so cool,” Bridey explains. “I even bought a book about becoming a doula, but I never finished it. Maybe one day.”

dani mack – Nothing Better

We first wrote about Texas-born songwriter dani mack back in 2022 with the release of ‘someday‘, a track we described as displaying “a careful balance between strength and vulnerability,” where the “bright and disarmingly straightforward sound star[ed] the past straight in the eye and refus[ed] to blink.” Mack is now preparing to release her debut EP on Future Gods, and latest track ‘Nothing Better’ offers another assured and introspective glimpse into the personal. Though this time the slow-burning build carries with it a certain wry humour too, facing up to the chronic habit of overthinking. “What a lovely idea / letting go of things / that we have absolutely no control of,” she sings with a calm remove, “but I think I’m going to pass / and just drive myself mad / completely fucking mad.”

‘Nothing Better’ is out now and available via streaming services.

Juan Wauters – Modus Operandi

This summer, Uruguayan songwriter Juan Wauters is releasing his new album Wandering Rebel on Captured Tracks. Whether he be in Latin America, travelling north to collaborate with the likes of Mac DeMarco and Homeshake, or on the endless road of the tour, Wauters leads a nomadic existence—the titular wandering rebel manifest. Latest single ‘Modus Operandi’ captures some of the restless energy that marks his career. Wauters invites Frankie Cosmos into the fray for an earnest back-and-forth on place and movement, and reasons why people might leave and stay put in any one location.

See, it might be just my opinion
But it’s happened time and time again
That when it gets rough out here
People that have options go back to their suburbs
To them it was just like some kind of Disney World
Some kind of commodity
Dust them off a little bit
And see their real M.O.
Their modus operandi
Modus operandi

Watch Fatos Marishta’s video below as Wauters and Cosmos try to locate one another between NYC and Montevideo:

Wandering Rebel is out on the 2nd June via Captured Tracks and you can pre-order it now.

paper bee – I Don’t Talk To You

paper bee, the indie rock project led by Nick Berger, haven’t released a proper record since their 2015 debut Now I Know You and See How Wide You Are to the World, a split release with Loone. When the pandemic hit, Berger and a new lineup of bandmembers (including Maryn Jones of All Dogs/Yowler and Radiator Hospital‘s Sam Cook-Parrott) quarantined together in a cabin in rural Pennsylvania and recorded a brand new album, Thaw, Freeze, Thaw, which will be released by Get Better Records later this spring. Berger, who took his first shot of testosterone two days after wrapping up recording, describes the record as ” the last documentation of my old singing voice which I loved a lot […] a story about love and harm between traumatized trans people.”

Ryan Bourne – 100 Years

With new LP Plant City coming later this spring, Calgary‘s Ryan Bourne has unveiled latest single ‘100 Years’ to introduce another dimension of the album’s diverse sound. Because though the record spans glam rock, garage pop and baroque styles, the single highlights the psych folk spirit central to its sound. An idiosyncratic mood achieved via a woozy amalgamation of synths as well as samples of warped bird calls and the crackle of dried plants, resulting in a sound submerged in reflection. “The lyric came from a golden hour walk overlooking a neighborhood I’d lived and loved (and lost) in,” Bourne explains, “the kind of birds eye view of the landscape lending a beautiful sense of futility to the memory as it rose.” Watch the video by Rebecca Reid and Bourne himself below:

Plant City is out on the 5th May and you can pre-order it now.

Selah Broderick – I Am

Having been born into a strict Catholic family only to be freed by the countercultural turn of the sixties and seventies, Selah Broderick followed a love of music and art around the country, though ultimately put her own aspirations on hold when falling pregnant with her children. Fast forward a number of decades and Pegdoll Records are releasing Moon In The Monastery, a collection of songs by Selah Broderick ranging from the late seventies to the contemporary moment, as collected by her son Peter Broderick and featuring music from him and his sister Heather Woods Broderick. Single ‘I Am’ hints at the richness and depth of the work, with Peter’s neo-classical backdrop supporting Selah’s poetic spoken word inspired by her deep interest in non-Western spirituality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6AdLPVJAYc&ab_channel=PegdollRecords

Moon In The Monastery is out on the 9th June via Pegdoll and you can pre-order it now.

Speedy Ortiz – Scabs

Their first new music in five years, ‘Scabs’ is the latest single from indie rock cult heroes Speedy Ortiz, released via Wax Nine, the Carpark Records imprint record label and poetry journal run by lead Sadie Dupuis. What Dupuis describes as a song “about self-designated ethicists who don’t quibble about crossing a picket line for individual benefit,” ‘Scabs’ is a both wryly humorous and downright furious attack on those whose activism starts and ends with empty words and public gestures. “Born-to-scab solipsists are boogying for big commission,” as the opening goes. “Yes in your backyard you take handshake squeezes to extremes. Nihilistic greeting to a flytrap hungry for a fist. Don’t talk to me. Don’t talk.”

‘Scabs’ is out now via Wax Nine Records and is available from the Speedy Ortiz Bandcamp page.

Sun Kin x Guppy – I’m in the Band

Described as a “cross-collaboration” between Kabir Kumar’s LA post-pop project Sun Kin and punk band GUPPY (with whom Kumar plays lead guitar), ‘I’m in the Band’ is something of a meta-single. A song about writing songs, and all the ickiness which comes with such a revealing experience. The music was written in collaboration with Miguel Gallego (aka Miserable chillers) and Guppy frontperson J Lebow helped with the lyrics, which they says are about “how expressing yourself through music can be a vulnerable and embarrassing affair, but worth it for the self-esteem it can give, and the relief of pressure it provides for the people who love us.”

Your Heart Breaks – Snow Dusted Ponies

Led by musician, artist and filmmaker Clyde Petersen, Your Heart Breaks is a project based in a Bellingham “townie dream house” which gave artists the space to experiment outside of pressures and expectations. Released via Kill Rock Stars, new album The Wrack Line feels like the culmination of years of friendships and memories, as typified by the line-up which brought it to life. With a band consisting of Eli Moore and Ashley Eriksson (of LAKE) and Katherine Paul (Black Belt Eagle Scout), as well as a stellar line-up of guest stars including the likes of Kimya Dawson, Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, R.Ring and Nana Grizol‘s Theo Hilton, the album is a sonic manifestation of something larger. Single ‘Snow Dusted Ponies’ gives an indication of the tone, with Fellows and Samson backing Petersen’s vocals in their affirming sincerity.

The Wrack Line is out via Kill Rock Stars on the 7th July and you can pre-order it now.

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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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