“I’ve got too much on my plate / I’ve got too much in my brain,” sings Brighton‘s alx frncs on new single ‘i can’t do anything right’. The track is an attempt to process an extremely difficult period via an intimate, gentle sound. “I wrote ‘i can’t do anything right’ after coming out of a deep depression,” frncs describes. “Personal situations were beginning to change and it finally felt like I could process what had happened to me both physically and mentally during the second half of the pandemic.” What results is confessional in tone yet empathetic in nature, serving as both an expression of gratitude to those who helped keep frncs afloat during those intensely difficult months, as well as a comforting hand extended backwards through time as a gesture of self-love and understanding.

you may think i’m lazy
when i fail to wash up dishes daily
hardly got a grasp on life
when death is constant on my mind

Anna Erhard – Botanical Garden

“I read this Google review from a guy who complained about the bad parking situation in the middle of the Atlantic,” explains Swiss indie pop artist Anna Erhard of the inspiration behind her latest single ‘Botanical Garden’. “Eventually this person who is incredibly judgmental and won’t be pleased by anything, not even by the flowers in the Botanical Garden, came to life.” The result is as sardonic as you’d imagine, skewering a specific brand of impossible-to-please (most often) man that seems so prevalent. But it’s full of a strange joy too. Erhard’s deadpan delivery only heightens the song’s humour, and the chorus is as catchy as anything you will hear all year.

they would not allow us
to pick our favorite flowers
kids were singing happy birthday
too close to the highway

Brenna Bruce – Kite and the Line

Taken from her forthcoming debut EP Honest Bloom on Ghost Mountain Records, ‘Kite and The Line’ is the new single from Brenna Bruce. With help from Taylor Heath (piano), Keith Lowe (bass), Trevor Church (drums), Lane King (pedal steel), Chris Coleman (synth) and Abby Gunderson (strings), Bruce brings to life a serene sound shadowed by a certain mournfulness, evoking the way even the most tranquil environment is in some way made poignant by the latent promise of its own end. Such ideas are central to Honest Bloom, where every emotional state is but part of a larger cycle, and beauty can be found in the acceptance of life’s ephemeral nature.

Jon Campbell – Arrow

“Depression dog / lead me to where / I can thrive.” So sings Jon Campbell on ‘Arrow’, the latest single from forthcoming album Still Life With Motion Sickness. Set against a backdrop of sparse piano and ambience, the words sound like a gentle plea as voiced to an empty room. The US-born, Berlin-based artist’s croon murmured as though not to puncture the stillness of the moment. But as the track develops, the vocals grow in desperation or conviction and the sound follows suit. A gradual blossom around Campbell’s increasingly impassioned voice as he airs frustrations, summoning strength from some inner well so as to draw the fortitude to face down one’s demons.

depression, dog!
try seein’ things from my eyes
you wouldn’t dare to try
you wouldn’t have the balls

Still Life With Motion Sickness is out on the 22nd March and you can pre-order it now.

Laurel Bluffs – Block 4

Back in November we introduced  Phoenix, Arizona-based project Laurel Bluffs with single ‘Richmond’. The story of a hungover drive to the titular location where a “folk rock sound and unadorned delivery [lent] an intimacy to the track, where fondness and longing are present without spilling into sugary sentiment.” Latest single ‘Block 4’ follows the same formula, another narrative-based track which blurs the line between fondness and regret in its recollections, told with unerring detail yet never anything other than earnest in tone. Echoes of Andy Hull’s Right Away, Great Captain! are present in the tales of love and violence, and the manner these stories of vengeance and punishment are told with the ache of remove.

‘Block 4’ is out now and available from the usual places.

Nico Paulo – Learning My Ways

This time last year, Portuguese-Canadian songwriter Nico Paulo released her self-titled album on Forward Music Group, a release we described as “marked in its ability to broach weighty topics with a sense of lightness and grace, all tied together by a vocal style at once compassionate and unerring in its focus.” To celebrate the record’s first birthday, Paulo has returned with a brand new video for the single ‘Learning My Ways’, a sweet and impassioned love song that isn’t afraid to explore the less idyllic side to relationships. Featuring tour footage shot and edited by Sarah Kierstead, the film is the ideal commemoration of everything which goes into making an album a success, as well as the singular joy of taking that music to different people every evening.

