Based in Omaha, Nebraska, 37735i6 works in the lineage of ambient folk practised by artists like Midwife and Grouper. Conjuring intangible soundscapes that nevertheless possess a palpable weight, and utilising this contradiction to evoke intricacies of mood and experience that might otherwise be difficult to describe. Taken from 2020’s stay forever EP, single ‘prairie madness revival’ uses layers of reverb and delay effects to encapsulate this style, inviting listeners into a liminal space between presence and absence, darkness and light.

Ailsa Tully – Salt Glaze

Ahead of a spring tour and slot at the upcoming Green Man festival, Welsh songwriter Ailsa Tully has returned with ‘Salt Glaze’, a brand new single on Dalliance Recordings. The song follows on from Holy Isle, an EP which developed on the classic singer-songwriter style with an array of additional instruments, and channels this invention into conjuring the warm stillness of a familiar home. A sensation Tully experienced when staying in the house of her late grandmother during a period of lockdown. “My Grandma passed away a few years ago and the house remained unchanged, it was like a museum of salt glaze ceramics and abstract art pieces which began to absorb into my creativity,” Tully explains. ‘Salt Glaze’ uses the image to explores ideas of preservation and acceptance in the face of change. Check out the video directed and edited by Finlay O’Hara:

‘Salt Glaze’ is out now via Dalliance Recordings and you can get it from the Ailsa Tully Bandcamp page.

Amelia Jackie – All Around Town

For most of her life, Amelia Jackie has moved from place to place. Raised as one of four sisters by a single mother, hers was a childhood of motion and flux. Now based in New York, Amelia Jackie is preparing the release of her debut album, You Can’t Fuck the Internet, a record that promises to “beckon us into the sensual environments that spawned her, where the smell of sweet peaches meets the fumes of burnt diesel.”

In preparation, Jackie has unveiled the lead single, ‘All Around Town’, which offers a glimpse at her uniquely humid, country-tinged sound (what Colin Atrophy Hagendorf described for She Shreds as “Southern Gothic, Bastard Out of Carolina, lesbian Americana”). It’s a song about a passionate devotion, the object of which takes on near-supernatural power as they blaze a trail through towns and hearts.

you were born in the middle of a hot night in july
and your momma couldn’t tell if you were laughing or crying
a storm blew in right off the gulf
so you never did learn when enough was enough

Bri Barte – High Noon

Hex Signs, the new record from Ann Arbor-based songwriter Bri Barte, is an album about loss. Saturated with physical imagery and sensations, the songs shift from sluggish crawls to racing energy with little warning, capturing both the sharp sting and diffuse drudgery of life in the aftermath. Take ‘High Noon’, its picture of ruin heightened by odours, textures, heat and light. Barte wanders amid dead squirrels and flies and beating sun, pining for relief.

I always liked a punishing summer
The kind that makes you pray for rain
But these days I’d rather have you
I get so lonely out here at high noon

Without you

Catcher – Fallen Stones

Hailing from Brooklyn, Catcher are the latest post-punk brooders to capture widespread attention. Taking the shadowy volatility of Bambara and adding a cathartic forward motion, the six-piece walk the fine line between violence and beauty, and the delivery of vocalist Austin Eichler is suitably unpredictable amid the noise. Single ‘Fallen Stones’ captures the mood perfectly, Eichler emerging from the dense foreboding soundscape with the conviction of some half-drunk preacher.

ce qui nous traverse – Point sur la carte

Montreal-based ensemble ce qui nous traverse seek “to capture the intensive vibrations that compose the surrounding ambiances,” something their most recent record Le sacre de Sainte-Barbe tackles with both ambition and invention. Released on Cuchabata Records, the album is something of a study on a specific place, the outfit utilising their collective experimentation to examine the influence of sound on an old house in a North American village. Single ‘Point sur la carte’ is both an introduction to this strange, nocturnal world and proof that ce qui nous traverse beyond the slow haunting tones you might expect. Check out the video by Guillaume Vallée and Larissa Corriveau below:

Le sacre de Sainte-Barbe is out via Cuchabata Records and available via Bandcamp.

Cola – So Excited

Rising from the ashes of Ought, Cola is the new project of Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy, along with The Weather Station drummer Evan Cartwright. Ahead of their debut album Deep in View, coming this May on Fire Talk Records, they have unveiled new single, ‘So Excited’. Powered by a sleek, taut groove, the track plays like Ought stripped of its excesses, polished down to something tactile and gleaming yet capable of a kind of perpetual motion.

And if you are so excited
Then you are so invited
To take this stone and right it
If you are so excited

Have a gander at the video by Camille Anais Semprez, Cedar Teionietathe Jocks and Jacob Summers below:

Deep in View is out on the 20th May via Fire Talk Records and you can pre-order it now.

FES – Clarinet

Peterborough/Leeds-based trio FES work at the intersection of a variety of genres, drawing on pop punk, math rock and alternative styles to conjure a sound full of invention and weight. Ahead of debut record With Regards From Home, out via Small Pond this spring, they have unveiled new single ‘Clarinet’ to whet your appetite. Check out the video by Sam J. Lance below:

With Regards From Home is out on the 29th April via Small Pond and you can pre-order it now.

Nuevos Mundos – Mis Plantas

Nuevos Mundos are am indie rock band from Madrid, consisting of John Galilea (guitar, keyboard and vocals), Diego Cendra (guitar and vocals), Jaeson Peña (bass) and Miguel A. Sánchez (drums). They have just released their debut EP, Mis Plantas, a collection of three songs that display their talents. From energetic opener ‘Domingos en Casa’, a roaring throwback to the mid 00s indie rock golden age, to a hazily reflective title track that feels smothered with regret, there really is something for everyone.

