Locate S,1 – Personalia

Recording under the moniker Locate S,1, Christina Schneider stretches the boundaries of pop to create strange, beguiling songs that play light and dark off of one another. Following a successful tour with Frankie Cosmos in 2019, Locate S,1 signed with Captured Tracks and will release their second album, Personalia, this April.

The title track is the record’s first single, and represents the ideal welcome into the world of the album. Taking it’s title from a Mary Ruefle poem, ‘Personalia’ rises from a period of personal darkness toward something brighter, its clever, determined lyrics pitched somewhere between honesty and self-deprecation. It’s a potent mix, a spell which conjures life, and by the close Schneider is fired into orbit by her own energy once again.

Almost killed myself so I went home
I just cannot take these local shows
Tom T. Hall said don’t let your music kill you
But I’m no country boy
I’m just some punk

Personalia is out on the via Captured Tracks and you can pre-order it from the Locate S, 1 Bandcamp page.

Ratboys – I Go Out At Night

After the success of previous records AOID (2015) and GN (2018), Ratboys are back this month with the third album, Printer’s Devil, on Topshelf Records. Crafted around themes of instability and change, the record seeks to make peace with upheaval by defusing the fear it brings, and such a headspace proved conducive to a real development of the band’s sound. “There’s definitely a lot of uncertainty about what’s next,” explains lead Julia Steiner. “But I like to think that, in the midst of creating a lot of vulnerability for ourselves, we’re confident and becoming more self-assured.”

Latest single ‘I Go Out at Night’ makes good on that sentiment, finding Ratboys building upon the style they’ve been developing across their previous records. Settling as a four-piece, with Marcus Nuccio (drums) and Sean Neumann (bass) joining founding duo Dave Sagan and Steiner, the project has fully transcended its acoustic beginnings while preserving the original spirit—delving into power pop, garage rock and alt-country to not only highlight the Ratboys range but also best chart the ever changing world in which it is created.

Printer’s Devil is out via Topshelf Records on the 28th February and you can pre-order it now.

Sea Offs – Will (You)

The collaborative project of songwriters Olivia Price and Rashmit Aror, Sea Offs make an atmospheric collision of folk and rock that manages to inject a tangible urgency without puncturing the enveloping ethereal tone. Released in 2017, album What’s the Point? displayed just how evocative a blend this can be. “Every moment on the album, from the dazzling highs to the locked-away lows,” we wrote, “is threaded not just with an unshakeable sense of isolation but the equally persistent suspicion that things need not always be this way.”

This spring sees the band return with a brand new release, and lead single ‘Will (You)’ shows that they have lost none of their impact. Let loose into a delicate miasma of ambient tones and driven by a deep drum beat, Price’s vocals move from crooned questioning to steely determination, eventually rising into a cathartic closing section. Thematically, the song “discusses body ownership in a relationship,” the band explain. “The detachment one can feel sexually when there is no emotional connection to serve as a basis.”

Greg Mendez – Bike

Philly native Greg Mendez has been making music since 2006, self-releasing CDs from home alongside his presence on Myspace and the not-yet blossoming DIY scene in the city. Years struggling with addiction, homelessness and mental health issues meant that his output was sporadic through the 2010s, but Mendez released his debut full-length ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in 2017, and is now back with a brand new record, Cherry Hell.

A joint release between Forged Artifacts and Devil Town Tapes, the album represents another link the chain of American songwriting, taking the themes of Townes Van Zandt, Connie Converse and Elliott Smith and casting them in the bedroom pop spirit of today. Lead single ‘Bike’ is one such example, a song based around “wanting to change and longing to be someone else” that dreams against the restrictive nature of our one single life—pining for experiences wide and disparate so as to exist more fully, free from the accumulated dirt of our positions in the world.

Mount Sharp – Ordinary

Writing back in August, we describe Mount Sharp‘s ‘Apostate’ as a song “indebted to the past but shaped by present conditions, concerned with the personal and the political when exploring what it means to be pushed away from someone or something.” The track was the first single of forthcoming album That Shadow, a record that will finally be released this month.

To increasing the anticipation, the Brooklyn band have release a brand new single, ‘Ordinary’. Ramping up the energy from the half-paced ‘Apostate’, the track is one of jangling confidence, bringing to mind the way Nap Eyes juxtapose loose-limbed inquisitiveness and deadpan lyrics, though injecting a punk energy too. There’s a dark humour to the way the track ebbs and flows, the lulls shaking into intense collisions of noise, as though firing itself through its own gathering motion, all tied together by the cutting lyrics.

