Ahead of a second full-length record due sometime in the near future, Pittsburgh‘s Animal Scream have released brand new single, ‘Fires After Dark’, released via American Hermitage as a 7″ vinyl along with b-side ‘Cinnamon Blue’. The song was written during 2020’s turbulent summer of protest, with duo Chad Monticue and Josh Sickels describing the track as concerning “the essence of creating art during twisted up days, even when you feel out of place and at your most insignificant.” What results is something which lives up to its title, a sound undoubtedly dark and a little chaotic, though its energies are channelled into bright sparks of defiant feeling.

‘Fires After Dark’ is out now via American Hermitage and available as a 7″ single from Bandcamp.

Astra Forward – There, There, Here Is Here

Astra Forward is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer based in London who makes what she describes as “dreamy and intimate songs about the enchantment of nature and the power of human connection.” Latest single ‘There, There, Here is Here’ captures this ethos beautifully, with classic folk stylings as well as a timeless ethereal atmosphere channeling a bond between human emotion and the natural world that feels somehow ancient. It is at once delicate and powerful, existing in a barely-there hush before Pascal Colman’s guitar comes winding out of the shadows with ominous strength. “It feels like this song was written for me, not by me,” Astra Forward describes, “because when my world collapsed, ‘There, There, Here is Here’ was what I needed to hear. My hope is that it can be your medicine too.”

Girlpuppy – I Want To Be There

The recording moniker of Atlanta‘s Becca Harvey, girlpuppy is gearing up to release new album When I’m Alone this autumn on Royal Mountain Records. The involvement of Marshall Vore (Phoebe Bridgers) on debut EP Swan led some to label girlpuppy the heir apparent to the sad girl indie folk crown, and latest single ‘I Want To Be There’ does little to dispel the tag. Centring on the time a landlord kicked Harvey and three friends out of the dream home, only for the friends to up and leave for New York, the song paints a self-deprecating picture of emotional distress. “I felt like I had no friends which made me wonder what was wrong with me,” she explains, “which kind of made me spiral into self-hatred. I like to call this one the ‘self-hate anthem’ of the album.”

When I’m Alone is out on 28th October via Royal Mountain Records and you can pre-order it now.

The Human Fly – A New Perspective

Philadelphia/New York outfit The Human Fly have recently released Thrill of Living, a new album on Dead Definition. Opener ‘A New Perspective’ introduces their blend of alt-country and indie rock, as well as the distinctive delivery and lyricism of lead Robert Mathis. A search for a home, or even just a clearer definition of exactly what that might mean. “I need a new perspective / I need a new directive / been nameless as a comet,” he sings, his tone finding a line somewhere between heartfelt sincerity and Berman-esque wryness. Moving through states, seeking something which might not exist.

Maybe home is just perpetually chasing peacefulness
or maybe home is when you find it
and if I do, I can send you the address

Izzy Oram Brown – Mess

Having spent years honing her craft, be it studying musical history or supporting other musicians, Brooklyn‘s Izzy Oram Brown has recently unveiled her debut album, Mess. Despite being Oram Brown’s first real foray into songwriting and production, and irrespective of the title, the album is a careful, finely-tuned collection. The product of time dedicated to music, all the prior learning put to new use. The title track introduces the record’s themes and narrative, and in turn signals the relevance of the title. The inherent messiness of life, be that within the tangled desires and hang-ups of a relationship or a person’s connection to the wider world.

And the birds they sang, their final breaths
And the Tennessee heat pressed down on my chest
I do not remember making this mess
I do not remember making this mess

Pet Owner – Hi-Res

The recording project of Lucerne, Switzerland’s Lea Mathis, Pet Owner combines pop, folk and electronic styles into a transportive, idiosyncratic sound. Ahead of upcoming debut Natural Behaviour on Red Brick Chapel, new single, ‘Hi-Res’ introduces the inventive shapes such a combination can take. Mathis’s vocals skate over a bed of playful electronics, the whole thing ebbing and flowing to add an organic air to the otherwise digital soundscape.

