Hot on the heels of acclaimed full-length Animal Poem, a record which earned its place among our favourites of 2025, Portland, Oregon-based songwriter Anna Tivel is returning with collection of b-sides from the same recording period to further expand the world and themes of the album. “The EP will not be released until next spring, though lead single ‘Swan Song’ shows the new tracks are just as evocative and finely crafted as their sisters on the main album,” we wrote in our preview. A song which “pairs a relaxed rhythm and poignant tone with something urgent beneath the surface, a loneliness hurried by the violent pressing of time.” Ahead of its release, Tivel has now ‘Memphis’, another track loaded with equal parts tender emotion and shining intensity, its characteristically nuanced narrative painting life as something so bright it hurts. “I started writing ‘Memphis’ on an airplane after meeting an electric-eyed ex-convict heading to an evangelical gathering in Tennessee,” Tivel explains. “He was magnetic, ecstatic, possibly manic, and so in love with life. He got me thinking about the things we reach for when reality is too painful to accept.”

This Lonesome Paradise – Changelings

“A meditation on the American Dream with all its brutality, broken promises and betrayals.” That’s how we described This Lonesome Paradise‘s 2024 album Luna Nocturna, an almost McCarthy-esque picture of the West in all of its stark and haunted weight. Now E. Ray Béchard and co. are back with Death Motels, a brand new record on Bad Vibes Good Friends which looks to further this aesthetic, positioning the project as one working slightly outside of time with a sound that conjures a mythic past while always facing forwards. Take single ‘Changelings’ and its accompanying video, a brooding, Lynchian number as dark as the night itself, playing like some black mass out in the desert, looking to communicate with some other place or time.

Death Motels will be released on the 12th March via Bad Vibes Good Friends and you can pre-order it now.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys – Damp

With the release of new album Pale Bloom fast approaching via Unique Records, Berlin-based outfit Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys have unveiled latest single ‘Damp’. “Like most of what I write, it’s about a desire for depth and connection,” Kruger writes of the track. “A kind of quiet mocking of the mundane and domestic. The first verse reflects that polite culture of not saying what you mean, of being too afraid to ask for what you need in case you seem too much, or expose the mess of falling apart. There’s a wanting, though—to give in, give up, or simply to give.” This sense of wanting is made palpable across the song, both in terms of the simmering, taut urgency of the sound and the longing loaded into Kruger’s vocals, and the result is equal parts uneasy and mournful. The sad discomfort of revealing a deep part of oneself without knowing if anyone is even looking.

Watch the video below, created by long-time collaborators DTAN (Berlin) and Gaussian Studios (Amsterdam):

Pale Bloom will be released on the 13th February via Unique Records and you can pre-order it now.

MacGregor Burns – The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Released to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the original, MacGregor Burns has unveiled his own reverent version of Gordon Lightfoot’s classic ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’. An impromptu endeavour recorded in a single take, the song sees Burns stick close to Lightfoot’s process, eschewing embellishment or ostentation to keep the focus on the voice. Not an exercise of reinterpretation but devotion. An attempt to channel the spirit of the original and bring it forward fifty years, something which extends right down to the artwork itself.

‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Otracami – Please

We last featured Otracami back in 2023 with the release of touching the stove coil, an album which saw Camila Ortiz confront the past in all of its minutiae with equal parts foreboding and longing. “A strange mixture of pain and pleasure,” marked the record, as we described. “Approaching something which will almost certainly hurt, yet glows alluringly all the same.” Such tension between conflicting states continues on Otracami’s new full-length Runoff , set for via Figure & Ground this spring, as highlighted by lead single ‘Please’. The track uses samples and field recordings to add layers of depth to a full band arrangement, a style which speaks to the album’s concerns with the dynamic between restraint and release. “I was trying out leaving for the first time—people and jobs and situations with family,” Ortiz describes of the period in which the album was written. “It was real trial and error—sometimes that really worked and felt liberating and other times I had to turn around and go back. It was a period of big experimentation.”