Nico Paulo is out now via Forward Music Group and you can get it from Bandcamp page.

SUB*T – Unearthly

This June will see the release of Spring Skin, the fittingly titled new EP from Brooklyn alt-rockers SUB*T which sees duo Jade Alcantara and Grace Bennett step firmly into the next stage of their growth. Lead single ‘Unearthly’ hints at what this might sound like, taking the nineties-inspired fuzzy rock energy of debut So Green and adding a darker edge to create something full of brooding swagger. “‘Unearthly’ is a song that’s been in our arsenal for a while,” the band explain. “We chose this as the first single off the EP because the taste of it is a little moodier than the other music we’ve put out […] It feels like a dark fairytale journey, and intentionally leaning into an image like that was new for us when writing this song.” Check out the video directed by Alcantara and Bennett themselves below:

Spring Skin is out in June via If This Then Records and you can pre-order it now.

Tara Kannangara – Apartment

Last week saw the release of Extraordinary People, the new EP from Sri Lankan-Canadian songwriter and musician Tara Kannangara. The Juno Award-nominated artist has long won acclaim for her inventive combinations of genres, drawing on classical training and jazz sensibilities to push synth pop to new heights. Extraordinary People is no less ambitious in its sound, as lead single and opening track ‘Apartment’ attests. A song which embraces the thrill of an early relationship where everything is undecided and the possibilities are endless, packed full of tender details yet blown up to epic proportions in a manner sure to win over fans of early Mitski. But as the track progresses and its full cathartic heft reveals itself, such comparisons are rendered insufficient, failing to suggest the scope of styles which knit into the finished whole.

youbet – Nurture

Walking a tightrope between self-love and self-loathing, ‘Nurture’ is a new single from Way To Be, the upcoming album by Brooklyn’s youbet on Hardly Art. The track’s bittersweet mood is a fitting introduction to a record crafted in the aftermath of a period doubt and disillusionment, a spell broken by a chance encounter at Penn Station with Patti Smith. “She wished me luck,” Nick Llobet explains, “and said, ‘Practice hard, Nick.'” Heeding the advice, Llobet pushed ahead with the new record with a newfound energy, meeting any doubts with curiosity and playfulness instead of succumbing to them. So while tracks like ‘Nurture’ might sound bummed out on the surface, their very existence is a testament to the value of keeping on in spite of things.

Watch the video below animated by Sabrina Nichols:

Way To Be is out on the 10th May via Hardly Art and you can pre-order it now.

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With album Mirror, Reflect coming in May via Winspear, Amy O has shared single ‘Dribble Dribble’ by way of introduction. The record charts the experience of new motherhood during the pandemic, where twin forces of uncertainty and isolation ran a deep seam of precariousness through everything. But as ‘Dribble Dribble’ shows, Amy O documents this time with compassion and playful curiosity, the lo-fi pop sound lifting rhyming schemes from the books she read to her daughter to offer a mood at once fun and incisive, and Glenn Myers’s backing vocals further the conversational closeness.

Please don’t let the tide rush in
Held unburdened by the wind
A roomful of familiar
No catastrophes within

Bloomsday – Dollar Slice

The recording project of Brooklyn’s Iris James Garrison, Bloomsday introduced itself back in 2020 with debut Place to Land, an album which charted the fear, loss and joyous freedom inherent within the quest to find one’s true identity. But despite the personal subject matter, collaboration has always been an inherent part of the Bloomsday DNA, and new album Heart of the Artichoke is certainly no exception. Coming this summer on Bayonet Records, the release see Iris joined by Andrew Stevens (Lomelda, Hovvdy), Alex Harwood, Richard Orofino, Maya Bon (Babehoven), Hannah Pruzinsky (h.pruz, Sister.) and Chris Daley, and proves to be not only a celebration of togetherness and community but a testament to the enduring presence of friendship itself. Lead single ‘Dollar Slice’ is a great place to jump in, the cornerstone of the album which hints at the sound’s devotional quality. “I’m not religious,” Garrison says, “But I am into the idea of mystical, higher power—whatever that means – and that power seeing me, and my bullshit, and calling it out. That’s kind of godly to me.”