Rachel Angel – Closer to Myself

Miami’s Rachel Angel is set to release new album Midnite Heart Attack next month on Ruzafa Records, an album born of a difficult time spent abroad. The title refers to “a defining moment of reckoning,” Angel explains, “upon which one is confronted with the decision to change or die,” and single ‘Closer to Myself’ goes some way to delineating the result of such an epiphany. A classic country pop song describing a moment of movement from uprooted confusion to the solid foundation of self-assurance. “Roll around in circles feeling lost,” Angel sings, “Got stuck in the britches on a cross / Ring around the rosie / Paint me true,” though soon a direction forms and with it understand:

I’m getting closer to myself
And less to you

And when I finally close my eyes and see
I find that it was always in front of me

Rich Ruth – Older But Not Less Confused

Earlier this summer, Rich Ruth released I Survived, It’s Over, a brand new album on Third Man Records written at home in Tennessee “amidst the quiet and tumult” of a tornado’s aftermath. This juxtaposition informs the near endlessly inventive sound, the record challenging any distinction between order and chaos, hush and noise, and indeed that between humble domestic beauty and the massive sublime. No one track can be representative of a record so adventurous, but ‘Older But Not Less Confused’ is as good a diving in point as any, and the video directed by Brook Linder goes some way to capturing Rich Ruth’s ability to knit seemingly disparate elements into a cohesive system far larger than its constituent parts.

I Survived, It’s Over is out now via Third Man Records and you can get it from the Rich Ruth Bandcamp page.

Sonic Løland & Simen Mitlid – Everything at Once

Back in February we wrote of And Then the Sun Came Up, the debut album Sonic Løland coming later this autumn on Koke Plate. New single ‘Everything at Once’ invites Simen Mitlid to help create something delicate and heartfelt, though the soft indie folk sound of the first half is changed midway through. The sound suddenly becomes distorted, feedback coming from the guitars, as though some alteration has occurred from which there is no return.

And Then the Sun Came Up is out via Koke Plate in September.

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Cave Cricket is the project of Portland, OR‘s Kira Sassano, who makes drone and ambient-inspired folk music that seems to emanate from another plane entirely. Her latest album, The World, is being released later this week on cassette by the good folks at bud tapes, a release in which the label say “cascading tones and abounding noises ebb and flow like the mellow waves of a lake or sand on a beach shifting in the breeze.” Lead single ‘The World Pt 1’ offers a glimpse of this in action, a song that feels at once spacious and intimate, Sassano’s vocals ringing out like an otherworldly choir above soaring drones and pulsating drum machine.

There are so many problems in our world
Oh the world moves so fast
it makes my head spin
Oh the world is so vast
with all its moving parts

hojascirculares – asleep

hojascirculares is the recording project of Mexican-American producer, songwriter, and visual artist Ara Hernandez. Latest single ‘Asleep’, released to coincide with last month’s full moon, sees hojascirculares continue to perfect a dark and spiritual brand of synth-based ambient music. There’s a ghostly, gauziness to the song, something which shares an uncanny alignment with its overall sense of dissociation, of feeling somehow unreal. “It’s about those states, gliding through life like a ghost, stuck and frozen inside my own mind,” Hernandez describes. “Paralyzed by my fears of the unknown, the future.” But the song isn’t a simple descent into inky anxiety, it offers a sense of reprieve and respite too. “But I know the flood always returns and sets me free again.” she continues “I am grateful for those moments, when I can feel everything again.”

MF Tomlinson – A Cloud

Born in Brisbane/Meanjin and now based in London, MF Tomlinson is a singer-songwriter who knits psych and sixties sensibilities into his folk style to conjure something as detailed as it is evocative. Having recently signed with PRAH Recordings, Tomlinson has unveiled new track ‘A Cloud’ in preview of his second album which is due sometime next year, developing his sound into an almost orchestral richness. The song picks up where the last record left off, finding Tomlinson suspended within a bittersweet dream-state, where the pain of longing is counterbalanced by an appreciation of the beauty inherent in even the smallest moments of life. Check out the video by Daisy JT Smith below:

‘A Cloud’ is out now via PRAH Recordings and you can grab it from Bandcamp.

