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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That’s right, fast-forward another three years and Sister Wanzala had popped up with another single out of the blue. “You’ll understand if we don’t call ‘Now You’re Mine’ anything more than another small blip in might otherwise be a pristine half-decade of silence,” we continued, “but as soon as the jazzy opening unfurls with all its nineties daytime TV swagger and the cold groove settles with effortless cool, you’ll be glad you got anything from the project, no matter how alluring and brief.”

In an age of deluxe reissues, anniversary re-releases and a general clawing for constant attention, there’s something more than a little endearing about this style. Sister Wanzala are a rare thing in today’s ecosystem, a band who only say something when they have something new to say. Luckily for us, they have a bit more to say this time, not least with latest single ‘Winter Dominos’. Another track that’s as intent on getting you crying as it is (slow) dancing. This is a song which walks that delicate line between heartbreak and romance, all delivered with a smooth confidence that revels in the nostalgia and longing.

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

Artwork by Joe Gamble

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Recorded in an old church near the birthplace of lead Daniel Hedin and taking years to bring to fruition, ‘Hideous Form’ is the new single from Det Hemliga Folket, a collaboration between Hedin and Budapest‘s Marton Fogl. The sound feels intrinsically tied to the origins of the track, offering an austere space full of shadow and cryptic weight, Hedin reaching beyond his surroundings and the present mood to re-engage with something more elemental. A song fitting for a project built around Hedin’s desire to connect with heritage, be that the ancestors who walked the land before him or the very earth of Sweden itself. Det Hemliga Folket is “a re-connection with the wild north inside me and the ancestral blues that whispers within the sound of the earth, the whispers in my head of the very fabric of the land,” he explains. “I hear the ocean and the silence of the forests that raised me like mothers and fathers. The darkness that’s been a part of me is an engine that never can die. It’s not just me, it is the earth where I am from, the deep beneath the soil of the north that is always calling me home.”

Dylan Henner – I Used To See Her On The Way Home from School and She Lit Up The Sky with her Beauty

A collection “which explores both the tactile experience of adolescence and the nostalgia of times now past.” That’s how we described Star Dream FM, the new album from Dylan Henner out via Phantom Limb, with previous singles ‘We Ditched School and Climbed Over the Neighbour’s Fence to Swim in their Pool All Day‘ and ‘We Walked all the Way to the Lake and The Water Was So Still We Jumped in Naked‘ “embracing not just a sentimental fondness for the specific moment but one wider in scope,” as we put it, “longing for the kind of curiosity and carefree spirit which marks youth.” With the album now out, Henner has shared another single and the title of the track says it all. ‘I Used To See Her On The Way Home from School and She Lit Up The Sky with Her Beauty’ is “about the frenzy and passion of love in adolescence,” as Henner explains. “About how your crush can change the whole universe with their presence, make everything feel bigger than you could possibly handle sometimes or so delicate you could lose it in an instance at others. The harp was supposed to represent the sort of angelic ascension of renaissance or classical beauty, which is the only lens you can ever see your crush with when you’re seventeen.”

ERIKA DOHI – Myth of Tomorrow

Later this week, Osaka-born, New York-based composer and pianist Erika Dohi will release Myth of Tomorrow, a brand new full-length via Switch Hit Records and Figureight Records. Described as “a sonic meditation on catastrophe, resilience, and rebirth,” the album builds upon the eclectic style of predecessor I, Castorpollux to push Dohi’s sound in new directions, utilising a variety of sensibilities from dance, jazz, ambient and classical modes to create soundscapes as singular as they are striking. The record draws its title from the Taro Okamoto’s mural of the same name, and the title track draws the clearest line between the two artworks. A song concerned with the endless cycles of existence, not only asking what they demand of us but also how we might find peace and healing within the recurring patterns of life. “For me, the song reflects on resilience and regeneration in the face of life’s relentless cycles,” Dohi explains. “Through its lyrics, I explore the contradictions of modern existence—the struggle to find happiness in repetition, the unspoken burdens we carry, and the illusions we chase in pursuit of fulfillment. Yet, amidst all of this, the song also asks us to pause, breathe, and reconnect with the beauty in the everyday: the sun rising without fail, the moon’s quiet waning, the resilience of a dandelion growing through cracks in asphalt. It’s a song of introspection that invites us to confront our disconnection and rediscover what moves us to live and hope for tomorrow.”

