Minneapolis has a rich heritage in energetic indie rock, so its great to see bands like The Dead Century carrying the flame onwards. First drafted during the pandemic but now equally relevant in light of the city’s occupation, latest single ‘Been Better’ wears its influences proudly, taking the raucousness of The Replacements and some of The Hold Steady‘s buoyant positivity and applying them to the less than positive present. The result, essentially a dispatch from a profoundly difficult time, is propulsive, impassioned and ultimately affirming in spite of everything. One, much like the people on the ground of its home city, willing to confront the gravity of the moment and fight for something better regardless of how far away that might seem.

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

figure eight – hummingbird

Back in 2024 we featured Bay Area outfit figure eight, describing how the project has evolved from the experimental noise project of duo Nash Rood and Abby Goeser into something far more developed, with single ‘1999 (cherry)’ from their self-titled EP highlighting the nuance and balance of the sound. “Twin threads of lightness and weight weave across the track into what appears to be the spirit of this new version of figure eight,” we wrote, “a band aware of the transcendent power available at both ends of the spectrum.” Now they are back with until the sun swallows the earth / hummingbird, a double single on Cherub Dream Records, and you only have to contrast the titles tracks to see the balance between heft and elegance remains. After the slow-burn expanse of ‘until the sun swallows the earth’, ‘hummingbird’ offers something more gauzy and restrained, the sound muted though no less full of atmosphere, and ultimately fulfilling its promise to spill over into something thunderous.

Griffin Brown – DRAW

“I need a hint, like a task, to check off and put behind me,” sings New York‘s Griffin Brown on ‘DRAW’, the first glimpse of his forthcoming album Begriffin. “But I don’t quite know what my success would guarantee.” This marbling of assurance and doubt not only runs through the lyrical aspect of the track, but the woozy sound itself. Brown evokes the feeling of starting something without knowing how it will end with a propulsive chorus that never seems to quite reach its natural conclusion. A joint release between Spread Way Out and Better Company Records, Begriffin itself progresses in such a manner.It is undeniably confident and marked by forward motion, yet unsure of its final destination. As though Brown knows what he needs to do and how to do it, just not what the end result might be.

Watch the video by Brown below:

Begriffen will be released on the 8th May via Spread Way Out and Better Company Records. Get it from Bandcamp.

Little Lungs – Dragonfruit

“Songs personal, compassionate and often affirming, driven by equal parts warmth and energy.” That’s how we described the work of Baltimore folk rock outfit Little Lungs back in February, single ‘The Heat’ introducing the band’s forthcoming album of the same name. “A typically emotive track build around [lead Leena] Rhodes’s vocals,” we wrote, “and the braid of tenderness and strength they are able to evoke.” With The Heat coming later this week, Little Lungs have shared new track ‘Dragonfruit’. An example of the more electronic dimension which exists on the record, the song opens like the soundtrack to long lost videogame but soon blossoms into something charged and sweeping, and again Rhodes’s delivery is placed centre stage. “Standing outside, the middle of fall / Dragonfruit vodka clenched in your palm,” she sings in a verse indicative of the striking image-led style of the track. “You met my eyes / I knew that you changed / I hated you then but I couldn’t escape.”

Watch the visualiser by Zack Willis with clips from Leena Rhodes below [WARNING: contains flashing, high-contrast imagery that may triggering to individuals with photosensitivity or epilepsy]:

The Heat will be released on 12th March. Get a copy from the Little Lungs Bandcamp page.

Lucy Liyou – Babygirl

“Possess[es] both a fragile minimalism and lush melodrama […] The sensation of watching a fond memory fade at the edges as the desire to return to its smallest details only grows.” So we wrote of Lucy Liyou‘s debut Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name back in 2025, an album that was both an exercise in musical invention and most personal of documents, a description that more than holds true for Liyou forthcoming new album, MR COBRA. A release described by label Orange Milk Records as “a semi-autobiographical solo theater-music piece […] that combines free-jazz, Korean folk opera, musique-concrète, 2000s era pop, text-to-speech recordings, film, comedy, and drag-inspired performance,” the record sees fury, frustration, love and yearning all swirl together with the extravagance and grace of the best stage show, allowing Liyou to explore ideas of transition and identity in ways otherwise out of reach. “I was really inspired by sounds and images that felt satisfyingly ‘false’ or “unclarifyingly” true, whatever that means,” she expands. “I was drawn to Cecil Taylor’s Unit Structures, my favorite drag queens in Los Angeles, who magically bombed every Monday, Ryan Trecartin’s A Family Finds Entertainment, Sunik Kim’s Potential, and so much more. I wanted frenzy that felt disembodying, so disembodying that this time of my life could conjure a laugh.” Check out single ‘Babygirl’ below:

Primula – Cobblestone

Do not be fooled by the title, Primula‘s latest EP Nothing New signals a fresh chapter for the Malmö/Stockholm-based outfit. Having made a name across the Swedish scene with a jazz-inflected sound, the new release sees the band bend more towards folk sensibilities, though without sacrificing the sense of collaboration and invention which made their earlier work so special. Single ‘Cobblestone’ serves as the ideal introduction. It’s a track daring enough to eschew the conventional structures of indie music in order to create a dynamic sound that evokes the nuances of being alive. “‘Cobblestone’ is about the difficult yet comforting realization that you’re just a small piece in a much bigger world,” the band explain. “There’s a freedom in not having to be so significant on your own. Even if you feel insignificant by yourself, you’re still an essential part of making something whole.”

Nothing New will be released later this year.

Stephen Becker – Bad Idea

Back in 2024, Stephen Becker released Middle Child Syndrome, an album we described as “an effort, at least in part, to rise above the mundane present, as though to be trapped within conventions is to be restricted by the same inability to communicate effectively that haunts our everyday lives.” Now Becker is set to return with new full-length Gravity Blanket, and the record is no less thoughtful or ambitious. It sees him sift through the ostensibly banal details of memories in order to excavate a deeper human meaning with an otherwise unsatisfying present. As with Middle Child Syndrome, the result is forthright and unguarded, willing to open itself up to vulnerability in order to make progress, as highlighted by opener and lead single ‘Bad Idea’. “‘Bad Idea’ is about a breakup I went through after seeing the ballet,” as Becker explains. “The haunting feeling of the dancers’ movements lingering in my mind, the sad-sweet taste of spiked lemonade on the train ride home. I was thinking about, and trying to manifest, change with a newfound determination to break free from unhealthy routines and patterns in life and in love.”

Watch the video directed by Haoyan of America below:

Gravity Blanket will be released on the 24th April and you can pre-order it now.

True Green – Bindi Sue

True Green, the project of Minneapolis songwriter Dan Hornsby, is named after “medieval nun Hildegard of Bingen’s idea of viriditas, and also a lawn care company.” This combination goes some way towards capturing the project’s style, which uses a laidback, often irreverent tone to tell stories with real feeling. Later this month, True Green will release sophomore album Hail Disaster, a record which, as its title suggests, explores “tragedies real and imagined”. New single ‘Bindi Sue’ is one last glimpse before the big day. A tribute to everyone’s favourite Aussie naturalist Steve Irwin, the song is wryly funny and genuinely poignant. It evokes both the loss felt by an entire generation following Irwin’s untimely death, and the joy of his good-natured relationship with the natural world. “He didn’t hunt them,” as the song begins, “they were his friends”.

Where’s Beth – Ache Is A Cricket In The Night

‘Ache Is A Cricket In The Night’ is the title track from the new record by Where’s Beth, the recording project of Seattle-based Sarabeth Weszely. The follow up to 2024 debut Bone Broth, the album “draw[s] on apparently mundane moments from every day life,” as we put it previously, “to chart the universal experiences of love, grief and longing,” building upon the style of its predecessor in the process. The album is now out, and the title track is an ideal entry point for those unfamiliar with the Where’s Beth project, looking for a place to dive in. “I can feel your heart beat like a candleflame / Fingers stretching out, flicker in the rain,” Weszely sings in the opening lines, immediately evoking the intimacy and compassion of the record. “Wind blows, I want to tell you it’s okay / To let in.” The rest of the track unfolds within the warmth of this beginning, a safe harbour from the outside world and its accumulation of difficulties, but importantly not a total escape. For, as the title suggests, Where’s Beth is not interested in blocking out sadness or suffering but rather creating enough distance that we might examine them in the context of everything else.