Cereus Bright – Boys

We introduced Boys, the new EP from Knoxville‘s Cereus Bright, back in February with single ‘Drifting’. “An ode to every tired soul and person without direction,” as we put it, “which offers comfort not through the promise of agency but rather the unforeseen benefits of letting oneself relax into the drift.” With the EP now out via Nettwerk, Cereus Bright has released the opener and title track as a final single. Inspired by stories of a “hard, complicated figure” of a grandfather, the song delves into the tangled world of cause and effect not so much in search of an answer but to instead reveal the layers of complexity which define any given person. As the artist explains: “It’s essential to reckon with the people or institutions that have affected us or hurt us, but some times truly understanding is impossible.” The song comes complete with a video filmed by Follow The Leader which you can watch below:

Boys is out now via Nettwerk and available from Bandcamp.

Fresh – Merch Girl

London punks Fresh have made a name with a heart-on-the-sleeve brand of rock, with tracks like ‘Babyface‘ and ‘Morgan & Joanne‘ typifying the bittersweet celebration of the queer experience offered by LP Raise Hell. Ahead of tours with Teenage Halloween and Los Campesinos!, Fresh are releasing a brand new EP Merch Girl on Specialist Subject Records next month, and have unveiled the title track for an early taste. It’s a song “about living in that space between wanting something and achieving something” as lead Kathryn Woods explains, centring on the titular character as they yearn to break free from the sidelines and make art of their own. “Standing at the back of the room / Wishing I could do what they do,” as Woods sings, “After all, I could play that guitar part better / I could hit those drums much harder / I could sing that song far louder // But I’m just a merch girl.”

I’m tired of living like this
Letting people talk over me for years and years and year and years
Gonna start doing things my way
Gonna write a song with a voice so strong it knocks you sideways

I’m not just a merch girl

Hour – Ease the Work

Though named after an image from a tragic Greek myth, Hour‘s 2018 album Anemone Red had more quotidian concerns. “Hour present the same heartbreak and longing as it occurs today,” we wrote in our review, “repressed and layered behind our day-to-day responsibilities, manifest not in blood-dripped flowers but the slow, sad progression of the world around us.” The project, led by Michael Cormier-O’Leary, returns this spring to build upon this foundation with Ease the Work, a brand new release on Dear Life Records. Challenging any clear distinction between composition and improvisation, the album performs the same small miracle of the previous records, presenting the everyday in all its joy and melancholy, comfort and strangeness. Listen to the title track now:

Jack Name – Cherie’s Eyes

Described as a “homage to the IRL world and its twisted and varied romance with the worlds of our minds,” Fabulous Soundtracks is the fourth album from Los Angeles-based musician Jack Name, out this May on Maple Death Records. Each song on the record is intended as a mini-soundtrack to a specific scene, and Jack Name runs the gamut of genres and stylistic influences in order to create cinematic soundscapes able to elevate these moments into their full surreal potential. Single ‘Cherie’s Eyes’ is the first example of this singular effort, presenting a sound at once odd and strangely intuitive, as though Fabulous Soundtracks functions within the logic and physics of dreams, where everything is off-kilter yet charged with meaning.

 Logan Lynn – To Be Of Use (Smog Cover)

Songwriter, producer, filmmaker, television personality and activist Logan Lynn is releasing new LP SOFTCORE this June on Kill Rock Stars. The album, written in the aftermath of a break-up, serves as a vehicle of rebirth. “A record of my coming alive again, and coming back to myself in the face of pretty extreme betrayal,” as Lynn puts it. “It’s a party album in a way—loud, wild, unhinged and abrasive at times—but it’s also a collection of tender songs about longing and togetherness.” A cover of Smog’s ‘To Be Of Use’ opens the album, a plaintive track which slowly gathers momentum, as though Lynn uses Bill Callahan as a way to shake off the shrouding gloom and turn a new page.

Magana – To My Love

Last month we introduced Magana‘s new album TEETH on Audio Antihero with the single ‘Paul’. “A song where grief is transcribed almost verbatim,” as we put it, “and tenderness, strangeness and plain disbelief can exist simultaneously.” With the album out today to coincide with the Worm Moon’s peak illumination, Magana has released final single ‘To My Love’ to further introduce the witchy rock atmosphere. A strange sound for a strange world, made by an artist determined to use every style available to best communicate their own experience of trying to exist within it.