The Pretty Flowers – Came Back Kicking

This spring will see the release of Never Felt Bitter, a brand new full-length from The Pretty Flowers, and the LA indie rockers have never sounded so urgent. Written within a city (and wider country) shaken by turmoil, be it the unprecedented wildfires or equally tinderbox political moment, the quartet found themselves driven by the surrounding atmosphere, the anxiety and chaos of their surroundings seeping into the tracks themselves. “There’s a sense of urgency, fear, and confusion in these songs,” explains drummer Sean Johnson. “Like each one might be the last song we write, or this might be the last album. If anything, it’s the most present we’ve ever been.” Lead single ‘Came Back Kicking’ introduces the style, embracing an almost Japandroids-esque momentum to not only burn through the upheaval but offer enough affirming energy to suggest we might be able to stand up to the things which want to drag us down.

We went walking under black skies
We wore out the terrain
It may have taken billions of years
But it had to happen sometime

And you can take it apart or you can blow it up
Either way don’t let it eat you up
Sucked you in to get a better look
And you came back kicking

Richard Walters – Rafts

Created as part of an artist residency for the Solent Seascape Project and the Blue Marine Foundation, Songs From the Solent is a new album from songwriter Richard Walters. The eight-song release incorporates field recordings from the local area, voices from Solent communities (sea swimmers, artists, visitors and more) and contributions from a stellar list of collaborators including Isle of Wight native Jeremy Irons to flesh out its folk sound. The result is something fundamentally rooted in place. Indeed linocut artist Angela Harding has made a bespoke illustrated map of the Solent, highlighting the locations which inspired each track, which will appear on the Solent Seascape Project website. Exploring the decline of migratory birds and featuring samples from Hayling Island nature reserve, lead single ‘Rafts’ shows just how evocative and uplifting this style proves to be.

Watch the video filmed and edited by Matt Jarvis below:

Songs From the Solent is out now and available from the Richard Walters Bandcamp page.

Robber Robber – The Sound It Made

Back in November, we wrote about ‘Talkback’, the fist single from Robber Robber since they signed with Fire Talk. “A song which doubles down on the spontaneous, impulsive style of the previous record,” as we put it, “[Nina] Cates’s vocals spiralling over the wiry rhythm like the contents of a racing mind blown up and projected onto a wall.” Now the Burlington, Vermont outfit has unveiled new album Two Wheels Move the Soul, and have shared opener ‘The Sound It Made’ to further introduce the sound. The record has roots in turmoil, born in a period after a landlord called for the longtime home of Cates and drummer Zack James to be demolished, and sets out to map the experience of living in a world beholden to the whims of the cruel and greedy. As you might expect, the result is chaotic, foreboding and often abrasive, and ‘The Sound It Made’ throws the listener right in from the off. “All systems go again / Will it ever stop?” Cates asks at one point, her delivery carrying the deadpan cool of someone who knows the ways of the world all too well. “Don’t know / Don’t think so / Don’t know what we’ll do if not.”

Watch the video below, by director Wes Sterrs, producer Emilie Silvestri and director of photography Jeff Griecci:

Two Wheels Move the Soul will be released on the 3rd April via Fire Talk and you can pre-order it now.

Sister Wanzala – Don’t Be Good To Me

Following on from ‘Now You’re Mine‘ and ‘Winter Dominos‘, ‘Don’t Be Good to Me’ is the third and final part of a loose trilogy of singles from London’s Sister Wanzala. And it might just be the most surprising track from the project to date, the outfit having made a name with a wry, tongue-in-cheek humour now turning their attention to that most terrifying of things: earnestness. Which isn’t to say the self-deprecation of previous releases has evaporated. The song explores the mystifying sensation of another person extending their kindness towards you, despite all the evidence you have collected to prove you could never deserve such a thing. Yet despite the subject matter, the song proceeds with a sensual swagger, proving that no matter how many times love might make a fool of you, there’s no harm in trying to look cool.

Snake Orange Cake – Vision

Snake Orange Cake, the new project of Åland-born, Berlin-based artist Julia Carlsson builds upon the electronics of previous project leoblu with spoken-word poetry and a newfound narrative focus. After singles ‘Hair‘ and ‘Animals‘ (a track “embedded within a nocturnal, slightly unreal space,” we wrote of the latter, “[dissolving] any distinction between the organic and the digital, as well as the line between waking reality and dreams”), Carlsson has returned with new single ‘Vision’. A self-described “hypnotic ritual in sound” which functions something like an incantation or mantra, the vocals repeating a series of mystical images as though hoping to conjure some mystical effect. The pulsing beat only furthers the mesmeric vibe, leading the listener into a space somehow adjacent from every day reality.

