The release of Avery Friedman‘s forthcoming album New Thing is fast-approaching on Audio Antihero. Previous singles ‘Flowers Fell’ and ‘Photo Booth’ introduced a sound which, as we put it, “seems to sit in the interstitial space between trauma and growth,” and if these two states exist at opposite ends of a continuum, then latest single and title track sees Friedman dig further back in her personal history towards the difficult end. “I wrote ‘New Thing’ in one sitting after riding the subway home alone at night for the first time since being mugged at knifepoint months prior,” as she explains. “I was shocked and disoriented by the anxiety I experienced doing something so routine—I felt foreign to myself.” But however directly the song confronts this upsetting experience, it also represents the beginning of the path forward, allowing Friedman a method by which to return to her body and start the process of becoming whole again.

Hallelujah The Hills – Fake Flowers at Sunset

Boston indie rock royalty Hallelujah The Hills have never been ones to shy away from a challenge, Ryan H. Walsh and co. have released a plethora of idiosyncratic albums across their near two-decade career. But their latest project DECK pushes the boat out even for them. A joint release between Discrete Pageantry Records and Best Brother Records, DECK is a something of a magnum opus—a quadruple album two-and-a-half years in the making which maps entirely to a deck of cards. That’s four LPs (fittingly titled CLUBS, DIAMONDS, HEARTS and SPADES) and fifty-two songs, all brought to life with an enviable supporting cast which includes Craig Finn (The Hold Steady), Patrick Stickles (Titus Andronicus), Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz), Tanya Donelly (Belly, Breeders), Clint Conley (Mission of Burma), Ezra Furman and Cassie Berman (Silver Jews). It is Berman who appears on new single ‘Fake Flowers at Sunset’ (that’s three of diamonds within the pack), providing supporting vocals to a song which evokes the push and pull of love in its combination of mournful folk and pressing disco beat.

Honey I’m Home – Wishful Thinking

Dutch outfit Honey I’m Home might have already supported the likes of Goat Girl, The Buoys, Blood Wizard and Hotline TNT, but have only now released their debut single, ‘Wishful Thinking’. Operating at the intersection of shoegaze, indie rock and post-punk, the song introduces the band’s penchant for shadowy textures and visceral energy, tapping into ethereal moods without sacrificing a certain emotional immediacy to achieve a cathartic sound. “‘Wishful Thinking’ explores the longing to reconnect with people no longer in your life, whether it’s a lost love or a departed family member,” as vocalist and guitarist Thom Schotanus explains. “We tried to capture the intensity of that unfulfilled desire with a layered, dreamlike soundscape.”

‘Wishful Thinking’ is out now via streaming services.

Jahnah Camille – what do you do?

Writing last May, we described how Jahnah Camille‘s album i tried to freeze light, but only remember a girl used a number of different styles and genres to “offer a picture of late adolescence in all of its bittersweet nuance, its introspective contemplation matched only by its bold confessional attitude.” The record, released via Winspear, made the list of our favourite releases of 2024, so it is very much welcome news that Camille is returning with a new EP, My sunny oath! As lead single ‘what do you do?’ shows, the six-song release sees a newfound focus on the louder, stormier end of the spectrum, Camille working with producer Alex Farrar (Wednesday, Indigo De Souza, MJ Lenderman) to explore grunge and shoegaze-inflected styles of indie rock. Exploding into life from the off, the song packs a newfound punch without sacrificing the heart which marked previous releases, and emerges with an affirming sense of forward motion.

Watch the video below, directed by Harrison Shook with assistance from Polycarpe Ancelet and Ava Cavasos:

My sunny oath! is out on the 13th June via Winspear and you can pre-order it now.

Ruby Gill – The Flood

We’ve featured a couple of songs from Ruby Gill‘s forthcoming album Some Kind of Control in recent months, with both the title track and ‘Touch Me There‘ highlighting what the artist describes as a “cheekier, looser, gayer and even more raw” style. Both singles explored ideas of agency and control in various guises, from the experience of lockdown to the empowerment found in the queer community, and latest track ‘The Flood’ is no different. A song inspired by Gill’s experience of being trapped in the cyclone which struck eThekwini/Durban in 2023 which questions just who possesses power in a contemporary society facing a worsening environment year upon year. Watch the video directed by Emily Dynes below:

Some Kind of Control is out now and available to purchase.