Pina Palau – We’ve Got No Time At All

“The birds outside my window, they are singing as if the world was still the same.” So opens ‘We’ve Got No Time At All’, the centre point of Get a Dog, the sophomore album by Pina Palau. It’s a song that very directly captures the despair felt by young people across the globe, describing a world of war and mass shootings, heatwaves that “no AC can get us out of.” The Swiss artist put a career in medicine on hold to pursue her musical career, and her creative work is driven by the same fascinations that led her to the path to becoming a psychologist—what label Mouthwatering Records describe as “a desire to understand unvarnished humanity—the motivations, emotions and stories that shape our lives.” Which is why ‘We’ve Got No Time At All’ stands out on an album full of varied emotions. A rare track that stares down a generation’s biggest concerns head-on, blowing out into furious noise in its cathartic climax.

We’re still young they say we have time
But the truth is: we’ve got no time at all

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This balance between organic and digital tones is a key feature of the record. Natural Behaviour presents biological and technological forces side by side, an interdependence hinted at by the radio distortion and crooned vocals of ‘Intro’ and continued across the other songs. But where many a record has examined technology’s impact on our lives, Pet Owner instead explores the creative possibilities of all things digital. An early internet vibe, where quirky invention can solve real-life issues. Take ‘Helping Hand’ with its blend of intimate warmth and playful energy, or the new frontiers of the shimmering ‘Endless Fun’.

Such an optimism was present on ‘Hi-Res’ too. A song which delved into childhood dreams as a way to appreciate the slow process of getting to where you wish to be. The folk inflected ‘Sugar Rush’ offers dreams of a different sort, its psych textures and field recordings feeling like some virtual reality trip, while ‘Not Right’ leans fully into spacey, computerised tones and ‘t-t-t’ turns back the clock for an eighties-style pop beat. “I cannot repeat my words,” Mathis sings over and over, the stress changing on each cycle, no irony lost in the repeated refrain.

The transition to ‘I Cannot’ Dance’ might feel abrupt on a different record, the eighties pop cutting straight into almost pastoral folk, but here it merely speaks to Pet Owner’s vision. An internet age record, with many tabs open, pages changing on a whim. But it is worth again stressing what version of the internet we’re talking about here. Not the hectic and siloed environment of our contemporary moment, but something freer, a space with optimism intact. A place where, as on single ‘Soft Body’, you can enter and do whatever you wish, even if that is nothing at all.

Natural Behaviour is out now and you can get it from the Pet Owner Bandcamp page.

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Ahead of a second full-length record due sometime in the near future, Pittsburgh‘s Animal Scream have released brand new single, ‘Fires After Dark’, released via American Hermitage as a 7″ vinyl along with b-side ‘Cinnamon Blue’. The song was written during 2020’s turbulent summer of protest, with duo Chad Monticue and Josh Sickels describing the track as concerning “the essence of creating art during twisted up days, even when you feel out of place and at your most insignificant.” What results is something which lives up to its title, a sound undoubtedly dark and a little chaotic, though its energies are channelled into bright sparks of defiant feeling.

‘Fires After Dark’ is out now via American Hermitage and available as a 7″ single from Bandcamp.

Astra Forward – There, There, Here Is Here

Astra Forward is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer based in London who makes what she describes as “dreamy and intimate songs about the enchantment of nature and the power of human connection.” Latest single ‘There, There, Here is Here’ captures this ethos beautifully, with classic folk stylings as well as a timeless ethereal atmosphere channeling a bond between human emotion and the natural world that feels somehow ancient. It is at once delicate and powerful, existing in a barely-there hush before Pascal Colman’s guitar comes winding out of the shadows with ominous strength. “It feels like this song was written for me, not by me,” Astra Forward describes, “because when my world collapsed, ‘There, There, Here is Here’ was what I needed to hear. My hope is that it can be your medicine too.”