Watch the video by Maren Frey below:

‘Vision’ is out now via the Snake Orange Cake Bandcamp page.

Special Friend – Breakfast

Consisting of Erica Ashleson (drums, vocals) and Guillaume Siracusa (guitar, vocals), Franco-American duo Special Friend, have been making minimalist, lo-fi indie pop since their formation in 2018, releasing an EP and two albums in the process. Now the Paris-based outfit is back with Clipping, a brand new full-length with Howlin’ Banana which finds the Special Friend sound as rich as it has ever been. Drawing on folk, slowcore and krautrock influences, it opts for a newfound layer of attention and polish to the mixing. Single ‘Breakfast’ gives a taste of what is to come, an infectious track on our eroding attention spans which stays true to the band’s lo-fi origins with a delightful camcorder video.

Clipping will be released via Howlin Banana Records on the 20th March and you can pre-order it now.

Sweetbreads – Punisher of Love

“The perfect antidote to the breakneck bluster of the world we call home,” was how we described Out of Range by Sweetbreads back in 2022, an EP which followed its protagonist on her “quest to resist the thankless treadmill of modern living, opting for an unproductive and entirely more positive way of life.” The latest Sweetbreads release sees lead Melody Stolpp continue their exploration of this contemporary rat race, delving into the weight of expectations and self-sabotage which results. Pushing these ideas of further, comedian Clare O’Kane directed a video to accompany the track, casting fellow comedian Nick Naney as a humanoid rat pursuing Stolpp and her partner through the streets of New York. “We wanted to externalize that feeling of being chased by your own worst impulses,” as Stolpp explains. “What better way to do that than with a literal rat man running through Brooklyn?” Watch below:

‘Punisher of Love’ is out now and available from the usual places.

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“i am a water polo instructor and a horse rider / i’m a duplicator and a sex addict / i am an architect and a dog sitter.” So opens ‘water polo instructor’, the latest single from kids on coke by Swedish artist and poet daniel d. hedin. You might know Hedin as the force behind Le Days, which put out its own album Are You Here? back in February, but while that release offered a shadowy, almost orchestral style of melancholy, this is very different. ‘water polo instructor’ is a bare spoken word track which plays like something between a surprise voicemail and oral short story. The monologue of a character which not only digs deep into their personal identity but also their relationship with a significant other, as odd as it is lonely and packed with the kind of strange details which evoke a far wider story in the margins.

i am a wine drinker
a recovering consumerist
and a clown maker
i am a tv conductor
and a manuscript writer
i am a feet enthusiast
and a cat whisperer

Eliza Noxon – You

Songwriter Eliza Noxon has been working towards debut full-length Monsters With Bad Habits for a number of years, having last put out the EP Save Your Breath back in 2017. What began as an attempt to chart a fairly typical experience of growing up and leaving home soon became something else entirely, when the sudden loss of her brother completely changed her life. Written a little over a year after this bereavement, single ‘You’ finds Noxon still in the dark depths of loss, isolated by grief and unable to move beyond it. But it also represents the first steps towards that goal. “In writing this song, I found a way to scream and kick and channel all the rage and fear and loss that I felt into something I could use to connect with people,” she explains. “But, I think the song really came alive in the studio, with the addition of Jake Reed’s gorgeous, driving drums, and Pierre de Reeder’s masterful production. When I play or listen to the song today, It feels like a mass catharsis—I hear the voices of everyone who’s ever lost their person and had to figure out how to keep living with that hole in their heart.”

Hank Bee – Corner

The project of Liverpool-based Hannah Brown, Hank Bee is an outlet for a distinctive brand of indie rock that is very much influenced by folk and country traditions. “I liked the idea of an androgynous queer woman going by Hank,” Brown explains of the project’s name. “It harks back to male country singers of a certain era, but I’m not a man and I don’t make traditional country music. It makes me giggle to think of someone seeing the name and expecting a fella in a cowboy hat.” In January Hank Bee will release a sudden hankering, a five-song EP on Memorials of Distinction that promises to be the wider world’s introduction to an act that’s already well established in its hometown. Lead single ‘Corner’ is our first taste, what Brown says is about “that point of transition—being at the corner of something, at a crossroads,” but still sounds warm and welcoming to my ears.