Sea Lemon – Stay

After the success of 2023 EP Stop At Nothing (an evocative release populated by protagonists, as we put it, which “feel at once fearful and dangerous, some absence at the heart of their existence pushing them toward the darkest of places”) and subsequent singles like ‘Crystals‘ and ‘Sweet Anecdote‘, Natalie Lew’s Sea Lemon is preparing to release debut full-length Diving For A Prize this June via Luminelle Recordings. As the prior singles suggested, the album looks to broaden the dream pop and shoegaze styles which inform the Sea Lemon sound, pushing towards increasingly fantastical directions. And new single ‘Stay’ is no different. Suspended in gauzy textures, the track weaves a warm, enveloping space into which the listener is invited, then reflects the world back to us at odd angles to more fully reveal the strangeness at its core. “‘Stay’ […] is a little vignette of a man I saw in a local thrift store,” Lew explains. “This older guy, probably in his 70s or 80s, was acting as a security guard at this thrift store near my house, but he was basically asleep on the couch the entire time I was there. I couldn’t stop thinking about him after I left, and wrote Stay as a reaction to seeing this guy who I felt deserved to take a break.”

Watch video by Otium with styling by Greta Akopov below:

Diving For A Prize is out on the 13th June via Luminelle Recordings and you can pre-order it now.

So It Was – In a Rose

We first covered Daniel Lobb’s So It Was back in 2023 with the release of full-length Round the Mountain, an album which ranged from the “combination of earnest heart and laidback charm” of singles like ‘Speak Now!‘ and “something altogether more taut and building” in the case of ‘Dance Now!‘, a song which “confront[ed] the uneasy truth of change with as much positivity as it can muster.” Now So It Was has returned with ‘In a Rose’, a new single which combines the ornate detail of acts like Beirut, a Vampire Weekend-style playfulness, and some of the indie rock attitude of The Strokes to take on the modern blight of consumerism. “Aaa-ccumulation / Is such a silly pose,” as Lobb sings. “We countin’ on our fingers / We countin’ on our toes.”

Soot Sprite – Days After Days

Writing back in February, we introduced Wield Your Hope Like A Weapon, the new album from Exeter-based emos Soot Sprite, calling it “a call to arms to fight against the forces that make contemporary life so difficult, and a reminder of the radical potential within empathy and community.” With the release via Specialist Subject Records on the horizon, Soot Sprite have now shared new single, ‘Days After Days’. The album’s opener, the song acts as a mission statement, not only raising awareness of the stakes at hand but also the importance of celebrating every inch of ground won. “It’s about facing the endless horrors of the world and remembering to pay attention to the good,” as lead Elise Cook explains. “People on the ground, activism, and remembering that we shouldn’t be hardened by everything we witness or we can lose empathy. And it feels like without empathy we’ll never be able to achieve class consciousness, and lose our sense of community.”

Uncanny Valet – Almost Island

The recording project of New York-based electronic musician and producer David Queen, Uncanny Valet is a descendant of the likes of Oneohtrix Point Never and Ryuichi Sakamoto, marrying precise production with an unbridled creative vision in effort to push electronic music into uncharted territory. New album Almost Island carries the mission further, taking elements of eighties pop, ambient, dub and even Saturday morning cartoons and recombining them into something new. The result rarely sits still (just listen to the stylistics differences between the sleek sophisti-pop grooves of ‘Cameo Glass’ and melancholic drift of ‘Archway’), not only straddling the nostalgic and the contemporary but mining this juxtaposition for all of its thematic resonance, making for a sound that wouldn’t be out of place in an Adam Curtis documentary. Nowhere is that more obvious than on the closer and title track, a graceful and thickly-textured piece of ambient beauty.

Almost Island is out now and available from the Uncanny Valet Bandcamp page.