PACKS – iknowiknow

Fresh off the back of debut album Take the Cake released via Fire Talk Records and Royal Mountain Records last year, Toronto‘s PACKS is back with a brand new EP, WOAH. We described the previous release as “a delightfully fuzzed-out balance between dreamy stasis and forward motion, all tied together by [Madeline] Link’s inventive, wry lyrics.” WOAH continues the conversational-yet-poetic style within more subdued, acoustic arrangements. Latest single ‘iknowiknow’ is a great example, a confessional track undercut by a sardonic edge that’s all tumbling acoustic guitar and downbeat vocals.

RA Washington / Jah Nada – Bobbi Lynn

It seems futile to attempt to sum up In Search of Our Father’s Gardens with a single track. The debut record from Cleveland duo RA Washington and Jah Nada out later this year on Astral Spirits, the release is an epic double LP split into four sides (or five, if you count the bonus digital addition), with each taking on very different moods and styles. They are even designed so that they can be played simultaneously if you have two record players at hand. All that said, single ‘Bobbi Lynn’ isn’t exactly an average song either. Representing ‘side D’ of the album and a culmination of everything which comes before, it clocks in at over eighteen minutes and highlights the full ability of the supporting fourteen-piece ensemble.

Trout – bugs

Trout is a throwback to the golden age of MP3 blog gems, when mysterious projects emerged from nowhere with no social media presence, no EPK or press campaign, hardly any information on who they are at all. New single ‘bugs’ is “about watching the bugs outside your window be more productive than you,” is as much as we get by way of explanation, though no more is needed. A song sitting between bedroom pop confession and gauzy Gleemer-esque weight, its downbeat drift captures a day passing in a torpor, sparks of energy appearing and disappearing like flares of frustration.

Waterbaby – Thin Air

Avant pop duo Waterbaby, AKA sisters Martha and Jessica Kilpatrick, have made their name weaving soundscapes which play with the distinction between lightness and weight. Having signed with untitled (recs), the pair are back with single ‘Thin Air’ to further this style, a track at once ethereal and dense. “It’s a song about duality,” they explain. “We shapeshift from being in the driver’s seat to going along for the ride […] and travel from day to night.” And further changes take place across this journey, not least a rise and fall which offers the listener both the joy of the ascent and the rush of the plummet back down. As the band put it “Throughout the song you soar and crash, sometimes looking down on the world below, existing somewhere in the clouds like an angel watching earth.”

‘Thin Air’ is out now via untitled (recs) and you can find it in all the usual places.

Zoon – Oil Pastel / Dope Sick (ft. Cadence Weapon)

A few weeks ago we previewed Big Pharma, a forthcoming album from Hamilton‘s Zoon on Paper Bag Records. An exploration of the “enduring face of colonialism via the power and violence of the pharmaceutical industry,” as we described, which also worked to uphold indigenous language. Latest single ‘Oil Pastel/Dope Sick’ invites Cadence Weapon to meld shoegaze and hip hop into a sound rich and detailed enough to capture the experience of being on the ground amid the opioid crisis. His intuitive, flowing verses take aim at the corporations who caused the catastrophe, looping in meditative cycles until they become something like a mantra for instigating change from the bottom up.

Big Pharma is out now via Paper Bag Records and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

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Single ‘Silvertongue’ is the perfect introduction. With its stop-start rhythm, the track feels like waves of conviction building and dissipating, aligning with the themes of a relationship’s slow decay. “It’s easy to be lured into the comforts of past relationships,” Link says. “What’s harder is dealing with years of exhaustion, mistrust, and always hoping. Ditch the whiplash of manipulation and decide what YOU want out of love!”

Shiny words on a page
Hop to me later in a burlap sack
Make way for beautiful displays
Silver-tongued hypochondriac

Every time I reconsider
No Cut-N-Dry all
Vim and Vigour

Check out the video directed by Graeme Leung and Link herself below:

Take the Cake will be released via Fire Talk Records and Royal Mountain Records on the 21st May and you can pre-order it now from the PACKS Bandcamp page.

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