Described as a “multifaceted, multigenerational recording project from Albuquerque, New Mexico,” AJ Woods counts members of a Hawk and a Hacksaw, The Sir Douglas Quintet, Neutral Milk Hotel and Heather Trost Band among its roster, and the level of experience shines through in the sound. Forthcoming via Perpetual Doom, new album Hawk Is Listenin’ uses this multitudinous style to evoke nature in all of its diversity, reminding us that not only should we be more attuned to the natural world, but moreover that it is more aware of our presence than we might think. The opener and title track sets out these ideas in characteristically inventive style, layering a dreamy folk song from all sorts of sounds and images, and punctuating the careful arrangement with bursts of evocative noise.

alx frncs – good is your friend

“An attempt to process an extremely difficult period via an intimate, gentle sound.” That’s what we wrote back in March about alx frncs‘s ‘i cant do anything right’, a song which typified the confessional yet empathetic nature of the Brighton songwriter’s work. Written in response to the loss of her childhood pet, new single ‘good is your friend’ is no different, exploring themes of grief and mourning in a kind of post-religious space. The lapsed-Catholic state of mind where dogma might no longer be the organising logic of a life, yet the imagery and rhythms remain. The atmosphere is subdued and enveloping, with a textured cinematic feel that blossoms from its modest beginning.

christ i’ve given in
give in me mortal sin
if we don’t find out
where we’ll end up now

time,
passes by

Bitter Calm – Surrender

‘Salt’, the first single from Bitter Calm‘s forthcoming album Eternity In The Lake of Fire on Earth Libraries, represented something of a change for the band. As we wrote in a preview, “the song is still concerned with the weighty themes of love and death” that marked debut Good Grief, but “the shadowy slowcore sensibilities are replaced with something altogether brighter and more melodic.” But rather than a compensatory turn to positivity, the tone is something won in the hardest of manners, brightness not as an absence of dark but rather the strange marvel at being alive to record at all. Final single ‘Surrender’ turns to alt folk sensibilities to further this style, positioning itself between acts like Songs: Ohia and Purple Mountains, the high priests of such moods.

Eternity In The Lake of Fire is out on the 6th September via Earth Libraries and available to pre-order from the Bitter Calm Bandcamp page.

Decimal Decade – Trace

Decimal Decade is a recording project led by Chicago-based songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Nico Tiparescu. Born in Venezuela to Romanian and Peruvian parents and growing up in Spain and later Chile, Tiparescu has a more diverse background than most, and the breadth of his personal experience is evident in the debut Decimal Decade EP, Soon to Evolve. It’s a synthesis of styles and interests which emerged from the dissolution of a previous band, Tiparescu seeking to rekindle his love of music after a period of disappointment. “A constant parameter that I tried to follow was that everything in the songs felt natural to me,” as he explains. “All the ideas I put in had to be completely in line with what felt honest. I was just moving towards what made me excited about the music.” Listen to single ‘Trace’ for a glimpse into the release:

Masayoshi Fujita – Our Mother’s Lights (feat. Moor Mother)

Coming next month on Erased Tapes, Masayoshi Fujita‘s new album Migratory sees the Japanese composer, vibraphonist and marimba player continue to explore the possibilities that exist in the spaces between electronic and classical music. The record’s title is apt, the release drawing upon the phenomenon of avian migration as a central image for its far-reaching sound. The album was “inspired by my experiences of living abroad and returning to my homeland,” Fujita explains, “as well as by the artists featured on this album who also somehow travelled or lived in other countries across the boundaries, and being influenced by the music of other lands but at the same time somehow led to their roots.” Artists like Mattias Hållsten and Hatis Noit feature on the album, but its is Camae Ayewa, AKA Moor Mother (Irreversible Entanglements / The Art Ensemble of Chicago), who steals the show with vocals on new single ‘Our Mother’s Light’.