Why Dogs Why – Clunkers

Los Angeles-based project Why Dogs Why are preparing to release brand new EP Play The Hits this May, and have shared lead single ‘Clunkers’ by way of introduction. Writing back in 2023, we described previous EP Homebody as “full of buoyant energy and wacky lyricism, anchored by an underlying volatility and unease,” and the ‘Clunkers’ is no different. It’s a song which embraces both scrappy indie rock sensibilities and the smooth surf pop of yesteryear to explore themes of idealism and disappointment, the sound filled with brightness and forward motion but again troubled by the possibility of a less than perfect reality. “We’ll book a tour up the coast / And drive right through the bay,” as lead Alex Johnson sings, “When no one comes out to see us / We’ll hit the motel bedbug hay.” But however disheartening real life might prove, Why Dogs Why champion committing to your dreams if only for the romantic hell of it.

Let’s write some clunkers together, baby,
Some songs we’ll sing for fourteen fans.
Let’s write some clunkers together, baby.
Our dads will never understand.

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Last month Library Card returned with brand new single ‘Sunflowers’, a song about being overwhelmed by the present and wanting to escape to the countryside. “I just want to get in a car and slam the door shut and not even take anything with me,” van Teylingen sings, “but drive hours and hours and hours to see sunflowers.” But true to the Library Card style, things are not quite as earnest as that might sound, the breezy carefree style undercut by sardonic lyrics and vocal delivery. What results works both on the immediate level (i.e. its lots of fun), but is also a pretty scathing commentary on contemporary existence too. As the band describe:

“We keep rushing through life, trying our very best to keep up with everything and everyone, feeding into our conditioned ambition and internalised capitalism, but because we try to do everything all at once, nothing really gets done. Nothing is in our control, nothing will happen the way you intend it to happen, nothing is set in stone. It’s okay. It is what it is.”

Watch the video by van Teylingen and Kalkman below:

‘Sunflowers’ is out now and available via streaming services and to download from the Library Card Bandcamp page.

Photo by Jade Sastropawiro

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The EP opens with ‘Pretty Bad, Man’, which serves as a great introduction—an indie rock song with some sunny pop thrown in for good measure. Lyrically, the track exists in that space after a breakup, and although our narrator seems to be doing well (“My skin is cleared and I am cured / I’m getting ten hours of sleep at night”), there’s still a lingering sense of yearning.

‘Say No’ is equally fun, despite its talk of faked suicides and graveside flowers, while ‘The Princess and the Queen’ offers a twist on the lovesick pop trope. ‘Clueless Vibes’ is tinged with disappointment, a lean indie pop song where van Kampen’s lines are laced with previous hurt, before finale ‘Somewhere’ looks back on a tumultuous relationship and forward to a better future.

“Somewhere
It’s better
Somewhere”

You can get Dinner Party on cassette via Z Tapes or a name your price download from the Elsa Lester Bandcamp page.

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Sparse guitar and piano act as a backdrop to Scheltinga’s vocals, producing songs as quiet and unassuming as they are heartfelt and melodious. Most are short and sweet, all offering a different take on the basic blueprint. Take for example ‘Clown’, which begins with delicate finger-picked guitar and breathy vocals, before spiking in peaks of passion.

“The night saw the candles
The evening, dry
She holds her dreams so tight
But we are not asleep”

‘Master’ introduces piano and skittering percussion, sounding part age-old folk song, part stripped down jazz track, like a languorous tune being played from the corner of a smoky cafe. ‘Tomorrow’ is tautly emotional, dealing with being separated from a loved one (“You’ve got to go, got a plane to board, headed home”), and another great example of how Scheltinga creates real feeling using minimal ingredients. If you’re still not sold, try the opening track ‘I’ve Come To Know You Well’, which is perhaps the most sparse and delicate on the record.

As Drunk With Love describe in their bio of Maud Scheltinga: “Over the past couple of years, Maud has interpreted and re-interpreted the world around her by means of her songs, which act as short stories. Listening to her music feels like listening to a bookshop owner taking different (but equally beloved) books off the shelf and dazzling you with short and direct anecdotes that offer you a peek inside.”

This literary theme is continued in the very special CD package put together by Drunk With Love. The music will come in a second hand book, with spaces carved out for sheet music and the CD. You can order it now from Drunk With Love Records, or digitally form the Maud Scheltinga Bandcamp page.

Maud Scheltinga is currently on a European tour with Jake Bellissimo. There are several dates left, so go check them out if you’re in The Netherlands or Germany!

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