Jeffrey Martin – 1519

“The climate is collapsing, diseases rising, robots striving to take over the globe, and still there’s not enough money for the people who actually need it,” we wrote of Jeffrey Martin‘s Thank God We Left The Garden back in 2023, and while his latest single ‘1519’ sets its sights on a different era entirely, it still looks to evoke something of the politics of the present day. Inspired by Buddy Levy’s book Conquistador about Hernán Cortés, the track looks to both occupy the mind of its colonial subject in all of its faults and folly, and draw lines to the forces of exceptionalism and greed which mark the present day. “From his own letters [Cortés] seemed blindly certain that his mission, no matter how brutal to the people he met in the Americas, was a righteous one,” Martin explains. “That with God and Spain on his side he was infallible. It made me wonder what we are blind to today that future historians might look back on in disbelief and disgust. ‘1519’ is an attempt to place myself on the boat, to stand next to Cortés, to feel him as a man instead of some unreachable, towering, historical figure.” The track is part of Alive July 25, 2025, new live album coming early next year on Fluff & Gravy Records.

Major Murphy – Like A Wrecking Ball

Following on from the success of 2024 mini album Fallout, Grand Rapids outfit Major Murphy have returned with brand new single ‘Like A Wrecking Ball’ on Winspear. The band have always been hard to pin down, Fallout, as we put it in our review, “stitching together a patchwork of styles into a cohesive album,” and the new track sees them lean closer than ever to folk and alt country. A bright if wistful acoustic number not afraid to take its time, slowly drawing the audience in with an easygoing rhythm before packing its emotional punch. And, clocking well over seven minutes, the track is certainly immersive, core members Jacob Bullard (vocals, guitar), Jacki Warren (vocals, bass) and Chad Houseman (drums) joined by Mark Lavengood (steel guitar, mandolin, percussion) and Dutcher Snedeker (piano, organ) to lift the sound towards its full richness.

Mol Sullivan – Dog

We featured Mol Sullivan numerous times last year, with album GOOSE landing itself a place among among our favourites of 2024. A record which “serves as a portrait of a person within the arc of great change […] written in the aftermath of a relationship and during a nascent sobriety,” as we wrote. “An artist moving forwards and looking back, reflecting on who they were and who they want to be, reaching beyond stories of love and addiction for a more nuanced picture of life.” Of course, such personal change rarely comes without support from others, and new single ‘Dog’ is an ode to one such crutch amid an otherwise tragic time. “This song is a love song to my dog who came into my life in the last year of severe alcoholism and was with me through the bitter days of early sobriety,” as Sullivan describes of the Americana-tinged track. “In May of this year, there was a horrific fire in my home on the same day as my mother’s funeral and we lost my partner’s dog to it. My partner and I had been working on my next record but decided to throw ourselves into the recording and release it early as a way to process our grief.”

Robber Robber – Talkback

Burlington, Vermont quartet Robber Robber made a splash in 2024 with the release of their debut record Wild Guess, Nina Cates, Zack James, Will Krulak and Carney Hemler rejecting genre conventions for something looser, instinctive and curious. Post-punk by way of art rock and a few other styles besides, the songs felt delivered straight from the central nervous system, all reaction and twitch and pure feeling. Having recently signed with Fire Talk, Robber Robber have shared new track ‘Talkback’ in celebration. A song which doubles down on the spontaneous, impulsive style of the previous record, Cates’s vocals spiralling over the wiry rhythm like the contents of a racing mind blown up and projected onto a wall.

Oops I thought you wouldn’t see this
Start into it
Think twice look again
If I had come to this, to this
It would’ve been the perfect talkback, perfect quip
Stand clap from all around,
Gold win
So quick, hard stop, land flat, good talkback,
Clever, quick, the double threat, I win

Watch the video directed and filmed by James and Cates themselves below:

Talkback is out now via Fire Talk and available from Bandcamp.

Zoya Zafar – Strange Heaven

We’ve followed the Lahore-born, Orlando-based songwriter Zoya Zafar for a number of years, applauding how she uses “a controlled, unadorned style to communicate a considerable depth of feeling.” Latest track ‘Strange Heaven’ is both another lesson in the power of minimalism, and proof that restraint need not sound austere or stark. “I wrote ‘Strange Heaven’ from the liminal place where grief turns memories into dreams and dreams into memories,” Zafar explains. “After losing my father, I dreamt of him in soft cinematic flashes that were pulled from both real life and invented by my mind.”

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

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