How many times before it starts to feel ordinary
How many (how many) before
Cause I heard I’ll start to feel things relatively
And I don’t know if that sounds good or bad anymore

Normal’s just what you’re used to
And you’re surprised
So find all the space your anger takes
And try not to make all of it about you

That Shadow is out on the 22nd February and you can pre-order it now from the Mount Sharp Bandcamp page.

Silo’s Choice – Annwn

Silo’s Choice is the moniker of Chicago resident Jon Massey, a musician interested in pushing the boundaries of rock to further its conceptual and political scope. Forthcoming album Twilight on the Trail dials back slightly on the more idiosyncratic elements of previous releases, allowing a sincere immediacy to flourish (“less Mahler and more Joni Mitchell,” in the words of the artist), yet still the art-rock foundations remain. As such, the record seems perfectly positioned to explore big themes without straying too far into the inhuman abstract.

Lead single ‘Annwn’ is a clear progression in this sense. Named after the otherworld of Welsh mythology, the track takes on theme of death and mourning from an oblique angle, focusing not on the usual sadness and suffering but rather the mystery life’s end. Annwn was a world of peace and eternal youth, death with the pain removed, and Silo’s Choice uses it as a foil to examine mortality in a new manner—melancholic perhaps, but also joyous, lost in the sublime of that which we do not know.

and how i long to see the old things
the old world written in the old words
consumed with my body in a long fire
and wake up to the sound of a new chord

do you float?
does your spirit sink into the earth?
i think you slip sideways into a new birth

Jesse Blake Rundle – Radishes and Flowers

“A story of longing arranged into a bed of radishes and flowers.” That’s how Jesse Blake Rundle described his latest single, aptly named ‘Radishes and Flowers’. Adapted from Wallace Stevens’s ‘Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges’, the song is the title track of an entire collection inspired by the poetry of Stevens, crafted to match the source material in both theme and shape.

Rundle is a self-taught musician who utilises unconventional tuning to form a singular style, an aesthetic that proves the perfect mode with which to capture the nuanced life of Stevens’s Florida. As the title track shows, Rundle’s arrangements are capable of both whimsical creeps along the small details of our world and grand swells of emotion, achieving a balance between macro and micro that makes for a striking and beautiful sound.

Ursula, in a garden, found
A bed of radishes.
She knelt upon the ground
And gathered round,
With flowers blue, gold, and green

Isadora Eden – Anhedonia

Hailing from Colorado, Isadora Eden is a songwriter who pairs dark, searching lyrics with a moody sound, ranging from intimate simplicity to something altogether fuller and more striking. The lead single from a forthcoming EP, ‘Anhedonia’ makes this apparent, its stark style lending the sound a haunting edge.

The track is produced by Corey Coffman of Gleemer, and there’s certainly a shared emotional depth between the projects, the sounds so rich and evocative that their undoubted melancholy takes on an affirming quality. Opening with little beyond a simple acoustic guitar and Eden’s poignant vocals, the track soon welcomes jags of guitar and a driving drum beat, swelling beyond its minimalist beginnings and taking on an elevated form.

i’m alone again
like i wanted to be
didn’t i say
that i wanted to be
i guess it’s easier now
i guess it’s easier now

there’s gotta be a break
someday
i don’t wanna be left behind

Shadwick Wilde – Rain

You might know Shadwick Wilde as the front man of Louisville band Quiet Hollers, though he is writing solo music too. Latest single ‘Rain’ was written after Wilde was asked to perform at the Climate Strike in 2019, in particular a song for Greta Thunberg who was in attendance via her solar powered yacht. Originally averse to the idea, Wilde latched onto a a song he had started months earlier, the line “clean on the inside, free as the sun” suddenly taking on a new meaning as this young person arrived on her boat.

With help from Sarah Balliet (of Murder by Death) on cello and Shelley Anderson on bass, Wilde crafts a sullen soundscape of dark tones, the plaintive strings weaving their way over backdrop and conjuring a place of perpetual rain. There’s a fatality to the track, though hope too, as though the narrator has given up their own future but retains a vague belief in the possibility the next generation might somehow succeed.

We’ll leave our home to you
our fugitive daughter
and all we’ve built for you
will be reclaimed by the water
giver of life and destroyer of worlds
red, gold and coral, mother of pearl

Wilde expects to release an album later this year so be sure to follow him on Twitter for more news.