Neighbours Burning Neighbours – Always Winning

Described as “an anthem for all of those who struggle with navigating the whirlwind of ADHD,” Neighbours Burning Neighbours‘ new single ‘Always Winning’ finds the Rotterdam-based outfit further their distinctive blend of post-rock and noise pop sensibilities. The song, a glimpse of their forthcoming self-titled album on Subroutine Records, follows previous track ‘Neil Young‘ in its ability to sound at once discordant and infectious, pulling the audience into its rhythm and holding them there through the ebb and flow between taut slacks and hectic rapids.

Oh, Rose – Toilet Water

Back in June we shared ‘The Call’, a single from Oh, Rose‘s new album Dorothy, coming soon via Antiquated Future. A track which “originated in an inflection point,” as we wrote, “one where Rose was made to consciously decide to continue her pursuit of her artistic energies when life seemed intent on strangling them.” Named after Olivia Rose’s grandmother, the album takes inspiration from the skill of quilting. A collection of styles and genres stitched together with patience, where many small pieces unite into something greater than the sum of their parts. “I always said this album was going to be a love album,” she says, “and this record feels emblematic of the love I shared with her.” The closing track of the album latest single ‘Toilet Water’ sees the Olympia, Washington outfit work up an affirming chorus in the face of continuing difficulty, as though wrapped in the blanket of the record, they are ready to face down whatever might come their way.

Retail Drugs – Net

The new project of Laveda‘s Jake Brooks, Retail Drugs offers the Brooklyn-based artist a vehicle to explore new sonic directions and get playful with production. His album i love you so ! is out now via Candlepin Records, a record the label say is about “a distaste for music scenes, the grief of losing a loved one, fear of age & irrelevance, & clutching on to specific moments in time even while finally understanding that moving on is a part of life.” Lead single ‘Net’ is a great intro to Brooks’s blend of saturated tape textures and DAW wizardry, a slow-burning track that sits somewhere between the dense slowcore of Duster and They Are Gutting a Body of Water with the joyful, earnest and slightly submerged delivery of early Youth Lagoon.

Surf Party, USA – Beach Ball

We’ve featured a number of tracks from Surf Party, USA in recent times, with ‘Barrel’ and ‘Umbrella’ capturing different dimensions of their new album, Surf Party, USA 2. The former offered all the fun and chaos of a good day on swell, while the latter was more reflective, as though the sun was dipping below the horizon at the end of the day. With the record now out, the Brooklyn-based outfit have released another single, ‘Beach Ball’, a song which sits at the languid end of the Surf Party spectrum. Perhaps it represents that peace when night has finally fallen and everything seems to find a kind a melancholy perspective.

teasea – Always

As well as being half of the indie-psych soul duo Ritual Talk, Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist Tom Criblez also records solo under the moniker teasea. The act is a vehicle for a heavier, shoegaze-adjacent style which sits somewhere between My Bloody Valentine and Midwife. Part of a new EP, single ‘Always’ is a great place to start for the uninitiated. A densely layered track which envelops the listener from the off. But more than being a lesson in size and heft, the song is far more nuanced. Introspection manifest as sound, the track’s depth coming to mimic that of our interior lives, not to mention the murky network of relationships we maintain. But for all of its gloomy weight, there’s a certain lightness arcing through the sound too. The sense everything is reaching towards some state of enlightened truth.

‘Always’ is out now.

Wanda What – Besties

In recent weeks we’ve previewed Dyke TV, the new album from Harmony Reynolds’s Wanda What, with a number of singles which brought into relief what we’ve described as the “central tension” of the project, “one which might be crudely described as the friction between dreams and reality.” ‘Big Tree‘ offered a country-inflected croon which split the difference between playfulness and heartache, while ‘Bye Bye‘ turned to noughties buzz bands for influence for its sunny and energetic sound. With the album now out via Youth Riot Records, latest single ‘Besties’ shows yet another dimension of the project. A pop banger which doubles as an ode to those friends who always have your back. “I love to lean into a sort of goofy cheerfulness,” Reynolds describes. “Its okay to simply write a pop banger about loving your friends.”

