Over the last four years, Grave Saddles have released a steady stream of singles, before the three-song EP 2022 Tour Tape which comprised of two originals and a killer Mountain Goats cover. Three must be the Grave Saddles lucky number, because last month the band returned with a follow up EP There You Ain’t, three more tracks that cement their place in the post-country, post-shoegaze, post-everything landscape.

The EP opens with ‘Edible Arrangements’, a twangy punk song that’s all stormy guitar and galloping drums. But wrapped up in the noisy fun is a surprisingly laid-back tale of a porch-side evening and the joy of receiving gifts. “Thank you for the fruit,” goes the oddly cathartic chorus, “I know just what to do with it.” ‘Pony Up’ is the EP’s most “country” song, repurposing the classic diary-style telling of an uncertain relationship to capture a bond with a mercurial neighbourhood cat. Lyrically humorous, but still rather touching, the vocals stretch to a lethargic drawl, the atmosphere thick and warm and syrupy as a stifling summer night.

Salmon from Alaska, Crown Prince kipper from the can
If you’d be my housecat, well I’d be your fisherman
But tonight your bed is empty, and I am acting like a clown
So how much must I pony up to make you settle down?

Closer ‘Willie Nelson Golfing Dream #3’ is something of a triumphant finale, a three-minute distillation of what makes Grave Saddles so great. On paper it’s a simple formula, verse building into catchy chorus with a lick of guitar, followed by a repeat of the same verse, the same chorus. But there’s something irrepressible about it, noisy fuzzy indie rock with its sleeves rolled up and dust in its hair, the sparse lyrics detailing the bittersweet sensation of fawning over a crush.

I’ve got mixed feelings about you
Making things this fun
Cos all the times without you now drag
On and on and on

There You Ain’t is out now via Really Rad Records. Get it from the Grave Saddles Bandcamp page.

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After the success of previous LP Cola, A Beacon School (AKA New York songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Patrick J Smith) has announced a return with brand new full-length yoyo later this year via Grind Select. The previous album was notable for its ability to combine bright pop with shoegaze and electronic elements, and lead single ‘Potion’ suggests the new record furthers this style. A song of sunny tones and pressing energy which provides all the lush textures of dream pop without sacrificing any of the detail or momentum. “‘Potion’ was written in one sitting back in 2019 and has been a live staple since then,” Smith explains. “It’s about feeling a burst of excitement about something new but also the fear that accompanies it.” Check out the video by Chase Wagner below:

yoyo is out on the 13th October 13 via Grind Select and you can pre-order it now.

Bo Milli – Making Friends

Be it the digital age dramas of ‘FOMO‘ or the climate anxiety of ‘Good Kid‘, Bergen-based songwriter Bo Milli is an artist dialled in to the pressing issues of the contemporary moment. Latest standalone single ‘Making Friends’ is no less immediate in its concerns, though its focus has a more timeless quality. A track which charts the rollercoaster ride of young life through the prism of a hectic night out, capturing a sense of both the carefree abandon and creeping loneliness of late nights, new faces and a sense of endless possibility.

‘Making Friends’ is out now and available from the Bo Milli Bandcamp page.

Cal Rifkin – Break My Heart

Based in Washington D.C., Cal Rifkin is the project of Erik Grimm (guitar/vocals), Keith Butler Jr. (drums) and Robin Rhodes (bass) who bonded over a “shared love for greasy Ledo’s pizza, early 90s baseball aesthetics, and rock ‘n’ roll music.” Late last month, the trio released Better Luck Next Time, a five-song EP that plays like a distillation of their signature style, namely hook-laden power pop with singalong choruses, vocal harmonies and enough noisy rock ‘n roll grit to keep the rock heads onside. There’s absolutely no filler across the record, but current favourite ‘Break My Heart’ might be the best introduction. It’s an energetic rock song that skirts the line between cool and sincere, complete with a ludicrously catchy chorus.

So come on and break my heart in two
Could be the best thing you could do

Isabel Crespo Pardo – la l​í​nea será

Based in New York, Isabel Crespo Pardo is a Latinx vocalist, improviser-composer and interdisciplinary artist. Combining music, visual art, text and performance, their work is a web of both composition and improvisation that sets out to explore (and then evolve in response to) what they describe as “the intra/interpersonal spaces they inhabit.” Later this month, Pardo will release an album, el rostro (des​)​cubierto, on Lobby Art Records, “forty minutes of wondering and wandering with hand over heart,” as they put it, “aching in solitude and giving and craving forgiveness.” Lead single ‘la l​í​nea será’ introduces the record’s sound, which sees Pardo joined by Afarin Nazarijou (qanun) Skyler Hill (electric guitar) and Seajun Kwon (acoustic bass) to create something that sounds somehow novel and timeless.

