A collaboration between multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Tessa Collins and drummer Andrew Wilkinson, Altai create music that lands somewhere between dream pop, post-punk and folk. Both members live on farms, and say their forthcoming debut EP was created “between dodgy Wi-Fi and driving tractors.” Lead single ‘Like You Need It’ is a good introduction. Released just as the southern hemisphere moves into autumn, the song is suffused with a romantic nostalgia and the gnawing melancholy of the changing seasons. “Wanting to be wanted, feeling woeful as the cheery summer days come to an end,” the band describe. “You turn to your partner for affectionate reassurance that might just ease the seasonal blues.”

‘Like You Need It’ is out now via Broken Palace.

Ava McCoy – More Than a Friend

Described by the artist as “a patchwork quilt of me post-college,” Ava McCoy‘s forthcoming album Dragonfly “run[s] the gamut between hushed folk and driving indie rock to offer a sonic palette wide enough to paint a diverse collection of scenes and feelings,” as we wrote in a preview. With the record set for release via Acrophase Records at the end of the month, McCoy is back with ‘More Than a Friend’, another square in this mosaic which focuses on a Christmas spent in the UK reflecting on past loves and the compromises which came with them. But with a propulsive energy and bright jangle, the track finds freedom in the situation, embracing the agency of being single.

Don’t Worry – Unbelieveable

“Balancing heart-on-the-sleeve emo confession with a distinctively British self-deprecation.” So we wrote of Don’t Worry‘s forthcoming album Idealism back in April, a full-length which sees the Essex outfit evolve their sound while staying true to the spirit that has won them fans with previous albums. With the record set for release this summer on Specialist Subject Records, Don’t Worry are back with ‘Unbelievable’, a song which evokes the dystopia of lockdown-era Britain with a disarmingly bright and sunny sound. The single therefore owes an equal debt to the romanticised past and soul-sapping present, the warm Beatles-esque tones belying the cold hard reality of the contemporary moment.

Frankie Cosmos – Bitch Heart

New York indie favourites Frankie Cosmos are returning this June with brand new full-length Different Talking on Sub Pop, with the ever present lead Greta Kline joined by Alex Bailey, Katie Von Schleicher and Hugo Stanley in the project’s current iteration to create what might be their most collaborative record to date. The album collects a myriad of memories and images into a cohesive whole, exploring growing older amid the unstoppable passage of time, and latest single ‘Bitch Heart’ centres on the competing allures of comfort and raw experience which push and pull a person over the course of their lives. The track comes complete with a video by Eliza Lu Doyle which further pushes into these ideas, all shot on infrared and thermal cameras to position it firmly within a surreal space. “To me the song is about being torn between the comforts of domesticated life and your innate wildness,” Doyle explains. “There’s a yearning for a more feral time—before you touched your fucking phone all day. So we made Greta into a dog-shepherd, someone who straddles those two realms.”

Different Talking is out on the 27th June via Sub Pop and you can pre-order it now.

Fuubutsushi – Loop Trail

This June sees the release of Columbia Deluxe, a live release by ambient jazz quartet Fuubutsushi, via American Dreams. Taken from a show at the Columbia Experimental Music Festival, the project’s only live performance to date, the collection finds the quartet working to adapt tracks recorded remotely for the live setting, drawing from the breadth of their work and allowing intuition, risk-taking and collaborative spirit to flourish in close proximity. Half the magic of the release is the way in which the tracks flow into one another across the performance, meaning it is best experienced as a whole. Though lead track ‘Loop Trail’ offers a suitable snapshot of what to expect. A number indebted to both the patience of ambient aesthetics and old-school punk ethos, drawing the audience into a soundscape at once poignant and meditative.

HLLLYH – Uru Buru

Last month we introduced HLLLYH, a project risen from the ashes of 00s favourites the Mae Shi which is preparing to release brand new album, URUBURU. What the band describe as “an end-of-the-world story written on a mobius strip” the record lacks none of the invention and personality which made the Mae Shi stand out so clearly from the crowd of indie buzz bands. Released as the latest single, the opener and title track shows such a spirit is present from the very start, the newly invigorated outfit wasting no time to establish their fist-pumping charm and offering a timely reminder that energy persists irrespective of everything. “We’ve been eating our own tail for as long as i remember / We’ve been doing it wrong right from the start,” as the opening verse states. “But one thing I know / one thing that’s sure / one light outshines.”

URUBURU is out on the 27th June via Team Shi and you can pre-order it from the HLLLYH Bandcamp page.

Hudson Freeman – Good Faith

Combining the atmospheric intensity of slowcore with the closeness of bedroom pop, the work of Hudson Freeman pushes boundaries in terms of genre conventions while maintaining a direct emotional resonance. Later this month the Springfield, Missouri songwriter will release Is A Folk Artist, a brand new album which employs this style to explore some of the largest themes possible. Because though the record is situated within a coming-of-age experience, it probes deeper than the usual uncertainty and angst of young life. Rather, Freeman follows the likes of David Bazan in using the period to reflect on the metaphysical as well as the personal, drawing on a religious upbringing to explore how meaning might be located within the digital present. Check out latest single ‘Good Faith’ now:

Is A Folk Artist is out on the 29th May via Mendel Records.