Myth of Tomorrow will be released on the 24th October via Switch Hit Records and Figureight Records and you can pre-order it now.

Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover – Fluorescent Light

Haley Heynderickx and Max García Conover are no strangers to collaboration, the pair releasing Among Horses III back in 2018 on Son Canciones and the anniversary single ‘How Does the Horse Go Home?‘ five years later. “The genius of both Heynderickx and Conover is their ability to draw a relatable emotion from their subject matter,” we wrote, “tapping into a universal sense of nostalgia and longing and presenting it back to us, shaping and polished into its most gleaming form.” Based on the life and work of Woodie Guthrie and this time to be released via Fat Possum, What of Our Nature is a brand new full-length by the pair which builds upon the chemistry they’ve crafted over the years to offer songs as inventive and heartfelt as anything they’ve released to date. After the verbose and sometimes frantic ‘Boar’, latest single ‘Fluorescent Light’ highlights a more delicate, restrained dimension to the record, though true to Guthrie’s spirit, there’s a seam of social commentary running through it too. A tone at once playful, melancholic and cutting, able to take aim at the banalities and cruelties of contemporary life without losing its airy brightness.

Kramies – Goodbye Dreampop Troubadour

Back in August we introduced Goodbye Dreampop Troubadour, the new album from Kramies on Hidden Shoal, with single ‘Hollywood Signs’. The track showed the album’s nuanced nature, the sound following “a newly nostalgic direction, full of dreamlike longing and evening colours,” as we put it, yet one which possesses “something strange and quietly unsettling, full of the mysterious allure which Kramies has always offered.” With the record out now, the title track has been unveiled as a new single, the cornerstone of the record which embodies all of its richness and duality. Blending autobiography with fiction, ‘Goodbye Dreampop Troubadour’ rises from relative restraint into something enveloping, Kramies moving from a spacious, drifting sound into something rich and triumphant, playing like a metamorphosis witnessed in real time.

Langkamer – Crows

Following on from 2024 album Langzamer, as well as lead Josh Jarman’s solo release under the moniker Classic Trucks earlier this year, Bristol‘s Langkamer are preparing to release their fourth album in as many years. Coming early next January via Breakfast Records, No was recorded in the Spanish hills at Zarzalico and carries some of the Mediterranean clarity in its sound, creating enough space to examine the full scale of our frenetic contemporary life. Lead single ‘Crows’ gives a taste of what to expect, a track fired by nervous energy and unanswered questions, barrelling forwards despite its clear desire to stop and change. “’Crows’ is a song about the crazy shapes we contort ourselves into trying to create art in the era of late-stage capitalism,” the band explain. “Working a thousand jobs. Writing songs with the left hand while writing emails with the right hand. Your day is already doomed the moment you open your eyes. Everything’s a bad omen.”

Orchid Mantis – Strange Heaven

Change and evolution are key features in the career of any artist, especially one as prolific as Orchid Mantis. “Over the years, Atlanta, Georgia-based artist Thomas Howard has used the [project] as a space in which to explore a host of musical styles,” we wrote back in March, “each release responding to and building upon that which came before it so that the work was always in flux.” In Airports, the second Orchid Mantis full-length to be released this year, not only continues this process but meditates on the very meaning of such an endeavour. What does it mean to commit to a life making music? And how might it help chart all that is lost and preserved over the years? The result feels like the culmination of everything Orchid Mantis has done to date, returning to old styles and techniques as readily is it breaks new ground, and thus becomes something of a mission statement for the project. A declaration of intent to give the past and future equal billing, full of the spirit which has been pieced together over the years yet open to possibility. New single and closer ‘Strange Heaven’ expresses the sentiment most succinctly:

as it fades away
we could keep drifting
we could form a star
we could be lifted

The Planes – Tear the World Apart (MFLB Version)

We last wrote about New York indie rock outfit The Planes back in 2023, describing ‘First Breath After Mask’, a single from EP Dark Matter Recycling Co., as “a song at once depressed and affirming. As though from with its own inertia stirs some last attempt at catharsis.” Now the band are back with Motel For Lightning Bug, a brand new release which sees them continue their own idiosyncratic mix of rock and pop influences, harnessing some of the energy of their livewire shows without losing a sense of emotion or reflection. It is fitting that opener and single ‘Tear the World Apart (MFLB Version)’ is a reworking of a fan favourite from live shows, what the band call label as “slacker indie rock bubblegum” which deals with loss with equal parts wistfulness and wry humour, not to mention an infectious sense of momentum which only builds across the length of the track.