Thanks for stopping on by! Be sure to check out the Reviews and Previews sections for more in-depth writing, and do let us know what you’ve been listening to on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

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And flourish it does, varying from track to track to make a delightfully multifaceted record that never quite settles into one niche. Songs such as ‘Runaway’ and ‘Unfound’ provide the polished melancholy of Daughter but with small twists, be they traditional instruments like flugelhorn and cello, or even subtle mathy undertones. ‘Occhiolism’ pushes further into rock territory, the vocals rising to frantic, frustrated shouts, while ‘Strawberry’ struts and swells like a dream of false confidence, before ‘Joshua’ utilises field recordings to accentuate the lonely feel. The voices are shrouded in a gentle ambient hum, sounding like old family videos played through a TV in the next room. Price’s vocals, meanwhile, stay even, emotions ironed flat by a wistful distance.

You are a ghost inside
An attic I left behind
Poison that tastes like wine
I made up my mind

The variety continues. The slow-burn of ‘A Leap Too Tall’ sees Arora take over vocal duties, the track unfurling into a digital ballad fit for prime-time radio, while ‘Avenoir’ is the complete opposite, an experimental interlude of warm instrumentation and a recording of pages being turned. But, while closer ‘The Pining’ brings us back to the sad dream folk of the opening tracks, we didn’t need reminding. Every moment on the album, from the dazzling highs to the locked-away lows, is threaded not just with an unshakeable sense of isolation but the equally persistent suspicion that things need not always be this way. In a way, What’s The Point? answers it’s own question. Communication is its own way out.

What’s the Point? is out now and you can grab it from the Sea Offs Bandcamp page, including on CD.

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Ohyeahsumi – Daisy

Ohyeahsumi are Rena and Lena Vernon from California, a pair who describe their journey as going “from wombmates to bandmates to your mates.”  Their album, Your Friends Are Looking For You, is due out at the end of the month on the ever reliable Sports Day Records, and you can hear the first single, ‘Daisy’ right now. Dark and languid, the track plays like the midnight meandering of some city river, dreamy and dappled with light yet mildly dangerous, as though beneath the fascinating surface lies something altogether more strange and ominous.

“Scared of being pretty
Room is dirty, mind is filthy
My dress curves clearly
At the waist”

Your Friends Are Looking For You is to be released on the 31st March and you can pre-order it now via Bandcamp, including a special edition cassette complete with cards designed by Bronwyn Walls.

Lizzie No – Crying Wolf

Lizzie No is a songwriter and harpist based in Brooklyn who is set to release her debut album, Hard Won, this spring. Written during a “lonely night shift at the box office of a midtown venue in NYC”, lead single ‘Crying Wolf’ is energetic-yet-dark folk song. No’s vocals, led by the music or else leading, possess a repetitive cadence which suggests an almost trance-like quality, a gradually dawning delirium from which wisdom is channelled.

Hard Won is out this spring, so keep on eye on Lizzie No’s Bandcamp page.

Amanda Glasser – Bed

Amanda Glasser is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter from Baltimore. Not content with her output with her band Purrer, Glasser is set to release her solo debut album, Caelesti Radio, an album which she says “is a light that shines on the difficult emotions surrounding trauma, love, fighting to be heard and moving on.” ‘Bed’ is our first taste of the album and has certainly whet our appetite, a superior slice of bummed out, downbeat indie rock. It’s reminiscent of Low in its use of plaintive melancholy and A Weather in the way it melds the sad and insular rainy-day vibe with swelling instrumentation, primarily throaty guitar and galloping drum beat.

It’s a great introduction and has me anticipating the album impatiently. Keep an eye on the Amanda Glasser Bandcamp page for details.

Batwings Catwings – Sky Blue Haze

LA’s Batwings Catwings make what they describe as “Inspired radio-friendly noise pop with no pretences”. On a recent tour of Japan, the band made a video for the three minute blast of infectious noise that is ‘Sky Blue Haze’, the standout track from last year’s Coast to Coast. The video captures visually what the song does aurally, just a rollicking, no-frills good time that highlights the raw energy of a band with a growing reputation for their live shows.

You can get Coast to Coast now via Broken World Media or the Batwings Catwings Bandcamp page.

Caroline Lazar – Nevermine

Taken from a forthcoming EP of the same name, Caroline Lazar’s ‘Nevermine’ introduces her pop/folk fusion, all built up around striking vocals which gather in slow intensity, the energy and intent inching forwards with fluid force like an approaching tide. By the finale Lazar seems barely held together, her voice positively exploding with a depth and energy beyond her years.