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The new track follows in this lineage. A love song which refuses the certainty so common to the genre to offer something more nuanced. So when Carlsson sings “I was the ocean and he was the moon / I tried to stay in place but he was gravity,” the impression is not one of grand gesture and romantic inevitability, but rather the sense of being exposed to mysterious forces. The physics of things larger than yourself, moving life beyond your control.

I was a cynical
He said he was one too
I called him silver
And I was blue

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

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I Saw the Egg, the first full-length album by Battle Ave in almost a decade, is inching ever closer. As we described in a preview of lead singles ‘Maya’ and ‘Leo’, the album promises to be a continuation of the signature Battle Ave unpredictability, displaying we we described as “openness to contradiction that allows vastness to sit alongside intimacy, ominousness next to sincerity, and ultimately embraces the beauty and truth of ambiguity.” This week, the band have released the record’s third single, ‘Core’, a big hulking thing that plays like slo-mo shoegaze, lead Jesse Doherty’s comparatively reticent vocals dealing in lines as sparse and opaque as the stories of Diane Williams or Lydia Davis.

I Saw the Egg releases on 1st April on Friends Club Records and Totally Real Records and you can pre-order now from the Battle Ave Bandcamp page.

Deau Eyes – Moscow in the Spring

Taken from Deau Eyes upcoming sophomore record, Legacies, ‘Moscow in the Spring’ gives an insight into the cinematic vision and emotional maturity of Richmond artist Ali Thibodeau. With its speckled synths and sleigh bells, the song conjures an intangible quality, a shimmering sound ghosting around what could otherwise be a classic country tale of longing and regret. Marked by both the dawning excitement of some new frontier, and deepening appreciation of what has been built in the present.

‘Moscow in the Spring‘ is out now and available from Bandcamp. Legacies is out on the 10th June via Subflora.

los nerds- s/t

Super lo-fi but super infectious punk rock from Hermosillo, Mexico. Clocking in at just over seven minutes, los nerds don’t mess around. If you like your catchy melodies buried in fuzz and crackle and general chaos, this is the tape for you. Yelped vocals bounce around with hyperactive intensity, singing about everything from playing Tetris all day to making nuclear bombs in lab class, and even a pretty impressive impression of a car going through the gears on the informatively titled ‘bip bip (“beep beep”).

Jackie West – Amelia

Raised by a musical family in Boston, Jackie West’s musical journey leads from Martha’s Vineyard to Brooklyn and eventually to Paris to record with Lewis Lazar (Oracle Sisters). She returned to New York with a newfound sense of purpose and got to writing the songs that would come to form a self-titled EP on Westernesse. Single ‘Amelia’ is the perfect introduction, a song “about a dear friend who also represents the ‘agape’ love state after you’ve come and gone from each other’s lives many times,” as West puts it. One as rich and heartfelt as that sounds.

Jackie West will be released on Westernesse later this year.

Jana Horn – Jordan

Released last month on No Quarter Records, Optimism by Austin-based songwriter Jana Horn is a lesson in tightly woven and lyrical folk music. Despite the relative minimalism of the arrangements, each track represents its own palm-sized world, none more than the starkly cryptic ‘Jordan’ with its soft-spoken delivery and tacit weight. Check out the animated video by Jaime Zuverza below:

Optimism is out now via No Quarter Records and you can get it from the Jana Horn Bandcamp page.

King of Nowhere – Souls

January saw the return of New York trio King of Nowhere with their self-titled fourth album. Centring on themes of nostalgia and shifting identity, the record is at once vulnerable and empowered, charting the peaks and troughs of coming to terms with yourself in the most honest manner possible. Take the slow, mournful single ‘Souls’ and the way it which it rises out of its downbeat beginnings to realise an affirming climax, complete with vocals from Tetchy‘s Maggie Denning.

Last Quokka – Cue

Carving out a space within Australia‘s rich scene, Whadjuk/Perth punks Last Quokka combine irreverent fun with a fierce antifascist agenda, be it through danceable threats to Nazi scum (“Now it’s time, we’ll tear you down”) or wistful odes to Geoff Gallop (“Yeah look we’re not saying he’s such a great guy / But compared to these other pricks he’s alright”). Ahead of their fifth album on Stock Records and with new members in tow, ‘Cue’ introduces a newly fortified Last Quokka ready for a fresh assault. Slightly more polished perhaps, but certainly no less frenetic, the song dives headfirst into the outback and drags the listener along for the ride.