Girlpuppy – I Want To Be There

The recording moniker of Atlanta‘s Becca Harvey, girlpuppy is gearing up to release new album When I’m Alone this autumn on Royal Mountain Records. The involvement of Marshall Vore (Phoebe Bridgers) on debut EP Swan led some to label girlpuppy the heir apparent to the sad girl indie folk crown, and latest single ‘I Want To Be There’ does little to dispel the tag. Centring on the time a landlord kicked Harvey and three friends out of the dream home, only for the friends to up and leave for New York, the song paints a self-deprecating picture of emotional distress. “I felt like I had no friends which made me wonder what was wrong with me,” she explains, “which kind of made me spiral into self-hatred. I like to call this one the ‘self-hate anthem’ of the album.”

When I’m Alone is out on 28th October via Royal Mountain Records and you can pre-order it now.

The Human Fly – A New Perspective

Philadelphia/New York outfit The Human Fly have recently released Thrill of Living, a new album on Dead Definition. Opener ‘A New Perspective’ introduces their blend of alt-country and indie rock, as well as the distinctive delivery and lyricism of lead Robert Mathis. A search for a home, or even just a clearer definition of exactly what that might mean. “I need a new perspective / I need a new directive / been nameless as a comet,” he sings, his tone finding a line somewhere between heartfelt sincerity and Berman-esque wryness. Moving through states, seeking something which might not exist.

Maybe home is just perpetually chasing peacefulness
or maybe home is when you find it
and if I do, I can send you the address

Izzy Oram Brown – Mess

Having spent years honing her craft, be it studying musical history or supporting other musicians, Brooklyn‘s Izzy Oram Brown has recently unveiled her debut album, Mess. Despite being Oram Brown’s first real foray into songwriting and production, and irrespective of the title, the album is a careful, finely-tuned collection. The product of time dedicated to music, all the prior learning put to new use. The title track introduces the record’s themes and narrative, and in turn signals the relevance of the title. The inherent messiness of life, be that within the tangled desires and hang-ups of a relationship or a person’s connection to the wider world.

And the birds they sang, their final breaths
And the Tennessee heat pressed down on my chest
I do not remember making this mess
I do not remember making this mess

Pet Owner – Hi-Res

The recording project of Lucerne, Switzerland’s Lea Mathis, Pet Owner combines pop, folk and electronic styles into a transportive, idiosyncratic sound. Ahead of upcoming debut Natural Behaviour on Red Brick Chapel, new single, ‘Hi-Res’ introduces the inventive shapes such a combination can take. Mathis’s vocals skate over a bed of playful electronics, the whole thing ebbing and flowing to add an organic air to the otherwise digital soundscape.

Rachel Angel – Closer to Myself

Miami’s Rachel Angel is set to release new album Midnite Heart Attack next month on Ruzafa Records, an album born of a difficult time spent abroad. The title refers to “a defining moment of reckoning,” Angel explains, “upon which one is confronted with the decision to change or die,” and single ‘Closer to Myself’ goes some way to delineating the result of such an epiphany. A classic country pop song describing a moment of movement from uprooted confusion to the solid foundation of self-assurance. “Roll around in circles feeling lost,” Angel sings, “Got stuck in the britches on a cross / Ring around the rosie / Paint me true,” though soon a direction forms and with it understand:

I’m getting closer to myself
And less to you

And when I finally close my eyes and see
I find that it was always in front of me

Rich Ruth – Older But Not Less Confused

Earlier this summer, Rich Ruth released I Survived, It’s Over, a brand new album on Third Man Records written at home in Tennessee “amidst the quiet and tumult” of a tornado’s aftermath. This juxtaposition informs the near endlessly inventive sound, the record challenging any distinction between order and chaos, hush and noise, and indeed that between humble domestic beauty and the massive sublime. No one track can be representative of a record so adventurous, but ‘Older But Not Less Confused’ is as good a diving in point as any, and the video directed by Brook Linder goes some way to capturing Rich Ruth’s ability to knit seemingly disparate elements into a cohesive system far larger than its constituent parts.

I Survived, It’s Over is out now via Third Man Records and you can get it from the Rich Ruth Bandcamp page.