Katie Von Schleicher – Elixir

Since her last record Consummation released in 2020 on Full Time Hobby and Ba Da Bing Records, Katie Von Schleicher has released a handful of singles; first two b-sides from the album and then standalone piece ‘could’ which she described as “a fun foray into the world of strings.” Fast forward a couple of years and the Brooklyn-based artist has unveiled a new single, ‘Elixir’. Released via Durham, NC label Sipsman, the track is a duet with Aly Spaltro (aka Lady Lamb) and showcases a lighter, more playful side to Von Schleicher’s work, all droll delivery and cuttingly sincere lyrics. “How can I reach out to the poems that I’ve loved, embrace plain speech more,” Von Schleicher asks of the song’s inspiration, “and how, for just one goddamned time, can I bring my sense of humour into my music?”

my body with blood – Time and Again

‘Time and Again’ introduces the music of Asheville-based slowcore project, my body with blood. Together with Eli Whitlow (drums), Ivo Pestana (bass) and Cass Dayton (backing vocals), they make a melancholic but never morose sound, probing into the frustrations of a repeating pattern. “I lost a friend, his father tried / To bring me back to Jesus,” goes one of the verses. “The year will end / And I’ll count the ways that I’ve failed.” But there’s a certain sense of reflection to the tone, a perspective only gained by some modicum of distance, and with it the prospect that such cycles might at least be weathered if not entirely conquered.

It’s the same
Time, time and again
I’ve memorized the cycle
The cycle by now

You can find my body with blood on Instagram.

Pony Girl – Laff It Off

Following on from last year’s shadowy Enny One Will Love You, Pony Girl are returning later this year with new LP, Laff It Off, on Paper Bag Records. A release described as a sister record to the previous album, examining many of the same themes and situations but this time with a focus on the playful side of things. The title track is itself the twin of previous single, ‘Running in Circles‘, which we described as “a slow-burning pop number which slowly unravels into something more chaotic as another crushingly mundane day in work pushes the narrator to the brink.” The new single presents us with the same situation but reacts differently, a refusal in the face of the employment grindstone which emerges with bright humanity intact. “We first wrote [the refrain] ‘I don’t wanna be working every day’ as a lark,” the band explain, “but ultimately fell for it as a chant to get through the next shift.” Watch the video below produced by K Collective and directed by DELGATZ:

Laff It Off is out via Paper Bag Records on the 27th October and you can pre-order it now.

Quinn Devlin – Movie Scene

Back in April we featured ‘Lilian’, a single from Pennsylvania-born multi-instrumentalist Quinn Devlin, a track we described as “solo intimacy blown up into something communal, the sound’s careful richness developing into an affirming final chorus.” Devlin has since been picked up by Lorkin O’Reilly’s A For Effort Records, and plans to release full-length album Pair Of Threes later this year. In the meantime, new track ‘Movie Scene’ gives a taster of what’s to come. Its winding folk style paints a summer afternoon in all of its ideal fondness, channelling the country classics to invoke a nostalgically golden hue.

Pair Of Threes is out this September via A For Effort Records.

Stephen Steinbrink – Cruiser

With new album Disappearing Coin coming later this summer on Western Vinyl, Stephen Steinbrink has unveiled a brand new single, ‘Cruiser’. The record’s title refers to a magician’s trick Steinbrink saw on Youtube—where a coin is made to vanish in front of a viewing highschooler—speaking to the blend of ordinary and extraordinary which marks the songs. The new single aims to reach for the perspective of this amazed, awkward bystander. An attempt to write from the perspective of a character embedded within the “conservative defoliated suburban environments,” a landscape familiar to Steinbrink from his own youth, with Boy Scouts (AKA Boy Scouts) lending vocals too. As he continues:

This character feels he has to hide what he loves, hyper-vigilant for opportunities to mold himself into a shape that will be accepted by the people around him, independent because no one is paying attention. There are parts of myself in the character, but it’s mostly an amalgamation of friends I grew up with in the punk/DIY scene in Phoenix in the late 2000s before we all moved away.

Disappearing Coin is out on the 18th August via Western Vinyl and you can pre-order it now.

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