Jack Goldstein – MUD MICE

The music of Margate’s Jack Goldstein is nothing if not ambitious. He bends the pop spectrum into a perfect circle and makes himself comfortable at the point where both poles—earworm commercial and oddball avant garde—meet. Forthcoming album HELLFIRE BUMPER STICKER COWPUNCHING JEWBOY is a case in point. Goldstein describes it as ​”a fever dream in a parallel dimension where Britney Spears makes a fully fledged country and western album around the time she shaves her head—the moment this cosmic heartache begins to envenom the world.” If that’s hared to envisage, then give lead single ‘MUD MICE’ a spin. A ludicrously infectious and imaginative song that displays both a  country twang and pop polish.

HELLFIRE BUMPER STICKER COWPUNCHING JEWBOY is out on the 20th June via Fabulous Things.

Juan Wauters – Dime Amiga

Although now based in NYC, Juan Wauters was born in Montevideo and, for the first time in his career, returned to the Uruguayan capital to make album MVD LUV, coming via Captured Tracks. Created not just in his own studio, but also the city itself (on sidewalks, rooftops, in the homes of friends), the album has a sense of Montevideo in its very bones. Latest single ‘Dime Amiga’ is a good place to start. Sung in Spanish, it’s a gentle and heartwarming song about the importance of loved ones. “‘Dime Amiga’ is a song that sparked while seeing my daughter cry,” Wauters sings. “The chorus just came out as we were there. I wanted the song to highlight life’s difficulties and how important it is to have a friend on your side if it ever gets hard.” His daughter also has a starring role in the video (written and directed by Lucía Garibaldi, Fatos Marishta, Eric McLeland, Matthew Volz and Wauters himself), which sees her wander off into the bustle of New York as Wauters’s busks for donut money.

MVD LUV will be released via Captured Tracks on 27th June. Pre-order it now from the Juan Wauters Bandcamp page.

Mourning [A] Blkstar – Letter To A Nervous System

We’ve covered a couple of singles from Mourning [A] Blkstar‘s new full-length Flowers of the Living in recent months, first the patient and quietly radical ‘Stop Lion 2‘ and then the striking ‘Let ‘Em Eat‘. The latter “pivots from bright, affirming beginnings into something else entirely,” we wrote in our piece, the song staying “true to the visionary, boundary-pushing spirit of the project” by shifting the vibe entirely and welcoming rapper Fatboi Sharif for a closing verse. With the album out later this week on Don Giovanni Records, MAB has unveiled final single ‘Letter To A Nervous System’ and the track is no less inventive. Another lesson in the power of understatement, the languid rhythm and crooned vocals full of assured confidence and aching longing.

Flowers of the Living is out on the 16th May via Don Giovanni Records and you can pre-order it now.

Snake Lips – Thumbs Up

This summer sees the return of Portland, Maine indie punk outfit Snake Lips with Cat Beach, a brand new full-length on Repeating Cloud. Previous release Happy Anxious was an album “delivered with both volatility and wry humour,” as we wrote in a preview, “as though strung out between hope and despair and choosing to ride the instability,” and the new record looks to build upon these foundations, as introduced by lead single, ‘Thumbs Up’. It’s a surf-inflected slice of garage rock which again embraces the danger and thrill of sheer momentum, burning bright and quick no matter consequences and ultimately revealing the real threat comes from within. “Brake check / I’m driving in the wrong lane / Blacked out / Alcohol and cocaine,” as the song opens. “So cool / I’m calling you the wrong name / Too bad / I’m the only one in my way.”

Watch the video by Ninety-Five Films below:

Cat Beach will be released on the 25th July via Repeating Cloud and you can pre-order it now.

Will Orchard – Nothing Fog

“A dream-folk track which preaches the benefits submission within an overwhelming world, complicating the lines between playfulness, sadness and acquiescence.” So we wrote of Will Orchard‘s ‘Down‘ back in April, what has since been revealed to be the closing track of his forthcoming third album, Behind The Shadow Glass. To announce the record, Orchard has shared another single, ‘Nothing Fog’. Again presenting a nuanced atmosphere, the track uses a decidedly sincere style to explore a sense of uncertainty, its confessional tone unafraid of revealing its own vulnerabilities and loss of confidence. Yet it is the sound’s brightness which persists in spite of all of this, leading to something ultimately affirming. “‘Nothing Fog’ expresses something very central to my struggle as a human,” as Orchard puts it. “The feeling of pushing your own wants and needs aside, and always trying to consider every perspective, until you can no longer recognize your own.”

Yoshika Colwell – A Poem About Walking

In April we introduced On The Wing, the forthcoming release from Yoshika Colwell on Blue Flowers. An album, at its heart “about acceptance and release, and freedom from old binds,” as Colwell herself describes, collecting a series of key experiences and events from across the years in order to not only process the journey so far but to chart a more hopeful path forward. Latest single ‘A Poem About Walking’ embodies the compassion and self-acceptance of this endeavour, finding its subject at the rock bottom of a troubled relationship though still holding onto small embers of possibility. The hope, that is, to achieve a more fulfilling and healthy existence, even if it means passing through a period of solitude and reflection in order to map out its shape. Watch the video by Tilly Wace below:

On The Wing is out on the 25th July via Blue Flowers and you can pre-order it now.

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