Sonic Løland & Simen Mitlid – Everything at Once

Back in February we wrote of And Then the Sun Came Up, the debut album Sonic Løland coming later this autumn on Koke Plate. New single ‘Everything at Once’ invites Simen Mitlid to help create something delicate and heartfelt, though the soft indie folk sound of the first half is changed midway through. The sound suddenly becomes distorted, feedback coming from the guitars, as though some alteration has occurred from which there is no return.

And Then the Sun Came Up is out via Koke Plate in September.

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Swiss post-punks Batbait are preparing to release their debut album this September, and latest single ‘Talk’ certainly whets the appetite. With a deadpan vocal style delivered over rhythmic drums and a tense bass line, the track threatens to spark into furious life for most of its runtime, though despite the discordant guitars passing over haphazardly, it isn’t until the closing section that the real bite reveals itself. A lesson in passive aggression which can’t help but eventually show its claws. Check out the claymation video by Nadia Leonhard below:

‘Talk’ is out now via Irascible Distribution and available from the Batbait Bandcamp page.

Foyer Red – Flipper

Described as “fuck-you crayon rock”, the music of Foyer Red combines colour and bite to great effect, blurring the line between fun, fury and fantastical charm. New single ‘Flipper’ embraces this style wholeheartedly, swinging wildly between sugary sweet and strikingly strange to weave its way between the real and imaginary. As the track barrels its way toward the chaotic climax, any distinction between the two seems to dissolve, leaving a trip to the bodega as desperate and dangerous as scavenging a post-apocalyptic world.

i’m a ravenous creature left to roam the earth
set against a scorching sphere
no one here, my own frontier
rusted into this warzone
i’m all alone, i have no bones (no bones)
not yet full grown, i’d eat your bones
bones, bones

‘Flipper’ is out now and available from the Foyer Red Bandcamp page.

Healees – In Your Cave

Based in Paris, Healees are a four-piece band who make noisy but sweet pop music that harks back to the C86 era. Formed back in 2015 after a chance meeting between Bryan Quinn and Renaud Chauré, the band soon added Hillevi Robertsson (bass) and Arthur Chen (drums) and set to work on writing songs, culminating in 2019 with the release of the demo tape Heal’s Beals. Now Healees have teamed up with Hidden Bay Records to release their first proper debut, a self-titled EP that contains polished versions of some of the demos as well as brand new tracks. One such new song is lead single ‘In Your Cave’, which on the surface sparkles like the summer sun but is undercut by a sober wistfulness.

Jacob Faurholt – Madness on the Rise

Back in March we wrote about, ‘Comforting Sounds’, the first single from Jacob Faurholt‘s new album, When the Spiders Crawl. A nostalgic track “downbeat but coloured by an overriding fondness.” Latest single ‘Madness on the Rise’ picks up this melancholic tone, exploring mental struggles with Faurholt’s characteristically empathetic and understanding style. But it carries a certain starkness too as the electric guitar rumbles with palpable weight, a formidable force bubbling up around fragile vulnerability.

When the Spiders Crawl is out on the 15th July via Raw Onion Records and you can pre-order it now.

JayWood – God is a Reptile

JayWood is the alias of Winnipeg songwriter and producer Jeremy Haywood-Smith, who has recently announced a brand new record coming this summer on Captured Tracks. Haywood-Smith began work on the album as an escape from what can only be described as mourning, both from the various social crises of 2020 and the death of his mother in 2019. He began by reconnecting with his roots, pulling back into the past in order to fire himself forward into a better future, hence the title Slingshot. For an album that explore such deep territory, it is surprisingly fun and playful, presenting a near-real version of his life that combines fact and imaginative fiction to explore themes of childhood, religion and identity. First released standalone back in March, lead single ‘God is a Reptile’ is the perfect introduction, a kaleidoscopic blend of groovy pop and bummed-out angst, complete with refracted layered vocals and surreal tempo changes. Check it out below:

Rob Dickson – Aaron and Rae

Based in Whitehorse, Yukon, Rob Dickson is a songwriter gearing up to release brand new record, Portraits, later this year. With guests including Ansley Simpson, Bry Webb, Mika Posen, Nic Hyatt, Micah Smith, Drew Jurecka and Michael Feuerstack, the album assembles some of Canada’s best to realise its rich and emotive sound, as demonstrated by lead single, ‘Aaron and Rae’. An ode to the past which drops the rose-tinted fondness in favour of something more real and raw.