Sister Wanzala – Now You’re Mine

Back in 2022 we heralded the apparently triumphant return of London sibling trio Sister Wanzala, singles ‘Perfume‘ and ‘Top Drawer‘ appearing after a three-year hiatus which started soon after the release of 2019 EP The Circus and signalling an almost reluctant determination to pursue making music in an age which can often appear to be designed to convince you otherwise. Fittingly, both tracks featured dreams as a central motif, though rather than some inspirational battle cry to all those who which to pursue their passions, they either described these dreams as full of disaster (‘Top Drawer’) or declared a desire to have them removed entirely (‘Perfume’). You can already guess what happened next. The return was a false dawn, Sister Wanzala retreated into their shells again, only… what’s that? A new track, two years later? Another self-deprecating press release declaring their career a failure and promising more of the same? You’ll understand if we don’t call ‘Now You’re Mine’ anything more than another small blip in might otherwise be a pristine half-decade of silence, but as soon as the jazzy opening unfurls with all its nineties daytime TV swagger and the cold groove settles with effortless cool, you’ll be glad you got anything from the project, no matter how alluring and brief.

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With new EP Rooting For You out early in October, Philly-based songwriter Air Devi has returned with the single, ‘Ashrita’. Based on a bad personal experience with a musician, the track looks to the artists who persevered in an industry not always welcoming—Ashrita from Pinkshift, Lata Mangeshkar, Abi from Kulfi Girls, Noor Jahan—ultimately finding empowerment within stubborn perseverance.  “But Ashrita she’s got my back now / Oh Ashrita, Saraswati can rock out,” Devi Majeske sings. “And Lata Ji I know that she’d be proud / Oh Ashrita won’t let us feel left out.”

BAL – Hyperdrive

After introducing themselves with title track ‘Seafoam‘, BAL continue to lay the foundations for an upcoming album on Furious Hooves with latest single, ‘Hyperdrive’. A huge, swaggering song which shows both the attitude and playfulness of the band. Its sci-fi themes brought to life with pounding drums, bold guitars and ice cool vocals. Futuristic rock with more than one foot in the nineties. Check out the animated video by Brandon Hackler below:

Seafoam is coming soon via Furious Hooves.

Bambara – Tapetown Session

Earlier this year Brooklyn-based post-punk outfit Bambara released their latest album Love on My Mind via Wharf Cat Records, and recently the band called by Copenhagen‘s Grapehouse Studio for a Tapetown Session to perform a couple of the tracks. Despite the cinematic nature of its gothic style, Bambara’s work has always primarily hinged on a sense of impassioned momentum, the sound and Reid Bateh’s frantic delivery fuelling one another. These live takes harness this in its purest form, with performances of ‘Mythic Love’ and ‘Birds’ displaying both their fervent preacher ravings and stone cold cowboy cool.

Love on My Mind is out now via Wharf Cat Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

Cache Mirrors – Collision; Losing The Work Horse

The project of LA‘s Cormac Shirer Brown, Cache Mirrors creates compositions at the intersection of ambient and drone. With new record History of a Closed Circuit about to be released on Repeating Cloud, Brown has unveiled the single ‘Collision; Losing The Work Horse’ to give a picture of his work’s careful depth. A slow-moving track which seems to possess an almost nostalgic remove, though as it progresses it inches closer to the listener until it’s nearby and all around, then fades out just as readily.

Katharina Nuttall – Inspired by John Keats

After a period spent scoring films, Katharina Nuttall is set to return to art rock spheres with her fourth full-length album, The Garden, on Novoton. Latest single ‘Inspired by John Keats’ highlights the idiosyncratic vision and depth of her work. A surreal dreamscape which keeps its true nature close to its chest, the strange and eerie march of the opening unfolding into something quietly transcendent, though returning to the original rhythm before any crescendo is reached. All the while Nuttall’s vocals barely more than a murmur, ambiguous until the end. Check out the video directed, filmed and edited by Jacob Frössén below:

‘Inspired by John Keats’ is out now via Novoton and available from the usual places.