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The new release sees the band—van Teylingen (vocals), Mitchell Quitz (guitar), Kat Kalkman (bass) and Emre Karayalçin (drums)—further hone this style. “Nothing, Interesting explores themes of love and loss,” van Teylingen explains. “Often intertwined with a growing fear of not being able to keep up with the world as we know it. However, in this process it’s essential to embrace the absurdity of existence, and not take it too seriously.” Library Card explore these feelings in numerous way, such as via the aforementioned dualities of ‘Cognitive Dissonance’, or the furious ‘Well, Actually’ with its scathing comment on the patriarchal tendencies of an audience to offer unsolicited advice, and delivered with a sound which swings between anxious post-punk to soaring post-rock.

With Nothing, Interesting being released later this week on At Ease, Library Card have unveiled final single ‘For The World Is Hollow’ by way of introduction. It’s a track which coils with taut potential, rising from rushed drums and spilling over into weighty breakdowns that never quite puncture the twitchy rhythm. The vocals offer a range spanning the stages of grief, starting with real needle before settling into a hauntingly melancholic acceptance by the close. “I’ve heard death described as the introduction of ink into water,” as van Teylingen sings. “It isn’t an absence, it is an expansion.”

Watch the video directed by Kalkman themselves below:

Nothing, Interesting is out on the 15th March via At Ease and you can pre-order it now from the Library Card Bandcamp page.

Artwork by Lot van Teylingen

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What she calls “[a song] about the experience of being both loved and misunderstood by someone,” ‘Poser’ is the title track of the forthcoming EP from Edmonton‘s Antonia Estelle. Built on a skeleton of stark acoustic guitar, the song is fleshed out with syrup-heavy drums and gusts of distorted guitar, the vocals swaying with quiet intensity like a flickering flame. The emotions underpinning it are gloomy and turbulent, focusing on the strange balance of a dysfunctional relationship and the ultimate unknowability of selfhood. “I had a dream that bears had butterfly wings,” Antonia Estelle sings, “it’s a picture I can’t paint—a feeling that stays inside.”

I don’t know why I even try to explain
Things that I know you won’t understand

Big Cry Country – Pest Control

Based in Washington D.C., Big Cry Country pour a whole host of moods and emotions into their sound, as latest single ‘Pest Control’ attests. Taken from their EP Living Conditions, the song finds inspiration in the likes of Cayetana and Remember Sports to offer something at once deliciously angsty and infectiously energetic. “I’m older but not better,” as the cathartic refrain states. “I’ve seen the afterlife and you are wearing my old sweater.” Big Cry Country might be a fitting name, but releasing emotion has never been so much fun.

Closebye – Hell’s Kitchen

Formed by Dallas-born, NYC based duo Jonah Paul Smith and Julian Paint Smith (unrelated), Closebye make folk-inflected indie pop inspired by the likes of Elliott Smith, Aimee Mann and Hovvdy. Following their debut album Lucid News, released in 2022, the band have returned with a perfectly autumnal single, ‘Hell’s Kitchen’, what they call “an ode to their libra birth season and to their home base of New York City.” The Smiths are joined by Ian Salazar, Margaux Bouchegnies and Simon Clinton, who together use a plethora of instruments to craft a “breezy pop banger” that’s tinged with just a hint of something more wistful, creeping in at the edges like the cool touch of the oncoming winter on an autumn afternoon.

Who are you gonna be?
When every day is Halloween

Check out the video, directed and edited by Elizabeth Kroner, below:

‘Hell’s Kitchen’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Dumb Things – Self Help

‘Self Help’ is the lead single and title track from the new record by Meanjin/Brisbane indie poppers Dumb Things, coming soon via Coolin’ By Sound. Influenced by the droll poetic style of David Berman, it’s a slice of breezy, dusty pop with a streak of yearning melancholy, the narrator looking to self-improvement as a remedy to past mistakes. “The original idea for the song is that it’s a letter from a guy who’s a bit down on his luck but still in the fight, to his ex, some time after they split up,” says vocalist Adam Vincent.