Mal Devisa – kiid

Having recently signed with Topshelf Records to make her full catalogue available across all streaming services, there’s never been a better time to get familiar with the endlessly inventive work of Mal Devisa. From spoken word poetry through hip hop, pop, folk and jazz, Devisa refuses to settle in any one genre, utilising every tool available to communicate what needs to be heard. 2019’s kiid is a great place to start, a record we previously described as “a personal record [that] plays like condensed version of life, reaching high and falling low, crackling and bursting and simmering under the surface, at times exploding in urgent streams of consciousness as if the words and thoughts can no longer be held in.”

Many Voices Speak – Seat For Sadness

Many Voices Speak returns this spring with Gestures, a brand new record on Strangers Candy. The moniker of Stockholm‘s Matilda Mård, the project has made its name with its luscious dream pop soundscapes, and latest single ‘Seat For Sadness’ shows the new album is no exception. Though within the continued style sits a story of change and transformation, however subtle and modest. “What unites the songs is a need for inner change,” Mård explains, “to handle the things in life that can’t be changed. I’m creating strategies for myself – new ways of thinking, so I can live with certain things.”

No Frills – Copy Cat

In lieu of recording with a full band during a period of lockdown, Daniel Busheikin of Toronto‘s No Frills started their new album Downward Dog in the garage-turned-studio of The Wooden Sky’s Gavin Gardiner, with band members dropping by individually to record their various contributions. Such a process must’ve required a sizeable sense of humour, and lead single ‘Copy Cat’ shows the sardonic blend of pessimism and playfulness that’s a feature of the record. The cartoon video is pretty wild too.

Downward Dog is out on the 1st April and you can pre-order it from the No Frills Bandcamp page.

Ruby Landen – Front Teeth

Writing of Ruby Landen‘s Martyr, well last year, we described how the Brooklyn-based songwriter utilised a classic folk sound to evoke “a kind of duality, between specificity and diffuseness, the wide world and Landen herself.” Back with new single ‘Front Teeth’ via Ruination Record Co., Landen continues this style, the tender acoustic guitar capturing the nostalgic tone of the lyrics, though within the wistful sound lies both cutting commentary and playful humour.

Ryan Dugre – For Clement

Another Ruination record, Look See is a new EP by New York-based multi-instrumentalist Ryan Dugre. Following the ethereal richness of 2021’s Three Rivers, the new release hones Dugre’s sound down to a solo tenor guitar. What results is a streamlined, unadorned exploration of a single instrument, and a lesson in the old adage of less being more. Nowhere is this better highlighted than on the poignant opening track ‘For Clement’, which seems to live far beyond its sub-two-minute runtime.

Saapato – Singing House I & II

Writing about Saapato‘s Bird Sanctuary EP back in 2021, we described how Philadelphia‘s Brendan Principato explores “textural soundscape creation and sound bath performance” to weave songs rooted in his surroundings. Be that composing tracks in the backseat of his car at a New Jersey bird sanctuary, or, as with his new release Singing House I & II, pursuing the full sonic potential of his childhood home. Singing House is a petri dish of improvised ambient performance, field recordings, and loops layered or deconstructed and sent whirring through amplifiers into the air, Principato explains:

From the air they go into an oven, or an attic, or straight into a carpet. A microphone may sit two stories above the origin of the sound, it may sit outside the house, it may sit inside my own mouth as a walk through a hallway. A piano in the garage might be piped through a megaphone inside the refrigerator. A speaker may blast drones from inside a plastic bag submerged in a bathtub. Singing House is without formula.

supernowhere – Basement Window

As if the elastic and endlessly inventive compositions of supernowhere’s 2021 record Gestalt weren’t enough, the trio return this spring with a brand new record on Topshelf Records. Originating from ideas that didn’t make the previous album, the band gave the tracks that extra bit of attention only to see them blossom into Skinless Takes A Flight. For the uninitiated, single ‘Basement Window’ invites the listener into the idiosyncratic and escalating soundscape.