Lore City – Animate

Following on from 2021 album Participation Mystique, Portland’s Lore City are gearing up for the release of brand new 7″, Under Way. The track expands upon the style developed on previous releases, merging widescreen and often ominous post-punk soundscapes with the ethereal textures of folk. Lead track ‘Animate’ pitches the listener into such a world, tactile with pounding rain and open space yet somehow uncoupled from the physical plane too, its percussion like some disembodied stalker. An entity with a message to share.

Matching Outfits – It Keeps Happening

The debut single of Berlin‘s Matching Outfits, ‘It Keeps Happening’ serves as an introduction to their forthcoming album Band Made Out Of Sand, out next month on Kitchen Leg Records. Pairing playful pop tones with droll conversational delivery, the song subverts its twee roots with deadpan glee, the vocals possessing a genuine fatigue with the self-centred drive of songwriting. And as the thought develops, so too does the tempo, the rhythms lifting as though a fire is lit beneath it, leading towards the final, furious catharsis.

I’m tired of me
I’m tired of talking about me
I’m tired of singing about me
But it keeps happening

Band Made Out Of Sand is out on the 21th September via Kitchen Leg Records and you can find Matching Outfits on Bandcamp.

Monolithe Noir – Askre

Back in July we previewed Rin, the forthcoming album from Monolithe Noir on Capitane Records and Humpty Dumpty Records with single ‘Barra Bouge‘. “Steady rhythmic drumming allow[s] the track to coil tight like a spring,” we wrote, “but the unerring purpose of its slow march is warped by some strange force […] a world of lightning and dense cloud always gathering toward its own thunderous end.” Latest track ‘Askre’ is no less evocative, another transportive vision built around a theme played on a home-crafted hurdy gurdy. A digi-medieval dream which unfolds with portentous weight.

Rin is out now on Capitane Records and Humpty Dumpty Records and you can grab it from Bandcamp.

Phoebe Go – Hey

The third solo release from Melbourne‘s Phoebe Go, latest single ‘Hey’ highlights the songwriter at her most poignant and open. A track written in the aftermath of a family tragedy, the stripped back sound exists within the strange quiet which follows traumatic events. Hushed and confessional and wearing its pain openly, probing not only the grief inherent in such a loss but the attempts to understand them too. And how personal emotions can come to cloud our ability to truly empathise. “Around the time I was writing it I was sort of fixated,” Phoebe Go explains, “trying so hard to understand him, you know, what he was thinking and feeling and living. I think my own perspective got so lost in his.”

Sister Wanzala – Top Drawer

Back in May, we shared the triumphant return of London‘s Sister Wanzala with single, ‘Perfume‘. The band had been away for a while, went the gist of the piece, but they were back and the dream was still alive. Whether or not that still stands true is up in the air, internecine conflict being part and parcel of any project made up of siblings, but they have managed to share new track ‘Top Drawer’ regardless of whether any ceasefire has been breached. “I’ve been dreaming of disaster more and more and more,” sings Patrick Wanzala-Ryan on the rich and drifting track. The dream isn’t over, but who ever said it was a pleasant one?

Sophia Hansen-Knarhoi – Disguise

The first glimpse of forthcoming EP, Wildflowers, ‘Disguise’ introduces the immersive detail and evident control which marks the work of Perth‘s Sophia Hansen-Knarhoi. A reflection on the past offered with slow-burning clarity, enticing the listener in with its ethereal grace but smouldering beneath the surface as it recalls the mistakes and betrayals which mark the strange gap between youth and adulthood. Ultimately recognising the period for what it was, and blossoming into the space left in its wake.

I’ll take my time again
To feel everything in full
Cuz I won’t settle for you
I’ll clean my act up wash you away
In a feat of triumph you’ve left no stain
I watch in fear and disdain

Spirit Ghost – No Future

Pandemic tracks aren’t exactly uncommon right now, but where most look for solace and soul-searching amid the trauma, the new single from Alex Whitelaw’s Spirit Ghost embraces pessimism wholehearted. ‘No Future’ is a track about just that. The inability to imagine good days ahead as the threats pile up, and how this neuters the dreams one has worked towards their whole lives. “Always there’s no future / I feel dumb and useless,” Whitelaw sings, “At least there’s no future / Just another loser.” A society built towards constant growth and progression cannot face the emergent trials. There can be no future for such a place.