Nevermine is set for release on the 24th March and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Why a fox – Cleland

Why a fox is the recording project of Australian-native, Japan-based songwriter Hayden Marks. With his debut LP Old forest. Young trees. set for release this April, opening track ‘Cleland’ sets the tempo with a pacey, lyric-filled two-and-a-half-minutes, like a cross of Camp Cope and the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsCi5wtlAt8

You can pre-order Old forest. Young trees. now from the Why a fox Bandcamp page.

Brice Randall Bickford – Paro

Brice Randall Bickford made his name with the folk-country band The Strugglers back in the 2000s, before moving back to North Carolina in 2011 and starting to record under his own name. His latest album, Paro, released recently on Keeled Scales explores “themes such as humanity’s tendency toward greed, control over others, systems of government, and the consequences of the adoption of agriculture”. Standout ‘The First Grain’  makes good on this promise, what at first appears a pleasant country-rock song slowly revealing its world-weary literary edge.

“When you cut your teeth on
Whatever you were handed
The first time thinking, I don’t belong
You didn’t know the half of it”

You can get Paro now from Keeled Scales webstore and the Brice Randall Bickford Bandcamp page.

Lizzie Kent – EP

Lizzie Kent is a singer-songwriter from Vancouver, BC, who released her debut self-titled EP last summer. Luckily for those of us who missed it the first time around, the songs are probably more suited to these grey windy days than August’s sun, so now is a great time to right the wrong and get to know Kent’s sound. ‘Secrets’ is a good place to start, a melancholy, nostalgia-filled song where the vocals take centre stage while guitar plucks at the surrounding silence.

“Take me back to just last spring,
when the flowers bloomed and the birds would sing
Take me back to the time in our lives
when all things lost were bound to survive”

You can buy the Lizzie Kent EP now from Bandcamp.

Mt. Doubt – Tourists

Edinburgh-based Leo Bargery, AKA Mt. Doubt, has teamed up with Dunfermline band Foreignfox to put out an AA-side single Tourists / Lights Off, Carry Me Home, out the end of the month on Scottish Fiction. Mt. Doubt’s ‘Tourists’ is best described as a happy collision between The National and The Twilight Sad, Bargery’s baritone vocals and joined by insistent drums and sizeable guitars which sweeps you up within its heft, even possessing a manic Berningerian on-the-verge-of-losing-it shouty finale.

The single is out on the 31st March and you can pre-order it now, though it’s also the first single from a forthcoming EP The Loneliness of the TV Watchers, which judging by the title is a record that’s going to be right up our alley.

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And, of course, being comprehensive is impossible these days, so let us know if we missed your favourite and maybe we’ll add it to the collection.

Peach Club – The Bitch Diaries
(RIYL: punk, rock, lo-fi)

Pet Cemtery & Henoheno & Brittle Brian & Francie Cool – Split
(RIYL: bedroom pop, sad music, lo-fi)

Porridge Radio – Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers
(RIYL: lo-fi, bedroom pop, carbohydrates)

Post-Trash – Volume Two
(RIYL: compilations, bedroom pop, indie rock)

Psychic Shakes – Psychic EP
(RIYL: lo-fi pop, chilled out vibes, down-tempo beats)

Ratbath – Dead Skin Cells
(RIYL: bedroom pop, folk, sad)

Ravetank – Wasting Your Life From 9-5
(RIYL: alternative, pop, lo-fi)

Real Swell – everything else is terrible!
(RIYL: lo-fi, experimental, lo-fi pop)

Rhucle – Rustic Lullaby
(RIYL: ambient, mindfulness, field recordings)

Ryan Tanner – Promised Land
(RIYL: folk, Americana, country)

Ryder Eaton – Peach Pit
(RIYL: folk, lo-fi, experimental)

Saint Clementine – If We Are Falling / I Wish I Knew What You Did Last Summer
(RIYL: indie rock, lo-fi, pop punk)

The Saxophones – If You’re on the Water
(RIYL: ambient folk, dream pop, alternative)

Sea Offs – Sea the Blind
(RIYL: ambient, folk, dream pop)

See You At Home – The Future’s Here and It’s Terrible
(RIYL: indie, emo, dream pop)

Shalash (or, ШАΛАШ) – X
(RIYL: ambient, drone, compilations)

Skittish Arm – The Dog EP
(RIYL: ambient, drone, experimental)

Soccer Mommy – For Young Hearts
(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, indie)

Svelte – svelte EP
(RIYL: post-rock, noise, shoegaze)

Swell Tone & Z Tapes – Summer of Sad
(RIYL: bedroom pop, sad songs, compilations)

Be sure to check out the previous sections of our favourite free music list here.

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