As well as representing a step forward in the evolution of the Teethe project, the style is also fitting for the themes of the record. The “band’s four distinct songwriters, singers, and artists ask a series of interlocked questions about what it means to build a life in a time of shared collapse,” as the label explains, each of Boone Patrello, Grahm Robinson, Madeline Dowd and Jordan Garrett bringing their own sensibilities and concerns to create something capable of conjuring hope and despair within the same breath.

Latest single ‘Holy Water’ is the perfect example. A nineties-inspired alt rock song which marbles lightness and weight, Dowd taking on vocal duties to add extra sincerity to the sound. “Water’s a-drippin’ / Take a sip and you’ll believe / In something better / In something bigger than me,” as the opening lines go. “The holy water / Yeah, I will drink to believe / In something better / When you fall down on your knees.” The result might be bathed in distortion but is anything but trapped beneath it, the upbeat tempo and heartfelt vocals suggesting transcendence of the grim present might be possible if only we have a little faith.

Cover photo by Alex Montenegro. Album Artwork by Madeline Dowd, Layout & Design by Alan “Rickman” Official

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Last week, Keeled Scales announced they will be releasing These Days, the excellent debut album from Nashville-based songwriter Emily Hines, later this summer—a record we have previously described “as warm and soft as a blanket to wrap around yourself in the cold winter months, but with a sharp pang of something else too, a bittersweet bite more potent than the frost at the window.” To coincide with the news, Hines has unveiled opening track ‘My Own Way’, a hushed but nonetheless defiant folk song about walking one’s own path. “This is the last song I wrote for the record,” Hines describes, “I wrote it on my porch in Nashville. I felt stuck in place and needed to sing myself out of it.” It’s the perfect introduction to a collection of songs that unfold with grace and ring with real emotion, recorded mostly live to cassette for that warm and intimate texture.

Jacquelyn Roy – Shoot Your Arrow

On May Day, Ipswich, Massachusetts artist Jacquelyn Roy released Museum of Time, an album of wonderfully restrained and finely-wrought folk songs. Built on softly tumbling acoustic guitar, unembellished vocals and opaque imagery, these are folk songs in the gothic tradition, equal parts beautiful and darkly spectral. Perhaps the best introduction is ‘Shoot Your Arrow’, the record’s midpoint and an encapsulation of everything Jacquelyn Roy does so well. Roy describes it as a song “about love and loss,” and this is true in a very direct sense. It opens in the springtime, fluttering with the sense of contentment and new beginnings, but eventually slows into doleful resignation as Roy sings “So I’m setting you free / so you can shoot your arrow away from me.”

Jess Kerber – Never Again

“Beginning as a reflective croon and slowly ramping up in emotional intensity, as though ascending through the slightly ethereal haze of the opening towards a newfound clarity.” So we wrote of Jess Kerber‘s ‘Next to You’ last month, praising the combination of traditional Americana and contemporary electronics. With full-length From Way Down Here coming this June on Felte Records, Kerber is back with ‘Never Again’, the album’s opening track which not only further introduces this style but digs into the themes of loss and belonging which it brings to life. “I miss it sometimes / But never for long,” as she sings in the chorus. “I’ll Know it forever / But never again.”

Watch the video edited by Kerber herself below:

From Way Down Here will be released on the 20th June via Felte Records and you can pre-order it now.

Johnny Falloon – Circumcision

“Takes its seriousness unseriously and its unseriousness with reverence.” So reads the bio of self-described absurdist no-wave rock and rollers Johnny Falloon, with forthcoming full-length Tell Hell I’m Not Coming seeing the Athens, Georgia outfit take on the information overload that is the twenty-first century with a suitably raw and chaotic style. Latest single ‘Circumcision’ indicates the kind of intensity you should expect from the record, racing forwards with an almost dangerous momentum, as though at any minute threatening to go veering of the tracks and end in a fiery wreck. John Edmondson’s fervid vocals only escalates the manic energy, the wry humour which often shadows the lyrics doing nothing to dispel their deliver’s rabid preacher tone. The result is furious, searing, sometimes funny, and undeniably odd, the perfect cocktail of moods to describe our current moment.