Lately I’ve been working hard on my personality
Cos you got to keep it up, to keep it together ah ha
Been trying to find the time to put the work in
Yeah, I’ve been working out how to work it out

Elephant in Red – Honey

The creative outlet of Glasgow‘s Loup Havenith, Elephant in Red make what they call “sappy sounds for earthly beings.” Latest single ‘Honey’ sees the band combine gently grooving, stripped back folk with a shimmer of shoegaze, full of rich textures and gently wavering vocals. Havenith is joined by Chris McRory (drums), Fin Logie (bass) and Alex Gyllos (piano), who together built the song from the ground up. “[The song is] a sort of longing for calmness and simplicity,” the band describe. “Wanting to move past the weird overwhelming coming-of-age feelings that come hand in hand with being young in a city full of people.”

Lando Manning – Driftwood

Written during what he calls “the final dregs of lockdown,” ‘Driftwood’, the new single from London‘s Lando Manning, is an exploration of the many shades of isolation and loneliness. A quiet folky song, it’s built on percussive acoustic guitar and soft peals of piano, full of loaded negative space and a film-grained cinematic quality. “I had moved to Brighton and felt that I had been isolating myself from my friends back home,” Manning describes of his time writing the song, “and the track was written as a letter to my friends to try to explain why I had been absent.”

‘Driftwood’ is out now and available on streaming services. Manning will release his sophomore EP on his label Mango Wax Records next February.

Laurel Bluffs – Richmond

“Losing myself in the mirror / drenched in alcohol and smoke / I called, you came and picked me up / laid me down, turned out the lights.” So opens ‘Richmond’, the latest single from Phoenix, Arizona-based project Laurel Bluffs. A drive to Richmond follows, a hungover nausea, the bumpy road, and with it the kind of wistful reflection which blooms in the sorry aftermath of things. The folk rock sound and unadorned delivery lend an intimacy to the track, where fondness and longing are present without spilling into sugary sentiment. Instead, there’s just the highway, a building pressure, and the accumulated weight of actions as gathered over the course of regretful years.

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

Neighbours Burning Neighbours – Neil Young

Specialising in a brand of meaningful chaos, Rotterdam noise pop act Neighbours Burning Neighbours have been crafting songs from disorderly melodies and left-field harmonies since 2018. Following a couple of single releases, the band set to work on their debut full-length, which they plan to release in 2024. To whet appetites, they have released the record’s first single ‘Neil Young’, a typically discordant but infectious track which challenges gender norms and the harmful status quo. Watch the video, directed by Charlotte Brand and produced by A Small Production Company, below:

‘Neil Young’ is out now via streaming services.

Twin Bridges – A Dream of You

Led by cellist Zach Gerzon, Twin Bridges are a band from Portland, Oregon who combine folk and indie rock songwriting with neoclassical arrangements and elements of chamber music. They recently released Fertile Ashes, a new record which Gerzon wrote in the aftermath of some very difficult personal circumstances. “These songs explore what can feel like an impossible task, overcoming grief from loss, trauma, and failed relationships,” he says of the album. “Making this album helped me let go of things I held onto for so long.” Perhaps the record’s most personal cut, ‘A Dream of You’ is an ode to Gerzon’s late mother, suffused with an elegant simplicity and sorrow.

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Working between soul, jazz and R&B, Portland, ME-based artist Angelikah Fahray is a rising star of the New England scene, winning attention with a sound willing to embrace both haunting and sensual styles. Latest single ‘In My Coffin’ is the perfect introduction for those unfamiliar. A slow, sultry croon which envelopes the audience, the song occupies an ambiguous tone which never quite shows its hand. Is it romantic, bitter, melancholic? Or perhaps all three spun into an enthralling web?

