Lead single ‘Reward’ comes from 22° Halo, the recording project of Philadelphia-based songwriter and producer Will Kennedy. We’ve followed 22° Halo for a good while, most recently with album Lily of the Valley on Tiny Library Records. An album which “displayed the easy lo-fi nature that Kennedy projects so well,” as we wrote, “small and soft indie pop songs that handle real-life struggles with a shining sense of hope.” Continuing this style, ‘Reward’ makes for the ideal introduction to True Names. Something in its gentle compassion embodies the project’s spirit, Kennedy’s familiar willingness to broach difficulties with empathy and warmth aligning perfectly with the mission set out by Worry Bead Records.

Album art by Sami Martasian

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With Beautiful Extension Cord set for release at the beginning of April, (T-T)b have returned with new track ‘Bug on the Ceiling’. With the chiptune sensibilities again pushed back into a supporting role, the song offers a weighty indie rock style that leans towards acts like Greet Death and Tuxis Giant, and the result blurs the line between playfulness, emotion, nostalgia and catharsis. There’s no small amount of reflection and regret with stories of lives in basements and favourite bands breaking up, but the chorus burns through any torpor with an infectious brightness and heft. You get the sense that things are always tilting towards the affirming energy and repeated refrain of the closing minutes, as though quite literally transcending that which came before.

Photo by @bigbabyintoyland

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Following on from 2023 full-length Painting of My Time—which used, as we put it, “layers of additional instrumentation to combine cathartic rock ‘n roll directness with post-punk atmosphere and the creative flair of art pop”—Melbourne‘s Floodlights have announced a brand new album, Underneath. The outfit have made a name through a willingness to engage with wide cultural themes, though the new record sees them tending further than ever towards the personal, paring back the layers of its predecessor to allow for a more unguarded, intimate sound. Single ‘The Light Won’t Shine Forever’ shows the sense of forward motion inherent within this unburdened style, pressing forward with an affirming momentum.

Watch the video, with concept, direction and animation by Ava Clifforth, below:

Underneath will be released on the 21st March via [PIAS] Recordings and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Frog – MIXTAPE LINER NOTES
VAR. VII

Not resting on their laurels after the success of 2023 full-length GROG, everyone’s favourite New York duo Frog are returning next month with new album, 1000 Variations on the Same Song. The record, to be released on Audio Antihero and Tapewormies, runs the gamut between indie rock, alt country and smoky lounge cool, and packs the expected density and diversity of references from a Frog release. But beneath the surface, it lives up to its title. “1000 Variations on the Same Song is a theme and variations,” as Daniel Bateman explains. “There are times in your life as a songwriter where you’ll start a bunch of stuff that all sounds alike, which can be a problem, something that you want to excise from yourself. This time I decided to embrace it and take it as far as it could go.” Latest single ‘MIXTAPE LINER NOTES
VAR. VII’ lands on the folky side of the album, though embodies the spirit of the release quite nicely.

Half Gringa – Glacier Walker

Writing of Half Gringa‘s Ancestral Home back in 2023 we described how “it is tempting to view the end of the world as a singular event, a doom unique to the generations living today. But the truth is there is nothing special in our turmoil. People have always confronted loss on an unimaginable scale. With [single] ‘Sevenwater’, [Isabel Olive] affords this truth the reverence and mourning it deserves.” Described as addressing “mythology, mortality, and everything in between,” Half Gringa’s latest full-length Cosmovisión is in many ways a continuation of this project, and, inspired by the glacial melt Olive witnessed during a trip to Iceland, lead single ‘Glacier Walker’ again takes on the climate catastrophe through the prism of anxiety and all of its associated emotions.

Cosmovisión is out on the 28th March via Teleférico Records and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Kristin Daelyn – Patience Comes to the Bones

“I used to hurry everywhere, / and leaped over the running creeks. / There wasn’t / time enough for all the wonderful things / I could think of to do / in a single day. Patience / comes to the bones / before it take root in the heart / as another good idea.” So wrote Mary Oliver in her poem ‘Patience’, the principle inspiration for the lead single of Kristin Daelyn‘s forthcoming record, Beyond the Break. ‘Patience Comes to the Bones’ introduces a collection of songs which looks to carve a space of reflection and peace within the tumultuous present, approaching the dissatisfaction and suffering common to us all from a decidedly compassionate angle. Supported by guest appearances from Dan Knishkowy (Adeline Hotel), Danny Black (Good Old War, Gregory Alan Isakov) and Patrick Riley, Daelyn’s soulful vocals and intricate, intimate guitar welcome the audience into the space so that we too might re-examine our lives from new angles and come to appreciate the fellowship to be found in the universality of longing.