Shady Baby – Come To Life

The project of Brighton‘s Sam Leaver, Shady Baby is the latest emerging act to be featured in the ‘Nice Swan Introduces…’ series of UK label Nice Swan Records (which has also included the likes of Sprints, English Teacher and Saloon Dion). Leaver is joined by Laurie Debnam (guitar), Nick Varnava (bass) and Tom Jackson (drums), who together make contemporary indie rock that draws heavily from the Britpop and Madchester scenes that dominated British music in the 90s. Shady Baby have introduced this style with ‘Come to Life’, their debut single for Nice Swan. It’s a track that belies its angsty subject matter with pure heart-quickening energy. “‘Come To Life’ is an angry response to feeling like people treated you like shit but you let them get away with it,” Leaver describes. “Feeling both angry at them but also at yourself for letting it happen.”

‘Come to Life’ is out now and available via streaming services.

Weird Nightmare – Searching For You

Best known as the guitarist and vocalist from METZ, Alex Edkins has turned to new project Weird Nightmare as an outlet for another dimension of his creativity. The self-titled debut album, out now via Sub Pop, leavens the foreboding weight of Edkins’ usual material with a mischievous fun, as captured in the hectic single ‘Searching for You’. A track which is no less pedal-to-the-metal than anything in the METZ catalogue, but engages this energy in an entirely different direction. Check out the great video directed by Ryan Thompson with animation from Jordan “Dr. Cool” Minkoff:

Weird Nightmare is out now via Sub Pop and you can get it from Bandcamp.

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The recording project of Zurich’s Janine Cathrein, Black Sea Dahu makes an evocative brand of urban folk that manages to combine emotional rawness with a beguiling richness. No Fire in the Sand was produced and engineered by Gavin Gardiner of The Wooden Sky, a band who have perfected the raw/rich balance, and Gardiner’s fingerprints are evident in the vivid depth of the songs. However pretty and poignant the tracks might be at any given moment, they are subject to change in an instant, exploding with surprising intensity. Indeed, even the quieter tracks have a disarming undertow, dragging you into Cathrein’s emotional space, forcing you to surrender to the sound.

Opener ‘Rhizome’ shows off the record’s tidal nature, an ebb and flow in both the sound and lyrics. The bright and buoyancy belies the dark imagery of the track, that of black trees and dug holes, venom destroying whole packs of wolves.  When the track does rise into something more dramatic, the lyrics flip to something more vulnerable and human, Cathrein’s pleading the end of a relationship with a mixture of guilt, angst and need.

With its folk warmth, there’s a heartbroken fondness to ‘Thaw’ that soon swells into an elemental force, the desperate wishes of the vocals caught up in the rhythms of the track that act like hidden eddies in a black pool. The title track simmers with building momentum too, the guitar and drums threatening to race away but never quite following through, instead coalescing into an affirming crescendo that brings to life the idea of surrender to forces bigger than oneself.

So I’ll leave this place and soon see the waters
Run away from the sorrow in my mind
Give me those big waves I’ve always been scared of
I don’t hesitate anymore, more
I am ready now
, I’m ready for you
There ain’t no fire in the sand to come back to

Let them break now right over my head
Pull me out to sea

Clocking in at nearly double the length of other tracks, the mammoth ‘Demain’ has the patient volatility of the open ocean, moments of calm reflection escalating into tumultuous squall and dropping back again. “Now my voice fails and I’ve got a feverish head,” Cathrein sings, the anger and disbelief of a moribund relationship rearing its head. “And you drive me out / Out in the cold into a fuckin’ snowstorm / Have you lost your mind my dear?”

For all of its crooned emotion, closer ‘How You Swallowed Your Anger’ is similarly turbulent. But far from utilising the same trick over and over, No Fire in the Sand feels nuanced and natural, the product of direct engagement with a relationship’s end. The waters are unstable and deep, layered into their own levels and ecosystems of infinite detail, yet at the end of it all, remarkably clear. For if one is to stop kicking and thrashing, to submit to the music, Black Sea Dahu will show you the truth at the bottom.

No Fire in the Sand is out now on Mouthwatering Records and available from the Black Sea Dahu Bandcamp page.

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