Tenci – Two Cups

Following 2020’s My Heart Is An Open Field, Tenci returns this autumn with brand new record A Swollen River, A Well Overflowing on Keeled Scales. It’s an album which utilises the distance its predecessor lacked, allowing Jess Shoman to consider trauma and pain with a clearer perspective. As shown by single ‘Two Cups’, what results is new mood. Call it wisdom, call it understanding. A willingness to embrace of change as an opportunity to grow, no matter how difficult it might seem. Even a glass half empty can be filled again.

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This mood extends right through to the band’s promotional material, the decidedly self-deprecative press release for brand new single ‘Perfume’ disavowing much of their back catalogue and promising little by way of improvement. But more than being a PR gimmick, the notes communicate something present within so many independent releases that most work to ignore. A sense of futility in an age where ‘content’ is fleeting and everywhere, and success is measured by gamified scores. That the dread and wit of ‘I Went Whaling’ has endured and leeched into every aspect of the Sister Wanzala project is hardly a surprise. Is it possible to attempt to create in such a climate without a good dose of each?

Described as the result of quality time spent with Cocteau Twins and Fleetwood Mac, ‘Perfume’ pushes the Sister Wanzala sound into its dreamiest space yet. A collision of unhurried textures and taut pop rhythms, like a mind trying to pull itself from a daydream which never quite seems to end. What emerges is Sister Wanzala at their most earnest in spite of everything, the track’s sleek longing indicating that some sense of possibility persists, even if it is perhaps against better judgement. “I want my dreams removed,” Patrick Wanzala-Ryan croons in the repeated refrain, but for now the prospect is on hold, the dreams remain intact.

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Tracklist:

Act Of – I am Fungus
Static Animal – See You Around
Skirts – Brite Boy (Alex G cover)
Space Mountain – Cloud
Alexander – Going To Sleep
German Error Message – Murmuring
Thelma – Take Me To Orlando
Jeffrey Silverstein – Make Yr Peace (And Have It Too)
camp counselor – museum of broken relationships
Spartan Jet-Plex – Stop
Lala Lala & Why? – Siren 042
Shrimpwitch – Leerers
Sir Babygirl – Flirting With Her
Spielbergs – Five On It
Stella Donnelly – Lunch
Mentalease – Avert a Gaze
Priests – The Seduction of Kansas
Mike Pace and The Child Actors – Hazy, Hot & Humid
Swim Camp – Circle K
BURLY – Kent Lame
Miserable chillers – Cider Palace
Imp of Perverse – Tripping Thru a Hallway On Fire
Go Fever – Olivia
Polyan – Dan Song
Morning River Band – Bury Me
Nigel Wright – Overcast
Denmark – I Know
Sister Wanzala – I Went Whaling in My Gap Year
Body Meat – Nairobi Flex
Derek Piotr – Repeating Bloom (Simon Whetham Remix)
Michael Chinworth – Good As It Gets
Mesa Luna – Dispel
yot club – jaded

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Sister Wanzala have released the first single, ‘I Went Whaling in My Gap Year’, by way of a taster, and the song serves as the perfect introduction to the band’s tone. The ominous vocal style brings to mind the aforementioned Nick Cave or Wild Beasts, a kind of gloating note that rises and falls, both sinister and bizarre and wholly appropriate for the band’s character—a kind of halfway house between dread and wit.

Thematically, the record deals with the United Kingdom and its “post-empire hangover,” painting a country stirring from its imperialistic delirium to find itself sore and depressed. It seems there’s little to do in the face of such self-destruction other than try to imagine oneself back in the glory of the moment, national identity as a sad dream-chase, all underpinned by pathetic bluster and a creeping self-loathing.

Of course, this being Sister Wanzala, the result is bizarrely comic, as ‘I Went Whaling in My Gap Year’ attests. Here the past and present meet in a strange collision, Herman Melville as the sort of privileged millennial poverty tourist who thinks that foreign air might be somehow solve all their existential woes. Some vestigial imperialist impulse perhaps, realising oneself through exposure to funny languages, weird food and an orgy of violence. Wanzala-Ryan’s vocals creep along with an ominous scuttle that soon becomes ironic farce, packed with the sneering humour that such ideas deserve.

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