‘In My Coffin’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Casual Technicians – On A Trip To Nowhere

Though now separated by geography, all three members of Casual Technicians have a long history with the music scene in Portland, Oregon. Tyler Keene and Nathan Baumgartner were founding members of And And And while Boone Howard fronted The We Shared Milk and the Boone Howard band. This experience shined through on Four Corners EP, the latest release from Repeating Cloud, where the band offer a confident and playful sound that’s not only willing to experiment between genres but to meld them together seamlessly. Opener and single ‘On a Trip to Nowhere’ plays something like the bummed-out dispatch from contemporary existence a la talons’ as processed through a laidback Steely Dan warmth.

there’s so many times that I’m tired and I’m in the basement
working on stuff and I take a nap
and I go out in the backyard and cut the grass
and shave it down as close as my old head

I feel beefed up but burnt down
burping up bubbles from a weird old beer
that looks like its been open for a half of a year
imagine that

makes me wish it was later in the day

French For Rabbits – Leech

Towards the end of next month, Aotearoa dream pop band French For Rabbits return with a brand new EP In the End I Won’t Be Coming Home. The follow-up to 2021 LP The Overflow, the four song release was recorded this past summer with strings from Auckland’s The Black Quartet and sees an evolution of the French For Rabbits style that we’ve previous described as “translucent and melancholic and alive.” Latest single ‘Leech’ is the perfect introduction, an exploration of “the push and pull of love” suffused with ethereal harmonies and a soaring atmosphere, at once epic and fragile, the lingering melancholy burning away to reveal the rousing chorus.

Cause your love is my only comfort
And your love is my only reward
But if my heart is a leech and you’re still out of reach
All I’m left with is all of my thoughts.

German Error Message & Noah Kittinger – It’s night and you’re alone

The latest release in Furious Hooves‘ Furhoof Halloween Split Series, It’s night and you’re alone offers two ambient instrumental tracks—one by German Error Message and one by Noah Kittinger (of Bedroom)—which live up to the release’s title and offer the ideal Halloween soundtrack for those looking beyond the cliched and the camp. The songs were written six years, eleven months and one day apart from one another, though despite the gap somehow seem to be in conversation. Paul Kintzing’s ‘10.30.16’ plays as a walk down a lonely forest path as night descends, its slowly gathering momentum mimicking the kind of latent dread which comes down with the dark, while Kittinger’s ‘10.1.23’ offers a different sort of night-time passage. A lonely journey through a darkening countryside as viewed from the window of a train, and furthermore one complicated by the liminal strangeness of such an experience. Time both upended and hauntologically conspicuous, your own reflection mirrored back to you in the glass, both part of the view and not.

It’s night and you’re alone is out now via Furious Hooves. Get it via Bandcamp.

Library Card – Cognitive Dissonance

Drawing inspiration from acts like Protomartyr and Life Without Buildings as well as poets such as Anne Clark, Rotterdam’s Library Card are a band of contradictions. Dissonant yet melodious, rambunctious yet taut, volatile yet cool. Lead by Lot van Teylingen and featuring Emre Karayalçin, Kat Kalkman and Mitchell Quitz, the outfit are now preparing to release their new EP Nothing Interesting, and single ‘Cognitive Dissonance’ serves as a encapsulation of this incongruous sound. An examination of the competing forces which coexist within us, an internal struggle between the desire to be selfish and altruistic.

Unspeakable
Unthinkable
Do we simply stare at what’s horrible and forgive it?
Do we simply notice but not see at all?
Truth is a beautiful illusion
Where is your truth now

‘Cognitive Dissonance’ is out now via AT EASE. Get it from the Library Card Bandcamp page.

MVSO – Hold Clear

A collaboration between songwriter/vocalist duo Mat Vairo and Saumon Oboudiyat, MVSO originated as little more than a space for the pair to experiment with music, though soon developed into something more considered and official. The result is Proprioception, an EP pencilled for release in spring 2024 which sees the artists explore universal themes of life, death and the passing of time through a decidedly personal lens. This allows them to take on the biggest ideas while also recording a specific moment in their lives and the position of their friendship within it. Single ‘Hold Clear’ hints at the evocative, simmering style this takes, where the intimacy of the personal opens out into something cryptic and deep.