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Ahead of their upcoming album on Hidden Shoal Records, Otinget have released a new single, title track ‘The Greatest Thing That Never Happened’. With Dungen’s Reine Fiske joining on guitar, the track is a perfect introduction for the uninitiated. The opening minutes creep into life with affectionate warmth, the various elements rising and falling and clicking into place as shuffling drums introduce themselves. The song seems to draw energy from its own growing rhythm, charging an internal energy across a series of ebbs and flows before rising toward its revelatory climax.

Then one dark night, around 3am,
they escaped the narrative prepared for them
And it was the greatest thing that never happened

The Greatest Thing That Never Happened… will be released in September via Hidden Shoal and you can pre-order it now.

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Recorded at the home studio of Kristian Matsson (AKA The Tallest Man on Earth), Lynx is a four-track release of uplifting folk songs. The trailer for the EP caught my attention a few months back, and goes a good way to capturing the essence of the songs. Watch below:

The EP opens with the title track, an upbeat, affirming song that falls somewhere between Gregory Alan Isakov and Great Lake Swimmers. Apparently written to his son, ‘Lynx’ speaks of perseverance and hope:

“But if you made it up to now,
you can make it one more time.

Life will burn your curls
and life will bleach your blue eyes
you must remember, child
that the storm will always abate.”

‘Carvaggio’s Hand’ is more restrained, a slower folk track along the same lines as Jose Gonzalez and Small Houses, while ‘Northern Nights’ sees the atmospheric rock return, with piano and percussion not dissimilar to that of Field Report supporting Svensson’s haunting, impassioned vocals.

“Oh baby you’re my rock bottom riser,
Gibraltar steady stands our love.
We fall together from the northern heights.
We burn together in the northern night.”

‘The Leaning Apple Tree’ see the tempo swing back to slow, a gentle country song concerning Svensson’s father (“I’m only passing your blood onto my child”). Again the vocals are front and centre, filled with energy and grace, elevating the track from a serene stroll into something profound and touching.

With Lynx, The Tarantula Waltz reminds us that no matter how hard, life holds pockets of goodness and wonder, providing moments of fierce, bright joy which light up the dark, like the four incandescent trees in a snow storm.

The EP will be released on the 20th May, when you will be able to get it via Woah Dad.

P.S. Svensson will be opening for Tallest Man on Earth on his European tour. I’d imagine the tickets are scarce but if you manage to get one then be sure to turn up early to see Svensson’s set.

23 June Koko, London (UK) *SOLD OUT*
24 June Openlucht Theater, Antwerp (BE)
25 June Divan du Monde, Paris (FR)
28 June Göta Lejon, Stockholm (SE)
29 June Göta Lejon, Stockholm (SE)
30 June Rockefeller, Oslo (NO)
02 July Pustervik, Goteborg (SE)

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‘Old Oaken Pond’ is the album’s first track to be revealed by the band. It has a breezy beat and some realy nice yearning vocals, particularly in the chorus. The track is also a good illustration of the tone of the record, with a sense of nostalgia and longing palpable.

To my ears, the two standout tracks are the two which break the seven minute barrier – ‘Showers of Light’ and ‘Falling Asleep’. Both are insanely beautiful, the former opening as a hazily strummed folk song with added glockenspiel, before morphing into something altogether bigger, with swirling electronics and electric guitar.The latter is another pretty lo-fi strum until around the two minute mark, where everything converges and then falls once more, before slowly fading out with a forlorn piano line and the refrain.

Fabula is an intricate piece, lovingly crafted with great attention to detail. Old Amica realise that a simple song is not enough, that the small details often matter most. The press release from Moonpalace records puts it rather beautifully, “the songs want to be heard more than once – it is like digging up a treasure chest – and that treasure is filled with an anxious longing for something you fear was only a dream”. I love it when I come across albums such as this, from bands who clearly care about the music they make. The internet gets a lot of negative publicity in regards to its effect on the music industry, but its ability to provide a platform for smaller artists all around the world really is unmatched. I’m just grateful that bands like this exist, and that the internet gives me the opportunity to hear them. This is one of my favourite records of 2014 so far, and I suggest you check it out too.

Fabula will be released on the 26th of March on Moonpalace Records.

P.S. You can also buy a physical copy of both Old Amica’s The Burning Dot releases via the same label. Highly recommended.

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