JPW & Dad Weed – It’s Happening

This April sees the release of Amassed Like a Rat King, a collaborative album between JPW (Jason P. Woodbury) and Dad Weed (Zachary Toporek) which sees a long held mutual admiration precipitate into a collection of songs neither artist could have created on their own. “These songs were born out of a lot of tender moments and connection, weekends spent indulging in unguarded joy and musical energy,” Woodbury explains. “There was a special thing that seemed to happen between us, which felt distinct from our individual projects — a shared ‘third mind’ situation.” The resulting album covers a vast stretch of stylistic ground, moving through seventies soul-rock and nineties alt-pop with an exploratory intuition, but latest single ‘It’s Happening’ highlights the psych-inflected cosmic folk which underpins everything.

Magana – Half to Death

Magana‘s new EP Bad News is the closing instalment of a loose triptych based upon the seasons of the year. If Teeth represented spring and Dreams autumn, then Bad News occupies the tail end of winter. That period of stillness where life is building up the conviction to spring forth once again. The resulting sound, as highlighted by opener ‘Half to Death’, is a restrained brand of pop which strips away some of the adornment of previous Magana releases in favour of something more direct. Putting the narrative-based lyrics front and centre and amplifying a mood that proves at once warm and starkly emotive.

quickly, quickly – Enything

The recording project of Portland, Oregon’s Graham Jonson, quickly, quickly might have originated as a vehicle for hip hop beatmaking, but soon evolved far beyond such confines. Debut full-length The Long and Short of It offered an endlessly inventive sound which reached for everything from folk and jazz to psych and electronic influences and never once stayed still. Now preparing to release follow-up I Heard That Noise via Ghostly International, quickly, quickly has released new single ‘Enything’, and the evidence suggests the project is still undergoing its perpetual evolution. Upbeat rhythm is matched with a reflective air, the tone wistful, the groove playful, the delivery perhaps as earnest as anything Jonson has offered to date. “I wrote this song from a fictional place of dumb love,” he explains. “There is a place you can find yourself in where you are so infatuated with a person you would do anything to impress them, even to a fault, drastically changing yourself to match the idea of someone you barely know.”

Watch the video below, directed by Graham Jonson and filmed by Anthony Sims with animations by Benny Bursell:

I Heard That Noise is out on the 4th April via Ghostly International and you can pre-order it now.

Robert Ascroft – Devil Opens The Door (feat. Kid Congo Powers)

In recent months. we’ve covered a series of singles from Robert Ascroft‘s forthcoming album Echo Still Remains, each track seeing the Rochester-based musician, producer, director and artist collaborate with different guests to bring his seductively shadowy style to life. After Ruth Radalet (on ‘Faded Photographs’), Zumi Rosow of The Black Lips (‘Empty Pages‘) and Britta Phillips (‘Where Did You Go?‘), now is the turn of Kid Congo Powers. A member of The Cramps, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and The Gun Club as well as a solo artist in his own right, Kid Congo Powers is the ideal match for the album’s tone, imbuing new single ‘Devil Opens The Door’ with all the dangerous allure and dread its title suggests. Watch the video directed by Ascroft himself below:

Echo Still Remains is out the 14th February via Hand Drawn Dracula and you can pre-order it now.

(T-T)b – Hey, Creepshow

Boston’s (T-T)b have carved out a niche combining the hectic energy of Anamanaguchi with indie rock and power pop. 2021 EP Suporma typified how the project manages to push chiptune beyond its assumed limitations, and now the trio are back with Beautiful Extension Cord, a brand new full-length album to be released this April with the good folks at Disposable America. Lead single ‘Hey, Creepshow’ gives a taste of what’s to come. A song packed full of intricate details which nevertheless carries its own momentum and weight, retaining the chiptune sounds of the past but as one element among many rather than the central novelty. What results swings between atmospheric lulls and fond singalong choruses, and comes to form its own cathartic release.

Wryn – Snake

This spring, Californian songwriter Wryn is releasing their new full-length Shapes on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. It’s an album born of a personal process of change and self-actualisation which reckons with gender and past experiences in order to mould life into a more truthful, fulfilling shape. Latest single ‘Snake’ gives a glimpse into the release, namely folk-inflected indie rock which uses fury as a kind of fuel to drive a newfound sense of agency. “A call to something older and deeper, it taps into my own personal experiences of not just systemic violence but the intimate and interpersonal kind,” as Wryn explains. “Having experienced assault in my past, this song was a way to transform my own pain into a call to action. ‘I can’t wait for an answer before I get free.’”

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