MX LONELY – Rest In Salt

With their new EP SPIT coming on Candlepin Records early in 2024, Brooklyn‘s MX LONELY have unveiled single ‘Rest In Salt’ to signal their pivot towards a heavier alt rock/shoegaze aesthetic. With Rae Hass taking over lead vocal duties, the song pitches the listener into a shadowy, foreboding world full of needling intensity and crushing weight, the vocals emerging from within this tumult like the helpless cries of the damned. “’Rest In Salt’ is about being trapped in purgatory, pure and simple,” as Hass explains, “about being ridden with anxiety and stuck to the couch. It’s that feeling of jealousy for the dead and the tinge of guilt that follows. When you lie so still you think you can almost remember the freedom of being nothing at all.”

SPIT is out on the 6th February via Candlepin Records and you can pre-order it now.

See Jazz – 1982

Described as a band for “uncool people everywhere scattered to the edges of contemporary anywheres,” See Jazz might be the solo vehicle of Aaron Pfannebecker, though the endeavor is far from a one-person project. Forthcoming album Is This Anything?, out next month via Flower Sounds, sees the likes of Adam Langellotti (Kurt Vile and the Violators), Jed Smith (My Teenage Stride and Jeanines) and Zara Bode (Sweetback Sisters) lend their talents to bring to life a sound at once ethereal and danceable. Take single ‘1982’, so airy if feels on the verge of drifting upwards and away, though all the while anchored by Pfannebecker’s vocals and their exploration of the stubborn nature of human perspective.

Is This Anything? is out on the 10th November via Flower Sounds and you can pre-order it now.

Wet Fruit – Dandelions at the Gate

Hailing from Portland, OR, Wet Fruit take inspiration from a grab bag of genres to create their own singular sound. New album Dandelions at the Gate, out now via Half Shell Records, has indie rock, punk, psych and experimental DNA. But far from an unwieldy mutant, the result is something honed and cohesive. Take opener and title track, its dreamy textures and harmonies cut through with a propulsive energy, giving the sense of escalating towards some moment of chaos or clarity. But as songs like ‘St. Charles’ show, the band are about more than hectic rhythms, stripping away the frenetic elements in favour of something more drifting. Like a late-night drive, sealed into your own little world and estranged from passing cars, left instead to consider the finer textures of solitude.

Dandelions at the Gate is out now via Half Shell Records.

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But as the project has developed, another dimension has slowly began to reveal itself. An earnestness standing in contrast to the hip style. Out and About, the latest Lewsberg album coming later this year, sees this more naïve strand grow increasingly prevalent, as the preview ‘AA’ double single ‘Without A Doubt/Communion’ attests. The former, written by Klein with lyrics from Dietrich, is positively sunny, its carefree rhythm nodding as much to surf pop as urban art rock, while ‘Communion’ even sees a certain brightness dawn on van Vliet’s distinctive spoken word delivery.

But you don’t have to scratch the surface too hard to find the classic Lewsberg spirit underneath, with the lyrics adding a deeper, existential dimension. The question then becomes how the new sound should be taken. Is the cheerful tone a genuine move towards a more positive outlook, or an irony to be folded into the black humour for which the project is known? The full album might tell, but an answer to this question seems beside the point. For Lewsberg exist within such a tension, and it is possible to be cynical and earnest all at once.

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Last month Library Card returned with brand new single ‘Sunflowers’, a song about being overwhelmed by the present and wanting to escape to the countryside. “I just want to get in a car and slam the door shut and not even take anything with me,” van Teylingen sings, “but drive hours and hours and hours to see sunflowers.” But true to the Library Card style, things are not quite as earnest as that might sound, the breezy carefree style undercut by sardonic lyrics and vocal delivery. What results works both on the immediate level (i.e. its lots of fun), but is also a pretty scathing commentary on contemporary existence too. As the band describe:

“We keep rushing through life, trying our very best to keep up with everything and everyone, feeding into our conditioned ambition and internalised capitalism, but because we try to do everything all at once, nothing really gets done. Nothing is in our control, nothing will happen the way you intend it to happen, nothing is set in stone. It’s okay. It is what it is.”

Watch the video by van Teylingen and Kalkman below:

‘Sunflowers’ is out now and available via streaming services and to download from the Library Card Bandcamp page.

Photo by Jade Sastropawiro

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