linoleumville – to see you and talk

What they describe as “a conceptual project comprising a concept album & a literary zine,” linoleumville is the new venture of Alex Blake and Ben Dodd which brings together folk songwriting with electronic compositions. What the band call a song “about the first and final days of a relationship,” lead single ‘to see you and talk’ introduces the album’s melancholy atmosphere, combining sparse electronics and gentle vocals with minimal samples and shadowy negative space. Sheffield dream pop act Prima Hera joins to provide guest vocals, and these harmonies work to smooth the edges of the otherwise downbeat atmosphere.

pearly drops – Mermaid (ft. Cub Sport)

Recording under the moniker pearly drops, Finnish duo of Sandra Tervonen and Juuso Malin make a brand of pop that occupies the full spectrum of the word otherworldly. Lush and ethereal but also strangely alien, originating somewhere other than this world, be it dreams or outer space. New single ‘Mermaid’ invites Aussie rock outfit Cub Sport to lift the song further, bringing to life a track full of shimmer and melancholy which exudes a kind of fallen splendour. “In this song, among other things, the glamorous Hollywood scenarios have already been turned upside down,” the duo explain. “The decline has begun and, for example, a persona as a mermaid in the sewers of Sunset Boulevard seems like a more attractive sidequest.”

‘Mermaid’ is out now via Music Website and available from Bandcamp.

Sid Hillman – Even Things

For going on thirty years, songwriter Sid Hillman has been releasing evocative, often melancholic Western music, both solo and as part of the Sid Hillman Quartet, and latest album Oxygen feels every inch the product of this hard won experience and expertise. Take single ‘Even Things’, a slow, almost minimalist folk rock song as wise as it is poignant, rising above the rush of the everyday to share its meditative message. “This is a song about letting go,” as Hillman explains, “not trying so hard to control things, manage things, and seeing that there’s a beauty in taking a step back to allow things to move of their own accord.” Fans of the likes of Low and Red House Painters are sure to find much to appreciate within Hillman’s work, but comparisons are not always helpful with songs like this, as you leave the track with the sense of having experienced something far more personal.

Oxygen is out now via Rare Bird Recordings and you can find more on his website.

Special World – Big Apple, 3am

Back in 2024 we introduced Special World, the personal project of Philadelphia-based songwriter and musician Andy Molholt, with a self-titled release crafting “a place often strange and always colourful,” as we put it, “where the light bends in odd shapes and everything takes on the loaded, abstract logic of dreams.” With a June US tour on the horizon, Molholt has returned with a brand new single ‘Big Apple, 3am’, available as a specialty lathe cut 7″ via PIAPTK Records, which in reality isn’t a new song at all. Rather, the track is built from a demo Molholt wrote all the way back in 2009, with Izzy True (bass guitar) and Eric Slick (drums) joining to bring it to life. The result lives up to the above description in its woozy, cryptic tones, offering all the nocturnal colour suggested by its title and possessing that off-kilter glide unique to the forbidden hours of the night.

Watch the video by Grant Bouvier below:

‘Big Apple, 3am’ is out now and available from Bandcamp. The 7″ is available from PIAPTK.

Teethe – Magic Of The Sale

Texas outfit Teethe have had plenty on their plates since the release of their celebrated self-titled debut album back in 2020, putting out a number of well-received singles and support slots alongside the likes of American Football, Ethel Cain and Horse Jumper of Love. But it is only now they are turning their attention to a new full-length. Coming via Winspear this August, Magic Of The Sale continues to develop what the band call ‘Southern slowcore’, the addition of strings and and slide guitar allowing for a newfound cinematic depth. The lead single and title track embodies the layered style, where a melancholic weight is shot through with something brighter, and small beams of hope manage to penetrate the dark.

Watch the video by Ben Turok below:

Magic Of The Sale is out on the 8th August via Winspear and you can get it via Bandcamp.

Walker Rider – Free

“You took me to the RV show, listed off every engine you thought I’d know,” sings Minneapolis songwriter Walker Rider on ‘Free’. The everyman, perhaps unlikely, setting for a love song captures something of the atmosphere of Fair, Rider’s new record of rough ‘n ready heartbroken lo-fi country. The track is quiet and unpretentious and devastatingly intimate, Rider’s vocals (plus subtle accompaniment from Advance Base‘s Owen Ashworth) bleary-eyed and earnest as a 3am soul-bearing voicemail. A song tender in every sense of the word, aching with fondness yet sore to the touch, and unsure quite what to do with a love which hurts as much as it helps. “I am fine most of the time,” he sings in the refrain. “The other half, you were on my mind.”

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