Ocie Elliott – With the Lights Down

Victoria, B.C. duo Ocie Elliott caught our attention with their stripped back covers of songs from the likes of John Prine, Big Thief and Gillian Welch, and latest single ‘With the Lights Down’ shows their original material possesses all the same tender and intimate tones. Written after a summer solstice birthday party on the beach, the song evokes a sense of quiet gladness. A moment to remember the things you appreciate while they are still close at hand.

Find out more on the Ocie Elliott website, and check out the covers on their Youtube page.

Wildlife Freeway – Flea

“Let this one thing be known,” says Sunny Atema, AKA Wildlife Freeway. “I don’t play music. I use music.” Debut album Sunny, out via Alex Ebert’s Community Music, was created under this sentiment. An album recorded in the aftermath of the loss of her beloved dog when the world felt distant and sad. A tool to reconnect with life. “A wildlife freeway is a bridge for animals to safely cross over busy roads” Atema says of the project and album. “The name also speaks of wildness and life on the road. The actual road, putting in the miles, brings us eye to eye, connecting without a screen between.” Check out lead single ‘Flea’ below:

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Hamstrung by the pandemic in the intervening months, Wild Cat Strike looked to continue to work under the new limitations. Luckily, there was something of a precedent, with 2019 release The Blood Orange Sessions being built from acoustic or reworked tracks from the full-length, Rhubarb Nostalgia. After being asked to work on an acoustic show for a Big Scary Monsters project, the band already had some alternate versions of songs from Mustard Coloured Years, and decided to follow the same blueprint. “We were working out a few acoustic arrangements for a BSM pop up shop to play alongside our friends in Delta Sleep and Orchards,” the band explain, “and when lockdown hit and it cancelled, we didn’t stop and just followed this path further.”

The result is Red Brake Light Sky Sessions, a brand new EP that sees Wild Cat Strike swap out the amps and distortion peddles for an array of acoustic instruments. From banjos and violins to marimbas and melodicas, the release reimagines the outfit’s sound while retaining the spirit, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that the band members were confined to their individual homes for the process. No less inventive or adventurous, the new tracks lose some of the weight and heft of the previous versions yet continue the impassioned, often caustic tone. A sound fitting for our current predicament. Soundscapes reduced and concentrated, left to turn strange behind closed doors. Emotions stripped back to their individual components, still burning all the same.

Today we’re delighted to be able to share ‘Swamp’, the lead single from the release. Where the original flirted with post-rock in its sprawling peaks and troughs, the new version must settle for more modest ripples. When there is no energy to get lost in, no noise to hide behind,  another level of detail emerges. The emotional drive of the track is slowed but not neutered, and in the newfound intimacy Wild Cat Strike bring forth the melancholic nostalgia that has long underpinned their music.

Artwork by Melissa Kitty Jarram

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To further expand what Bonniesongs can sound like, this month sees the release of Energetic Mind: Live, an album of special recordings taken from a variety of live shows and studio sessions put out by Sydney label Art As Catharsis. With both solo and full band arrangements, the EP presents each track on the original album in a slightly new guise, displaying not only Stewart’s  expertise and versatility as a musician but also the nuance and depth of the songs, each version finding some new quality that further expands its meaning.

We’re delighted to share the album’s final single, ‘Cat & Mouse’, before release this Friday. Filmed at label Small Pond’s recording studio last summer, the take loses none of the slow-burning intensity of the original, stark guitar rolling beneath Stewart’s airy vocals, as though pulling the words down from above. As the track builds, so does the portentous energy, some weight emerging from within the gossamer vocals and gathering with thunderous potential.

Energetic Mind: Live is out on the 7th August via Art As Catharsis and you can pre-order it now from the Bonniesongs Bandcamp page. The orginal album is still available via Small Pond.

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Because living up to its name, the record had a folky wistful air, coloured by a sense of creeping loss and longing, though rather than meandering with melancholy it was prone to outbursts of noise too—urgency and desperation spilling over into chaotic swells of guitar. With Max Boughen (guitar) Daniel Byrom (guitar, organ), Joe Caple (drums, percussion) and Chris Whitehorn (bass, organ) sharing the vocals, this chaos was harnessed and set in a common direction, the songs often possessing a sense of communal power that took frustration, confusion and pain and channelled them into something uplifting.

This spring sees the return of Wild Cat Strike with a brand new EP, Mustard Coloured Years. Again on Small Pond, the release develops the band’s aesthetic further, lead single ‘Toothcutter’ offering a brash indie rock dimension to the sound. Still, it’s the urgency and tension in the vocals that make the song, a sense of immediacy placed front and centre in the brooding atmosphere.

Today we’re lucky enough to share the release’s second single, ‘Mustard’. Stripping things back from ‘Toothcutter’, there’s a hesitancy to the opening of the track, though the energy gathers with each tentative step. First within the cadence of the vocals, then the instrumentation itself. Recorded at Echo Zoo Studios in Eastbourne, on a desk allegedly used by David Bowie, the song sees Wild Cat Strike joined by fellow Small Ponders Bonniesongs and Natalie Evans, as well as friends from Tall Ships and I Feel Fine, lending the track a collective feel and imbuing the singalong spirit a real sense of weight and emotion. This is compounded by the thundering collision of guitars and drums in the latter half of the track, a storm from which the vocals emerge, calm and reflective once more.

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